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That nice warm sense of security

Good news from the technology front -- those new scanners at the airports? From the UK Independent:

Are planned airport scanners just a scam?
The explosive device smuggled in the clothing of the Detroit bomb suspect would not have been detected by body-scanners set to be introduced in British airports, an expert on the technology warned last night.

The claim severely undermines Gordon Brown's focus on hi-tech scanners for airline passengers as part of his review into airport security after the attempted attack on Flight 253 on Christmas Day.

The Independent on Sunday has also heard authoritative claims that officials at the Department for Transport (DfT) and the Home Office have already tested the scanners and were not persuaded that they would work comprehensively against terrorist threats to aviation.

And the scanners:

But Ben Wallace, the Conservative MP, who was formerly involved in a project by a leading British defence research firm to develop the scanners for airport use, said trials had shown that such low-density materials went undetected.

Tests by scientists in the team at Qinetiq, which Mr Wallace advised before he became an MP in 2005, showed the millimetre-wave scanners picked up shrapnel and heavy wax and metal, but plastic, chemicals and liquids were missed.

If a material is low density, such as powder, liquid or thin plastic � as well as the passenger's clothing � the millimetre waves pass through and the object is not shown on screen. High- density material such as metal knives, guns and dense plastic such as C4 explosive reflect the millimetre waves and leave an image of the object.

Mr Wallace said: "Gordon Brown is grasping at headlines if he thinks buying a couple of scanners will make us safer. It is too little, too late. Under his leadership, he starved the defence research budget that could have funded a comprehensive solution while at the same time he has weakened our border security.

Heaven help they should actually have to start using police procedures and (shudder) racial profiling. That idiot Richard Reid tried to blow up a shoe in 2001 and now, ten years later, we are still having to take our shoes off and run them through an xray. On a similar note, Security guru Bruce Schneier is running a contest to come up with a new logo for the TSA. Here is one from Travis McHale: Heaven help us if we are ever attacked by a competent enemy... Posted by DaveH at March 23, 2010 8:26 PM