TSA terrorizes the homeless!
#47
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Colorado
Programs: TSA
Posts: 2,745
No offense, but this is one of the most contradictory policies I've ever heard. In a nutshell, you're saying that liquids are not hazmat/explosive/dangerous at the checkpoint, but they *could* be if they got onboard an aircraft....and the determining factor is the cost of disposal?
Either they are, or they're not - they can't be treated two different ways based on where they're located in the terminal. If your agency is confiscating them as potentially dangerous and hazardous material, they should be treated as such and disposed of appropriately.
The whole "binary liquids" theory is bogus anyway outside controlled lab conditions, as many scientists and industry professionals have already demonstrated.
Either they are, or they're not - they can't be treated two different ways based on where they're located in the terminal. If your agency is confiscating them as potentially dangerous and hazardous material, they should be treated as such and disposed of appropriately.
The whole "binary liquids" theory is bogus anyway outside controlled lab conditions, as many scientists and industry professionals have already demonstrated.
#48
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#49
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Colorado
Programs: TSA
Posts: 2,745
You contradict yourself in your own words. In one sentence, you state that it is people here screaming that the TSA treat liquids as hazmat. In the other, you plainly state that the TSA's reason for the liquid carnival is since anything over 3.4 liquid oz could be used as a component in a binary EXPLOSIVE - in discussions with several highly-qualified Hazmat Technicians, I have learned there are not very many chemical compounds that are part of a binary explosives recipe that are not themselves HAZMAT components regardless of size of item..
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Your hazmat training must have been significantly different than the National Fire Academy approved Operator level (first responder...the actual Hazmat techs are trained at least to Technician level) course that I went through as part of my required training at my volunteer department. That course, which is supposed to train first responders to recognize potential hazards and their initial mitigations, maintains that if I have the remotest thought in my head that the material(s) in question may be Hazmat, I am to initiate a Hazmat response. Call the cavalry, request all the manpower and specially-trained personnel and allow them to PROPERLY and SAFELY identify the component and the APPROPRIATELY dispose of it..
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The liquid carnival is not a deterrent. As others have mentioned, there is nothing in this asinine policy to prevent several people from carrying upwards of 20 oz of fluid, EACH, into the sterile area and recombining them prior to boarding an aircraft...absolutely NOTHING, zip, zero, NADA. Don't give me the standard BS of the Explosives Detectors catching it...the only time the TSA uses the damn thing is when the X-Ray tech detects an "anomaly" in their routine scans. Given the number of times they haven't said a damn thing when I have forgotten to remove my INHALER from my bag...needless to say, I still profess this is an asinine, WORTHLESS carnival that is a total mockery of even the SHADOW of security.
#50
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Colorado
Programs: TSA
Posts: 2,745
ALL right all the experts on this issue weighed in on TATP and HMTD Those are the two that are mentioned the most by the drive by media! I concur that these two explosives cannot be assembled by the person that wants to take them on the plane at the time that the person is the in airport. Plus they are not a true liquid binary, they are a chrystaline precipitate. So as far as those two are concerned, it cannot happen. The one that we went out into the tooley bushes and blew a plane fuselage, overheads and seats to pieces with was not either of these.
#51
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 10,034
The key to what you say is that you learned that there arent many of these, but there are some. It is the people on this board that keep saying that TSA should treat them as a haz mat if they are going to not allow them on the airplane. To this I say that it is not practical and not required by law.
Seriously, and I'm not trying to pick on you or anyone other TSAer, but it either goes "kaboom" or it doesn't. You know as well as anyone that manpower and resources are dwindling everywhere with the TSA. So why does other TSA outlets go through the time and resources to train folks to handle this?
#52
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And, no offense, it's "Tule" not tooley, and crystaline, not chrystaline.
Last edited by birdstrike; May 15, 2007 at 11:22 pm
#53
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Colorado
Programs: TSA
Posts: 2,745
Hang on a sec here. Maybe we're dipping into semantics, but why does SAT TSA go through all the HAZMAT trouble, whereas DEN treats it like a waffle cone?
Seriously, and I'm not trying to pick on you or anyone other TSAer, but it either goes "kaboom" or it doesn't. You know as well as anyone that manpower and resources are dwindling everywhere with the TSA. So why does other TSA outlets go through the time and resources to train folks to handle this?
Seriously, and I'm not trying to pick on you or anyone other TSAer, but it either goes "kaboom" or it doesn't. You know as well as anyone that manpower and resources are dwindling everywhere with the TSA. So why does other TSA outlets go through the time and resources to train folks to handle this?
#54




Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Houston
Posts: 8,957
And how can you be assured that the 20 oz. bottle that is labeled "water" is, in fact, not bleach and therefore should be treated as hazmat?
#55
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But wait, that means they only do that selectively. It's Aquafina when they say it is, and it's not when they say it isn't even though the label says it is.
#57
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...and isn't that a rather damaging signature for a poster on an Internet BBS that is available to millions of people around the world? Seems like it would be grounds for dismissal for any actual Federal employee. . .
#58
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Colorado
Programs: TSA
Posts: 2,745
The is the point that I have been trying to make. 20 OZ is not a quantity that needs to be dealt with as a haz mat regardless of what it is. (class 1 excluded)
#59
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Colorado
Programs: TSA
Posts: 2,745
That is your choice whether or not to believe me. I think that when you start to pick apart things like this, you are grasping for things. You got the point that I was making.
#60
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Colorado
Programs: TSA
Posts: 2,745
ARe you saying that I am not who I say that I am? IF that is the case, use PM to send me your email and I will email you out of my work account.

