TSA's Pistole on Opt-Out

TSA Administrator John Pistole would not approve expansion of the 'opt-out' program without clear and compelling evidence that private screeners would be beneficial at a particular airport. Pistole says the current program with 16 participating airports is manageable, but he added that expansion could limit TSA's flexibility to surge employees to airports as necessary and potentially could hamper efforts to address evolving threats.

The administrator says his agency is working to create a more risk-based approach to passenger screening. He noted that today's one-size fits all approach doesn't make sense in terms of security and efficiency, and pointed to the Global Entry program, which collects voluntary information from participants in exchange for a different screening protocol, as another approach. He also pointed to changes the agency has made with regard to screening airline pilots.

TSA is exploring new airport security measures, including checkpoints before vehicles are allowed to pull up to airport terminals and small security teams patrolling airport grounds.

Remote Explosion of Improvised Land Mines

Composed of diverse elements, mostly of plastic, with little metal used, improvised explosive devices are very difficult to detect. In cooperation with two Colombian universities, scientists at EPFL's Electromagnetic Compatibility Laboratory have found a solution. They have developed a device enabling the remote explosion of these mines, by using the energy from their electromagnetic impulses.

Researchers found a way of inducting a current that would be strong enough to set off, at a distance, the detonators of the mines, sometimes buried deep in the ground. Secondly, they had to be sure of attaining the resonance frequencies of the various types of mines, which are all constructed in different ways.

Liquid Bomb Detector

A prototype of a machine that could be used at airports to check bottles and cans for explosives without opening them will be built by a University of California Davis professor. While Matthew Augustine will construct the prototype, DHS recently awarded a contract to Defense Capital Advisers of Denver, CO, to develop Augustine's technology for use in airport security. The magnetic resonance scanner that could be placed in airports and used to check bottles and cans for explosives without opening them. The technology is similar to the magnetic resonance imaging machines used in medical scanning. It employs a pulse of radio waves and a strong magnetic field to extract a signal that shows the chemical structure of the sample. Arriving at such a design involved careful tradeoffs between high-frequency radio waves, which give the best information about chemical structures but are blocked by metal, and lower-frequency waves that could pass through a soda can.