Originally Posted by
TSORon
So lets play a game. You see something. Because of your personal belief’s you choose to not say something to authorities. When you get to your destination you find out that an aircraft exploded in flight, a flight from the same airport you departed from, and they believe that the cause may very well have had something to do with what you observed. Were you right or wrong in following your beliefs and refusing to notify authorities? If you had said something to security, the police, or even a member of the TSA, could you have made a positive impact on the fate of that aircraft?
I specified that I would gladly tell the police if I saw something genuinely not right. I will not, however, go tell the roaming clones that someone is sitting in a dark corner pushing buttons on their cell phone. I will not report anything to the TSA, because, frankly, I believe the vast majority of TSOs to be incapable of handling a real threat. That's what 9-1-1 is for, and if you don't believe that there would be a near-instantaneous LE response to a 9-1-1 call from an airport concourse, you've got some education of your own to do.
Puffers didn’t work out. OK, we no longer use them and cant find anyone to sell them to. Parts of the technology are sensitive (information wise) and cannot just be junked. All that’s left is storage fee’s.
If puffers didn't work, why were so many ordered? Who was responsible for the testing and pilot process, and why weren't the problems caught then?
MMW+ATD systems have very few “false positive’s”.
I very strongly beg to differ. Very, very strongly. That's not just based on personal experience; it's also based on conversations with fellow travelers and, you guessed it, TSOs.
Since they are designed to detect anomalies and not specific items which can vary in size, composition, and shape, in an many ways as there are products on the planet, they cant be programed for anything else. It’s the personnel working with these units that can miss something important, not the unit. And since you don’t know what the “yellow box” means or what our procedures are in those cases, you are unqualified to venture an opinion on if they were doing their jobs correctly or not.
Unless the TSO readily admits when you ask why they're not patting the yellow box area that the machine falses there all the time, and they don't even worry about that area unless something else is detected. Maybe in Ron's Super Secret Secret World information like that isn't disclosed, but in the real world, TSOs are much more apt to divulge things in response to simple questions (or in conversation) than you might expect. It's amazing what some of them will tell you. Did you know that the priority line WTMD at one checkpoint of a major, major airport malfunctions frequently, the TSOs there are fully aware of it, and yet they send people through anyway because they don't want to do resolution pat-downs on almost everyone who comes through?
You may question all you like, we invite them. Your assumptions concerning something you have little direct knowledge about are what should be expected from someone in such a situation. Inaccurate, but one cannot reasonably expect anything more. You have quite a way to go, education wise, before you can venture an informed opinion on either the equipment or the procedures.
You certainly know the book for TSA procedures and the company line surrounding them very well, but I'd venture a guess that many of us on the passenger side of the equation here better know how those procedures are actually carried out, and how the technology is really being used, than anyone. Let me ask you, how often do you take personal trips? When you do, do you ever strike up a quick conversation with the TSOs at the checkpoint, or even ask a question of them? Do you ever stop to have a few words with the TSO standing by the vacant gate? Try it sometime. You'd be amazed at how much many of them will say if you just mention that you didn't get much of an explanation at the checkpoint, and you're wondering how that body scanner you just went through works. On a handful of occasions, the TSO's response has been that it doesn't.
His testing method is completely questionable, the video itself proves nothing (other than how bad a cinematographer or investigator he is).
If his video is useless and proves nothing, why did a TSA rep strong-arm news outlets into not covering it?
As for your “personal liberties”, the courts have spoken many times on this as concerns airport screening checkpoints. Take a few hours and review what they have said. They at the very least understand the law and how it applies to the subject. More than I can say for just about everyone here.
I have, in fact. The courts gave the TSA an inch under the administrative search doctrine, and the TSA has taken a mile. What the TSA has done with the underlying reasoning for the decisions made is to essentially spit in the courts' faces, and I have a good degree of confidence that the courts will ultimately rein the TSA in and force them to abide by the permissions given them--not make up their own rights in addition to the ones laid out.
I stand by my assertion, based upon personal experience and conversations with TSOs, that the TSA would be incapable of stopping a 9/11-style attack, as its technology is faulty, its methods are flawed, and a sizable number of screeners seem not to care. I'd feel more safe with the local high school's Junior ROTC guarding airport checkpoints, because I know they'd take it more seriously than many TSOs I encounter do. But hey, what can you expect when your agency, tasked with national security, is hiring people off of pizza boxes?