Can Imaging Technologies Save Us From Terrorists? 480
itwbennett writes "In the aftermath of the failed Christmas Day terrorist attack, full body scanning technologies such as millimeter wave and backscatter are regaining popularity, writes blogger Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols in a recent post. But, he asks, do they really work? The TSA seems to think so. It has just issued a contract to purchase more millimeter wave scanners from L3 Communications. Michael Chertoff, the former homeland security secretary, told the New York Times that if these scanners had been in place, they would have caught the would-be bomber. Ben Wallace, the Conservative Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom, disagrees, saying that the technologies can't detect the kind of low-density explosive that the would-be terrorist tried to use on December 25th."
... but not if (Score:5, Insightful)
He stuck them up his bum.
Had DHS not been so secretive... (Score:5, Insightful)
Had DHS not been so secretive about their processes and people actually bothered to listened when the guy's father walked into the US embassy and said "I think my son is a terrorist" and actually looked into the matter it wouldn't have happened.
Right now I don't think I know if anybody without an TS-SCI clearance actually knows how to get on of off the list.
Terrorist will just use children (Score:4, Insightful)
because child porn laws are already being considered with these new machines, in the UK I believe no one under 18 can be scanned with one.
So, lets just hand them our playbook again. Instead of looking for terrorist we are looking to naughty bits.
We are nearly suicidal in our attempts to not offend anyone. What will it take to realize that feelings heal over time but death does not?
Re:wha (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but 2010 is election year here in the UK.
It was not a "failed" attack. (Score:5, Insightful)
It promoted "terror". It's making the enemy (us) scramble, expend resources and showed the jihadies that the enemy (us) is still vulnerable.
That there were no dead bodies or a mile-wide debris trail in downtown Detroit is trivial -- because there COULD have been.
No. (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing that will save us from terrorists is to refuse to be terrorized. When we go through all this bullshit, giving up our liberties, conviniences, travel, the terrorists win.
It's just more security theater. There are a whole lot of ways to kill large numbers of people, and no way to protect all of them.
Why are you so afraid of terrorists when only 3,000 people have died from terrorism in the US this century, while there are five times as many Americans murdered every single year [fbi.gov] in non-terrorist murders?
Murder is murder, why should political murder scare you more than some thug doing a drive-by shooting?
Re:Just wait... (Score:1, Insightful)
No, then congress will have to confiscate more of our hard earned dollars in the name of fighting terrerr'sts and buy the next ineffectual piece of crap solution.
The real danger... (Score:5, Insightful)
... is to the airline industry. My wife and I have flown once since 9/11. After being pulled out and "randomly" scanned at every single stop, we decided it wasn't worth the hassle anymore. Now we drive to where we want to be. It's amazing how pretty parts this country are from the ground. We don't really have any plans to fly again until this whole security theater thing has blown over.
Apparently we're not alone; general travel was up 2.2% over the holidays yet air travel was down 6.4%. This security nonsense only hurts the airlines. Soon we won't have a robust air travel system in the USA.
Re:Just wait... (Score:2, Insightful)
Good idea. Actually, it would be a better idea if everybody refused to fly until the airlines recognised that their customers deserve a modicum of respect. The whole business of flying anywhere has become so universally unpleasant, there's no point bothering any more, and it's high time the airlines realised that.
I think... (Score:2, Insightful)
If the photography, lighting, and touch-up are removed and the swimsuit models drop from a "10" to a "7", most slashdotters would still be on board, literally.
Re:It was not a "failed" attack. (Score:3, Insightful)
Damn. I wish you were not so cowardly anon, that was a good joke and could have gotten you some karma.
It should be noted that (Score:5, Insightful)
Michael Chertoff, makes money from full body scanners. So he isn't exactly unbiased.
Also, he is kind of a jack ass who really doesn't seem to care for the constitution.
Re:It was not a "failed" attack. (Score:2, Insightful)
A free society will always be vulnerable in some way. This didn't prove anything except that the American people will need to give up more freedom if they want to feel safer. I don't, but I guess I'm not the one the terrorists are trying to influence.
People are terrible at understanding risk (Score:5, Insightful)
Air line security is based on STUPID ideas (Score:3, Insightful)
2. The real problem is stopping another hijacking, not an explosion. Hijacking is much CHEAPER to defend against with a reinforced titanium door (light weight and strong) and the willingness to blow up the plane ourselves rather than let terrorists turn it into a weapon against a ground target.
The moronic TSA crap does not and can never stop terrorists, but it can delay, annoy and cost the flying public huge amounts of cash in an attempt to 'look like we are doing something'.
