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It is a terrible ordeal, but for all of the other factors brought up the critical factor is that he set off an explosion detector (and clearly it doesn't get fa

It is a terrible ordeal, but for all of the other factors brought up the critical factor is that he set off an explosion detector (and clearly it doesn't get false positives often given the response they showed). Everything else (about Ramadan, being Hindi, the color of one's skin, etc) may be nothing more than decorations, and no one here knows what would happen if John Smith Anglosaxon set off the same detector in the same situation. Yes, they talked about Ramadan and his situation, and where the parking lot is around his house, and none of this should be surprising to anyone. They're using conversation to try to determine whether he's lying, gaps in his story, nervousness, and so on. Any single person they talk to will get a conversation that is individualized to the person. Reading too much into it may be misleading. This isn't intended to defend the TSA (universally reviled), or any of the other agencies, but repeatedly setting off an explosion detector is 95% of this story. The rest is just surrounding decorations.

reso 13y ago
Agreed. If I set off an explosive detector, I would expect to have a hard time, too.
- goostavos 13y ago
  I've set off the explosion detector before. I didn't receive anything like what OP did. And honestly, I chalk up a decent amount of that up to having the good luck of being white. I did get pulled into a separate area, and treated like criminal. Two agents stood by me the entire time while another one gave me another pat down. They opened up my backpack and rifled through everything (which was, I think, the most offensive part of everything), and meticulously swabbed and tested each area of my backpack. I did receive similar questions "Where are you going," "Why are you here," "Why would your bag be setting off our alarm?" etc.. After a few more searches, a few more scans, and a lot more questions they finally let me go through security. Whole process probably took about 20 minutes -- twenty terrifying minutes -- but in the end, it was relatively painless compared to OPs. I don't think his treatment was in any way justified by setting off an explosive materials detector.
  - toddmorey 13y ago
    Thanks for sharing that experience. Any idea why you might have set the machine off? Trying to get a feel for how they've balanced how sensitive to make them. I think there's been too errors: His ethnicity made him endure more interrogation and your ethnicity allowed you to endure less. I think the next threat to airport security is as likely to be perpetrated by someone who doesn't fit the ethnic profile. Everyone in law enforcement really wants there to be a profile, but looking for one will only lead to the wrong conclusion and costly mistakes.
  - DannyBee 13y ago
    "I don't think his treatment was in any way justified by setting off an explosive materials detector." He set it off multiple times. It is likely you didn't. He could not provide current id, anything that showed his current address, anything to prove any part of his story, etc. Any attempt to prove any part of his story was met with no available info. His answers were plausible, but again, there was simply nothing concrete he could provide to explain anything. I can understand the amount of questioning and length of time he was put through. I cannot understand the denial of water/etc.
    - jarek 13y ago
      "id" means identification. Your identity doesn't change just because you move. He had "id" just fine. It just didn't have his two-day-old address on it.
      - DannyBee 13y ago
        I understand what ID means. You are suppose to report address changes, and in most states, you usually only get 10 days or less to do so. Ignoring that for a second, what you have attempted to refute is not the sum total of the issue here. The thing is, at every turn there was just a coincidental reason something happened to turn out that way. If you don't think this looks highly suspicious on someone whose hands and bag seems to keep setting off explosive detectors, i don't know what to tell you. If they aren't supposed to target the people with odd stories who set off explosive detectors, who exactly are they supposed to be targeting?
ck2 13y ago
How do you know they don't have a button to push to make it give a false positive so they can hold people? Cops have dogs trained to give false positives on signal and we are constantly spied on and lied to by our own intelligence agencies. So please don't tell me this idea is far fetched, I think it's very plausible.
- legitsource 13y ago
  The dogs aren't purposefully trained to give false positives, that's just a side effect of how social dogs are. They want to please their handler and the handler gives them rewards.
  - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    The handlers give the dogs false cues, obviously.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    It could be the dog trying to naturally please the cop, or the cop could have inadvertently trained the behavior (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans), or the training may very well have been deliberate. It would be damn hard to prove the last, but what is relatively easy to demonstrate is that dogs do give false signals that correspond to certain biases of the owners. Regardless of whether the last is true or not, the way we view detector dogs needs to be revisited in light of these clear biases. As it is, detector dogs seem to be barely better than dosing rods.
- corresation 13y ago
  Sure it's plausible. It's just incredibly unlikely (not least because this notion that the TSA is some white power apparatus seems to be at odds with the reality that the TSA is a very diverse workforce. Add that the passenger list in most urban centers is incredibly diverse, and this idea that it's just xenophobia seems quite nonsensical. Another post talks about how this demonstrates how the US views "foreigners" -- have these people never been to New York City, where this happened? It is about the most inclusive, vibrant, multicultural place on the planet). Indeed, the narrative of this very story seemed to be overwhelmingly focused on figuring out why he was setting off the explosives detectors. They repeatedly went through his belongings and tried to figure out if he was indeed in the business of making explosions. They almost certainly used a secret warrant to go into his apartment to, again, see if there was an explosives lab there. They really thought they had something when the explosives detector found something it didn't like, and there is no rational reason they would do this just because someone was Muslim (again, Muslims make hundreds of millions of flights in the US -- do people seriously think this is what they go through?)
codegeek 13y ago
You are missing the point. yes he set off the explosion detector for which he should have been questioned and he was. The issue is how they did it. No water for hours ? You seriously think that it is ok ? The rest 5% decorations that you were talking about is lot more than just decorations.
- fennecfoxen 13y ago
  The bit that got me as incontrovertibly hilariously-stupid was... they got all upset that he hadn't identified to them that he'd checked some baggage. If the guy is an adversary, you can't rely on him to bring that fact to your attention. If the guy isn't an adversary, his failure to identify it is (by definition) innocent in nature. In neither sense does harassing the guy about it make sense.
  - btilly 13y ago
    They were hoping to use his failure to identify it as proof that he was an adversary. When it turned out that he had identified it, the person who had hoped that now had egg on his face. (I wouldn't be surprised if in another room they had figured this out as proof so that they could get him.)
  - ctdonath 13y ago
