Airport scanners limited
in detecting explosives

January 5, 2002

If the government doesn’t sanction the use of low-radiation-emitting x-ray machines at airports, potential terrorists will be able to hide plastic explosives under their skin or inside their own bodies, claims one expert, increasing the likelihood of further terrorist attacks onboard U.S. airliners.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks and with the passage of new airport security mandates, the Federal Aviation Commission has sanctioned the testing of at least two new airport security scanners designed to enhance detection of, among other things, plastic explosives of the kind Richard Reid attempted to ignite onboard a trans-Atlantic flight to the United States last week.

But some experts say even the new machines are utilizing old technology that will not permit inspectors to see whether passengers have hidden plastic explosives inside their own bodies. And FAA officials admit the agency has no power or authority to sanction the use of machines that could see through passengers.

Thomas Wiggins, an engineer for the Miami, Fla.-based Digital Security Systems, said the ConPass Security Body Scanner his company offers is the only machine of its kind capable of detecting plastic explosives “inside or outside of the body.”

Wiggins said the ConPass, for instance, would have revealed the plastic explosives Reid smuggled inside his shoe last week.

But, “the FAA has refused to test the technology,” Wiggins said during an interview, adding that the agency claims “Congress needs to tell them that they are responsible for internal threats as well.”

Body scanners that U.S. officials “are testing now in test beds across America – due to the Aviation Security bill – would not have seen the location he placed his plastic explosive under his feet in a tennis shoe,” Wiggins said. “The systems are surface scanners utilizing an old technology called ‘backscatter.’ It will not penetrate the skin, let alone shoes.”

The ConPass uses a very low dose of radiation – about .24 millirems per scan – to process digital images in about 10 seconds, Wiggins said. It uses lower amounts of radiation because images are not processed on film, but instead are sent to a computer screen. The company says the amount needed per scan is akin to the level of radiation encountered when standing next to a microwave oven while popping a bag of popcorn.

Nevertheless, it’s the public stigma over radiation, Wiggins believes, that is preventing the government from using ConPass.

“The thought of using an x-ray system [before Sept. 11] would have been like ordering our own death sentence,” Wiggins said. “But today’s technology overcomes this health risk. The digital age has changed the way we think and process information.”

And, he believes, Americans have changed since the terrorist attacks some three months ago.

“The attitude of America has changed. The attitude of the world has changed,” said Wiggins. “Every day I speak to people who voice this attitude and position change,” including the use of low-dose radiation emission machines that he believes would provide passengers better protection.

Dorie Hightower, a spokeswoman at the National Cancer Institute, said health experts maintain that “any radiation exposure holds risk.” But, she added, .24 millirems “is no higher than the amount each of us gets each day from cosmic rays, radioactivity in the soil, potassium 40 and carbon 14 in our tissues, and other components of natural background radiation.”

“I make something like 10 plane trips a year, so this wouldn’t disturb me as long as I were confident that the machine was being operated properly,” said Charles Land, a radiation expert with the institute. “Even someone making a plane trip every day, or fewer trips with frequent changes of planes, would get about double the total dose for a typical resident of the Atlantic Coastal Plain, a dose that is typical for someone living in Denver, for example.”

According to government-approved figures published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the annual limit for adults who work around radioactive materials is 5,000 millirems; the yearly limit for minors is 500 millirems. People normally receive about 2 millirems per standard x-ray, but receive 10 millirems on a typical flight from Massachusetts to California. In Boston, the natural background radiation each year is 300 millirems.

“For pregnant women, it is 500 millirems per year,” Wiggins said, adding, “Our scanner could scan a pregnant woman around 200 times without a health risk.”

Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the FAA, said current scanners in use around the country can and do pick up plastic explosives, and do so in a number of ways. She noted also that the agency is looking into new equipment.

“I know the FAA purchased several new body scanners a month or so ago, to test them,” she said, adding that the agency “conducts those tests at our test center up in Atlantic City [New Jersey].”

“There are two different kinds of technology currently in place to do explosives detection. One operates like a CAT scan, by checking density. Plastic explosives have a certain density,” she said. “The other technology is used for carry-on baggage, and it’s called Explosives Trace Detection.”

