USING THE BEST TECHNOLOGIES AT OUR DISPOSAL,ALLOWS US TO FIGHT TERROR,ANYWHERE,ANYTIME. WE MUST BE ABLE TO ADAPT AND EVOLVE. THINK BIG,START SMALL,ACT FAST.FOUNDATIONS TODAY FOR A SAFER TOMORROW.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Inspector General American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) Oversight Update
Inspector General American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA)
Oversight for U.S. Department of Homeland Security. This information has
recently been updated, and is now
available.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Financial Assistance (Grants) Reports Update
Inspector General Financial Assistance (Grants) Reports for U.S. Department of
Homeland Security. This information has recently been updated, and is now
available.
Ericka J. Reynolds, of Shell Lake, Wisconsin, and Shaleah F. Reynolds, of
Webster, Wisconsin, were each sentenced for their participation in a crack
distribution ring on St. Croix tribal lands. Thirteen defendants have been
sentenced thus far as a result of this investigation.
Jordan Tyler Tabaha, of St. Michaels, Arizona, was indicted in connection
with allegedly stabbing an individual multiple times on Navajo tribal land,
resulting in the victim's death.
Michael Lee, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was indicted in connection with
allegedly conspiring with others to accept or extort bribes from individuals
with pending criminal charges in the Baton Rouge City Court in exchange for
arranging for the matters to be dismissed or otherwise "fixed." He was also
charged with illegal possession of a firearm.
Connecticut
Man Sentenced for Dealing Cocaine Tue, 29 Dec 2009 11:21:54 -0600
Terrence Williams, of Stratford, Connecticut, was sentenced to 10 years in
federal prison for his participation in a Bridgeport-based narcotics trafficking
ring.
Michael Lee, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was indicted in connection with
allegedly conspiring with others to accept or extort bribes from individuals
with pending criminal charges in the Baton Rouge City Court in exchange for
arranging for the matters to be dismissed or otherwise "fixed." He was also
charged with illegal possession of a firearm.
Jordan Tyler Tabaha, of St. Michaels, Arizona, was indicted in connection
with allegedly stabbing an individual multiple times on Navajo tribal land,
resulting in the victim's death.
Ericka J. Reynolds, of Shell Lake, Wisconsin, and Shaleah F. Reynolds, of
Webster, Wisconsin, were each sentenced for their participation in a crack
distribution ring on St. Croix tribal lands. Thirteen defendants have been
sentenced thus far as a result of this investigation.
Judith Basurto, a former inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in
Danbury, Connecticut, pled guilty to possessing a metal blade with a sharpened
edge that she used to cut the neck of another inmate.
Timothy R. Dunagan, of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and David S. Ekers, of Avon Lake,
Ohio, former executives of Park-Ohio Industries, Inc., were indicted in
connection with allegedly conspiring to defraud Park-Ohio and to fraudulently
obtain money from that company.
Mark Campano, of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, was charged with one count of
knowingly receiving and possessing approximately 37 firearms not registered to
him in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.
Jonathan Green, of Reading, Pennsylvania, pled guilty in Springfield,
Massachusetts to one count of sexual exploitation of children and one count of
travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct.
The only thing we can say for sure about 2010
is terrorists, criminals, and mother nature will surprise us at some point
during 2010; still, based on what we do know, we offer a short list of topics we
predict will dominate the homeland security discussion in the coming year – from
whole-body scanners to 100 percent air cargo screening to social Web sites to
communication interoperability to the consequences of climate change (or is
there a climate change?)
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U.S. Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Financial Assistance (Grants) Reports Update
subscribed to Inspector General Financial Assistance (Grants) Reports for U.S.
Department of Homeland Security. This information has recently been updated, and
is now
available.
Secretary
Napolitano to travel in the coming weeks to build on these
efforts
WASHINGTON – Secretary of Homeland Security Janet
Napolitano today announced that she is dispatching Deputy Secretary Jane Holl
Lute, Assistant Secretary for Policy David Heyman and other senior Department
officials on a broad international outreach effort to meet with leaders from
major international airports in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and South
America to review security procedures and technology being used to screen
passengers on flights bound for the United States.
“As part of the ongoing review to determine exactly what
went wrong leading up to Friday’s attempted terrorist attack, we are looking not
only at our own processes, but also beyond our borders to ensure effective
aviation security measures are in place for U.S-bound flights that originate at
international airports,” said Secretary Napolitano. “Because I am fully
committed to making whatever changes are necessary to protect the safety of the
traveling public, I am sending Deputy Secretary Lute and Assistant Secretary
Heyman to work with our international partners on ways to collectively bolster
our tactics for defeating terrorists wherever they may seek to launch an attack,
and I will follow up on these efforts with ministerial-level meetings within the
next few weeks.”
