An airline-security expert said Friday that one thing is clear: The incident in Detroit should prompt a swift re-evaluation of passenger screening at airports throughout the world.

By Amber Hunt

Detroit Free Press

DETROIT — An airline-security expert said Friday that one thing is clear: The incident in Detroit should prompt a swift re-evaluation of passenger screening at airports throughout the world.

Douglas Laird, former security director for Northwest Airlines, said he has been advocating for years that airports switch from X-rays and metal detectors to full-body scans, a move that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars more, but that he insists would help prevent terrorist attempts like the one reported Friday.

“If you don’t use a body scan, you don’t know what the person has under his clothing,” said Laird, who led Northwest security from 1989 to 1995. He is president of Laird & Associates and advises airlines and governments about airport security. “We’ve talked about this for 20 years.”

X-ray equipment isn’t detailed enough for screeners to get a good look at items hidden in luggage, Laird said, and metal detectors fail to pick up liquid or plastic explosives. The hindrance, he said, is financial: An X-ray machine can cost less than $50,000, while body-scanning equipment would be more than $1 million.

Laird said he knows the security at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport “like the back of my hand” and he’s surprised someone apparently chose that airport to board with what officials described as explosive materials. The Schiphol security is top-notch, he said.

He doesn’t think the location — or the date held holy in Christianity — was chosen at random. “I imagine if this event happened, it’s very likely there are others in the pipeline,” he said.

Bruce Schneier, a security technologist and author, said it’s too soon to tell if the suspect was a real threat or, as he put it, “an idiot.”

“There are all these idiotic wannabe terrorists who claim terrorist connections,” Schneier said Friday night. “Every nitwit can claim to be a member of al-Qaida. … It’s hard to tell if there was anything real here.”

He urged people not to panic. “Terrorism is a crime of the psyche, of the mind,” he said. “If you refuse to be terrorized, you win.”

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