Thanks to the Moore's law, and the work of DARPA it seems that the United States has been able to produce chemical sniffing sensors which can pick up radiological material and the types of chemicals used to make high-powered explosives.
These sniffers are great for the military because they can find IEDs, and also good for law enforcement, FBI, and the intelligence industrial complex as they hunt down evil doers, bad guys, and terrorists.
Now then, what if we put radiological and chemical sniffers into every smart phone handset? Since the handset knows where it is and can triangulate itself to the local cell towers, it would give away the position.
Also many smart phones now use GPS services.
If we mass-produce these little sniffing devices, and if we could make them small enough, we could tip off law enforcement with hundreds of millions of little sensors, literally everywhere.
This could keep our nation safe.
Not long ago, I brought this conversation came up at our think tank, and it seems like a worthy cause, and a good use of technology.
Unfortunately, folks are fairly worried about their privacy and may not want the government snooping around using their personal tech devices.
However, this might be a wise idea to stop terrorists.
And if all these handsets in the United States are made in this way, and required by law, then perhaps other nations will adopt the same principles, and these sniffers will be in every handset throughout the world? This could stop terrorists, and would also alert everyone at a crowded bus station, hotel lobbies, or around the embassy that there are high explosives around, and to be on alert or immediately vacate the place.
Simply a warning of 15 or 20 seconds is enough to help clear a room, and save hundreds of lives.
Meanwhile, a terrorist who is building such a weapon will be sniffed out ahead of time alerting the authorities as to their location of the bomb making, and that can head off and stop perhaps bombings or terrorist acts in advance.
With the economies of scale the price point could be reduced significantly, and perhaps, me being a free-market capitalist I don't like to suggest this, but perhaps it could be slightly subsidize by the federal government.
The only question is will the American people be okay with the government implanting all of their personal tech devices with sniffers, which would make a cell phone call or alert authorities as to the location immediately? Please consider all this and think on it.