yandosan

Yep -- that's exactly what they do. And if the cop doesn't like you, he prompts the dog into a fake "alert." I don't know about anyone else, but I want our Constitution back.


Cool, a voice of sanity amid all the legalese and bureaucratic BS. Is there anyone out there that really thinks dogs can sniff a joint inside luggage from 30 meters or can differentiate illegal bodies from legal ones or detect child porn (yes, they really ran news stories on this). If so there's a bridge in Brooklyn I want to sell you for really cheap.

Section 107

Yes, there is a lot of literature on these issues and it is why team proficiency and especially certification tests have to be performed both single and double blind. I believe body cameras worn by handlers would, in general, be very helpful in many judicial proceedings (for both sides) but there is much difference of opinion on this.

Section 107

One might think such things are so advanced it is "impossible" for a dog to do but one must remember to keep in perspective the difference between human and canine olfactory capabilities. Human have about 5 million scent receptor cells in the nose while most dogs have well upwards of 100 million scent receptor cells and some breeds have several times that. Plus, a significant portion of a dog's brain is devoted to processing smell compared to a miniscule portion of the human brain.

Scent travels very far, in very unusual ways and can last for a very long time (think of smelling curry in hallway an hour after someone who regularly eats a lot of curry passed through; a dog will be able to smell that curry many days later). Some breeds of dogs have much keener sense of smell than others and are capable of detecting scent in which molecules of the scent are only a few parts per million - think bloodhounds tracking someone who ran through a forest or field. So detecting the smell of marijuana or something else from that far away is completely within the realm of possibility. Identifying the source from that far away is a different matter.

Dogs cannot smell the legal status of a person; they can only detect the presence of a human scent (see post above for more detail).

No-one claims dogs can detect porn; rather, dogs can detect and locate the specific scents given off by electronic devices such as memory cards and hard drives. In Jared's case, as with most pederasts, he kept his stash of kiddie porn on a memory card that he hid in his home office; the dog merely detected the hidden card and oops, further investigation revealed a substantial amount of disgusting and illegal material.

Dogs can be trained quite easily to detect and locate just about any particular scent - just takes some time and a good trainer. Electronics detection dogs are often used to find contraband cell phones in prisons or prevent people from bringing them inside. Nothing new or unusual about that.

Now, if I can verify your deed of ownership to that bridge.....

FliesWay2Much

Regretfully, the courts let the cops get away with this practice all the time. From the Washington Post:

There's more in this article. The take-away is that a cop can make a dog alert any time he wants.

Section 107

Last Thursday the Senate Committee on Homeland Insecurity held a hearing on DHS' canine programs.

Links to Statements and prepared testimony can be found here:
http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/hearings...eland-security

as well as video of the entire hearing.

This is one of those "feel good dog and pony show (minus the pony)" oversight hearings, not a "gotcha" hearing so nothing earthshaking (no acknowledgement of TSA explosives dogs also doing narcotics detection because it simply doesn't happen) although I found interesting some the veterinarian's testimony of gene pools and other challenges of procuring and training the dogs.

chollie

What they need to do more frequently at these hearings is run the dogs through the hearings while they are being held.

One false or misleading alert might give these legislators an opportunity to witness what really can happen in the field.

BSBD

If putting a US Senator into a glass penalty box at an airport checkpoint doesn't lead to big changes (and it didn't), neither would stunts in a hearing. None of our elected officials want to appear soft on terrorism, so if that means some people get harassed in the name of security, so be it.

chollie

True. Paul just used the incident to 1) grandstand and 2) get KTNs for himself and any of his friends for life from TSA.

Section 107

Actually, two teams did do separate demonstrations during the hearing - one for explosives, one for agriculture.

chollie

If a dog alerted and the individual who triggered the alert was not taken aside and swabbed, groped, interrogated and all his/her belongings thoroughly searched, then s/he did not get anything like a real airport TSA demo.

Section 107

Well, technically, this was only about the dogs and not the TSOs - so only the dogs were let out and there were no TSOs in attendance and therefore no-one demanding respect for mah Aw-thori-tay and do the taking, swabbing, groping, interrogating, and searching (because canine teams only alert - other folks must do all those fun things).

There is video of the hearing with the link above - the demonstrations are near the end.

United_727

This past Sunday,while in line to be screened @ FLL T1, there was a man wearing a DHS jacket. He had an older black Lab sniffing everyone as they filed by . I have never seen that before.

petaluma1

You know, I could understand this use of dogs if explosives were being found but in its 15 years of existence, TSA has never found a person carrying explosives (although they have missed at least one).

I also thought they were using the dogs to allow people otherwise not entitled into PreCheck lanes.

Tell me again why the are doing this?

WillCAD

They're doing it as another layer of checking, because the TSOs who take swabs and operate the ETD machines have no concept of cross-contamination and often generate false positives through improper use, care, and maintenance of the machines, improper use and storage of the swabs and wands, and improper collection procedures. Dogs suffer far less from those human incompetencies, and while dogs are only as reliable as their training and their handlers, I trust the dogs a little more than I trust the ETD machines.

chollie

Neffenger's probably got a buddy somewhere who runs a business training dogs, a buddy willing to provide TSA with service at an inflated-just-for-the-taxpayers price.

Toss in a contract to eliminate WMD and replace with new AITs and Neffenger's got his retirement package in place.