Security Shortlines

Air Safety Week, August 18, 2008

Terrorism Think Tank

A team of more than 50 social scientists will extend its research into radicalization and the formation of terrorist groups in the U.S. and abroad. The researchers will also study the effectiveness of counter-terror strategies, as well as efforts to build community resilience to attacks. "Terrorists rely on help from sympathetic social networks, so a thorough understanding of these networks can help policy-makers refine their counter-terror strategies," says Gary LaFree, director of the University of Maryland-based National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), a three-year old collaboration of 30 research institutions. "We need to understand the tipping points that radicalize political activists and ultimately trigger the use of political violence," La Free adds. "We want to learn, for example, whether the underlying dynamics of radicalization are the same in the United States and abroad." Funding for the new round of research comes from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). START will receive nearly $12 million over three years. An ongoing activity at START is the development of the world's largest and most comprehensive database of terror incidents. International in scope, it covers all incidents since 1970. START plans to have the Global Terrorism Database completely current by the end of 2008.

TSA Reinstates Clear Registered Traveler Enrollment

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) says Verified Identity Pass, the operator of Clear, has met program encryption standards for enrollment computers and may resume Registered Traveler enrollments. This change comes after an unencrypted Clear-owned laptop computer containing data on 33,000 customers turned up missing from San Francisco International Airport. The laptop was later recovered by Clear officials at the airport, and surrendered to TSA officials for forensic examination. The results of that exam remain under review. Verified Identity Pass then took steps to encrypt all enrollment computers and provided a third party audit verifying the encryption. TSA will be conducting random audits of Clear.

Fingerprints Can Provide More Clues

Fingerprints can reveal critical evidence, as well as an identity, with the use of a new technology developed at Purdue University that detects trace amounts of explosives, drugs or other materials left behind in the prints. The new technology also can distinguish between overlapping fingerprints left by different individuals - a difficult task for current optical forensic methods. A research team has created a tool that reads and provides an image of a fingerprint's chemical signature. The technology can be used to determine what a person recently handled. Fingerprints leave behind a unique distribution of molecular compounds. Some of the residues left behind are from naturally occurring compounds in the skin and some are from other surfaces or materials a person has touched. Because the distribution of compounds found in each fingerprint can be unique, law enforcement can use this technology to pull one fingerprint out from beneath layers of other fingerprints. Fingerprints are analyzed using a mass spectrometry technique. Mass spectrometry works by first turning molecules into ions, or electrically charged versions of themselves, so their masses can be analyzed. Conventional mass spectrometry requires chemical separations, manipulations of samples and containment in a vacuum chamber for ionization and analysis. This technique performs the ionization step in the air or directly on surfaces outside of the mass spectrometer's vacuum chamber, making the process much faster and more portable. Software was developed to map the information and create an image of the fingerprint from the distribution and intensity of selected ions.

The research was performed by Purdue's Center for Analytical Instrumentation Development.

CBP Opens 5th Northern Border Air and Marine Branch

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has opened the Great Lakes Air and Marine Branch at Selfridge ANG Base near Detroit to enhance CBP's northern border security operations, the last of five planned new air and marine facilities that make up the Northern Border Air Wing. Eleven aircraft will be assigned to the Great Lakes Air and Marine Branch: two UH60 Blackhawk helicopters for interdiction and apprehension operations, one EC-120 helicopter for apprehension operations, two AS350B3 helicopters for apprehension operations, two C550 Citation jets for intercept and apprehension operations, two Cessna 210s for surveillance and tracking operations, two C-12s for detection, surveillance and tracking operations. As part of the DHS Northern Border Air Wing, in 2004 CBP opened the first two Air and Marine Branches at Bellingham, WA, and Plattsburg, NY. The third branch opened in 2006 in Great Falls, MT. and the fourth branch opened in Grand Forks, ND in 2007.