The problem is that the vast majority of the time the test is a false positive.

Hand lotions can set the thing off.

I disagree with your idea that the TSA needs to preform as thorough of an examination as they can. Soon we will be hearing that cavity searches will be necessary to make sure there are no explosives. Hell they are already requiring you to strip. There really isn't much further they can go.

We are all going to die at some point in someway. I would rather live with liberty than in a perpetual state of fear. I am sorry you don't feel the same way.

We've set off two false positives over the last several years, the first of which was almost surely due to hand lotion, since the results were from the roll-aboard handle and Mrs. Fredd had used lotion on her hands as a result of being in a dry climate.

The thought that this result, due to the understandable crudeness of the TSA tests, will lead to a strip-search is repugnant. :td:

Of the alarms generated by your swab and test process, how many of these were due to explosives on or about the person being tested? How many of these alarms were false alarms in that the person had no such explosives on them? What is the ratio?

If you have a test that yields a false alarm 99.999999999999...% of the time that it does alarm, (so far the percentage is 100% false is it not?) then that test fails the "reasonable cause" test justifying further intrusive searches of the passenger.

Of the passengers tested and setting off the alarm since this started, 100% of them were not carrying explosives. Your test in fact does not test for explosives. It tests for elements that are commonly used by persons and that are also ingredients of explosives. This is the essence of an unreasonable test, where you can get your genitals grabbed because you garden or golf, and in fact, in so far 100% of the time that is exactly the cause. Sorry, but your test SUCKS, and why should passengers pay the penalty for you folks being unable to construct a proper test?

And I would like to say that TSA should not be so d*mned worried about CYA issues that it routinely subjects passengers to genital and breast squeezes due to a test that yields such a ridiculously high percentage of bad results. 100 percent bad results.

^ Large bureaucracies, like politicians, spend a lot of their collective time "worrying" about just such issues.

The citizens have to send a message to their elected representatives that the out-of-an-abundance-of-caution procedures have finally gone over the line.

I would say that while it is a terrible tragedy that the terrorists once again struck at America, I am not willing to give up my constitutional and civil rights in a vain attempt to produce 100% security.

I will continue to live my American life the way I see fit.

If the terrorists want to fundamentally change America, they can do it themselves. I am not going to help them by calling for my rights and the rights of everyone else to be curtailed.

Is that clear enough for you?

I agree.. that TSA searches have gone too far..

TSA needs to reevaluate and implement reasonable security measures..

Most of the time the positive set off is nothing more than an allowable items setting the metal detector off..

I'm not privvy to all of the classified TSA results to which others refer so am presuming that when there is an alert for explosives it's not always a false positive.

Remember, if your clothing alerts because you just walked through a construction zone where there is blasting going on, that's not a false positive. There actually is trace explosive on your clothing, there is simply a benign explanation.

I don't like that definition of "false positive" for this reason: the test does not correlate with the reason for the screening. I agree that the test may indicate traces of explosives, but the screening is not done to find harmless traces. It is done to find something that is a hazard to aviation. If the test indicates a hazard to aviation when none exists, the test resulted in a false positive.

TSA might not like my definition because nearly all their tests have a massive number of false positives:

* every time an "anomaly" in a NoS results in a secondary and WEI is not found, the NoS had a false positive,

* every time a WTMD alerts and no WEI is found, the test resulted in a false positive.

We know the number of true positives because the TSA trumpets the number of weapons and the like that are found. We do not know the number of false positives. From observation of the number of "anomalies" that must be resolved, my estimate is that the ratio of false positives to true positives must be at least 1000 to 1, and may be orders of magnitude higher.

In any other profession, that ratio would indicated abject failure. It should for the TSA as well.

I am just waiting for the day when an elderly person, a handicapped or a child, will get so upset/angry over the diaper search thing.

That they will take it out and trow it at the TSO. And what can TSO then do? Probably nothing cause they (TSO) are playing with fire.

Just my little thought .

There are similarities between what I do and what the TSA does. If my job required 1000 anomalies before I had true indication of a problem, I would lose interest very quickly. Not only that, we do not know how many tests are needed to generate an anomaly. I becomes incredibly tedious work. The odds become so long that many TSA workers may rarely see a true WEI anomaly, much less a true positive.

That may be why they create tasks and findings that create "anomalies" outside of the WEI classification, just so that they can find something and keep people interested in looking. Wads of cash, half bottles of water, 9V batteries, stacks of paper, improper ID such as NEXUS, shoes off and in bins or out, clean out pockets, belts off , and Kippie bags all tend to create interest in finding "something" to report and make passengers comply just so that they can feel useful. It may do little to improve security.

Yeah.. TSA went through our diaper bag in Hawaii..

Well, we were given an option to open a jar for a test or do a thorough search.. so we chose to have a jar opened for swabbing..

Some traveling paper clerk gets caught with 55K US $, and
TSA broadcasts it to the world as a great catch. And you want us to believe TSA wouldn't do the same if they actually caught a bomber? Sorry, this is simply not to be believed.

The same applies if I garden or golf, or use certain commonly available body cleansers. Or who knows what other common, harmless activities.

I really don't care that the device picks up elements that are also used in explosives. I care that I am doing nothing wrong and bam, you pull me in and massage my genital area. Fix the d*mn problem. It is a false positive if you flag all these people for a genital grope and UNIVERSALLY they have no explosives on them nor have they handled explosives. Don't make US pay for YOUR abysmally poor test tools, TSA.

Diaper BAG is not = Diaper!

You mean a dirty diaper bag or a clean one?

I do know that both exist.

Diaper is in the diaper bag..

in fact everything including diaper is in the diaper bag