Checkpoints and Borders Policy Debate - With Footwear Scanners Failing in Airport Tests, the Shoes Still Have to Come Off

Hi All,

I did a search, but did not see a thread on shoe scanners.

I always find this topic funny considering I rarely have to take my shoes of anywhere outside of the US!! And, in many places, they do not use the variations of the nude-o-scope, but the traditional metal detectors.

More wasted USD perhaps?

:rolleyes:

NY Times: With Footwear Scanners Failing in Airport Tests, the Shoes Still Have to Come Off (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/us/shoe-scanners-fail-tests-at-us-airports.html?hp)

After spending millions of dollars testing four different scanning devices that would allow airline passengers to keep their shoes on at security checkpoints, the United States government has decided for now that travelers must continue to remove their footwear, by far the leading source of frustration and delays at the airport.

The Transportation Security Administration said it had rejected all four devices because they failed to adequately detect explosives and metal weapons during tests at various airports. One of the scanners is now used in airports in 18 countries.

After all the promises that the shoe carnival would go away in 2009, uh, 2010, well, SOME time soon? I'm shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you!
More wasted USD perhaps?
At least they didn't buy thousands of the things before they found out that they don't work. :eek: Or is this like the puffers, where they work just fine but they're too stupid to maintain them properly?

After all the promises that the shoe carnival would go away in 2009, uh, 2010, well, SOME time soon? I'm shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you!

At least they didn't buy thousands of the things before they found out that they don't work. :eek: Or is this like the puffers, where they work just fine but they're too stupid to maintain them properly?

But, we paid for all the non-recurring engineering...

But, we paid for all the non-recurring engineering...

Well, at least some of it.
In 2007, the agency tested a General Electric shoe scanner at Orlando International Airport. The next year, it tested two scanning machines made by L3 Communications at Los Angeles International Airport. But none of them passed agency muster.

It also tested a device called Magshoe, which is intended to detect metal and is made by IDO Security, an Israeli firm, that deploys the scanner in hundreds of airports and cruise ships around the world, including in China, Italy and Israel.
TSA may have paid for (some of?) the development costs for GE and L3. (And by "development costs" I mean expensive overseas vacations for GE and/or L3 executives and their families.) I doubt they paid for the IDO development, which in any case is being offset by (apparently) selling units to other countries.

But there's certainly more cost to come:
The government has a $1.4 million contract with Morpho Detection, a subsidiary of the French defense giant Safran, to develop a shoe-scanning machine.

Morpho’s scanner can detect chemical compounds and metal objects...

Well, at least some of it.

TSA may have paid for (some of?) the development costs for GE and L3. (And by "development costs" I mean expensive overseas vacations for GE and/or L3 executives and their families.) I doubt they paid for the IDO development, which in any case is being offset by (apparently) selling units to other countries.

But there's certainly more cost to come:

I know that U.S. companies invested very little, if any, IRAD into these devices because they know that the TSA will simply throw money at them. The TSA is the ideal customer for the private sector: an agency with money to burn and is clueless.

Why can the rest of the world practice common sense, and the US cannot?

I am really really REALLY sick of the Americans who clog up security queues around the world, insisting on removing their shoes, even after I and airport staff tell them over and over and over again not to remove their shoes. Summers are especially bad at LHR and FRA. I actually filled in a screening comment card at T3 recently requesting that at T3 and T5 they create an 'Americans only' screening queue for the AA passengers who think that removing their shoes is their duty to make us safer. :rolleyes:

(Did I mention that I am sick of shoe-removers?!) And no, I'm not anti-American, but I am anti-stupid.

And, in many places, they do not use the variations of the nude-o-scope, but the traditional metal detectors. That is an incorrect statement. There are very very few places around the world which use scanners, and they are not primary as in the US.

Why can the rest of the world practice common sense, and the US cannot?

