So Much For the "magic" Scanners

Are planned airport scanners just a scam?

quote:

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...

...And experts in the US said airport "pat-downs" – a method used in hundreds of airports worldwide – were ineffective and would not have stopped the suspect boarding the plane...

...Since the attack was foiled, body-scanners, using "millimetre-wave" technology and revealing a naked image of a passenger, have been touted as a solution to the problem of detecting explosive devices that are not picked up by traditional metal detectors – such as those containing liquids, chemicals or plastic explosive.

...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...

...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.

Sound familiar America? It is all nothing more than security theater. He then goes on to say:

"Scanners cannot provide a comprehensive solution on their own. We must now start to ask if national security demands the use of profiling."

So the lesson here for Janet N and company (TSA), is when in doubt, defer to the experts.

Gun Shy is all for those new "magical nudie scanners"....then we can have all the leaders of this administration walk through them to verify if they actually have a brain (might need to increase the radiation level a bit), and also so America can see what pathetic weak individuals these people really are once their power suits are electronically removed.