Travel News - TSA Pilot of GE's EntryScan3 Walk-Through Explosives Detector Launched at TPA

BusinessWire Article (http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20040804005439&newsLang=en)

"Tampa International Airport today became the fourth airport in the country to participate in a live pilot of GE's EntryScan3 walk-through explosives detector conducted by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration.

EntryScan3, developed by GE Infrastructure, Security, a unit of the General Electric Company, is one of a range of GE explosives detection technologies currently helping to protect infrastructure at thousands of critical locations throughout the United States.

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration announced plans in June to evaluate the GE EntryScan3's screening of passengers for explosives at security checkpoints in five airports in the United States. The trial is already underway at T.F. Green Airport, Warwick, RI, Greater Rochester International Airport, Rochester, NY, and San Diego International Airport, San Diego, CA. The final airport scheduled to participate in the trial is Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport, Gulfport, MS."

About time. I wonder what the sicko perverted FSDs at Shoe Carnival airports will do to get their jollies once these devices are deployed nation-wide?

I think these are great - about time they started spending some money on them.

I just hope that our puritan government doesn't start using them for the war on drugs too.

They can be configured to detect only legitimate threats to aircraft.

Sadly, they will probably be used to perpetuate the so-called war on (some) drugs until a successful lawsuit causes them to stop doing so.

Glad to see them. If they use those and dial down the magnetos a bit so they don't keep going off from the iron in our blood, maybe more people can keep their shoes on and speed up the lines.

(I'm still doomed because of the metal shanks in mine, but then I know the drill and don't hold up the line.)

They can be configured to detect only legitimate threats to aircraft.

Sadly, they will probably be used to perpetuate the so-called war on (some) drugs until a successful lawsuit causes them to stop doing so.

I hope so, too. Pot inside someone's pocket discovered by a sniffer can hardly be called "in plain sight." You're right, Spiff. You can bet the TSA will wage the war on drugs until a judge tells them to stop. Unfortunately, that will take a lawsuit by someone with an iron-clad case, a good lawyer and lots of cash.

Slightly off-topic --

This reminds me of the drug case a few years ago involving police use of an IR detector to determine heat inside a house in which they suspected the occupants of growing pot. They used the sensor in a vehicle off the property and they didn't have a warrant. The case involved a 4th Amendment argument that the IR remote sensing was an illegal search. I don't remember how it turned out, but I believe the circumstantial evidence gathered by the IR sensor (i.e.: hot spots inside the house) were ruled inadmissible. I believe the cop's argument was that use of the IR detector was no different than using a radar gun to determine speed. Anybody remember?

This website (http://www.x20.org/library/thermal/IR_in_the_courts.htm) notes that in at least one case, the plantiff's argument that the original IFR search (used to justify a follow-on search warrant) was denied and the plantiff pleased guilty to the charge, with the right to appeal the original dismissal at a later date.

Further court cases on that site all seem to imply that an IFR search to gather evidence to request a search warrant is legal, or at least "legal" enough to be ruled against and then sent to a higher court on appeal.