A dangerous folly

Security in a range of forms and contexts is something that is ubiquitous in Pakistan. It is present in shopping malls, airports, checkpoints on roads and virtually every public event has a walk-through gate and a basic body search. Police, military and paramilitary personnel are everywhere to say nothing of innumerable private security services often of doubtful provenance. It is, therefore, not unreasonable to assume that all those engaged in the business of providing security will be doing their best to equip themselves with cutting-edge devices the better to ensure the safety of all of us.



Bombs and their carriage and detection are a concern for everybody. Everybody that is except the government of Pakistan, that has just invested in a bomb detection device that was proven many years ago to be a scam — completely ineffectual. The ‘inventor’ of this bogus bomb detector is James McCormick and he and others are currently serving long prison sentences in the UK for fraud. They made millions of pounds marketing their ‘devices’ worldwide, including to Pakistan. The nonsense is now being compounded by the government going so far as to manufacture these pieces of frippery that government officials are conceding are effectively useless.

As monumental pieces of stupidity go, this is up there with the very best — or worst. These ‘devices’ that have no internal mechanism or moving parts, are being issued to those guarding airports, government installations and for all we know our most sensitive facilities as well. The rationalisation that the government is placing around this dangerous development is that the ‘devices’ act as a deterrent — though it is also acknowledged that potential attackers are as aware of their ineffectiveness as those doing the buying and deployment. These ‘magic wands’ are based on the same crackpot science that is behind dowsing, the ability to detect underground water with birch twigs. Powerful vested interests are behind the scam and somebody somewhere is getting very rich at the expense of the safety and security of all of us. The only device that can reliably detect explosives is a dog. We recommend an early investment in something that actually works, and dogs work just fine.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 10^th, 2016.

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