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Old Jul 18, 2009 | 9:47 am
  #66  
colmc
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Programs: BA Gold, A3 Gold, BD..oh, wait..
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The problem with the TSA approach is that unless you spend an enormous amount of time and effort training agents in psychology and to an extent psychiatry then the success rate (and well, BDO hasn't had any notable successes against potential terrorist plots as of yet) is going to not much better than it was before the program. I'd suspect that indepth knowledge of this area is too specialised for many (not all, I say, but a vast majority) of on-the-ground TSA agents to acquire in sufficent quality to be effective.

Giving a monkey a spanner does not make him a mechanic. So really, apart from finding the odd block of cheese, bottle of perfume or bag of coke (none of which seems to immediately threathen the safety of an airliner), the current scheme is useless. Which leads me to..

A player intent on harm is probably either a psychopath or exhibiting psychopathic tendencies which render BD useless.
This is a hugely relevant point, which seems to be vastly overlooked. In many cases such people would be next to impossible even for someone experienced to spot, never mind a TSA agent.

And this is apart from the fact (as also pointed out) that physically the same kind of operation is now obselete to all intents and purposes. That loophole has been closed - and they are way too busy looking at the next one to be exploited.
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