Aviation and airport security

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TSA Detecting Smuggled Items – Let's Take a Deep Breath

December 2, 2010

I think we all need to take a deep breath and remember we live in a dangerous world. I worked as a Special Agent for the U.S. Customs Service and DHS/Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for over thirty years. In that capacity, I was assigned for a period of time to narcotics smuggling groups at Newark and JFK International Airports. While in this assignment, I was forever amazed at the various methods utilized by individuals to attempt to smuggle narcotics through the international port of entry. The bottom line – you could take nothing for granted. Should TSA be any less vigilant?

All airlines flying to the U.S. now gather passenger information for terror check

Media Watch |

December 1, 2010

All airlines flying to the U.S. now gather passenger information for terror check – Homeland Security Newswire
All 197 airlines that fly to the United States are now collecting names, genders, and birth dates of passengers so the government can check them against terror watch lists before they fly, the Obama administration announced Tuesday.

Protest TSA with 4th Amendment underwear

Media Watch |

November 30, 2010

Protest TSA with 4th Amendment underwear – Cnet
Last week, I had the privilege of telling you about new underwear featuring allegedly TSA scanner-proof radiation shields designed to cover your naughty bits. The privacy-protecting garb is one way to protest the airport body scanners that many people find to be invasive and in violation of Fourth Amendment rights.

David Olive |

November 30, 2010

Over the Thanksgiving week, I could not get a story from the Houston Chronicle’s Dane Schiller out of my head – “Will eye in the sky over Texas ever shift its gaze to Mexico?” The article’s prime focus is whether Predators can be used to peer across the border into Mexico. Schiller, who regularly covers drug cartel and immigration activity along the southwest border, does America a great service in publicly stating what has been one of the so-called “dirty secrets” about the use of Predator UAVs for border enforcement purposes. The Border Patrol agents who are in pursuit and most in need of information from expensive technology are not seeing anything produced by Predator cameras.

Napolitano says scanners may be used for trains, subways, and boats

Media Watch |

November 29, 2010

Napolitano says scanners may be used for trains, subways, and boats – Homeland Security Newswire
Brace yourselves: full-body body scanners may be coming to trains, subways, and boats, DHS secretary Janet Napolitano. “[Terrorists] are going to continue to probe the system and try to find a way through,” Napolitano said in an interview that aired on the Charlie Rose Show. She said as aviation security tightens, “we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime.”

Security Debrief |

November 25, 2010

Sorry, we couldn’t resist. If you haven’t already seen it, you’ve definitely heard about it … SNL’s skit on 1-880-TSA Sexy.

TSA: How Not to Use Youtube

Media Watch |

November 25, 2010

TSA: How Not to Use Youtube The Transportation Safety Administration posted this video the other day, as a means to quell the unrest over its new backscatter machine and the updated pat-down procedures. It’s a direct message to the traveler from TSA Administrator John Pistole. Please, watch the video, if you can. Now, here are […]

Behavior-based solution keeps airports secure, passengers' privacy intact

Media Watch |

November 24, 2010

Behavior-based solution keeps airports secure, passengers’ privacy intact – Homeland Security Newswire
Some of the critics of tight security screening at U.S. airports say that rather than subject all passengers to the same security screening, TSA should unabashedly use profiling in order to concentrate on those groups in the population — presumably Middle Eastern-looking men between the ages of 15 and 45 — who, statistically (and, we should add, empirically and historically) are more likely to carry explosives on board.

Security Debrief |

November 24, 2010

By Kate Kennedy
Oh TSA. In the current aviation security environment, that sentiment almost speaks for itself. We’ve got screaming toddlers, screaming more than usual. We’ve got publically humiliated cancer survivors, forced to remove prosthetics in public. We’ve got a passenger stripping to his underwear to prove he is not a threat, only to get arrested anyway. All of this could have been avoided. The national uproar over the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) new pat-down procedures and Advanced Imagine Technology (AIT) machines is a perfect example of what happens when you leapfrog over the necessary step of building and launching a strategic communications plan.

DHS weighs dropping color-coded alert system

Media Watch |

November 24, 2010

DHS weighs dropping color-coded alert system – GovExec
The Homeland Security Department has proposed to drop the color-coded terror alert system implemented after the Sept. 11 attacks, and replace it with more descriptive text-based alerts.

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