    You think that was a stupid mistake? Probably a deliberate documented procedure: throw the person off-balance with some unexpected "stupid" weirdness. "You told the border guard you're entering the country to work." "What? No! I never said that! I'm entering to marry my fiancé!" "I'm here because of the MBA conference." "NBA? We didn't know there was a basketball event in this building." Yeah, I've seen it a number of times. They weren't upset. They were manipulating the author. They weren't stupid. They already had agents heading to the apartment to investigate.
    - greedo 13y ago
      And throw in the fact that lying to a Federal agent can lead to felony charges, the behavior of his interrogators is very typical.
alexeisadeski3 13y ago
I've always wondered what happens if you set off the detector. The fact is that they allowed him to fly afterwards. Overall it's not so horrible. Assuming the thing about the photo isn't true, of course.
- hobs 13y ago
  And made him pay an additional 700 dollars and miss his flight. Huge hassle as far as I can tell. If you detained and questioned an innocent man and ruined his day costing him a weeks wages for some, wouldn't you do SOMETHING to make up for it? A decent person would, a bureaucratic organization that is not held accountable sure wont.
  - skaevola 13y ago
    It was the airline which denied him the flight, not the TSA.
    - corresation 13y ago
      JetBlue were total idiots about it, but at that point they were "victims" of this situation as well, and it seemed that the representative simply wanted to exclude him as quickly as they could to wipe their hands of the consequences of it.
      - mistercow 13y ago
        If the TSA officer was being truthful when they said the flight would be held, then JetBlue may have just been ensuring that they could take of on time.
- TheCrownedFox 13y ago
  A friend of mine set one off when we were traveling in Australia. We talked with the guard (who very 100% ralaxed) and he said that setting off the detector is incredibly easy. While he was searching my friend's purse, we were told that some of the chemicals used in make up can set it off. After finding nothing, we were free to continue. Took all of 3 minutes, no additional security, no prolonged questioning, just a simple check and go.
cperciva 13y ago
he set off an explosion detector (and clearly it doesn't get false positives often given the response they showed) False positives are fairly common, but usually easily explained -- e.g., "I was target shooting yesterday, there must be some gunpowder on my clothes". A false positive which the individual involved is unable -- or unwilling -- to explain is far less common.
- omarali 13y ago
  My dad had food (dates) set off the detector. He's now on the no fly list.
- chimeracoder 13y ago
  It's hard to explain a false positive when you're given no context about what it could be. As explained in other comments, nitroglycerin is found in things as bizarre as desserts. Unless someone happens to be incredibly knowledgeable about how to make explosives out of common household supplies, it's hard to expect them to say, eg. "Oh, that's because I happened to eat dessert last night and forgot to wash my hands." (In fact, if somebody does know that, that may be cause for all the more suspicion!)
- jonah 13y ago
  My dad flew on the 5th of July a couple years ago. While going through security, he commented that they must get a lot of false positives around that time of year. Their response: "We don't test for black powder."
steven777400 13y ago
My bags have set off the explosives detector before, twice. (In both cases, due a heart medication that apparently triggers false positives). I was not taken into a back room or interrogated for hours. They searched me and my bags in more detail, asked some questions, and concluded it must have been a false positive. The experience took about 15 minutes each time. This was a few years back, but I don't recall if it was post-9/11 or not. It seems like even setting off a detector doesn't, alone, justify the extreme reaction the authorities took in the author's case.
- walls 13y ago
  I don't think any airports had 'explosive detectors' before 9/11.
  - swombat 13y ago
    Most European airports have had those as long as I can remember (definitely since the mid 90s).
    - jacquesm 13y ago
      Maybe bomb detectors but the explosive detectors ('puffers') are relatively new as far as I know.
      - dhimes 13y ago
        It was a huge political budget fight in the 90s. Clinton/Gore published a white paper detailing the threat of terrorism as the biggest threat to national security. They called for the fancy new detectors and what-not at airports. The Republicans, who controlled Congress, said that the big threat was from nukes from unfriendly states (later dubbed 'the axis of evil') didn't permit the funding and instead increased 'Star Wars' funding (anti-missile tech).
  - justin66 13y ago
    I was searched with one around the year 2000, IIRC, at the San Francisco airport. I think it was pretty experimental. edit: there might have been a similar setup at Orly in France in 1997, come to think of it. The striking thing there was the soldiers with rifles (just 3 of them, but walking around) and the way they searched one of my grandmother's bags when the x-ray showed something that looked like a grenade. (it was glass in a weird shape) They were friendly and had a sense of humor about it, and it didn't slow us down, which all made a big difference.
manojlds 13y ago
Don't forget that his house was potentially searched.
- dotBen 13y ago
  and possibly bugged. I wouldn't live there without a complete sweep, and probably not even after that.
toddmorey 13y ago
If events like Oklahoma City, Boston, and Sandy Hook have taught us anything, it's that terrorism doesn't have an ethnic profile. It's not only insulting, but also extremely unsafe to assume otherwise. I'm surprised and embarrassed by how representatives of my country treated him. I'm embarrassed by their cultural ignorance. There should at least be some better training. However, this should be a technology discussion and I completely agree with your comment. The question is about the machine, how often it provides a false positive, and how likely it is for someone to come in contact with a legal and common chemical that can set it off. In short: what have we sacrificed for this measure of safety, and does it really provide the advertised benefits? If we have decently calibrated explosion detectors, then in the unlikely event that they do go off, I for one want that individual questioned very thoroughly, ethnicity and religion aside. The title of the article should be: "Don't fly after handling Permethrin."
- Zimahl 13y ago
  First, Sandy Hook/Newtown wasn't terrorism. By definition it was not 'the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.'[1]. It was more of a random spree killing. As for Boston, that's a terrible example because it was committed by Chechen Muslims. Second, we don't know if there was a false positive. Maybe some cleaner or the bed bug spray do have legitimate bomb-making uses. There's a lot of conjecture in the story and even more in this comment thread. [1] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/terrorism?s=t http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/terrorism?s=t
  - duggieawesome 13y ago
    Can't forget about the anthrax attacks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks
  - blablabla123 13y ago
    > Maybe some cleaner or the bed bug spray do have legitimate bomb-making uses. With bed bug spray you can set up a decent fire, maybe even blast an apartment, cf. my other comment. This is why it's not easy to buy it and that's why you should read the manual. Lovely to hear how many people use highly flammable chemicals without reading the manual.
msrpotus 13y ago
If it was just the false positive, that would be one thing but the utterly humiliating, quite frankly stupid, way they treated him was completely unjustified. There's nothing that warranted denying him water and not treating him with dignity.
