At U.S. airports, TSA officers covertly monitor travelers’ behavior – washingtonpost.com To identify potentially dangerous individuals, the Transportation Security Administration has stationed specially trained behavior-detection officers at 161 U.S. airports. The officers may be positioned anywhere, from the parking garage to the gate, trying to spot passengers who show an unusual level of nervousness or […]
Hendra virus infects horses and bats – but the fatality rate among human beings coming into contact with the animals is high because there is no cure for it; the virus and its relative, the Nipah virus, are so lethal that the United States consider them a homeland security threat; there is fear that terrorists may infect bats and then release them near population centers.
A senior FBI technologist declared last month that after decades of evaluation, the agency sees no point in facial recognition. He said that 18,000 law enforcement agencies contribute fingerprints and DNA samples to the FBI’s databases and, at their peak, they submit 200,000+ identity verification queries a day. It’s a big operation, and it’s only going to grow, he said. What will be missing from this mix, however, is facial recognition.
Such is the Defense Department’s plight in the latest high-stakes contest to build aerial refueling tankers for the Air Force. The competition for the deal, worth $35 billion or more, hasn’t even officially begun, but lawmakers siding with the rival manufacturers bidding for the job are already calling foul.
In a letter to Congress today, a coalition of privacy advocates have called on Congress to investigate the DHS Privacy Office. The gravamen of their complaint is that the Privacy Office is insufficiently independent from the Department and isn’t protecting privacy. Proof of this, they say, lies in the Privacy Office’s approval of Privacy Impact Assessments for several programs (e.g. Whole Body Imaging) that allegedly erode privacy interests.
Recently, Delta Airlines (formerly Northwest) settled a lawsuit filed by six imams who claimed they were profiled for their religion rather than suspicious behavior. They were subsequently removed from a flight and questioned by authorities. In July, a federal judge sent a strong message that the airline lacked probable cause to remove the imams from the flight by ruling that Delta could be held liable for civil damages. Delta settled with the Muslim clerics out of court.
Letters – Letter – Security Measures – NYTimes.com To the NY Times Editor: Re “No Rest for the Security Weary” (Practical Traveler, Sept. 27), although many security measures are annoying, we haven’t had another terror event in all these years. It is tough to take credit for what hasn’t happened. Better intelligence and coordination, as […]
Social Media Success Story: How the TSA defended its reputation — Neil Bonner On Thursday night, a popular “mommy blogger” who goes by the name “Nic”, started posting to her Twitter account about her terrifying experience at the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson airport. Friday on her blog “My Bottles Up” she claimed that, TSA agents took her […]
FreightScan, LLC, a leader in the development and deployment of innovative technology solutions for the freight and logistics industry, will debut its newly developed FS100P automated dimensioning system for cargo scanning at the Air Cargo Americas 2009 show.The FS100P, a part of the FS100 family of cargo scanning products, is intended for use by small cargo and package operations that need to capture dimensions and images of cargo in a smaller scan area in one second’s time.
On the Road – You Have a Ticket, but Is That Your Name? – NYTimes.com A new federal initiative called Secure Flight requires that the name on the ID you use at the airport security checkpoint precisely match the name on your airline ticket. Secure Flight takes effect for domestic passengers early next year and […]
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