Fliers May Face Secret
Searches
New Technology Expected to Weed Out Criminals
May 29, 2000
By Jim Krane
NEW YORK (APBnews.com) -- In the near
future, travelers entering or leaving the
United States could unknowingly be
subject to a stealthy government
inspection that can detect minute traces of
drug or bomb residue on travel
documents.
At McGhee Tyson Airport in Knoxville,
Tenn., security personnel are readying to
test a sophisticated scanning machine that
can examine boarding passes of departing
passengers for evidence of bomb-making
chemicals.
"We can determine if there's an explosive and what type of explosive
it is," said Thomas Chamberlain, who directs the Federal Aviation
Administration's (FAA) development of explosives detection
technology.
And at Los Angeles International Airport,
U.S. Customs Service inspectors are
using an identical document scanner to
detect traces of illegal drugs on Customs
declaration forms and other travel
documents.
Airports may soon see scanners
Although Customs has yet to make an arrest with the help of the
scanner, the machine already has proven accurate. In one of several
recent incidents, a scan of entry forms presented by two young men
arriving from Mexico turned up a strong indication of cocaine, said
David Gates, a senior Customs inspector at the airport.
"We checked their luggage, but it was negative," Gates said. "But
they both admitted to snorting a line of cocaine right before boarding
the airplane."
FAA and Customs officials said they are testing the document
scanners to learn whether they might be useful in ferreting out
would-be terrorists attempting to sneak a bomb aboard a plane, or
drug couriers trying to import narcotics. In the FAA's case,
successful trials of the scanners could see them installed in major
U.S. airports by October, Chamberlain said.
Researchers believe that when terrorists and drug couriers touch
explosives or drug-laden packages, their hands pick up chemical
residue. The residue could then be transferred to travel documents
such as passports, Customs forms or boarding passes. Depending
on the type of chemical, residue can remain on hands from a few
days to a few weeks. The machines are sensitive enough to detect
just a fraction of a fingerprint containing traces of explosive or
narcotic, researchers say.
Seven-second scan
In Knoxville, the experimental scanner will be integrated into the
airport's main security checkpoint, where passengers and their
luggage undergo X-ray scanning. Chamberlain said passengers will
be asked to insert their boarding passes into the scanner for the
voluntary, seven-second check.
The document scanners being analyzed by the FAA and Customs
were built by Ion Track Instruments (ITI) of Wilmington, Mass., one of
a number of manufacturers of sophisticated particle scanners used
by government agencies in the United States and abroad. The
scanner is designed to detect electronically charged atoms, or ions,
of chemical traces left on travel documents, ITI spokesman Paul
Eisenbraun said.
ITI developed the document scanner using a $1 million grant from
the federal Technical Support Working Group, a counterterrorism
research and development arm of the U.S. State Department that
develops weapons detection devices used by some 50 government
agencies.
Delta Air Lines, the primary carrier at McGhee Tyson, operates the
airport's security checkpoint and has approved the experiment, said
Tom Jensen, president of the National Safe Skies Alliance, a
consortium of aviation safety researchers and developers that tests
new technology for the FAA.
If the test in Knoxville goes well, the machines could be in use at
major U.S. airports as early as October, Chamberlain said. The FAA
wants to ensure that passengers aren't annoyed or alarmed by the
additional security, and that the scanning -- and any detentions of
passengers -- doesn't delay flights, Chamberlain and Jensen said.
"We want to see how well the instrument is accepted by the flying
public, airlines and security people," Chamberlain said.
Promising tests for Customs
Customs is also testing one of ITI's document scanners on
declaration forms submitted by passengers arriving at Los Angeles
International Airport, Gates said. Customs inspectors have tried it at
all four of the airport's arrival terminals.
Gates said that although no arrests or seizures have been made, the
results are nonetheless impressive. He said the detection of traces
of drugs on a declaration form tips inspectors to perform more
extensive searches, rather than relying on a random search or
uneducated guess.