- Tloewald 13y ago
  Yes, but this is how law enforcement behaves across the board. (And when they do give you a drink then they can grab the cup and fingerprint it and run DNA tests, right?)
RivieraKid 13y ago
They searched him very thouroughly. They didn't find any explosive. So it was clearly a false positive. The way they treated him was absolutely disgusting.
nknighthb 13y ago
I've set off the explosive detector a couple times. I don't take anything but lisinopril and OTC allergy meds. Each incident took 3-5 minutes to resolve, and did not involve any questions not directly related to the screening process. I have no idea what set it off, and as far as I know, neither did the TSA. Apart from those two times, I've been the focus of TSA attention for more than a few seconds on exactly two other occasions. One was when the x-ray tech was confused by the small flatbed scanner in my carryon, and the other was the day I had to fly with expired ID. Again, neither occasion took more than about five minutes, and again, they asked me no questions not directly related to the screening process itself. Also, about half the time I travel on one-way tickets, often between points that my ID does not reflect an address for. I've travelled while tired, I've travelled while stressed/nervous, I've travelled with my hair and beard at every conceivable length/combination, including long beard, short hair, and a completely shaved head. But I'm white and have a completely Anglo name.
sandyarmstrong 13y ago
I think they get false positives all the time. I am a white male that routinely opts-out of the scanners. I've had many many pat downs. One time my bag registered a false positive and I was also subjected to the "enhanced pat-down". My experience was totally different from OP's. The TSA officers went out of their way to reassure me that false positives are not uncommon, that there was nothing to be afraid of, etc etc. They asked me a few simple questions, but it felt more like they were making conversation to keep the atmosphere relaxed, rather than interrogating me. I don't recall if further tests of my bags or clothes indicated explosives, but I was let out of the screening room after ~20 minutes. I strongly suspect that the respectful treatment I repeatedly receive during my TSA interactions are due to (mostly racial) profiling, and luck.
- corresation 13y ago
  The machines are not binary. They trigger specific materials. Some are going to be much more common than others, and like every process where they have false positives they react differently based upon their incidence rate.
  - piyush_soni 13y ago
    Like ... as common as over the counter bedbug spray?
    - corresation 13y ago
      That was conjecture on his part. If permethrin were the cause, it should be very well know as it's a very common insecticide and lice shampoo.
kevingadd 13y ago
I've set off a detector before but because I looked like a young white male at the time all they did was screen my bags and have my hands tested again for explosives and send me on my way.
mistercow 13y ago
>and no one here knows what would happen if John Smith Anglosaxon set off the same detector in the same situation. We don't have to have direct knowledge of the impossibly specific situation you've constructed. The FBI agent flat out said that it was about his race when he said "a person of your… background". And explosive detectors are not really there to find bombs. They are there to reduce manual searches. If they just wanted to find bombs, they could just search everyone. Since that is impractical on multiple counts, the explosive detector is valuable because it narrows down the space. Once you have taken the person aside, searched them, searched their stuff, and come up with no additional evidence ("brown" isn't evidence), it's time to let them go. Finally, this isn't just about racism, but is also about the TSA and the cops being dangerously incompetent bullies. Instead of being polite and decent, they were rude and intimidating. Someone being reluctant and apprehensive under those circumstances is not strong evidence of wrongdoing. And when they questioned him about the chemicals he had handled, they wouldn't even tell him what they had found. That's the kind of "withholding information" tactic you would use if you were playing the role of a detective without actually having any idea how to investigate. What purpose does it serve? If he were a terrorist, he'd know what chemicals were in his explosives. The only situation where that information is actually a secret is the one where the suspect is innocent. In other words, they repeatedly created situations that either made guilt indistinguishable from innocence, or where they'd distinguish them inversely. This is, to put it mildly, "poor form".
- corresation 13y ago
  We don't have to have direct knowledge of the impossibly specific situation you've constructed. Instead we have people saying "I am white and I set one off in 2003 in Australia and they let me through, therefore that demonstrates that this is racism" (ignore every case where non-whites got a couple of quick questions and went through). And how utterly provincial are so many people on here? What backwaters do they live in? Go to JFK or Newark and tell me that they pick on non-whites, and I'll tell you that they must have hundreds of thousands of employees working around the clock to manage that. Further what an FBI agent purportedly said during the conversational stage is utterly irrelevant. We don't know what explosive material the sensor detected, but by the response it seems likely that it was rare. Finally, this isn't just about racism Indeed, it isn't, even though the overwhelming majority of comments, and the title itself, portends racism. In another comment someone criticizes me for apparently claiming that their treatment is reasonable. Yet never did I say their treatment was reasonable. Who would? they wouldn't even tell him what they had found Because they believe in the flawed concept of security through obscurity. They likely imagine that giving that information away shows their hand.
jey 13y ago
> and clearly it doesn't get false positives often given the response they showed How is this a reasonable assumption? When the probability of it legitimately going off is so low, most times it actually goes off are probably just false positives. > being Hindi "Hindi" is a language, and "Hindu" is the religion.
cesarbs 13y ago
My mother recently came to the US and set off an explosive detector. It took her just a few minutes to get cleared and she was not at all harassed like the author of the post was. Although she comes from Brazil, she is white, blonde and blue-eyed (a descendent of German immigrants). So I guess there is a difference in treatment according to race. What set off the explosives detector? She had no idea, as that had never happened before to her. The only different thing she had touched hours before was the wipes they gave her during the flight to clean her hands before a meal.
danielharan 13y ago
FTFA: "You’ll have to understand, when a person of your… background walks into here, travelling alone, and sets off our alarms, people start to get a bit nervous." So it does sound like being brown-skinned had something to do with the ordeal.
ryan-c 13y ago
I flew out of SFO last week and set off the explosive detector after opting out. My experience was rather different. The TSA agents took my backpack and made a cursory hand-search, doing explosive swab tests on my electronics. After failing to find a source, they took me to the booth to do a more through check. They didn't ask me any questions at all about myself or why I might have set the system off other than the normal 'any sensitive areas' questions. I did volunteer that I'd spilled a small amount of gasoline on myself when fueling my car the previous day and that I was wearing new clothes that had not been washed since purchase. They seemed entirely disinterested. The whole thing took maybe 15 minutes longer than a regular opt-out pat down. So, apparently that's how it goes when a white male sets the thing off.
