Transportation

TSA bans Delta flights to African capitals
Citing security concerns, TSA told Delta Air Lines that airline would have to delay its planned launching of direct flights between Nairobi and Atlanta via Dakar
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San Diego uses biometrics to identify and remove criminal aliens
San Diego County Sheriff’s Department deputies are the first law enforcement unit in California to use DHS Secure Community program to receive biometric-based immigration information
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Travelers exiting U.S. will have fingerprints scanned
DHS relaunches a project to scan the fingerprints of international travelers leaving the united States; CBP will take fingerprints exiting the United States from Detroit, while TSA will do the same in Atlanta
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Rules about hazmat trains worry Pennsylvania officials
Officials in Pennsylvania’s York and Adams counties are uneasy about the prospect of having hazardous material roll through their counties
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ABI Research: DHS a "potential goldmine" for wireless kit providers
Obama’s stimulus package earmarks $6.8 billion for wireless communications upgrades and new deployments; the health care and education market will receive some of it, but the real money is in selling wireless equipment to DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a new ABI Research report says
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IG: TSA's financial data jeopardized by lax controls
Inspector General reports finds that TSA’s financial statements are vulnerable to tampering; TSA does not review computer accounts to ensure people who have left the agency are locked out, and does not check the privileges associated with each active account regularly to ensure that level of access remains necessary
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Puffer machine, RIP
The puffer machines were once thought of as a good solution for airport security: passengers would walk through a portal in which a blast of air would dislodge particles off their clothes and bodies to detect traces of explosives; things have not worked out, and TSA pulls the plug on the futuristic device
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U.S., Canadian land, sea travelers to face new entry requirements
The last part of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) kicks in Monday; U.S., Canadian land and see travelers entering the United States will have to present a passport or other approved documents; air travelers have already been doing so since 23 January 2007
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Auto-EDS explosive detection system to be tested at Waco airport
The Transportation Security Administration has chosen two small airports — Waco Regional Airport in Texas and Hyannisport, Massachuseets — to test a new explosive detection system
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New security measures on passenger planes may hurt cherries growers
About a quarter of the cherries grown in Washington state — some 1.3 million 20-pound boxes — are flown in the cargo hull of passenger planes to Pacific Rim countries like Japan and Korea; growers of highly perishable crops like cherries worry that a new requirement that all cargo on U.S. passenger flights undergo a security scan could create lengthy delays, leaving crops to rot in hangars as they await inspection
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France opens naval base in the Gulf
President Nicolas Sarkozy today opens the first French military base in the Gulf; France is eying multi-billion dollar deals for nuclear reactors and sophisticated weapons for countries in the region
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Shipping executive calls for armed federal security on U.S. ships
Liberty Maritime Corp.’s Philip Shapiro calls for Congress to remove the legal barriers to arming ships so that they may provide their own security
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Heavier passengers to pay more for flying
Air cargo flies this way: if something is twice the weight, you pay twice as much; airline industry analysts say that the day of passengers paying according to their weight may not be far
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London airport in trials of facial recognition security
Stansted Airport outside London is testing security gates with facial recognition software as the first part of an eventual roll out of the new security gates to ten more U.K. airports
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Secure Flight launches today
Secure Flight is the third version — you may recall CAPPS and CAPPS II — of the U.S. federal government’s decade-old effort to screen commercial airline passengers for risk against terrorist watch lists; it launches today
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