In my opinion, the terrorists have won. They destroyed our airline industry and convinced too many scared fools to willing give up their freedom in the 5 years directly after 9/11.
Why is Chertoff so keen on full-body scanners? (Score:5, Insightful)
Could it be because he has a financial interest in selling them? Why, yes. Yes it could [gawker.com]. Not that he ever mentioned any of that in his numerous television interviews extolling the virtues of the things - you're meant to think that he's flogging them because he's genuinely convinced of their effectiveness.
To be clear: I'm not opposed to the former DHS secretary taking a post-politics job in the security industry. I'm not even against him appearing on my teevee to flog his products. What stinks, though, is when he doesn't make it clear that his words amount to an advertisement rather than news.
nope. (Score:3, Insightful)
Short answer: No.
Whether or not these scanners can actually detect such explosives is largely irrelevant.
This specific bomber was on watch lists, bought a one-way ticket with cash, and had worried his father enough for him to contact authorities. There are plenty of things already in-place that could have caught the would-be bomber, but didn't.
These new gadgets might very well help catch terrorists... But they aren't going to magically eliminate all terrorism.
They'll find an explosive that isn't detected. Or they'll carry it on in some way that isn't detected. Or they'll bribe the right people to get past security un-screened. Or they'll get people hired in the right places to bypass security entirely. Or maybe they'll blow up something instead of a plane - another building, or a train, or a boat.
We're still looking at treating the symptoms, rather than the disease itself. We're addressing specific actions - he tried to blow up a plane with a bomb in his underwear - rather than the root cause of these actions - religious extremism that's willing to sacrifice plenty of lives to make a statement.
As long as that extremism exists... And especially when we're willing to give their statements so much attention... Terrorism will persist, regardless of what technological gadgetry we put in place.
Re:wha (Score:1, Insightful)
Considering the recent bomber BYPASSED security... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't take my word for it, listen to this NPR interview: Attorney witnessed bomber before flight had already bypassed security with no Passport [npr.org]
Re:It was not a "failed" attack. (Score:1, Insightful)
He wasn't making a joke...
Re:... but not if (Score:5, Insightful)
Or blew them up in the terminal before departure. What about a car bomb in Times Square? If airlines are immune to bombing, people will bomb elsewhere. Terrorism cannot be fought at this end.
Re:No. (Score:4, Insightful)
Liberals have hate crimes, conservatives have terrorists. They're essentially the same thing - a crime thought to be worse due to the motive.
IMHO, what does distinguish these crimes from the garden variety is if the attack was sponsored by a larger organization (whether a homegrown militia or Al Qaeda), since that means further attacks are likely in the offing.
Re:It was not a "failed" attack. (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing is more hilarious than the truth.
Re:wha (Score:4, Insightful)
Thing is that the person in question did not depart from either a UK or a US airport. Schiphol Arirport already had 15 such scanners and both the Airport's management and the Dutch Interior Minister announced yesterday they intend to get 60 more this year.
Also it needs to be remembered that any kind of "screening" can be defeated by an "inside man". At least two other passengers noticed the terrorist in the company of an unknown man who claimed the Nigerian was from Sudan and had no passport. Such strange behaviour should at least have warrented checking with the flight crew, if not having both people arrested. Instead the witnesses say that the ticket agent refered them to a manager.
Paying for govt incompetance with my liberties (Score:3, Insightful)
I see this situation as paying for federal government incompetence with my civil liberties.
I read in the news that various security & intelligence networks had red flags about the Nigerian terrorist but decided not to act.
The way to prevent future problems is to fix the broken process whereby a red flag can come up and be ignored.
Not by trampling on people's civil liberties and right to privacy.
This isn't the first time this bullshit happened.
Prior to 9/11 one of the terrorists told a flight instructor that he didn't need to know how to land. Reports about the hijackers were lodged in several intelligence/security agencies. They were ignored the way red flags about the Nigerian terrorist was ignored.
President Bush created an entire new Federal agency because he felt he couldn't fix the dysfunctional culture at the FBI.
Today I read that there was 3rd gate crasher at the White House.
It is time to start visibly firing people.
The private sector fires people for serious screw ups. Putting the lives of the President and other Americans at risk is of far more importance than a network admin downloading malware.
Re:No. (Score:4, Insightful)
I think Janet Napolitano (inadvertently) got it right when she said immediately after the event that "the system worked". That is, if by system she meant "relying on the post-9/11 understanding of passengers to use force to subdue suspected terrorists". You can't stop everyone from getting through, and you don't even need to since the people on the plane know that their lives are on the line. They'll take care of the problem much more effectively than some government agency chock full of ne'er-do-wells and morons.