- mech4bg 13y ago
  I mentioned this in another comment, but I've set off the explosives detector before and had a very similar experience as the original link (taken to a side room, questioned, etc). This is as a white male, although it was in Australia.
antjanus 13y ago
Let me tell you what would happen and what DID happen to one of my friends who set off the alarm. A supervisor was called in, he double checked his ID, found out my friend was using some chemicals the day before (working on his apartment). Waved him through right after. The explanation may be the thing that got him through but it could also be the fact that they told him what chemical he set off and the fact that he's white as hell.
orblivion 13y ago
I opted out of the Millimeter waves in Manchester NH airport (BTW, coolest TSA agents I ever met. One of them even said he wouldn't ever go through a backscatter machine himself.). They detected some nitrates or nitrites, I forget which (or what those exactly mean). But that's a potential sign of explosives apparently. It's probably because I had been by a camp fire that morning. If you go camping, or shooting, you should consider cleaning your clothes before going through airport security. This was a flight to return home, so I didn't ask to leave the airport, but they did give me the option of going through the porno-scanner or staying grounded. I understand that the TSA at least claims that the scanner doesn't actually involve showing anybody an image beyond a diagram (not that I'm shy anyway), and it's nowhere near as risky as the backscatter, so I went for it this one time and I was on my way.
jellicle 13y ago
The explosive detectors give false positives all the time. Any kind of lotion or hand soap contains glycerin - beep! Any kind of preserved meat product contains nitrates - beep! Fertilizer? Beep! Fireworks? Beep! Heart medication? Beep! The tests they use are intentionally cheap and fast. Accuracy is not the primary criteria. For white people you get an extra 30 second pat down. For brown people you get detained and interrogated all day. Like drug dogs, false positives may be considered a bonus by the security apparatus because it allows the apparatus to work against the discriminated-against class and blame it on something else, as you have just done.
- vecinu 13y ago
  You don't think the tests are cheap and fast to allow waiting lines to move faster and to save money? Everything would move much slower if you had to wait 5 minutes in an 'expensive and slow' device.
  - jellicle 13y ago
    I agree with you entirely - that's the correct kind of test to employ. My point is that getting a positive on such a test doesn't give you grounds to believe someone has handled explosives. Out of every 1000 positives provided by such a test, approximately 1000 are false positives, give or take 1.
- Filligree 13y ago
  Ammonia? I'm starting to worry about the plane ride on Sunday. I've been handling concentrated ammonia (25%) lately.
zem 13y ago
why do people insist on using the phrase "repeatedly set off the explosive detector"? if there is a substance on his person or bags that made the detector register a false positive, it is naturally going to register that same false positive every time it is run over said substance. the repetition means nothing.
- mindslight 13y ago
  It's an emotional argument to soothe their conscience by asserting that there was a legitimate reason for this to happen. If you want to see a major part of why the TSA is still molesting, you don't have to go searching for mythical sheeple in far away states - just look at a third of the comments in this thread.
  - greedo 13y ago
    As much as I agree with your first sentence, I find your second offensive with the use of "sheeple." It's a tired perjorative that makes you look like you belong on some tinfoil covered forum.
    - mindslight 13y ago
      Eh, that's why I prefixed it with 'mythical'. There isn't one large group of clueless people that need to receive a message - it's that propaganda is so incessant that for every topic, it overloads a significant fraction of critical thinkers and tricks them into supporting that broken system because they crave simplicity. Also, I had a tinfoil covered basement once. It was pretty sweet.
      - greedo 13y ago
        Ah, my mistake. I need to rewatch "Conspiracy Theory." I loved how his apartment was rigged.
- corresation 13y ago
  Most airports have layers of ETDs: Quick and "convenient", but slightly more prone to false-positives at screening, and then expensive, slower machines for secondary screening. In a similar way that a breathalyzer positive might yield a blood test.
mchanson 13y ago
I've set off the machine in question before. I am a american male mid thirties swedish/english/german (and look it). The person assumed the machine was wrong and spent a bit of extra time with me and sent me on my way. This was in 2010. I do not recall if it was during Ramadan.
mbateman 13y ago
Those tests get false positives all the time. I failed an explosives test once in Denver. The TSA agent guessed correctly that I had been rock climbing. Apparently this happens a lot, no idea why. They let me go after 5 seconds of chatting.
jedberg 13y ago
My bag set off the explosion detector and I had to have an "enhanced" pat down in private. They agent later admitted to me that the machine I was tested on gives false positives about 50% of the time.
InclinedPlane 13y ago
Here we have a situation where someone is being detained and effectively punished (denied food and drink, for example, forced to miss their flight) without any benefit of the legal system. Preventing such things is the entire reason we have a criminal justice system. Within the legal system we have all of these procedures and rights and so forth that have been carefully honed over centuries to ensure that the system is fair and not abusive. Except here we have this bizarre little bubble that is effectively outside the criminal justice system for most intents and purposes which has about the effect one would imagine in such situations. The detained here has no benefit of counsel, no ability to see the evidence put against them, no presumption of innocence, and so forth. And we can see within this one little example a microcosm of why all of those things are necessary and what happens when they are absent. No matter how you cut it this individual was effectively punished, the fact that there are almost no safeguards to prevent such abuses of power today should be chilling to everyone. "Setting off an explosion detector" is not the most important part of this. Imagine the detector as a human being instead (explosives detectors are just as fallible) making an accusation against someone. An accusation is not a conviction. Just because someone cries murder, or rape, or terrorist, even if it's a piece of equipment doing that, we shouldn't jump to conclusions and rip away every right and protection that people have in this country. Except it seems that we are doing just that and to some degree a lot of people are OK with it.
Confusion 13y ago
If you do the math, it becomes obvious they cannot treat everyone that sets of the explosives detectors in this way, given how many ways there are to trigger false positives. They just don't have, and could not possibly have, the manpower.
tripzilch 13y ago
you don't deal with false positives by doing the exact same test multiple times. that's insane. given the fact that he did not have any explosives or was planning anything nefarious, this whole story shouldn't have happened (in any free and/or sane country) because other tests and checks should have quickly revealed his innocence. and from what I get, they did so, but chose to detain and harass him, and break into his house (ffs!) regardless, possibly because religion/race/background/non-WASP-ness

