BAFFLING UPDATE POSTED HERE, SAYS IT WAS A PANIC FOR NO GOOD REASON. Hmmm.
TSA: The System Worked: TSA Security Officers Respond to Threat in Huntington — What this really proves to me is that there is no reason to ban liquids since they will catch the explosives. AND of course a bunch of terrorists were arrested for this apparent attempt to do something bad in Virgina. Right? Any news coverage on this?
Unedited press release from TSA
HUNTINGTON, W. Va. – Two Transportation Security Administration (TSA) security officers acted swiftly and responded appropriately when two containers of liquid in a carry-on bag brought by a passenger at the Huntington Tri-State Airport (HTS) tested positive for explosive residues. At 9:15 a.m., Thursday, August 18 Transportation Security Officers (TSO) Joshua Messinger and Clifford Barker discovered the residues while screening bottles filled with liquid substances. Last week, TSA banned liquids and gels on commercial aircraft.
“From the smallest regional airport to the largest hub, our security officers, using their training and technology, are the key to ensuring we protect the flying public,” said TSA’s Assistant Secretary Kip Hawley. “I applaud officers Messinger and Barker not only for their technical expertise but for the professionalism they displayed in managing this situation. While it appears that these items were ultimately not a threat, these officers did everything right and exemplify the skill and talent of our excellent workforce nationwide.”
In the hands of a terrorist, many common household items can be a threat. TSA’s security officers are trained to use the latest technologies to detect these items and make sure that no materials that can do harm to the aircraft or passengers are able to get onboard. All travelers are asked to do their part and check TSA’s Web site prior to departure and ensure that they are not carrying any prohibited items. Many everyday items are fine for use at home or outdoors but are not appropriate for the cabin of an aircraft.
The officers noticed the prohibited liquids inside a traveler’s carry-on bag during screening at the checkpoint. The bag was opened and the contents tested with an Explosives Trace Detector. The items tested positive for explosive residues and a retest confirmed the results. At that point, local law enforcement was notified and an explosives detection canine team arrived to provide further confirmation of the presence of explosive material.
The explosives detection canine team positively identified the substance as having explosive odors and at 11:25 a.m., to ensure the safety of the traveling public, West Virginia State Police, the Tri-State Airport Authority and TSA agreed to evacuate the terminal. Later that afternoon, the terminal was reopened and Officers Messinger and Barker were back on the job ensuring all passengers departing from HTS reach their destination safely.
More than 31,000 Security Officers at the TSA have received specialized training to detect the presence of improvised explosive devices, commonly known as IEDs, or explosives in baggage. In today’s threat environment, TSOs are a viable layer of security to defend against the threat of terrorism.
So now they are looking for IED’s. Puh-leeze. Shoe bombs?:
But what was it exactly?
…to ensure the safety of the traveling public, West Virginia State Police, the Tri-State Airport Authority and TSA agreed to evacuate the terminal.
Lots of questions:
1: When, in all of this, was the decision made to evacuate the terminal?
Right away? After the bomb squad confirmed the 2 electronic tests?
2: Did all three tests take place at the carry-on screening checkpoint, or was the material moved to a safer location?
3: Why was the terminal evacuated?
Because of the threat the discovered material would explode? Because of the fear that other explosives may have already made it past this particular checkpoint?
4: As John mentions, why no mention of an arrest?
Was this a test of the screening process?
She was never charged — will try to continue her flight to Michigan, this weekend. Four months pregnant, she had one bottle with tap water in it and another with water plus a drop of bleach to use to wash her face while seated on the plane.
She’s Pakistani and muslim.
Will this constant comedy act ever end?
I blame the educational system. It has failed the country.
Subtle distinction?
Exhibit A: …to ensure the safety of the traveling public, West Virginia State Police, the Tri-State Airport Authority and TSA agreed to evacuate the terminal.
