Airport Full Body Screening is the Future
December 30, 2009
Bloomberg
By Angela Greiling Keane
A suspected terrorist’s attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner may override privacy concerns and intensify a push for full-body scanning equipment at airports.
U.S. officials charged a 23-year-old Nigerian man with trying to blow up Northwest Flight 253 as it prepared to land in Detroit on Christmas Day. President Barack Obama said yesterday he ordered a thorough review of the episode and called for new scrutiny of screening policies and technologies.
Metal detectors currently used to screen passengers wouldn’t have found the explosive allegedly carried aboard by the suspect, said former Federal Aviation Administration security chief Billie Vincent. Only more sophisticated devices such as low-level X-rays and millimeter-wave technology would work, Vincent said.
Senator Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, called for more widespread use of the full-body scanners after the aborted attack. “We were very lucky this time but we may not be so lucky next time, which is why our defenses must be strengthened,” Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said in a statement yesterday.
The committee said it would hold a hearing next month on airline security and how the alleged terrorist got onto the plane.
Advanced Equipment
Companies such as OSI Systems Inc., Smiths Group Plc, Safran SA and L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. may benefit from any requirement that airports get more security equipment. London-based Smiths is the world’s biggest maker of airport scanners. Safran, based in Paris, is the world leader in biometric technologies, such as fingerprint scanners. New York- based L-3 also makes scanners for airport use.
L-3 has “developed a more sophisticated system that could prevent smuggling of almost anything on the body,” said Howard Rubel, an analyst at Jefferies & Co., who has a “hold” rating on the stock. “Speed and privacy issues have slowed its introduction.”
Jennifer Barton, a spokeswoman for New York-based L-3, didn’t respond to a phone call seeking comment.
L-3 rose $1.17, or 1.4 percent, to $86.80 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading yesterday. That was the highest closing price since October 2008. OSI jumped $2.45, or 11 percent, to $24.47 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The percentage gain was the biggest since Jan. 29.
OSI’s Rapiscan unit makes machines that can detect liquids and other potential explosives beneath passengers’ clothing. In October, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration placed an order valued at $25 million for Rapiscan’s imaging equipment, the Hawthorne, California-based company said.
The suspected terrorist was on the terrorist watch list, his father called authorities to let them know he was dangerous more than a month ago, and he had NO identification. He was escorted through security and put on the plane by what eye witnesses say was a well-dressed man. In addition, eye witnesses say, there was a man video taping the entire incident inside the plane. We are being told full body scans are the answer. Do you really want your naked image scanned and retained by TSA? No to mention exposing air travelers to large amounts of radiation. Seems to me if they had followed protocol he would not have been allowed on the plane in the first place. We do not need to submit to body scans. Passengers have been refusing body scans in airports that have them installed. Time to scare the sheeple into submission. Plus the story has been a diversion from the Obamacare – a fiasco in the making.