I am really really REALLY sick of the Americans who clog up security queues around the world, insisting on removing their shoes, even after I and airport staff tell them over and over and over again not to remove their shoes. Summers are especially bad at LHR and FRA. I actually filled in a screening comment card at T3 recently requesting that at T3 and T5 they create an 'Americans only' screening queue for the AA passengers who think that removing their shoes is their duty to make us safer. :rolleyes:

(Did I mention that I am sick of shoe-removers?!) And no, I'm not anti-American, but I am anti-stupid.

That is an incorrect statement. There are very very few places around the world which use scanners, and they are not primary as in the US.

As an American, and a veteran, I should be insulted, but I find myself very much agreeing with you. :(

I know not for what I would now fight, considering all that I have lost that I once defended.

Wonder what the outcome would have been if Skeletor was on the board of any of the companies ;)

The Transportation Security Administration said it had rejected all four devices because they failed to adequately detect explosives and metal weapons during tests at various airports.

And yet we're forced into "oh we PROMISE they'll be secondary screening ONLY" NOS machines that fail to adequately detect explosives and metal weapons if someone uses a really really easy means to defeat the scanner.

But they won't stop using them.

The shoe removal circus is ridiculous, and it's one of the things I hate most about flying.

Can we say enough is enough. No more taking off the shoes. Because this is in the past. It's time to move on. Let's try to forget the shoes carnival. Elimination the shoes screening. Because those people were never have any explosives inside the shoes. Better listening to those customers! Those passengers who had it right to kept the shoes on. Because TSA is lying all of those years and cheating on those passengers.

Good riddance to TSA!!! :mad::mad::td::td:

Every single time I fly into the US (and therefore over the US) I do so without removing my shoes. The ridiculousness of having to remove shoes to connect, and sometimes only to leave the airport, but not to fly in, is indescribable.

The Transportation Security Administration said it had rejected all four devices because they failed to adequately detect explosives and metal weapons during tests at various airports.

I can't think of any machine that can adequately detect metal objects...

I actually filled in a screening comment card at T3 recently requesting that at T3 and T5 they create an 'Americans only' screening queue for the AA passengers who think that removing their shoes is their duty to make us safer.

Don't lump us all into one category. :p

Don't lump us all into one category. :p

for the AA passengers who think that removing their shoes is their duty to make us safer.
If you aren't an AFS'er, then you aren't in my new security checkpoint recommendation. :p

Wasting money is what TSA does best.

Many security experts say the security agency is too focused on technologies for intercepting things — guns, knives, explosives — instead of focusing on stopping people.

Doesn't take an expert, common sense tells us object oriented security will always fail.

Many security experts say the security agency is too focused on technologies for intercepting things — guns, knives, explosives — instead of focusing on stopping people.

Doesn't take an expert, common sense tells us object oriented security will always fail.

Things minus intent or opportunity to be exploited by others is meaningless static in the argument. Not only will an object oriented security approach inevitably fail, it will absorb resources that could be better spent elsewhere.

If I may take metaphorical liberties...

In a vast sea of travelers, the lone terrorist is a very rare fish. How much sense does it make to cast wide drag nets throughout the ocean that entangle every other fish in the sea no matter the cost to perhaps find one odd fish among all the rest? Hasn't that type of fishing been outlawed in many places due to environmental impact? Also, please define "good catch".

Wasting money is what TSA does best.

Yeah, waste their time. They are wasting the taxpayer. They are un-American agency. TSA doesn't listening to those customer. Those passengers who had it right to kept the shoes on. There is nothing wrong the shoes. All I can say Enough is enough! It's time to move on to kept the shoes on and they have relaxed the shoes policy. They cannot wait for any much longer!

At least they didn't buy thousands of the things before they found out that they don't work.

What, like the standard TSA employees?

I'm glad these things failed.

Taking off my shoes, while useless and time-consuming, is one of the most minor problems I have with TSA, so much so that I'll absorb that one with little complaint. I don't mind that shoes are screened by passing through the x-ray scanner - but I would mind if my feet were in them when they were x-rayed. I would mind if my feet were in them when some government actor has to examine them in any way, because I don't want those government actors or their machines to have any direct access to my body, even my feet.

