As someone pointed out - I did miss something it was the CTX that triggered. The CTX is used on checked luggage. You could have that liquid in checked luggage.

There just has to come a point where as a citizen you throw your hands up and say "OK, if you guys can't get the evidence legally, then you can't use it".

Unfortunately, a certain senile old fool on the Supreme Court has declared that police are "professionals" and don't need all the restrictions that previous courts have laid on them over the past 40+ years because they would never abuse their authority.

Never mind that practically every day I run across a news item that reinforces my opinion that police officers should wear choke chains (and surgically implanted web cameras tied to the G3 system) and be forbidden to load ammunition into their guns. Frankly, a rolled up newspaper is more weapon than they can reliably handle.

Bart and WWNF are pretty much correct here.

http://www.smithsdetection.com/eng/IONSCAN_400B.php
This is most common ETD machine in use with TSA to my knowledge. It can only be set in one mode. Explosives or naracotics.

In explosives mode it's going to hit on:
RDX, PETN, TNT, Semtex, Tetryl, NG, Nitrates, HMX and others

In narc mode, it'll only hit on:
Cocaine, Heroin, PCP, THC, Methamphetamine, Ecstasy, LSD and others

On top of that, it's going to say Explosives right on the top, and I use this machine 5 days a week for 5 hours and not once has it been in narcotics mode. In fact, this is what it looks like.... if you're able to read what I highlighted....
http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/3...explosives.png

The only checkpoint they'll be in narc mode in, is a CBP checkpoint, not a TSA checkpoint.

The operative word here is 'criminal' - I'm not talking about the end of a joint that someone might have forgotten about - we're talking 12 bottles of LSD. . . that's pretty stupid.

I don't care if he had 10 kilos of cocaine and a suitcase full of kiddy porn DVDs. The Constitution does not have an "except if he's a really bad person, then you can do whatever you want" clause in the 4th amendment.

Read the quote I wrote last page. If you don't fight for the rights of even your enemy -- you're going to create a precedent that will come back to you. I value my rights. So I'm going to fight for the rights of the least of my brothers -- because I know that if they lose their rights, I've lost mine.

Although (tangentially to the issue of searches in the US but related to that poster's location), such a provision does exist in most Australian jurisdictions e.g. s139 of the Evidence Act 1995 (NSW):

In other words: if it's reeeeeeeeeeeeally important to get the conviction, go for it!

That's what you wrote. Many misguided people would agree with your statement.


You can call it screening if you want, but what it is is a search of you and of your belongings. It may be necessary, but it's pretty intrusive.


TSA refuse to publish the rules we are required to follow. From your perspective, what should be there are those things you wish to carry with you onto your flight. From TSA's perspective, what should be there is anything that any TSA bag inspector decides to allow you to carry. They are specifically authorized to bar you from carrying anything they wish past their checkpoint.


A severed head is rather difficult to misidentify by sight. Substances that our federal government presently prohibits us from possessing require more than viewing to identify. Ditto for unlawfully-sexually-explicit images. Guns aren't allowed in carry-ons, legal or illegal.


Yes. This is not a police state. For very good reasons related to our freedom, government agents are not allowed to do "whatever it takes" to detect criminal behavior. They must work within the boundaries established for them, regardless of whether stepping outside those boundaries is likely to lead to a desirable outcome.

Upon finding which objects do you think should TSA staff stop looking for dangerous items and investigate further? A bag of powdered sugar? A bag of oregano? A bag of cannabis held by someone who has a doctor's recommendation to use it for medicinal purposes in a state where it is legal for him to do so? A poppy? A stack of 9,800 $1 bills sandwiched between two $100s and a boarding pass for an international flight? Any amount of cash with a tag on it that reads, "$10,001" without a boarding pass nearby? Pictures of petite naked people on their 18th birthdays? A pet that is not presently wearing its license tag? One that does not have a vaccination certificate stapled to its collar? A person with brown skin who does not have a U.S. passport or visa hanging from his neck?

How about multiple passports, with the same picture, but with different names (each of which happens to be a name someone used before he had his name legally changed)?

Any of those things could indicate wrongdoing, but none clearly does. When TSA staff are pawing through our things looking for dangerous items and they find non-dangerous item that might indicate other wrongdoing, they should give us the benefit of the doubt in every single case.

Of those substances, only heroin is a narcotic.

In the literal sense. Just as Kool Aid has become a generic term for a "powder based artificially flavored beverage", narcotics has taken over for "illicit controlled substance".

In the literal sense, the legal sense, and the medical sense. Mostly only in the television drama sense and the misinformed drug warrior sense are those other substances narcotics.

"Narcotics" makes them more dangerous, thus more in need of funding to combat them.

Then the machine is a glycerine detector, and it isn't a reliable explosives detector, which cause a couple problems. 1) it is a false alarm for explosives which causes extra work and 2) the follow up action is corrupted, and the detection system is reduced to the efficacy of the followup procedure.

If, when the machine raises its alarm, the practice is for a screener give a pass on bottles with "glycerine" in the fine print, then you've introduced a hole. If the smuggler in the OP used a case of glycerine-based body wash, everyone would have had a big grin and the detection system would have failed.

(My WAG at what happened is that some of the bottles in the case looked more dense on the x-ray than others: "Some were unusually heavy and many contained a very dark liquid ..." If you looked at an x-ray of a case of beer and 5 of the bottles looked 'oranger' or 'whiter' than the others, you'd tend to notice.)

Yes, there is correct. This is where the bags can go through CTX-9000DSi inline baggage screening system. You can see the alarmed where TSA is discovered the acids inside the ice tea. I think TSA officers has been outstauding job for finding the illegal drugs inside the checked bags. Now, he is being charge with transportation of a narcotic or controlled substance. He could be spent rest for the life sentences with hard labor.

Exactly! It could being killed with someone who are dying with bad cocaine, narcotic, marijuana. It will be slip away. It will be very extremely dangerous with someone who smoke with marijuana. IT will cause big problems the person who are passed away at home.