"TSA plan: X-ray for liquid bombs"

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

TSA plan: X-ray for liquid bombs 
By Thomas Frank
USA TODAY


WASHINGTON - The Transportation Security Administration, in a potential
strategy shift, may screen carry-on bags with new three-dimensional X-ray
machines that are better at spotting liquid explosives, guns and other
weapons.

The 3-D machines have "an extraordinary ability to find" liquids, TSA chief
Kip Hawley told USA TODAY. "They're a step beyond where we are today."

The TSA has limited the volume of liquids passengers can carry on planes
since authorities foiled a plot in London in August to bomb U.S.-bound
planes with liquid explosives. Installing new X-ray machines would improve
security and could ease the liquid restrictions, aviation consultant Richard
Roth said.

The question for the TSA is whether to buy upgraded X-ray machines for
$75,000 to $200,000 each or to wait possibly two years for better machines
costing about $400,000. The TSA had planned to wait for the more expensive
machines, which have the highest level of explosives detection. But, Hawley
said, "if it's going to be two years, maybe it makes sense economically and
security-wise to put an intermediate step in between."

The TSA will evaluate the machines in coming months. They provide more
detailed images than the X-rays airports have used for 30 years. Those
X-rays have been criticized by the Homeland Security Department's inspector
general for inadequately spotting explosives, guns and knives. Upgraded
X-rays "might significantly increase screeners' ability to detect" weapons,
a 2004 report by the inspector general said.

"They're your best answer now," Roth said. "The technology is getting so
good on those machines."

The upgraded machines, called multi-view X-ray, scan from several angles to
create three-dimensional images of items in a bag. Current X-ray machines
use one image that can make a knife look like a pen.

"We may actually be able to speed security lines" by giving airport
screeners more detailed images that reduce the number of bags they must
hand-search for weapons, said Peter Kant of Rapiscan Systems, a leading
manufacturer of airport X-ray machines. 

Kant said the TSA's request for upgraded X-rays "is the first time in a few
years they've opened up their evaluation" of technology that screens
carry-on bags.

Multi-view X-rays are used in European airports to scan checked luggage and
at courthouses, embassies and other buildings.

"The technology is ready now," said Thomas Ripp, president of L-3 Security
and Detection Systems, which has developed a machine being considered by the
TSA.

The upgraded X-rays are roughly the same size and weight as the machines
used at U.S. airport checkpoints. A $400,000, high-grade bomb detector made
by Analogic is nearly twice as wide and long and four times as heavy as
L-3's upgraded X-ray, according to specifications from both companies.

Analogic CEO John Wood said his Cobra machine is so much faster it could
replace two X-ray machines and save money by reducing the number of
screeners. The automated Cobra sounds an alarm when explosives are found
instead of requiring a screener to spot them on an X-ray screen.

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