chollie

Ceramic knives won't.

GUWonder

Not always. It depends on the content of the knives. Also, metal detectors haven't always been all that effective when it comes to detecting metal close to the floor of some floor types. And sometimes even when the WTMD alarms on the shoe, resolving the alarm by x-ray may be more effective to interdict contraband (of some sorts) than just relying upon casual hand inspection of footwear.

petaluma1

Dogs being used beneficially at Sea-Tac:

t325

I am OK with this. The dogs will probably do a better job of finding stuff than the <redacted> manning the X-ray machines, plus they're cute and will work for treats.

IceTrojan

(Think of the children!)

I went through the checkpoint today at TBIT, and ALL the pax in ALL the lines were walking through Pre-Check style... WTMDs, with shoes on, coats on, laptops/liquid bags in.

What was notable:
- TBIT doesn't have a Pre-Check lane;
- Most of the international airlines don't participate;

Did I miss the memo? I mean, it was downright civilized and the lines were processed QUICKLY... but does that mean it's been security theater this whole time before? Say it ain't so!

gingersnaps

Was there a TSA dog sniffing passengers in the queue?

IceTrojan

Oh duh... yes there was. Was in a hurry so didn't register, but we did pass through in a single file so the dog could sniff everyone.

bbtrvl

I had a very similar experience at IAD about 18 months ago. No precheck on the BP, everyone in the same line.

I guessed it was either an insufficient staff issue on that particular day, or a random unannounced test run for precheck.

Ever since I got GE, it's been either precheck (100% on participating airlines) or full non-precheck shoes/laptops/liquids (100% on non participating airlines)

gingersnaps

Thanks for the update.

There have been a few reports from people here about keeping shoes on in non-Precheck lanes.

This process must be the "Real-time threat assessments through Managed Inclusion" process the GOA recently referred to.

Pup7

The thing is, if you have a dog, he/she doesn't have to actually sniff everyone - well, if the handler and the dog as a team are actually worth a crap.

I worked a dog in the USAF that detected one round hidden in the landing gear of a C5. He also located the round that had fallen out of my M16 magazine on the grounds of the kennels. All I did was tell him "seek" - and he made a near beeline for the rounds in both cases. (The M16 round was discovered missing out of the mag when my alpha - partner - for the day went to turn in his weapon. We were young airmen at the time and panicked until we remembered I was packing a personal detection system. ) While I'm sure wind direction on the flightline and in the field played a huge part in his success, air swirls and collects around people from general movement, central air circulation, the dog team walking around - you'd be amazed at how many directions air moves inside a building if you'd never thought about that sort of thing before.

Effective use of the team would be to have them walk up and down - and through/around - the lines of people with a generalized command of "seek". I can guarantee you if the contraband were there, he/she would find it. Just a leisurely stroll with the occasional guided sniff of a bag or a purse to keep the dog's nose low and interest up would be completely effective. These dogs are sniff only (and they're only explosive - no Federal dog is dual detection trained and I can't say I've ever heard of any agency doing so), not patrol/attack and detection, so walking amongst people should be very easy for them.

A dog team should act as a deterrent just by their mere presence. In fact, that's meant to be fifty percent of their purpose.

You also have to drop a training aid every so often or the dog will get bored out of his mind. When I worked with the Secret Service they'd drop an aid about every three hours. So did we, when we could. (Harder when you're away from home station, of course, but you have to do something when the dog is in that environment 12, 14 hours a day, or he'll shut down.)

With that said, I have no hope for any of these dogs with TSA being worth a damn in a year or two. It doesn't take much to ruin a dog. Really.

(I spent almost ten years as a military working dog handler with the USAF, before separating and later returning to the service as a commissioned officer. I cringe when I see the TSA dog teams and the blunders they commit. I was kneeling on the floor at SAT a couple of years ago - there was nowhere to sit and I was sick of standing - and had a TSA dog come up right in my face and lick me. I didn't even see him - I was digging in a bag or messing with my phone at the time and didn't notice him until he made his presence known. I love dogs and I didn't mind - but a working dog should never, ever do that.)

petaluma1

Like everything else the TSA touches.

Will these dogs alarm on fertilizer or the compounds in hand cream, the way the ETD machines do?

It would be interesting for the TSA to do a study of the number of explosive alarms via the dogs vs. the number of alarms with the ETD machine. Of course, that will never happen.

Section 107

That is a very common question because both "detect explosives" and both experience false positive and false negatives. But it is not really a fair comparison as the dogs and machines work in completely different ways (machines are, well, machines that detect "mechanically" in a fixed environment; dogs are biological and detect in a constantly changing environment) and are susceptible to entirely and drastically different factors that affect performance.

chollie

I have to disagree.

We have to compare results in order to understand which method produces more reliable results - and at what cost.

If, for example, costs are similar but swabbing generates a 20% false positive rate and dogs lead to a 5% false positive rate, that's important to know. If costs are comparable, but one process takes 5 times more resources (staffing private back room 'resolution' gropes, for example, to resolve false alarms) and time, that's also a factor to consider (at least for the pax).

In this particular instance, it also might be affected by TSA's notoriously inconsistent and sloppy practices. A close examination might reveal, for example, that most of the 'false positives' with swabs are not because the process itself is unreliable, but because TSA's sloppy and inconsistent practices are: unchanged gloves, poorly calibrated machines, cross-contamination, checkpoints where it's clear that there's not a single person on duty who understands cross-contamination, etc.

gingersnaps

A dog alerted on what was determined to be fertilizer at a "checkpoint" during the Salt Lake City Olympics.


Household Items that Contain Explosive Compounds: A Guide for Explosive-Detecting Canine Handlers

by John V. Goodpaster, Ph.D. , ATF Forensic Science Laboratory

J.V. Goodpaster; “Household Items that Contain Explosive Compounds: A Guide for Explosive - Detecting Canine Handlers,” The Detonator, 34(2), 42 -
46 (March/April 2007)

Boggie Dog

It is perfectly fair to determine if one mode has a failure rate so high as to make that mode worthless as a screening method.

In the case of ETD machines my experience is a 100% false positive rate.