I don't know exactly what these shoe scanners would have done, but if they see inside the shoes while they're on your feet, it's a pretty safe bet that they use ionizing radiation, which is inherently unsafe to use on mass quantities of people. My guess is that TSA may have been informed by their legal department that the use of such penetrating x-rays on live human beings would have been governed by the same regulations as medical x-ray devices, and that there were no ways to get around the safety regs. But that's just a guess.

Maybe they should just bring back the shoe store fluoroscopes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVlEXd9w7vk).

Taking off my shoes, while useless and time-consuming, is one of the most minor problems I have with TSA, so much so that I'll absorb that one with little complaint.

I believe that you'll be absorbing this for a long time to come. Without a replacement for the shoe carnival, I can't see TSA stopping it. They would have to admit that it was a useless exercise put on for show for almost a decade, and that they are behind other countries in terms of screening.

I can't see them doing that; they are far too arogant, and if anything they will spin it that the US is superior to rest of world and the shoe carnival is proof of that.

And while you may not have an issue with it, it is more than just a minor inconvience for millions of elderly or physically impaired individuals. Bending down to remove shoes without even having chairs, or assistance, can be very difficult for many people. Forcing people to do that as just another useless exercise is one more way that they can control people.

And while you may not have an issue with it, it is more than just a minor inconvience for millions of elderly or physically impaired individuals. Bending down to remove shoes without even having chairs, or assistance, can be very difficult for many people. Forcing people to do that as just another useless exercise is one more way that they can control people.

Many if not most of the screening areas provide less than adequate seating - actually none I've noticed for shoe removal. I'm actually surprised I haven't read about any lawsuits resulting from injuries sustained by people trying to take their shoes off or put them back on, e.g. broken hips.

And yet in countries where shoe removal isn't required, there is often seating at/after the checkpoint. FRA even has kiddie chairs at some checkpoints. Allowing people time to repack/regroup in comfort after screening seems to reduce the stress level.

(Oh, sorry, what on earth was I thinking?!) :(

And yet in countries where shoe removal isn't required, there is often seating at/after the checkpoint. FRA even has kiddie chairs at some checkpoints. Allowing people time to repack/regroup in comfort after screening seems to reduce the stress level.

(Oh, sorry, what on earth was I thinking?!) :(

We have adequate seating in Syd, at least at the Qantas domestic terminal - this is a blessing when I escort my mother to a flight. We don't have compulsory shoe removal cabaret, but her favourite pair of flying shoes have something in them that often, but not always, makes the machine go "ding" as she passes through, so she has to remove them etc etc etc.

I always go in front of her (we can, of course, enter the sterile area even if not flying) and collect her handbag, keys etc for her so that I can collect her belongings and have them safely in my hand for her as she takes her seat to put her shoes back on. She is at an advanced age and I have no idea how we would manage the balancing act if she couldn't sit down.

I stopped wearing a pair of Aerosoles because they often ding the WTMD in Europe and in Canada. Screeners seem to know that they have the metal shank. Now I just wear my favourite brand GEOX and they don't ding. Usually if they did ding, the screener would nicely suggest taking them off and leaving them past the WTMD (ie they didn't bother to scan them as they seem to know which types of shoes set it off)

I have a memory of shopping with an American colleague somewhere in the US in the early part of this century, and we were in a shoe shop (perhaps Rockport?) which had a machine to check if one's shoes would cause the WTMD to ding or not. I suppose that those no longer exist in the US, but we had fun trying out our shoes.

My mother's shoes don't always ding (and if they do, they'll only do it in Syd, never BNE which are the two airports she usually travels between). After our latest outing I realised that there was one machine in SYD that doesn't seems to ding her shoes, so we'll be using this one from now on.

She won't wear any other shoes for flying, but since this is the one part of the adventure that absolutely never causes her anxiety then it doesn't matter really. I actually think that she prefers to "ding" because it assures her that the security is working :) As a side issue, interaction with our airport security people is never unpleasant in my experience.