TSA To Begin Random Explosive Screening With New Equipment

Screening for explosives at several US airports is about to change. Airport screener’s will navigate carts with specialized bomb-detection machines around airport gates and checkpoint lines to randomly check passengers hands and carry-on bags for explosive residue using chemical swabs.

The program, already tested at five airports after the attempted Christmas Day bomb plot on a U.S.-bound airliner, begins nationwide in a few weeks, TSA spokeswoman Sterling Payne said.

Metal detectors now used at checkpoints can’t spot materials such as the powdered explosives that bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly hid in his underwear to get through a checkpoint in Amsterdam’s airport.

“Had Abdulmutallab been subjected to a (chemical) inspection, there’s a high probability it would have picked up the explosives,” RAND Corp. security analyst Brian Jenkins said. “The machines are extraordinarily sensitive.”

Shortly after the Dec. 25 incident, the TSA ran a 17-day test at the five airports to see whether bomb-sensing equipment could be rolled on carts to check random passengers.

The microwave-oven-size detectors are usually stationary and are a common sight at airport checkpoints, where screeners swipe a small swab along a bag or a passenger’s hand. The swab is then run through a reader that can detect minute amounts of explosives.

The machines are so sensitive that alarms can sound for passengers who have recently taken heart pills containing nitroglycerin, or if they have recently fired guns, Jenkins said. The machines also are used on checked luggage.

via Source – USATODAY.com – Read Full Article.

Terror Chatter Increasing On The Internet

Potential terrorists are swapping tips and ways to beat security measures via the Internet and the spike in terror is “chatter” is cause for concern, reports Armen Keteyian in this CBS News report.

U.S. Intel Officials Seeing Spike in al Qaeda-Linked Internet Chatter Focused on Ways to Thwart Airport Security

CBS News has learned that U.S. Intelligence officials are seeing a marked increase in terror-related Internet chatter with a frightening focus: Jihadists bent on finding gaps in airport security – all linked to al Qaeda in Yemen, reports CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian.

On one radical website, a writer invites fellow members to post information on how to bypass airport screening.

Another member asks about explosive detection devices, writing: “We have that system in place in Algiers…does anyone know if it’s capable of detecting [the flammable gas] butane?”

On another Jihadist site, a visitor questions security involving 3D scanners at British airports asking: “Can I refuse [to pass through] for religious reasons?”

Before long comes this answer: “…advise those who wish to avoid the Heathrow scanners to take the train to Paris… and then board a plane from there.”

Perhaps most disturbing — the recent discovery of a confidential TSA document on a Yemeni Web site discussing the rules for searching passengers.

Terror Talk Growing Louder on the Web – CBS News.

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10,000 TSA Staff To Get Access To Secret Intel

About 10,000 airport security workers will get access to secret intelligence that could help stop terrorist attacks on planes.

The Transportation Security Administration plan aims to help its officers spot terrorists by giving them more detailed information about tactics and threats, TSA officials and security experts said. The agency, viewed by some as throngs of workers pawing through luggage at checkpoints, hopes to empower its higher-level workers as part of an effort to professionalize airport security.

The 10,000 people in line to get classified information are managers, supervisors and “behavior detection officers” who roam airports looking for suspicious people. They represent about 20% of the TSA’s airport workforce and exclude screeners who scan passengers and bags.

The information will give workers details about terrorist “tactics, planning, operations and threats,” TSA spokeswoman Sterling Payne said. Those details “give context to things they see every day which may otherwise not appear unusual” and let workers “exercise discretion” in dealing with travelers, Payne added. She would not elaborate on specific intelligence the workers will get. All TSA airport workers now get daily intelligence briefings that include less sensitive information.

So far, 750 people have been cleared to get classified information, Payne said, adding that it will take two more years to get all 10,000 workers cleared.

via Source – USATODAY.com.

TSA Prankster Who Allegedly Planted Powder Out Of Job

According to FoxPhilly News, an apparent practical joke at Philadelphia International Airport security is no laughing matter for a Wynnewood college student and the Transportation Security Administration.

Rebecca Solomon said the screener planted a small plastic bag filled with white powder in her laptop case before she boarded a flight back to school in Michigan earlier this month.

He confronted her in the security line and then said he was just kidding.

Sullivan wasn’t laughing. She complained, and the worker is no longer employed by the TSA. (TSA in my opinion acted quickly and made the right decision)

via TSA Powder-Prankster Out Of Job.

Additional Details from Philly.com Daniel Rubin: It was no joke at security gate

What happened to her lasted only 20 seconds, but she says they were the longest 20 seconds of her life.

After pulling her laptop out of her carry-on bag, sliding the items through the scanning machines, and walking through a detector, she went to collect her things.

A TSA worker was staring at her. He motioned her toward him.

Then he pulled a small, clear plastic bag from her carry-on – the sort of baggie that a pair of earrings might come in. Inside the bag was fine, white powder.