Brown said the latter technique picks up explosives vapors and traces on baggage.

“My understanding is the type of material [alleged shoe bomber] Richard Reid had was extremely volatile and would have been picked up by trace-detection equipment,” she said.

But Wiggins countered that the threat he is most concerned about – and the one ComPass is best suited for – is the “threat of hidden or internally placed plastic explosives.” He said explosives could be surgically implanted under the skin, or even hidden in folds of skin of heavy people.

The sales engineer also said FAA Administrator Jane Garvey, whom he spoke to at the FAA’s Safe Skies Security Symposium held in Atlantic City last month, was not aware that the agency’s mandate did not include so-called “internal threat detection.”

“She seemed puzzled why the threat isn’t considered by the FAA charter,” Wiggins said. He added that the new machines being tested by the FAA, which “do not penetrate the skin or take vapor readings,” simply are “designed to scan the body and show what’s on the outside of the skin.”

Paul Jankowski, the assistant program director for the FAA’s Aviation Security and Research division, told WND the agency had not tested ConPass and had no plans to do so, “because it’s my understanding that machine does body cavity searches” utilizing x-rays.

The agency is testing a pair of “backscatter machines” made by Rapiscan and AS&E, he said, adding that the ConPass machine “doesn’t quite fit in with our requirements. We only need to see if there is anything hidden under people’s clothes.”

Asked if that meant the FAA had no mandate to scan so-called internal threats, Jankowski said, “It’s not part of [the FAA’s] mission” to be able to see through passengers.

“If the FAA were running prisons or looking for people swallowing narcotics or hiding things like that, then [ConPass] would be the type of system they’d be interested in. But at this point in time, that’s something for the Justice Department,” he said.

Jankowski added that the FAA “has talked to [the ConPass company] and made some suggestions, but it’s up to them to come back” to the agency.

Other companies, meanwhile, say they, too, are in the process of developing new airport scanning equipment.

New Jersey-based Barringer Technologies Inc. has developed “The Sentinel,” and Ion Track Instruments of Massachusetts has developed the “Entry Scan,” both of which blow air onto passengers then analyze it for explosives traces.

“There has not been any real device at any of the security checkpoints that has the capability to detect any explosives on people,” Eisenbraun of Ion Track Instruments told CNN Dec. 26.

Both the Sentinel and the Entry Scan are awaiting FAA approval.

Another Massachusetts company, Cyterra Corp. in Waltham, plans to use its scanning technology – currently in use by the military to find land mines – to examine passengers for weapons.

Meanwhile, WND content partner and military intelligence digest Geostrategy-Direct.com reported in this week’s issue that a U.S. company is working with an Israeli defense contractor to negotiate a joint manufacturing venture to produce security systems for the airline industry.

“BVR Systems, which specializes in military training and simulation systems, has been negotiating with the New York-based VeriTouch for a joint venture to manufacture and market what BVR termed a ‘comprehensive security system for the commercial airline industry worldwide,'” the digest reported.

Systems will use a combination of biometrics – fingerprint and retinal scan devices – along with aircraft interior security modules “for the protection of passengers, pilots and crew members.”

Company officials say the system would provide external ground security checking procedures through the registration of passengers, crew and ground crew, biometric data during pre-flight, and surveillance and security checks for airport visitors and employees.

“The system is designed for countering sabotage to commercial aircraft prior to flight, as well as providing in-flight tactical counter measures to combat threats to the safety of passengers, crew and ground facilities and personnel,” Geostrategy-Direct.com said.

Scanning technology currently employed at most major airports is outdated, experts say. Some – such as standard metal detectors and x-ray machines – cannot detect plastic explosives and date back to the 1970s.

“Most equipment that is deployed is a generation old,” says Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the House aviation subcommittee. “You need highly sophisticated equipment that will detect explosive materials.”

But Wiggins says even the more recently developed equipment being used is inadequate. “Discovery of plastic explosives through trace detection is not foolproof,” he said. “There has been little to no testing to discover how plastic explosives can be hidden and detected.”