While passengers in the United States keep dumping their water bottles and sacrifice their four-ounce bottles of shaving cream or hair gel, Japan and China are installing machines that actually test for liquid explosives.
Japan has already rolled out liquid-explosives detectors at airports and train stations, though the machines “will be put to use in the near future.” No word on when that future date might be.
China is vowing to roll out similar machines and have them fully operative by the time the 2008 Summer Olympics kick off in Beijing. The machines are built by NUCTECH and run approximately $200,000 each.
The TSA is instead testing “backscatter” x-ray machines, which can detect liquids on a person through a “virtual strip search.” But these machines can only detect what’s on your person, not what’s in your luggage.
China and Japan are implementing technology to make flying safer and less of a hassle. Why isn’t the U.S.?
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December 12th, 2006 at 8:58 pm
in fact, Japan already has something they use in airports to determine if bottled water is OK to carry on. My guess is it is just weighing the bottle, but it was enough to let me bring bottled water to the gate area.
indeed, why can’t the U.S. do something similar?? there is so much money being invested by Homeland Security into government and private research. still nothing.
December 13th, 2006 at 7:46 am
Well, how many airports are there in Japan or China? I betcha we have 10x the airports and 20x the passengers.
Plus, of course, we have a patchwork federal/state/local system of governance which is wonderfully flexible and woefully fractious.
-TF
December 13th, 2006 at 11:31 am
hmm, let’s see, Japan’s population is half that of US, and China’s population is at least 2x that of US(guess).
but I don’t think number of airports or passengers really matters. if tech is available, but not in large quantities, it can at least be used in busiest airports – DFW, LAX, etc.
December 13th, 2006 at 4:37 pm
China has 1.2B people and we have 300M, so they have 4x our population. But almost none of them fly. Or have flush toilets.
And the only reason to get on an airplane in Japan is to get to another Island – they have magnificent public transportation.
I agree that they should try many different things, but the corporate instinct is severely against trial and error, and tie that in with gov’t CYA and you have LCD security, to say the least.
Though it does seem to work, which is a strong plus.
-TF
June 5th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
[...] – Japan and China introduce liquid-explosive detectors: Why can’t the US? – Update: TSA compresses 100ml to 3.0 fluid ounces – Are unlabeled bottles legal through airport [...]
March 31st, 2008 at 8:30 pm
[...] via RSS or e-mail. Thanks for visiting!Nearly two years ago, I bemoaned the fact that Japan was installing liquid testing devices at its airports, but the U.S. and Europe weren’t. It’s 2008, and not much has [...]
April 30th, 2008 at 9:31 am
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Fareed Ahmed Pakistan