Bush and his Homeland Security chief remind us constantly that they are doing all they can to protect Americans from the perils of terrorism. As the November elections draw near, we will hear a steady rise in the drumbeat of this claim. They justify wars, suspension of civil liberties and draconian measures at airports by exploiting our fears. After all, global terrorism is a real danger. But are Bush's security measures really designed to make us safe? Time and again we have discovered that the Bush administration talks the tough talk but when it comes to funding real and effective measures for security, it doesn't walk the walk.
It has been revealed that the administration tried to divert funds from the HSD's bomb detection technology program. Anti-terror funds were slashed for New York City and Washington D.C while cities like Omaha, Jersey City, Fort Lauderdale, Louisville, KY and states like Indiana, Wyoming and North Dakota had their funding increased many times. After the recent news of the terrorist plot to blow up airplanes using liquid explosives, we can no longer carry beverages, shampoo or toothpaste in our carry-on luggage during air travel. The explanation given for this extremely alarmist step has been that the technology to detect liquid explosives is not available and it is too expensive. But guess what, like many other untruths told by the deceiptful Bush administration, this assertion too is a bluff. The technology exists and it is already in use - in the White House! Bush and his friends in the HSD just didn't bother to tell us. They are spending billions for a disastrous war but don't want to spend the money to protect ordinary citizens at home who must be subjected to increasing levels of indignities and inconveniences. I wonder why. Could it be that keeping people perpetually nervous, stressed out and insecure, makes it easier to control and manipulate them for political gains?
The technology exists to detect liquid explosives -- at least three Massachusetts companies have created such tools -- but the federal government says it's still not ready to deploy the devices in the nation's airports.
The Transportation Security Administration, the federal agency in charge of airport security, is testing products from American Science and Engineering Inc. of Billerica; Ahura Corp. of Wilmington; and General Dielectric Inc. of Acton.
AS&E's SmartCheck system uses low-powered X-rays to scan passengers for hidden items like bottles of liquid, while Ahura and General Dielectric use lasers or microwaves respectively, to identify the contents of a sealed bottle. The TSA is also testing seven other devices made by companies in the United States, the United Kingdom , and Japan. But TSA spokeswoman Amy Kudwa says that none are ready to be deployed because of reliability and feasibility issues.
But after this month's foiled terrorist plot to smuggle liquid explosives aboard jumbo jets, the government may not have the luxury to wait. Charles Slepian , founder of the Foreseeable Risk Analysis Center, a transportation security firm in New York, said that technology for detecting explosives in carry-on bags is well understood and readily available, but the US Department of Homeland Security is reluctant to spend the large sums needed to deploy it at hundreds of airports.
"Now they're embarrassed because they have to say that we have nothing in place," said Slepian. "Shame on us. We've had the science for years."
Since the early 1990s, AS&E has made SmartCheck, a $50,000 low-intensity X-ray scanner that can spot a bottle of organic compounds in a passenger's pocket.
But is the liquid an explosive, or a batch of baby formula? Ahura says its $30,000 handheld laser scanner, the First Defender, can answer the question. The device can "see" through glass or plastic bottles and identify any of 2,500 different chemical compounds in about 15 seconds. The FBI and New York City police already use the Ahura system, which went on sale about a year ago.
Joe Reiss , AS&E's vice president of marketing, said his company's SmartCheck systems are used at the White House and the US Supreme Court. But they're not widely used in airport security. TSA agreed last year to conduct tests of the system. But Reiss said those tests had not yet begun.
TSA spokeswoman Kudwa said the agency has been evaluating the First Defender system in US airports since October, along with the General Dielectric system, but the devices have not always proven reliable. "We are seeing high false alarm rates for the solutions we are testing right now," she said.
Ahura spokeswoman Kerstin Barr said First Defender has an accuracy rate of about 95 percent."
The money that has been wasted to fund useless anti-terror measures in low risk cities in Nebraska, Wyoming, Indiana, Kentucky and North Dakota, could have gone towards the purchase of liquid scanning devices for most major airports. Instead we now must surrender our make-up, Gatorade and toothpaste like so many sheep. George Bush's hind-quarters on the other hand, are perfectly protected by the latest technology which has been ready and available for quite some time.
Note: Thanks to my co-blogger Sujatha for pointing out this disturbing story and providing the link.
This is more evidence that points towards the fact that the war on terror needs to be a law enforcement operation more than it needs to be a military operation. After all, look at the British terror plot (although now it is being questioned whether there even was a plot in the first place). It was foiled by law enforcement and not waging war on Britain. Ultimately, no matter who the US attacks, Iran, Iraq, Syria, there will always be people in countries other than those where terror attacks will be planned and it will be incumbent on the US not to thwart the planning but the execution. Contrary to what right-wingers think, hatred of the US will persist, no matter how many democracies they set up in the middle-east and it is high time they stopped nursing their fantasy of the US being the apple of everybody's eye. Instead, it is time they concentrate on catching the haters before they can do any harm. That needs to be the strategy in the war on terror as I see it.
Posted by: gawker | August 18, 2006 at 08:54 AM
Congratulations on being picked up by Salon!
Posted by: PIAW | August 18, 2006 at 04:27 PM