But dogs cannot do the work that TSA employees do at passenger screening check points. A dog cannot check you id and verify that the picture on your license matches your mug. A dog can not check you for metal or bottles of liquid with more than 6 ounces. A dog cannot do a pat down or run a wand over your body to verify that your artificial hip is not a concealed firearm. The dog can sniff your crotch (and probably will).
Then there is the work limit for a dog. A canine can work for 20 to 30 minutes but then needs a break. The dog’s effectiveness deteriorates if forced to work for an extended period of time. More importantly is the boredom factor. The reality of airport security screening is that serious threats involving illegal drugs or explosives is very rare. Dogs work on a reward system. They are either trained with food or toys/play. When the dog hits on a threat item that furry critter is a “Good Dog” and is rewarded appropriately. If the dog spends thirty minutes sniffing bags and passengers and comes up with nothing, the dog can get depressed. There is no reward.
Other factors to consider. You still need to have a human handling the dog. That means a trained police officer. He or she takes the dog home with them at night. Dogs are not locked away in a kennel and left alone at the end of a work shift. And let’s not forget that Sparky or Spot needs to go outside and relieve themselves. Most airports are not built with easy access to clumps of trees and grass. If you boost the number of dogs working at an airport you are going to increase the amount of canine fecal and urine that has to be scooped up. Most dogs have not learned to squat on a commode.
Once you consider all of the challenges and limitations that come from using a dog for airport security, you quickly realize that Schumer is a moron.
We can also augment the Fire Departments with Dalmatians.
I sense a more sinister fantasy in Schumer’s mind. I don’t think he’s looking for anything illegal, just some compliance .
He does not care about Americans. Anyone that votes for him also does not care. They just want stuff they did not earn. It is one of the tenets of the downfall of a civilization. Voting for things one did not earn then looking around for people to defend it. No. It will not be defended. Defend it yourself. We have moved to the liberties.
You can be a Democrat or you can be an American, you can’t be both.
The Germans made good use of K9 teams in airports, train stations and on U-bahn/S-bahn cars in the 90s. The German handlers managed to address the realities of doggy treats and doggy doo doo. I’m sure the TSA can figure it out as well. It can be done. Whether the TSA has sufficient K9 teams to do this is another story. Using them at airports would also mean they’re not doing whatever they’re doing now. It could only be a partial answer and may not be worth the trouble of all the necessary reassignments.
You are missing the point. The dogs don’t do a damn thing about enhancing passenger screening.
I think you missed the point and, for someone with your background, I’m surprised at your lack of imagination. K9 teams can certainly enhance the screening of passengers for drugs, explosives and even firearms. However, I agree with you that dogs are not going to be checking passenger IDs. Schumer never suggested that. He only talked about screening for explosives. Nor will dogs find ceramic and polymer knives. But they can alert on that 8 oz bottle of explosive or accelerant that someone tries to pass through TSA screening. This could be done, but to get past a mere demonstration project, it would take resourcing, training and a well thought out implementation plan. As an immediate response to an impending TSA worker shortage, current K9 resources are inadequate and are not a viable response. There’s also the problem of passengers deathly afraid of dogs or severely allergic to dogs.
If there were political points to be made the moron would only allow vaccinated dogs to work
https://www.newsweek.com/amplify/9-signs-your-dog-has-covid-19-what-do-about-it
Humans and dogs are both messy, troublesome, disease carrying, stupid, meat bags. The world would be much more orderly, safe, and cheaper for superior elites without them. If Schumer’s BS was aligned with the times, he would be advocating for AI enhanced robots to do the screening. The robots could also be armed with various non-lethal and lethal capabilities. Due to laser guided targeting systems, they would never miss. The AI would be so finely tuned that they would never detain or gun down the innocent and they’d always get the drop in the guilty. These things would be plugged into all kinds of databases with facial recognition, biometrics reading, etc, etc.
Ask Zuckerberg or Bezos. They’d agree with me. Maybe Musk too. And they’d tell you it’s feasible. As a matter of fact, it’s the future.
“There is no reason on God’s green Earth why anyone — let alone a TSA agent — shouldn’t have the vaccine,”
The Senator should explain why a couple of branches of government are exempt from the unconstitutional presidential decree.
