-Caveat Lector- Newshawk: Amanda Pubdate: Sun, 23 Jun 2002 Source: New York Times (NY) Copyright: 2002 The New York Times Company Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Website: http://www.nytimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298 Section: Travel Author: Matthew L. Wald
EXOTIC OPTIONS TESTED FOR AIRPORT SCREENING WASHINGTON - JUST as travelers may be getting used to the familiar and ever-more-sensitive metal detectors at airport checkpoints, the Transportation Department is evaluating more sophisticated and exotic equipment to screen the one billion or so people who go through such portals in the United States each year. Contractors, sensing a lucrative new market, have built prototypes of scanning systems that will sense tiny particles of explosives as well as drugs. The sensors can register as little as a nanogram, or one billionth of a gram. Trace detectors, as such machines are called, are in use at about 50 airports, but for carry-on bags, not people. In their present form they would be awkward to apply to people, even more awkward than current security procedures. Trace detectors are commonly used on laptop computers and other fairly large objects that could conceal a bomb that X-rays cannot detect. A technician runs a muslin cloth over the object, then feeds the cloth into a machine that looks for telltale chemical compounds. A new machine being tested at the Federal Aviation Administration laboratory at Atlantic City International Airport in Egg Harbor, N.J., has passengers walk through a portal somewhat bigger than a metal detector, with a chimney on top. A red light tells the passenger to stop and a recorded voice announces, "Air puffers on." A little puff of air - resembling a glaucoma test, but for the whole body - shakes particles loose from the skin and clothing, then rises up to the chimney for analysis. If the sample shows nothing suspicious, a green light tells the passenger to move on. The manufacturer, Xtek, of Wilmington, Mass., says that the machine, which it calls EntryScan, can pick out explosives such as C4, Semtex and dynamite, and cocaine, marijuana and other substances, all of them "effortlessly detected and identified in a nonintrusive manner." Nuclear power plants have used such systems for years to test for signs of explosives. But those systems are much too slow for airports. Power plants can take a minute or so for each person; the units being tested in Atlantic City take a few seconds. Presumably a trace detection system would tip off screeners to passengers like Richard Reid, the man who officials say had a bomb in his shoe and was trying to blow up an American Airlines flight from Paris over the Atlantic in December. Another company, the Thermo Electron Corporation, builds a portable system called Egis, used in airports overseas, that works on the same principle. It can be moved around in a van. The company's Web site says the device can be used after a bomb blast to analyze the explosive used, and has a picture of a site where that was done: the World Trade Center after the 1993 bombing. Such systems have several challenges. One is to run reliably in the field; much of the equipment installed by the airlines and by the new Transportation Security Administration has a tendency to break down, according to airline officials. Another is that at present, there is no performance standard by which the equipment would be certified for use. And some people could set them off for innocent reasons - after having come from a firing range, for example. But trace detection is promising, according to Dr. Susan F. Hallowell, the manager of the explosives and weapons-detection research and development branch at the Atlantic City lab, because nearly any bomb builder would carry traces of explosives afterward. "I can make a clean bomb, but I have 27 years' experience," she said. A bomb maker who washed his hands afterward would recontaminate his hand when he turned off the water faucet, she said. And people who wash their hands may not have washed their clothes or their wristwatches. Dogs could do the same work, but security officials say that the dogs tire, lose interest and stop working, without indicating that they have done so. Trace detection has the advantage of requiring minimal judgment by the screeners, who can also lose focus on their work. A reliable system would also be embraced by the airlines, which fear that the intrusive searches at checkpoints now are driving away passengers. But some airlines would like even better inspections at the checkpoints. Don Carty, chief executive of American Airlines, said recently that if the universal searches were more thorough, the Transportation Security Administration might be able to skip the second round of searches at the gates. Another technology undergoing tests here is body scanning using backscatter X-ray, in which tiny doses of X-rays are bounced off the person to be scanned, giving a view through the clothing. The Transportation Security Administration does not use the machine, but officials said that the Customs Service offers it in lieu of a strip search. "There are obviously some issues with deploying this," Dr. Hallowell said. __________________________________________________________________________ Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. --- MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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