authorities before the plane to take the air

Details of combat at U.S. airports. A few days after a terrorist attack foiled in London une explosion in several long-haul flight was planned between Britain and the United States , officials of the Department of Homeland Security announced that they would soon adopt a new air security policy. The Minister, Michael Chertoff, has already warned: now, the airlines will have to send their lists of passengers destined for the United States to U.S. authorities before the plane to take the air. A measure so far resisted by the carriers, who fear numerous delays. The pattern of Homeland Security also announced 3 million of his countrymen who are daily flying that they will likely have definitively forget the time where they could take with them liquids in carry-on baggage accompanied by. And other measures, more binding, are under study.

So far, the bulk of the US response to unveiled threats recently reside in a new effort investment in innovative security technologies. Therefore, the Assistant to Michael Chertoff, Michael Jackson, has warned that his Ministry was working on the concept of a "system of systems" with a long series of checks of passengers, since their entry into the airport to their installation on board.

A response to the increasing sophistication of attempts to air attack. "Terrorist organizations have all engineers and it professionals need to use lower current systems of safety defects," said Chaim Koppel, one of those responsible for International Security Defense System, a specialist in Texas-based consulting firm of these issues.

In fact, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Federal agency responsible for secure air transport in the United States, did not wait the attack foiled in mid-August to try to improve the situation. Priority target: the detection of explosive substances. Late last year, the TSA has passed command to General Electric to a whole new kind of portal, EntryScan 3, which first copies are already in place in Boston and Los Angeles airports.

It is a portal in which the passenger is installed for a few seconds. The time for the device to send him a few puffs air which will allow to take off the particles it is covered. And to analyse immediately if they contain traces of explosives... GE provides little guidance on actually likely to be discovered through its terminal, substances only noting that they cover "all risk environments".

By the end of this year, nearly 200 machines of this type will be deployed at U.S. airports, for a cost of over $ 28 million. Despite the importance of the investment, the US authorities are aware that it isn't that of a prime. Firstly because that, for practical reasons related to the longer the time required for such a review, all passengers will not be subject to the 3 EntryScan boarding. What are the TSA employees randomly, which will decide which passengers must submit. In addition, the device leaves around the problem of the analysis of baggage hand, who are not a quality of surveillance than those that are registered. A boarding, they pass through x-rays that produce images in two dimensions only. Much less accurate than scanners to medical imaging (CT Scan), which show the contents of the luggage in three dimensions.

See "through" the individual

The next step is already in testing at San Francisco Airport. General Electric has installed a laboratory in which the multinational collaborates with the TSA personnel to finalize the "checkpoint of the future" (see illustration). When it traversera, before boarding, this checkpoint, the passenger must pass through several porticoes and submit to new audits. For example, to place his fingers on a ultimate detector of prohibited substances. He spent also via a portico EntryScan of new generation, capable of detecting again hazardous particles, more complete and faster way. Another portal will be able to check if the passenger is on objects not allowed or that may be threatening. Finally, accompanied baggage will also choice treatment, since they will be also processed by scanners. "No one is to remove his shoes, or even to leave the laptop from its bag," promises Steve Hill, one of the project at GE. Better, all passengers will be able to pass through this filter of high security since the procedure, fully automated, should not require more than twenty seconds per person.

However, airports are not on the eve of installing such devices. The technology is not yet completely ready and their price is therefore not known. In addition, some psychological barriers should be lifted. Seeing "through" individual, these cranes are able to reveal their anatomy. To avoid that security agents turn into voyeurs, the TSA is studying the possibility that these images are analyzed by a computer and an agent intervene unless there is an anomaly.

Other competing technologies are under development in the United States. For example, Rapiscan Systems Company, installed in Hawthorne, California, just to join a New York firm, TraceGuard, to develop a comparable to that of General Electric detection system. In addition, Rapiscan comes to obtain funding on the part of the Darpa, the scientific laboratory of the U.S. Army, to develop a system for detection of liquid explosives could be hidden in hand luggage.