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May 05, 2005
Radiation Sensors & Cameras
From IHT, a story about using radiation sensors and cameras together:
The man carrying the hidden radioactive material passed among airline passengers at Sheremetyevo Airport on an afternoon this year. His briefcase holding the contraband was indistinguishable from anyone else's carry-on. Then, as he approached the check-in counter, lights flashed and an alarm sounded. A mounted video camera captured the man's image. Guards seized the briefcase and took it to a lead-lined booth for inspection.
Officials in the two countries hope the program, called Second Line of Defense, will complement security measures at former Soviet nuclear storage sites by providing a means to detect material that is already loose or that in the future makes it to the wrong side of the fences. Its principal tools are banks of sensors now visible at airports and borders in Russia near luggage inspection points. The United States has spent about $35 million on the program in Russia since 1998.
Nikolai Kravchenko, chief of Russia's Service for Customs Control of Nuclear Materials and Radioactive Sources, said the sensors recorded 14,000 "hits" last year. Of those, about 200 involved cases of possible smuggling, including people who apparently had material but did not realize it. In some cases people carried money that had become irradiated, military collectors carried aviation dials and other lightly radioactive souvenirs and women wore radioactive jewelry.
Posted by rshah at May 5, 2005 09:10 PM
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