The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) began the third and final implementation phase of the Hazmat Threat Assessment Program with the fingerprinting of commercial truck drivers applying to renew or transfer the hazardous materials endorsement (HME) on their state-issued commercial drivers licenses (CDL). During phase one, TSA conducted name-based security threat assessments on all 2.7 million licensed Hazmat drivers to determine whether any presented a potential terrorist threat. Phase two augmented this effort by adding a fingerprint-based FBI criminal history records check and immigration status check for new HME applicants. This third and final phase will require drivers seeking to renew or transfer their current HME to undergo the fingerprint-based security threat assessment.

Three Alaskans and one former state resident sued the US Transportation Security Administration in an effort to find out what information the agency collected about them as part of its troubled airline passenger screening program. In a complaint filed with the U..District Court in Anchorage, two travel agents and two public school administrators argued that the TSA broke the law when it secretly assembled profiles of air travelers when it tested its system last year. They also said the agency should be prevented from destroying any of the other passenger profiles it has created. The plaintiffs, who have challenged the passenger screening program in the past, include school officials who rely on commercial air services to travel around the remote parts of the state. One of them, John Davis, said he has run into problems because his name matches one on a “no fly” list of suspected security risks. Another, Charles Beckley, recently retired to Montana. The TSA has been trying to develop a more reliable method to check passengers against the “no fly” list, over the objections of activists who say such a system would unnecessarily compromise personal privacy. In an effort to cut down on cases of mistaken identity, the TSA last year hired a contractor to combine airline flight records with passengers’ date of birth, home addresses and other personal information purchased from commercial data brokers. The TSA had said earlier that it wouldn’t use personal information.

Still proving that the extent of human idiocy knows no bounds, a passenger left a note on an airplane while enroute to Houston. Federal agents arrested a San Antonio, Texas, man after Southwest Airlines Flight 21 landed at a Houston airport. The 136 passengers and five crew were held for questioning while the Boeing 737 was searched for weapons or explosives. None were found. The note is believed to have been a hoax by Elias Jeremiah Cervantez, 20, of San Antonio, as the plane flew from Odessa, Texas, to Dallas, the statement said. The note was found on the following leg of the flight from Dallas to Houston. Cervantez faces a charge of making a hoax bomb threat against an aircraft. If convicted, he could be imprisoned for up to five years and pay a USD$250,000 fine, according to the statement

Flight recorder data from the Air France plane that crashed at Toronto Airport is intact despite the fire that gutted the aircraft, and investigators said on Friday the data should help pinpoint the cause of the crash. All 309 people on board survived after the Airbus A340 ran off the end of the runway at almost 100 mph (160 km/h) during a severe thunderstorm on Tuesday, plunging into a ravine and burning to a charred and twisted hulk. The two black boxes — flight data and cockpit voice recorders — were recovered from the dismembered plane about 24 hours after the crash. Investigators said they had eliminated a number of mechanical factors that could have caused an Air France jet to overshoot the runway and crash into a ravine in Toronto last week. Investigators managed to remove the black boxes — flight data and cockpit voice recorders — from the burned out wreckage and have determined the jet landed around 4,000 feet (1,220 metres) down the 9,000- foot runway. That is nearly half way down the runway and, given the heavy rain at the time, may have made it almost impossible to stop the plane before the end of the strip.

Bombings on London’s transport system kept a small percent of passengers away from the capital’s airports last month, although July volumes were still higher than last year on low-cost airline growth and a long-haul recovery, British airports operator BAA said. BAA, whose seven airports include London’s Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, said passenger traffic in July — one of its busiest months — rose 2.6 percent year-onyear to a record 14.6 million. “The rate of growth at BAA’s London airports was impacted by the London bombings,” BAA said in a statement. “In addition, capacity constraints in this peak month reduced the ability of Heathrow to accommodate true demand growth.” BAA said passenger traffic fell 0.6 percent at Heathrow in July compared to a 1.9 percent rise in the last 12 months to end- July. It rose 3.3 percent at Gatwick and 6.1 percent at Stansted, where rapidly-expanding Ryanair and easyJet have operations.

An Oklahoma man told federal investigators he forgot a pipe bomb he built for fun was in his luggage when he tried to board a plane, according to court documents. Charles Alfred Dreyling Jr., 24, was charged with trying to carry the bomb aboard a Delta Air Lines flight from Oklahoma City to Atlanta on Wednesday, according to the documents. Dreyling was released Thursday on USD$10,000 bail. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison and a USD$250,000 fine. FBI agents and Oklahoma City police officers said the pipe bomb contained a metal cartridge filled with gunpowder attached to a detonator made from model rocket parts, according to an affidavit filed by the FBI.

SecureLogic has been awarded a contract by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA), a division of the Department of Homeland Security, to conduct a pilot program of its iScreen aviation security software at a U.S. airport to be determined. The pilot is expected to begin in the fall of this year. The TSA will evaluate results of the pilot and determine how well the product will work in U.S. airports. iScreen software offers a new approach for managing, controlling and monitoring complex airport security screening operations. SecureLogic software is designed specifically to help the TSA and airports increase the overall amount of bags screened, detect threats, reduce bottlenecks in the screening process, and more efficiently deploy resources. Gary Koren, CEO of SecureLogic said, “This contract helps establish our presence and our large scale security software offering in the U.S. marketplace. We are confident that we have the capabilities and software to make this pilot a success.”

Ahmed Ressam Apprehended by Customs Officers in Port Angeles in 1999 Ahmed Ressam, the “Millennium Bomber” was sentenced by U.S. District Judge John Coughenour to serve 22 years for his aborted explosives smuggling attempt at Port Angeles, Washington. Ressam, trained by al-Qaida in Afghanistan, intended to use the explosives and bombmaking materials to detonate a bomb at the Los Angeles International Airport during the busy Christmas-New Year’s holiday travel season prior to the 2000 millennium. Ressam arrived from Canada in a rental car at the MV Coho ferry landing in Port Angeles in the early evening of December 14, 1999. Ressam’s evasive answers aroused the suspicions of CBP officer Diana Dean who directed a search of Ressam’s vehicle and belongings. “It wasn’t just one thing that tipped me off,” said Dean, “there was something strange about his mannerisms and he was stalling in answering my questions.” CBP Officers Mark Johnson, Dan Clem and Mark Chapman assisted Dean in the vehicle inspection, which revealed bags of powder and unidentified timing devices in the trunk. The discovery totaled twelve plastic bags containing 124 pounds of urea and sulfate, along with four boxes containing homemade timing devices.

week training program, law enforcement officers assigned to various airports are provided instruction on handler skills, explosives safety, and safe handling and accountability of explosives canine training aids. The teams spent much of their time searching for explosives in specialized indoor and outdoor training areas that resemble the airport environment, including aircraft searches where teams check cockpits, cabins and overhead storage bins. The teams also practice searching warehouses, luggage and a parking lot filled with cars, trucks, vans and buses.