Originally Posted by
Batmanuel
Inside scoop from someone that works there:
Son bypasses metal detector because of his condition, and was offered the same specialized screening they're used to. (5-second hand test)
Machine alarms on test, and the mom and all their bags had to get extra screening. (nothing extra is done to the son)
Mom gets pissed off that she has to get pat down, and refuses to cooperate. Yells and screams that this isn't what happens at other airports, etc.
Mom's behavior gets the son upset, and he starts crying. Tells his mom to stop.
TSA calls for backup as tantrum continues, in the form of managers, police, etc.
Mom eventually complies and vows revenge.
Perfectly plausible sequence of events. In fact, I'd call it at least as plausible as the mother's account.
Also plausible is the idea that when the kid's ETD alarmed, the TSOs involved immediately escalated to a full hand search of all bags and a mandatory pat-down of at least one adult in the party (since the party had only one adult, she was elected).
And most plausible was that the TSOs involved have such poor training regarding the care and proper use of the ETD machine and its associated paraphernalia, and so little understanding of the concepts of residue transfer and cross-contaimination, that nobody ever had the thought to re-test the kid with different TSO with fresh gloves on a different machine to see if they could reproduce the alarm, or if it was a one-time glitch caused by dirty gloves, contaminated swabs, or an out-of-calibration machine.
Originally Posted by
Batmanuel
Explosive residue is sticky. If the kid was traveling with or was handling explosives, it would have been everywhere. Testing the bag and traveling companion would have resulted in even more alarms and more scrutiny.
Walking on fertilizer or working in a gunpowder-heavy industry might get you a false alarm for nitrates, and using certain colognes or hand lotions might get you another for nitroglycerin. Should the solution be eliminating all those tests altogether? Just because someone with ashy elbows wants to pre-lube before security instead of after?
Kind of ironic to complain about them "ignoring the threat", (a 9 y/o kid), as that's a direct result of other complaints. Everyone was up in arms about TSA screening grannies and children. Now they have alternatives, and people are still complaining.
It really doesn't matter what TSA does, so long as the rules only apply to everyone else.
It really doesn't matter what the rules are, TSA applies them differently to every person depending on how much they like the person and what kind of mood the TSOs are in at the time.
Originally Posted by
Batmanuel
It proves that those common items are made of things that the machine was programmed to look for. Maybe future technology will allow for better programming.
He's a heart patient. Nitroglycerin medication comes to mind.
You answered your own question. The percentage of terrorist 9 year olds on American soil is pretty slim. I'm pretty sure that the Israelis wouldn't have ignored him if a similar situation occurred at one of their own checkpoints. If there wasn't risk screening, the boy would have been frisked. Is that what you'd rather have?
Better programming of the machine will not compensate for poorly-trained incompetent operators who use the machine badly, have no clue what cross-contamination and residue transfer mean, and make no effort to resolve an alarm with minimally invasive means but immediately escalate to invasive, humiliating, and/or abusive methodology. Because they don't know any better, nor do they care at all.