^^^^

bingo! Look up the political donations given by L3 corp over the past several years.

L3 is just one of the defense companies that has co-opted our congress and that is why you should expect to see a succession of rollouts of more and more "crowd control" types of technology.

You cannot make a lot of profits growing and training the D-O-G technology.

If you have fired a weapon, wash your hands with hydrogen peroxide.

Isn't peroxide based components one of the chemicals that TSA is looking for?

For example one brand of contact clearner is peroxide based and TSA will alert on it and confiscate the item.

Maybe a little toluene or powdered ammonium nitrate would work better than the peroxide?

Heh, they've swabbed my range bag several times, and never caught anything. I'm just about convinced that the tell the machine what result they want it to return.

I didn’t make a list.

Why? Was it that interesting a post?

Good for you.

Yes.

Dogs are 70% effective when they are working. And they have serious limitations as to when they “can” work, under what conditions, and are far more expensive than you might suspect not only to use but to train, maintain, and procure. Dogs have their place in the system, but are not the “be-all and end-all” of explosives detection.

The same thing can be said of TSA workers.

Except the 70% figure is way too high. Like 70%.

Thank you for verifying my observations regarding the character of the typical TSA employee.

1. What you feel about my fellow TSO's and myself is of no concern to me.
2. You are going to believe whatever you choose to. Experience in this forum tells me that the likelihood of those belief's being based on objective fact is as close to zero as one can get.
3. I honestly do not care what you think.

obviously
especially in the absence of compelling reasons otherwise
I agree that you have the best experience here in determining that.
This sentiment is undoubtedly mutual.

Well, I do care about what and how you and all your TSA pals think because those thoughts lead you to the conclusion that you can behave in ways that weaken our country and show callous disregard for the dignity of the people who are unfortunate enough to find themselves within reach of your "authority".

I will do everything in my power to see this travesty brought to an end.

Thank you for verifying my observations regarding the character of the typical TSA employee.

Because people would invariably compare the canine intelligence to that of the TSOs and the smurfs would be embarrassed.

Well, I don't mean to cause any problems but it seems the scanners don't have a very good success rate either. They depend on the skills of the person in the viewing room. There have been stories of people sneaking guns past the scanners in testing done by the tsa themselves. Also, many passengers have false anomolies detected and need a pat-down afterward. Dogs are hard working animals that are loyal, bright, they don't complain, and they don't seem to be as mean as some (not all) tso's.

There is no such thing as 100% security anywhere in the world. Even if you stay home and do nothing, there could be a natural disaster and you could die.

100% correct. There have been items missed. AIT is a new technology to the TSA as well as the passengers, and the learning curve is pretty steep. Once again we are being asked to identify anomalies on a varying platform (humans) using 2 dimensional black and white imagery, that is no-where near “High-Def”. I don’t work with the systems personally, but I have seen some of the training materials. And to add another dimension to the equation, TSO’s are not allowed to communicate to the searching officer what the item may be, only a generic area of the body that may contain it. The communication between the two officers is severely restricted, and monitored by supervisory and management level personnel.

AIT is not a perfect technology (much as I might like it to be), it can only give us indications that there is something that needs a closer look. And that’s all that dogs can do, give us indications that a closer look needs to be made. Humans are still going to have to do the looking, and that means folks with the same job I have no matter the technology telling us.

There is no perfect technology. Sorry, that is a pretty obvious fact. One other pretty obvious fact is that the AIT does not bite or poop on the floor. Each has its faults, just as each has its advantages. The TSA uses both technologies, each in its most appropriate place.

Why is this?
 

There are two reasons for this that add up:

1) The TSA lacks the skills to use their shiny new toys in an effective fashion. We've repeatedly heard from various TSA employees that they're simply unable to train their personnel to read the images on the scanner. I speculate whether this is because the TSA doesn't have anyone with those skills to train others, or because the majority of TSA employees are simply untrainable.

2) The scanner doesn't detect the threats that it was supposedly "necessary" to detect - underwear bombs and guns. A metal detector would have caught the gun every time in the 5x5 failure in DFW.

Since TSA employees are 30% or less effective when working and TSA equipment is 0% effective when working, the dogs win hands down.

70% effective! Wow. They're the best we've got.

http://whatsupyasieve.files.wordpres...09/flash_l.jpg

The nation's problems solved.


I feel safer already.

Further, dogs are brilliant at discerning human character and intentions. They'll run rings around any BDO.

Maybe it's that canine perceptiveness the TSA finds so objectionable about dogs.

If dogs are brilliant at discerning human character how will TSA get any dogs to stay around TSA employees?

