Airport | Aviation Security

The TSA’s trusted traveler Pre Check program will expand to dozens more airports around the country in the coming months, including some of the busiest, such as Boston’s Logan, New York’s JFK and LaGuardia, Chicago’s O’Hare,  and Washington’s National and Dulles.

DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and TSA Administrator John Pistole unveiled on Feb. 8 a lengthy list of additional airports where the Pre Check passenger pre-screening program will expand in 2012 following the current pilot initiatives at seven airports.

A provision in the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill approved by Congress on Feb. 7, which would allow airports to privatize their security screeners and essentially opt-out of TSA’s program, is “troubling” and “regrettable,” said the leader of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

Pleased with the results of its pilot program, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has decided to establish its Global Entry trusted traveler program as a permanent program. Global Entry allows U.S. citizens – as well as citizens of The Netherlands and Mexico – to undergo background checks in advance, and then receive expedited treatment when the arrive at selected ports of entry into the United States.

An old coral-covered cannonball forced the evacuation of the checked baggage area at Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport the week of Jan. 30, said TSA, after its discovery in a diver’s baggage.

The weapon’s discovery resulted in an evacuation of the airport’s checked baggage area and flight delays for almost 300 people, said the agency. The owner of the cannonball didn’t have any malicious intent, TSA said, and had collected it as a souvenir during a diving trip on a shipwreck.

The Transportation Security Administration is set to deal with tens of thousands more passengers travelling through Indianapolis International Airport before and after Super Bowl XLVI with additional screening lanes.

A privacy rights group told the Federal Trade Commission that the FTC should suspend facial recognition technology’s deployment by commercial users until privacy and other safeguard standards are developed.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, in comments to the FTC on Feb. 1, recommended the delayed deployment because it said facial recognition technologies can be used by strangers to determine a person's actual identity. The group said that “poses a risk to privacy and personal security.”