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.
Should TSA outsource its passenger watch list matching?
February 4th, 2008
For years, the Transportation Security Administration has been promoting a new airline passenger screening program, currently called "Secure Flight," as a way to shift responsibility for checking passenger names against a terrorist watch list from commercial airline employees to government employees.
Such a shift of responsibility, TSA has argued, would reduce security risks by no longer giving the sensitive watch list data to employees of private companies.
That made some sense. But my eyebrows shot up last week when I saw that TSA now intends to hire a commercial contractor to handle many of the Secure Flight operational responsibilities it supposedly had intended to bring in-house.
What gives? Can’t the federal government perform any of its ultra-sensitive responsibilities anymore, without relying on outside vendors?
More...
TSA plans pilot program to evaluate cargo screening technologies
January 28th, 2008
The Transportation Security Administration plans to launch a pilot program at 18 major U.S. airports and nearby cargo consolidation facilities to evaluate different procedures for screening cargo with X-ray and explosive detection equipment before that cargo is put on pallets and loaded onto passenger aircraft.
More...
TSA to test screening systems in Arlington County, VA
January 4th, 2008
TSA wants to find a small business that can design and build an operational facility in Arlington County, VA, in which it can test new passenger and baggage screening systems.
Security challenges vary around the world
January 4th, 2008
The Overseas Security Advisory Council, a joint effort of the U.S. State Department and the U.S. private sector, has issued its annual review of security threats throughout the world, including thefts of commercial secrets, cyber attacks, "home-grown" radicalism and political conflicts.
The nation deserves a national security certification and licensing program
December 28th, 2007
More and more Americans are accepting that homeland security poses a complex challenge for our nation. Reliable and sophisticated detection equipment, workable security policies and human element integration within the security scheme are essential.
DHS poses five technical challenges to small businesses
December 12th, 2007
Small business entrepreneurs: Put on your thinking caps.
The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program run by the science and technology directorate of DHS is looking for creative ways to…
• identify a deceitful terrorist by seeing if the pupils in his eyes are dilating suspiciously;
• detect chemical, biological or explosive threats with miniature sensors that can communicate data via cell phones or wireless personal devices;
• graphically depict complex, long-term terrorist threats and U.S. vulnerabilities in easy-to-understand and visually appealing ways;
• gather samples of explosives from the exterior of a vehicle in order to detect a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED);
• develop a "smart sensor system" that can acquire and process data from all kinds of imaging, environmental, nuclear, chemical or biological sensors quicker and more intelligently than existing systems.
More...
TSA seeks more information about general aviation flights
November 26th, 2007
As it focuses more and more of its attention on flights by privately-owned general aviation aircraft, the Transportation Security Administration has concluded that its needs better "situational awareness" of such flights as they occur within the National Airspace System.
IG skeptical about Alaska Native company’s CBP maintenance contract
November 26th, 2007
Chenega Technology Services Corp. was awarded a sole source small business set-aside contract worth $475 million by Customs and Border Protection to maintain X-ray equipment and metal detectors nationwide because the company is considered an "Alaska Native Corporation," but the award was made inappropriately by CBP and Chenega has not performed enough of the actual work itself.
