Section 107

I dont know the DEA's rules, policies and procedures so I cant really answer that one.

Possibly, depends upon the jurisdiction and the agencies involved.

The dogs are trained to know when they are on duty and off duty. Most TSA (and other detection dogs for that matter) are kept in the handler's home; few are kept in kennels - usually when the handler is on vacation or assigned to temporary duty.

Dogs will alert then they detect the substance they are trained to detect. A handler will hope a supervisor does not see such an alert as it will bring into question why the dog alerted (reliability of the dog or a search of the handler) and possibly result in discovery of the substance.


A TSO would not get to become dog handler as a TSO - s/he would have to apply for a competitive appointment to another job classification (Inspector) or join a police department.

Most handlers of TSA Explosive Detection Dogs are local or airport authority police officers. In many police departments the assignment as a handler is limited to a certain amount of time to give other officers the opportunity.

AA is looking at ways they could possibly assist in funding more canine teams.

As noted in other comments, I also dont see how more dogs will speed up screening as most passengers and bags going through a checkpoint are not subjected to ETD testing and the dogs are not replacing any screening steps. At the same time, adding dogs does not appreciably increase wait times except for those pax who trigger an alert. Have to keep in mind that the dogs, while highly accurate and much more efficient than human searches, are far from infallible so a mixture of methods is needed.

Worcester

Can't comment on the TSA but dogs in general have a useful attribute. They are unpredictable.

I was listen to a report by an Israeli security adviser who recommended more use of dogs in public areas of airports. Any criminal with drugs or weapons is going to try and avoid them and that may be enough to give them away.

The danger with much of our "security" is that it is too predictable and that gives opportunity to circumvent it.

FliesWay2Much

I don't care if anyone is carrying drugs at a U.S. airport. If in criminal possession, they need to be caught by normal constitutional police work, not a TSA dragnet.

tanja

deleated

chollie

This.

A dog can't clear a regular pax for inclusion in a Pre lane. A dog isn't trained to detect hidden blades concealed in shoes or outwear or laptops or canes or bags. Since the Pre xrays are apparently less sensitive than regular lane xrays, this would result in a tremendous exposure.

I suppose they have limited value in the landside crowds, although many airports are so big that unless the dog presence is very large, someone intent on doing something in the landside area could probably get in and cause damage before the dogs could expose him.

WillCAD

Predictability and consistency are two different things. US aviation security is neither.

Predictability doesn't always equal weakness or vulnerability. Example: It is very predictable that if you attempt to charge the President at a personal appearance, you will be tackled by Secret Service, while the President will be ushered out of the room and away from the building so fast he'll be delivering the punch line of his latest joke from the back of the presidential limo. Is this predictability a weakness? A vulnerability? No.

The unpredictability of TSA passenger screening is an inherent weakness, however, because nobody in the agency knows how they're supposed to respond to a genuine threat. In the event of a real attack, the people who are supposed to respond will not do so, because they won't know what the heck is going on. Quick and decisive response to a threat is an absolute necessity when dealing with bad guys doing bad things, but TSA as an agency is anything but decisive - because there are no consistent rules, no consistent procedures, no consistent policies. Unpredictable equals chaos when dealing with genuine threats, and chaos is not our friend, it's the bad guys'.

petaluma1

It seems as if @AskTSA might have ceased mentioning canine teams as a way of speeding up the screening process when responding to questions about long delays. The canned response now says:

Methinks many people have been questioning TSA on exactly how the dogs would make the lines move faster and, of course, TSA doesn't have a response to that.

JoeBas

Twitter Account Suspended. We will have NO CRITICISM OF THE GOVERNMENT, good citizen!

cestmoi123

Totally disagree. If people in government perform well, I want them to be rewarded for their performance. Just like in private employment.

For example, the head of TSA at every airport should have the bulk of their compensation tied to a combination of line speed and performance on red team tests, and that should cascade down the line. If MSP and DFW both have similar wait times, but DFW has 2x the success rate on red team tests, damn right the FSD at DFW should be making more than the FSD at MSP.

cestmoi123

Totally agree. A system where 5% of people get a patdown, 20% get the NoS, and 75% get the metal detector, all assigned randomly based on a button pressed at the doc check station, would be consistent, controlled, but yet unpredictable.

petaluma1

He must have really ticked off the TSA. My account(s) are only blocked by TSA and AskTSA. I think the TSA in his name did have them fooled for a while, however.

You are correct that the government doesn't like criticism, such as someone pointing out that the long lines present a perfect target for an evil doer.

WillCAD

Maybe, but I wouldn't be in favor of that.

Which 5% get the pat-down? Who decides who gets the pat-down, the TDC? Who decides when to press that button and when not to? Will it be truly random? How is "random" decided? By a machine? By a person chanting "eenie meenie minie moe?"

Which 20% get the NoS? What happens if someone who is chosen is physically unable or chooses to opt-out? Would you eliminate opt-outs?

Causeless pat-downs are exactly the kind of abusive carp that the 4th Amendment was designed to prevent.

Here's how I think it should be:

100% of people get an ETD swab. 100% of physically able people walk through the WTMD. Those who are not physically able to walk through the WTMD get requested to transfer to a plastic wheelchair and rolled through. Those unable to transfer will need to make special arrangements with TSA in advance of their travel to be escorted through the c/p and wanded with the HHMD. Which sucks, but it's better than being abused and embarrassed at the c/p. As usual, all carry-on items are scanned by x-ray.

The one new piece of equipment I'd like to see at all c/p's (aside from rail systems to automatically return tubs and free up leagions of tub-stacking TSOs) is a puffer portal on the carry-on scanner. Assuming they aren't already part of the scanner, that is. Simply doing a puffer ETD test of carry-ons as they pass through the scan tunnel would eliminate millions of ETD swab tests and speed things up immeasurably. Oh, and I'd like to see dividers built into the belt, so someone else's bag doesn't touch mine and cause cross-contamination.

No random. No percentage. No quotas. No one gets searched or delayed without articulable suspicion. Search methodology should have a clear, well-known, pre-defined path of escalation, and no search should be escalated without a genuine alarm at the previous level. No pat-downs should be performed by TSOs - if something is suspicious enough to warrant a physical search of a person's body, then it should be suspicious enough to refer to law enforcement. If it's not suspicious enough to report to law enforcement, than it's not suspicious enough to warrant a physical search.

FliesWay2Much

We have to remember that the TSA's customer is Congress, not We, The People.

The TSA simply can't do this because of the money they have spent on the strip search machines and the huge effort they have expended inventing threats.

Loren Pechtel

Lots of false positives, though--you bring a large dog around and my wife is certainly going to shy away from it.

GUWonder

I disagree about inconsistency and unpredictability always being a useful security measure, unless by "useful" you mean useful to some for getting money.

Some criminals working smuggling operations choose to approach the detection dogs, as there are ways to game the detection dogs too.

Also, lots of people who aren't criminals and/or aren't smuggling contraband are terrified of dogs -- and I am betting that way more people are terrified of dogs than there are terrorists. And I've seen some very aggressive detection dogs that would be best avoided by even those of us with a history of having well-trained guard/attack dogs at home.

Also, the less predictable a detection dog, then the more resources wasted on searches from the "alerts". That may be a good thing for those in the business of making money off the public in the name of "security", but it's not generally useful otherwise for contraband interdiction.