Deputy Secretary Lute and Assistant Secretary Heyman
will first travel to Europe, departing on
Monday. While there, they will brief European authorities on the findings of
President Obama’s aviation security review and then report back to Secretary
Napolitano on their discussions on enhancing international security
measures.
Following the attempted attack on Christmas Day, the
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) issued a directive for additional
security measures to be implemented for last point of departure international
flights to the United
States, such as increased gate pat-downs and
bag searches. At the direction of the flight crew, passengers may also be asked
to follow additional instructions, such as stowing personal items, turning off
electronic equipment and remaining seated during certain portions of the
flight.
Other security measures implemented have included the
deployment of additional law enforcement at airports, air marshals, and
explosives detection canine teams. TSA will continue to work with airline and
law enforcement authorities, as well as federal, state, local and international
partners to put additional security measures in place to ensure that aviation
security remains strong. For more information on current security measures,
visit www.tsa.gov.
###
Homeland Security News Wire for Saturday, 2 January 2010
The only thing we can say for sure about 2010
is terrorists, criminals, and mother nature will surprise us at some point
during 2010; still, based on what we do know, we offer a short list of topics we
predict will dominate the homeland security discussion in the coming year – from
whole-body scanners to 100 percent air cargo screening to social Web sites to
communication interoperability to the consequences of climate change (or is
there a climate change?)
The year which ends tomorrow saw many homeland
security-related challenges – the short list would include more cybersecurity
attacks on U.S. (and European) infrastructure, military, and commercial assets;
more wide-spread flooding and more intense storms; North Korea openly testing
nuclear weapons, and Iran continuing its determined march toward the bomb;
intensified war against terrorist hideouts in Pakistan and Afghanistan; and
renewed threats to air travel, as exemplified by the Nigerian terrorist's
attempt to bring down a commercial airline over Detroit; DHS launched many
initiatives, and re-fashioned many existing policies, to meet these and other
challenges
The Obama administration has launched a review
of two aspects of air travel security – the effectiveness of the no-fly watch
list and explosive detection; critics take issue with DHS secretary Napolitano's
assertion that the air travel security system “worked”
There is only one technology that could have
detected the explosives hidden in the Nigerian terrorist's underwear: whole-body
scanning; TSA already has 40 of these machines installed in 19 U.S. airports;
trouble is, in June the U.S. House of Representatives voted 310 to 118 to pass a
measure that prohibits the TSA from using whole-body imaging as a primary means
for screening passengers; security experts say that privacy concerns
notwithstanding, these machines, which offer anatomically correct images of the
human body, should now be deployed as the primary scanning technology at
airports
The first case of extremely drug-resistant
(XXDR) TB is found in the united States; one of the U.S. leading experts on
tuberculosis says about the patient: "He is really the future.This is the new
class that people are not really talking too much about. These are the ones we
really fear because I'm not sure how we treat them"
A con man, sensing the U.S. government's
post-9/11 desperation for more intelligence on terrorist activities, was able to
persuade the Pentagon, CIA, and other government agencies to pay him millions of
dollars for software which was supposed to decipher operational instructions to
terrorists hidden in al Jazeera's broadcasts
With self-detonating grenades, thinking
bullets and robot warriors, humans on the frontline could soon be a thing of the
past When armies clash in the not-too-distant future, remotely operated robotic
weapons will fight the enemy on land, in the air, and at sea, without a human
soldier anywhere on the battlefield. The first robotic systems are already being
used by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and other armies across the world, and
only budgetary constraints seem to be keeping science fiction from becoming
reality.
With self-detonating grenades, thinking
bullets and robot warriors, humans on the frontline could soon be a thing of the
past; Israel's military industries develop robotic systems to aid soldiers in
the field, but also to ward off threats from afar
The FBI posts its annual code-breaking
challenge on its Web site; this is the longest code-breaking challenge to date;
the FBI says that the code-breaking task is similar to work being done in its
labs
A 79-year old unlicensed pilot-inventor from
Oklahoma built a blimp in his backyard; the last trial flight ended with the
blimp coming down on an interstate motorway, causing traffic disruption; the FAA
found that the blimp-happy septuagenarian does not have a flying license,
medical certificate, or air-worthiness documents for his craft; undaunted,
Marvin Polzein says: “"I know myself. I'll get back on it again. I'll make the
corrections, and we'll try it again"
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comprehensive Web site with news on and analysis of the business,
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U.S. Department of Homeland Security Privacy Office Reports and Statements Update
Privacy Office Reports and Statements for U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
This information has recently been updated, and is now
available.
