The report claimed the suspects testified against terrorists they had been working with in exchange for protection in the federal witness security program (WITSEC). Neither of the two was identified by name but the US Marshals Service (USMS), which oversees WTSEC, failed to turn over the hidden identities to the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) for inclusion on the federal no-fly list. “In July 2012, the USMS stated that it was unable to locate two former WITSEC participants identified as known or suspected terrorists,” the inspector general wrote, “and that through its investigative efforts it has concluded that one individual was and the other individual was believed to be residing outside of the United States.” The report also states that the Justice Department does not “definitively know” exactly how many known or suspected terrorists are being protected by the federal government. The inspector general was careful to note that the testimony garnered from the witnesses have “provided invaluable and critical information and testimony,” including the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and 2007 attempt to blow up fuel tanks at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. … Read More
Big City Obstacles to Getting Home in a Disaster
Think about possible impediments to getting home in an emergency so you can plan ahead. … Read More
Airline passenger says excessive hand lotion triggered ‘nerve-wracking’ TSA search
An Owasso, Oklahoma resident who wished to be identified by only her first name told KOTV News that she was randomly selected for a hand swab just a few days after the Boston Marathon bombing.According to Linda, she was still shaken up over the April 15 terrorist attack when she found herself being accused of carrying explosive materials.While going through security at Ohio’s Port Columbus International Airport, she was singled out and delayed by the Transportation Security Administration, she told the network. “They said, ‘You’re testing for nitrates,” Linda told station. The woman said she was stunned and confused about the swab results and could not think of a reason why she tested positive.“I was shocked,” she said. “I don’t know how that happened. The only thing that went through my mind was, ‘What did I do? What did I touch?’ Because I had been at work all morning.”Linda remembered that she had washed her hands at work and had used the lotion next to the sink. She told the TSA officers that she had accidentally used too much lotion and therefore applied it on her hands, forearms and elbows before going to the airport.The TSA officers then explained that many hand lotions and soaps contain glycerin, which is a common ingredient in explosives. But even though the officers acknowledged the source of the false positive, Linda was still sent to a small private room to undergo further screening, in addition to the X-ray screening that every air passenger goes through.“I was probably in the little private room for 15 minutes, which was nerve-wracking,” Linda said.In a statement to KOTV News, the Transportation and Security Administration said that public safety isn’t always convenient.“As with any technology, occasional false positives are possible. However, this technology is a valuable tool and one of the many layers of security designed to keep travelers safe,” the agency said.But it’s not just glycerin in hand lotions that sets off explosives detectors. Certain heart medications that contain nitroglycerines can set of false positives, as well as small traces of fertilizer often found on farms.The TSA has procedures in place to quickly identify such false positives, including questioning passengers who trigger the alarms. But the agency has been known to take some cases to the extremes: last year, Shelbi Walser, a 12-year-old wheelchair-bound girl, was brought to tears when TSA agents said they found bomb residue on her hands. The girl was detained in front of hundreds of travelers, and TSA officers refused to allow her mother to comfort her. The girl’s mother believes that the security agents detected traces of fertilizer on her hands, but responded unnecessarily harshly to the incident.Meanwhile, the agency may lift a ban on pocketknives and golf clubs in carry-on baggage, while still detaining passengers for residue from hand lotion and fertilizer. … Read More
NYPD will deploy ‘harmless’ gas into subway in terror response drill
The plan, to be enacted in July, will investigate New York’s readiness to handle a chemical terrorist attack by dispersing the colorless gas and tracing it as it flows through the city, according to Scientific American. The test is expected to cost $3.4 million and is scheduled to be carried out in all five boroughs and dozens of stations on 21 of the city’s 34 subway lines. “The NYPD works for the best but plans for the worst when it comes to potentially catastrophic attacks such as ones employing radiological contaminants or weaponized anthrax,” police commissioner Ray Kelly said in a statement. The police will use roughly 200 detectors to monitor the gas. Dubbed the Subway-Surface Air Flow Exchange, the test will be the largest of its kind and organized in cooperation with the energy department’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. They’ll use perfluorocarbon tracer gases (PFTs), which are frequently used to measure potential sites for underground construction. Despite the science fiction catastrophe a plan of this magnitude naturally conjures, Fernando Ferrer, the acting chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority maintained that it will not impact commuters. “The NYPD, in partnership with the MTA, is responsible for keeping more than 5 million daily subway customers safe and secure,” he said in a statement Wednesday. “This study will bolster the NYPD’s understanding of contaminant dispersion within the subway system as well as between the subway system and street, thereby improving its ability to better protect both customers and the city population at large.” The scheduled gas deployment comes years after investigators foiled an Al-Qaeda terrorist plot to bomb the New York subways, the largest public transportation system in the world. Three men had planned to detonate suicide vests just days before the eighth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in what US Attorney General Eric Holder at the time called “one of the most serious threats” to the United States since 2001. … Read More
New DOT guidelines aim to reduce distracted driving
The U.S. Department of Transportation, in conjunction with the National Highway Safety Transportation Administration, recently released voluntary guidelines designed to help automakers create safer in-car technology by limiting the amount of time drivers take their eyes off the road. … Read More
TSA delays plan to allow knives on planes
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said it was postponing a controversial change in rules which would have allowed passengers to carry small knives on planes. The TSA last month said it was relaxing its rules on pocket knives — banned on aircraft since the September 11, 2001…
You Can’t Just Sell an Electric Car to Someone, This is America!
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors, is facing
resistance to his company’s model of trying to sell automobiles
directly to consumers. Green Car Reports rounds up
some of the problems:
Ever since Tesla announced its plans to sell cars
directly, with factory-owned Tesla Stores and Tesla Galleries
acting only as display showroms, car dealers and their associations
have denounced the plan.
They’ve also sued Tesla for violating franchise laws in several
states–Massachusetts, most notably–and gotten laws changed in
others to make Tesla’s model flatly illegal…
Most states have some variation of a law that says automakers
cannot open wholly-owned dealers that compete with franchises
selling the same brand.
Dealers feared in the post-war period that automakers would set up
their own dealerships and give them preferential financial terms
over franchised dealers.
But Tesla Motors has no franchised dealers to protect.
Nonetheless, the Colorado Auto Dealers Association ;got that
state’s law changed in early 2010 ;to forbid direct sales of
any car by any maker soon after Tesla opened its first store
there.
State auto-dealer groups are viewing the Colorado legislation as a
model, and such efforts may pop up in other states as
well.
Musk is done going through the petri dishes of
democracy, and says he’d “rather fight one federal battle.”
Automotive News
describes Musk’s two options:
1. Lobbying Congress to pass explicit
legislation to allow direct sales of electric cars made by startup
companies such as Tesla. Such legislation could be tied to an
energy or transportation bill, he said.
2. ;Filing a federal lawsuit challenging the
state restrictions as unconstitutional violations of interstate
commerce.
Tesla Motors received
nearly half a billion in loans from the Department of Energy in
2009, which should theoretically provide the feds with some impetus
to liberalize the domestic car sales industry. ;And then maybe
one day in America you can buy a car from whomever you want,
whether or not the car dealers think you’re going to get too good
of a deal for it. But it probably won’t be an electric anyway, the
president’s lofty goal of 1 million plug-in hybrid cars on the road
by 2015 looks
exceedingly unrealistic.
Elon Musk was profiled in
a series on rocket men (he is also the CEO of SpaceX) in an issue
of Reason last year. … Read More
