So Mr 152, You feel strongly that a Police Officer or Customs Officer should be searched do you? What a silly man! First you might have noticed, that many Heathrow Officers carry firearms. So what are you going to do with them? Call the police, who would have to go through a search and in turn have thier firearm, baton and tear gas seized. Just think in 20 minutes the BAA would have enough weapons to start WW3, and every Policeman held for questioning. Good idea! I feel sure, if you have a sensible think you will realise that the chances of a policeman being a terrorist are very low. Can the same be said of the BAA? Not really, thier vetting having been shown on numerous occations to be lacking. The long and short of it, if a police officer on duty is carring a weapon of offence, he is authorised to do so, and there is nothing a private security firm like the BAA can do about it, nor I'm sure would they officaly like to. On a slightly more important note, perhaps if the BAA had paid more attention to thier job of searching pax, they may have found the bomb destined for the el al flight some years ago, rather than letting el als own security do it. I find that more worrying!