By Allan Lengel

After the first nominee went down in flames, President Obama is once again trying to fill the top spot at the Transportation Security Administration, which watches over our airports.

The White House on Tuesday nominated Robert A. Harding, saying he has spent more than 35 years working in the intelligence community.

Most recently, he served as CEO of Harding Security Associates (HSA), which he founded in 2003 and sold in July 2009, the White House said.

The White House initially nominated former FBI agent Erroll Southers, but his nomination got embroiled in controversy on Capital Hill. He January he withdrew his name.

In a press release on Harding, the White House said: “Before entering the private sector, General Harding completed 33 years in the US Army, where he served in progressively challenging command and staff assignments. He retired as the Army’s Deputy G2 (Intelligence) in 2001.”

“From 1996-2000, he was the Director for Operations at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). There, he was the Department of Defense’s senior Human Intelligence (HUMINT) officer, managed over $1 billion in intelligence collection program requirements and supervised and provided security to the Department of Defense’s Defense Attaches in more than 200 embassies/offices around the world.

“From 1995-1996, General Harding served as the Director for Intelligence for the Army’s U.S. Southern Command where he planned and executed operations designed to increase regional cooperation and exchanges in Latin America.

“He also coordinated efforts between the DIA, DEA, FBI, CIA, and Customs on sensitive interagency counter-drug operations. From 1969-1995, General Harding served in a variety of other command and staff positions around the world. He commanded a HUMINT and Counterintelligence Battalion in Korea, and the Army’s premier Counterintelligence Group, the 902d, at Fort Meade. His staff assignments included intelligence positions in U.S. Forces Command, U.S. Forces Korea, U.S. Army Europe, U.S. Army PERSCOM, and the Army Staff.

“Major General Harding currently serves on the board of directors of the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts and the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO).

“He has served on the National Counterintelligence Review Group, on DNI’s Diversity Senior Advisory Panel, and as a member of the Obama Administrations Presidential Transition Team, where he focused on the Intelligence community.”

OTHER STORIES OF INTEREST

• 2 Ex-Acorn Workers Face Charges From 08 Campaign (AP)
• Baby Fatally Attacked by Dog in Okla. (AP)
• Feds Charge 3rd NYPD Cop in Perfume Heist (AP)
• Ohio Inmate ODs on Pills Hours Before Execution (AP)
• Juror’s Trash Talk About Lawyers Leads to Mistrial (New Jersey Law Journal)

By Allan Lengel

WASHINGTON — The Transportation Security Administration is taking airport security up a notch.

USA Today reports that airport screeners in a few weeks will begin randomly going up to people at airport security checkpoint lines or at gates and taking chemical swabs from passengers and their bags to check for explosives. Metal detectors cannot detect such material.

The paper reported that the program has already been tested at five airports since the Christmas Day bombing incident in Detroit.

A private security analyst told USA Today that random checks will “create increasing uncertainty for the adversaries, which is always positive.”

To read more click here.

PHILADELPHIA – Just when I thought I was out of the Transportation Security Administration business for a few columns, they pull me back in.

Did you hear about the Camden cop whose disabled son wasn’t allowed to pass through airport security unless he took off his leg braces?

Unfortunately, it’s no joke. This happened to Bob Thomas, a 53-year-old officer in Camden’s emergency crime suppression team, who was flying to Orlando in March with his wife, Leona, and their son, Ryan.

Ryan was taking his first flight, to Walt Disney World, for his fourth birthday.

To Read more click here.

WASHINGTON – The airline bombing incident in Detroit perhaps highlighted the importance of confirming a new director for the Transportation Security Administration, the front line agency responsible for airport security and passenger screening.

But things aren’t so simple here in Washington. First off, a Senator has been holding up the confirmation hearings for Erroll Southers, a former FBI agent, to head TSA, saying he wants to hear his views on TSA employees joining a union. The senator is against employees doing that.

Now the Washington Post’s Robert O’Harrow Jr. is reporting that Southers “gave Congress misleading information about incidents in which he inappropriately accessed a federal database, possibly in violation of privacy laws” while he was an FBI agent.

