Originally Posted by castrobenes

My point is that the standard of proof for evidence in this thread is very weak.

I will address your statement. I have worked at airports for over 9 years in a lot of positions within TSA. I have never heard anyone in leadership encourage a TSO to look for drugs or illegal items. I have read each change to the SOP, and all of them have included the disclaimer to not look for anything outside TSA's mandate but to call the cops when it is found in the course of looking for something else.

I have done equipment maintenance on ETD machines. But I don't have access to the settings which determine the substances it detects. I wouldn't know how to switch them if I had access. I don't believe that the machines test for drugs because I have personally not seen many ETD alarms lead to drug arrests. I can't recall any actually.

I also have not seen many EDS alarms lead to drug arrests. Maybe 1 or 2 and the drugs were not the alarm they were found as a result of another search. Actually at my airport we find drugs about once every two to three weeks. Given the prevalence of drugs in the US, if the machines were looking for drugs we should expect to see many more drug arrests.

The whole argument is preposterous. Drugs are everywhere in the US. I see people dealing on my way into work. Every low income neighborhood has identifiable crack houses and areas to buy drugs. Cops could make arrests all day long if they wanted.

It makes no sense to create a dragnet at the airport especially when everyone knows that TSA searches your bags. It would be the most poorly thought out conspiracy ever. There are better ways to arrest drug users and you don't need to worry about covering anything up to do it.

I think that there is a good debate about the constitutionality of TSA searches, and also a good debate about the wisdom of TSA practices in general aside from the constitutional arguments. But this thread started because someone claimed to have met a guy who found drugs in his Russian doll style suitcases, and claims to have been searched every time. Seriously if this is your best argument, then you need to rethink your strategy.

The only person dumber than someone bringing drugs to an airport is the person who read this thread and thought it proved anything.

castro