Well now fellows we might ponder ol’ Chucky had other considerations in mind.
Ya recall we’ve been experiencing alot of flight cancellations? Due to … ahem … “unusual weather”? It might well be Chuck’s just remembering from back when he hisself was just a pup one of the reasons people kept dogs around (and here in Arkansas still do).
Good dogs have kind of a knack of being able to instill in say, ‘traveling salesmen’ for instance, a certain reluctance to come up on the porch and be bothersome.
Could be we need to appreciate ol’ Schumer’s idea of using dogs might just be his way of thinking outside the box – cutting down on the number of passengers enthusiastic about passing through a gauntlet of dogs would tend to result in cancelled flights being less noticeable.
(We can be certain when and if, Press Secretary Psaki takes to keeping dogs around so as to avoid reporters pestering her with impertinent questions.)
JK/AR,
The lefties get their panties in a knot over an image of a horse riding border patrol agent with split reins rounding up some illegals, but a gauntlet of German Shepards at the airport is fine; not evocative at all. Nope. No siree.
These f’ing people aren’t serious. They make it up as they go and will say anything.
That they do Eric Newhill ‘that’ being “making it up as they go.”
Course they probably don’t remember how having that gauntlet of dogs worked out for ’em at the Edmund Pettus Bridge back in ’65 – eventually turning the whole of the southern states from blue to …
Their sort of thinking outside the box has a history of ‘not working out as intended’ and, for the life of me I can’t fathom how they can keep on misremembering and still be functionally relevant:
https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/desegregation-of-hoxie-schools-731/
I suppose we shall see.
Making dogs screen people is cruel to the dogs.
However as a dog loving person, I love watching a happy detector dog playing the game at an airport. I get into trouble for petting.
Did you kill the police dogs?
The more I see of people, the better I like dogs.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2279789/I-chase-I-bite–crime-report-dog–Police-investigate-completing-witness-statement-written-force-dog.html
walrus
Did the police kill their dogs?
This is about staff refusing to get vaccinated, Mr Johnson?
Never seen such dumb PR as Biden et al put out. Get jabbed or else, “our patience is running out”, and all the rest of it.
Were I anti-vax nothing would stiffen my resistance more than nonsense like that. Fortunately in England that policy of forcing hasn’t been adopted.
Over here Johnson’s getting stick at the moment for being soft. We’ve got many more cases than other parts of Europe.
I suspect it’s deliberate policy. Let the infection burn out among the unvaccinated now rather than waiting till the winter. Even if I’m wrong on that, the fact is that anti-lockdown and anti-vax sentiment here is now so strong that no one but a fool would try to keep forcing the policies we had until recently.
It was a different argument before the vaccines came along. Now they have come along, and now all who want them have had a chance to get them, why keep on with the old policy? I suspect we’re looking at institutional inertia here when it comes to the President’s Covid policy now.
I’ve referred to Dr Campbell previously on the Colonel’s site. He puts it straight. This disease is now endemic and all are at risk of catching it sooner or later.
He put that argument when considering the relative risk of getting side effects. I believe the argument can be taken further. If you’re vaccinated and catch Covid the chances of escaping hospitalisation or death are very good. That’s all can now be expected. If you’re not vaccinated, then that’s your decision and you risk little harm to others.
So Biden et al are behind the curve. They don’t need to push it as hard as they’re doing and the more they force it the more they’ll get pushback. Better to go the Johnson route and let it ride.
Just my view. There are some medical experts on the Colonel’s site and they’ll say if I’m wrong.
Any commentary by Chuck Schumer must be considered in the context of Schumer’s sole allegiance.
Schumer likes to brag about being a “Shomer” a Hebrew variation on his name which means “guardian.” Schumer considers himself the “guardian” of “Israel.” Look it up, the Youtube video with his braggadocio on this point can be easily found.
Since 9/11, one overwhelming direction of government has been to “Israelize” the USA. With airport scanning systems, invasive security, and other militarized impositions and security theater. None of which has caught a single terrorist.
The goal, of course, is to funnel endless mountains of cash to favored security contractors with each new airport security scam.
As always, follow the money.