The 2009 Data Mining Report describes DHS programs, both
operational and in development, that involve data mining as defined by the
Federal Agency Data Mining Reporting Act of 2007.
Homeland Security News Wire for Monday, 4 January 2010
Yemen is disintegrating, and jihadists are
moving in; the mayor of Boston says it is unsafe to allow tankers delivering
liquefied natural gas from Yemen into Boston Harbor; “They cannot be coming into
a harbor like Boston, where there is less than 50 feet between the tankers and
residential areas,' the mayor says of Yemeni tankers'
A proposal will be debated in Congress to
create a new class of visa eligibility; the start-up visa would be granted to
foreign entrepreneurs if their business plan attracts either $250,000 from a
venture capital operating company that is primarily U.S. based or $100,000 from
an angel investor; they must also show that the business will create five to ten
jobs or generate a profit and at least $1 million in revenue
The cumulative influence of major building
security-related events -- the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in
Beirut, Lebanon, the 1996, the destruction of the Khobar Towers in Dhahran,
Saudi Arabia, the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, the
first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the Oklahoma City bombing of the
Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building happened in 1995, and the 2001 attack on the
Twin Towers – have led architects and engineers to rethink building
security
The asteroid Apophis measures approximately
350 meters (1,150 feet) in diameter; if it were to hit Earth when it passes
nearby on 13 April 2036, it would create a new desert the size of France;
Russian scientists plan to do something about it
Researchers at the University of
California-San Diego develop GPS-based cell phone application aiming to help
illegal immigrants by directing them to prepositioned water bins in the desert;
critics say this amounts to aiding law-breaking, while supporters argue this is
the humane thing to do
President Obama signed an executive order
instructing the Post Office to deliver antidotes to citizens in the event of an
anthrax attack; the executive order calls for armed escorts to accompany
delivery personnel
The U.S. Army wants better armor for its
soldiers; weight has long been an issue with the body armor the Pentagon issues
to troops, and the Pentagon has signed an $18.6-million contract with KDH
Defense Systems to send 57,000 new, lighter plate carriers to Afghanistan to
decrease the load soldiers carry
Lithuania closes Chernobyl-style facility
which supplies 80 percent of the country's electricity; closure is a condition
of EU membership
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Counties with levees account for only 28
percent of the U.S. counties and only 37 percent of the U.S. land area – but
they contain 55 percent of the U.S. population, more than 156 million people;
the total productivity for counties containing levees was nearly 3.3 times
greater than it was in those without levees; the average annual income of
residents was $1,500 more, and the rate of poverty was 2 percent
lower
The number of unmanned aircraft systems has
jumped from a fleet of about 50 vehicles nine years ago to more than 2,400 in
use today; these UAVs need trained operators to operate them, and the University
of North Dakota offers the first-in-the-U.S. degree program in UAV piloting
The failed attempt to bring down Northwest
flight #253 on Christmas Day only highlights the opportunities explosive
detection equipment manufacturers have to sell their gear to worried airport
security authorities; Implant Science emphasizes the competitive advantages of
its hand-held sniffer
The U.S. military is relying an ever-greater
number of cameras and sensors to collect information; there is a need to turn
this mountain of data feeds into usable information for soldiers; Virginia-based
Samoff offers its TerraSight product as a solution
Thermal imaging is entering the mainstream;
FLIR, a leading thermal imaging equipment manufacturer, helps the trend by
lowering its price point; a residential thermal imaging camera can now be
purchased for $3,500
A string of terrorist attacks in India,
Indonesia, and Pakistan has driven governments and private organizations in
Asian countries to invest more in security; CCTV manufacturers will benefit from
this trend
Cockroaches can run fast, turn on a dime, move
easily over rough terrain, and react to perturbations faster than a nerve
impulse can travel; running cockroach robots could serve valuable roles in
difficult jobs, such as military operations, law enforcement, or space
exploration. Related technology might also be applied to improve the function of
prosthetic limbs for amputees, or serve other needs
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comprehensive Web site with news on and analysis of the business,
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Editor's
note The promise of cloud
computing is obvious -- but so are the problems
Cloud
computing is now the hottest topic in IT. In cloud computing, customers do not
own the physical infrastructure. They avoid capital expenditure by renting usage
from a third-party provider. They consume digital resources as a service and pay
only for resources that they use. Many cloud-computing offerings employ the
utility computing model, which is analogous to how traditional utility services
are consumed, while others bill on a subscription basis.
