GAO: No formal testing for whole-body scanners

With all of the privacy concerns being registered regarding the whole-body scanners, we don’t even know if the machines work … we’re just taking the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA’s) word. And TSA doesn’t really know if these scanners really work and can’t be circumvented.

What we have here, based on fairly basic research, is an expensive new whole-body scanner technology being deployed nationwide by TSA over the howls of numerous privacy groups, without independent testing, using the manufacturers’ claims, all being lead by the former head of the Department of Homeland Security saying, basically, trust us.

You would think that TSA would have some sort of written testing procedures for extensive deployment of expensive equipment, but, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that’s not the case.

A senior TSA official stated that although TSA does not yet have a written policy requiring operational testing prior to deployment, TSA is now including in its contracts with vendors that checkpoint screening machines are required to successfully complete laboratory tests as well as operational tests.

This kind of TSA attitude makes the rapid nationwide deployment of whole-body scanners even more negligent. GAO notes and TSA admits that these machines have not been fully field tested. Worse, TSA admits publicly that they are taking the manufacturers’ word for the scanners effectiveness.

Even more disquieting is the fact that the former head of the Department of Homeland Security, Michael Chernoff, is representing the manufacturers of these whole-body scanners.

According to GAO, we went through one of these knee-jerk reactions with the deployment of the explosives trace portal (ETP), or in the traveler’s vernacular, the “puffer machine.” In that case it has been verified that TSA rushed these machines to the field based on the manufacturer’s claims and that the machined failed.

TSA’s experience with the ETPs, which the agency uses for secondary screening, demonstrates the importance of testing and evaluation in an operational environment. The ETP detects traces of explosives on a passenger by using puffs of air to dislodge particles from the passenger’s body and clothing that the machine analyzes for traces of explosives. TSA procured 207 ETPs and in 2006 deployed 101 ETPs to 36 airports, the first deployment of a checkpoint technology initiated by the agency.36 TSA deployed the ETPs even though agency officials were aware that tests conducted during 2004 and 2005 on earlier ETP models suggested that they did not demonstrate reliable performance. Furthermore, the ETP models that were subsequently deployed were not first tested to prove their effective performance in an operational environment, contrary to TSA’s acquisition guidance, which recommends such testing.

This expensive and spectacular failure of new technology should be a lesson for TSA as it deploys the whole-body scanners. However, the organization is following in the same footsteps with whole-body scanners that proved disastrous with the puffer machines.

“According to a senior TSA official, as of December 31, 2009, all but 9 ETPs have been withdrawn from airports and 18 ETPs remain in inventory,” GAO reported. Their paper continued, “TSA estimates that the 9 remaining ETPs will be removed from airports by the end of calendar year 2010.”

This most recent GAO report went on to bluntly state, “It is unclear whether the AIT or other technologies would have detected the weapon used in the December 25 attempted attack.”

I have been to several Congressional hearings on both the Senate and the House sides and have not heard any member of Congress ask the simple questions that need answers.

• Would the whole-body scanners have detected powder in the pants of Abdulmutallab?
• Can explosives be hidden in a way to circumvent whole-body scanners?
• What are the weaknesses of whole body scanners?
• Can these scanners see something hidden in a body cavity or beneath skin? (i.e. can explosives be hidden behind a large woman’s breast, in the buttocks or in the mouth?)
• What actions will be taken to reduce scanner viewing fatigue by those assigned to the telephone-booth-sized viewing station?
• Can explosives be detected in the roughly 15 seconds that a TSA official has to view a scanned body image?

Basically, will this contraption work?

Let’s answer these basic questions before we roll out another failed technology to screen passengers.