US halts airport explosives detectors - NY Times

NEW YORK, Sep 3 (Reuters) The Transportation Security Administration is suspending installation of the only airport checkpoint device that automatically screens passengers for hidden explosives due to problems with the system's reliability, The New York Times reported in today editions.

''We are seeing some issues that we did not anticipate'' with the devices known as ''puffers,'' the Times quoted Randy Null, the agency's chief technology officer as saying.

Introduction of the so-called trace-detection portals, nicknamed puffers because they blow air while searching for residue from explosives, was far behind schedule even before the TSA moved to reassess whether they should be modified or upgraded or whether to wait until better versions are available, the Times said.

The problems with the portals are part of a pattern of the federal government's inability to bring bomb-detection technologies to the nation's airports, the Times reported, with the agency continuing to depend on low-tech measures to confront the threat posed by explosives at airports and on airliners.

Elected representatives and former domestic security officials place the blame on management stumbles in research as well as turf fights, staff turnover and underfinancing, the Times said. Some initiatives have also faced opposition from the airline industry or been slowed by bureaucratic snarls, it added, citing a host of problem areas including: Test conducted by the agency last year that members of Congress and a former Homeland Security Department official called ''disastrous'' and ''stupid'' because the TSA had not tested the smaller, cheaper baggage-screening device in the way it was intended to be used.

A document scanner that would look for traces of explosives on paper held by a passenger was tested for years, but the agency now realizes it may be preferable to check a passenger's hands -- with no plan in place to do so.

Grant money given to an equipment maker to speed up xplosives-detection machines that screen baggage and reduce the frequency of false positives. With the work completed successfully a year ago, the agency has not made the necessary software upgrades on the hundreds of machines in airports, the Times said.

'HAPHAZARD' PROGRAM ''The whole program has been haphazard. And the result is that still today we have a series of outdated technology that does little but search for metal or guns,'' the Times quoted Rep. John Mica, a Florida Republican who chairs a House panel overseeing aviation as saying.

Several former senior department officials said the main problem is the conflict between the TSA, which handles airport security, and the Science and Technology division of the Homeland Security Department, which oversees research. The agencies have not figured out how to balance their often conflicting goals in the years since the September. 11 attacks, the Times said.

''You have to have a long-term strategy and a short- to medium-term strategy,'' said Stephen McHale, former deputy administrator of the TSA told the Times. ''What we have been doing is shifting resources back and forth between those two goals. The result of that is we are not making the best progress in either one.'' One problem with the puffers is that they do not include sensors for liquid explosives, even though terrorists have long shown an interest in them, the newspaper said. And despite efforts to ensure reliability, the puffers often broke down or had other performance problems perhaps due to dust and dirt.

REUTERS AKJ RK0852