Sharing
computing power among multiple tenants can improve utilization rates, as servers
are not left unnecessarily idle. The result are reduced costs and increase in
the speed of application development. A side-effect of this approach is that
overall computer usage rises dramatically, as customers do not have to engineer
for peak load limits.
The benefits of cloud computing have to do with
economy and efficiency. The down side is security. Under the cloud approach, a
growing number of businesses and individuals are handing storage and various
other tasks to outside providers, from photographers archiving pictures with
Yahoo!'s Flickr to companies turning over complicated computing operations to
Amazon. Tech prognosticator Mark Anderson suggests that this tendency could
backfire in some high-profile way in the coming year. "It could either be a
service-outage-type catastrophe or a security-based catastrophe," he says. "In
either case, it will be big enough. It will be the kind of disaster that makes
you say, if you're a [Chief Information Officer]: 'That's why I didn't get
involved with the cloud.'"
When
a company uses cloud computing -- just where in fact does the company's data
reside, who controls and has access to it, and who is responsible for any legal
or other problems that arise? How can companies ensure they are properly
archiving and deleting e-mail in the cloud that might be needed in future legal
cases? How can managers guard against risks that sensitive data will be
downloaded from the cloud into mobile devices? Read
more
Cloud
password cracker is a sign of things to come: cloud computing offers advantages
of scale and cost, but its reliance on the Internet makes it vulnerable to
hacking; "The cloud is going to offer the serious criminal huge computing
resources on tap, which has lots of interesting applications," says one security
expert; "If nothing else, it should change a few threat models" Read
more
Cloud
provider can see a customer's data and leased computational apparatus, known as
"virtual machines"; new research suggests that as long as the cloud can see
things, it might as well check – in what is called cloud computing
"introspection monitoring" -- that its customers are not running malicious code;
new security tool from IBM searches for and destroys malicious code in the cloud
Read
more
CoreStreet is the leader in Credential Validation solutions
for Identity & Access Management and delivers proven technologies for cyber
security, homeland security and physical security used by governments and
corporations worldwide to authorize critical events and physical access to core
assets with confidence.
The CoreStreet offerings for security convergence
include the CoreStreet Validation suite for population-scalable certificate
validation, the CoreStreet PIVMAN suite for mobile identity verification and
access authorization in emergency management and public safety situations, and
the CoreStreet FIPS-201 F5 suite for PIV enabling existing PACS systems.
More than eight years have passed since 9/11 without another terror attack.
Though America is safer, we are not yet safe. While the economy and health care
dominate the national agenda today, terrorism remains a major short-term and
long-term threat to the nation. To answer critical questions about America's
preparedness for security threats, the Aspen Institute Homeland Security
Program presents the Aspen Security Forum. The Forum will bring
together top-level government officials, industry leaders, and leading thinkers
for two days of in-depth discussions at our Aspen Meadows campus in Aspen.
Registration is currently open at www.aspensecurityforum.org.
Researchers
show that it is possible to find would-be victims within cloud hardware; cloud
technologies use virtual machines -- remote versions of traditional onsite
computer systems; the number of these virtual machines can be expanded or
contracted on the fly to meet demand, creating tremendous efficiencies -- but
the actual computing is performed within one or more physical data centers,
creating troubling vulnerabilities Read
more
A
project code-named Sydney will addresses security in virtualized, multi-tenant
environments in which customers are typically sharing data center resources;
Sydney will provide isolation between customers' cloud resources with network
virtualization, and provide secure connections between an enterprise's internal
data center equipment and what it uses in the cloud Read
more
Cloud
computing offers savings and efficiency, but strong concerns lingering over how
companies can secure and manage their apps and data; Novell Inc. says it can
help companies with both sides of the equation, accelerating the creation of
virtualized and cloud apps with built-in security; the company is launching
eight new products and upgrades to aid in “intelligent workload management” Read
more
Researchers
are working on ways to make encrypted data easier to find; advances in
cryptography could mean that future cloud computing services will not only be
able to encrypt documents to keep them safe in the cloud -- but also make it
possible to search and retrieve this information without first decrypting it Read
more
Owl Computing Technologies, a US-owned small business,
designs & markets secure, one-way, cross-domain solutions, enabling
hardware-enforced data transfer between discrete network domains. Owl provides
source firewall-to-destination firewall deployments, and controlled interfaces,
for cross domain solutions that require assured communications capability, and
assurance against data leakage. Owl's EAL-4 certified
DualDiode® Communication Cards were originally based on data
diode technology exclusively licensed from Sandia National Laboratories. With
1000 DualDiode systems deployed throughout the US Intelligence Community and the
DoD, and with US electric power industry deployments, Owl enables secure,
reliable, fast, transfer for all data types under all major operating
systems.
