Distracting baloney! ;)

Increasingly on these fishing expeditions and dog and pony shows, the DHS employees acting the part of international departure control for even cash searches have something over their uniform as part of the dressed to intimidate posturing.

What kind of airside seizure of cash are you worried about being at risk of armed seizure by someone besides government employees themselves? Whose going to do that, the vast number of people DHS employees have failed to screen properly and are going to get into an airside firefight on the likes of MIA-EZE and ORD-AMS flights? Government paranoia and attempted intimidation show on demonstration is what this is about.

I haven't seen anything that I would remotely call a SWAT team in the departure area of a US airport, but several times in Honolulu awaiting flights to Japan I have seen what were (according to their subdued uniform patches) Contraband Enforcement Teams (CETS).

They seemed to only be interested in the Japanese tourists, and roved around asking questions. IIRC, these were typically flights to KIX but there may have been a NRT flight involved a time or two. I thought it was odd since there are no casinos in Honolulu so it was unlikely that Japanese tourists returning to Japan would have large amounts of cash.

Of course they could have been looking for forms of contraband such as Hawaii's other cash crop, but from the questioning that I could overhear it didn't seem like it.

Damn it! Why can't I ever have enough cash on me to warrant being harassed by CBP about how much cash I am carrying!

Not saying that this justifies the approach, but they do catch one every now and then...

http://cicentre.com/spycase/ecoesp/JIN_Hanjuan.html

I know this is [OT], but I seriously wonder how many of such cases they do not catch :eek:

I'd suspect that the overwhelming majority are missed when it comes to the governmental war on money.

Well with the "global economic crisis" that $10k harrassment threshold is now probably $1,000 cash ;)

Sort of like when I was working in the Navy with explosives, and when a certain piece of machinery needed periodic maintenance that could only be done by the guys from the Machine Shop, we had to thoroughly decontaminate the machine of any explosives, get that clean status verified and approved by the Safety Department, and then the Machine Shop would always send a three man "team" to do a job that not just only needed one man but the machine was so small that no more than one man could get at the job at a time. And of course, all three of those Machine Shop guys were getting Hazardous Duty pay bonus for working in an explosives area, despite the fact that there could not be any explosives around the area they were in and had to be certified as cleaned of any.

I was a chemist, and as we were not wage grade, we did not get a hazardous duty bonus to our pay as it was a normal condition of our employment. (Yes, I was a genuine "rocket scientist" at the time--missles [from Smokey Sam to Trident], mines, torpedoes, artillery ammo (from then developmental 25mm LOVA to 16-inch single-base manufactured in WWII), etc.)

Steve

Unless they were on overtime, they were not getting any extra money. CBP determines which positions warrant which version of the uniform. Airfield teams generally wear the BDU style uniform. In most airport environment positions like passenger processing you will not see that BDU style uniform.

I hear that!

Why not? Giving a friendly appearance is something LEOs should really try more often. One could at least allow them to remove the body armor if they're working in the sterile area for hours.

Unless they've changed armor, wearing it under a shirt would seem silly: http://www.cbp.gov/custoday/dec2000/armor.htm

Why doesn't DHS give TSA screeners body armor? At least they come into regular contact with other people's firearms.

Hopefully that's true. Apparently a lot of police departments give officers extra pay for dangerous duty (i.e. SWAT operations), and in those jurisdictions one finds that surprisingly many warrants have to be exercised as "no-knock" paramilitary operations.

For the most part, a CBP officer's uniform choice is determined by CBP HQ and the local CBP admiinistration. At one time, and I haven't seen any recent information, CBP officers in the marine environment were allowed to wear shorts and deck shoes.

CBP officers at LAX who work in the passenger environment, mainly arrivals, wear a modified version of what is classified as the dress uniform. They are not allowed to wear BDUs.

As for the aforementioned use of "over the clothing" body armor, some ports do have a number on hand for certain circumstances. I don't understand why all the officers wear their "under the clothing" body armor.

Because you can't see they're wearing it. It's under their shirts. Besides, the sterile area is never really sterile. For the same reason that CBP Officers carry firearms in it, they need to have vests.

That is the vest issued to Special Agents. If you do a Google Image Search for "concealable body armor", you'll see examples similar to what CBP Officers are issued. It's generally the same as a uniformed police officer in the United States wears. (Except in some places like Chicago, where street cops wear vests on top of their uniforms.)

So if I happen to have $10,001 in cash, and I dutifully report it to CBP, are they going to confiscate it to pay my student loans, back taxes, child support, etc.?

I've never heard of that happening, no.