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New Airport Scanners Deliver Electric Shock New Scientist | August 3 2005 Patents filed by an Israeli inventor Amit Weisman and US company Yardeni Associates of Connecticut make scary reading for nervous travellers. Airport security guards already use hand-held electromagnetic wands to detect metal hidden under clothing. The same wand can also sniff for traces of the gases some explosives emit into the air. If the passenger is a suicide bomber who realises the wand has found something, the guard might not have enough time to pull out handcuffs or a gun. So the new wand will have a hidden secret – a transformer which steps the detector’s battery power up to 100 kilovolts and feeds it to disguised metal electrodes at the end of the wand. If the wand gives a silent warning of explosives, the guard can then subtly slide the pads onto the passenger’s neck or hands and press a shock button. The patent reassures that the effect is “temporary and reversible”. So an innocent traveller who “happened to have a significant amount of metal on his person or happened to treat explosives legally” should wake up shaken but unharmed. Read the shocking wand patent here (pdf file).
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