Why is the highlighted part (my emphasis) relevant? Isn't it likely that people who have a legitimate need to transport large amounts of cash might make the same time vs. cost decision to fly that a criminal would?

Whether carrying cash is automatically suspicious or not, being in an airport, bus station, or in a car should have no bearing.

There are two very legitimate and non-suspicious reasons that I have had a need to carry large amounts of cash from time to time.

Neither of which are anybody's business, except mine.

No, people do not use plastic for everything. I have no debt. My travel cards are paid monthly.

No, a cashiers check will not always work.

If I told you what they were you would likely agree that it is not at all suspicious. You assume a lot by your blanket accusation.

I very much disagree. Besides BAOs, no TSA employee is certified to evaluate non-volatile explosives from volatile ones. However, if the potential explosive or IED component is detected while the bag is in the x-ray, well, what you are looking at is a computer generated image, not "live" parts. It then becomes very difficult to say with certainty what exactly you are looking at. Precautions have to be taken. To do otherwise could potentially get people killed from stupidity.

No, if an x-ray operator suspects that there may be explosives or other IED components in a bag, and the BAO confirms that, even if not assembled or even if only one part of the IED is visible, prudence would tell you to call the bomb squad, as they are equipped to handle such situations.

And I want to point out something very important here which seems to be a very hard concept for those who have not worked x-ray to understand (based on my understanding of reading hundreds of post here on FT - so no insult meant): x-ray machines have limits. Do NOT assume a bag is put into the x-ray reveals everything in the bag. It very well may not. As I have tried to explain multiple times before using x-ray to screen bags is not the most thorough method; it potentially allows things to go through. And one thing you ALWAYS have to ask yourself when you decide to clear or threat a bag or call a supervisor to contact the BAO is, "what am I, what are we, NOT seeing on this screen?"

As example, under training from the BAOs, they have show me and other TSA employees complete IEDs (simulations) in bags where you only see 1 part of the IED. Its all there, but only 1 part can be seen.

So I believe calling the bomb squad is the correct thing to do when there is suspected IED parts in a bag (note: there is a process that has to be followed before the bomb squad is called, which of course I will not go into, and which so far I have seen no one has picked up on. Sorry.).

A detonator is an explosive device. Looking for a "potential power source" itself is useless.

So logically, 100% of people carrying any cash (in the above cites) must have been handling cocaine. :rolleyes:
Is there any point here?

I think you're missing my point: from some perspective, every bag is suspected to have an IED in it until proven otherwise. I would assume (please correct me if I'm wrong) that there's some intermediate level of suspicion of there being an IED part which is high enough to perform a bag check, but not high enough to call the bomb squad. That's the situation being discussed in this case, as I understand it. And the TSO in question went too far.

As pointed out in the case notes and my post, some of the photos spilled out of the bag and onto the table - that was the trigger for her additional interest. It's very convenient to claim there was a black mass on the screen that needed to be resolved (I'm not sure the actual image from the machine was introduced into evidence to back up that claim), but it's clear from the screener's behavior the additional searching was not triggered by the CTX image, but by the accidental discovery of some of the photos.

So what? Unless there is clear evidence the cash was the proceed of criminal activity, there is absolutely no reason to get worked up over it - and even if it was proceeds, the airport is not the place to determine this.

My civil liberties are too important to give up in order to add checkpoints all over the country where anything from illegal immigrants, kiddie porn purveyors, warrant jumpers, deadbeat dads or other miscreants can be scooped up at will.

Let the police do their own investigations on their time, on their own turf, and leave the public out of it.

It's not suspicious at all - people regularly carry sums like this to/from Las Vegas - and who cares if it's suspicious? Airports are not criminal dragnets. Our civil liberties supersede, by a longshot, any possible benefit of using airports, bus stations, roadside checkpoints or other un-Constitutional practices to scoop up criminals that cops and DAs are too lazy or incompetent to investigate properly.

A. It is not illegal.
B. It is not illegal.
C. It is not illegal.

It follows that it is nobody's business and anyone encountering it during screening a US citizen at a US airport should just STFU about about it and go about their duties.

What, pray tell, would be the constitutional basis of such a law that *did* limit how much of his own property the citizen could carry on him going about his own business? I suppose you could defend such a law by calling it fraud due to the discrepancy between the claimed value of this currency and its actual inherent value.

I read it to say that rummaging through people's stuff and then calling law enforcement is one more waste of time. Because the defendant can suppress the evidence at trial. And it is a sign to me that TSA doesn't mind wasting our money that they don't FORBID these fishing expeditions which only insure that they have to pay more staff to handle a given passenger volume. One more thing to *beep* the weary taxpayer off.

Contrary to your implication, it's an item that FTers most active in this forum have no difficulty understanding. I've mentioned it on FT repeatedly without any sign that gives proof to your claim that it is a hard concept to understand for those who don't work x-ray scanners at airports.

.... to resolve opaqueness issues related to concerns about explosives does not require the TSA to examine paper for images or other content. It's a pretty easy thing to understand too.

First, I know exactly what a detonator is. But lets ignore the fact that in some threads, I have been told unless a detonator is with an assembled IED, it isn't a threat. ;)

Second, I was talking about triggering devices, think a switch, and power sources, as that what was mentioned in the post I commented on.

The fact that you mentioned detonators when I only mentioned triggering devices and power sources leads me to believe you do not knwo what your talking about. So here is a link, and I quote some examples of trigger devices below

http://www.williambowles.info/articles/app_e.pdf (PDF file)

"Manual wind-up alarm clocks and wristwatches

Pressure release switch that is spring-loaded. These can be as simple as a mousetrap or a commercially produced switch.

Pull switches that actuate when a trip wire is pulled. There are many different forms of these triggers. They can be made easily by stripping the insulation off of wire and looping them together or by inserting a piece of wood between the contact wires on a clothespin.


Pressure switches that actuate when weight is applied.

Barometric Sensor

LED digital wristwatch

Hand-held radar guns"


Note, these are only some of the examples I quotedm, and there are many more that this articles does not cite, And as you can see, triggering devices are NOT detonators.

You are entirely incorrect to beleive that "from some perspective, every bag is suspected to have an IED in it until proven otherwise". No insult meant, but I would never check a bag I believed had part of an IED in it. I may be a TSA employee, but I'm not that stupid ;) (despite what some here believe!).

If the bag is believed to have an IED or one of its components in it, then a process starts, and at each level of that process if the result is positive, lets say, there will NOT be a bag check. At the end of the process, after multipe "positive" conditions are met, a bomb disposial unit is called.

However, many - most, or almost all - bag checks are NOT believed to have an IED or IED component in it.

I did not say that to resolve the alarm that it required anyone to examine pictures, or read pages. All I said it I do not think the screener was lying when she claimed that she believed the pictures that fell out were the "black mass". That is very reasonable.


And if what you say is true that most of the frequent FT members understand that the x-ray has limits, that does not explain the critism those members have when something gets by x-ray. I certainly understand criticism if the TSO who operates the x-ray is not paying attention, sleeping, or whatever. But I have yet to see ONE post by anyone here other than a TSA employee who basically says "these things will happen". If I have missed such post, I apologize. ^

No, I don't think its clear. As I read the courts decision, there were 2 areas that need be resolved.