Sensors Working, U.S. Security Officials Say

By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — WMD sensors deployed in the United States in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaeda attacks are functioning correctly, Homeland Security Department officials said yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 11).

Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert Bonner told a Senate subcommittee that monitors at U.S. ports have detected radiation more than 10,000 times, while Homeland Security science chief Charles McQueary praised the performance of detectors used in cities around the country under the federal Biowatch program.

Portal-style monitors at U.S. ports have registered “over 10,000 radiation hits,” Bonner told the Senate Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee. In all cases, he said, the monitors detected radiation from natural sources or other lawfully shipped materials, such as decorative tiles containing radioactive thorium.

Bonner’s agency has installed about 400 detectors at U.S. ports and, according to a White House budget summary, requested $125 million for fiscal 2006 to purchase additional systems.

Biowatch sensors, which are deployed in major cities to check the air for the presence of biological agents, have collected more than 2 million samples to date, McQueary said at a conference organized here by consulting firm Equity International’s Center for Homeland and Global Security.

“We’ve had no false positives at any time. … We’ve actually had some detections, but we’ve had no false positives,” McQueary said without elaborating on what was detected. Avoiding false readings is important, he said, because “the public will not sit still for a large number of false positives.”

McQueary called on citizens to remain vigilant to supplement technological capabilities.

“Each and every human being in this country represents a sensor, a data processor and a communication channel,” he said.

The Homeland Security undersecretary said his Science and Technology Directorate is spending about one-third of its fiscal 2005 funds on biological threats, since “time is of the essence in that area.” Among the special focuses of coming directorate research efforts are defending against coordinated biological attacks in different parts of the country, diseases that can spread from animals to humans and antibiotic-resistant bacteria, McQueary said.

Fiscal 2006, McQueary said, is set to bring an increase in spending on technology to defend against radiological and nuclear threats, since “there is … a great deal more recognition that the country needs to move in this particular area.”

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