I'd agree with you for the most part here. I'm on record for more efficient explosive technology and effective screening. Focus on the mission and stop the shoe and liquid carnivals. End these time wasters.

But I'm also a fan of looking for the wielder, not the weapon. There are lots of weapons. There are fewer wielders. My only question is - what is the best way to go about this? Who should do the looking? And how?

There are some TSOs who could do the job, I'm sure. Bart would get my vote, for sure.

Okay -- fair enough. "What harm could it do?" I happen to feel that the more they do the more our civil liberties are being eroded. It all starts off quietly and innocently enough, though, doesn't it.

Exactly!

What I was specifically thinking of when I said "what harm."

Which brings me back to what I stated at the beginning - it's a failure of implementation (who is doing the interviewing and maybe how) rather than of principle (we should not be interviewing at all).

I am assuming the ID check is an interview (however brief and cursory) as well, for the record. That's how I've always done ID checks in my professional life - as an opportunity to talk to someone and see what follows from there. 99% of the time nothing. But it's also nabbed me a child molester, several murderers and an unknown number of other violent criminals.

It's like sifting sand - most of it is sand, but every one in a while you find some gold.

Agreed.

Firstly, we should be primarily looking upstream of transport.

If you want to look at this hypothetically as an airport centric task, there should be a cadre of DHS employees hired for and charged with interacting with the PAX. They should be crossed trained as screeners so they can screening for cover, but their primary role should not be screening. I maintain that you can't do physical screening and anything else at the same time.

Bart seems to be doing his job out of love. I'm not sure that is a good idea either.

So, what is your wild guess as to how many agents are watching FlyerTalk? :cool:

Let me see if I can put this as plainly as possible. If I don't have a bomb/weapon and I have an airline ticket then I should be able to fly. We should not be turning airport security checkpoints into criminal activity screening areas.

I'd agree with this in principle, but I'm not sure the resources are there. I'm not on that end of things. I'm a little fish.

If he didn't love what he did or think it made a difference, if he was there only for the money, I would think that would be a worse thing.

What agents?

;)

I'd agree with this.

Although if someone had an active warrant for a violent crime I'd like them off the plane too.......

Sorry, tough to get enthused about airport police. In my metropolitan area, airport police are on about the same competency level as those assigned to prisoner processing. In other words, the dregs of the police force.

I prosecuted two prisoner processing officers in a bench trial on misdemeanor assault charges. A prisoner in their custody died after these two officers allegedly roughed him up when he was in the middle of what appeared to be an acute cocaine intoxication episode (highly elevated body temperature, profuse sweating, incoherence, rapid heart rate, death). The judge, a former assistant prosecuting attorney, who heard the case acquitted the two prisoner processing officers and noted that prisoner processing has been a pit and dumping ground for the lower rung for years.

The long and short of it is that many airport police are not the best and brightest. This sort of training may very well be lost on many, if not most, airport police.

Where do you draw the line? Airport security checkpoints are for the safety of air travel, not to catch criminals as they travel the country.

Once you give the checkpoints too much to do their effectiveness drops. I think we're seeing that now. Witness the terminal dumps of the last week or so to check for missed bottles of water. Those in charge feel they can't afford to miss anything. So, they keep giving the agents more and more to look for. They fail to realize that no security check is ever going to be 100% accurate.

There is, or should be, a world of difference between a LEO 'interviewing' (via an ID check) someone on the street and a revenue protection process at an airport checkpoint.

In the first case the officer has, presumably and certainly hopefully, some probable cause for the stop. Simply buying an airline ticket and turning up at the airport is probable cause for nothing at all. I have never spoken to any airport ID checker and never will; even when/if they are BDOs.

Want to know where I'm going ? Right there on the BP.
Want to know why ? Take a hike.

I've seen some good ones and some bad.

Just like every other place of employment on the planet Earth.

The cause for any LEO stop fluctuates, dependent on the rationale. No stop needs PC. Generally the most you need is reasonable suspicion, and that's for a forcible detention (the person can't leave). You need less suspicion to just talk to someone, etc.

Less, but not none at all. Unless waiting to board an airliner is deemed suspicious activity per se, it should not be subject to any kind of 'stop'.

Too late I fear.