Infosecurity Europe – Europe's No.1 Information Security Event --
Infosecurity Europe provides the fastest route to market for current
products or services and is the perfect promotional platform, with a captive
audience who have immediate purchasing requirements. Connect directly with your
market and build on current or new partnerships in the vibrant and buzzing
atmosphere at Infosecurity Europe.
Do you want to generate new leads, enhance your brand or meet new partners?
Put your products, services and opinions in front of over 12,500 potential
customers. Take the smart option and exhibit at Infosecurity Europe 2010.
Contact Kurt Rauner at 203-840-5821 or krauner@reedexpo.com for further
information.
One
problem facing cloud computing is network crunch: if the service cannot match
the speed and ease of premises-based applications, it may die an early death; a
decade ago latency already killed application service providers (ASPs) Read
more
More
and more companies have gravitated toward the idea of "software as a service"
(SAS) -- using software that is delivered remotely instead of hosted on in-house
servers; more and more companies are now offering security products as services
-- but is it the best approach to security? Read
more
New
service from Amazon's cloud computing division will let users bid, eBay-style,
on unused virtual server capacity, potentially allowing customers to lower the
cost of running applications on Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud Read
more
When
it comes to protecting personal information on the Internet, Kemesa's ShopShield
operates on a straightforward principle: Give out nothing; CEO Steve
Bachenheimer says that “Thieves can't steal what isn't there”; the “give out
nothing” approach is one of three major approaches to protecting personal
information on the Internet: the other two emphasize risk assessment and
sidestepping malware Read
more
Thousands of businesses protect themselves, their assets and their
livelihoods with the Electric Guard Dog, a low cost perimeter security solution
that cannot be distracted, disarmed, corrupted or silenced. The core product is
an electric fence. Installed inside an existing perimeter fence, it pulsates
7,000 volts every 1.3 seconds - just long enough to jolt a person off the fence.
This 7,000 volt 'heart' pulsates from a compact energizer. Fueled by a 12-volt
marine battery, it is continually charged by a solar panel which allows
installation anywhere. Electric Guard Dog 803-786-6333.
Bellevue University, a leader in adult learning, has the
largest combined undergraduate and graduate Security Management
degree program in the nation, according to an April 2007 Security
Magazine/Maddry and Associates study.
The career-relevant curriculum addresses what local public entities,
companies, and the national homeland defense department need in security today.
That's why:
4 of 10 DoD Palace Acquire Civilian Internships went to Bellevue University
graduates.
7 Bellevue University graduates presented at the 2009 National Homeland
Security Conference.
Best yet, you can enroll with your associate's degree or close to 60 credit
hours and complete your bachelor's degree in one year! Listen to real students
share their stories at www.bellevue.edu.
The
challenge of navigating through the vendor hype in the market place, as well as
ongoing industry concerns about security and data integrity, combine with
increasingly demanding regulatory and compliance requirements to make business
choices in cloud computing; Verizon says its Cloud Computing Program could help
Read
more
A
new cloud computing council is formed, aiming to remove barriers to enterprise
use of hosted cloud computing; the council may decide to work on standards-based
solutions around various layers of cloud computing, including the
virtualization, management, and control layers Read
more
Responding
to growing demand for cloud computing, IBM opens a data center in South Korea
and is building one in new Zealand; the company also announced the opening of a
cloud computing lab in Hong Kong; total investment by IBM in these three
facilities is about $100 million Read
more
Winning
the business of the City of Los Angeles is not only a feather in Google's cap
but a meaningful endorsement of cloud computing; L.A.'s choice may also
encourage more large organizations and companies to reconsider the on-premises
computing model of the past several decades Read
more
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The averted Christmas bombing was only the
latest evidence that there is a need for better, and more sophisticated, air
port security technologies; a look at the dossiers of the U.S. Patent Office
shows that many companies and individuals have applied for patents for a variety
of security technologies
Highly developed societies rely more and more
on information systems to maintain and enhance their economic vitality, societal
welfare, and military effectiveness; as data are exchanged between various
users, there is a danger that information could be released to unauthorized
parties; the ability to guarantee secure information flow is becoming more
critical as government and industry push toward increasingly complex information
systems in many areas; K-State computer scientists are developing high-level
policy languages and verification techniques to strengthen the security and
integrity of such systems
The Chinese government wanted to install a
Green Dam around the computers used by Chinese – officially for the purpose of
preventing the spread of pornography and other unseemly digital contents; the
plan was abandoned after it became clear that the true purpose was to control
the spread of political contents and help the government better monitor
political dissent; U.S. software security firm charges that in the process of
creating the dam, the Chinese government and Chinese companies – but also
several non-Chinese companies which stood to gain from participating in the
scheme -- stole its code; it mow demands $2.2 billion in
compensation
Following the firestorm which erupted over the
sale of management operations in major U.S. port to UAE-based DPW, there has
been a relative lull in the interest of foreign companies in buying U.S.
