Are planned airport scanners just a scam?

Are planned airport scanners just a scam?

www.independent.co.uk

The explosive device smuggled in the clothing of the Detroit bomb suspect would not have been detected by body-scanners set to be introduced in British airports, an expert on the technology warned last night.

If a material is low density, such as powder, liquid or thin plastic the millimetre waves pass through and the object is not shown on screen. High- density material such as metal knives, guns and dense plastic such as C4 explosive reflect the millimetre waves and leave an image of the object.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Searched, but couldn't find another post about this article.

Mods, feel free to remove if it's in the wrong spot, or is already being discussed in length.

Essentially, the article states that the scanners are CRUD and are being pushed by Gordon Brown so it look like he's taking a hardline approach to terrorism after the Christmas Day attack.

An especially interesting part of this article read:

"Last week the US Transportation Security Administration ordered $165m-worth of scanners, using both millimetre and X-ray technology, from L-3 Communications."

Anyone know anything about L-3 Communications?

And whether any political leaders have any ties to them?

Any and all discussion is encouraged and welcomed as long as it is helpful to the discussion as a whole.



www.independent.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by willis7737


You know ironically my dad used to work for them. Inovlved with the navy if I'm correct. I'll ask him next time I talk to him, but I 'm almost 100% sure he worked with him...contracting type stuff...

reply to post by ThirdJohnAdams


Anything you find out would be greatly appreciated!

I smell another scheme to make the man behind the curtain a LOT of money....

L-3 Technologies suplly all sorts of services and products to gov'ts all across the globe.They supplied all of the luggage scanners in the U.S. airports. To be absolutley honest those machines are P.O.S.'s and are down more than they are up working. (talking about the current luggage scanners not the ones in the story.) I am unsure if they are the same models but I did participate in one of the trials about 5 years ago at Orlando Airport. The full body scanners were basically good for weapons and that was about it, although if you had a trained operator paying attention you could pick out things that weren't high density items. L-3 is also in the "contractor" industry in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Originally posted by djvexd
L-3 is also in the "contractor" industry in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is the part that I was expecting to come up.

Just did a quick look over the L-3 wikipedia page (yes, I know, wiki isn't always reliable)

But here's what it had to say under the history section:

"L-3 (named for Frank Lanza, Robert LaPenta, and Lehman Brothers) was formed in 1997 from the purchase of ten former business units of Lockheed Corporation when Lockheed merged in 1996 with Martin Marietta[2]; the ten units were those which the new Lockheed Martin was uninterested in owning."
Source

I seen a video where they were testing a new one and they showed a guy put water in a regular zip lock bag and it didn't show anything on the scanner. The thin clear plastic was invisible and the water was invisible.

reply to post by willis7737


A couple of years ago when Iraq was still going full bore, before the surge, they were always advertising in our locla paper for security "contractors" willing to do 3 months overseas and make anywhere between 60k-250k for airport security as well as convoys. They have a fiekd office not to far from me and to tell you the truth it is in a bad part of town and the building is an old Piggly Wiggly. Kinda old and decrepit for a multibillion dollar company.
L-3 Communications

[edit on 2-1-2010 by djvexd]

reply to post by djvexd


Thing definitely seem fishy when it comes to L-3.

Apparently they were sued by someone who stayed in Abu-Grahib for allowing the prisoner to be abused?

Mr. Al-Quraishi sued L-3, Adel Nakla and CACI International on June 30, 2008, for torturing him. At the same time, several other torture victims sued the same two corporations and different individual torturers in the District Courts where the individual torturers lived. All of these lawsuits alleged that L-3, CACI, and their employees conspired together and with others to torture and abuse plaintiffs when they were detained at Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq.

ccrjustice.org

reply to post by willis7737

G'day willis7737

I have posted some info & links in this thread, which might be of interest.

I never post at such length, but I am trying to answer questions for some members.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Kind regards
Maybe...maybe not

The scanners are total bullspit meant only to invade upon you. You want to know what a real bomb detector looks like? I'll give you a hint, it's furry and has four legs.

Forgive my following crudeness.

The underwear bomber has made us all scared into wanting full body scanners. OOO AAH yikes. A woman with a pad or a tampon can hide the same exact kind of thing the underwear bomber can but the difference is that even if it showed up as a solid dark lump on a full body scan NOBODY is gonna ask a woman to hand over her used pad for inspection. The scanners are a total scam.

Dogs are cheaper to train and more reliable than those machines. Instead US citizens returning from international travels are currently being treated to full body strip searches until the airports give in and install those scanners.

Willis here is the device in questionProVision and it uses active millimeter waves instead of passive.

[edit on 2-1-2010 by djvexd]

reply to post by Flakey

Instead US citizens returning from international travels are currently being treated to full body strip searches until the airports give in and install those scanners.

WOW I never heard about that.

As soon as I heard about the Christmas day bomber, I started thinking about whether or not it was a false flag attack, and what the real reasoning behind it was.

If it does turn out that it was a false flag attack, (which even if it was, I doubt we'll ever know) it most definitely seems that it was to push those full body scanners.

My question is though, they sold about, what, $150 mil worth?

Isn't that pocket change to a multi-billion dollar military contracting and intelligence/surveillance corporation?

If so, then what would the real purpose behind all this be?

Of course assuming the last couple of attacks were all false flags.

Originally posted by djvexd
Willis here is the device in questionProVision and it uses active millimeter waves instead of passive.

[edit on 2-1-2010 by djvexd]

G'day djvexd

I'll think you'll find that is just their awkward wording.

Kind regards
Maybe...maybe not

reply to post by djvexd


Not to be naive, but what would be the difference between the active, and the passive waves. Would the active waves show more?

Originally posted by willis7737
reply to post by djvexd

 

Not to be naive, but what would be the difference between the active, and the passive waves. Would the active waves show more?

djvxd is right...I am wrong.

Have a look at this:

spiedl.aip.org...

Active mm scanning is much more sensitive.

reply to post by Maybe...maybe not


Huh. Well, I guess now it comes down to how many American airports will receive these, and if so, whether or not they will use the active system, or if the cheaper (i'm assuming) passive system will be used.

If it's the passive system that is chosen.....


well thats a speculative can of worms for another time.

reply to post by willis7737


Well knowing the relationship L3 has with DHS I'm betting on the active systems. I have never known this government to shy away from a nice big pricetag...

reply to post by willis7737


The scanners are designed to see whats hidden under clothes. So naturally something with a similar density wont show up. As far as the idiot and his explosive underwear there is little threat it is reporting that Al Qaeda sewed about 80 grams of PETN into underwear.Sounds dangerous doesn't it?

The most common use of PETN is as an explosive. It is more sensitive to shock or friction than TNT or tetryl. It is difficult to detonate, as dropping it or setting it on fire will typically not cause an explosion. It is thus never used alone.It is used to enhance another explosive so apparently those Al Qaeda scientist were unaware of that minor detail.



Man can you imagine this idiot was wearing these when he lit it on fire imagine where he got those 3rd degree burns.