^^^^

do you use smokeless or black powder?

Golfing was a high offense at PHX during this same period.

Golfing! In Phoenix! Must be a terrorist...

Yeah. I don't golf, but I did see a couple of people get tagged for "residue" going outbound from PHX.

A former colleague had his shoes confiscated by TSA after they tested positive. This was despite TSA's running them through the x-ray feeling them, etc. Said former colleague owned a farm and walked past a fertilizer spreader on the way to get in his car.

TSA refused to clear the shoes based solely on the ETD. He arrived at the corporate meeting shoeless.

Let's turn this around for a moment:

Has there EVER been a documented case where the TSA has detected explosives in passenger luggage? You would think the TSA would make a big deal about this.

Have they?

No, but they MISSED a 500 count brick of large magnum rifle primers going into the cargo hold. This was discovered only because the bag containing the primers was dropped during a change of flight. (If you aren't familiar with rifle primers, 500 of them would make quite a nice BANG.)

The fellow who arrived at his meeting shoeless did have a great story to tell, though. That is priceless PR for our side....

Following my only opt-out pat down I alarmed. The TSO asked, "Do you play golf?"

When I got the secondary patdown in the private room (I know, shouldn't have allowed that) the machine kept alarming and the TSO made note of the fact that the machine was alarming way too much. When I commented on the fact that it appeared that they had some equipment issues he said, "It's all a bunch of crap." That's a direct quote.


If you think a system set up in such a way that it routinely causes needless stress to the informed and fear to the uninformed is acceptable...well, I'll just keep my thoughts to myself.

I have several flights coming up in the next week out of SAN. It disturbs me greatly that my need to fly brands me as a suspect in the minds of the government and I may be forced to choose between irradiation or a grope.

My flights planned for later this year will be out of an airport that does not have the NOS...SNA here I come.

I will be sending letters along with receipts to the SAN airport authority, county commission and city council with an explanation as to why.

I'm going to attempt to be a one man crusade to let the city know they are losing money because they allow this unconstitutional charade to take place in our city. I don't know if it will have an impact. But who knows, maybe I will be the one squeaky wheel that gets some attention.

ETD machines can be programmed to detect just about anything, not just explosives. Here are some of the things that they can be programmed for that have an application useful to the TSA.

RDX (cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine)
PETN (Pentaerythritol tetranitrate)
TATP (triacetone triperoxide)
HMTD (Hexamethylene triperoxide diamine)
SEMTEX (Contains for RDX and PETN)
NITRO (nitroglycerine)
TNT (Trinitrotoluene)
HMX (cyclotetramethylene-tetranitramine)

The ETD systems are designed to detect trace elements that are contained in explosives using (most commonly) Ion mobility spectrometry, electron capture detection, electrochemistry, and olfaction .

If one looks on the component listing of the various products they buy for personal use you may indeed find some of these base chemicals listed, which is why the ETD’s may occasionally alarm on your hand lotion or whatever. These are not “false positives” but actual detection of the chemicals they were designed to detect. ETD machines cannot perform a complete chemical breakdown of the samples provided, they are just not designed to do that. They can only tell us when they detect what they are programmed to detect. TSO’s are not chemists and anyone who expects us to be has some serious problems with reality. If an alarm happens they we need to find out why, it’s as simple as that. That means a search, since lie detectors are somewhat unreliable.

TSA is currently testing several different types of ETD based systems such as FIDO (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fido_Explosives_Detector), the SABRE 2000, plus other technologies like the BLS (Bottle Liquid Scanner), SSD (Shoe Scanning Device), and many more.

Yes, its not really all that uncommon. Explosives are used not just by terrorists and the military but by quite a few different commercial concerns and police agencies. Hence the reason we dont make a big deal out of it, its about like finding a 1955 penny in a bucket full of pennies.

Did you cite all of your sources for that info you posted?

Lol. Suspect they look for components from an incident a few years back. Handle on tool chest came back positive for glycerine and they thought it was positive for nitroglycerine. It wasn't and was allowed to fly. Rather telling though what they are looking for.

But some people report getting an extra intrusive back room custody frisk as a result of a positive swab. I'd call that a big deal. And what about the guy who got his shoes confiscated? And the person whose hair conditioner caused, what was it, two hours of freaking out over everything in her bag, with multiple TSA folks and LEO's involved? These are anecdotes, yes, but there are enough of them to call your "not a big deal" into question.

I have a solution. It's called DESIGN A MACHINE THAT CAN DETECT THE ENTIRE COMPOUND.

And yes it can be done. But companies are being asked to instead design machines that look up our butts and try to find a person who is sweating cause they MIGHT be a te****ist.

And trust me...nobody will mistake TSA smurfs for chemists. Garbage men maybe. Pedophiles probably. But no, not chemists.

If we were to make a big deal out of incidents such as you describe what purpose would it serve? We verify that they are not carrying explosives and have no designs on destroying an aircraft or harming the folks on board, then its not really an incident. Therefore no need to make a big deal about it.

I�m not a chemist, but from what I have read they are many many different recipes for explosives, and none have a single compound. Oh, and BTW, TSA does not invent the technology, we are only it�s end-user. Maybe you could talk to Rapidscan or Rockwell, some other big defense contractor, maybe they would like to take a swing at something like that.

It can �eh? Can you provide us with a link to such technology please? I for one would be very interested in reviewing the technical specifications.

You conveniently left narcotics off the list.

Saved in case the original post was deleted.