Schumer backs LI company's airline passenger scanners

Sen. Charles Schumer on Monday called for the federal government to purchase millions of dollars' worth of electronic bar code scanners from a Long Island company to check airline passengers against terrorist watch lists.

Schumer, speaking at the Woodbury offices of Intellicheck Mobilisa, demonstrated how the company's scanners - which look like supermarket price guns - would allow airport security employees to instantly learn if a would-be passenger should be allowed on an airplane.

"We need a fully integrated airport security system that can identify those who shouldn't fly," he said. "Here on Long Island ... they produce the exact kind of system Congress has said we need."

Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the devices could have stopped Faisal Shahzad, who last week pleaded guilty to the attempted Times Square bombing, from boarding the Emirates Air flight on which he was planning to leave the country before being apprehended.

"There is too much potential for human error in the system now," Schumer said.

Congress last October appropriated $50 million in the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2010 to develop an electronic security system for monitoring people who enter and exit the country at airports. Schumer said Intellicheck Mobilisa, which produces the technology in Woodbury but is headquartered in Port Townsend, Wash., is already building such equipment.

Intellicheck Mobilisa chief executive Nelson Ludlow said his company's devices, which cost about $7,000 each, are already in use at U.S. military bases including Fort Dix and West Point.

Ludlow, has given $33,000 to Democrats since 2002, though none to Schumer, according to federal election commission records.