reso 13y ago

Agreed. If I set off an explosive detector, I would expect to have a hard time, too.

goostavos 13y ago
I've set off the explosion detector before. I didn't receive anything like what OP did. And honestly, I chalk up a decent amount of that up to having the good luck of being white. I did get pulled into a separate area, and treated like criminal. Two agents stood by me the entire time while another one gave me another pat down. They opened up my backpack and rifled through everything (which was, I think, the most offensive part of everything), and meticulously swabbed and tested each area of my backpack. I did receive similar questions "Where are you going," "Why are you here," "Why would your bag be setting off our alarm?" etc.. After a few more searches, a few more scans, and a lot more questions they finally let me go through security. Whole process probably took about 20 minutes -- twenty terrifying minutes -- but in the end, it was relatively painless compared to OPs. I don't think his treatment was in any way justified by setting off an explosive materials detector.
- toddmorey 13y ago
  Thanks for sharing that experience. Any idea why you might have set the machine off? Trying to get a feel for how they've balanced how sensitive to make them. I think there's been too errors: His ethnicity made him endure more interrogation and your ethnicity allowed you to endure less. I think the next threat to airport security is as likely to be perpetrated by someone who doesn't fit the ethnic profile. Everyone in law enforcement really wants there to be a profile, but looking for one will only lead to the wrong conclusion and costly mistakes.
- DannyBee 13y ago
  "I don't think his treatment was in any way justified by setting off an explosive materials detector." He set it off multiple times. It is likely you didn't. He could not provide current id, anything that showed his current address, anything to prove any part of his story, etc. Any attempt to prove any part of his story was met with no available info. His answers were plausible, but again, there was simply nothing concrete he could provide to explain anything. I can understand the amount of questioning and length of time he was put through. I cannot understand the denial of water/etc.
  - jarek 13y ago
    "id" means identification. Your identity doesn't change just because you move. He had "id" just fine. It just didn't have his two-day-old address on it.
    - DannyBee 13y ago
      I understand what ID means. You are suppose to report address changes, and in most states, you usually only get 10 days or less to do so. Ignoring that for a second, what you have attempted to refute is not the sum total of the issue here. The thing is, at every turn there was just a coincidental reason something happened to turn out that way. If you don't think this looks highly suspicious on someone whose hands and bag seems to keep setting off explosive detectors, i don't know what to tell you. If they aren't supposed to target the people with odd stories who set off explosive detectors, who exactly are they supposed to be targeting?

ck2 13y ago

How do you know they don't have a button to push to make it give a false positive so they can hold people? Cops have dogs trained to give false positives on signal and we are constantly spied on and lied to by our own intelligence agencies. So please don't tell me this idea is far fetched, I think it's very plausible.

legitsource 13y ago
The dogs aren't purposefully trained to give false positives, that's just a side effect of how social dogs are. They want to please their handler and the handler gives them rewards.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  The handlers give the dogs false cues, obviously.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  It could be the dog trying to naturally please the cop, or the cop could have inadvertently trained the behavior (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans), or the training may very well have been deliberate. It would be damn hard to prove the last, but what is relatively easy to demonstrate is that dogs do give false signals that correspond to certain biases of the owners. Regardless of whether the last is true or not, the way we view detector dogs needs to be revisited in light of these clear biases. As it is, detector dogs seem to be barely better than dosing rods.
corresation 13y ago
Sure it's plausible. It's just incredibly unlikely (not least because this notion that the TSA is some white power apparatus seems to be at odds with the reality that the TSA is a very diverse workforce. Add that the passenger list in most urban centers is incredibly diverse, and this idea that it's just xenophobia seems quite nonsensical. Another post talks about how this demonstrates how the US views "foreigners" -- have these people never been to New York City, where this happened? It is about the most inclusive, vibrant, multicultural place on the planet). Indeed, the narrative of this very story seemed to be overwhelmingly focused on figuring out why he was setting off the explosives detectors. They repeatedly went through his belongings and tried to figure out if he was indeed in the business of making explosions. They almost certainly used a secret warrant to go into his apartment to, again, see if there was an explosives lab there. They really thought they had something when the explosives detector found something it didn't like, and there is no rational reason they would do this just because someone was Muslim (again, Muslims make hundreds of millions of flights in the US -- do people seriously think this is what they go through?)

codegeek 13y ago

You are missing the point. yes he set off the explosion detector for which he should have been questioned and he was. The issue is how they did it. No water for hours ? You seriously think that it is ok ? The rest 5% decorations that you were talking about is lot more than just decorations.

fennecfoxen 13y ago
The bit that got me as incontrovertibly hilariously-stupid was... they got all upset that he hadn't identified to them that he'd checked some baggage. If the guy is an adversary, you can't rely on him to bring that fact to your attention. If the guy isn't an adversary, his failure to identify it is (by definition) innocent in nature. In neither sense does harassing the guy about it make sense.
- btilly 13y ago
  They were hoping to use his failure to identify it as proof that he was an adversary. When it turned out that he had identified it, the person who had hoped that now had egg on his face. (I wouldn't be surprised if in another room they had figured this out as proof so that they could get him.)
- ctdonath 13y ago
  You think that was a stupid mistake? Probably a deliberate documented procedure: throw the person off-balance with some unexpected "stupid" weirdness. "You told the border guard you're entering the country to work." "What? No! I never said that! I'm entering to marry my fiancé!" "I'm here because of the MBA conference." "NBA? We didn't know there was a basketball event in this building." Yeah, I've seen it a number of times. They weren't upset. They were manipulating the author. They weren't stupid. They already had agents heading to the apartment to investigate.
  - greedo 13y ago
    And throw in the fact that lying to a Federal agent can lead to felony charges, the behavior of his interrogators is very typical.

