Little Progress in Airport Security, Report Says

Despite making changes to airport security after September 11, little much has changed in the past six years, says a new report. Why have we made so little progress? Click HERE>>

According to an article on the San Francisco Sentinel website, “screeners still use X-ray machines to scan carry-on bags, and passengers still pass through magnetometers that cannot detect plastic or liquid explosives. The Transportation Security Administration has yet to deploy a machine that can efficiently detect liquid bombs, forcing millions of air passengers to check bags or pare down their toiletries to three-ounce containers in carry-on baggies.”

That slow pace of technological innovation has left holes in checkpoint security that could easily be exploited by terrorists. Last year, congressional investigators reported they were able to smuggle bomb components through checkpoints.

“The snail’s pace of deploying new technology is unacceptable,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told the publication. “We remain vulnerable because we have not kept up with technological innovation.”

“The TSA in coming months is expected to begin the government’s first substantial investment in new checkpoint security technology since the 1970s, according to officials at the TSA, which plans to spend about $250 million on new devices, up from about $89 million last fiscal year,” the article says. “The machines include upgraded X-ray equipment that will provide multiple views of bags and hand-held scanners that can detect liquid explosives in bottles after they are identified by screeners.”