New Technology Used to Guarantee Super Bowl Safety

Feb. 1, 2006 — -- Advances in technology will ensure the safety of players and fans at Super Bowl XL in Detroit this Sunday.

Hundreds of high-resolution surveillance cameras have been set up around the city to hunt for any evidence of a terrorist plot, with the layers of security becoming tighter the closer you get to the stadium.

"We'll have our eyes everywhere," said Ella Bully-Cummings, Detroit's police chief. "We will be able to see everything that's going on, when it's going on."

Images from satellites monitoring city streets will be beamed to the Super Bowl security command center.

"We have camera coverage virtually all over downtown Detroit, including in the stadium and we're able to watch it in our join operations center," said Dan Roberts, the FBI special agent heading Super Bowl security.

Fans driving in from Canada on Sunday will have their license plates scanned into computers for instant background checks. Rows of radiation detectors will check for evidence of a nuclear or radiological bomb.

Law enforcement plans to use portable X-ray machines to look inside any suspicious parked cars. Mobile bomb squads will then swab for explosive residue or use a vacuum to suck particles from the car. Samples will then be placed in a machine that detects whether explosives are present or not.

F-16 fighter jets will enforce a 10-mile, no-fly zone and the Coast Guard will be patrolling the waterways using sonar technology to search for any suspicious vessel or attack coming from underwater. Dive teams will also search for bombs coming from below.

You have to ponder the improbable, think about all the possible things that can happen," said Rear Adm. Bob Papp of Super Bowl Security Operations.

Recent Super Bowls have used facial recognition technology, which allows police to compare pictures of fans with those of suspected terrorists. While that screening process is not being used this time, police say they are ready for anything.