What was security doing?
 

Last week flying out of Seattle, the security agent asked to check my briefcase. But she didn't really "check" anything. Instead she just opened the briefcase, took something that looked like a coffee filter, waved it over some papers, then stuck the filter in some sort of machine. Gave me back the briefcase and said "Fine, thank you". Does anyone know what was happening?

Bruce

I believe this is designed to pick up residue or the "signature" of explosives, if they have been handled recently by the carrier of the item.

The thing the were using was a "bomb sniffer." It detects trace amounts of bomb making devices such as nitrates, fuel oil, etc. All the fun stuff you might use to bring down an airliner.

I do not know the criteria for them swabbing bags though as I carry the exact same bag with same contents when I travel (some times I get the swabb, others I don't).

If I were to guess it would be the idea of random searches (but what happens if six guys all in a row are carrying bombs in their briefcases for the same flight?????). Proof again our security systems is broke.

Anyone ever had these things read a positive on their stuff, or seen it happen to someone else?

I'm really curious to see what would happen, and how often it happens -- whether they're some big flashing red light and a presumption of guilt, or whether it's just a close inspection of your stuff. I imagine there are folks who work with compounds similar to those in plastic explosives, whose luggage carries the matching "signatures."

Some links to look at:

http://www.business2.com/articles/ma...,17513,FF.html (basics of ion mobility spectrometry)

http://www.nashintl.com/k9.html (dogs can sniff for bombs too)

http://www.sandia.gov/LabNews/LN08-1...fer_story.html (portable electronic sniffing dog)

From : Business 2.0

Called ion mobility spectrometry (IMS), the technology takes advantage of the unique electrical properties of explosive substances and drugs. The molecules in both are especially eager to ionize, or become electrically charged.

Guess where this one is heading....

I had a 'Positive' some months ago at ORD.

The guy asked me if I was on heart meds. (nitroglycerene?) - I said no, they ran another check and said everything was fine.

Perhaps the machine reports false positives sometimes.

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I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous

My bags were "swabbed" once at TXL (Berlin) and the LH security staff quickly hurried me and my stuff to a side area where I was subjected to a more thorough search and my bags were passed through a larger and more ominous x-ray machine (but never opened).

I'm not sure what the swab detected, but after this procedure was allowed to continue into the boarding area. Strange...

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"What do you mean you didn't get miles for that?!"

I had two positives last year on the same bag. Both times they reswabbed and sent me on my way; no in depth search, no further security screening. I asked the second time why I seemed to be showing up positive, and the guard said that it was the type of leather in my bag. Sounded pretty dubious to me.

It didn't build my faith in the tests or the testers either.

The larger X-ray machine was probably a CT (computerized tomography) scan. It's a 3-D scan like a CAT scan they give humans; it allows them to see with more clarity exactly what is inside of your bags, and especially inside of electronics.

These also have a tendency to be a lot more detrimental to film than the regular X-ray machines, so if you're a real film buff and this happens, you should probably request to take your film out first.

d

I had my old, leather-covered briefcase swabbed several times in DEN and ALB. Once or twice they re-swabbed it without telling me that it tested positive or anything. Only had it swabbed once since 9/11 and the procedure was no differnt then before 9/11. It wasn't swabbed twice this last time around so I don't know if a positive would have caused a different, post-9/11 reaction.

have been swabbed many times. never got anything other than a wave thru. wife had a very thorough search of her carry on at lhr terminal 4 in oct. everything out swabs, the bag run thru the xray again, on and on. i asked if there were any questions that we could answer that might help. they finally said that it was a random search. we had enough time for me to have 3 jw blacks @ the ba club be fore getting on lhr-cpt in coach. narrowly escaped a divorce. ba isn't very comfy in y.

A friend of mine had a positive test on her laptop case. They told her they found a material used in bombs, or found in hospitals. She of course worked in a hospital. They took down all her info and off she went.

Yep, a friend of mine who works in a lab with nitrates recently got a false positive while going to a conference. He showed them the scholastic papers, and pointed out that nitrates was a part of his research, and the supervisor let him through.

I've had my laptop swabbed dozens of times and never had a positive reading. (Keeping fingers crossed.)

In my technical support days, we had a woman call in complaining that our laptop was made of something improper, and it always set off the bomb sniffer at CLT (I think she was a FA for US). Never having seen the sniffer we didn't know what she meant. Eventually, it was found that her boyfriend (or hubby) was also a user of the system, and he took it to work with him .... he was in excavation ... with blasting....