Re:No. (Score:3, Insightful)
In a single day, 20 some odd yahoos cost the US economy several hundred billions of dollars. This doesn't include Afghanistan and Iraq. And the fall of global markets after 911?
You're making an argument for spreading out operations and using telepresence to connect the movers and shakers from the golf courses of their choice. Possibly you're making an argument for capping the size of aircraft (the market seems to be doing that on it's own though. Look at the popularity of SouthWest and the orders for the Dreamliner that held fast despite slipping deadlines compared to the A380)
You have not made a valid argument for harassing everyone and making travel difficult and slower.
only image tech needed to display terrorists (Score:3, Insightful)
Send mirrors to everyone supporting the TSA, anti-terror overreaction and hysteria. Look in the mirror. You're the people who are helping terrorists win. When the terrorists give it their best shot, kill a few thousand and we shrug it off like nothing and go about our lives with no change, THAT is winning the war on terror. Turning ourselves into a police state while bombing the fuck out of random civilians in their country is giving them everything they could ask for short of sodomizing ourselves with a lit stick of dynamite.
Here's why (Score:5, Insightful)
Because privacy [fyngyrz.com] is still something we're raised to expect as a basic civilized consideration, a fundamental personal liberty to maintain social boundaries until we wish otherwise. It's just that simple.
Re:Terrorist will just use children (Score:5, Insightful)
Every ideological movement needs an enemy.
The West is their enemy. We could pull out entirely right now and we'd still be the Great Satan for generations and generations. (For example, North Korea wants their citizens to believe they are still at war with the U.S. and as such they need to continually endure 'wartime' hardships to continue the glorious fight.)
They are also still happily killing themselves (no western involvement) over things that happened over 500 years or more ago.
Re:Just wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
As soon as these scanners are deployed terrorists will simply start to carry the explosives in an internal cavity. 80g of explosives - the amount used on the 25th - only has a volume of 36x36x36 mm^3. There are plenty of places where this could be hidden - just look at the drug mules..
So you will still need to be searched, even if you are travelling in the nude. But at least the searches would take less time.
Do they inspect false limbs? If you're blowing yourself up for Allah anyway, why not give up your leg a few months early? Martyrdom candidate gets leg amputated below knee, heals up, is fitted with prosthetic. Interior of prosthetic is filled with explosive and is completely sealed. Cell phone is the wireless detonator for the bomb. Take seat in plane, wait until cruising altitude is reached so breaching the pressure vessel will cause maximum damage, detonate leg. How do you check for that? And what if the guy has a wheelchair. That's chock full of metal. What if the tubes that make it up were packed and sealed with plastique?
I never understood the appeal of suicide bombings but I guess it makes things simpler on the operational end. There's the old saying about making the hit is easy, getting out alive is the hard part. A shoulder-fired SAM is hard to buy, hard to smuggle, and even if you blow up the plane, now there's an operative on the ground trying to evade the cops. The suicide bomber will be dead unless the bomb fails, nobody to interrogate, much harder to find his support people. But if bombs are simpler than missiles, why not just do what the Libyans did with Pan-Am 103 and check luggage with the bomb in it, then not get on the plane? Even if the bomb is caught in scanning, your guy presumably used a false ID and won't be caught.
The only thing that's really encouraging throughout all of this is that the terrorists don't appear to be really smart. This country is full of gaping vulnerabilities that would be frightfully easy to exploit but aren't just because there aren't as many terrorists out there as we think and they don't have the Lex Luthor plotting skills we give them credit for. Just look at our power grid. Terrorists knocking down a few long-haul towers could make the country go crazier than 9-11. Even if they didn't manage to replicate that giant New York blackout from a few years back, just imagine the expense of patrolling all the lines now, especially through remote areas. It would cost a fortune. How difficult would it be to get a dozen crews modeled after the DC Snipers running around the country? We'd lose our minds. But they aren't doing this, are they?
Re:They are another layer (Score:3, Insightful)
Cost, cost, cost. With diminishing marginal returns.
Sorry if I sound like a jerk. But adding layers of security is of questionable value at a certain point. There will always be some threat that we can't detect. And you can bet that an intelligent terrorist would use a method that avoids our detection systems. So is the point of the security exercise just to stop the stupid terrorists? Or is it something else entirely?
I'm not saying safety is unimportant. But I question the value of Yet Another Contractor Getting Paid Billions for something of marginal use.
