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Comment by reso | Hacker News Reader

Airport security is frequently humiliating. I myself have been nearly reduced to tears just by customs agents when crossing the border on business. However, this man set off a bomb detector. He set of the machine that detects bombs, repeatedly. After that event, nothing Mr. Mukerjee reported is particularly surprising, and I would expect to have a similar experience if I set off the same detector. I don't believe his race had nearly as much of an effect on his experience as is believed.

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The problem here is that he was pre-selected by the Behaviour Detection Officer (BDO) while in line and then the TSA claimed he rang their bell for explosives.

We can't assume that government agents are on the up and up. Their word is open to question if they have no proof of their claims. Since they don't deny the story, I tend to lean to Mr. Mukerjee's perceptions as a more accurate account of the day.

There is ample evidence that local, county, and state law enforcement will trigger false positives to provide justification for searches. This behaviour by law enforcements makes me believe it plausible that the TSA and other "Agents" And "Officers" (I thought TSA were still neither) orchestrated all this to incite behavior they could use to justify further investigation.

> However, this man set off a bomb detector. He set of the machine that detects bombs, repeatedly.

It detects a lot more than bombs. Over the machine's lifetime it will detect hundreds of thousands of things but almost certainly not any bombs.

Hear hear! This is a chemical detector, not a bomb detector.

http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/225047/estimate-conf...

No, he set off a machine that detects a wide range of chemicals, some of which may be used to manufacture bombs. That's important to keep in mind: This staff needs to be able to handle false positives on a regular basis.

If they treat people like shit, it's a serious problem, as the vast majority of people who sets off these detectors will be entirely innocent, and will be frustrated and/or scared at being singled out and detained.

Regardless of what chemical detectors he set off, and what suspicions they had, it was disgraceful that he was "detained" for such a long period without being provided with food and water.

Do you really think it is appropriate that such interrogation techniques are used on travellers after they have been cleared of carrying any sort of explosive device?

No, the refusal of water is clearly inappropriate in this case.

> However, this man set off a bomb detector. He set of the machine that detects bombs, repeatedly. After that event, nothing Mr. Mukerjee reported is particularly surprising, and I would expect to have a similar experience if I set off the same detector.

I wouldn't. My bag often sets off the bomb detector repeatedly; when that happens they just search it and send me on my way. It's no big deal. If the bag sets off the bomb detector repeatedly, the most likely reason for it is that the bag was at one point in contact with some chemical that is related to an explosives precursor. And that's OKAY. It's no big deal. You check whether the bag has explosives in it RIGHT NOW, and if it doesn't, you send the guy on his way!

(FWIW, I think I've triggered due to (a) flash paper (a magician's supply), (b) fireworks (of the safe-and-sane variety). In both cases the offending material wasn't actually present, but it had been IN the bag or IN my clothes in the prior week)

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