• DHS: Progress and priorities, I

    Since its creation more than five years ago, DHS has made significant progress — uneven progress — in protecting the United States from dangerous people and goods, protecting the U.S. critical infrastructure, strengthen emergency response, and unifying department operations

  • Lufthansa selects Smiths Detection for cargo security

    Lufthansa will deploy Smiths Detection’s 500DT trace explosives detectors in all of its eighteen U.S. airport locations; the 500DT was recently placed on the TSA Qualified Products List

  • L-3's millimeter wave scanning technology tested at ten U.S. airports

    Two technologies — backscatter X-rays and millimeter wave — compete in the airport security scanning market; TSA is currently testing millimeter wave at ten airports, and the fact that the technology is faster than its rival may make it the scanning technology of choice

  • Detecting disease in less than 60 seconds

    Traditional testing for disease outbreak or bioterror attack can take days — even weeks — to confirm a diagnosis and isolate those infected; we may not have that much time, and University of Georgia researchers develop a quicker virus identification method

  • Facial recognition trials at Manchester Airport

    Five gates at Manchester Airport will be equipped with face recognition devices; gates can only be used with people from the United Kingdom and EU who are over 18 and hold a new-style chipped passport

  • American Airlines, TSA end weeklong feud

    TSA inspector at O’Hare used an air temperature probe attached to the exterior of seven unattended American Eagles to hoist himself onto nearby jet bridges and access the planes; sensitive devices had to be recalibrated, resulting in delays

  • NYC airports to get $400 million for explosive detectors

    Responding to post 9/11 federal mandates, three New York City-area airports invested about $400 million in security upgrades; the federal government has agreed to reimburse the airports for the expenses

  • All is not clear with the Clear "fast pass" program

    TSA suspended Verified Identity Pass (VIP) from the Registered Traveler program because one of VIP’s computer, containing the personal details of 33,000 customers who had registered for the program; the lap top was found, and TSA reinstated VIP; Priva technologies, locked in a legal battle with VIP over trademarks, is unhappy

  • NASA awards general aviation technology prizes

    NASA wants to encourage innovations that would lead to aircraft that are safer, more affordable, easier to fly and also have less of a negative impact on the environment and on the communities that surround airports

  • Verified Identity Pass gets back to RT business

    TSA suspended company from the Registered Traveler program after one of its computer, containing the personal details of 33,000 customers who had registered for the program, was lost; lap top was recovered and handed over to TSA for forensic review; company now allowed to register passengers

  • TSA keeps list of people who forgot driver's licnese, passport at home

    TSA began storing the information in late June, tracking many people who said they had forgotten their driver’s license or passport at home; the database has 16,500 records; agency says it is changing its policy on the list

  • QRSciences Holdings acquires Spectrum San Diego

    The acquisition will boost QRSciences’ product offering of security related applications including the detection of explosives and narcotics, metal detection and imaging

  • TSA to expand regulation of private aviation

    TSA plans to regualte, for the first time, the 15,000 private planes now flying with no security rules; these planes use a network of 4,700 small airports which themselves are only lightly monitored for security

  • Self-healing wire to bolster avaiation safety

    In 1996 an explosion downed TWA flight 800 off the shore of Long Island, killing all 230 passengers and crew; University of Dayton researcher who identified a plausible cause of the explosion has developed a self-healing wire designed such explosions in the future

  • TSA may fine airlines over mistaken terrorist IDs

    The ACLU says there are one million names on the DHS terrorist watch list, while TSA says there are only 400,000; whatever the exact figure is, TSA wants to make sure that the airlines do not misidentify innocent passengers as terrorists, and threatens to sue airlines which do so