Maybe it's the simple fact that dogs can tell time - my dogs were always waiting at the door, and would go to the door on time even if I was late - and TSA employees can't (as witnessed by the TSA statement that the Savannah train incident was the result of the VIPR team being unable to read a clock or a watch.)

You've never seen someone kick their dog and the dog come right back to lick their hand, have you?

Dogs will forgive pretty much anything from the person that feeds them. They have to be trained to mistrust.

Sane people don't go out in Phoenix heat.

I resemble that remark:p

I go out to PGA West every summer to get in a few rounds. Those afternoon tee-times when it's 115 are an awesome opportunity if you like a little solitude and want get in a 3 hour round.:D

Of course, part of the appeal is the off-season rates.^

And, don't forget, it's a dry heat!

Sane people don't believe untrained GED-carrying high-school drop-outs who can't read watches or clocks - let alone the "complex images" from the backscatter scanners - contribute to "security," either.

Obviously you do care what people think, otherwise you would not visit this forum.

The machines are so sensitive they will react to an elevation in air pollution.
Since the only downside to the alarm is a further search, there is no reason to do anything other than what is happening now.

Easy for you to say. You're not the victim who's trying to make a flight.

OMG I can't believe it - TSORon actually said something correct - "There is no perfect technology."

He is right.

There is also no such thing as a perfect world free of terror. At some point we have to address the likelihood of a catastrophic attack and balance that against things like the US Constitution, human rights, basic freedoms and liberties, health concerns, and things of this nature.

There is no perfect technology and there is no perfect answer. We live in an inherently risky world and all the clamor and noise the TSA is making over this supposed terror threat is nothing more than an absurd overreaction to something that will eventually happen again anyway no matter how hard they try to think they are making a difference. Sorry folks, that's the world we live in. Sooner or later our number is gonna be up.

Unless you use a flintlock rifle and pour gunpowder down the barrel before you drop the ball inside, and get most of it on you than inside the barrel, you don't have to worry about going to the range.

While John Rambo has those explosive arrowheads that pack more punch than a B-52 strike, that's about what it would take for an ETD to alarm off of firearm residue.

Interestingly enough, certain fireworks will alarm the machine. Kind of makes you wonder what it is we're playing with every New Year's Eve or Fourth of July, eh?

There was a time, a very long time ago, when this forum was excellent for exchanges of views between frequent flyers and TSA employees. Lots of good ideas were exchanged and lots of insights were shared. Somewhere along the line, things got personal.

I realize that TSORon, eyecue, SATTSO, and I leave ourselves wide open whenever we comment. But it seems one-sided; you get to call us names or question our character either directly or obliquely, and we get bounced out if we respond in kind.

I can see that some effort has been made to clean things up, and I certainly appreciate it. But if you take the time to really read the content of what TSORon, eyecue, SATTSO and others are saying, they're trying to address things from an insider's view. I don't think any of us are foolish enough to believe that a few typed words on an internet forum are going to convert anyone to become TSA supporters. But it's unfortunate that when we do share our insights that some of the forum's members feel free to attack us either directly or by categorizing us with indirect insults rather than looking at the substance of our comments.

Of the three other TSA types you mentioned only one of those engages in honest discussion.

TSORon doesn't appear to be an employee of the TSA - he's just pretending to be one. Perhaps he sleeps at a Holiday Inn.

Yes, for the first time ever today I got a [false] positive on my cell phone after being randomly selected for additional screening.

I didn't expect to feel this way, but I felt soooo violated, almost to tears, afterward. I was talking to my DH and realized that it's because in no other context in my life, do I get zero input into how/when/where another human touches my private parts (even at the doctor's, where I go willingly, they are more respectful by a huge margin!).

The first guy was just stuffing my things where I felt they would get dirty and I reached to fold my jacket inside-in, and the woman was like, "I'll have to ask you not to touch your belongings". (Why? There's nothing I could have done terrorist-wise in that context; they "inspected" all my stuff plus me and I was under full observation.)

I don't think I'd last long in a police state. Oh, and they did the most half-assed inspection on my stuff in the end, as I watched. But don't worry; my bra and ponytail (!) and skirt were extremely thoroughly searched. It was terrible.

BTW has the TSA ever actually found something you know, dangerous, in one of these exercises? I already know that they miss dangerous things all the time, as per those news articles where reporters take through knives, bombs, etc. But I haven't heard of them catching any real explosives (!) with those mickey-mouse machines that seem to false-positive on lotion, wet-wipes, crayons, etc.

I was also really upset to see that the read-out when "positive" is "explosive detected" because that's absolutely not true. At most, some common-ish chemical is "detected". There's so not a need for that kind of as some say here, theatre.

--LG

Did they force you to go to a private room?

