YES you are suppose to give them a free pass, because IT'S NOT YOUR JOB to find drug couriers, illegal immigrants or other problem people who pose no threat to aviation security. YOU ARE NOT LAW ENFORCEMENT - remember that.

Your job is ONLY to ensure that people and luggage contents entering the sterile area of an airport, and thus flying on a COMMERCIAL airliner operating as a public carrier do not represent a threat to the safe operation of said airliner. Period. Case Closed. I fail to understand why so many TSA employees don't understand this.

There may be a federal law which requires federal employees to report illegal activity. Fine. However, the only application of that law should be the definitive discovery of illegal activity as part of a direct consensual search of their person or bags - not going on a behavioral analysis mission to determine if the person should be further searched to find their illegal activity unless, and ONLY unless, there is concern DIRECTLY related to aviation security.

Drug dealers, illegal immigrants, etc., are not threats to aviation security.

How about your organization and coworkers get your core mission test results up above a 20% pass before self-anointing yourselves the "FBI of the Airport" and getting involved in things which are not of your damn business.

Interesting, but according to TSA Dude, our highly trained expert BDO; There is no way to deduce intent without futher investigating why. Some people are just plain scared of flying, but those behaviors exhibited could be the same as the felons. In other words junk science, here we have a highly trained BDO who can't tell the difference between a nervous passenger and a real threat to airline safety.


My money is on the Read Team, given the high failure rate of checkpoints. Lets remember when Red Team tests occur they have to walk through the airport that are staffed with BDOs. I have no doubt there are statistics of Red Team tests of BDO's.

The sole function of TSA is to make aviation safer. Wanted felons and drug mules don't pose a threat to aviation.

You are not LEOs. Your job is not to apprehend criminals, but to prevent threats to aviation.

Already, you have made flying so unpleasant that many people avoid it. You continually trespass on constitutional rights, and harass millions of people every year without making any significant contribution to aviation safety.

Leave catching crooks to the professionals, i.e. trained law enforcement officers. Focus on your mission statement and, instead of wasting money on such unrelated endeavors as catching crooks (for which you are completely unqualified) and, instead, do things like screening all air cargo and U.S. mail placed aboard commercial aircraft -- that alone would increase airline safety far more than placing 10,000 BDOs in the terminal.

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How's that anti-TSA legislative thing working out?

I wasnt a believer in unions until I was required to observe for people with 100 degree temperatures:eek: It gets more absurd from both sides everyday

There are plenty of anti-TSA movements and inertia afoot...currently battling a liberal Congress who is no fan of the TSA, but is having difficulty letting go of a work-fare program.

You wanted a clear, concise answer to your question, you got one. Why not tell us how and why you personally feel it's both appropriate and necessary to deviate from your assigned mission in order to catch people who have absolutely nothing to do with your agency's scope of authority?

If BDO's are so dang good then why do they not spot their fellow co-workers who are dealing drugs or stealing from travelers baggage?

They work next to these people, attend the same briefs and such.

So out of the 10's of millions of people who travel in a years time how many terrorist has any TSA worker identified?

Point to one successful prosecution.

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Boggie, if you couldn't figure out from this non-answer, the answer to your question is: zero.

For the record, actor James Woods has spotted more terrorists than the TSA.

"Oh, a piece of candy... Oh, a piece of candy... Oh, a piece of candy..."

How do you know that? Has that been the experience with the terrorists caught by the TSA?

Bart please stop. Making statements like the one above does nothing to support your side and makes you look like a jerk.

You were asked a simple question that should be within you knowledge. If you don't know, just say so.

Maybe you have not figured it out, but most people on this forum do not want to get rid of security but simply want to improve it so that our God given rights are protected and the terrorists are stopped.

Questionable systems like the BDO program need to be discussed, but we do need or want a smoke screen introduced into that discussion.

Bingo. That is the money statement, without a doubt.

Sources from congress say that NO terrorists have been stopped by the BDO's.

Bart, that was one of your more inane comments.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

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Wrong. I don't believe that "most people in this forum accept TSA as a workable solution," at least in its present form.

Perhaps we should conduct a poll to see if Bart is correct.

What the giggle factor really is, is DHS trying to tell Congress why it should be funded when DHS can't point to a single terrorist detected by a BDO.

I am and you ignore me except to hurl excrement filled posts back at me, much like an enraged chimpanzee.

Sorry, but TSA has proven itself to be an unworkable solution to security. Billions invested and what do we have to show for it? New uniforms, a mish-mash collection of unworkable, unseen rules and regulations for the masses? TSA and DHS upper level management are responsible for this mess and do next to nothing to resolve the issues. PV has questions go unanswered for months and you wonder why we neither like nor trust what TSA says.

$160,000,000 spent on 180,000 stops and TSA has resulting how many terrorists brought to court? Hundreds? Dozens? None? That program shows just how incompetent TSA/DHS upper level management is in concocting unworkable/unfeasible programs designed not to increase security, but instead designed to increase both the budget and funding at the expense of real security. It would seem that the ROI on the BDO program is zero.

