• Security questions raised by Cuban migrants landing at Turkey Point nuclear plant

    Thirty Cubans fleeing Cuba landed near the off-limits cooling canals for the Turkey Point nuclear power plant; the migrants stayed — undetected — in the high-security area for about six hours; Florida Power & Light learned the Cubans had landed on its property only when a member of the group phoned the plant’s control room hours after the group’s arrival

  • Air cargo still vulnerable to terrorists

    DHS’s inspector general says there are many problems still with the TSA’s program to stop terrorists from sneaking a bomb into any of the tens of thousands of cargo packages carried each day in the bellies of passenger planes

  • Pentagon looking for airborne IR sensor for ballistic missile defense

    The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has issued a request for information for airborne infrared (ABIR) sensor capable of fire-control-quality tracking of ballistic missiles at the end of the missiles’ boost phases

  • Work to start soon on Nashville airport's new baggage-screening system

    Nashville International Airport in a $31 million project to move the federally mandated explosive detection systems from the ticketing lobby to a space beneath the terminals

  • TSA considers repair station rule exemptions

    New TSA repair-shop proposal provides flexibility and recognizes differences between large and small shops, industry leaders believe, but those leaders also cautioned that many of the details of the requirements, and their impacts on small business, are still unclear

  • Trusted shippers program attracts drug smugglers

    The Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, or C-TPAT, program was supposed to list trusted shippers with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, so that these shippers’ trucks would have to spend less time at border checkpoints; trouble is, drug traffickers know this, and they use the system to smuggle their shipments into the United States

  • Using rope to fight pirates

    New antipiracy device uses compressed air to fire a plastic cylinder containing either a coiled rope or net up to a range of 400 meters; the coiled line of net or rope, which has a parachute attached to the end, will unravel and lay out across the surface of the water; as a pirate boat travels through the water its propeller shaft will pick up the line and become entangled

  • Global Entry to become permanent

    DHS secretary Janet Napolitano has decided to make the Global Global Entry system — a quicker way through customs and border control — permanent; U.K. and U.S. authorities are also working on an iris recognition scheme, similar to the Dutch Privium project, to fast-track entry to the United Kingdom

  • Hawaii judge throws out child porn evidence found by TSA

    U.S. judges keep telling TSA that the agency’s security screeners at airport are there to prevent weapons and explosives from being taken on board — nothing else; it is not the screeners’ job to ask passengers why they carry a lot of cash in the luggage — or child porn

  • TSA agents monitor U.S. ground transportation for nuclear, biological threats

    DHS, the FBI, and TSA quietly monitor the U.S. ground transportation system for nuclear and biological weapons; TSA agents carry portable detection sensors fan out aboard trains and buses and at transit hubs

  • DHS misses deadline for certifying new radiation detectors

    Back in June, the head of DHS’s nuclear monitoring division said the agency would sign off this fall on two congressionally mandated certifications for the Advanced Spectroscopic Portal monitor system; the testing and evaluation of these innovative nuclear detection systems have not yet been completed, though; the new machines are designed to not only detect radiation but identify the nature of its source, thus eliminating time-consuming secondary inspections to determine whether a material is dangerous

  • TSA limits scope of screeners' searches

    An assistant to congressman Ron Paul was detained in a small room at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and interrogated by TSA officials for nearly half an hour after he passed a metal box containing cash through a security checkpoint X-ray machine; under a threat of a law suit, TSA has changed its search policies: TSA screeners can now only conduct searches aimed at keeping firearms and explosives off of airplanes and cannot search for crimes unrelated to transportation security, and the agency also told screeners that passengers carrying large sums of cash have not broken the law

  • Radiological monitoring system along U.S.-Canada border completed

    The last of the 600 radiological monitors along the U.S.-Canada border has been deployed (at Trout River, New York, on the Quebec border); DHS says it is now scanning 100 percent of all vehicle traffic entering from Canada and Mexico — plus all mail and courier packages from Mexico and a further 98 percent of all arriving seaborne container cargo — for radioactive threats

  • Rockefeller targets container security

    The U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) said this week he is working in partnership with DHS inspector general to update current port security procedures better to protect against biological and chemical threats

  • GAO: TSA continues to face challenges in finding and deploying checkpoint screening technology

    Since TSA’s creation, ten passenger screening technologies have been in various phases of research, development, test and evaluation, procurement, and deployment, but TSA has not deployed any of these technologies to airports nationwide