PACKAGE AT PORT OF MIAMI POSED NO THREAT! (No Explosives - Contained Sprinkler Parts!)

Yahoooooo via ^ | 1/8/07

[areafiftyone]

MIAMI - The Port of Miami was hit by its second terrorism scare in two days Monday when a package that was to be loaded onto a cruise ship tested positive for plastic explosives. Authorities later determined it was harmless.

The package was initially tested six times, and each time it came back positive for the military-grade explosive known as C4, the Coast Guard said.

The package was then destroyed, and a Miami-Dade County police bomb squad determined it contained sprinkler parts, said Zach Mann, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Miami.

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

You're a busy little bee today.

[SauronOfMordor]

Y'know, if a terrorist had a pound of C4, rather than set it off somewhere, he could have much more fun making a powder of it and sprinkling it on stuff that he knows will be going thru security checkpoints. Eventually either the tests will be abandoned or commerce would halt. Ditto for if he had some radioactive material

[lawdude]

Better to have a dozen false alarms than to miss ONE real thing. Which do you sniggering idiots want?

[areafiftyone]

They need to get better testing.

[Diddle E. Squat]

This is totally embarrassing. The terrorists can shut down our ports, and tank our markets by planting sprinkler heads. Do we have Maxwell Smart and Inspector Clouseau running our port security?

No it isn't, no they didn't, and no we don't. But we do have clueless know-it-all's backseat driving and hyperventilating out of ignorance.

[Last Laugh]

The dry run failed.

No it didn't. Now sleepers will know how the public will react, and when told, what we'll believe.

They know what "port authorities will do, and what the media will do.

Sounds successful to me.

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

Miami's hosting a Super Bowl in a few weeks. Don't discount that.

Of course, these are all crackpot tinfoil conspiracies. There is no war happening. You're all completely safe 100% of the time. And Islam is a religion of peace.

[Last Laugh]

How do sprinkler heads resemble C4?

[Diddle E. Squat]

Work is slow today, a sad break for the "Sky is falling" crowd.

[smonk]

---Best to use an abundance of caution. ---

exactly. if you're going to screw up, I would prefer that they error on the side of caution.

[discostu]

If it's one of Disney's then there are Disney owned islands the ship will be stopping at that might have a golf course that needs watering.

[areafiftyone]

A combination of FALSE READINGS and the stuff that was on the Sprinklers resembled C4 explosives. There was no C4 on the sprinkler parts.

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

You forgot know-it-all, finger-wagging Pollyannas who like to pretend we're not at war.

[Bob]

If there were six positive tests, I can only assume that SOME C4 was there - kind of like cocaine on money.

Either that or the tests could be extremely sensitive and subject to false positives because of that sensitivity. Repeating the same sensitive test six times doesn't really tell you much since it doesn't make it any less susceptible to a false positive on any of the tests.

The possibility of false positives versus missed detections is a trade-off. Perhaps retesting with a slightly higher detection threshold could weed out any false positive results.

[Strategerist]

How do sprinkler heads resemble C4?

As was repeatedly learned during many various anthrax scares, it's painfully difficult to accurately test anything for any substance with ANY sort of field test - false positives are rampant, and there are many harmless substances that have chemical similarities to dangerous substances.

[Palladin]

You'd be best off watching those high school cheerleaders down there in Texas...talk about terrorists!

[Minutemen]

may actually be good work erring on the side of caution
Unless its your parcel that got blown up (tongue in cheek)

[JerseyHighlander]

If this was a used refurbished irrigation sprinkler system, such as one that was outdated for use in the US, but still salvageable for down island use, it is quite possible that the previous owner had been using fertilizer injection in the irrigation system, meaning that fertilizer residue would still be in and on the sprinkler equipment.

Also, many irrigation sprinkler distributors also sell the fertilizer for fertilizer injection irrigation in bulk quantities to become a one stop shop for their customers irrigation equipment needs. Warehouse cross contamination is another probable cause.

There has been extensive criticism of the homeland security industry related to nitrogen and urea related compound detection systems. Namely they can detect the compound class, but can't differentiate between cat piss and fertilizer from explosive material.

The lesson learned here is that the US government at Federal , State and local level, as well as private industry put under mandate to inspect cargo, has wasted billions of dollars on first generation technologies, and have wasted billions of dollars of tax dollars and increased fees to end users, due to the post 9/11 spending spree on the homeland security industrial complex.

(That was long winded.)
All we can hope for is that the initial spending spree is criticized so the manufacturers of homeland security equipment are forced to pay for R&D and made to give the public a better return on investment. False alarms cause millions of dollars in damages, this situation shows how correct critics have been on this issue.

[Ditto]

I wonder if sprinkler parts = pvc piping?

Could be I suppose or IIRC, there is a plastic heat sensitive seal on the sprinkler head that "melts" at relatively low temp opening the valve. Does that plastic mimic C4? I don't know. Just a guess.

[Diddle E. Squat]

Unless its your parcel that got blown up (tongue in cheek)

Good point. I wonder if those sprinklers were being shipped from a golf course where the maintenance man had been fighting a gopher problem?