alexeisadeski3 13y ago

I've always wondered what happens if you set off the detector. The fact is that they allowed him to fly afterwards. Overall it's not so horrible. Assuming the thing about the photo isn't true, of course.

hobs 13y ago
And made him pay an additional 700 dollars and miss his flight. Huge hassle as far as I can tell. If you detained and questioned an innocent man and ruined his day costing him a weeks wages for some, wouldn't you do SOMETHING to make up for it? A decent person would, a bureaucratic organization that is not held accountable sure wont.
- skaevola 13y ago
  It was the airline which denied him the flight, not the TSA.
  - corresation 13y ago
    JetBlue were total idiots about it, but at that point they were "victims" of this situation as well, and it seemed that the representative simply wanted to exclude him as quickly as they could to wipe their hands of the consequences of it.
    - mistercow 13y ago
      If the TSA officer was being truthful when they said the flight would be held, then JetBlue may have just been ensuring that they could take of on time.
TheCrownedFox 13y ago
A friend of mine set one off when we were traveling in Australia. We talked with the guard (who very 100% ralaxed) and he said that setting off the detector is incredibly easy. While he was searching my friend's purse, we were told that some of the chemicals used in make up can set it off. After finding nothing, we were free to continue. Took all of 3 minutes, no additional security, no prolonged questioning, just a simple check and go.

cperciva 13y ago

he set off an explosion detector (and clearly it doesn't get false positives often given the response they showed) False positives are fairly common, but usually easily explained -- e.g., "I was target shooting yesterday, there must be some gunpowder on my clothes". A false positive which the individual involved is unable -- or unwilling -- to explain is far less common.

omarali 13y ago
My dad had food (dates) set off the detector. He's now on the no fly list.
chimeracoder 13y ago
It's hard to explain a false positive when you're given no context about what it could be. As explained in other comments, nitroglycerin is found in things as bizarre as desserts. Unless someone happens to be incredibly knowledgeable about how to make explosives out of common household supplies, it's hard to expect them to say, eg. "Oh, that's because I happened to eat dessert last night and forgot to wash my hands." (In fact, if somebody does know that, that may be cause for all the more suspicion!)
jonah 13y ago
My dad flew on the 5th of July a couple years ago. While going through security, he commented that they must get a lot of false positives around that time of year. Their response: "We don't test for black powder."

steven777400 13y ago

My bags have set off the explosives detector before, twice. (In both cases, due a heart medication that apparently triggers false positives). I was not taken into a back room or interrogated for hours. They searched me and my bags in more detail, asked some questions, and concluded it must have been a false positive. The experience took about 15 minutes each time. This was a few years back, but I don't recall if it was post-9/11 or not. It seems like even setting off a detector doesn't, alone, justify the extreme reaction the authorities took in the author's case.

walls 13y ago
I don't think any airports had 'explosive detectors' before 9/11.
- swombat 13y ago
  Most European airports have had those as long as I can remember (definitely since the mid 90s).
  - jacquesm 13y ago
    Maybe bomb detectors but the explosive detectors ('puffers') are relatively new as far as I know.
    - dhimes 13y ago
      It was a huge political budget fight in the 90s. Clinton/Gore published a white paper detailing the threat of terrorism as the biggest threat to national security. They called for the fancy new detectors and what-not at airports. The Republicans, who controlled Congress, said that the big threat was from nukes from unfriendly states (later dubbed 'the axis of evil') didn't permit the funding and instead increased 'Star Wars' funding (anti-missile tech).
- justin66 13y ago
  I was searched with one around the year 2000, IIRC, at the San Francisco airport. I think it was pretty experimental. edit: there might have been a similar setup at Orly in France in 1997, come to think of it. The striking thing there was the soldiers with rifles (just 3 of them, but walking around) and the way they searched one of my grandmother's bags when the x-ray showed something that looked like a grenade. (it was glass in a weird shape) They were friendly and had a sense of humor about it, and it didn't slow us down, which all made a big difference.

manojlds 13y ago

Don't forget that his house was potentially searched.

dotBen 13y ago
and possibly bugged. I wouldn't live there without a complete sweep, and probably not even after that.

toddmorey 13y ago

If events like Oklahoma City, Boston, and Sandy Hook have taught us anything, it's that terrorism doesn't have an ethnic profile. It's not only insulting, but also extremely unsafe to assume otherwise. I'm surprised and embarrassed by how representatives of my country treated him. I'm embarrassed by their cultural ignorance. There should at least be some better training. However, this should be a technology discussion and I completely agree with your comment. The question is about the machine, how often it provides a false positive, and how likely it is for someone to come in contact with a legal and common chemical that can set it off. In short: what have we sacrificed for this measure of safety, and does it really provide the advertised benefits? If we have decently calibrated explosion detectors, then in the unlikely event that they do go off, I for one want that individual questioned very thoroughly, ethnicity and religion aside. The title of the article should be: "Don't fly after handling Permethrin."

Zimahl 13y ago
First, Sandy Hook/Newtown wasn't terrorism. By definition it was not 'the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.'[1]. It was more of a random spree killing. As for Boston, that's a terrible example because it was committed by Chechen Muslims. Second, we don't know if there was a false positive. Maybe some cleaner or the bed bug spray do have legitimate bomb-making uses. There's a lot of conjecture in the story and even more in this comment thread. [1] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/terrorism?s=t http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/terrorism?s=t
- duggieawesome 13y ago
  Can't forget about the anthrax attacks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks
- blablabla123 13y ago
  > Maybe some cleaner or the bed bug spray do have legitimate bomb-making uses. With bed bug spray you can set up a decent fire, maybe even blast an apartment, cf. my other comment. This is why it's not easy to buy it and that's why you should read the manual. Lovely to hear how many people use highly flammable chemicals without reading the manual.

msrpotus 13y ago

If it was just the false positive, that would be one thing but the utterly humiliating, quite frankly stupid, way they treated him was completely unjustified. There's nothing that warranted denying him water and not treating him with dignity.

Tloewald 13y ago
Yes, but this is how law enforcement behaves across the board. (And when they do give you a drink then they can grab the cup and fingerprint it and run DNA tests, right?)

