Originally Posted by pmocek

Thanks for jumping in, Senseker. I think you may have brought up a point some of us haven't considered. Now that you mention it, yeah, there's no way to tell if someone is carrying drugs in his bag simply by examining the content of his bag using an X-ray machine. Operators just see the density of things in the bag, represented in shades of gray, or on newer machines, colorized to bring attention to large differences, right? So they're not discovering anything they know is drugs at the X-ray machine console, which duh, is not typically when they find drugs anyway. Drugs are found during the hand bag check, not the X-ray bag check. Right?

If anyone disagrees with me on this point, please say so. I mean, someone at TSA might have a strong hunch from looking at the X-ray image that he's seeing drugs, but he really can't tell for sure. It's just an image on a screen, and under the X-ray, weed pretty much looks like some other things, like explosives, look like; they're all organics. He's just looking at densities, not what the stuff actually looks like, so before any decisions are made about reacting like there's a bomb or drugs in there, he and his associates will move on to a more accurate check of what's in the bag, probably by having someone hand-search the bag.

So Senseker, your TSA people basically ignore drugs they see in the X-ray except those that specifically look like explosives under X-ray, right? I don't mean that they're intentionally ignoring drugs, but that they can't tell for sure that something they're seeing is drugs, because it just looks, based on what they see, like it might be drugs, or that it probably is drugs. They can't tell for sure if something they see in the X-ray is drugs, just suspect so, and they may have good ideas, but they're not experts at detecting drugs just using an X-ray, so why would they bother to have someone, like a TSA hand bag checker person, take a second look?

Now let's take it one step further. Someone is looking at a bag with his own eyes, pawing through tit with his own hands. He sees something that looks like drugs, but he really can't tell for sure. It's just something he's looking at, and, weed pretty much looks like some other things, like other plants, look like; they're all dried green plant matter. He's just looking at them, not examining their chemical content, so before any decisions are made about reacting like there's a bomb or drugs in there, he and his associates will move on to a more accurate check of what's in the bag, probably by getting police involved.

Or will they? In either case, did the bag searcher detect what he knew to be drugs? In which case should he get someone who is better able to examine the situation involved? In which case should he just give the person the benefit of the doubt and move on to looking for dangerous items? In which case would doing so be aiding a criminal?

Are we simply quibbling over just how confident a TSA employee who sees something he or she sees is drugs before he or she calls a law enforcement officer for closer inspection? I think they never know for sure, and they're only allowed this unusual authority to search us without warrant so that they can keep weapons, explosives, and incendiaries off airplanes, so they should always give us the benefit of the doubt, and move on to other things. TSA bag searchers never know when they've found drugs, or explosives. In either case, they decide to take the situation to someone with more training on identifying drugs or explosives. I'm all for them digging in when they think they see explosives. Why does TSA investigate further (or call police to do so) when they think they see drugs?