While it's obvious that most "forensic techniques" are at best pseudoscience or folk-knowledge[1], badly needed a lesson or ten in statistics[2], "cold reading" can be a surprisingly useful and powerful technique, when used appropriately.

Many "fortune tellers" often admit, when directly asked, that what they do is little more than basic psychology and counseling. Being able to "cold read" what someone is concerned about - and know the perfect "Barnum Statements"[3] to drop early on to get someone to reveal further key details - is something all psychologists tend to do, to various degrees.

Regarding the FBI and their "profilers"... isn't being able to read people very fast pretty much the very definition of the job? You don't wast time "profiling" someone if you have a mountain of obvious evidence you can use directly. You profile when there isn't sufficient evidence, and we need someone to make a guess on which of the various poor-quality leads should be investigated.

I would hope the FBI hires at least _some_ people with that kind of talent, and comparisons to psychics is likely a good thing, for once.

...

That said, this one decent idea by the FBI doesn't do much to offset all those unamerican "plea bargain" games, "asset forfeiture" thefts without a conviction, and countless other abuses of their power we've seen over the last few decades.

[1]: http://www.salon.com/2012/09/23/fingerprints_arent_proof/

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_Paradox (to name one example of many)

[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect