Posts Tagged ‘TSA’

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Researchers identify genetic defect that leaves people fingerprintless

By alisa in Criminal Records, Screening at October 7th, 2011 | No comments

Fingerprints are a valuable identification tool for everything from crime detection to international travel. But what happens when the tips of our fingers are missing those distinctive patterns of ridges?

It’s not the premise for a science fiction movie, but a real-life condition known as adermatoglyphia. It’s also known as “Immigration Delay Disease,” because affected individuals experience difficulty in passing through security or checkpoints where fingerprint identification is required. Now Prof. Eli Sprecher from Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center has identified the genetic mutation responsible for this unusual condition.
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Video: Traveler ‘Outraged’ After Hair Checked for Bombs

By Dawn in Screening, Security at September 29th, 2011 | No comments

Isis Brantley was stopped by TSA in the Atlanta Airport while going through security on her way to an American Airlines flight to Dallas. Isis, a hairstylist, was rocking her signature haircut. Brantley became angry at the TSA after agents when they began searching her hair for a bomb.

“I just heard these voices saying, ‘Hey you, hey you, ma’am, stop. Stop — the lady with the hair, you,” Brantley told the Dallas KXAS radio station. She then claims that TSA agents stopped her so they could “check for weapons.” A female agent started “digging in her scalp.”

Brantley, it should be noted, has not cut her hair since she was 12 (she is now 53).

Last week, when she told the press that the TSA at Atlanta’s Airport stopped her to search in her Afro for bombs and she said, “Why would I hide a bomb in my afro?”

The TSA released a statement to the news station saying, “Additional screening may be required for clothing, headwear or hair where prohibited items could be hidden. This passenger left the checkpoint prior to the completion of the screening process. She was offered but refused private screening.”

But Brantley says that “they have never done that to me before.” A TSA agent apologized to her regardless.

View video@msnbc

 

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Weird smuggling incidents reported by TSA

By alisa in Crime, Screening, Security at September 16th, 2011 | No comments

Within days of each other, the TSA reported two separate incidents involving wildlife trafficking in the U.S.

On Aug. 26, a woman heading to board a China-bound flight from the Los Angeles International Airport was arrested by Fish and Wildlife Service officers for smuggling two parrots. TSA patted her down and bound the birds wrapped in tube socks, tapped to her chest. She was charged with smuggling goods and for the exportation of an endangered species.

This woman’s attempt was just one day after a potential “Snakes on a Plane” incident at the Miami International Airport. A man traveling from Brazil attempted to board a flight with seven reptiles stuffed in his pants. The TSA caught him after they discovered suspicious items when he walked through an Advanced Imaging Technology screening machine.Seven exotic snakes and three tortoises were found wrapped in nylons, stuffed in his pants. Fish and Wildlife Service officers arrested him and he was charged with a felony of violating the Lacey Act, prohibiting unlawful transport of fish, wildlife and plants. Read the full article »

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Boston Airport Tests New Behavior Detection Program

By alisa in Criminal Background Check, Interrogation, Investigations, Security, Terrorism at August 2nd, 2011 | No comments

A new level of security imposed by the TSA at the Boston Logan International Airport will be enforced Tuesday. Behavior Detection officers (BDOs) will ask a few questions and look for anomalies in every traveler passing through Logan’s Terminal A, TSA spokesperson Greg Soule told msnbc.com. “Officers are trained to look for specific behaviors that would indicate if an individual is acting suspicious and has a fear of discovery,” he said.

This pilot program is “modeled after a number of behavior-detection programs used by other security and law-enforcement agencies, but tailored to TSA’s specific mission.” The officers will receive both classroom and on-the-job training.

The agency “will evaluate how the program will impact security, screening operations and passenger through-put,” Soule said. If deemed a success, the pilot program could expand to other airports by this fall.

Its success is predetermined by the fact that security can look people in the eye and communicate with them instead of inspecting them through a machine.

TSA informed the flying public of the pilot program with signs in front of the affected airport checkpoint and through a local media event held on Monday.

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