As US lawmakers demand to know how a would-be attacker smuggled explosives aboard a plane on Christmas Day, the use of body scanners at airport security points is likely to be revisited.
The machines are considered effective and have been tested at numerous international airports, but they are also controversial because they scan beneath clothing to detect items that may be hidden from ordinary view.
Security experts believe that the scanners could have detected the explosives that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was hiding as he boarded a Northwest Airlines plane in Amsterdam last week.
PHOTO: AFP
Abdulmutallab attempted to bring down the Airbus 330 by combining a flammable liquid he was carrying in a syringe with an explosive powder known as pentaerythritol (PETN) that was sewn into his underwear.
The metal detectors that passengers ordinarily step through as their luggage is being X-rayed would not have detected either component, experts said.
In the wake of the failed attack, British Interior Minister Alan Johnson said on Monday he would consider installing full body scanners at British airports “as quickly as possible.”
In the US, the scanners are already used at 19 airports and a handful of courthouses and prisons, the US Transportation Security Administration says.
The machines look like small booths and use radio frequencies to scan underneath clothing and produce a 3D image of the individual’s body.
While the scanner does not produce an image of the naked body, it has caused consternation among privacy advocates because it does faithfully reproduce individual curves hidden beneath clothing, from the shape of a breast to a roll of fat.
The device has been tested in numerous European airports, but its use was halted after the EU expressed concerns and protested a plan to install the scanners at airports throughout the EU.
EU representative Martine Roure praised the mothballing of the project, saying it would have been “disproportionate to submit all passengers to this type of check in the name of the fight against terrorism.”
But Thursday’s failed attack could prompt lawmakers worldwide to change their minds about the body scanners.
Successful and failed terror attacks targeting airplanes have already led to significant changes to the way people fly.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, pilots began locking the cockpit door behind them to prevent hijackers from accessing the flight controls.
In the wake of Richard Reid’s failed December 2001 attempt to detonate explosives in his shoes, passengers now routinely submit their footwear to inspection before boarding a plane.
And after authorities uncovered a plot in 2006 to blow up airliners with explosives in liquid containers, new regulations were imposed limiting the amount of fluid each traveler could bring aboard a flight.
Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University, told reporters that traditional security measures simply would not be able to detect the sort of explosive Abdulmutallab was carrying.
“There is no other way, except for a body scan, to detect it,” he said.
Even the secondary screening measures sometimes used at airports would have failed, he said.
“If [if the explosive PETN] was sealed extremely tight in plastic, dogs wouldn’t have picked it up,” he said.
Douglas Laird, a former security director for Northwest Airlines, agreed, noting it was virtually impossible to know what was beneath clothing without the scanners.
But some are more skeptical about the efficacy of the machines, including Jimmie Carol Oxley, the co-director of the Center of Excellence in Explosive Detection, Mitigation, Response and Characterization at the University of Rhode Island.
“Anything is hard to detect if you’re not looking for it,” he pointed out, noting that airport security already has machines that can detect PETN. “If you go through the airport and they ever pull you over for your carry-on and they swab your carry-on, they can pick up that, those machines detect it.”
The machines also come with another problem: They cost around US$1 million, 20 times more than a standard X-ray machines, Laird said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS