From AP:
X-ray machines that screen airline passengers' shoes cannot detect explosives, according to a Homeland Security Department report on aviation screening.Findings from the report, obtained by The Associated Press, did not stop the Transportation Security Administration from announcing Sunday that all airline passengers must remove their shoes and run them through X-ray machines before boarding commercial aircraft. ...
In its April 2005 report, "Systems Engineering Study of Civil Aviation Security -- Phase I," the Homeland Security Department concluded that images on X-ray machines don't provide the information necessary to detect explosives.
Machines used at most airports to scan hand-held luggage, purses, briefcases and shoes have not been upgraded to detect explosives since the report was issued.
Ya see, we just have to *look* like we're taking this security thing seriously. People feel safer when they have to take their shoes off for no effective reason.
Comments
You know, I've been reading and thinking about this false sense of security issue since just after 9/11. It seems to me that absolutely everyone from the reporters to the individual person on the street knows that the additional security measures are just theater. They've always known it. Maybe I run with above average thinkers, but I really want to know who is still supportive of the nonsense.
Ah well. It's probably a lot like the drug war. Everyone knows it's ridiculous, but can't think of a better way or conceive of a world without it. So it hangs around getting more and more annoying and more and more ineffective. That's life in the modern world for you.
Posted by: ryan | August 15, 2006 9:29 AM
The X-ray imaging they are doing does not detect explosives, but it might be possible to detect them with X-ray spectroscopy.
Posted by: somnilista, FCD | August 15, 2006 4:35 PM
Posted by: somnilista, FCD | August 15, 2006 6:00 PM
The TSA does have a point--while X-rays won't specifically detect explosives, they may allow detection of a shoe that has been altered to pack it with explosives.
Posted by: Jim Lippard | August 15, 2006 7:13 PM