EHD swabs and "false" detections
 

Today I observed a practice by a two-striper TSA supervisor that partially suprised me, and partially confirmed some suspicions.

Saw the supervisor pulling ETD swabs out of the container and fanning them (like one would do with a ream of paper prior to putting the paper in a printer so that the paper is pulled without jamming), and then putting them back into the container. I assume she did this to make it easier for the TSOs to pull a single swab from the container.

What made me notice this behavior? She did it with her bare hands. No gloves.

So much for "avoiding" contamination; I pity the poor pax who gets flagged for a full secondary patdown and inspection because of such contamination.

Lack of training. Lack of common sense. A complete waste of $ and time.

Useless.

Fanning the swabs like that does make them easier to get out one at a time, but I have always seen it done with gloves on (and fresh gloves at that). Contamination control is a difficult concept to get across to some people, in that you have to consider everything involved in the process - the surface, the hands doing the work, the container, the gloves.

I am sure the swabs are not cheap. Even Post-it Notes and Kleenex figured out a way to dispense one at a time and they are very inexpensive products. Rummaging through the glove box is unacceptable as well.

Using fresh gloves sounds like something that should be part of the SOP. There was a great Bernie Mac Show that made the whole concept of contamination very clear - maybe new training material ;)

So it seems that cross contamination caused by TSA employees is probably more the rule than the exception.

What good are these swabs anyhow? If it is true that TSA ETD systems alarm on the small content of hydrogen peroxide in a product such as Clear Care then the number of false alarms makes the devices impractical for any meaningful testing.

Even more so when a TSA screener has finished rubbing their hands in another persons hair, in their pants, and such but it is the responsibility of the traveler to demand fresh gloves.

TSA could care less about a persons health and safety.

Cross contamination is probably something that happens, it would be impossible in a checkpoint setting to completely prevent it. We have training on it regularly to keep awareness up. The enviornment is probably responsible for some cross contamination as well, the air quality and dust levels in the checkpoints are miserable at most locations I have ever seen.

The swabs function just as they are designed, as a media to collect things, they are quite suited to that purpose.

I am down with watching the Bernie Mac show as a training aid, it would be less dry than most of the videos we see!;)

The swabs may collect things well but the problem is those things in most cases are not dangerous, like Clear Care contact lens cleaner, my camera bag, and other such things.

TSA seems to have a habit of deploying systems that offer little security benefit.

Couldn't.

If they could care less, that implies that their level of care is greater than zero, which all available evidence suggests is impossible.

Expensive, too. Like the puffers, the shoe scanners, the body scanners, and employees working at the checkpoint.

Expensive and useless, all of them.

Gee, the price we pay for the really tough job you have is simply to accept lots of false positives. And, it's just the nature of the business, because of the really hard job of preventing contamination, that We, The People, are immediately suspected of being a terrorist and have to accept being intimidated into a private room where our genitals are cupped with the front of the hand and every piece of carry-on luggage examined. Simultaneously, of course, we are interrogated as to the nature of our travel and all of the details.

How can you sleep at night; or, don't you care?

As for me, I want our country back.

+1000

Try to imagine a hospital setting where the janitor, having just cleaned the toilets, "helps out" the doctors by rearranging sterile bandages and instruments in the operating theater. Try to imagine surgeons shrugging and saying "Cross contamination is probably something that happens, it would be impossible in a hospital to completely prevent it. We have training on it regularly to keep awareness up."

I'm sure the patients who got infections would be happy that at least the hospital staff had training to be aware of the cross-contamination.

our "friend" is being incredibly banal about this. I guess we're not human beings to TSA clerks. Just animals being put through chutes.

The lack of empathy or conscience is really a pity. It's amazing what a paycheck can get you to accept.