RivieraKid 13y ago

They searched him very thouroughly. They didn't find any explosive. So it was clearly a false positive. The way they treated him was absolutely disgusting.

nknighthb 13y ago

I've set off the explosive detector a couple times. I don't take anything but lisinopril and OTC allergy meds. Each incident took 3-5 minutes to resolve, and did not involve any questions not directly related to the screening process. I have no idea what set it off, and as far as I know, neither did the TSA. Apart from those two times, I've been the focus of TSA attention for more than a few seconds on exactly two other occasions. One was when the x-ray tech was confused by the small flatbed scanner in my carryon, and the other was the day I had to fly with expired ID. Again, neither occasion took more than about five minutes, and again, they asked me no questions not directly related to the screening process itself. Also, about half the time I travel on one-way tickets, often between points that my ID does not reflect an address for. I've travelled while tired, I've travelled while stressed/nervous, I've travelled with my hair and beard at every conceivable length/combination, including long beard, short hair, and a completely shaved head. But I'm white and have a completely Anglo name.

sandyarmstrong 13y ago

I think they get false positives all the time. I am a white male that routinely opts-out of the scanners. I've had many many pat downs. One time my bag registered a false positive and I was also subjected to the "enhanced pat-down". My experience was totally different from OP's. The TSA officers went out of their way to reassure me that false positives are not uncommon, that there was nothing to be afraid of, etc etc. They asked me a few simple questions, but it felt more like they were making conversation to keep the atmosphere relaxed, rather than interrogating me. I don't recall if further tests of my bags or clothes indicated explosives, but I was let out of the screening room after ~20 minutes. I strongly suspect that the respectful treatment I repeatedly receive during my TSA interactions are due to (mostly racial) profiling, and luck.

corresation 13y ago
The machines are not binary. They trigger specific materials. Some are going to be much more common than others, and like every process where they have false positives they react differently based upon their incidence rate.
- piyush_soni 13y ago
  Like ... as common as over the counter bedbug spray?
  - corresation 13y ago
    That was conjecture on his part. If permethrin were the cause, it should be very well know as it's a very common insecticide and lice shampoo.

kevingadd 13y ago

I've set off a detector before but because I looked like a young white male at the time all they did was screen my bags and have my hands tested again for explosives and send me on my way.

mistercow 13y ago

>and no one here knows what would happen if John Smith Anglosaxon set off the same detector in the same situation. We don't have to have direct knowledge of the impossibly specific situation you've constructed. The FBI agent flat out said that it was about his race when he said "a person of your… background". And explosive detectors are not really there to find bombs. They are there to reduce manual searches. If they just wanted to find bombs, they could just search everyone. Since that is impractical on multiple counts, the explosive detector is valuable because it narrows down the space. Once you have taken the person aside, searched them, searched their stuff, and come up with no additional evidence ("brown" isn't evidence), it's time to let them go. Finally, this isn't just about racism, but is also about the TSA and the cops being dangerously incompetent bullies. Instead of being polite and decent, they were rude and intimidating. Someone being reluctant and apprehensive under those circumstances is not strong evidence of wrongdoing. And when they questioned him about the chemicals he had handled, they wouldn't even tell him what they had found. That's the kind of "withholding information" tactic you would use if you were playing the role of a detective without actually having any idea how to investigate. What purpose does it serve? If he were a terrorist, he'd know what chemicals were in his explosives. The only situation where that information is actually a secret is the one where the suspect is innocent. In other words, they repeatedly created situations that either made guilt indistinguishable from innocence, or where they'd distinguish them inversely. This is, to put it mildly, "poor form".

corresation 13y ago
We don't have to have direct knowledge of the impossibly specific situation you've constructed. Instead we have people saying "I am white and I set one off in 2003 in Australia and they let me through, therefore that demonstrates that this is racism" (ignore every case where non-whites got a couple of quick questions and went through). And how utterly provincial are so many people on here? What backwaters do they live in? Go to JFK or Newark and tell me that they pick on non-whites, and I'll tell you that they must have hundreds of thousands of employees working around the clock to manage that. Further what an FBI agent purportedly said during the conversational stage is utterly irrelevant. We don't know what explosive material the sensor detected, but by the response it seems likely that it was rare. Finally, this isn't just about racism Indeed, it isn't, even though the overwhelming majority of comments, and the title itself, portends racism. In another comment someone criticizes me for apparently claiming that their treatment is reasonable. Yet never did I say their treatment was reasonable. Who would? they wouldn't even tell him what they had found Because they believe in the flawed concept of security through obscurity. They likely imagine that giving that information away shows their hand.

jey 13y ago

> and clearly it doesn't get false positives often given the response they showed How is this a reasonable assumption? When the probability of it legitimately going off is so low, most times it actually goes off are probably just false positives. > being Hindi "Hindi" is a language, and "Hindu" is the religion.

cesarbs 13y ago

My mother recently came to the US and set off an explosive detector. It took her just a few minutes to get cleared and she was not at all harassed like the author of the post was. Although she comes from Brazil, she is white, blonde and blue-eyed (a descendent of German immigrants). So I guess there is a difference in treatment according to race. What set off the explosives detector? She had no idea, as that had never happened before to her. The only different thing she had touched hours before was the wipes they gave her during the flight to clean her hands before a meal.

danielharan 13y ago

FTFA: "You’ll have to understand, when a person of your… background walks into here, travelling alone, and sets off our alarms, people start to get a bit nervous." So it does sound like being brown-skinned had something to do with the ordeal.

ryan-c 13y ago

I flew out of SFO last week and set off the explosive detector after opting out. My experience was rather different. The TSA agents took my backpack and made a cursory hand-search, doing explosive swab tests on my electronics. After failing to find a source, they took me to the booth to do a more through check. They didn't ask me any questions at all about myself or why I might have set the system off other than the normal 'any sensitive areas' questions. I did volunteer that I'd spilled a small amount of gasoline on myself when fueling my car the previous day and that I was wearing new clothes that had not been washed since purchase. They seemed entirely disinterested. The whole thing took maybe 15 minutes longer than a regular opt-out pat down. So, apparently that's how it goes when a white male sets the thing off.