critical infrastructure assets; that interest is now growing again, and the
Obama administration is grappling with how to balance the promotion of commerce
with the bolstering of security
Envelopes sent to the offices of leading
politicians in Alabama found to contain fructose sugar; the nine letters had
different postmarks but were all postmarked in the state of Alabama, and
investigators now believe the sugar-filled mailings came from the same
source
NIH gives the La Jolla Institute $18.8 million
to do immunological research into diseases which could be used in bioterrorist
attacks; the institute will study vaccines and treatments for smallpox, dengue,
malaria, and tuberculosis
In what legal scholars describe as a landmark
ruling, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit could set the
first broad judicial standards for the use of Tasers; the case involves a
California police officer who tased a passive driver during a routine traffic
stop in 2005; the court found that the facts of the case clearly show that the
driver was never a threat to the officer
Some people need to get out more: A video of
the what is aptly described as the world's most useless machine – a robotic box
that shuts itself off the minute you turn it on – proves popular on
ouTube
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U.S. Department of Homeland Security · Washington,
DC 20528 · 800-439-1420
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Preparedness, Response & Recovery Publications Update
Preparedness, Response & Recovery Publications for U.S. Department of
Homeland Security. This information has recently been updated, and is now
available. Added link to:
Whole body scanner may be part of the answer, but not all of
it
Published 7 January 2010
Whole body scanners should provide the answer to security
screening, but the human element – people get bored, distracted, and careless –
will make them less than flawless; the future of screening is technology that
reduces the possibility of human error to zero; there is also a need for
passenger profiling that does not need to take into account the race or religion
of the passenger
Matthew Harwood writes
that the controversial scanning technology, which allows security officials to
peer underneath a passenger’s clothes, has seen a big push since the attack
because 23-year-old jihadist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had sewn the high
explosive he tried to detonate on the plane in his underwear — an innovation
that eluded airport security in the Netherlands and Nigeria.
As former homeland security chief Michael Chertoff argued in the Washington Post, whole body
scanners are one more critically important layer of security that can detect
contraband metal detectors can’t. “Watch lists surely are an important layer, as
is intelligence-sharing, but others, such as the deployment of advanced
detection technology, are just as important,” he wrote (Harwood notes that
Chertoff has a conflict-of-interest when promoting whole body imaging: One of
the clients of his security and risk management firm is a manufacturer of whole
body imaging technology).
Chris Yates, an aviation security analyst with Jane’s Information Group, wrote an article for BBC.com, reminding readers that these
full body scanners, while certainly a “game changer,” are not “the panacea to
the threats we face today.”
Why? Because of the human element. “Full body scanners are often only as good
as the people paid to be behind the screens, analyzing the succession of complex
images scrolling in front of their eyes,” he writes. “Staff monitoring screens
typically only do so for a two-hour stretch - one of a rotation of duties to
stop them from getting bored.”
Yates believes the future of screening is technology that reduces the
possibility of human error to zero and discusses some emerging technology
attempting to do just that. He also argues for passenger profiling that does not
need to take into account the race or religion of the passenger.
The aviation industry routinely collects vast amounts of data on our
traveling habits that can be used to build up an extremely useful profile.
Information regarding the destination, frequency and duration of overseas trips
allows those tasked with ensuring the security of flights to positively identify
passengers who may travel to regions of the world determined to be high-risk for
example. That enables higher levels of security to be applied to that person as
he or she passes through the airport.
In the end, Yates argues for a smart blend of the best detection technology
and the best profiling techniques to sniff out those that target the commercial
aviation sector.
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