Search Routine

As expected, new security directives to search electronic gadgets have traveling geeks in a snit.

Comments

[Douglas Fletcher]

I bet all these super-strong, muscular tech geeks are going to be a real handful for airport security.

[Rex Stetson]

As a former airport ground security coordinator, whose responsibility it was to oversee this type of screening, I can emphatically say that it is impossible to damage an electronic device with an ETD (explosive trace detection) swab. The swabs do not even carry static electricity. A positive result would require a removal of a battery or a power-up ( as well as a more thorough search of the passenger, who might have contaminated the device with his explosive-tainted hands.) The X-ray belt can detect organic material such as explosives inside a laptop ( which shouldn't exist)or any object of the wrong density, but the ETD acts as an additional level of security, which does no harm to any electronic devices.
The point is that there is next to no way this new scrutiny will result in any heightened risk of damage to a device ( save a screener clumsily dropping the device which could always have happened.)What it does do is slow things down a bit, which causes screeners to speed up other parts of the process to compensate- to the point of it being both annoying AND ineffective.

[Rex Stetson]

I would also like to add that 99 times out of a hundred the false positives on ETD are very easily explained by contact with a suprisingly large number of everyday household items whose chemical properties mimic those of common explosives. I of course will not tell all you would be laptop-bombers out there what they are so they let you through because of your "reasonable explanation" 🙂