U.S. Adding Full-Body Bomb Scanners at 11 Airports "Yes the Insanity Continues"

"March 5 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. is installing full-body scanners that can detect bombs under passengers’ clothing at 11 more airports following an attempted Christmas Day attack, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said.

Scanners will be added at airports including Chicago’s O’Hare, and in Boston, Los Angeles and Charlotte, North Carolina. The Transportation Security Administration said it plans to install 1,000 machines by the end of next year.

“We are enhancing our capability to detect and disrupt threats of terrorism across the nation,” Napolitano said in a statement today. The agency already has 40 machines at 19 airports.

The government is accelerating use of the scanners after Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight on approach to Detroit Dec. 25 by igniting explosives in his underpants.

The agency purchased 150 machines last year for $25 million from OSI Systems Inc.’s Rapiscan unit of Hawthorne, California. They will be deployed to the 11 airports, starting today with Boston and within a week in Chicago. The devices already in place are made by New York-based L-3 Communications Holdings Inc.

OSI rose 28 cents to $30.56 at 4:06 p.m. in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. L-3 climbed 69 cents to $93.16 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

Airports also getting the scanners are San Diego, San Jose and Oakland, California; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Cincinnati; Kansas City, Missouri; and Columbus, Ohio, according to the Napolitano statement." ...more

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