Posted on 12/14/2012 12:43:56 PM PST by Nachum
A 12-year-old girl who uses a wheelchair was left in tears after TSA agents detained her for nearly an hour at a Texas airport after saying they found traces of bomb residue on her hands, her mother claimed today. Shelbi Walser was travelling to Florida with her mother, Tammy Daniels, for treatment for her brittle bone disorder when she was stopped at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in Texas. A TSA agent swabbed Shelbi´s hands and she tested positive for explosives. But the wheelchair, which is likely to have transferred any substance to her hands as she pushed it
Source: 29 dead, including 22
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Get a better test.
The TSA: America’s own Gestapo!
Look for them coming to a shopping mall near you soon!
The TSA is part of the plan to condition you to being treated like slaves. We’ve been tricked by Republicans and Democrats into passing laws to make us “more secure” when the effect has really been to chip away at our freedom and human dignity.
Not necessarily a false positive.
All kinds of things will legitimately set off a meter, notably including many fertilizers. Wheel a chair down a sidewalk where the adjacent grass has recently been sprayed, and you have a perfectly legitimate positive.
How they handled the situation is ridiculous, but probably not the meter response.
A MythBusters episode I recently watched demonstrated clearly that one poppyseed muffin will routinely give a positive for drug use. People get fired all the time for a single positive reaction on the test. It’s not the fault of the test, which accurately measures what it’s supposed to, it’s the fault of the idiots interpreting and applying the results.
Reminds me of the Seinfeld episode with Elaine and the poppyseeds.
I was held back for a false-positive once. I think the TSA was punishing me for opting out their body scanners! I just stood there, almost dchallenging them to arrest me, charge me, or whatever. I did not care what they did. Finally, they said there were probably some medicines I was taking causing the false positive, and they let me go.
They're testing for something that might be in explosives, or might not, or might be in any number of innocent things, but they don't care.
Take money away from them to make them care.
I got an idea. Keep a TSA function, but not staff it with freaking morons.
They did a full body pat down on her. I loath the TSA.
Every time I fly with my second grandson (since he was 18 months old) has been pulled over for a pat down. He thinks that's what happens when you fly. My daughter asked why this happens and TSA says its all random.
I feel so bad for this little girl, I hope her parents get a lawyer and sue those people personally and TSA in general.
TSA's abuse of children is disgusting.
From an average of 120 flights per year I am down to 2 in 6 years because of these gestapo tactics.
For some reason, rather than tick off some 6th Century sand monkeys brainwashed by the rantings of a pedophile, our government would rather suspend OUR (read as Real Americans) Constitutionally guaranteed 4th Amendment rights.
The only thing they have done is guaranteed honest citizens will be unarmed and defenseless should some rag head sub human shove something up their butt to kill us.
At least one flight for sure and possibly two flights on 9/11 would have had a different outcome had some Real American on those planes been armed with something more dangerous than a box cutter.
Oh, that’s what TSA means Turds Sustaining Abuse.
I would be so tempted, if detained, to say: “It’s ridiculous for you to be holding me: I’m not a Muslim.”
I’d probably get thirty years in prison.
“Oh, that’s what TSA means Turds Sustaining Abuse.”
or
Totally Sychotic A-holes
or
Total Sum of A-holes
“Wow, I nabbed a terrorist!” said no TSA agent ever.
You are quite right. "Explosives testing" doesn't test for explosives, it tests for a group that also includes many innocent things.
That those using the tests don't understand this isn't the fault of the tests, it's the fault of those setting up the systems for (mis)using the tests.
Blaming the misuse on the tests is like blaming guns for killing people.
They shouldn't be using tests that don't actually test for what they are looking for.
It's like the DEA manufacturing probable cause by using drug-sniffing dogs that always alert to drugs whether they are there or not.
How Much Police Activity Can Be Justified By Drug-Sniffing Dogs?
There are no tests for explosive residue that don’t also alert to non-explosive things, simply because explosives and things that aren’t overlap.
AMFO is a powerful explosive. Took down the OK City Federal Building. Composed of fertilizer and fuel oil.
So if you want to be able to detect AMFO, by definition you’re going to also detect most fertilizers, which people might have residue on them for all kinds of innocent reasons.
Sometimes when I’m feeling transgressive, I think about rubbing a little fertilizer on my carryon before flying. But I never have.
It’s like profiling. It doesn’t tell you who committed a crime, when properly used it does, however, narrow down the number of people you would otherwise have to look at.
Misuse of profiling ruined Richard Jewell’s life (the hero of the Atlanta Olympics bombing) because he “fit the profile.” Which he indeed did - along with probably at least several million other people.
But the idiot media turned “fitting the profile” into some sort of evidence (or even proof) of guilt, and ran with it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.