The Orlando Sanford International Airport is reattempting to opt out of using Transportation Security Administration employees for screening under new rules that should make it easier for airports to contract the work. A law enacted last month requires TSA to approve applications from airports that want to contract their passenger screening and security services if contractors can do the job as good or better than federal screeners without affecting costs. TSA has to provide feedback on the basis for any decision, including how denied applications could be improved. Four Montana airports and the Springfield Branson National Airport in Missouri applied for the …
Browsing: Transportation Security Administration
Redacting sensitive information in agency documents used to be a 15-step process at the Transportation Security Administration. That was until a poorly redacted document was posted online in 2009. The incident prompted Emma Garrison-Alexander, TSA’s assistant administrator for information technology, to create standard document redaction tools and procedures agencywide. The feature is now an automated tool also available to private users of Adobe Acrobat Professional software. “We have to ensure that we’re securing data and networks,” Garrison-Alexander said after being honored at ISC2’s Government Information Security Leadership Awards. Garrison-Alexander was among several federal employees and contractors honored last week. Read more about…
The Transportation Security Administration has initiated disciplinary action against an employee who told a female passenger to “Get her freak on” in a handwritten note placed inside her bag. The passenger tweeted a picture of the note – which was written on a “Notice of Inspection” form that TSA places inside checked bags that are going to be searched. The employee has been removed from screening duty and is awaiting further disciplinary action. According to the TSA blog: “The handwritten note was highly inappropriate and unprofessional, and TSA has zero tolerance for this type of behavior. Agency officials have also…
An Atlanta TV station recently reported a passenger going through Hartsfield- Jackson International Airport was subject to a TSA “hair pat-down”. The woman had already gone through security when TSA agents tracked her down and asked to search her hair for explosives. She said no, but was then told she wouldn’t be able to board her flight without a “hair pat-down”. The woman has a massive fro and is quite a character, but a terrorist, I think not. Watch the full report below.
The former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld got hung up in Chicago O’Hare International Airport yesterday afternoon. Rumsfled was stopped by TSA agents and patted down after setting off the metal detector. The 13th and 21st Secretary of Defense was reported as being a good sport by TMZ, they even have pictures to prove it! The former SECDEF even tweeted about his pat down: [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/RumsfeldOffice/status/91502230078898176″] Rumsfeld was in hometown of Chicago attending a Heritage Foundation Panel & Luncheon.
Not much news out of this morning’s confirmation hearing for Gen. Robert Harding, President Obama’s second nominee to head the Transportation Security Administration. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, asked him whether he’d commit to pursuing collective bargaining rights for TSA employees. Harding said he hadn’t reached a decision, and said he would talk with “TSA employees and stakeholders” before deciding whether to press the issue. Obama’s first nominee, Erroll Southers, took a similar stance during his confirmation hearing in November, saying only that he would study the issue. But that noncommittal stance was enough to earn him a hold from…
Seems the American Federation of Government Employees wants to win the right to represent the TSA’s screening workforce: The union filed a petition with the Federal Labor Relations Authority calling for a TSA-wide election on the subject. That would be a substantial step towards collective bargaining rights for TSA employees.
A Pennsylvania college student sued the federal government Wednesday, saying that TSA and FBI officials detained him at an airport because he was carrying a set of English-Arabic flashcards, reports The Washington Post. Nicholas George, 22, of Montgomery County, Pa., is a senior majoring in physics and Middle Eastern studies at California’s Pomona College. In his lawsuit, he argues that he was detained for five hours in August at the Philadelphia airport because three Transportation Security Administration officers, two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and two Philadelphia police officers were suspicious of his flashcards and semester studying abroad in the…
The Christmas Day underpants bomber has spurred contractors to create security devices they hope may be deployed in airports across the country, reports the Los Angeles Times today. Security companies are scrambling to develop devices to sniff for explosives, screen shoes and analyze liquids in bottles. They’re all hoping for a piece of the Transportation Security Administration’s $1 billion in stimulus funding: $700 million to improve baggage screening and $300 million for detection of explosives on passengers. And it’s not just contractors striving to create new machines. The Homeland Security Department’s science and technology directorate’s New Jersey laboratory tests and…
(Updated below) Erroll Southers, President Obama’s nominee to head the Transportation Security Administration, has withdrawn his nomination, according to the White House. Southers was nominated in September, but his nomination has been stalled in the Senate for months. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., placed a hold on Southers’ nomination; DeMint was worried that Southers would allow TSA employees to join labor unions. We’ll have more on this, on the blog and the homepage, throughout the day. Update, 11:10 a.m.: Responses are starting to trickle in from union leaders. Here’s Colleen Kelley, the president of the National Treasury Employees Union: I am…