High-tech ways to combat terrorism

America's post-Sept. 11 fear of terrorist attacks not only spawned the $55-billion-a-year Homeland Security Department, it also fueled a domestic defense boom for survivalists, backyard inventors and small businesses that scrambled beside major contractors for sales to local, state and federal agencies. About 650 mostly small vendors peddled their sometimes-bewildering wares to government officials at a federally funded exhibition for three days last week at a regional airport in rural Virginia in one of the nation's largest such trade shows.

Read More