This statistic is often quoted here, but never linked that I have seen. Could someone please show me where this data is coming from? I would appreciate it. ^

You ask for research to be done, but yet almost always you refuse when asked the same.

Well, here is one quick example.

Now, will you answer the question of whether you will allow a cup of solid ice through your checkpoint without ETD?

ETD- Elective Tongue Detection?

"Sir, I need to test that pie for explosives..."

Lol the SAT and LSAT are not the same as the GAO so-called "test", the red team test, nor the ASI test. But specifically speaking of the GAO test, you assume those people had any idea what they were doing, and after reading the report, it should become clear they didn't. talking to the BAOs who work at SAT they, with their DECADES of experience working with IEDs, have absolutely no idea what a "low-yield detonator" is. In fact, once this report was published the BAOs around the country tried to figure out what these non-experts in IEDs did.

Just to bring simulant explosives onto an airport - simulant as in how it appears on the x-Ray, nothing that goes "pop" - takes weeks and weeks of paper work. TSA BAOs can not even bring in real explosives into the airport. If what the GAO testers used was not simulant, and it wasn't, whY exactly did they use? Putting something together and calling it an IED just because you want it to represent one, does not make it appear so on the x-Ray.

I feel old now. "Less than 1750 on the SAT?" You mean the highest you can get is no longer 1600?

(and I got a 160 LSAT. Barely qualify there. whew. )

According the this link canine unit managed to lose a pound of C4 at an airport. Sounds like they play around with the real thing. Misplacing a clipboard is one thing, but having a pound of C4 go missing is a bit much.

The NEW SAT is based on 2,400. New writing/essay section. As of 2005 or something.

Read the GAO report. It's been linked here several times. I'm not going to do your work for you.

Kipipe also justified the failures in testimony to Congress saying "these tests are hard." :rollover:

That wasn't TSA, but local law enforcement, as I understand. And even if it seems like splitting hairs to you and I, different rules apply.

Not to mention the fact that these GAO agents were not dealing with mitary grade explosives, but what they could get at a local store. I am not sure, can't remember if the report stated if these agents were LEOs or not?

But what local law enforcement can and can not do - and who knows how much paper work was required for them to bring c4 into an airport? - does not apply to federal agencies, I would doubt. Specifically because that local agency deals exclusively with IEDs and the GAO does not.

Yes, these test are hard when they are not accurate. I have what I believe is a legitimate question after I talked to our BAOs: did the IEDs they built represent real IEDs? That they claimed to have a "low-yield detonator" suggest that it does not.

Come on. TSA does that all the time by claiming things are IEDs when they're just innocuous devices that don't have anything like that in it. You know, like that homemade extended battery? If TSA can find stuff like that, why can't it find test IEDs? We know screeners have good imaginations.

It also wonders why TSA isn't spending more money on x-rays and nistead spending its money on nude-o-scopes, uniforms, and tin badges.

So are terrorist going to use military grade explosives or magic tang explosives?

I would try to make something that look like anything but a weapon if I was in that business.

Quite possible that TSA didn't hire the experts it thought it did too. I addressed the other issues in a previous post.

At any rate, TSA prides itself on adapting to an ever changing enemy. If TSA can't adapt even to GAO tests, how can it adapt to a real terrorist?

You can't sit there and tell me failure is OK because it's hard. In the real world, it's going to be hard. That is, unless Kippie was right in saying that they're only looking for dumb terrorists who'd use a Wyle. E. Coyote type of bomb. If a bomb goes off and it wasn't detected by TSA, the excuse "well, they hid it well and it didn't look like a bomb. It was hard to detect" isn't going to cut it.

Most of their efforts have been a mix so far, but what I am saying is this: did the GAO agents use actual explosives, or something they designated as an "explosive", and say to themselves, "now that we are calling this [insert what they used] an explosive, it is an explosive and TSA should be able to catch it, even if it doesn't look like one on the x-ray".

Because what the GAO used is not what terrorist would use. It has nothing to do with adapting, has to do realism. Again, what is a "low-yield detonator"? According to out BAOs no such thing exist. So what exactly did the GAO agents use to represent their "IED"? Is it a resemblance of an IED because they said it is? I don believe so.