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(The following article by Bryon Okada was posted on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram website on September 21.)

HOUSTON – A door-like, explosive-detecting scanner that passengers walk through without the need for physical patdowns has become a top priority for the Transportation Security Administration, the agency’s top official said Tuesday.

Two days after the TSA began more invasive patdowns of air travelers in response to the bombing of two Russian planes, TSA chief David Stone told attendees of the U.S. aviation industry’s premiere convention that the GE Ion Track EntryScan3 — a portal that puffs a person lightly with air and sniffs the air for dangerous chemicals — is “critical to our future.”

Stone, along with Brian Flemming, chairman of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, were the keynote speakers on the convention’s second day.

A hit at a Los Angeles airport convention in 2003, the EntryScan3 is being tested at five airports around the nation, as well as an Amtrak station.

“That pilot is well underway,” Stone said.

The machine, which does not require a screener to physically touch a passenger to search for explosives, is the next step in defending the nation’s aviation system from would-be terrorists hiding explosives on their person. And making airport security checkpoints explosive-proof is the TSA’s new focus, Stone said.

The TSA has been heavily criticized during the past two years for its methods of screening. One audience member asked about screening the elderly and babies — treating everyone equally guilty. Complaints along those lines have increased recently, with critics blaming Department of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta for ordering in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that the industry not scrutinize a particular ethnicity or religious group.

Some argue that Mineta, who is Japanese-American and who was interned by the U.S. government as a small boy during World War II, was over-sensitive in handling the issue.

The DOT has fined airlines, including Fort Worth-based American, for singling out persons immediately after the 9-11 attacks who were believed to be of Middle Eastern, Arab or Muslim backgrounds.

Flemming and Stone conceded the situation was a customer service issue. But Stone defended the TSA’s actions, saying intelligence indicates al Qaeda operatives are attempting to recruit persons with disabilities, older persons and even small children to carry explosives.

“That definitely is there,” he said.