TSA

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New Airport Scanners Stacked Up In Storage

Homeland Security took 7 months just to order them

(Newser) - Dozens of full-body airport scanners are gathering dust in storage more than a year after the administration provided Homeland Security with the funds to pay for them. It took the department 7 months just to order the 150 screening machines included in last year's stimulus bill. More than 100 have...

Screeners Will Roam Airports, Test Random Fliers

Portable detectors will take swabs from hands, luggage

(Newser) - TSA screeners will take a more proactive approach to finding explosives in airports under a new security program. Screeners will walk around airport gates and security lines with portable explosives detectors, taking swabs from random passengers' hands and luggage. The security agency first ran a test of the program after...

TSA Forces Disabled Boy to Remove Leg Braces

Police officer complains of TSA overkill

(Newser) - A developmentally delayed child was forced to remove his leg braces at the airport to prove he wasn't a security risk. "Unfortunately, it's no joke," writes Daniel Rubin for Philly.com . The child, Ryan, was en route to Disney Land to celebrate his fourth birthday when TSA officials...

Muslims Issue Fatwa Against Airport Scanners

Machines violate rules on modesty

(Newser) - Body scanners at airports violate Islamic rules on modesty and Muslim-American groups have barred the faithful from using them. “It is a violation of clear Islamic teachings that men or women be seen naked by other men and women," an influential Muslim council said in a fatwa forbidding...

Gizmodo, Drudge Fooled by Fake 'TSA Porn'

That's not an image from a body scanner, just a nude model

(Newser) - Gizmodo gets about “30,000 views in a single day” of a post with hot TSA full body scanner pics of an attractive female, Kashmir Hill writes, but it would be wise “to add a ‘this is a hoax’ update” since the photos are obviously fake....

Airport Screener Out of Job After Prank

Teased passenger with fake bag of drugs

(Newser) - A college student returning to school after the winter break fell victim to a prank at Philadelphia's airport by a TSA worker who pretended to find a plastic bag of white powder in her carry-on luggage. The worker is no longer employed by the TSA, said a spokeswoman, who declined...

Obama's TSA Nominee Pulls Out Under Fire

Says he was being used by those with a 'political agenda'

(Newser) - Erroll Southers, Barack Obama's choice to lead the Transportation Security Administration, withdrew his name today, saying his nomination had become a lightning rod for those with a political agenda. Southers' confirmation has been blocked by Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, who says he was worried Southers would allow TSA employees to...

How an 8-Year-Old Got On the No-Fly List

Misidentification has earned Mikey Hicks repeated pat-downs

(Newser) - On its website, the TSA specifically denies that there is an 8-year-old on any of its watch lists. But try telling that to Mikey Hicks, who has had problems getting on airplanes his entire life. As a baby, Hicks was denied a seat on a plane because, officials told his...

Forget Underwear, Fear the Butt Bomb

Explosives hidden in the rectum could prove undetectable

(Newser) - The Detroit Christmas bombing may have failed, but like the shoe-bombing attempt, it could have lasting implications for travelers, this time in the form of pat-downs that "are a little more, shall we say, intimate," writes Michael Crowley. How else, after all, to detect an unobtrusive amount of...

Newark TSA Guard Briefly Stopped Intruder

Tape comes from Continental; airport cams were down

(Newser) - The Newark TSA agent who allowed an unidentified man to enter the secure zone through an exit, setting off an hours-long alert, had stopped the interloper just minutes before and was chatting on his phone when the man breached security. The man kissed a departing traveler goodbye and then went...

Biggest Threat to Security? Slackers
 Biggest Threat to 
 Security? Slackers 
OPINION
Jan 6, 2010 12:42 PM CST

Biggest Threat to Security? Slackers

No new rules would be needed if people would stop slacking off

(Newser) - The recent lapses in US security highlight one thing and one thing only: “Certain people just need to stop slacking off,” writes Dan Pashman. Everyone knows there are some jobs where slacking off is okay (NBA player, fast-food worker, secretary of the Interior), but there are others—say,...

