• Thermal-boosted infrared detection scanners address radiation, privacy concerns

    Iscon Video Imaging’s proprietary thermal-boosted infrared detection technology shows objects and clothing without any harmful radiation; the detection system creates a temperature differential between clothes and a hidden object

  • Research aims to improve airport security

    From body-part censors to cameras that recognize faces, Carnegie Mellon’s CyLab is working with security technology that assuages privacy concerns; CMU’s Instinctive Computing Lab, eventually envisions a system that can wipe out the body image entirely, picking up only weapons, which will appear to be floating in space

  • U.S. Supreme Court will eventually rule on the legality of whole-body scanning

    In the absence, at least for now, of an overarching U.S. Supreme Court decision, how would U.S. courts react to the privacy concerns surrounding whole-body searches, assuming a legal challenge is initiated against taking pictures of one’s private parts while trying to fly to the United States? An answer may be found on the fact that at least two U.S. circuit courts of appeal have beaten back challenges to airport security measures; in the most recent one, in 2006, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — Justice Samuel Alito’s old stomping grounds — ruled a suspicionless, unwarranted search during airport screening was allowable under the “administrative search doctrine”; the doctrine, elucidated in a 1971 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said that “searches conducted as part of a general regulatory scheme in furtherance of an administrative purpose, rather than as part of a criminal investigation to secure evidence of a crime, may be permissible under the Fourth Amendment though not supported by a showing of probable cause directed to a particular place or person to be searched”

  • U.S. airlines worry about security fee hikes

    The ailing U.S. airline industry – the industry has lost some $60 billion since 2001 – is worried that the Obama administration is set to hike to security fees passengers pay on top of the price of the ticket; the do not believe they should shoulder the financial burden of added security; an airline spokesperson: “The airlines are not under attack; the country is under attack”

  • Gordon Brown: U.K. airports to get whole-body scanners next week

    The U.K. prime minister said that beginning next week, whole-body scanners will be deployed at U.K. airports; in addition to backscatter X-rays and millimeter wave systems, Brown hinted that the government would seek to deploy terahertz technology

  • Biometric travel luggage for secure, stylish travel

    The biometric business case offers travelers a high level of security for their luggage; the case can be opened only if the built-in scanner recognizes the fingerprints of the individual trying to open it; for family luggage, the fingerprints of several family members may be programmed into the scanner’s memory

  • U.S. boarding pass system easy to circumvent

    Unbelievable but true: If a terrorist obtains someone else’s credit card, he (the terrorist) could then follow instructions on the Internet to doctor a boarding pass; the terrorist could then show the fake boarding pass with his own name instead of the cardholder’s, along with his own ID, to pass through security, where the boarding pass is not scanned into the system; then at the gate, where the terrorist is not asked to show his ID again, he can simply hand in the real boarding pass with the cardholder’s name and be let onto the plane

  • Potential security breach in German airports workers' IDs

    A German TV news program and members of a computer club demonstrated how they managed remotely to access data stored on key cards used by airport employees; terrorists could use such a breach to gain admittance to restricted areas of the airport

  • Discrimination warning over U.K. airport body scanners

    U.K. equality watchdog wrote U.K. home secretary to say it was “concerned that that the proposals to introduce body scanners are likely to have a negative impact on individuals’ rights to privacy, especially members of particular groups including disabled people, older people, children, transgendered people, women and religious groups”

  • U.S. calls for more stringent aviation security in light of al-Qaida threat

    The Obama administration yesterday instructed all airlines flying to the United States or within the country were told Thursday to prepare for even tighter security because of the al-Qaida threat from Yemen; a U.S. counterterrorism official said American intelligence agencies were intensely examining all information about threats from the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arab Peninsula, including potential plots and specific individuals

  • Montana airport wants private security companies to replace TSA screeners after breach

    TSA screeners at Gallatin Field in southwest Montana failed to detect a gun in a passenger’s carry-on bag; the airport security authorities say they will explore private companies to replace TSA screeners; chair of the Gallatin Airport Authority: “If those guys can’t detect a handgun, which is pretty basic, not some exotic explosive sewn to your underpants, then we get upset”

  • U.K. firm says its scanning technology meets security, privacy concerns

    Cambridge, U.K.-based TeraView says it is developing terahertz body scanners which use light from upper end of the infra-red spectrum, with a wavelength between 0.1 and 1mm; the scanners do not produce an image but a “fingerprint” — rather than blurry pictures of naked tourists, a TeraView scanner would return absorbance data that could be automatically analyzed to approve travelers or alert airport staff to investigate further

  • African nations do not have the means for meaningful improvements in airport security

    While some of the worst lapses, such as allowing spears or other potential weapons in carry-on luggage, seem no longer to occur, other aspects of airport security in Africa remain disquieting; One expert says that if airports in developing nations had to meet Western security standards, “they would ground all the airplanes, as simple as that”

  • Preventing terrorists from infecting passengers on a plane with deadly disease

    RGF Environmental Group Inc. is in discussion with Sandia Labs over identifying potential airline bioterrorism threats, and in association with Kansas State University presents a study on the solutions

  • Declassified report details intelligence failures leading up to failed terrorist attack

    The report criticizes the U.S. counterterrorism (CT)community for not connecting the dots related to the Christmas Day plot; “Unfortunately, despite several opportunities that might have allowed the CT community to put these pieces together in this case, and despite the tireless effort and best intentions of individuals at every level of the CT community, that was not done”