Eligible passengers would be directed to TSA PreCheck security lanes at nearly three dozen US airports and would be able to forego removing shoes, jackets and belts, and would be able to keep their laptops in bags as they go through an expedited screening process.

The TSA revealed today that it was expanding the PreCheck program to nearly three dozen US airports in 2012 in cooperation with American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, US Airways, United Airlines and Alaska Airlines.

The program already is operational with American Airlines in Dallas, Miami, Las Vegas, Minneapolis and Los Angeles Airports, and with Delta at airports in Atlanta, Detroit, Las Vegas and Minneapolis.

Eligible travelers include certain members of the airlines’ frequent flyer programs and members of the US Customs and Border Protection Trusted Traveler programs.

The airlines are “opting in new passengers,” the TSA says.

But individuals wishing to participate in the CBP Trusted Traveler and TSA PreCheck programs can apply here.

The TSA says 336,000 passengers have been screened to date through PreCheck lanes at participating airports.

There are no guarantees of expedited screening through the PreCheck program, however, as the TSA says it will still conduct random security checks.

“We are pleased to expand this important effort, in collaboration with our airline and airport partners, as we move away from a one-size-fits-all approach to a more intelligent-driven, risk-based transportation security system,” says John Pistole, TSA administrator.

The Global Business Travel Association welcomed the news that the TSA is expanding PreCheck to an additional 28 US airports, noting that participating passengers volunteering for the program are subject to risk assessments prior to their arrival at the airport.

“The expansion of the PreCheck program is something our members have been hoping for and GBTA has been advocating for, since the pilot program was announced last summer,” says Michael McCormick, executive director and COO of GBTA. “As an association, faster, more efficient and smarter travel processes that ensure the traveling public’s safety are our top priority and essential for business travelers.”

The incident occurred earlier today at Nashville Airport when Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) was screened using millimeter wave imaging technology (previously known as “naked scanners.”) During the process, an alarm was triggered indicating there was an “anomaly,” as the TSA refers to these sorts of things.

Rand Paul, according to published reports, offered to go through the screening again, but refused to comply further when told that he’d be subject to a patdown.

He was denied access to the gate area for his flight, which he missed, and local law enforcement escorted the Senator out of the screening area.

The TSA indicates that Rand Paul was never “detained” or arrested, according to published reports.

He was rebooked on another flight and rescreened without triggering another yellow box, which is the millimeter wave imaging technology symbol for an irregularity.

“When an irregularity is found during the TSA screening process, it must be resolved prior to allowing a passenger to proceed to the secure area of the airport,” the TSA states. “Passengers who refuse to complete the screening process cannot be granted access to the secure area in order to ensure the safety of others traveling.”

The incident today can be viewed from many perspectives.

The TSA was sketchy about the details of how Rand Paul was rescreened for the later flight.

For the original flight, at least, the TSA should be credited for apparently not giving in to the Senator and providing him with any special treatment because of his congressional status.

Would a patdown have been justified?

Does anyone remember September 11?

It is unknown, however, whether Rand Paul was given any kid-gloves treatment for the second flight and after his father and Rand Paul’s media rep separately went public with tweets about the Senator’s alleged “detention.”

The Senator reportedly favors a trusted-traveler program, which would be a step in the right direction and might limit unnecessary searches and patdowns.

The Kentucky senator, like his father, is a libertarian and he’s been an outspoken critic of TSA excesses and perceived unwarranted patdowns.

Meanwhile, Ron Paul, the Republican Congressman from Texas who is battling it out in the Republican presidential primaries, issued a statement decrying “police state” tactics and calling for the abolition of the TSA. Ron Paul stated:

The police state in this country is growing out of control.  One of the ultimate embodiments of this is the TSA that gropes and grabs our children, our seniors, and our loved ones and neighbors with disabilities.  The TSA does all of this while doing nothing to keep us safe.

That is why my Plan to Restore America, in additional to cutting $1 trillion dollars in federal spending in one year, eliminates the TSA.

We must restore the freedom and respect for liberty that once made American the greatest nation in human history.  I am deeply committed to doing that as President of the United States.

From drop-off at Atlanta to pick-up in New York, the video shows the bag passing along the myriad of conveyor belts behind the scenes at each airport and being loaded and unloaded from the aircraft.

Safe to presume the Transportation Security Administration knew about the stunt beforehand – but for security reasons, unfortunately the most interesting part of the journey (the TSA inspection area) is blacked out momentarily.

• Rough Guides has launched a Travel Survival Kit app for iPhone and iPod Touch offering advice on everything from how to survive a volcanic eruption to fending off a shark attack. The app costs 69p and flies in the face of rival’s Lonely Planet’s Wenzani app, which is free.

• HolidayExtras claims IT hardware spend has halved while customer response times have been reduced by 20% since moving to cloud-based technology. Travel companies are increasingly moving to the cloud to better manage peaks in business with Skyscanner announcing a similar move recently.

• With accusations flying that the US Transportation Security Administration officer strip-searched an 85-year-old woman at JFK, the agency plans to pilot a less obtrusive security tool using the Credential Authentication Technogy – Boarding Pass Scanning System from NCR. The technology detects verified and fraudulent security credentials embedded in boarding passes and passenger IDs. The TSA, incidentally, denies that it strip-searched the female traveler.

