Word: tsa
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...despite new security measures, the various IDs that many ports and other facilities use are too easy to steal or fake. The agency is ready to begin testing several types of cards at the ports of L.A.--Long Beach, Calif., and Philadelphia--Wilmington, Del., according to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) spokesman Robert Johnson. If all goes well, the card could go nationwide next year...
...federal agency in charge of airline safety dragging its feet when it comes to arming pilots? It's looking that way to critics of the Transportation Security Administration. Over TSA objections, Congress last November passed legislation ordering the agency to come up with a program for training pilots to carry guns on flights and to have it under way by Feb. 25, 2003. The TSA now says there is no chance the training program will be up and running by that date. Proponents are outraged, claiming that the agency is quietly working to quash the program. "The TSA is trying...
Some pilots complain that the screening process the TSA is expected to require is too onerous, mandating two psychological evaluations. The pilots also object to the TSA's proposal to use revolvers rather than the faster-acting automatic weapons most federal law-enforcement agencies use, and to keep them in locked boxes, which would need several seconds to open in an attack. "The TSA is still fighting the law and what thousands of pilots want," says Steve Luckey, security chairman of the Air Line Pilots Association...
...TSA says it is working as quickly as possible and that the bill requires only that a program be prepared by Feb. 25. But an agency spokesman admits that the first training class--whenever it gets under way--will have only 48 pilots. The TSA also says it has no money for any classes after that. Mica plans to keep the pressure on. He has introduced a bill to close one loophole and arm pilots of cargo planes too. --By Sally B. Donnelly
...marshals (FAMs), a force of highly trained security officers who travel incognito on selected flights to look out for possible trouble. Though the number of FAMs has increased dramatically since Sept. 11, 2001, the exhausting and often boring job is causing morale problems. In response, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is about to take some agents off airplanes and reassign them to surveillance duty in airport terminals. The land-based FAMs will watch out for suspicious behavior and enter their observations into a specially configured Palm Pilot linked to a TSA database. The FAMs will be authorized to detain...