Phil, this is one of the more idiotic statements I have seen you post. You fail to mention the billions spent by the auto industry for safety reasons, which have directly resulted in less auto deaths over time. Almost all parts of a vehicle are built with safety in mind, not including safety devices such as airbags and seat belts. The amount of money companies spend in R&D for purely safety reasons is staggering.

It is obvious your an intelligent person, so to leave out the money the auto industry spends yearly - in part because of federal and state regulation (think, in part, the NHTSA)- is not honest of you.

Can one be sure that one object is the source of an alarm?

What if the object to be screnned and is on the genitals and/or breasts?

You say that the pax can offer to remove clothes to clear the object.

But how does work with what several TSO's has said that it cant be done. Since they are not allowed and/or want to see those area's without clothes.

Either a pax can be allowed to remove clothes or they cant. You cant have it both ways, or different rules at different airports and different TSO's.

Things such as piercing almost never set off the WTMD. They would ALWAYS alarm the HHMD. I wish people understood this better.

I can not tell you how many men I have screened because they assumed their piercings would alarm the WTMD, so they did not remove all other metallic items from their body. When I have the time, and I encounter this, I ask the passenger after I finish screening them if they would like to go through the WTMD again, to ensure that their piercings do not alarm. Most do, and are surprised at the results (reason being, is until I screen them I do not know why they alarm - I find the keys, coins, etc.). If I am at the WTMD and they tell me they have body piercings, I can then usually prevent an alarm.

The clothing should not be removed. No TSA employee should ask you to remove clothing over genitalia, buttocks, breast.

So it is not both ways.

Good enough, how about a WBI? Can the TSA employee clear something like this without additional physical contact?

I'm just trying to establish whether TSA believes that a strip search, even a partial strip search, is consistent with the administrative search that it is authorized to perform. I can't imagine who a strip search without probable cause is, in any way, compatible with the Fourth Amendment.

I was using the word in quotes and was clear that I meant it in relation to the SSI issue. As was said here quite a number of times, there's no place I can go to get a full set of the "rules" I must meet a checkpoint and be assured that if I follow each of them, both my person and my items will be permitted past the checkpoint.

No, but it's also not the way I read what you posted. You said somebody could be denied if "you" can't clear them. Apparently, you meant that in the sense not of there not being a procedure, but of the passenger not willing to comply with the procedure. But in that case, the "cavity search" potential is still on the table: what is the limit to what a passenger can and can't be required to do and where can a passenger find out what the limit is?

No, because of other possible cases. I realize, however, that you may not be able to address these in detail due to SSI, but I hope that you can speak in generalities. Let's suppose you have a disabled person who has either liquids or equipment needed to travel. In such a case, denying the item is the same as denying the passenger because they can't safely travel without it. But let's say that an ETD test produces a positive result. A positive ETD result merely shows the presence of a trace of explosives, not explosives themselves. The latter is a threat to aviation, but the former is not and thus there is no legal justification in denying a person or object that merely contains traces of explosives.

Let's suppose the object is a liquid, packed in a sterile manner so opening the container is a threat to the person's health and thus cannot be legally required. The outside of the container swabs positive for ETD and let's say that there actually are traces of explosives on it (e.g., the person's houseguest works for military EOD, but the passenger doesn't know that because the guest's duties are classified). TSA can't prove the liquid is a threat to aviation and the passenger obviously can't prove a negative.

My understanding of the Constitution is that the object is required to be allowed. Will it be?

Most certainly can! But AIT is like x-ray. A newer person on x-ray will call more bag checks, and a newer employee on AIT calls for more pat downs. There is a learning curve, beyond the initial training. I have already seen improvement in the people I have worked with, including myself, in the time we and I used AIT.

Apologies in advance for a simple-minded question: May "administrative searchers" legally go directly into performing a "probable cause" search and perform it if they are non-LEOs? Are these the same rules if I'm passing through private security into, say, a stadium?

At what point may it be said they're looking for evidence of a crime, i.e. attempting to carry something forbidden by law on a plane?

I guess we now have to get into a definition of what a "partial strip search" is. Let's assume SATTSO stated things correctly when he said that "clothing over genitalia, buttocks, breast" will never be asked to be removed, but other clothing might or might be required to be lifted (e.g., the bottom of a shirt). Does that constitute a "partial strip search" to you?

Can you clarify what "over" means? Do you mean the only clothing covering those areas or one of the layers covering those areas? The latter can't be the case because sweaters are "over" the breast, but must be removed. But if it's just the former that's prohibited, then the women who was asked to remove a blouse and lower pants was correctly asked to do so because those aren't the innermost layers.

No, TSA does not believe that.

I think that technically the way it works is that the search is merely to determine if something forbidden is present, not to establish a crime. However, once that object is found and an LEO is called, that item is in "plain sight" for the LEO, who then sees clear evidence of a crime being committed and can proceed on that basis.

We CAN NOT look for evidence of a crime. I am NOT a lawyer, but I do know this. The SECOND we suspect a crime, we MUST stop the search and contact a LEO. This is true for a bag search, for what we see on x-ray, for a pat down.

Cases have been thrown out of court for TSO's violating this, and looking for evidence of a crime.