Medical Implants and the TSA
 

http://www.woai.com/news/local/story...SQ.cspx?rss=68

I am not believing this and I will bet the TSA has already located the video and the screening did not happen the way this man says.

Of course they will. If TSA's in the right, the video will magically appear within a few hours. If they're wrong, it'll never see the light of day.

a-yup. gotta protect the privacy rights of the tso dontchanknow

wow
 

There is no way that a wtmd could cause that.

Really? Are you a EE with medical design experience? The jury is still out on this as far as I am concerned.

All he has for proof is anecdotal. He could have been in soo much pain that he forgot to charge the battery. The side of his story about being told to ask for a handwanding is even more suspect. That wand has higher field strength than the WTMD.

Are the frequencies the same for the WTMD and the hand wand? Some devices only respond to a relatively narrow band of frequencies.

Nope they are different. HHMD is really broad spectrum.

I don't know about the screening process, but the WTMD doesn't cause batteries to discharge AFAIK. The description sounds like a device called a spinal cord stimulator -- it's basically an internal T.E.N.S. unit. It's sensitive to strong electromagnetic interference, as from a defibrillator or therapeutic ultrasound -- but I don't think the energy from a WMDT is comparable to defibrillators. They can set off WMDT's, though.

Regardless, why didn't they just hand screen him?

~~ Irish

Because the screeners decided not to.:td:

He was hand screened, and no one argued with him. Part of this happened at SAT. There is video, it has been reviewed. I'm am sure he lied about the other airport too.

Was he screened by WTMD before being hand screened?

No. And no one argued with him. Maybe he didn't know he was being recorded, or who knows why people do what they do?

I'll take you at your word.

Do you see a problem with the public believing anything that indicates TSA wrongdoing?

Why do you think that is?

No I don't see a problem; people often believe the worst, and people have a general distrust of government.

But thanks for taking my word. There is actually more to the story, but I can't really say more. Maybe later. All I can say (and still might get I trouble for saying even this, as this is an ongoing event) the video refutes this mans story, he was screened by hand, no electronic equipment, and no TSO argued about it with him. And I seriously doubt the video will be released. I know of another recent "event" at SAT that made the local news, but quickly died when the police and the pax lawyer saw the video; and that video was never released...

It does indicate that while many people, and in some cases rightfully so, say TSA and gov't has a kneejerk reaction to things, so do many people in the public who give an instant reaction that is negative to TSA before all the facts have come out. A prime example of that is the incident a month or 2 ago where the passenger claimed that her child was taken away from her. The instant reaction was negative, even before there was any response. Now, whether or not the video of this will be released, who knows. Not my pay grade to make that call, but there are 2 sides to every story. And this guy's story, at least to me, doesn't add up.

PS: I do not work at this airport so I don't have first-hand knowledge of the incident like SATTSO does, I'm just going off of what I read in the article.

You should not get into trouble for telling the truth. There is no way the fact airports have cameras can be SSI. Of course I never would have thought the fact that STSOs are not supposed to allow TSOs to play with weapons or explosives when discovered would be SSI either.

Now might be a good time for a vacation. May I suggest Oklahoma, nobody wants to go to Oklahoma so it would be the perfect place to hide.

Awww TK did you have to go and piss off a whole state?

Better place to hide, Barstow CA. There's the land that God forgot about.

Have you ever been to Oklahoma? If not you did not miss anything.

I have Diplomatic Immunity to trash the state, I was born there. Yep I am an Okie from Muskogee.

Yup, driven across 40 thru OKC and then up 44 into MO. And also down through OKC heading for Texas.

And you saw nothing, right?

Rolling green fields and cowpies...

Yep.

I think there is a problem and it is a rather large problem.

The public believes anything negative about TSA because enough events have shown TSA to be overstepping its charter. These problems are caused by poorly trained or poorly managed (or both) employees. My personal bet would be squarely on management.

Until your agency regains control these problems will continue happening and the snowball will just keep getting bigger.

If order is not restored the agency will eventually collapse under its on weight.

I tend to disagree with what your saying. The public believes anything it sees on tv or reads in the paper. National enquirer, anyone?

Take just about any agency, any organization, any company, or any individual, publish a negative story about them, and people eat it up.

