• Whole-body scanners may lengthen airport security lines

    Scanners that look through passengers’ clothing to find hidden weapons are significantly larger than the metal detectors they will replace, and they take at least five times longer to scan a single passenger; TSA plans to install 950 whole-body scanners at U.S. airports in the next two years,

  • Student sues TSA, saying he was detained for five hours over English-Arabic flashcards

    A Pomona College student who takes Arabic classes in school was stopped by TSA and FBI agents at the Philadelphia International Airport because he was carrying English-Arabic flashcards; the student, backed by the ACLU, is suing, charging that he abusively interrogated, handcuffed, and detained for five hours; TSA says the student’s behavior was erratic

  • Trial date set for Newark Airport's hopeless romantic

    Rutgers graduate student breached Newark Airport security by entering a secure area to kiss his girlfriend one last time before she boarded a plane; the trial was set for 9 March; New Jersey lawmakers want tougher penalties for such breaches

  • Australia to spends $173 million on airport security

    Australia announces $173 million security upgrade at airports following attempted U.S. bombing; a key element in the four-year upgrade will be body scanners installed at major international airports by early this year

  • TSA's proposal for tougher general-aviation security to be scaled back

    TSA wanted to apply tougher security rules to the 15,000 or so private planes — aka “general aviation” — but operators and owners of such planes, and also DHS IG, said the risk such planes posed to U.S. security was not great; TSA is now planning to scale down general aviation security measures

  • Europe skeptical about whole-body scanners

    Questions are being raised in several European countries about the effectiveness, cost effectiveness, health, and privacy aspects of whole-body scanners; a former head of security for the British Airports Authority: “A thorough body frisk would do the same sort of thing, if it is done properly, and of course it costs a lot less”

  • Sorting the bad guys from the good

    Israel’s WeCu claims a 95 percent success rate for its new terrorist detection system that monitors reactions to visual stimuli at airports and checkpoints; the company’s device flashes stimuli, such as photos, a symbol, or a code word, relating to the information authorities are most interested in (whether it is terrorism, drug smuggling, or other crimes), to passengers as they pass through terminal checkpoints; hidden biometric sensors then detect the subjects’ physical reactions and subtle behavioral changes remotely or during random contact

  • Partnership aims to help air shippers meet security deadline

    Congress has mandated that by August 2010, 100 percent of cargo on passenger planes must be screened; companies begin to position themselves to take advantage of the business opportunity involved in offering secure cargo warehousing and shipping

  • 950 whole-body scanners in U.S. airports by end of 2011

    The administration has allocated $215 million in the proposed 2011 budget to buy 500 whole-body scanners; they will be added to the 450 to be bought this year; currently there are 40 body scanners operating in 19 U.S. airports

  • Ahern signals support for airport body scanners

    The Irish government will support the deployment of whole-body scanner at Irish airports; Minister of Justice Dermot Ahern: “If additional measures are required either in exchange of passenger information or better technology, then we should take them”; Ireland has also accepted the apology of the Slovak government for an explosive-smuggling exercise which saw an unwitting Slovak passenger smuggle explosives planted in his luggage by Slovak intelligence through Irish security

  • IBM filed patents for airport security profiling technology

    IBM has filed a dozen patent applications which define a sophisticated scheme for airport terminal and perimeter protection, incorporating potential support for computer implementation of passenger behavioral profiling to detect security threats

  • GAO: TSA needs to test whole-body scanners rigorously

    A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report says the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) needs to make sure that the whole-body scanners the agency plans to deploy at U.S. airports undergo thorough operational and vulnerability testing; a failure to do such vetting has already resulted in a similar airport checkpoint security technology for explosives detection being withdrawn from service before being fully deployed, the GAO report noted

  • Yemen bolsters airport security – and adheres to Muslim strictures

    Growing pressure from European countries lead Yemen to bolster its lax airport security measures; among the new measures are whole-body scanners; because of Muslim sensibilities, female security scanners would watch the images of women passengers’ body images, and male security scanners would observe the images of male passengers

  • U.S.-bound ship cargo to get more scrutiny

    The goal of screening 100 percent of U.S.-bound cargo containers is may not be reached any time soon, but new cargo-reporting requirement stipulates that ocean carriers and importers submit additional details about U.S.-bound cargo twenty-four hours before it is loaded onto vessels in foreign seaports

  • NYC subway security system: past due, over budget

    In 2005 the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) awarded Lockheed Martin a $212 million contract to create a cutting-edge security system the city’s subways, buses, and commuter trains; the cost of the security system has ballooned to $461 million and is now over-schedule by a year-and-a-half; The MTA. has $59 million left in capital funding