The interagency network responsible for defending the United States against nuclear terrorism is compiling a global database of nuclear "fingerprints" in an effort to trace fissile material to a source in the event of a nuclear attack.
President Bush and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia announced a new global program to track potential nuclear terrorists, detect and lock up bomb-making materials and coordinate their responses if terrorists obtain a weapon, according to administration officials who have negotiated the deal.
Graham Allison argues that the United States needs to establish "a robust nuclear forensics program" in order to ensure effective deterrence against nuclear terrorism.
Proliferation experts testified that not enough attention is being paid to developing better nuclear detection devices to defend against nuclear terrorism.
Detection technologies developed to search for black holes and supernovae in space have a new down-to-earth application ? helping to fight terrorism. The same technologies used to study astrophysics phenomena at the edge of the universe are also being adapted to search for faint radiation emissions from nuclear materials or nuclear devices.
Steven Johnson suggests that the technology for detecting concealed nuclear devices (for example a suitcase nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb) has advanced to the point that cities can start building 'atomic walls' to defend themselves.
U.S. Government auditors warned that it may take several years before border checkpoints will have the equipment needed to detect nuclear material being smuggled into the country.
A small, portable detector for finding concealed nuclear weapons and materials has been developed by the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory.
The U.S. the federal government has sharply increased support for research into advanced sensors that could detect nuclear weapons but terrorism experts say that even the latest detection technologies ? and others that are the focus of research ? face forbidding odds. Ultimately, the experts said, all detectors are likely to meet a brick wall imposed by the laws of physics.
Alarmed by growing hints of al Qaeda's progress toward obtaining a nuclear or radiological weapon, the Bush administration has deployed hundreds of sophisticated sensors since November to U.S. borders, overseas facilities and choke points around Washington. It has placed the Delta Force, the nation's elite commando unit, on a new standby alert to seize control of nuclear materials that the sensors may detect.