Full-Body Airport Scanners May Not Have Thwarted Alleged Christmas Day Bomber, GAO Says

The Transportation Safety Administration has started installing full-body scanners purchased with stimulus funds in airports around the country, but the Government Accountability Office says those scanners might not have detected the underwear bomb that made it onto a flight to Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.
“While officials said AITs (Advanced Imaging Technology devices) performed as well as physical pat down in operational tests, it remains unclear whether the AIT would have detected the weapon used in the December 2009 incident based on the preliminary information GAO has received,” theGAO said in a recent report.That assessment from GAO’s March 17 report on the scanners seems to directly contradict one made by TSA Acting Administrator Gale Rossides last week. She suggested in comments made to CNN that the technology could thwart others like 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attempted to detonate a bomb sewn into his underpants on board Northwest Flight 253 in Detroit....

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