Exhibit B: State Police ordered the terminal evacuated before noon after explosive-residue hits detected on …
All of this airplane security is just smoke and mirrors. Since 9/11 the odds that a plane load of people would let a plane be crashed into a building seem pretty low. So now the only think they could do is blow up the planes. While the odds of killing everyone on a plane are much greater by causing a crash, there are still lots of other places where people are gathered together in confined spaes besides airplanes. So even if we make all planes 100% secure, there are still lots and lots of other places that could be targeted. So all this airplane security is just a big pain in the ass designed to make people feel safe when in fact it doesn’t do anything.
Laugh if you wish. This could be serious !!! The TSA screwed up up so bad, they couldn’t even get it straight what was in the bottles. The contents were positively identifies as Dihydrogen Monoxide.
DI-Hydrogen Oxide
Each year, Dihydrogen Monoxide is a known causative component in many thousands of deaths and is a major contributor to millions upon millions of dollars in damage to property and the environment. Some of the known perils of Dihydrogen Monoxide are:
– Death due to accidental inhalation of DHMO, even in small quantities.
– Prolonged exposure to solid DHMO causes severe tissue damage.
– Excessive ingestion produces a number of unpleasant though not typically life-threatening side-effects.
– DHMO is a major component of acid rain.
– Gaseous DHMO can cause severe burns.
– Contributes to soil erosion.
– Leads to corrosion and oxidation of many metals.
– Contamination of electrical systems often causes short-circuits.
– Exposure decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes.
– Found in biopsies of pre-cancerous tumors and lesions.
– Often associated with killer cyclones in the U.S. Midwest and elsewhere.
– Thermal variations in DHMO are a suspected contributor to the El Nino weather effect.
-Always found in high concentrations in heroin addicts and child molesters.
-George Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Rice have all been known to bath in it.
-Susan Smith and Andrea Yates both used DHMO to kill their children.
http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html
Not that it matters. It was in West Virginia.
As with the out-of-control DEA, these clowns shell out many 100K’s
for overly sensitive chemical detectors.
The useless cocaine sniffers used by DEA, for example, pick up
traces of drugs on circulating currency, simply because there is so much dope money out there. So if you get targeted and stopped and they test your “unlawful cash”, you’ve got a good shot at 10 in the slam.
Like these TSA morons with their Secret Agent Clorox Detector.
But they will likely be at the White House soon so the Smirking Chimp can bestow some Medals of Freedom and a mouthful of dyslexic babble.
Dihydrogen Monoxide – Water. Yes I had to point that out, never know with some of the folk lurking around here. Might try to use this as a protest point against President Bush.
Yessss. Score one for the big guys who tighten the leash around our necks and tugs on our fears. Goooood doggy. Our government is like the bad abusive boyfriend who keeps his women in check by beating her, blaming something else, and then soothing her with confusing words of kindness. And everyone talks crap about him behind his back but dont come forward to do anything.
Back in the 1980s, before we had increased our market share as a terrorist target, a friend was on a flight from Switzerland where there was a passenger and baggage inventory mismatch, one more bag than the official passenger bag inventory showed. It was before sunrise, snowing, windy and generally miserable. Guys with guns marched all of the passengers off the plane and made everyone line up next to their bags. The extra bag in question was taken away in a Brinks type vehicle. A hour later buses pulled up and we were loaded to be taken to different airport. The route was over snow and ice covered roads. Several times the bus swerved on the ice narrowly missing the guardrails and providing a damn good view of a deep valley below, that according to him, looked like it could produce at least five echo return off a strong yodel. At airport two everyone waited, I think until the airline officials had confirmed that all of the passengers had missed their next connections, then boarded everyone on what appeared to be a refitted cargo aircraft bought second hand from the Soviet Air Force.
So what does this have to do with the WV event? Nothing except that I found out a few days later from the Swiss friend, that the situation never made the news. Similar things happened regularly and were generally ignored. The US hasn’t learned yet to live with and ignore the inconveniences associated with risk I suppose. Ignoring these situations probably isn’t smart, but a slightly arrogant attitude of indifference might be something that works to our benefit. Particularly not creating media events when there is a spectacular success achieved in preventing something that didn’t exist from happening.