She remembers his words: “Where did you get it?”

Two thoughts came to her in a jumble: A terrorist was using her to sneak bomb-detonating materials on the plane. Or a drug dealer had made her an unwitting mule, planting coke or some other trouble in her bag while she wasn’t looking.

She’d left her carry-on by her feet as she handed her license and boarding pass to a security agent at the beginning of the line.

Answer truthfully, the TSA worker informed her, and everything will be OK.

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Saudi Arabian Posing As Pilot Held At Manila Airport

A 19-year-old Saudi Arabian man dressed as a pilot and was reportedly arrested Tuesday after he illegally entered a restricted area in the main airport in the Philippines.

“He was able to elude our security by misrepresenting himself as a pilot of Saudia,” said airport general manager Alfonso Cusi, referring to the Saudi Arabian flag carrier.

The incident at Manila airport comes after officials in the Philippines and around the world said they would boost security after the botched attempt to blow up a US-bound airliner on Christmas Day.

The detained Saudi, told airport police he was there to meet his father, a retired Saudia pilot who later arrived on a flight from Saudi Arabia.

He was wearing a pilot’s uniform from Saudia Airlines when airport security personnel noticed him lining up at the immigration section of the passenger terminal, Cusi told ABS-CBN television.

The young man produced a card identifying him as a dependent of a retired Saudia employee, he said.

“There was a failure on our part here,” said Cusi, conceding that Bukhari should not have been able to penetrate so far into the terminal.

“Our fault here is we were not able to check properly his identification,” he said, adding: “Definitely, there will be changes” in airport security procedures.

via Read Full Article.

New Scanner Sees Explosives Inside Body Cavities

The workers at a Merrillville company have spent the past six months developing their own form of airport security, a machine they say is superior to the metal detectors and body scanners making the news.

Guns, explosive powders, plastic weapons, the machine can show them all, no matter where they're at.

Even if they’re inside a human body.

If everything goes according to their plan, the Purdue Technology Center incubator-based Nesch LLC will see its product in airports worldwide helping to stop terrorists from using airplanes as their personal weapons.

The device called Diffraction-Enhanced X-ray Imaging, or DEXI, is basically an X-ray machine on steroids — but with far fewer X-rays. A normal X-ray machine will use three sources — light absorption, refraction and scattering — to produce one image. Because the light refractions and light scatterings don't mix well, the result is a blurry image, one that picks up on bones but not soft tissue.

Ivan Nesch, CEO of Nesch LLC, says that DEXI creates a separate image from each of the sources that makes for not just clearer pictures but allows people to see softer material — including powders like the one a Nigerian man supposedly brought with him on a Christmas Day flight to blow up the plane.

“(With conventional X-ray machines,) you could not even think about this,” Nesch said.

Pictures provided by Nesch show various objects taken with a conventional X-ray and the DEXI system. In conventional X-rays, plastic bags filled with powder are obscured but are clearly seen in images taken by DEXI. Another DEXI image shows a plastic knife hidden in another object.

Source

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/01/crack-new-scanner-finds-explosives-inside-body-cavities/#ixzz0cGhW23gG

Nesch LLC Company Website

Reporter Passes Through JFK Security With Titanium

Although it’s open to speculation whether this could translate into a terrorist smuggling an actual weapon through security, a reporter apparently had no trouble carrying an 8-inch-long piece of titanium through the a checkpoint just hours after it was reported that the same detectors twice failed to go off for a woman with a 14-inch hip replacement made of the metal.

That passenger, Berna Keiler of Santa Barbara, Calif., alerted federal authorities to the breach late last year and was reassured by Transportation Security Administration officials that the metal detectors were tested and properly working.

But that was clearly not the case Tuesday when the reporter failed to set off the alarm during two trips through the scanners.

The first time around, the reporter placed the titanium in her right side pocket and sent her purse and bag through the X-ray machine. She walked through the metal detector without setting off any alarm.

Read Full Article At The NY Post

Airport Puffers Being Phased Out By TSA

Probably not too disappointing for some travelers, but airport security puffer machines have apparently gasped their last breath this year.

Set up for testing at 37 airports in 2005-06, they worked by shooting blasts of air on people, supposedly dislodging traces of drugs and explosives, including PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate, used in the attempted Christmas Day attack. A passenger would step into the archway, get blasted from either side by air jets, then walk through to the other side.

The Transportation Security Administration spent $29.6 million buying 207 of the machines from General Electric and Smiths Detection.

However, puffers had one problem — they continually clogged from dirt and dust, breaking and costing thousands to maintain. Without ever detecting any explosives in real use, they were prone to false-positives and broke down after an average of 551 hours of use — only 38% of how many hours they were supposed to serve, according to a Government Accountability Office report in October.