Re:Terrorist will just use children (Score:3, Insightful)
You do realize your statement could be reversed to apply to the "War on Terror", do you?
Our Great Satan would be Bin Laden, and depending on the agenda of Western governments, our enemy could be Iran/Irak/Pakistan/Afghanistan/Yemen/Whatever....
Plus, our governments get to screw us on privacy because we're "at war".
Re:... but not if (Score:3, Insightful)
Or blew them up in the terminal before departure. What about a car bomb in Times Square? If airlines are immune to bombing, people will bomb elsewhere. Terrorism cannot be fought at this end.
Exactly. Terrorists have clearly given up on the "hijack an airplane and use it as a giant missile" tactic since it won't work anymore, and are settling for trying to kill a plane full of people.
Well gee, if killing people is the main goal, look at all those folks piled up in front of the rigorous security checkpoint... Maybe not as dramatic as knocking a plane out of the sky, but jihadis can't be choosers if you know what I mean.
Re:Terrorist will just use children (Score:5, Insightful)
You are exactly right. Before 9/11 and before Iraq and Afghanistan I remember reading a post titled "Why do people hate Americans?" Hundreds chimed in, with as much passion as today's critics, but with different complaints. The biggest complaint, by far, was that Americans call themselves Americans (how arrogant) instead of USians. Next on the list was how we didn't finish the first Gulf War and let our allies be murdered by Saddam. People will hate Americans and America as long as we shall live.
Re:... but not if (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is their slowness inherent? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:They are another layer (Score:4, Insightful)
The biggest issue is the special scanners will stop what they did last time. It's the same issue the TSA and their counterparts have with each iteration of security practices.
They all assume the terrorist will use the same method as they have already done. What happens when they don't? You get what happened over the holiday. The heightened security fights the last attack, not the upcoming one.
- The original 9/11 plot had terrorists taking over the plane, so the put in super doors and other measures to keep people out of the cockpit.
- A potential attack had liquid explosives, so no more liquids over 3.4 oz (which is a joke measure anyway)
- Next attack used a shoe bomb, so we take off our shoes
- Next attack used a underpants bomb...
No security method will keep you perfectly safe. All methods have their weaknesses and it is ultimately up to the passengers to assist in combating those wishing to do harm to them.
Re:What materials can't they see through? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Terrorist will just use children (Score:5, Insightful)
You are exactly right. Before 9/11 and before Iraq and Afghanistan I remember reading a post titled "Why do people hate Americans?" Hundreds chimed in, with as much passion as today's critics, but with different complaints. The biggest complaint, by far, was that Americans call themselves Americans (how arrogant) instead of USians. Next on the list was how we didn't finish the first Gulf War and let our allies be murdered by Saddam. People will hate Americans and America as long as we shall live.
Your post in itself is an example of why people hate Americans.
You create a straw man saying that the prime reason that people hate Americans is that they don't call themselves USians. Wtf? Do you really think Palestinians give a shit what you call yourself when your country supplies the weapons that kill members of their family?
Do you think the Northern Irish who endured decades of violence while Americans supplied money and arms to the IRA hate them because of anything to do with the first gulf war?
Wilful ignorance like you are showing is a real reason people hate Americans.
Re:It was not a "failed" attack. (Score:3, Insightful)
"because there COULD have been."
No, because people believe there could have been.
Disgusting (Score:3, Insightful)
I heard that the full body scanners can not detect an explosive device hidden by rolls of fat in an obese person. I can't picture those rolls being searched by hand either. Yuck.
Why wouldn't terrorists recruit fat people?
Why don't we just admit that airport security is futile?
Please (Score:3, Insightful)
Imaging technologies are in use, and have been for some time. So it's a perfectly reasonable request. Especially in light of the OP's claim that "The short answer is a qualified YES. All imaging technologies can (help) save us from (some) terrorists."
As for being deterrents, yes, they are. I won't support an industry that cares so little for my liberties, not to mention which encourages acting like a bunch of craven cowards. So I never fly.
As far as efficacy in stopping an infinitesimal number of these clowns from blowing themselves up (or incompetently attempting to, like mr-flaming-pants and mr-flaming-shoe) as compared to the number of flights per day... that simply hasn't been demonstrated. Nor has it been shown that they won't simply switch to shoulder-mounted rockets or something similar. Or different targets. The fact is, if there were a lot of 'em, there would be a lot of incidents or a lot of them getting caught. But there aren't. It's 99.9999% theater, and it's all at the expense of our way of life.
The real problem is that the masses live in fear inspired and encouraged by the media and the politicians. I stand against everything that makes that problem worse.