No - they offered the option, but I didn't want to leave my family behind and felt that would be even more abusive of my civil rights, not to mention scary for the kids. This time, at least, they didn't prevent my 5yo from having his one milk box go through for the plane. When my 10yo was 4yo, they confiscated and threw away his milk even though I nicely protested re. "milk for small children" provision.

--LG

I work with test equipment on a daily basis. I do not believe that there are a large number of what we would call false positives, or the machine alarming for non-dangerous chemicals.

There may be some, and in the initial roll out of the technology there were likely many. However, what we are calling "false positives" are more than likely from one of three sources:

1. Cross-contamination from poor handling practices for the TSO's
   
2. Improper preparation or cleaning of the machine following testing of a known sample for calibration and the subsequent cross contamination
   
3. Random alarms (if they will do it for the WTMD and Scanners, they will do it for the ETD.)

I have observed the first, but I only suspect the other two and I could be wrong.

The testing process they use is very well tested in a variety of situations. It is successfully used across multiple industries and processes. However, it still requires thoughtful preparation of the sample, meticulous cleanliness and avoidance of any source of potential cross contamination. The CP is not conducive to any of these and "false positives" are inevitable. A more correct term for "false positive" would be "alarm from unknown source." That is a lot more words but is more accurate.

If I were doing this testing in industry, let's just suppose it is to check a machine before maintenance, the absolute first-before-anything-else-thing I would do is run another test while verifying that all the the testing parameters were properly done before accepting the result of the test. We would never tear down a machine for repairs based on a single test without verification. Yet that is what they do when they proceed directly to an invasive search without verifying the integrity of the sampling.

But, that testing is done by highly skilled technicians, many with specific certifications in the processes, and the cost of failure can be significant. However, at the CP, the testing is done by... er.... uh.... TSO's, and the cost is ours, not theirs..

Thank you for this very clear and erudite explanation. I wish you had been my "tester" yesterday! :)

I was too shaken in the moment to request a second "test" of my phone. It occurs to me that you are quite right re. cross-contamination. The guy certainly did not change his gloves before/after handling the various discarded test circles and then mine. And it looked like routinely there was no cleaning of the surfaces on the table, in the bins, or in the little paper slot of the machine. I can't believe I didn't think of this or notice it, considering my usual level of neurosis about such things!

What really concerns me is the TSA opinion (even expressed here on FT occasionally) that it is a "zero downside" or "low cost" solution to do the status quo.

If they're not finding actual explosives, just finding ways to violate civil rights, that seems quite inappropriate/foolish as an American policy.

As a side note, I am totally in favor of you know, actual security. I have flown El Al dozens of times, for example. It is a totally different experience. Once my DH was called aside by the El Al person to a separate room (leaving screaming jetlagged kids with me and no contact - now that was stressful) and even his follow-up interview was done incredibly respectfully etc. (It turned out that someone with his [common] name was draft-dodging, so it flagged. But his passport and answers to "what's your father's name" and verifying etc. led to a relatively quick release.)

--LG

No. It takes an incredible amount of energy (e.g. lighting strikes, high pressure at 600 degrees in the presence of a catalyst, highly specialized and evolved bacteria) to convert the nitrogen gas in the atmosphere to any useful form of nitrogen, such as nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, etc. Nitrates may be common, but they are almost universally the result of industrial chemistry used to create commercial and consumer products. (And possibly grilling protein at high temperatures ;))
Really? How? I guess you could use something like MALDI, but having done a few MALDI samples, I can pretty much guarantee it's not a feasible technology for our friends in blue at the moment. Even if there were a benchtop system that was easy-to-use, rugged, and eliminated the need for a skilled operator, it's almost inevitable that some molecules will break into sub components. Explosives, by their very nature, are not the most stable molecules. :D
Agree with everything you said, but I think there is a fundamental disconnect about the definition of a 'false positive'. I understand why golf shoes (heavy use of fertilizer on golf courses) and contact cleaning solution (hydrogen peroxide) and hand lotion (fragrance chemicals) may set off the detector, and that is technically not a 'false positive'.

However, from the perspective of airline safety, and the perspective of a passenger who was just groped, it is quite logical to consider those results to be a 'false positive', as they pose no safety threat.

I absolutely agree. The terminology is deliberately selected to make it sound like one has an explosive residue, when all that has occurred is that a chemical resembling explosive residue has been detected. The TSO's do not have the knowledge to understand the difference. If the machine generates an alarm, to them it is an explosive.

Yes, and not just "to make it sound..." but rather, the machine blinks out the message, "explosive detected" (!!!!!) That gave me quite a panic. I figure for the agents who see that all the time, they must either:
1. become inured to "explosive detected" and therefore not sufficiently on guard
or
2. view normal innocent people as highly dangerous from the first contact, and therefore become incredibly paranoid

--LG