"Airport detectors still vulnerable to terrorists"

Saturday, October 8, 2005

Airport detectors still vulnerable to terrorists Experts say new generation
of non-metal sniffing devices needed across the nation to check travelers
for plastic explosives By George Lewis - The Today Show MSNBC


Every time you go to the airport you can see evidence of the enhanced
security procedures that have been added since the 9/11 attacks. But at
least one technological loophole still exists and terrorists could exploit
that weakness to bring explosives onboard a plane. NBC News correspondent
George Lewis reports.

The people who run Los Angeles International Airport want their beefed up
security to attract attention.

"Our policy here is to have a high level, high profile law enforcement
presence ... and we maintain that and we want the enemy to know that this is
a hardened target and we're doing everything we can to protect the traveling
public," says Michael Digirolamo an LAX security official.

Airport officials across the country say the same thing. But some experts
believe there's a major problem with worldwide airport security starting at
a familiar place, those metal detectors.

"An individual, a suicide bomber, could bring on the explosives with them,
going right through a screening station at the airport because they go
through a metal detector and the metal detector would not detect the plastic
explosive," says aviation security expert Charles Slepian.

One solution, the experts say, is a new generation of devices that can check
hand luggage and even passengers for traces of explosive materials.

A number of companies, including G.E., the parent of NBC, make this kind of
equipment.

Quantum Magnetics claims explosive detection equipment could have prevented
the blowing up of those two Russian planes last month or stopped Richard
Reid, the unsuccessful shoe bomber, before he boarded a flight bound from
Paris to Miami.

"Technology like this is really needed in our airports. Anyone who believes
that Richard Reid was the last suicide terrorist on American soil is really
misleading themselves," says Dr. Lowell Burnett, CEO and founder Quantum
Magnetics.

An estimated cost to put these kinds of machines in all of the country's 440
airports is between $150 and $240 million.

"Why isn't this technology being used right now?  That's a question for the
government.  The government paid largely for its development and I'd like to
know why it's not being used right now," says Burnett.

It may be a question of priorities for a government already spending
billions on homeland security but not for proponents of the technology who
say it can make airports safer than they are now.


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