For a behavioral specialist you suck at deeming motive.

A workable solution once it is overhauled and fixed, maybe.

I do pay attention to the sum of your comments, that is why it disappoints me so much that you would avoid a simple question and try to reword the question so you can give a soft answer.

I think the BDO program should be killed and expanded. Having supposedly special officers to wander the airport hoping to catch a terrorist is silly and ineffective.

On the other hand giving the same basic awareness training to all the TSOs would increase the chances of catching weapons explosive and incendiaries.

The TSOs have already been given the basic awareness training. You cant perform BDO functions and run an xray or TDC. That would lead to real trouble. TSOs have enough trouble staying focused on their assigned positions.

I will challenge anyone here to provide a court case where a BDOs observations were cause to dismiss a case. Several BDOs have been to court already.

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Well crap I don't know whose side to be on. :(

I will assume that every case that is pursued is based on physical evidence found and not the BDO's testimony. The exception is when the search is conducted by LEOs, or away from the screening area by non LEOs, based on the BDOs observation.

If a BDO signals a TSO to do a more extensive screening of the passenger and carry on at the checkpoint you would not run into a Constitutional issue, and I would see no reason to even involve the BDO a trial.

On the other hand if a BDO contacts a LEO because they suspect that someone wiped their forehead or has some other "micro emotion" that indicated nefariousness, and the LEO took the BDO's word without any independent observation that would raise probable cause, the search would run foul of the 4th Amendment protections.

I thought it was TSA's policy goal that all TDC's would eventually be BDO's?

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Listen up cupcake, most of us in these forums don't consider the TSA a workable solution, it was a stopgap measure at a time of crisis that was poorly implemented. Now seven years later we have gotten tired of security plans that are reactive rather than proactive. Take for example shoe removal and the liquids ban, I can’t think of single country that requires passenger to go through this kind of nonsense and that includes England where Richard Reid’s flight originated from. The only time they do require it is when the flight is going to the United States. Germany, England, Ireland, France, Spain, and Italy have all had serious problems with terrorism that pre-date 9/11. And yet they don’t have planes falling out the skies from shoe bombs.

No one here is anti-TSA, what we would like to see is an agency that lives in the real world. For example many TSOs like to claim that the there are options to having your items confiscated, none of them are a realistic option if you were to try to use them at an airport.

There has been change within the TSA because of passengers questioning policies, those changes have included; TSA approved lap top bags, complaint forms available on line, lanes for families to name a few. The real problem is procedures that only seem to be used in America and no place else.

Which explains the high rate of failure for the Red Team tests.

Interesting because we keep hearing that a BDO's job is not based on junk science, but rather on definitive methods that can be taught to others. If you can't explain your gut reaction in court that just makes what a BDO does as nothing more than random guess work.

Our biggest problem as an organization (with regards to failing the red team testing) is technology. We are currently using 1960's-70's technology with some upgrades and patches. It limits our capability to detect some of the bad things because it was not designed to look for it. With the rollout of the new Xrays, some of those failures would be eliminated because of the new technology. Then again, some of the failures are just that, failures.

Completely agree with the technology argument.

Which is why getting the virtual strip-search machines and two waves of new uniforms before getting new x-ray machines show the TSA has a completely different mission that aviation safety.

This is an excuse, failures are failures. This LINK, is a perfect example of the failure of the TSO, not the equipment. Perhaps if they didn't have to be so focused on shoes and 4 ounce containers the scores would improve.

I don't see a problem explaining the it in court. A BDO does not need articulatable suspicion to order a more thorough screening as long as it falls within the "standard" administrative search. In Davis the 9th Circuit Court seems to agree that a screening "by one or more of the following systems: behavioral profile, magnetometer, identification check, physical search" is allowable under an administrative search.

If the responsibility is the LEO's from the hand off point the BDO should not see a court room if the LEO searches the PAX based on the fact that the LEO would need their own independent observation to see if the behavior exhibited rises to the level of probable cause.

If for some really odd reason a BDO had to testify as to his observations he would not need to reveal what "tells" lead to his conclusion that the PAX needed further screening.

BDO: "With my background experience and training I noticed certain small 'tells' that when taken together indicates a person is hiding a nefarious intent."

Lawyer: "What 'tells' did you observe that lead you to the conclusion that my client had a nefarious intent?"

BDO: "I am sorry the Department of Homeland Security has deemed that information is protected under SSI."

Ta-Da! The BDO is in the clear and the defense lawyer would need to take on the cop's articulatable probable cause.

Hmmmm, I cant speak of any security knowledge other than Germany. When I lived there you didnt even eyeball a Polizei for fear of being beat down with a big metal spring (baton) and the Frankfurt airport was patrolled in teams with German Shepards and automatic weapons. Maybe we should adopt those standards. By the way, I dont think that they have had any mass killings lately like we have either.

Might want ot double-check your facts.

What mass killings have happened lately?

Nothing to do with aircraft