It's interesting, the other "event" I referenced made the local news, but when it came out that the pax was not honest, no news story about that. I doubtthere will be a news story about this dishonest pax. As far as the "public" will know, some bad things happened at SAT. Negativity sells, it always has, always will. Heck, reporters consider feel good stories to not be real news; we want to see peolpe bleed. I do and do not blame the media, they have to make money too, and make no mistake, the media is there just to make money like any other corporation. When all that is published is negativity, how far does that go to influence people. Yet at the same time, that is published because that is what people want to read.

Some of what you say is correct but TSA has crossed a line that will not go away. This isn't about this one story. It is a much larger problem.

To me it's like a person with substance abuse issues, until they get to the point of admitting their problem no corrective action can be taken.

TSA has a problem but refuses to acknowledge that corrective action is required.

I just hate to see where rock bottom will take us.

I wonder if any of the TSA screeners have ever heard of Bastille Day and why it is celebrated on 14 July? Or is asking them to learn history further back than this morning's briefing too much to ask?

I'm not saying TSA doesn't have a problem, or even severe problems. I jus simply belied that even if TSA fixed it's problems to some extent (nothing can be perfect, there will always be problems) TSA will still have a very negative image in the publics eye and the public will always tend to believe the negative stories. That part of humanity can not be fixed.

Rock Bottom is going to be when another plane falls from the sky.

That is bound to happen regardless. No perfect security exist.

So the public should let small little items like the TSA hiring convicted felons (background checks were not done in spite of the press releases to the contrary) as screeners and then keeping them employed to fill staffing requirements as a forgivable item?

How did the TSA handle that little inconvenient information? Out of curiosity what other agency within the Department of Justice, Treasury (and then Homeland Security) had so many felons hired as percent of workforce?

Opening ceremonies of the first Bastille Day was not perfect either.

Now this is really where I disagree with you.

TSA could have a GREAT IMAGE if they did what the charter calls for, treated people with respect and presented itself as a benefit to travel instead of a hinderance.

I kinda of thought that was what the Engage Program was all about but that seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

I'm not suggesting that the problems can be fixed overnight, not even this year, but action must be taken to change direction.

Rock bottom already happened with the fake drugs in a baggie "joke" over at Philadelphia. Daddy is a lawyer. We haven't seen the end of that by a long shot.

But the temptation to build a fully functional guillotine over at TSA HQ is at times overwhelming.

TSA will always have a bad image. I've seen too many vindictive pax.

That sounds like the TSA isn't interested in cleaning up its public image. Why can't the TSA be magnanimous and make the changes despite potential negative stories?

This past week was a perfect example. Instead of digging in his heels, Blogger Bob went on the offensive over the article about Mikey the Cub Scout. If he had simply said the TSA was reaching out to Mikey's mother to fix the situation, PV would have been filled with people saying, "Wow. Great to hear, Bob. Keep up the good work." Instead, Bob is getting his just desserts.

Diffusing a potential PR nightmare is just not that difficult.

For much the same reason the police close ranks when one of theirs is busted.

I noticed none of the TSA screeners here appear to know what Bastille Day is (or why).

Sure, it can be fixed. It requires, though, that the agency with the problems (in this case, TSA) do two things: fix the problem, and then aggressively go out and build a positive image.

It happens all the time with other industries. People have no problem buying Tylenol pain killers, Firestone tires, and airline tickets on AirTran ... even though each of those companies had, at one time, a huge public relations nightmare on their hands. But each of those companies quit blaming other people for their problems, fixed their problems, and then got out front and started building trust with the public once again.

TSA could do the same.

Do you honestly believe that everyone who posts the body slams against TSA woke up one morning and decided to hate everything and everyone associated with your despicable agency? I sure didn't. TSA worked hard for me to feel about it the way I do now.

So what is your despicable agency doing to fix the PR nightmare it created for itself? Listening (and I do mean listening) to valid complaints and fixing those complaint items? Sadly, no. From the outside it looks as though TSA operates only in damage control mode (cue in klaxon) while rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Has it fixed any of the complaints passengers have had? Perhaps the issue with most of the barkers was taken care of but it was replaced by several other, still more obnoxious additions to the SOP.