mech4bg 13y ago
I mentioned this in another comment, but I've set off the explosives detector before and had a very similar experience as the original link (taken to a side room, questioned, etc). This is as a white male, although it was in Australia.

antjanus 13y ago

Let me tell you what would happen and what DID happen to one of my friends who set off the alarm. A supervisor was called in, he double checked his ID, found out my friend was using some chemicals the day before (working on his apartment). Waved him through right after. The explanation may be the thing that got him through but it could also be the fact that they told him what chemical he set off and the fact that he's white as hell.

orblivion 13y ago

I opted out of the Millimeter waves in Manchester NH airport (BTW, coolest TSA agents I ever met. One of them even said he wouldn't ever go through a backscatter machine himself.). They detected some nitrates or nitrites, I forget which (or what those exactly mean). But that's a potential sign of explosives apparently. It's probably because I had been by a camp fire that morning. If you go camping, or shooting, you should consider cleaning your clothes before going through airport security. This was a flight to return home, so I didn't ask to leave the airport, but they did give me the option of going through the porno-scanner or staying grounded. I understand that the TSA at least claims that the scanner doesn't actually involve showing anybody an image beyond a diagram (not that I'm shy anyway), and it's nowhere near as risky as the backscatter, so I went for it this one time and I was on my way.

jellicle 13y ago

The explosive detectors give false positives all the time. Any kind of lotion or hand soap contains glycerin - beep! Any kind of preserved meat product contains nitrates - beep! Fertilizer? Beep! Fireworks? Beep! Heart medication? Beep! The tests they use are intentionally cheap and fast. Accuracy is not the primary criteria. For white people you get an extra 30 second pat down. For brown people you get detained and interrogated all day. Like drug dogs, false positives may be considered a bonus by the security apparatus because it allows the apparatus to work against the discriminated-against class and blame it on something else, as you have just done.

vecinu 13y ago
You don't think the tests are cheap and fast to allow waiting lines to move faster and to save money? Everything would move much slower if you had to wait 5 minutes in an 'expensive and slow' device.
- jellicle 13y ago
  I agree with you entirely - that's the correct kind of test to employ. My point is that getting a positive on such a test doesn't give you grounds to believe someone has handled explosives. Out of every 1000 positives provided by such a test, approximately 1000 are false positives, give or take 1.
Filligree 13y ago
Ammonia? I'm starting to worry about the plane ride on Sunday. I've been handling concentrated ammonia (25%) lately.

zem 13y ago

why do people insist on using the phrase "repeatedly set off the explosive detector"? if there is a substance on his person or bags that made the detector register a false positive, it is naturally going to register that same false positive every time it is run over said substance. the repetition means nothing.

mindslight 13y ago
It's an emotional argument to soothe their conscience by asserting that there was a legitimate reason for this to happen. If you want to see a major part of why the TSA is still molesting, you don't have to go searching for mythical sheeple in far away states - just look at a third of the comments in this thread.
- greedo 13y ago
  As much as I agree with your first sentence, I find your second offensive with the use of "sheeple." It's a tired perjorative that makes you look like you belong on some tinfoil covered forum.
  - mindslight 13y ago
    Eh, that's why I prefixed it with 'mythical'. There isn't one large group of clueless people that need to receive a message - it's that propaganda is so incessant that for every topic, it overloads a significant fraction of critical thinkers and tricks them into supporting that broken system because they crave simplicity. Also, I had a tinfoil covered basement once. It was pretty sweet.
    - greedo 13y ago
      Ah, my mistake. I need to rewatch "Conspiracy Theory." I loved how his apartment was rigged.
corresation 13y ago
Most airports have layers of ETDs: Quick and "convenient", but slightly more prone to false-positives at screening, and then expensive, slower machines for secondary screening. In a similar way that a breathalyzer positive might yield a blood test.

mchanson 13y ago

I've set off the machine in question before. I am a american male mid thirties swedish/english/german (and look it). The person assumed the machine was wrong and spent a bit of extra time with me and sent me on my way. This was in 2010. I do not recall if it was during Ramadan.

mbateman 13y ago

Those tests get false positives all the time. I failed an explosives test once in Denver. The TSA agent guessed correctly that I had been rock climbing. Apparently this happens a lot, no idea why. They let me go after 5 seconds of chatting.

jedberg 13y ago

My bag set off the explosion detector and I had to have an "enhanced" pat down in private. They agent later admitted to me that the machine I was tested on gives false positives about 50% of the time.

InclinedPlane 13y ago

Here we have a situation where someone is being detained and effectively punished (denied food and drink, for example, forced to miss their flight) without any benefit of the legal system. Preventing such things is the entire reason we have a criminal justice system. Within the legal system we have all of these procedures and rights and so forth that have been carefully honed over centuries to ensure that the system is fair and not abusive. Except here we have this bizarre little bubble that is effectively outside the criminal justice system for most intents and purposes which has about the effect one would imagine in such situations. The detained here has no benefit of counsel, no ability to see the evidence put against them, no presumption of innocence, and so forth. And we can see within this one little example a microcosm of why all of those things are necessary and what happens when they are absent. No matter how you cut it this individual was effectively punished, the fact that there are almost no safeguards to prevent such abuses of power today should be chilling to everyone. "Setting off an explosion detector" is not the most important part of this. Imagine the detector as a human being instead (explosives detectors are just as fallible) making an accusation against someone. An accusation is not a conviction. Just because someone cries murder, or rape, or terrorist, even if it's a piece of equipment doing that, we shouldn't jump to conclusions and rip away every right and protection that people have in this country. Except it seems that we are doing just that and to some degree a lot of people are OK with it.

Confusion 13y ago

If you do the math, it becomes obvious they cannot treat everyone that sets of the explosives detectors in this way, given how many ways there are to trigger false positives. They just don't have, and could not possibly have, the manpower.

tripzilch 13y ago

you don't deal with false positives by doing the exact same test multiple times. that's insane. given the fact that he did not have any explosives or was planning anything nefarious, this whole story shouldn't have happened (in any free and/or sane country) because other tests and checks should have quickly revealed his innocence. and from what I get, they did so, but chose to detain and harass him, and break into his house (ffs!) regardless, possibly because religion/race/background/non-WASP-ness