WH Using Liquid Explosive Detector It REFUSED To Install At US Airports

[kpete]

Thursday, August 17, 2006

White House using liquid explosive detector it refused to install at US airports to protect you and me
by John in DC - 8/17/2006 10:23:00 AM

Uh oh.

Since the early 1990s, AS&E has made SmartCheck, a $50,000 low-intensity X-ray scanner that can spot a bottle of organic compounds in a passenger's pocket.

But is the liquid an explosive, or a batch of baby formula? Ahura says its $30,000 handheld laser scanner, the First Defender, can answer the question. The device can ``see" through glass or plastic bottles and identify any of 2,500 different chemical compounds in about 15 seconds. The FBI and New York City police already use the Ahura system, which went on sale about a year ago.

Joe Reiss, AS&E's vice president of marketing, said his company's SmartCheck systems are used at the White House and the US Supreme Court. But they're not widely used in airport security. TSA agreed last year to conduct tests of the system. But Reiss said those tests had not yet begun.

Why? Because Bush and the Republicans who control Congress didn't give Homeland Security enough money.

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2006/08/17/us_delays_security_for_liquid_bombs/
via:
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/08/white-house-using-liquid-explosive.html

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

1. Homeland Security should be "pulling itself up by the bootstraps".

The "welfare queens" at TSA need to get a job and buy these things for themselves instead of relying on the government to baby them. :sarcasm:

[Virginia Dare]

2. That wouldn't scare people enough...

it's much scarier and more intimidating when guards are patting people down and confiscating their personal belongings.

[Sinti]

3. It's not about protection, it's about control n/t