U.S. Is Slow to Upgrade Airport Security Systems

U.S. Is Slow to Upgrade Airport Security Systems 
Decision Needed on Bomb, Explosives Threats 

Washington Post, DC
Monday, December 8, 2003


More than two years after the hijackings that prompted a new U.S. air security 
system, the government has been unable to decide on a new technology that could 
prevent terrorists from sneaking explosives into airline cabins.

Airport security officials have circulated several alerts to airport directors 
and security screeners across the country this year, warning that terrorists 
might try to get explosives or bombs through security checkpoints inside items 
such as cameras, cell phones and stuffed animals, or inside the linings of 
jackets and pillows.

Several technology companies say they make systems that could thwart such 
tactics. But the companies say the Transportation Security Administration has 
been slow to review their products.

TSA officials say they have been reviewing more than 30,000 proposals submitted 
by private companies, testing some in laboratories and rejecting many because 
the suggested devices are too big to be installed in U.S. airports. The 
proposals include such things as screens that can see through a person's 
clothing and access systems that allow people to enter doors by pressing their 
palms on a machine.

"You can have the latest gadget to detect a single threat, but then you'd have 
to remove all of your metal detectors, all your screeners" to make room for it, 
TSA spokesman Brian Turmail said.

Since 2001, the TSA has spent more than $1 billion to install machines that 
test checked luggage for explosives. Most of those devices, which use existing 
technology, scan passengers' bags at ticket counters.

Congress mandated that airports install machines to test checked luggage for 
explosives by Dec. 31, 2002, but issued no such deadlines for checking 
passengers and carry-on luggage. Still, some lawmakers and aviation security 
experts say the agency could have moved sooner to address the threat posed at 
the checkpoint by terrorists like Richard C. Reid, the British citizen who was 
convicted of trying to ignite explosives hidden in his shoes during a flight in 
2001.

Terrorists have succeeded in sneaking explosives past checkpoints outside the 
United States. In 1994, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef brought bomb materials on board a 
Philippine Airlines flight, assembled a device in the lavatory and left it on a 
timer under a seat when he departed. The bomb killed a passenger on the next 
flight and blew a hole in the cabin. The plane landed safely. Yousef is in U.S. 
custody for masterminding the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and for 
plotting to blow up a dozen U.S. airliners over the Pacific Ocean in 1995.

U.S. security checkpoints do have some bomb-detecting machines but they are not 
used routinely on every passenger, nor are they used to scan for explosives on 
passengers' bodies. Screeners use them both randomly and on passengers who are 
flagged for additional screening. The machines sometimes fail to find 
well-hidden explosives, say security experts.

Rep. John L. Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation and 
Infrastructure's aviation subcommittee, said the TSA has hurt itself with 
misguided priorities and by cutting its own research and development budget. Of 
the $226 million set aside for research and development in the last two years, 
36 percent was diverted for other purposes such as general TSA operations, 
paying contractors, and even a technology project for another agency, TSA 
records show. 

Mica said that, for example, it was a waste for the TSA to buy new metal 
detectors for every airport in the nation. "That money should have been spent 
first on new technology. The latest metal-detection equipment they've deployed 
is only marginally better than the previous and does nothing to detect 
explosives," he said.

The TSA's chief technology officer, Randy Null, said the metal detectors at 
airports in September 2001 could not detect metal across a person's entire body 
and could not detect metal in someone's shoes. 

"We find much smaller objects now" with the new detectors, Null said, as well 
as a wider range of weapons.

Null said the agency plans to budget $155 million for research and development 
this year. He said research and development investment fell behind as the 
agency's priority was to meet congressional deadlines for employing a new 
workforce of more than 48,000 federal airport screeners, and for inspecting 
checked luggage for explosives. 

In fiscal 2004, $55 million will be devoted to developing technologies to 
screen air cargo and $45 million will go to "next generation" 
explosive-detection machines. The rest of the $155 million research and 
development budget will be devoted to operations and staff at the TSA's 
technology lab in Atlantic City.

Null said the TSA will begin testing machines in January checkpoints that will 
scan documents, such as boarding passes and other objects handled by 
passengers, to see whether they contain traces of explosives. He said the 
machines, made by two manufacturers, are the closest to being approved by the 
TSA. 

Technology company executives say attracting the TSA's attention has been 
frustrating. The executives complain that while new technologies must meet 
certain TSA detection standards to win certification, the TSA has yet to tell 
them what the standards are.

"It's an endless development cycle," said a security technology executive, who 
requested anonymity because his company's products are being reviewed by the 
TSA. The executive said it often seems as though the TSA's technology lab 
doesn't intend to move technology outside the lab. "Someone has to make a 
decision that this technology has reached a point that it can significantly 
improve security, and then you need to put the equipment out there and 
determine how it operates in the real world," the executive said.

Last year, three technology companies took matters into their own hands. They 
invested $1 million to showcase their equipment at Orlando International 
Airport and have it tested by two independent research organizations.

The results, which were not made public but were submitted to the TSA this 
summer, showed that the technologies could detect explosives and other weapons 
at more than twice the rate of today's security checkpoints, according to SRI 
International and the National Safe Skies Alliance, a nonprofit aviation 
testing group partially funded by the TSA. The companies are waiting for the 
TSA to respond.

Among the participants in a system called the "advanced security checkpoint" 
were GE Ion Track, a division of General Electric Co., which proposed a 
walk-through device that could "sniff" a passenger by puffing air at the body 
to detect the presence of explosives; Rapiscan Security Products Inc., a unit 
of OSI Systems Inc., which proposed a scanner that can see through a person's 
clothing to turn up hidden weapons or explosives but also shows clear outlines 
of private body parts; and Quantum Magnetics Inc., a unit of InVision 
Technologies Inc., which developed a device that looks like a standard X-ray 
machine but can detect explosives in briefcases and other carry-on bags.

While the technologies are promising, the TSA's Null said, the problem with the 
advanced security checkpoint is similar to other proposals the TSA has been 
reviewing: The machines take up too much space. Another common problem is that 
some technologies take too long to check a passenger and would slow down what 
the TSA calls "throughput," or the number of passengers who pass through a 
checkpoint in a given time, resulting in longer lines, said Null.

Null said that with that in mind, he is trying to persuade some of the security 
technology companies to combine their products into one machine that might 
perform two functions at once and save space.

"Go figure out how to combine those boxes," Null said he told the companies.

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