http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...xplosives.html

Interesting. Unveiled in Singapore today. Now, if they could just get rid of those pesky TSA critters....

What hit me is that every one of those circles is another excuse to conduct the same ol' intrusive body and cary-on searches and to keep probably 20 clerks employed per lane per circle.

....and we want to pay off the national debt in which century?

So now instead of resolving a false positive on a body scanner, they have to resolve false positives for liquids, shoes, metal, explosives AND a body scan.

If it's non-intrusive, doesn't emit radiation, and cuts payroll, I'm for it.

Exactly.

This isn't new. The TSA started out with puffer machines, which aren't influenced by emotions like sniffer dogs, but they whined and moaned and complained that they were getting clogged up and were too hard to maintain. So instead, billions were spent on more jobs, and scanners that aren't safe to use and can't detect the threats they're trying to address.

Meanwhile, Toronto's CN Tower uses them on every guest who goes to the observation deck. I've been through, and they're kind of fun - search YouTube and you'll see lots of smiling faces. That and they don't harm the customers and can actually detect legitimate threats.

I've discovered and been following the "Boycott Flying" group on Facebook lately because they seem to cover a lot more of the topics with regard to TSA safety that either don't appear here anymore or get deleted; it's a great resource. But I was a little surprised how everyone pounced on the idea of puffers on there too - this is the kind of thing we've wanted all along! Unintrusive, safe for health, dignified, and actually can detect new threats for a pretty good cost/benefit ratio.

I had such high hopes for the IATA's "blue sky" system.

Seeing it here I'm just underwhelmed.

Based on TSA's track record, any number of people can be part of the "enhanced" group and have no recourse to get out of that line.

If applied in the US, it completely flies in the face of the innocent until proven guilty concept. Again we are guilty until we prove ourselves innocent, which completely turns the spirit of the Constitution on its head. Not that the current process isn't any worse...

IOW this just looks to me like a horse of a different color pulling the same cart.

But it DOES emit radiation.

Scroll down:
Enhanced - eye scanner, enhanced X-ray,..., full body scanner
Normal - eye scanner, X-ray,...
Known traveller - eye scanner, X-ray,...

And what's worse (watch the video) - it looks like this tunnel is also going to incorporate baggage scanning with passenger scanning - meaning that you are likely going to be exposed to the same dose of radiation as your carry-on bag. The dose required to penetrate a bag to allow sufficient visualization of the contents is certainly more than that required for a backscatter scan.

Exactly. And despite the disagreements over the safety of the body scanners, I don't think there is anyone out there who would suggest that it's safe to send a human through the x-ray machines in use at security stations.

There's also that nasty side effect that this effectively builds up a worldwide iris database of anyone who ever flies a plane. All in the name of safety, of course.

Sadly, the UK seems very eager to deploy this technology as soon as possible.

It is all of the worst things, rolled into 1, then built, decorated and lit up like a kids jungle gym to give the appearance that it is fun and safe.

It should be just
1. metal detector
2. explosives sniffer/detector
3. bag screen for gun or explosives

Nothing else, no assaults, irradiated pax, nude pictures, silly/pointless pax questions, id verification, drug or money searches, retaliatory inspections, threats, etc. etc. Everything else can be left to law enforcement and intelligence agencies, the way it has been in the past.

Great, three classes of screening. Known Traveler, Normal and Enhanced. Guess which one gets used for PAX flying into the States the next time the TSA collectively wets its pants over a tewwowist?

And why does the Known Traveler portal have liquids detection? I guess the industrial designer doesn't know anything about the science of binary liquid explosives aboard aircraft.

Oops, disregard my earlier post then. This is awful.

I didn't read the article fully and thought it was a similar article about the next generation of puffer machines, which are getting quite impressive.

It also looks like the "normal" and "enhanced" lanes employ "shoe scanners", which might also be X-ray based.

I wonder how much one of these carnival fun rides costs, and whose hands are in its piggy bank.

This is a terrible idea and would make things much worse. I have issues with any type of eyescan database being used. I know that the movie "Minority Report" is science fiction, but it shows how scary that it can be for people to be tracked by eye scanners.

jtodd wrote:

It should be just
1. metal detector
2. explosives sniffer/detector
3. bag screen for gun or explosives

Exactly. Nothing more, nothing less.

The idea that pax could just walk through a tunnel and be 'screened' is great except for the dosing of radiation that we all don't need. And without iris scanning, etc. But a system that could scan for WEI, and nothing more, without the silly intrusions of smurfs is potentially a better option.

They should change the lane designation to the stage of cancer you currently have. A CAT scan should replace the iris scanner in order to give you a current analysis of your cancer stage before entering screening.