<http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB110617670337330699,00.html> The Wall Street Journal January 20, 2005 Airport Screening Gets Smarter Government Rolls Out Tests Of Systems to Improve Detection of Explosives By KATHRYN KRANHOLD Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL January 20, 2005; Page D1 Prepare to get puffed on. The government is stepping up its investment in technology designed to make screening people and baggage at airports easier and more reliable. General Electric Co. will announce today that the federal Transportation Security Administration has certified its new machines that more precisely detect explosives in checked luggage, reducing false positives and making it possible to do fewer manual searches of bags. The machines, already in place in European cities and Israel, will be tested in U.S. airports this year, according to industry sources. In addition, the TSA, part of the Department of Homeland Security, plans to expand a pilot program using so-called Explosive Trace Portals to scan passengers for explosives. These machines, made by GE and Smith Detections, a unit of London-based Smiths Group PLC, work by blowing puffs of air at passengers, collecting samples of ion-charged air, and instantly analyzing it for explosives, sounding an alarm if any trace is detected. The GE machines are currently in five U.S. airports, including San Diego and Tampa; as many as nine other cities will be added this year, according to the TSA, including Los Angeles, Boston, Miami, Las Vegas and San Francisco. A Smith Detections unit is in New York's Kennedy Airport. Bomb sniffer: GE's 'trace portal,' now in five U.S. airports, tests people for explosives. The technology should go some way toward resolving complaints about the new security procedures in place since 9/11. The TSA has been under fire for the way screeners conduct personal searches, and for mishandling passengers' checked bags during searches. In the latest figures, from November 2004, the TSA received 652 complaints regarding its screening procedures, and an additional 678 complaints about its handling of personal property. That compares with 218 complaints about courtesy and 42 about the processing time. But the technology is advancing faster than the government's ability to deploy it. At current spending levels, says David Plavin, president of Airports Council International-North America, an airport trade group, it will take 15 to 20 years to automate airports' baggage systems with the advanced screening and more-efficient explosives-detection technology. "We're way, way below what large-scale deployment would need," he says. "We're not in the right ballpark." TSA funding for the new technologies has varied from year to year. This year, the TSA has $180 million to purchase explosives-detection systems, up 20% from $150 million in 2004. Additionally, the TSA has announced about $1 billion in grants to pay for airport construction to install screening machines as part of automated baggage systems. GE and analysts who follow the company believe that the market for security technology will continue to grow in the U.S. and overseas as ports and other transportation systems look for ways to screen for explosives. A TSA spokeswoman said the administration is "committed to aggressively deploying the newest technology available" within the authorized budget. Explosives screening has also moved to cruise ships and commercial air cargo. Recently, Miami's airport officials placed one of its explosives-detection screeners at its port area to screen luggage for passengers boarding cruise ships. The TSA also has a small program screening commercial air cargo at a handful of airports in cities including Miami and Dallas. The machines are made by GE and L-3 Communications, a New York City-based manufacturer of security technology, also approved by the TSA. There is competition to produce lower-cost machines. The TSA recently certified another manufacturer, Reveal Imaging Technologies, based in Bedford, Mass., which has developed baggage screening machines that are smaller and less expensive than those made by GE or L-3. GE's newest machines scan bags that have been flagged, checking the molecular makeup of a suspect item. Reveal's machines cost about $500,000 apiece, compared with more than $1 million for GE's and L-3's. But these machines may be viable only in smaller airports. After the Sept. 11 attacks, as part of a federal mandate, the country's 450 airports installed explosive-trace detection machines or explosive-detection machines based on advanced medical computed tomography, or CT technology. The explosive-detection machines, made by GE and L-3, detect items of a certain density that could be an explosive. The machine isn't foolproof; a chunk of cheese or a fruitcake, for example, can falsely trigger an alarm. Once a bag is tagged as having a possible bomb inside, airport security employees further evaluate the bag through an onscreen view and then often a search. GE's newest technology, called Yxlon XES 3000, works in concert with the CT-based explosive-detection machines. Once a bag has been flagged, it is sent through the second machine, which determines the molecular makeup of the suspect item. GE says the secondary screening reduces to a minimum the percentage of false positives -- and the need for time-consuming hand searches. The trace portals that screen individual passengers cost from $130,000 to $150,000 apiece. They are used in addition to metal detectors, but on a random basis, not with every passenger. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'