Imagining new threats -- and countering them

Transportation Security Agency, the lab’s chief customer.

Janet Napolitano, secretary of Homeland Security, announced this month that the TSA will deploy 150 backscatter imaging machines at checkpoints in major airports, including Los Angeles International Airport, adding to 46 tested in a pilot project. The devices use a low-level X-ray beam that produces a three-dimensional image of each passenger — every bump, bulge and private body part. Such invasive imaging is “a virtual strip search,” complained the American Civil Liberties Union and other privacy groups.

“These essentially allow the TSA to see under your clothing,” said Michael Macleod-Ball, an ACLU official in Washington. “They see if you have a colostomy bag, even if you’ve had a mastectomy. It’s a very intimate view of your person.”

The House of Representatives has passed a TSA authorization bill that includes an amendment from Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) to sharply limit use of whole-body imaging. “Nobody needs to see my wife and kids naked to secure an airplane,” Chaffetz said. The measure awaits a Senate vote.

The TSA argues such concerns are overwrought. Spokesman Greg Soule said the operator views an image that “resembles a chalk etching” and works from a remote, closed room, never seeing the actual passenger. Software blurs the faces, and the machine does not store or transmit the image, he said. “You always have the option to go through a metal detector and undergo a pat-down,” Soule added.

Another explosive detection system proved a $36-million flop. In May, the TSA said it would phase out nearly 100 “puffer” portals that it had installed in the nation’s busiest airports, and would not use dozens more it had already purchased (see 27 May 2009 HSNW). The trace detection devices shoot jets of air at each traveler, then analyze the air for explosive particles. The puffer units quickly clogged with dust and required expensive repairs. “Everything works well in a nice, clean lab,” admitted Hallowell. “But put it in an airport, you get dirt, vibrations and jet fumes. Miami is humid, Seattle is rainy, and let’s not even talk about Minnesota.”

The threat, meanwhile, is ever-changing. On 28 August, an Al Qaeda militant with a bomb in his body tried to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s chief of counter-terrorism operations. The bomb apparently was triggered by cellphone. The explosion killed only the militant.

TSA officials say current detection systems probably would spot such a bomb, but the unusual case has sparked deep concern among international security experts.

Drogin writes that the TSA’s own experience is less than reassuring. In July 2008, a man at Baltimore Washington International Airport similarly tried to conceal a canister of Mace pepper spray in his body. According to a TSA report of the incident, its officers “did not actually discover the can.” Instead, it “was so uncomfortable that the passenger left the security checkpoint for the nearest restroom. The passenger ran barefoot because his shoes had already been sent through the X-ray when he abandoned the line.”

Police confiscated the Mace when the man emerged and he “was allowed to rebook but was later denied boarding when he showed up … with a bottle of lighter fluid in hand,” the report adds.

“We’ve seen lots of weird stuff,” said Lara Uselding, a TSA spokeswoman. “We’ve had people hide blocks of cheese in their bags with duct tape and wires attached to it. They’re testing us.”

So the laboratory’s search for security continues. In a reinforced lab, explosives expert Theresa McGhee sews suicide vests with slabs of Semtex and other explosives, then wears the garment to see if she can foil the latest bomb detection systems. “I’m both the designer and model,” she said.

As Hallowell walked through the facility, she stopped by a pile of old-fashioned alarm clocks wired to sticks of fake dynamite, the cartoon image of a terrorist bomb. “I call these our Road Runner bombs,” she said with a laugh.

Her dream: to build a “tunnel of truth” in each airport lined with hidden sensors, scanners, and rays (see 25 February 2008 HSNW). Passengers would get zapped and sniffed as they passed, and would not need to take off their shoes, toss their liquids, or anything else. “The ideal is to get us back the freedoms we had before,” Hallowell said. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”