Information Sharing and Vigilance Crucial to Transportation Security
News & Happenings
July 25, 2007
After 9/11, the nation took on the difficult mission of examining all aspects of homeland security and finding ways to protect the country from future terrorist attacks. Observers including security experts, Congress and the 9/11 Commission reached a general consensus that information sharing between government agencies needed to be improved.
In that spirit, TSA routinely distributes information to its workforce and aviation security partners. As part of that effort, official-use bulletins are prepared for transportation security officers (TSOs), local law enforcement and federal air marshals. These bulletins provide valuable information to those individuals and are necessary to keep all parties involved alert to evolving threats.
All of this underscores the need for vigilance in transportation security. TSA screens over 3 million bags a day. Our workforce knows it is necessary to remain attentive at all times. They also know they must focus their attention on unusual items, actions that are out of the ordinary and unique threats. This is exactly why TSA has removed routine items such as lighters, which do not possess a significant threat to aviation security, from the prohibited items list.
By taking the focus away from items that do not pose a significant threat, TSOs are allowed to use their training more dynamically. Recent world events show the ingenuity of those who wish us harm. Every minute that a TSO is looking for a nonthreatening item such as a lighter could be spent more valuably by searching for highly technical, evolving threat items such as improvised explosive devices and their components.
Various media outlets have chronicled a leaked TSA information bulletin. Such bulletins are routinely used to focus attention on specific scenarios. The bulletin as reported may seem extraordinary, but it represents a standard process through which information is shared with the men and women who need it the most. Any parcel of information that has even the most remote value deserves to be shared with those protecting our country. To do otherwise would go against TSA's duty to protect the traveling public.
