"Checkpoint of the Future: Airport Screening Technology Developed"

Friday, September 8, 2006

Airport Screening Technology Developed
By SCOTT LINDLAW
The Associated Press


SAN FRANCISCO -- At the airport check-in of tomorrow, "getting through
security" should take 30 seconds.

Passengers breeze through a series of scanners that probe for explosives,
weapons, even drugs. Shoes stay on feet, laptops in cases. A machine
confirms that a bottle of wine is wine, and not a disguised cocktail of bomb
ingredients.
 
The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks prompted a clampdown at the nation's airports
and a new era of aggravation at security checkpoints. They also accelerated
a race to develop better screening technology, research that has advanced
with each thwarted terrorism plot.

Some of these devices are already snooping your luggage as part of a 2002
congressional mandate that all checked baggage be scrutinized for
explosives, but technical glitches and funding problems stand in the way of
other technologies.

Key questions remain: Are these ready to handle thousands of passengers per
hour, and their belongings?

"Some things are imminently deployable. Some things are further off," said
Steve Hill, spokesman for GE Security, the unit of General Electric Co. that
makes transportation security equipment. "We are not light years off."

Although one futuristic device known as the "puffer" already is in use at
San Francisco International and 36 other airports, the government halted its
continued rollout recently because of concerns about reliability. The
Transportation Security Administration declined to elaborate.

Critics also question whether the Bush administration is investing enough,
even as it spent nearly $1 billion in fiscal 2006 on explosive-detection
equipment for checked luggage and checkpoint screening.

TSA and the Department of Homeland Security have repeatedly failed to spend
tens of millions of dollars that Congress earmarked for new airport security
equipment.

In 2003, TSA cut most of its $75 million research budget to try to address a
deficit. Its research office was later consolidated into DHS's research arm,
which has failed to spend $200 million from past years, leading lawmakers to
rescind the money this summer.

"The TSA is groping around, moving money," said Rep. Peter DeFazio of
Oregon, a senior Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee. "They don't
have enough money to have enough employees, and they can't buy new
equipment."

Even as the recent British terror plot was unfolding, Homeland Security
quietly tried to take away $6 million that was supposed to be spent this
year developing new technology for detecting explosives.

There will never be enough money or improvements in technology, said Richard
Lanza, senior research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.

"We're always faced with this unpleasant and nasty fact: people are going to
come up with new explosives which won't be detected by this," Lanza said.
"You're just trying to make it harder for the bad guys."
 
Among the newer technologies, the puffer is a tall, clear cylinder that
looks like a Star Trek transporter. Passengers chosen largely at random are
hit with quick blasts of air _ not quite enough to ruffle the hair _ to
dislodge trace particles of explosives or narcotics from a passenger's skin
and clothing. An instant microscopic analysis determines whether the
passenger has been exposed to illicit substances.

In the future, luggage will be "sniffed" for minute traces of explosives or
bombarded with neutrons, subjecting it to CT scans, which differs from
traditional x-rays in that they take hundreds of pictures of an object from
a variety of angles.

Passengers at San Francisco's international terminal can glimpse a
"Checkpoint of the Future" as envisioned by GE Security.

The company has set up camp next to the checkpoint of today, a working
security zone where plastic bins clatter and passengers shuffle through
metal detectors. The GE "lab" is a nonworking checkpoint where the company
is researching and tweaking its gear in hopes of winning government
approvals and ironing out technical glitches.

Much of that gear is mock-up equipment where company officials can
demonstrate the dream: a half-minute process, starting with a device that
scans a passenger's finger for explosives and drug particles. A conveyor
belt would use CT to peer at carry-on items. A body scan would look through
clothing for knives, guns and bombs. A shoe scanner would end the need to
kick off footwear.

GE Security said it has spent more than $100 million over the last five
years in developing next-generation aviation screening technologies and
products.

The government is particularly interested in developing the ability to
quickly analyze what's inside liquid containers following the recent
discovery of a London-based plot to bring down airliners using explosives
disguised as common household items, said Jennifer Peppin, a spokeswoman for
the TSA's Western region.

Rapiscan Systems Neutronics and Advanced Technologies of Santa Clara is
trying to perfect a device that can peer into bottles, books and shoes and
identify explosives inside. The scanner, slightly larger than a tipped-over
phone booth, hits the object with neutrons and analyzes the gamma rays that
bounce back, telling the machine which elements are present.

One recent afternoon, Rapiscan's chief operating officer, Pat Shea, placed a
bottle of wine in the machine's drawer and started the analysis. A whirring
sound followed for about 40 seconds, followed by an analysis: the bottle
indeed contained wine.

Despite all the years and dollars his company has poured into research and
development, Shea cautions against an over-reliance on technology.

"No one device is a silver bullet," he said. "The devices are a tool that's
badly needed. You've got this classic needle in a haystack search, but made
much easier if you have a magnet to work with. If you have to reach through
the haystack with your hand until something pricks your finger, it'll take a
long time."

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