This year, the puffer program was put out of its misery by the TSA, which concluded that newer technology of whole-body scanners was superior. The TSA still deploys 18 puffers at the nation’s airports, but they are being phased out. Detroit Metro TSA authorities would not confirm how many, if any, puffers the airport still possessed.

via Source.

Newark Airport Flights Halted for Possible Security Breach

Flights out of one terminal at Newark Liberty International Airport were temporarily halted Sunday night as officials investigated a possible security breach.

Officials took the action after a man was observed walking the wrong way down the exit lane between the secured, or “sterile,” area and the public area at around 5:20 p.m.

The Transportation Security Administration initially responded by stopping screening. But about two and a half hours later, the T.S.A. ordered all passengers on the sterile side to move back to the public side for rescreening.

While it was unclear who first alerted authorities to the potential breach, the individual was not an employee of the T.S.A., which is in charge of airport security, said an administration official.

People were allowed to begin boarding planes again just under seven hours after screening was first shut down, and the T.S.A. expected all passengers to be rescreened by 12:30 a.m. on Monday. Officials did not locate the man who caused the alert.

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Napolitano Acknowledges Security System Failed

The secretary of homeland security, Janet Napolitano, said Monday that the thwarted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner represented a failure of the nation’s aviation security system, not the success she and other administration officials had portrayed in comments over the weekend.

Ms. Napolitano said Monday on NBC’S “Today” that her remark the day before “the system has worked really very, very smoothly over the course of the past several days” — had been taken out of context. “Our system did not work in this instance,” she said. “No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way.”

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TSA Manual Leak Online Results In Full Review

US News and World Reports says that TSA officials are conducting a “full review” is to determine how a 2008 copy of its standard operating procedures for all airport security checkpoints was released in its entirety on the Internet. The document was “improperly redacted,” according to TSA officials, meaning that with a few keystrokes what was once secret spilled out into the public domain.

The document itself details screening procedures at metal detectors, explosive residue testers, and other elements of airport security. It outlines procedures for escorting certain travelers around security checkpoints, including air marshals, diplomats, and CIA officers. An annex to the document gives several examples of official credentials for agencies including the CIA, Congress, and federal air marshals and notes on determining their authenticity.

Another redacted section of the document reveals that travelers are selected for screening if their passports are issued by any one of 12 specific countries.

The TSA document, dated June 30, 2008, is stamped “Sensitive Security Information,” a description of sensitive but not classified information. Releasing it to the public can result in “civil penalties or other action,” according to a warning stamped on each page of the document.

Agency officials promised swift action.

via Read Full Articlet.

Behavior Detection Officers Keeping A Watchful Eye On Airports

Although you probably couldn’t spot one of the if you tried, chances are they spotted you if you were exhibiting suspicious behavior in one of over 160 U.S airports.

To identify dangerous people, the Transportation Security Administration has stationed specially trained Behavior Detection Officers at 161 U.S. airports, including Miami and Fort Lauderdale. The officers, who can be anywhere from the parking garage to the gate, try to spot passengers with an unusual level of nervousness or stress.

They don’t focus on a person’s nationality, race, ethnicity or gender, said Sari Koshetz, spokeswoman for the TSA.

“We’re not looking for a type of person but at behaviors,” she said.

The program started in Boston in 2003; expanded to Miami in 2006 and then to Fort Lauderdale in 2007. The TSA won’t disclose whether detection officers roam Palm Beach International Airport.

Under the program, a suspicious passenger might be given a secondary screening or referred to police; detection officers don’t have arrest powers.

Last year, officers nationwide required 98,805 passengers to undergo additional screening. Police questioned 9,854 of them; 813 were arrested.

While the TSA doesn’t break down the numbers for individual airports, the officers require dozens of travelers in Miami and Fort Lauderdale to undergo a secondary screening each week.

via Airport officers covertly keep an eye out for suspicious behavior — South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com.

Could Wii Balance Board Prevent Terror Attack?

The Department of Homeland Security is investigating whether the use of Wii Fit Balance Boards might be a good tool for detecting signs of tension or unease in airport security lines.

As somewhere over 20 million Wii Fit owners know, the Balance Board can detect your precise balance point, making it a perfect keep-fit tool — but the Future Attribute Screening Technology project hopes detecting physiological signs — including rapid shifts in balance — will help identify passengers who may have hostile intentions.

“Researchers took a Wii balance board…and altered it to show how someone’s weight shifts. Studies are now under way to determine whether there is a level of fidgeting that would suggest the need for secondary screening,” CNN said.

The Balance Board is just one of a suite of sensors the Boston-based project is trialing; others include eye trackers and devices that record respiratory and heart rates. Researchers say their goal is to have a system ready for field tests in 2011.

via Read Full Article.

Study: Airport Security Badges Need Improved Tracking

The government has not been able to keep track of all the airport security uniforms and badges it issues, which makes secure areas in airports vulnerable to terrorists posing as authorized officials, according to an internal review released Friday. Read more

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