"It helps us determine what type of inspection to proceed with," he
said.
ITI's document scanner is similar to its ion-scanning "Itemiser"
scanner already used in airports and border crossings in the United
States and elsewhere. That detector uses the same ion-trap mobility
spectrometry to look for traces of explosives or drugs, but examines
samples gathered from luggage or clothes by an operator using a
hand-held "wand." The wand-type machines cost around $60,000
and document scanners around $100,000, Chamberlain said.
The new document scanner is much less
conspicuous than earlier wand machines
and can be used without passengers
realizing their documents are being
analyzed.
"The document scanner was developed as
a way to screen people unobtrusively,
without physically wiping a person down to
get a sample," Eisenbraun said.
Suspicious travelers easier to target
For Customs inspectors, whose search methods are often derided
as overly invasive, the document scanner helps them focus their
efforts on truly suspicious travelers.
"This is a piece of non-intrusive inspection technology," Gates said.
"We're trying to do more without making people feel we're violating
their bodies or their personal space."
The scanner operates by accepting a travel document inserted in a
slot on the front of the machine, which is pulled between a pair of
"wipers" that collect a sample of chemicals.
The sample is heated and vaporized, then drawn into a chamber
where the vapor ions are measured and identified on a spectrogram
scope. If a target chemical is detected, an alarm sounds, a red light
appears and the chemical is identified on the detector's display.
Eisenbraun said the detector can individually identify all but a few
chemicals used in explosives and narcotics. It isn't useful, however,
for many other applications, he said.
ITI is also developing a walk-through booth for the FAA that can scan
the air around a person for traces of chemicals from drugs or
explosives, Eisenbraun said. ITI expects to deliver the scanning
booth to the FAA this summer, he said.
Ion-scanning in Canada, Britain, Australia
The FAA's tests come as similar machines are being readied for
testing in Britain and Canada. In England, press reports have quoted
the nation's top drug-enforcement official as saying the particle
scanners should be installed in airports to help locate arriving drug
couriers.
Customs officials in Australia and Canada have been using
wand-type ion scanners to detect drugs on arriving passengers
documents and luggage for a few years, said Mark Elliott of
Barringer Instruments Inc., another manufacturer of the machines.
In Canada, customs officers use wand-type ion scanners on
passengers at border crossings and airports, said Michael Crichton,
chief of intelligence for Canada Customs. Crichton said the scanners
are used to detect narcotics headed into Canada.
Despite the intrepid ability to learn whether the same hands that
present a boarding pass had recently been touching drugs or
explosive chemicals, several drawbacks hamper the document
scanner's ultimate detection ability.
During its test run in Knoxville, the detector will be checking
documents at the airport's security checkpoint, not the ultimate
airline departure gate, where it might be more effective, Eisenbraun
said. These days, many passengers use so-called electronic tickets,
which are often dispensed from machines inside the departure
terminal beyond the security checkpoint. Thus, not all passengers
carry travel documents to scan, Eisenbraun said.
But if the scanners are used at the boarding gate, where all
passengers -- including those with electronic tickets -- must hand
over a boarding pass, a positive "hit" that detects explosives could
delay an entire flight, Eisenbraun and Jensen said.
Logistical snags
"There's no time to resolve the alarm problem," Eisenbraun said. "Do
you deny the passenger access? Do you hold the plane?"
The passenger's checked luggage might already be loaded on the
plane by the time the boarding pass reveals trace chemicals, he
added. And the chemicals used in a terrorist's bomb are the same
chemicals used for legitimate purposes, such as common heart
medicine, agricultural fertilizer and demolition by road crews and
miners, Jensen added.
Eisenbraun surmised that walk-through scanners would be a better
method of detecting explosives on departing passengers, giving
security officers more time to search baggage without delaying a
flight.
The document scanners are better suited to detecting traces of
drugs on travel documents of passengers arriving on international
flights, Eisenbraun said.
"You have the passenger and the baggage together in the customs
retrieval hall and you have time to do the search," he said.
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