"No officer, I was building a bomb!"
Mark
Posted on 04/30/2013 7:13:47 AM PDT by TSA-Watch
You’re gonna love this. It turns out that two products that most of us use multiple times a day can trigger a false positive result for explosives during a TSA screening.
The culprits? Soap and lotion. Don’t believe me? A few days after the Boston bombings, Linda, an Oklahoma native, was flying out of Port Columbus International Airport (CMH) in Ohio when she was randomly chosen for a hand swab at a security checkpoint.
The TSA agent swabbed her hand and promptly informed her that she had tested positive for explosives, specifically nitrates.
The poor woman was naturally befuddled and racked her brain to think of everything she had touched that day.
“I was shocked. I don’t know how that happened. The only thing that went through my mind was, ‘What did I do? What did I touch?’ because I had been at work all morning,” Linda said.
She recalled washing her hands at work that morning and then used some lotion that was sitting on the counter. When she accidentally used too much, she slathered it on all the way up to her elbows.
Linda was eventually cleared after an extremely thorough pat-down of her entire person by TSA agents.
So what did cause the false positive?
It turns out that glycerin, the ingredient in some soaps and lotions that helps keep your skin soft and smooth, is also a common ingredient in explosives.
Soaps and lotions aren’t the only things that can cause a false positive in the TSA’s swab test for explosives either. Some heart medications containing nitroglycerin can also trigger a false positive, as can lawn fertilizer.
The moral of the store? Don’t wash your hands after using the bathroom at the airport and be sure to give the TSA agent a hearty handshake after your complimentary grope as a thank you for a job well done.
Or…you could just double check to make sure that the soap that you use doesn’t contain glycerin. Your choice.
Of course. Everyone is guilty, so the State can punish anyone on this pretext if they think bad thoughts.
And that’s “The moral of the store?”
You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, do you?
TSA priority for screening:
1. Whoever looks least likely to resist.
2. If they have a body scanner or need to do a pat down, THE hottest woman in line.
“Exactly why it is important to go after the people not the materials.”
Shortly after the TSA was formed, an Israeli security expert stated, “In Israel, we look for people. In America, you look for objects.”
I've heard the sensitivity described as...filling a football stadium full of golf balls, with one marked with an "X". The machine can find that golf ball.
Oops. Not find, but detect.
“These people are just window dressing at best.”
Exactly.
That’s why some frequent travelers call it, “kabuki theater.”
Is glycerin a component of explosives?
Thank goodness I don’t have to board an airplane these days unless there should be an emergency in Calgary where one of our daughters lives with her family.
"No officer, I was building a bomb!"
Mark
Is coherent grammar a component of communications?
I said that the best test would be one that always gave a positive result. No glycerin required. You agreed. You’re a fascist moron.
Sorry, I didn’t major in grammar
It’s not so much glycerin, as nitrate or nitrogen compounds that they’re looking for. Certain compounds can give a false positive in a quantitative analysis, like fertilizers, certain soaps, medications, and some metal products. Most commercial and military explosives are nitrated compounds, like TNT, RDX, nitroglycerin, fulminates, azides, ANFO, gunpowder etc. so these swab tests can quickly weed out potential bomber wannabes. Nitrated compounds aren’t very common outside of those uses though, which makes the tests effective. It’s other classes of high explosives that don’t rely on nitrogen chemistry that they really have to worry about, because they use the same elements that exist in virtually everything you come in contact with, and would be impossible to quantify, or have a reliable test for. It makes me thank god that those certain terror minded individuals are too stupid or lazy to crack open a chemistry book and understand the contents.
Maybe the TSA should institute a new rule.
Before flying, no one should be allowed to wash or bathe for a week beforehand.
I was in Houston last year, they were working the line, talking to people and doing the swab thing. The guy looks at me and I dead-panned looked at him back, they skipped me, the guy a few places down looked like a total jihadi and they skipped him, instead they swabbed an old lady and a young college guy. Better to pick on the old and willing then to actually use their brains. I ended up sitting next to the jihadi guy, funny dude but he didn’t drink, so I ordered two more just to make up for him.
New Dove, with 33% more Nitroglycerine!
Well at least then every OWS type will clear security since they never heard of soap.
Oh wait, they can’t afford to fly.
Oh the irony.
It has been my experience that some people already do that, and my dumb luck has been that I’ve been the poor sap sitting next to them!
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