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TSA Peter V. Neffenger

Neffenger

WASHINGTON –  The Senate voted on Monday, June 22, to confirm a new leader for the Transportation Security Administration in the wake of reports of startling security gaps at U.S. airports.

Coast Guard Vice Adm. Peter Neffenger was confirmed as the agency’s new administrator by a vote of 81-1. Neffenger was nominated by President Barack Obama in April, before revelations that auditors for the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general were repeatedly able to sneak mock explosives and weapons through security checkpoints.

“Vice Adm. Neffenger will certainly have a tough job ahead of him. We’re all aware of the recent inspector general report that questioned the TSA’s ability to meet its security mission without change,” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on the Senate floor ahead of the vote.

Read more from Fox News.

Homeland Security sealLegislation that would “address serious security vulnerabilities identified by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General (IG) and the Comptroller General about how the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) carries out expedited airport checkpoint screening has been introduced in the House. 

The legislation comes on the heels of TSA having drawn fire during a congressional hearing in March for allowing a former member of a domestic terrorist group convicted of murder and other crimes involving explosives “was permitted to travel with expedited screening through the PreCheck process,” according to the DHS IG. 

The redacted public version of the IG’s report, Allegation of Granting Expedited Screening Through TSA PreCheck Improperly, “stemmed from a whistleblower disclosure which alleged that a notorious felon was improperly cleared for TSA PreCheck screening and was allowed to use the PreCheck lanes,” the IG said.

Read more from Homeland Security Today.

dept of homeland secATLANTA – While 800,000 federal employees are not reporting to work during the government shutdown, thousands of TSA employees are expected to come to work without pay.

 They’re the first line of defense on the ground and in the air at our nation’s airports, but TSA workers are not getting paid during the federal government shutdown. Yet they continue to come to work with the same smile and dedication they had when they had a guaranteed paycheck.

Read the complete story at Fox News Atlanta. 

WASHINGTON – As hundreds of commuters emerged from Amtrak and commuter trains at Union Station on a recent morning, an armed squad of men and women dressed in bulletproof vests made their way through the crowds.

The squad was not with the D.C. Police Department or Amtrak’s police force, but with one of the Transportation Security Administration’s Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response squads — VIPR teams for short — tasked with performing random security sweeps to prevent terrorist attacks at transportation hubs across the United States.

Read the complete story at the Star Tribune.

WASHINGTON – The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has established a new policy on renewals of the Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) – a tamper-resistant biometric worker-access pass — which is required of rail crews entering maritime ports.

Under the new TSA policy, and beginning Aug. 30, U.S. nationals holding TWICs set to expire on or before Dec. 31, 2014, will have the option of avoiding the regular five-year renewable process by obtaining a new three-year card.

The replacement card will expire three years after the expiration of the TWIC card it is replacing, cost $60, and require only one trip to the enrollment center when it is ready to be activated and collected.

TSA said that while the process is simpler and less expensive, the card provides the same access as the traditional five-year card.

Some 6,500 rail employees currently hold a TWIC. Obtaining a TWIC requires submitting to a FBI background check and completion of a security threat assessment.

To read the new policy, as published in the Federal Register, click on the following link:

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-06-19/pdf/2012-15027.pdf

 

Witnesses say it’s a grey sedan.

A grey four-door sedan — occupied by two men.

A grey four-door sedan occupied by two men that shows up at railroad facilities.

The men claim to work for the Federal Railroad Administration. That say they are there to inspect a bridge, or to observe train and engine crews switching tank cars in a yard.

But when asked for their identification, the two men immediately drive away in their grey sedan.

That’s the story told by a Canadian Pacific railroad bridge tender in Milwaukee, Wis., and 31 hours later by a Union Pacific supervisor 2,100 miles southwest of Milwaukee at a UP yard in Long  Beach, Calif., where tank cars were being switched.

Although the bridge tender notified Canadian Pacific police, and the UP supervisor notified the FRA – both providing a description of the vehicle and the two occupants — neither was able to obtain the vehicle’s license plate number.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is investigating. The FRA said that in neither of the reported incidents were their employees nearby.

For it to be the same vehicle and same pair of men in Milwaukee and Long Beach — 2,100 miles apart — they would have had to travel non-stop at 68 mph for 31 hours.

So, could they be separate sets of federal officers in a similar sedan testing security awareness? If not, then …?

It’s the, “If not, then … ?” that is so properly worrisome in this era of worldwide terror attacks.

The FRA and TSA continue to remind front-line rail employees that they are the critical eyes and ears first able to spot and report potential terrorist activity.

Advises the FRA and TSA:

* Request credentials of any person claiming to be an official government inspector, law-enforcement officer or representative.

* When observing a suspect vehicle, record its description (type, color, make, model, number of doors) and license plate number.

* Stay vigilant for suspicious people, behaviors, activities, and objects at and near rail facilities.

* Report potential security concerns to the railroad’s communications or operations center, following individual railroad procedures for such reporting.

* Review these procedures with other employees and supervisors during awareness briefings.