• Associated Aircraft Group awarded authorization for Reagan National Airport operations

    Associated Aircraft Group (AAG), which calls itself the East Coast’s largest executive Sikorsky S-76 helicopter services provider, has been granted access into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) under the DCA Access Security Program (DASSP)

  • New Jersey “Texting against Terror” program a success

    A $5.8 million federally funded program allowing New Jersey Transit commuters to “text against terror” has received 307 tips to the agency since the program started in June 2011; of those 307 messages, seventy-one have “referred to something regarding homeland security,” said Christopher Trucillo, chief of N.J. Transit Police

  • Small airports face reduction in TSA funding for security measures

    The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is reducing funding designated to help smaller airports provide law enforcement officers at passenger screenings; since the 9/11 attacks, the TSA mandated that one law enforcement officer be present when commercial passengers are screened at airports; the TSA has now changed the way it circulates funding for this program, reducing the number of hours an officer has to work and the amount he or she will be paid

  • Boarding gate with built-in explosives detection speeds up airport security checks

    Japanese researchers have developed a boarding gate with built-in explosives detection equipment; the gate collects minute particles which have affixed themselves to IC cards or portable devices used as boarding passes, and can detect within one or two seconds the presence of explosive compounds using internalized equipment; the developers say the gate allows the inspection of 1,200 passengers per hour

  • BART to adopt earthquake early warning system

    Thanks to assistance from the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system can now automatically brake trains when earthquakes threaten to rattle the Bay Area, allowing perhaps tens of seconds to a minute for trains to slow down before the ground starts to shake

  • As maritime security rises, pirate attacks are down

    In the past four years Somali pirates have attacked 800 ships and taken 3,400 people hostage. Now shipping companies which regularly go through the Indian Ocean are fighting back by hiring private security, and the scales have tipped

  • Radiation-enabled computer chips allow low-cost security imaging systems

    With homeland security on high alert, screening systems to search for concealed weapons are crucial pieces of equipment; these systems, however, are often prohibitively expensive, putting them out of reach for public spaces such as train and bus stations, stadiums, or malls, where they could be beneficial; until now

  • More traffic deaths following 9/11

    In the wake of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, many Americans started driving more due to a fear of flying — and lost their lives in traffic accidents; why did this happen more frequently in some states than in others? Why did Spanish driving habits not change in the same way following the 2004 train bombings in Madrid? Psychologists offer an answer

  • DHS submersible Pluto mimics the real narco-subs

    In the early 1990s, South American drug cartels came up with a new tactic to transport narcotics destined for the United States: small, radar-dodging, self-propelled, semi-submersibles (SPSSs); better to address the submersible problem, DHS Science and Technology Directorate created its own submersible and called it Pluto, after the planet which is difficult to spot

  • Canada funds digital technology to enhance maritime security, surveillance

    New funding will allow exactEarth to improve its ability to locate more than 80,000 ships daily anywhere around the world and transmit this information quickly to its customers; this data is used within Canada and globally for a number of purposes, including enhancing maritime security and surveillance as well as search and rescue support

  • Airbus unveils its 2050 vision for “Smarter Skies”

    Global aircraft manufacturer Airbus the other day released the latest installment of the Future by Airbus, its vision for sustainable aviation in 2050 and beyond; the vision looks beyond aircraft design to how the aircraft is operated both on the ground and in the air in order to meet the expected growth in air travel in a sustainable way

  • DHS funds more tests of autonomous power buoy for ocean surveillance

    Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) has entered into an agreement with DHS Science & Technology Directorate to perform a new round of in-ocean tests on the company’s Autonomous PowerBuoy to demonstrate its use for ocean surveillance

  • As shoe-scanning devices fail, passengers continue to remove their shoes

    In the last five years the U.S. government has tested several scanning devices for detecting explosives and other weapons concealed in the shoes of airline passengers; after spending millions of dollars on these devices, TSA has concluded that the detection systems are ineffective; the result: removing shoes at security check points is going to be a part of air travel for the foreseeable future

  • The costs, benefits, and efficiency of aviation security measures

    The threat of terrorist attack on American aviation has made the system the focus of intense security efforts, but it is difficult to determine if the benefits outweigh their cost; efficient security policy — a focus on getting the most security for the least cost — should be the priority in an era of fiscal austerity, says a new RAND report

  • DHS using Boston subway system to test new sensors for biological agents

    Bioterrorism is nothing new, and although medicines have made the world a safer place against a myriad of old scourges both natural and manmade, it still remains all too easy today to uncork a dangerous cloud of germs; DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate (DHS S&T) has scheduled a series of tests in the Boston subways to measure the real-world performance of new sensors recently developed to detect biological agents