By Angela Jameson

Transport authorities in the United States have purchased a British-designed device to protect American stations and airports from the kind of terrorist attacks launched in Madrid and London.

QinetiQ, the former Ministry of Defence research unit, will announce today that the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has purchased its SPO threat detection system as part of a package of measures designed to improve security for travellers in America.

Described as a sniffer dog for the 21st century, QinetiQ's device can see through clothing to detect explosives. Unlike the X-ray technology used in airports at present to locate guns and knives, it is suitable for quickly scanning large crowds.

Powered by Terrorgence

SSI is taking orders from Intelligence agencies around the country for its brand-new workshop, Jihad 2.0 from Virtual to Physical. The workshop, created by Gadi Aviran, the founder of Terrorgence, the content providers for SSI's new monthly Intelligence Subscription service HS Boost has already been ordered in Florida, Boston, Denver, Anaheim and many more cities. The workshop increases awareness of the entire Terror threat life cycle without undue focus on any one aspect or modus operandi. This give Homeland Security an advantage in understanding phenomena like Suicide Terror which far too often are treated as independant threats.

By Sandra Contenta

Passengers undergo stringent measures at airports but experts report `gaping security holes' behind the scenes.

Restricted areas at Pearson International Airport, where thousands of employees work and load scores of planes daily, are less secure than those used by passengers, says Peel police Supt. Ed Toye, the airport's top cop.

"It's not as shut down and secure as the public side," Toye said, referring to what security analysts say is the most vulnerable area of any airport.

While security in Pearson's restricted areas has greatly improved over the past five years, Toye said in an interview, it lags behind the tight controls on passengers because Transport Canada fixed the "front end" of the operation before focusing on what goes on behind the scenes. "You got to start at the front end of the boat, but the back end is still leaking."

"But," he added, "it's not like the leak has gone unnoticed - they're monitoring it and they're fixing it," he said, referring to Transport Canada.

Read on...

By Richard Greenberg, Adam Ciralsky, Stone Phillips

Dateline investigation suggests that even now, six years after the 9/11 attacks, terrorists could easily get a passport to cross almost any border

Six years after 9/11, an NBC News undercover investigation has found that the black market in fraudulent passports is thriving.  On the streets of South America, NBC documented the sale of stolen and doctored passports, and travel papers prized by terrorists: genuine passports issued under false names.  For a few thousand dollars, an undercover investigator was able to purchase several entirely new identities from organized criminal networks with access to corrupt government employees.  The investigator obtained passports from Spain, Peru, and Venezuela and used the Peruvian and Venezuelan passports to travel widely in the Western Hemisphere, with practically no scrutiny.

Coming on the heels of partial convictions and hung juries in other recent "material support" cases, this recent case highlights the strategic utility of charging terrorists and their supporters for ordinary criminal activities that the government can easily prosecute. Such legal strategy, however, should not cloud the fact that this was a terrorism case at heart.