When you pay for your goods at a Walmart store that has checkout video screens, you may see a message from Janet Napolitano, the Department of Homeland Security secretary, urging shoppers to report suspicious, security-related activity.
DHS wants smartphones to get smarter with chemical sniffers
April 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment
The U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security wants to enlist your smartphone — on a voluntary basis — in the war on terror.
TSA funds explosive detection devices through jobs stimulus program
February 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment
The TSA is upgrading its explosive trace-detection equipment at airport checkpoints by tapping into funding from last year’s federal jobs’ stimulus law.
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Did TSA ghost-write @FlyingWithFish tweet? Twitter coercion?
January 2, 2010 By 21 Comments
UPDATE: Less than an hour after posting this story below, a source familiar with aspects of the TSA investigation confirms Tnooz speculation that TSA agents were in Frischling’s home on the evening of Dec. 29 when he tweeted a request to the source of the leaked security directive to contact him.
Steven Frischling, one of the two travel bloggers subpoenaed by the Dept. of Homeland Security and visited by TSA agents after publishing a security directive, tweeted Jan. 2 that he can’t comment on the “author” of a controversial tweet, issued from his account, at 10:05 p.m. on Dec. 29.
While two TSA agents likely were in his home at the time and allegedly were threatening to terminate Frischling’s ability to work with the airline industry unless he divulged the source of the security-directive leak, the Dec. 29 tweet from the FlyingWithFish Twitter account said the following:
“To the gentleman who sent Flying With Fish the TSA Security Directive … Thank You! Can you drop me an email?I have a question. Thanks-Fish.”
In reversal, DHS withdraws subpoena of journalist Chris Elliott
December 31, 2009 By 20 Comments
Journalist Chris Elliott says this evening that — a few hours after the Dept. of Homeland Security extended a deadline for him to comply with a subpoena — he received word from his attorney that DHS withdrew the subpoena.
The stunning reversal occurred as media outlets throughout the country picked up the story that the DHS and TSA were playing hardball and going after Elliott and blogger Steven Frischling with subpoenas and tough tactics after they published the post-Northwest flight 253 security directive on new passenger screening rules.
Perhaps dropping the subpoena on New Year’s Eve made more sense than letting the issue and the bad publicity for the TSA linger through upcoming news cycles.
Chris Elliott submits objection to DHS subpoena over security directive disclosure
December 31, 2009 By 9 Comments
UPDATE: The DHS this afternoon gave journalist Chris Elliott an extension until Jan. 20 to comply with a subpoena, his attorney told Tnooz. The initial deadline was Dec. 31.
Facing a Dept. of Homeland Security subpoena and its Dec. 31 deadline, travel journalist Chris Elliott has not turned over any documents related to the source who provided him with the TSA’s secret Christmas Day security directive, his attorney says.
Attorney Anthony Elia, who’s representing Elliott, says he e-mailed a request Dec. 31 to TSA special agent Robert Flaherty, who served the civil subpoena at Elliott’s home on the evening of Dec. 29, asking for “additional time to allow the process to unfold in a reasonable way.”
Giving Elliott roughly two days to respond to the subpoena was an “inordinately short” period of time and “unreasonable,” Elia says, given the serious nature of the issues.
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TSA plays hardball with airline blogger over security directive
December 30, 2009 By 25 Comments
UPDATE: A few minutes after posting the story below about how the TSA was using pressure tactics to get KLM blogger Steven Frischling to comply with a subpoena, two TSA agents visited his home again and took his hard drive, with his consent, Frischling says.
Travel blogger Steven Frischling, a self-employed photographer who also writes the Flying With Fish and KLM blogs, says two TSA agents delivered a Dept. of Homeland Security subpoena to him Dec. 29, two days after he published the Christmas Day TSA security directive and warned him they would contact KLM over the issue if he didn’t comply with the subpoena and that this would end his ability to work with the airline industry.
Frischling, speaking a day after the visit by two TSA agents to his Connecticut home, says their implied threat was that he would be considered a security risk if he didn’t turn over his e-mails and computer hard drive and failing to do so “would sever my ability to work with the airline industry.”
