Entries Tagged "homeland security"

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TSA's Ideal Laptop Bag

This seems not to be a joke.

The Transportation Security Administration is interested in evaluating—and eventually approving –- the design of certain laptop bags, so travelers would be permitted to pass through security checkpoints without having to remove their laptops.

[…]

To accomplish this, the TSA RFI pointed out that the laptop bag would need to meet the following requirements:

  • The carrying bag cannot exceed any one of the proposed dimensions – 16 inches in height, 24 inches wide and 36 inches long.
  • The materials that make up the bag cannot degrade the quality of the X-ray image of the laptop.
  • No straps, pockets, zippers, handles or closures of the bag can interfere with the image of the laptop.
  • No electronics, chargers, batteries, wires, paper products, pens or other contents of the bag can shield the image of the laptop.

TSA is inviting bag designers and manufacturers to come up with creative ways to meet these design requirements, but it has also suggested three concepts of its own:

  • A bag that would open completely, and lie horizontally on the X-ray belt, such that one side with hold only the laptop.
  • A bag that would open completely, leaving the laptop standing vertically, supported by clips.
  • A bag that would pull apart in separate compartments, with one compartment containing only the laptop.

Doesn’t sound like a particularly useful laptop bag.

Posted on March 7, 2008 at 10:42 AM • View Comments

Why Some Terrorist Attacks Succeed and Others Fail

In “Underlying Reasons for Success and Failure of Terrorist Attacks: Selected Case Studies” (Homeland Security Institute, June 2007), the authors examine eight recent terrorist plots against commercial aviation and passenger rail, and come to some interesting conclusions.

From the “Executive Summary”:

The analytic results indicated that the most influential factors determining the success or failure of a terrorist attack are those that occur in the pre-execution phases. While safeguards and controls at airports and rail stations are critical, they are most effective when coupled with factors that can be leveraged to detect the plot in the planning stages. These factors include:

  • Poor terrorist operational security (OPSEC). The case studies indicate that even plots that are otherwise well-planned and operationally sound will fail if there is a lack of attention to OPSEC. Security services cannot “cause” poor OPSEC, but they can create the proper conditions to capitalize on it when it occurs.
  • Observant public and vigilant security services. OPSEC breaches are a significant factor only if they are noticed. In cases where the public was sensitive to suspicious behavior, lapses in OPSEC were brought to the attention of authorities by ordinary citizens. However, the authorities must likewise be vigilant and recognize the value of unexpected information that may seem unimportant, but actually provides the opening to interdict a planned attack.
  • Terrorist profile indicators. Awareness of and sensitivity to behavioral indicators, certain activities, or past involvement with extremist elements can help alert an observant public and help a vigilant security apparatus recognize a potential cell of terrorist plotters.
  • Law enforcement or intelligence information sharing. Naturally, if security services are aware of an impending attack they will be better able to interdict it. The key, as stated above, is to recognize the value of information that may seem unimportant but warrants further investigation. Security services may not recognize the context into which a certain piece of information fits, but by sharing with other organizations more parts of the puzzle can be pieced together. Information should be shared laterally, with counterpart organizations; downward, with local law enforcement, who can serve as collectors of information; and with higher elements capable of conducting detailed analysis. Intelligence collection and analysis are relatively new functions for law enforcement. Training is a key element in their ability to recognize and respond to indicators.
  • International cooperation. Nearly all terrorist plots, including most of those studied for this project, have an international connection. This could include overseas support elements, training camps, or movement of funds. The sharing of information among allies appears from our analysis to have a positive impact on interdicting attack plans as well as apprehending members of larger networks.

I especially like this quote, which echos what I’ve been saying for a long time now:

One phenomenon stands out: terrorists are rarely caught in the act during the execution phase of an operation, other than instances in which their equipment or weapons fail. Rather, plots are most often foiled during the pre-execution phases.

Intelligence, investigation, and emergency response: that’s where we should be spending our counterterrorism dollar. Defending the targets is rarely the right answer.

Posted on February 28, 2008 at 6:25 AM • View Comments

Spending Money on the Wrong Security Threats

This story is a year and a half old, but the lessons are still good:

Kim Hyten, emergency management director in Putnam County, said he didn’t realize homeland security grants can now be used to prepare for tornados. As a result, Putnam County is using its grant money to prepare for something else.

