SPO-7
Logan tests ‘wave’ of future to keep air passengers safe
By Laura Crimaldi | Sunday, May 24, 2009 |
http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Coverage
Photo by Mark Garfinkel
Logan International Airport has two new sets of high-tech eyes aimed at detecting explosives, weapons and other prohibited items before they pose a security threat, officials say.
One piece of technology, the SPO-7, is receiving its first formal test run at Logan, said Federal Security Director George N. Naccara. Here to stay are new X-ray machines capable of capturing multiple angles and more vivid images of passenger luggage.
The SPO-7 is the most visible of the two new technologies. The tripodmounted unit uses “passive millimeter wave” technology to detect unusual objects concealed on a person. They cost about $200,000 per unit and are operated by Transportation Security Administration staff.
They are intended for scanning public concourses, ticketing areas and other large segments of the airport that are outside the innermost security zones.
“It’s putting the checkpoint out further and further,” said Naccara, who istesting two SPO-7 units for 60 days in terminals throughout the airport. Naccara, a pioneer in aviation security, has long championed the concept of layering wider and wider safety perimeters around Logan to enhance security.
The passive millimeter wave technology detects possible explosives by sensing anomalies in the energy emitted by people and the objects they have on their person or under their clothes.
They are made by British-based QinetiQ and were briefly put to the test at airports in St. Paul, Minn., and Denver last summer during the Democratic and Republican national conventions.
Passive millimeter wave is different from the controversial whole-body millimeter wave technology in use at 19 airports nationwide. Whole-body imaging machines bounce millimeter waves off of one’s body to generate a metallic-looking image of the subject’s figure that many have argued is too revealing and intrusive. Naccara said opposition to whole-body imaging has waned since technology improvements made it possible to turn down the resolution parameters so the images being studied by security employees are less revealing.
That technology is slated to come to Logan later this year, Naccara said. The new baggage X-ray machines, manufactured by Britain-based Smiths Detection, are being deployed at airports nationwide. So far 14 machines have been installed at Logan.
By November, another 24 will go online, Naccara said.
The new units have two monitors on top and are formally known as AT X-ray machines. Prohibited carry-on items, the bane of screeners after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, have dropped to almost none, with the exception of liquids, said Naccara.
He keeps a stash of some of the most outrageous items ever confiscated by security screeners, including a samurai sword, a cane with a pike hidden in the handle, a clock affixed to fake TNT and an after-shave lotion shaped like a bomb.
Naccara said TSA, Massport and law enforcement officials continue to hold a daily 8:30 a.m. Security meeting, which was initiated on Sept. 12, 2001, and has been held every day since.
“It allows us to focus on the vulnerabilities,” he said. “You have to make it worthwhile for people to invest the time in good practices.”
Article URL:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1174388
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