Post-9/11 antiterror technology: A report card

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To this end, Language Weaver has developed machine translation tools that can dynamically translate Arabic, Russian, Chinese and 10 other languages into English. In its sales presentations, the company has its software produce an English transcript of an Al-Jazeera broadcast while the broadcast is airing.

"It used to be finding a needle in a haystack; now it's trying to find a needle in a haystack in a field of haystacks," Language Weaver CEO Bryce Benjamin told CNET News.com in an earlier interview. "There is a lot of focus on getting automated tools." Language Weaver has received funding from the CIA-funded venture capital firm In-Q-Tel.

But more obscure languages like Pashtu and Somali are still unavailable for automated translations, which is why the federal government is working on its own internal projects. One of those the Defense Department's Language and Speech Exploitation Resources program, or LASER. It's designed to provide intelligence analysts and the military with speech transcription and translation capabilities. (Similar government-funded efforts are called Babylon, a portable device, and the Effective, Affordable, Reusable Speech-to-Text project.)

5. Faster chemical detection: The possibility of chemical attacks by terrorists has federal officials running scared, with some justification. The Aum Shinrikyo attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995 using sarin gas--which killed 12 people and injured more than 5,000 people--showed that it's possible. The attack would have been deadlier if the group had been more skilled.

In open-air environments like city streets, the threat of a chemical attack is not as severe. Winds are unpredictable and, coupled with rising air currents, can quickly disperse a chemical agent unless a larger quantity is used.

But in subways, train stations and airports, the threat of a chemical attack is higher. In an article published in Time magazine in June, author Ron Suskind reported that a terrorist cell had planned a hydrogen cyanide attack on New York City subways but inexplicably called it off with just a few weeks to go.

Hazard materials teams at local police departments historically have used colorimetric tubes, which are designed to detect specific gases such as ammonia or chlorine. A pump is used to draw air samples through the tubes.

The problem, though, is that many chemicals can be used as weapons, and standard-issue colorimetric tubes will detect relatively few. "Many modern detection devices used by hazmat teams have not been thoroughly tested for their utility and reliability to detect" chemical weapons, a panel organized under the National Research Council concluded.

Detection technology, however, is advancing. The Safesite detector, for instance, can electronically determine the difference between nerve agents, blister agents, and toxic gases such as chlorine, hydrogen cyanide, and hydrogen chloride. And an article this year in the journal Analytical Chemistry describes how to use photoionization mass spectrometry to detect chemical warfare agents. That takes about 45 seconds--far speedier than the traditional way of performing mass spectrometry that can take an hour or more.

Raising privacy concerns
1. Omnipresent cameras: Soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, the number of surveillance cameras began growing even faster than the Department of Homeland Security's budget. In one of their more "alarming cases" in 2004, volunteers from the New York Civil Liberties Union counted 600 cameras in Manhattan's Chinatown alone--up from 13 in 1998.

Police claim say they're useful for fighting, if not preventing, terrorism; footage from London's extensive closed-circuit surveillance system helped to identify suspects from the July 2005 bombings on its subway system. Another argument is that cameras do double duty, helping nab drug dealers and thieves too.

Yet evidence suggests that surveillance cameras have limited use in crime prevention. For one thing, they seem to cause crime to shift to locations not near cameras: Violent crime in Britain has risen as cameras have multiplied. Some police may also be using controllable cameras to ogle women. And if face-recognition software is linked to the cameras, police can effectively compile dossiers on Americans' movements whenever they're in public places.

In Washington, D.C., the city council handed over more than $2.3 million last month for the installation of four dozen new surveillance cameras to the city's existing closed-circuit television system after a spate of 14 homicides in a two-week span in July.

It hasn't been uniformly applauded. "This is like a modern-day jail now," one resident of a newly watched apartment complex told the Washington City Paper, a local alternative newsweekly.

2. Registered traveler: Air travelers are gradually separating into a two-class hierarchy, at least for people who haven't opted out of the system in favor of flying to their destination in a small plane.