On a second thought: I have a titanium hip which sets off the scanner whenever I go through security. Would a full body scanner detect this or would I still have to be wanded?

2. A pat-down search would have likely discovered the panty bomb as the explosive power would have felt funny to an experienced agent. Of course, right now TSA doesn’t have a reasonable procedure to determine who should be patted-down for a reasonable suspicion.

3. Perform psychological profiling (That’s not racial, religious, or ethnic profiling) of passengers to seek out threats among them. Based on El Al’s history of psychological profiling, and having discussed the idea with security people, I believe the panty bomber would have been identified by this method for secondary screening, which would have required a pat-down search, which would have caught him.
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Let’s apply these “new” procedures to the shuttle market in the Northeast. The “Acela” train would salivate at the increased market share. AIRPORT SECURITY must compete with other modes of transportation, the public’s perception of safety and the ability to make the experience as fast as possible. That’s why you’re flying, it’s usually a faster mode of transportation.

As a six sigma black belt, I can tell you that a system becomes more reliable the more parallel paths (in the case the number of different processes that must fail) that you have. So even if the backscatter technology is only 50% effective at detecting non-metalic objects and 100% effective at detecting metal its better than and greatly increases the system reliablity (ie chance of dangerous object getting through).

In order for pat downs to be effective as a fail safe when everything else fails, they have to be done 100% of the time.

Would you prefer a pat down to standing in front of a machine? Others on here have complained about time to clear security and security times. Which do you think is faster? Personally, I find that having someone look at a blurred image of me is less intrusive than being groped (Think about where the explosives were placed and where you would have to be felt for them to be detected. From photos I’ve seen a pat on the inside of the leg would not of detected them. The explosives didn’t end up there by accident.).

Dogs are a great tool but not 100% effective either. As a basic training company commander I coordinated with the MPs to run drug dog through my barracks every 10 weeks (once per cycle) to check for drugs. Afterwords, I let them use the barracks for training (ie they had one MP hide drugs in the building and then sent in the dogs). Lets just say that my confidence in dogs to be 100% effective was greatly shaken.

Let’s be honest… While profiling is a great tool, the elected folks on the hill are never going to let it happen. There are too many negative press releases attached to it. All it takes is one public case and the folks on the hill will be holding hearings. (I’m sorry but profiling looks at the whole person so race, religion, age & ethnic background are part of the equation.) By definition, using profiling will result in certain groups of people having more security checks. (I’d guess Muslim males ages 15 – 35 acting nervous would get the most scrutiny since that’s the profile of the attackers that made it on to planes. Muslim families acting nervous would probably be next since that’s who the UK stopped from bringing liquid explosives on to planes.) How long after the 60 minutes reports that Muslim males get pulled aside for additional checks more often would Congress hold hearings? In addition, profiling is also more art than science. Israel has the advantage of a limited number of airports so covering them would seem to be an easier than covering every airport in the US with enough profilers to be effective.

The nice thing about back scatter technology is that its quick, more effective than metal detectors and doesn’t care about your background. This makes it the most politically safe technology to use for screening and can be used in conjunction with Ned’s suggestions.

All I want is a security system that keeps me safe. Period. Metal detectors don’t do that anymore (google ceramic knives) and go back to 9/11 (Granted onboard improvements make this a less likely avenue of attack). The intel system doesn’t seem to be up to doing it yet. We can all agree that TSA doesn’t seem to have enough well trained profilers to cover the country. This is the one technology that, in at least the short term, seems to plug a very large hole in our security net.

As a contributor here, I think we’ve presented many of the facts about “full body screening,” and you are right, we’ve expressed our opinions on the subject too, once we learned the facts and presented them. Many of us believe this is an important issue for travelers, and we want to bring to the issues about “full body screening” and the scanning equipment to do it, into the open.

As far as the panty bomber goes, I personally doubt, along with many others, that a full body scan with one of these MMW scanners would have actually caught the guy. He had a very thin layer of the explosive, in a power form, sewn into his underpants. That minimized its density compared to having it in its more standard solid block form, and didn’t create a bulge in the appearance of his underpants. Density and an odd physical appearance on the scan are how the agent reviewing the scan of the screen for a few moments determines if something’s up. It’s doubtful the panty bomber would have gotten caught by the scan.

Considering that intelligence on him failed, there were still 3 things which could have caught the panty bomber before he boarded the plane, 2 direct, 1 indirect. I’ve been advocating each of these for a long time here at Consumer Traveler, and each mentioned was in my open letter to DHS Secretary Napolitano this past Monday, and my suggested new year’s resolutions for DHS/TSA last week.

1. Use explosive sniffing dogs at security, and if rechecking at the gate, there as well.

2. A pat-down search would have likely discovered the panty bomb as the explosive power would have felt funny to an experienced agent. Of course, right now TSA doesn’t have a reasonable procedure to determine who should be patted-down for a reasonable suspicion.

3. Perform psychological profiling (That’s not racial, religious, or ethnic profiling) of passengers to seek out threats among them. Based on El Al’s history of psychological profiling, and having discussed the idea with security people, I believe the panty bomber would have been identified by this method for secondary screening, which would have required a pat-down search, which would have caught him.

Guys, I’m all for technology which will actually make us safer. To me, the “full body scanner” is all about TSA’s security “theater.” It’s for show, and it’s way too expensive for that. We need to spend our money on security methods which work.