New Airport Body Scans Don’t Detect All Weapons

NPR: New Airport Body Scans Don't Detect All Weapons (HT: Victor Claar)

The Obama administration's plan to protect air travelers from terrorists is counting on a technology that is powerful but imperfect, experts say.

The plan will place hundreds of full-body scanners in airports around the country. These scanners use a technology called backscatter X-ray to create images that can reveal weapons or explosives hidden beneath a person’s clothing.

But they don't detect everything, and they won't be in every airport.

President Obama announced the wide deployment of these scanners two weeks after a Nigerian man allegedly tried to blow up an airplane using plastic explosives concealed in his underwear on Christmas Day. …

…So can any of this X-ray technology really make air travel safer?

"Of course not," says security consultant Bruce Schneier. "It's sort of magical thinking."

Schneier sees a couple of big problems with the government's strategy.

First, he says, every technology has its limits. And he's not reassured by the government's new scanner.

"It doesn't detect low-density explosives," Schneier says. "It doesn't detect explosives that are thin. You know, it's really very limited as to what it detects. It may or may not have detected the underwear bomber. We don't actually know."

Another problem, he says, is that even hundreds of scanners won't be enough to protect every airport.

"The 9/11 terrorists didn't go through security in Boston," he says. "They went through security in places like Maine."

And once a terrorist has made it through security anywhere in the system, they're not screened again, Schneier says.

"So unless these machines are in every airport in the country," he says, "all we're doing is making the terrorists take another flight before they launch their attack."

The government's real problem isn't a lack of technology, Schneier says. It's a tendency to react to what has already happened, not what might happen next time.

"Airports are the last line of defense, and they're not a very good one," Schneier says.

He says taxpayers would get more for their money if the government invested less in hardware and more in investigations of potential terrorists and better intelligence.

I found myself agreeing with Schneier's assessment, but then I became concerned. His take is that we should not buy products from the evil greedy capitalists who want to profit by selling the machines while giving them money to employ more government workers. I might have to rethink this one.  🙂