Security Scare Closes Newark Airport Terminal

Screening resumes, but man who entered through exit still at large

(Newser) - A Newark Liberty Airport terminal has reopened after a man used a screening exit to enter the facility, setting off a massive manhunt and lockdown. The man had not been located as of around midnight ET. Screening of passengers in Terminal C, which mostly handles Continental traffic, resumed at 10:...

WH Terror Counsel: 'System Didn't Work'
 WH Terror 
 Counsel: 
 'System 
 Didn't Work' 
TALK SHOW ROUNDUP
Jan 3, 2010 11:30 AM CST

WH Terror Counsel: 'System Didn't Work'

Napolitano's comment haunts your Sunday dial this week, too

(Newser) - Forget Janet Napolitano, the system that let a would-be Nigerian suicide bomber aboard a Detroit-bound flight didn't work, White House Counterterrorism Adviser John Brennan told State of the Union today—though "every other day the system has worked this year." "There was no smoking gun. There was...

Ignore 'Privacy Ideologues,' We Need Body Scans
 Ignore 'Privacy Ideologues,' 
 We Need Body Scans 
Michael Chertoff
Jan 1, 2010 9:42 AM CST

Ignore 'Privacy Ideologues,' We Need Body Scans

Passengers are at risk without them, says Michael Chertoff

(Newser) - For one former director of homeland security, it's a no-brainer: President Obama must ignore "privacy ideologues" and put full-body scanners at the nation's airports. Otherwise, it's just a matter of time before al-Qaeda strikes successfully with plastics explosives, writes Michael Chertoff. The notion that these imagers amount to "...

Feds Threaten Bloggers Over Leaked Air Security Memo

Agents squawk about memo sent to airlines, airports

(Newser) - Two bloggers who posted details of new airport security directives online were visited at home by agents from the Transportation Security Administration demanding to know their sources. Armed agents vowed to obtain a criminal search warrant if travel writer Mike Frischling didn't identify his source and threatened to get him...

Today's GOP Would Have Impeached Gore After 9/11

Detroit response shows partisanship trumps patriotism

(Newser) - The aftermath of the Detroit terror attempt has exposed some ugly truths about American politics, writes Chris Bowers. He lists several in Open Left.
  • The GOP would have impeached Al Gore over 9/11. The "aggressive, partisan response" this failed terror attempt met shows they certainly wouldn't have been saying
...

Reid Will Force Senate Vote on TSA Nominee

Sen. DeMint blocking transportation chief over unionization

(Newser) - Harry Reid plans a parliamentary move of his own to break Jim DeMint's hold on the nominee to run the Transportation Security Administration. When the Senate returns the week of Jan. 19, Reid will hold a vote to end DeMint's filibuster on the nomination of Erroll Southers, reports Talking Points...

No TSA Chief in Detroit Crisis, Thanks to GOP Senator

Agency leaderless as DeMint blocks nom

(Newser) - Democratic leaders and airline industry officials are blaming GOP Sen. Jim DeMint for the fact that the Transportation Security Administration has no chief as it struggles to recover from the terrorist near-miss on Christmas Day. DeMint, chair of an aviation subcommittee, has been blocking the appointment of counterterrorism expert Erroll...

Tighter Security Means No More JetBlue TV

'This is patently ridiculous, and also, sucks,' says Gawker

(Newser) - The latest casualty of the TSA’s updated airline security regulations: JetBlue LiveTV programming, at least on flights that originate outside the US. The TV service—a “distinguishing feature” of the airline, as Vimeo founder Jakob Lodwick points out—has been disabled in the wake of Northwest Flight 253,...

Missing From Screening List? Saudi Arabia
Missing From Screening
List? Saudi Arabia
OPINION
Dec 10, 2009 4:34 PM CST

Missing From Screening List? Saudi Arabia

It's the country that was home to 15 of the 9/11 hijackers

(Newser) - There's a lot to criticize in the TSA's recent leak of an improperly redacted security manual. But the most outrageous vulnerability is an omission on the list of countries whose citizens are given extra scrutiny. "What's missing from the list? Saudi Arabia," writes Michael Smerconish. "You know,...

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