Aviation Security
GSN looks at efforts by the Transportation Security Administration, better known as TSA, to enhance airport security with the help of metal detectors, security cameras and various biometrics, while paying close attention to the privacy issues that surround each governmental step to improve security.
TSA study of the effectiveness of private screeners has 'limitations,' GAO says
February 10th, 2009
How effective is the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) Screening Partnership Program (SPP), which allows commercial airports to use private sector screeners, supplied by private contractors approved by TSA?
Are there redundancies between SPP and TSA personnel? What factors do airport operators cite as having contributed to decisions about whether to participate in the SPP? And how effective was a 2008 TSA study of the program?
General aviation airport operators asked to perform vulnerability assessments
February 10th, 2009
Perhaps in reaction to the chilly reception experienced by its proposed new security rules for general aviation, TSA has decided to ask 3,000 general aviation airport operators across the country to complete “threat and vulnerability assessments” available on its Web site (www.tsa.gov).
TSA can't document how security inspectors spent nearly half their time in 2007, says GAO
February 6th, 2009
In 2007, while the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) Transportation Security Inspectors (TSIs) spent 33 percent of their work hours inspecting, and five percent of their work hours investigating, fully 49 percent of their time fell into a category designated as "other," the largest single category measured in TSA's reporting system, according to a newly released Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.
According to the GAO, TSA officials "could not provide documentation identifying how TSIs spend their time on activities that are not captured in TSA's regulatory reporting system."
House offers improved ‘redress’ to delayed air travelers
February 4th, 2009
Any traveler who has ever been erroneously challenged by security personnel at an airport because his or her name seemed to appear on a terrorist watch list will appreciate that the House passed on Feb. 3, on a vote of 413-3, the FAST Redress Act of 2009, which is intended to eliminate such confusion in the future.
Senate may add another $3.5 billion in security spending into stimulus package
February 2nd, 2009
The Senate version of the Obama Administration's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is beginning to resemble a glittering Christmas tree, as billions in new security expenditures are being added, like ornaments, to the legislation's branches.
House stimulus bill includes $750 million for security at airports, land borders and sea ports
January 29th, 2009
The $819 billion stimulus bill passed by the House on Jan. 28 includes $500 million for new explosive detection systems and checkpoint technologies at U.S. airports, $150 million for new inspection facilities at land border entry points and $100 million for detection technologies at sea ports.
TSA gathering data on shoe scanners and metal detection portals
January 27th, 2009
TSA is gathering information from companies with the ability to make scanning devices that can detect explosives or weapons parts concealed inside shoes as well as walk-through detectors that can detect prohibited metallic objects.
Safeguards Technology awarded PIDS security contract for international airport in India
January 12th, 2009
Safeguards Technology, LLC, headquartered in Hackensack, NJ, has received a contract to install a perimeter intrusion detection system (PIDS), CCTV and command and control center for an unnamed international airport in India. The contract contains several of Safeguards’ perimeter intrusion detection products as well as the installation and integration of the system.