“Weapons of mass destruction,” Hyten said.

That’s right—weapons of mass destruction. This year, Putnam County spent most of its $58,000 homeland security grant to buy dozens of gas masks, boxes full of chemical suits, a plutonium-detecting gamma and neutron ray radiological monitor and, for good measure, this rural county about fifty miles west of Indianapolis also ordered plenty of weapons of mass destruction test strips.

But asked whether weapons of mass destruction are a concern, Hyten replied: “The weapons of mass destruction—I don’t believe this county has ever, when we did our terrorism protection plan, ever looked at that we’d be a targeted site.”

Posted on February 19, 2008 at 7:18 AM • View Comments

DHS Warns of Female Suicide Bombers

First paragraph:

Terrorists increasingly favor using women as suicide bombers to thwart security and draw attention to their causes, a new FBI-Department of Homeland Security assessment concludes.

Photo caption:

Female suicide bombers can use devices to make them appear pregnant, a security assessment says.

Second paragraph:

The assessment said the agencies “have no specific, credible intelligence indicating that terrorist organizations intend to utilize female suicide bombers against targets in the homeland.”

Does the DHS think we’re idiots or something?

Posted on February 13, 2008 at 12:35 PM • View Comments

TSA Misses the Point, Again

They’re checking IDs more carefully, looking for forgeries:

Black lights will help screeners inspect the ID cards by illuminating holograms, typically of government seals, that are found in licenses and passports. Screeners also are getting magnifying glasses that highlight tiny inscriptions found in borders of passports and other IDs. About 2,100 of each are going to the nation’s 800 airport checkpoints.

The closer scrutiny of passenger IDs is the latest Transportation Security Administration effort to check passengers more thoroughly than simply having them walk through metal detectors.

[…]

More than 40 passengers have been arrested since June in cases when TSA screeners spotted altered passports, fraudulent visas and resident ID cards, and forged driver’s licenses. Many of them were arrested on immigration charges.

ID checks have nothing to do with airport security. And even if they did, anyone can fly on a fake ID. And enforcing immigration laws is not what the TSA does.

In related news, look at this page from the TSA’s website:

We screen every passenger; we screen every bag so that your memories are from where you went, not how you got there. We’re here to help your travel plans be smooth and stress free. Please take a moment to become familiar with some of our security measures. Doing so now will help save you time once you arrive at the airport.

I know they don’t mean it that way, but doesn’t it sound like it’s saying “We know it doesn’t help, but it might make you feel better”?

And why is this even news?

So Jason—looking every bit the middle-aged man on an uneventful trip to anywhere—shows a boarding pass and an ID to a TSA document checker, and he is directed to a checkpoint where, unbeknown to the security officer on site, the real test begins.

He gets through, which in real life would mean a terrorist was headed toward a plane with a bomb.

To be clear, the TSA allowed CNN to see and record this test, and the agency is not concerned with CNN showing it. The TSA says techniques such as the one used in Tampa are known to terrorists and openly discussed on known terror Web sites.

Also relevant: “Confessions of a TSA Agent“:

The traveling public has no idea that the changes the TSA makes come as orders sent down directly from Washington D.C. Those orders may have reasons, but we little screeners at a screening checkpoint will never be told what the background might be. We get told to do something, and just as in the military, we are expected to make it happen—no ifs, ands or buts about it. Perhaps the changes are as a result of some event occurring in the nation or the world, perhaps it’s based on some newly received information or interrogation. What the traveling public needs to understand the necessity for flexibility. If a passenger asks us why we’re doing something, in all likelihood we couldn’t tell them even if we really did know the answer. This is a business of sensitive information that is used to make choices that can have life changing effects if the information is divulged to the wrong person(s). Just trust that we must know something that prompts us to be doing something.

I have no idea why Kip Hawley is surprised that the TSA is as unpopular with Americans as the IRS.

EDITED TO ADD (1/30): The TSA has a blog, and Kip Hawley wrote the first post. This could be interesting….

EDITED TO ADD (1/31): There is some speculation that the “Confessions of a TSA Agent” is a hoax. I don’t know.

EDITED TO ADD (2/4): More on the TSA blog.

Posted on January 29, 2008 at 3:13 PM • View Comments

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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.