I couldn't agree more.

I'm confused. Why would the size of the airport have anything to do with the time requred for gate screening for any particulary flight? Does a 737 contain more passengers at a large airport than at a small one? Does "random selection" function differently depending on airport size? Or do the screeners at large airports just process people more slowly?

Here is the meat of the OP.

Please highlight the factual errors in my post.

Was it the fact I was in Denver?

How about that TSA was there performing gate checks (note the little "g" and the little "c" with no reference to whatever you might define a gate check to be)?

How about the fact that there was a segregated area?

How about the fact that TSA pulled people out of line and was giving them pat-downs?

How about the fact that they were not allowed to leave after the pat-down?

Everything after that is my opinion.

Please do tell where my bias has colored these events to the point where they are factually inaccurate.

After reading your posts, this is the best I can do to address your superior knowledge of an event you did not witness.

Again, please let me know how you determined that an event you did not witness is OBVIOUSLY mischaracterized.

Yes, I am assuming they were being detained. That's the point. I base this on the fact that they were told they could not go anywhere and they stayed where they were.

There was nothing physically holding them and I have no idea if any threat was made or not. IANAL, but neither of these things are necessary for detainment. The threat of calling a LEO is sufficient for me, but YMMV.

Really? I called it a gate check, you called it screening. You win the Nobel prize for semantics. Happy?

OK. Any attorney's or police officers want to answer this question?

Is an eyewitness more or less likely to properly recall an event than a person who did not see it at all.

For the bonus round, how much would you trust the person that did not see the event but insists he has a better understanding of what actually happened?

Bolding mine:
Answer: About as far as I can shotput a cheesecake underwater. :D

I speculate that TSORon is simply alluding to the fact that, while a 737 does not contain more passengers at a large airport than at a small one, a 777 can't usually land at a small airport. Large airports can handle large and small aircraft; small airports can only handle small aircraft.

Gate screening for large aircraft would presumably take longer than gate screening for small aircraft. Hence, the slight mis-statement that screening at larger airports takes longer. It's not the airport, it's the aircraft.

Ron's assertion that eyewitness testimony is "notoriously inaccurate" is wrong.

Yes, there can be problems with eyewitness testimony. Yes, this testimony has been shown, through the use of DNA evidence, to result in a significant number of false convictions. Witness or victim recollection is perishable, and has to be handled as such. The accuracy of eyewitness identification depends on several factors, including perception, memory, communication, and candor. Even trained observers - law enforcement officers, for example - can make erroneous identifications in the heat of the moment.

But to suggest that it is "notoriously inaccurate" demonstrates the OP's utter lack of understanding of the criminal justice process. Eyewitness testimony can be a powerful and accurate tool in the prosecutor's tool kit, and when used carefully, is invaluable.

ScatterX, who are you going to believe, someone who wasn't there, or your lyin' eyes?

Since TSORon hasn't returned to explain what I had obviously mischaracterized and grossly misinterpreted about theoretical and hypothetical people, I guess I'll have to go with my eyewitness account, even though it is notoriously unreliable and biased (just ask the unbiased apologist :rolleyes: that works for TSA :rolleyes: and didn't see the event in the first place :rolleyes:).

As I recall, our resident TSA apologists claimed that Nancy Campbell was groped probably because they missed screening her at the checkpoint, not because it was a random gate search.

Yet here we are when this is being done in spades to many people at the gate. I guess that was more dis-information from those folks. Anything for a temporary advantage. Like calling an eyewitness wrong without any proof.