Originally Posted by
doober
Cee, somebody over on the blog is contending that the TSA allowed the woman to be alone behind a curtain to remove the offending piece of jewelry. If the jewelry was so dangerous as to make her a threat to aviation security, then why was Ms. Hamlin allowed to be alone to remove it? Or was a screener in there with her?
In these situations, the area that the Ms. Hamlin was allowed to be alone in would have been searched by a screener first, making sure there was nothing in that area that Ms. Hamlin could remove and take with her. Then she would have received a full HHMD scan to ensure that she didn't remove anything and put it elsewhere. Then the private screening area would have been checked again by a screener to make sure that nothing was left behind.
Originally Posted by
studentff
All of the articles indicated that the woman cleared the WTMD with no alarm and then the jewelry alarmed the HHMD. If someone didn't alarm the WTMD, what was the HHMD being used for anyway? If someone doesn't alarm the WTMD, that non-invasive device has already determined to the TSA's satisfaction that they aren't carrying a metal weapon (otherwise, everyone would get the HHMD).
I really don't see why common sense couldn't have been applied to let her go in this case. I'm 100% sure she wasn't the first woman to pass a TSA checkpoint with steel nipple jewelry. My guess is that the screener pressed the HHMD up against her boobs trying to generate an alarm as part of a power trip, harassment, lewd behavior, or something similar.
I wasn't there, so I don't know how it came to be that the HHMD was used. We haven't been given any "inside" info at work, just the news article. And you are right, she isn't the only passenger with piercings in a sensitive area. I have screened a few, and somehow always managed to clear the alarm to my satisfaction without their removal. If I had to guess, this screener may have been relatively new and never dealt with piercings before. Not wanting to do anything inappropriate she called for her (male) supervisor. Mr. Supervisor, unable to clear the alarms himself, followed the SOP.
You don't have to press the HHMD up against someone to trigger an alarm.