Let's see now... Richard Colvin Reid a.k.a. Tariq Rajah a.k.a. Abdel Rahim, boarded AA Flight 63 in PARIS on December 22, 2001 with intent to spend that evening with a bunch of virgins in martyrhood heaven somehere, facilitated by detonating an explosive known as TATP, or triacetone triperoxide secreted in one of his shoes. The TATP would have been used to set alight more powerful explosives called PETN, which would have been powerful enough to blow a hole in the side of the plane and cause it to crash.

The discovery of TATP linked Reid to two Islamic fundamentalist groups who were linked to Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. FBI tests of the shoes discovered forensic evidence of hair and palm prints on/in the shoes that indicates Reid had help making the explosives.

A number of Reid's "associates" are loose in Europe somewhere... He had strong ties to suspected groups in the UK as well as Czech Republic and Holland. Some may have entered the US illegally via Canada or Mexico.

I guess those halcyon days of easy access from curb to airplane door are gone forever. I wouldn't blame the good guys, however... It's those scumbag terrorists that target innocents and babes-in-arms that are to blame! All-in-all, I'd rather that TSA detection gets a misread on an inert product than there is a pass through on a rightous explosive!

As someone in another thread said: Your address is

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC

Phone: 203.555.1212

I carry nothing that will give anyone my address; my luggage tags have an address other than my home. I can make up a phone number if asked for one.

This makes no sense at all to me. The OP wrote:
In other words, nothing at all about the scanning in itself, just a question about the personal information that was forced from him. Why wouldn't a PNR be enough??

Bart, thank you very much for taking the time to answer my question so thoroughly. Also, thanks to everyone else, too! Once again I am grateful to have FT as a source of information.

I feel better about the situation now. I'm also happy to know that in the future I should ask what they're going to do with the information instead of just handing it over.

As for the talking dog, Wally Bird, it asked me for your name, phone numbers, address, drivers license number...

Agreed. But once you realize that you have a misread, what is the point in asking for personal information from the owner of the baggage?

Bart,
Thank you again for your complete explanation. There is one detail, however, that is not entirely correct, and that relates to the notion that the ETD machines do not produce "false alarms".

Virtually no test is perfect. They will have some amount of false positives (test reports "hit" when none is there) and some amount of false negatives (test reports no hit, when it is there).

The published results for the ETD machines that I have read about put the false positive rate at around 0.2-0.5%. Thus, even if a blank was put in the machine, that percent of tests would be reported as a "hit".

There real problem comes in when there is an incredibly low percentage of true positives (explosives or components of explosives present). If the false positive rate is substantially higher than the true positive rate, then most of the alarms are due to false positives, which I suspect is the case with the ETD machines.

I hope that the TSA repeats the test before declaring it positive, as that would substantially reduce the number of false positives.

It sounds like TSA does handle these alarms reasonably, although you should realize that most of the PAX interviewed for these "positive" results are likely due to the inherent limitations (albeit small) in the technology. Test developers are always trying to reduce the false postive rate and increase the true positive rate.

There is no misinformation.

Possible yes, probable no! IF there was no actual explosive found then it is a non issue. You are being paranoid.

The TSA moved to exempt themselves from the privacy act in December of last year.

There's no way for the pax to confirm for himself that there is no misinformation if he's not allowed to review the report. And "possible yes, probable no" is exactly my point: it is possible that TSA will make a mistake and go after this guy for "trying to carry explosives onto plane," and he can't find out for sure unless he's allowed to review the report.

TSA has moved to exempt some aspects of itself from the PA (e.g., employee schedules and such, which makes some sense) but the whole agency can't exempt itself from the PA. TSA has in fact tried to exempt much of its passenger dossier system from the PA. Some of the reading in the exemption request is quite comical. It says things like (paraphrasing) "exempt information about passengers carrying prohibited items so that they cannot find out that they are being investigated or that they are going to be punished." It's a total attempt to circumvent due process by conducting secret investigations on innocent passengers and doling out punishments with no real means of recourse. Real law-enforcement agencies could never get away with hiding evidence from a defendant, and I hope these TSA antics get shot down with great disdain some day by a court of law.

