How to detect explosives
 

Read something last night about how the real threat these days is the high explosive PETN. This is what the TSA expects to be used. A 3 inch ball could take out an airplane in flight. It is the explosive used in all the recent attempts. No news there.

But what I did not know is that it is VERY hard to detect. The sniffers and swab machines at the airport won't detect it except in high concentration. It can easily be packed in plastic bags that are then washed and there will be no external residue to detect even with the best machines.

It seems like the volume of a 3 inch ball could easily be concealed in body cavities, in the stomach, or even under the skin using a small incision. No scanner would stand a chance of detecting it. A detonator could be made in flight using two chemicals, in small quantities, that lots of people routinely carry on planes.

So, it seems hopeless to detect a determined terrorist through any kind of screening including strip and cavity searches. So why not focus the billions we spend on intelligence and behavior profiling?

Intelligence is what allowed the recent cargo bombs to be detected. Intelligence should have caught the underwear bomber (his father alerted US authorities that he was planning something). The other recent incidents going back to 9/11, Richard Reid etc, were all members of extremist groups that were known.

I admit, as a white male I am less likely to be affected by profiling than some people. But I am not suggesting racial profiling, I think behavior profiling could be done without being too invasive. I know that we as Americans have an aversion to that but we also have an aversion to the current practices. Short of eliminating security entirely, which I don't hear anyone advocating, what should we realistically do given that the threat is real (if overblown)?

We tried to pilot a Behavioral Assessment program at the request of Boston Logan in late-2001/early-2002, based on the Israeli model, with Israeli advisors working hand-in-hand with BOS security officials.

It died on the table for two reasons, both of them to do with money:

1. In order for training to be effective, it needs to be lengthy and intensive (pronounced: more expensive) and the personnel being trained need to be of a high caliber (prounounced: higher salaries), and
2. There was concern that the ACLU and or electronic privacy groups would sue the airport/airlines over the perceived threat to the privacy of passenger records (travel history, purchase patterns, etc) most of which is already collected if you have a Frequent Flyer card. The concern wasn't that we would lose, but that the fight would cost money.

Instead, as usual, the Government opted for the "lowest" bidder (which usually ends up more expensive in the end, anyway), in this case, Federalizing airport security.

What? Ignorance and effective security are incompatible? Well, knock me down with a feather. That had never OCCURRED to me!!! ;)

Precisely why the LY model is a complete non-starter in the US and elsewhere. It requires intelligent, highly-trained and committed practitioners and while it's possible (but unlikely) there are TSA screeners who fit that description, there is no chance there are enough of them. IOW it is simply not scalable, unless a completely new paradigm were adopted - one in which airport screening is based on carefully selected and very well paid personnel. Does that sound remotely like the TSA ? Even Argenbright, Wackenhut etc. who would probably do better than the federal 'agents' fall far short of the ideal mark.

Please wait for a moment and allow me to put on a heavy raincoat and a helmet to protect myself from the tomatoes and bricks that will come my way.

It sounds like a job for Blackwater.

[INK quickly ducks behind a wall.]

Shouts from behind the wall: There are not enough of them to cover every airport.

Peeking out now.

The skills required to do this are well-know and documented. It requires a certain, shall we say, mental capacity and reasoning ability. There may just not be enough people that have it that are willing to work as clerks at the airports. Most of them are already doing something very important at high levels making lots of money. They are engineers, designers, programmers, CEO's, operators of complex machinery, analysts, physicians, attorneys, entrepreneurs and other highly paid specialists.

They could do it, they just won't.

There doesn't appear to be a need to hide explosives in ones body when they can be simply hidden on the surface of the body.

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports on new data that shows that airport body scanners may not be very effective.

Should be mandatory viewing for all the WBI-boosters; and the "I don't mind" lemmings.

Of course if they don't work nobody at DHS/TSA is going to admit it.