"Puffer" bomb screeners a bust (and 'only' cost $30M!) [View All]

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http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003744097_puff12.html

"Puffer" bomb screeners a bust

By RON MARSICO

Newhouse News Service


Megan Tlusty, an intern with the Transportation Security Administration, goes through a new explosive-detection machine at Newark Liberty International Airport in this 2005 photo. The machine uses a strong puff of air to dislodge and detect traces of explosives.

Three years ago, with great fanfare, federal officials unveiled a terror-fighting machine they called the "puff portal," a contraption that resembled a Star Trek transporter booth and was designed to detect explosives at airport checkpoints with unprecedented precision.

When a passenger stepped inside the puff portal, so the officials said, the machine would send sharp bursts of air to dislodge particles from the body, hair and clothing, and analyze them for microscopic traces of explosives.

But the expensive devices — each costs about $160,000 — have been largely ineffectual and the much ballyhooed $30 million program is starting to look like a techno-folly to some critics.

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