Originally Posted by
chollie
People can not maintain a state of 100% focused red alert for long periods of time.
It's even more difficult when you are trying to maintain a state of ready alertness while looking over your shoulder and carrying on personal conversations with co-workers and playing with your cellphone with barking co-workers and overly-loud taped messages blaring in the background.
Perfect place to test someone's powers of concentration. TSA does nothing to make it easier for their folks to stay focused, ie, ban barking, personal conversations and cellphones at the checkpoint.
In the context of "false-alarms" or "boy who cried wolf"; it is plausible that this has contributed to the documented reduction of detection success rates.
Do you remember what is was like trying to drop off someone at the airport on November 2001, "tuck and roll grandpa" was about all one could do. Now, some decade later, you can leave you car on a curb and about no one gives much of any concern.
I have seen passengers leave their carry on bags in a line walk away for 10 and then question why anyone complained.