TSA moves forward with untested, costly whole-body scanner deployment

Where are our Congressional watchdogs these days? When it comes to counter-terrorism issues, they are all hiding. No one wants to seem to be soft on terror even as our pockets are being picked by misdirected spending and millions of Americans are facing more and more travels hassles.

On February 9th, I broke the story from a House homeland security committee hearing that GAO had ascertained that the whole-body scanners had not been properly tested by the government prior to being deployed.

On Wednesday, the GAO released another study in written testimony to the House Homeland Security Committee about the effectiveness or these whole-body scanners (which the Homeland Security is now calling Advanced Imaging Technology or AIT).

While officials said [the scanners] performed as well as physical pat downs in operational tests, it remains unclear whether the AIT would have detected the weapon used in the December 2009 incident.

The GAO, our government watchdog, tells us that these machines have not been tested. Next they tell us that these machines may not have “detected the weapon used in the December 2009 incident.” And now the TSA admits to the GAO inspectors that they have not conducted a benefit/cost analyses for the massive deployment of these whole-body scanner technologies.

[TSA] reported that it has not conducted a cost-benefit analysis of the original deployment strategy or the revised AIT deployment strategy, which proposes a more than twofold increase in the number of machines to be procured. GAO estimates increases in staffing costs alone due to doubling the number of AITs that TSA plans to deploy could add up to $2.4 billion over its expected service life.

In the vernacular, the government is throwing money at the problem and inconveniencing millions of travelers without testing the machinery, taking into account the added personnel needed to work these virtual stripsearch machines, or doing a cost analysis of the entire program. We as citizens are being fleeced and inconvenienced without any evidence that these efforts are effective.

We have been down this path before with the deployment of the “puffer machines” that supposedly detected explosives. They were fine in sterile testing, but didn’t work when deployed.

As we previously reported, TSA’s experience with the explosives trace portal (ETP), or “puffers,” demonstrates the importance of testing and evaluation in an operational environment.11 The ETP detects traces of explosives on a passenger by using puffs of air to dislodge particles from the passenger’s body and clothing that the machine analyzes for traces of explosives. TSA procured 207 ETPs and in 2006 deployed 101 ETPs to 36 airports, the first deployment of a checkpoint technology initiated by the agency. TSA deployed the ETPs even though tests conducted during 2004 and 2005 on earlier ETP models suggested that they did not demonstrate reliable performance. Furthermore, the ETP models that were subsequently deployed were not tested to prove their effective performance in an operational environment, contrary to TSA’s acquisition guidance, which recommends such testing.

Homeland Security did the same thing with explosives trace portals that they are doing today with whole-body scanners. GAO estimated back then, that TSA wasted hundreds of millions of dollars. Today we have 9 of these puffer machines still in operation.

TSA procured and deployed ETPs without assurance that they would perform as intended in an operational environment. TSA officials stated that they deployed the machines without resolving these issues to respond quickly to the threat of suicide bombers. In June 2006 TSA halted further deployment of the ETP because of performance, maintenance, and installation issues. According to a senior TSA official, as of December 31, 2009, all but 9 ETPs have been withdrawn from airports, and 18 ETPs remain in inventory.

Here we go again. This time however, GAO estimates the amount to be spent on untested machinery will add up to $2.4 billion.

Tagged as: advanced imaging technology, AIT, GAO, government accountability office, Transportation Security Administration, TSA, whole-body scanners