The Post reported that Southers described inconsistencies in his accounts to Congress on the 20-year-old incident as “inadvertent”.

To read the full Post story click here.

OTHER STORIES OF INTEREST

• Ex-Homeland Chief Michael Chertoff Accused of Abusing Public Trust By Touting Body Scanners (Washington Post)
  

WASHINGTON — The attempted bombing  aboard a Detroit bound plane on Christmas Day wasn’t the only incident that has raised red flags of late at U.S. airports.

In fact, everyday the Transportation Security Administration deals with people trying to get guns past checkpoints or board planes with fraudulent travel documents.

In the week of week of Dec. 14 to 21 alone, TSA said it discovered 37 firearms and 3 “artfully concealed weapons” at checkpoints; and 21 passengers were arrested following ” investigations of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents”.

Last year, there were 902 guns found at checkpoints at U.S. Airports, according to the TSA.

Sen. DeMint/gov photo

WASHINGTON — Here in the nation’s capital, there’s always someone willing to play politics, no matter the consequence.

In this case, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) is holding up President Obama’s nomination of Erroll Southers, a former FBI agent, to head the Transportation Security Administration over a union issue, McClatchy newspapers reported.

The news organization reports that DeMint is holding up the confirmation to try and prevent TSA workers from joining a labor union. He feels such a move would interfer with the effectiveness of the organization and its ability to change rules quickly.

The news organization reported that he wants to hear testimony on Southers’ view on unionizing TSA before the matter gets voted on before the full Senate.

To read more click here.

Ellen Howe/security debrief photo

Certainly the posting of the Transportation Security Administration’s screening procedures on the Internet was not the agency’s finest hour, but it was not the worst breach of security since 9/11, as I heard last night on CNN.

While some were quick to pounce and ridicule, most of what was in that document can be deciphered by studying procedures at the checkpoint, something terrorists are known to do before they execute an attack.

TSA is a complex organization, and its people and policies should not be underestimated. The agency bases its operations on intelligence, and the document that was revealed does not account for constant updates and tweaks made based on current intelligence.

To Read More

WASHINGTON – The Transportation Security Administration inadvertently revealed closely guarded secrets related to airport passenger screening practices when it posted online this spring a document as part of a contract solicitation, the agency confirmed Tuesday.

The 93-page TSA operating manual details procedures for screening passengers and checked baggage, such as technical settings used by X-ray machines and explosives detectors. It also includes pictures of credentials used by members of Congress, CIA employees and federal air marshals, and it identifies 12 countries whose passport holders are automatically subjected to added scrutiny.

TSA officials said that the manual was posted online in a redacted form on a federal procurement Web site, but that the digital redactions were inadequate. They allowed computer users to recover blacked-out passages by copying and pasting them into a new document or an e-mail.

For Full Story

This probably won’t be enough to block his confirmation, but it certainly doesn’t help.

By Ed O’Keefe
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s nominee to lead the nation’s airport security officers received a censure from the FBI in 1988 after asking a San Diego police officer to run a background check on his ex-wife’s boyfriend.

Obama tapped Erroll Southers in September to serve as administrator of the Transportation Security Administration. Southers is currently chief of homeland security and intelligence at the Los Angeles International Airport’s police department and associate director of the University of Southern California’s Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events. He previously served as a homeland security adviser to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.).

For Full Story

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
WASHINGTON– Ok, here’s another reason to stay in shape and stop hiding behind those baggy clothes.  More airport screeners are about to acquire Superman powers.

USA Today reports that Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration plans to install 150 security machines at airport checkpoints that will let screeners peek under passengers’ clothes.

The scanners have been used on a test basis at some airports, but mostly on folks who set off screening alarms and are pulled aside. Some groups are complaining that the machines are far too intrusive.

The House has passed a bill limiting the machines’ use for passengers who have set off some type of screening alarm. The bill is before the Senate, USA Today reported.

TSA spokeswoman Kristin Lee told USA Today that the machines are “critical” to stopping terrorists with homemade bombs. The machines will be installed early next year and will have “privacy additions to create images that look like etchings”, the paper reported.