Ballenger: EXACTLY. It’s this administration that is using each minor incident to scare the public into voting for them. It’s sick. None of this should be newsworthy. Liquid bombs, cripes.
Its interesting that John Dvorak blames the education system for stuff like this happening.
I blame the same system for the liberal indoctrination of our kids, resulting in anti-US attitudes and a lack of support for our troops in the middle of a war.
I think it is time to “Change the Course” with the TSA.
Airport screening is the “hail Mary” attempt of Homeland Security — not really expected to work but worth a try, anyway
The frontline should be the FBI and the CIA who identify and stop the bad guys before they ever get to an airport.
If airport screeners must look for bombs in hair gel, then somebody has dropped the ball long ago.
I blame the same (education) system for the liberal indoctrination of our kids, resulting in anti-US attitudes and a lack of support for our troops in the middle of a war.
Comment by Jeff — 8/18/2006 @ 11:12 pm
Ya, right. So I guess you prefer the alternative type of education where they are all steeped in neo-con, evangelical, religious doctrine and end up truly stupid.
At least, those liberally indoctrinated didn’t send our troops off to war without personal armor, a plan, or concern for their safety. It wasn’t the liberals screaming about terrorists hiding behind every rock. And it sure wasn’t liberal arrogance that gained America the enmity of the world.
How many times will these cry wolf tactics be used before something really worth be scared about actually happens.
9 But they will likely be at the White House soon so the Smirking Chimp can bestow some Medals of Freedom and a mouthful of dyslexic babble.
Good one. Starting my day with a laugh.
The “detector” needing a 2nd test for verification, and then calling in the bomb-sniffing dogs for further confirmation – and still getting it wrong – reminds me of Lewis Black’s rant about screening:
“You have us walk through a metal detector…
But, then you tell us we have to be checked with a wand – that means the metal detector doesn’t work!
Then you tell us you have to pat us down – that means the wand doesn’t work!”
…two bottles confiscated from a Pakistani woman’s carry-on luggage…
The woman’s mother told The Associated Press that her daughter, who is four months’ pregnant and lives in Barboursville, was targeted because of her nationality and Islamic headcover.
What is her nationality? Amercian, hyphenated-American, or Pakistani?
“This is such a small airport. I never imagined something like this happening here,” ….
…waiting to begin the first leg of their trip to the southeast Asian country of Brunei when the evacuation order came …her family didn’t want her to leave because of terrorism in the region. “And then we don’t even get out of Huntington without something like this happening.”
I missed this at first, even though Warner hinted at it in #8: Not that it matters. It was in West Virginia.
I only fly occasionally, so it is via the larger “hub” airports. I’ve read the reports about Congress/TSA throwing money to the four winds to fund emergency response equipment, but this story somehow brings that into focus for me:
“Small” airport – but has checks for “explosive residues”, and the local law enforcement has an “explosives detection canine team”.
If that doesn’t say: “Welcome to the post-9/11 world!”, I don’t know what does.
Mr. H Fusion said:
“Ya, right. So I guess you prefer the alternative type of education where they are all steeped in neo-con, evangelical, religious doctrine and end up truly stupid.”
So much for liberals being tolerant and open-minded.
The blame can’t be put on the TSA employess. They did as instructed by their employer. Blame rests with an unreliable test that gives a false positive for commonplace liquids and management that deployed the test without proper testing and then improperly educated the screeners.
Can’t blame this one on Bush either; TSA has been useless for decades.
Blame should be placed on the woman who showed up with banned items in her carry on. She should have been taken out back and given a thorough tongue lashing for even trying to break the rules. And who knows…. maybe she rubbed a little gunpowder on the bottle to cause the second part of the incident.
We must face up to the fact that the Muslims are trying to kill us. I believe she got the results she wanted.