But remember, TSA is not law enforcement. Without TSA, planes would be falling out of the sky right and left. TSA is only there to keep all sorts of awful things like weighted bookmarks, lighters, cuticle scissors, etc. off of planes. It is just luck that all of the missed steak knives, knives for cutting cakes, etc. have not resulted in a catastrophic loss of life.

Not to quibble, however, glycerin is glycerin, and when the ETD alarms on a bottle of skin lotion for nitro glycerin, it has accurately detected the glycerin component. It has not detected an explosive. That was my point. The layman erroneously calls these types of hits "false positives."

You are correct that there is a true error factor which will result in inexplicable alarms. In other words (and I'm exaggerating here for the purpose of illustration), an ETD alarms on a box of candy for C-4. Had it alarmed for nitro, that could easily be explained. But alarming for C-4 would be completely unusual. This could be a true false positive inwhich the machine truly failed to do what it was designed to do. These type of readings are rare. A vast majority (and I don't know the percentages but will accept yours) of ETD readings are quite accurate.

There is a protocol for factoring these truly false positive readings as well as latent readings from previous tests during the alarm resolution process. I cannot vouch for the attentiveness (or lack thereof) of all supervisors when resolving ETD alarms.

I'll finish this with an anecdote. A young mother travelling alone with her cute little baby girl came through the checkpoint and had to undergo secondary screening. The diaper bag she had alarmed for C-4 military explosives. The alarm was of such intensity that there was no way to dismiss it as anything but a definite "hit." Just to be on the safe side (and contrary to normal protocol), we retested the bag with a different ETD machine and got an even stronger hit for C-4. A physical inspection of the diaper bag did not reveal anything suspicious. It was what it appeared to be: just a diaper bag with diapers, cans of formula and the other things you normally find inside a diaper bag. When asked to produce her ID, she first pulled out her military identification that identified her as a spouse of a military member. I then asked her a couple more questions and was able to resolve the alarm quite easily.

Her husband was assigned to Ft. Sam Houston as an EOD technician. In other words, he was a bomb expert, and it would have been quite normal for C-4 residue to be detected on him or anything he touched. He had packed the diaper bag for her that morning.

Fair enough. Presumably, after satisfying yourself that there was no danger lurking in the diapers you allowed her and the baby to board their flight.

Question: Did you write down her personal details?

If so, I have to wonder what possible purpose this could serve. I'll tell you this: if it does turn out that (in addition to the diapers) she was carrying a bomb and blew up the airplane, I would hate to be the TSA supervisor who tells the nation that "We had our suspicions of her and took down all the details before letting take her bomb on board."

I can promise you that the consequences of refusing to give TSA your personal information and answer their questions would result in your missing that flight. You might well be subjected to a civil fine, and would wind up on the no-fly list. When I set off one ETD machine, I asked for a second test by another screener, using a second machine. The supervisor who accompanied the second screener wanted to know who I was (Driver's license) what I was doing in the city, what kind of work I did, etc. He told me that the form he filled out "goes over to the Marriott" (TSA local office) then is sent to Washington. Bet your boots there is a database, and I am on it, because the first machine was not calibrated properly. FOIA request will turn up nothing, because TSA operates without oversight.

We are required to account for each and every ETD alarm. This requires details, and personal information is part of that detail.

As for your last comment, I agree. It's a big responsibility either way: clearing an ETD alarm or denying someone entry into the aircraft because an alarm could not be resolved. We get second-guessed either way. It's the nature of the beast.

But as you know, there are plenty of other situations that require the same type of responsible judgments. Some folks can't stand the pressures that come with making those decisions, and there are others who feel quite confident in making them. Some of it is a matter of training; some of it is a matter of experience; I think it's an inherit trait: you either got it or you don't.

I realize there is nothing I can do to correct your paranoia. This suspicion you have is much larger than just TSA. Have fun with your conspiracy theories.

For violating what law? Refusing to provide personal information when asked? There was a recent Supreme Court decision which, as I recall, requires you to provide _identification_ to a LEO, if asked, but nothing more.

Out of petty vindication? Why does refusing to provide my social security number render me a threat to airline security?

I don't know whether I'd want to run the TSA-vengence-gauntlet, but I'd be pretty tempted.