• TUI has promoted Sandra Leonhard to director of digital strategy and transformation. Her remit is to create a wide range of ecommerce activities for the group’s travel, hotels and cruise divisions. She has spent 10 years with the company building up a web platform for Thomson in the UK as well as the now defunct Cheqqer user-generated content service.

Susie Castillo, who took the Miss USA title in 2003 and currently works as an actor [NBC's "School Pride"] and Neutrogena spokesperson, says she was selected for a full-body scan at the airport and, seeking to avoid being “irradiated more than I already am on flights,” opted for a pat-down instead.

Castillo describes in detail how she felt violated by the experience, adding, “Was I at my gynecologist’s office? No! This was crazy!”

Here’s the video Castillo posted about her airport experience:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmADZpqhKhQ

If Castillo’s allegations are true, is this the price we need to pay for airline security? Or is the TSA out of control?

Starting today at Las Vegas McCarran Airport, the TSA was slated to begin testing new software for its advanced imaging technology machines that would replace detailed, passenger-specific images, curves and all, with one generic, identical outline of a person.

Similar tests at Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta Airport and Reagan Washington Airport are due to begin in several days.

As people pass through the scanner, the new software is designed to detect weapons or explosive materials, indicate where the person is concealing them, and display the body location on a monitor attached to the screening unit. As with the 500 imaging technology units being operated at 78 U.S. airports, the passenger would then require additional screening.

Unlike the current system, which has created substantial criticism from passengers and privacy advocates, the imaging units with the new software would not require TSA personnel to view the images at a remote location because the images would be generic and not personally revealing.

“We are always looking for new technology and procedures that will both enhance security while strengthening privacy protections,” says John Pistole, TSA administrator. “Testing this new software will help us confirm test results that indicate it can provide the same high level of security as current advanced imaging technology units while further enhancing the privacy protections already in place.”

The TSA says coding for the new software took place in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security’s Science & Technology Directorate and private industry.

Initial testing has been taking place since Fall 2010 at the TSA Systems Integration Facility.

The testing at the three airports is being done on millimeter wave advanced imaging technology units.

In the future, the testing will be expanded to include backscatter units, as well, the TSA says.

If successful, perhaps it will be curtains for the most problemmatic aspects of the naked scanners.

Because of controversies surrounding more aggressive airport security pat-down procedures and full-body imaging machines, the 2010 November and December holidays shone a bright light on the ineffectiveness and high cost of current aviation system security policy.

Few airline and security industry experts would quarrel with the observation that treating all passengers as equal threats to the aviation system is ineffective and wasteful.

“There must be a better way” has become the new mantra; the Trusted Traveler (TT) program has once again been identified as the preferred strategy.

There was Congressional and traveler support for TT after September 11, 2001, and BTC surveys since have validated continued support. Moreover, organizations such as the American Society of Travel Agents, National Business Travel Association, Reason Foundation and US Travel Association have strongly advocated such a positive-profiling program.

The US Congress in 2001 authorized a TT program to be administered by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and financed and implemented by private-sector firms.

The first iteration of the program failed on every level – including lack of support from TSA – and abruptly ended in 2009. The program has recently been revived at a handful of airports.

However, the initiative will once again be doomed to failure unless economic and operational structural modifications are made.

Required changes:

1. Member Background Checks

TSA needs to assume from TT vendors the responsibility for managing members’ background checks. Instead of crosschecking a member’s name against the national terrorism watch list, more robust criminal history background checks need to be conducted on members, and recertified at regular intervals.

2. RT Vendor Technology Ownership

It was flawed thinking from the beginning that program vendors would compete for customers and differentiate themselves by implementing innovative screening technologies in security lanes, as was made abundantly clear with the plagued and infamous GE shoe scanner.

TSA controls an approval process that effectively blocks the kind of innovation-based competition envisioned by early program proponents. Moreover, such a process sets the stage for Congressional oversight wherein in response to queries regarding lack of progress with advanced screening technologies, TSA points fingers at program vendors, and vice versa.

A more effective and cost-efficient structure would be for TSA to own the complete screening technology sourcing budget and process such that:

• Transparent accountability would be ensured
• A consistent security product would be deployed across the aviation system
• A more strategic view would enable visibility to how new screening technologies could be implemented for the benefit of all airline passengers and leveraged into required uses in other transportation modes.

A TSA-owned screening technology approach would allow TT vendors to fully concentrate on the complex consumer-marketing task of developing a national TT program with millions of members integrated with Global Entry, or “International TT”.

3. Member Enrollment Model

A central reason the program in its first iteration only grew to a couple of hundred thousand members, instead of a couple million members with sustainable economics, was an incredibly inefficient and high-cost biometric enrollment process that served as a chokepoint for the program and forced it into a tailspin before a national critical mass could be achieved.

Essentially, prospective members had to plan in advance to enroll at participating airports, or program vendors had to ship and provide staff for enrollment kiosks on large corporate campuses.

Wrap-up

In contrast, what is needed is a strategic partnership with an organization owning a nationwide network of thousands “storefronts” (eg. FedEx Kinkos) where enrollment kiosks and staff could be efficiently deployed and where prospective TT members could conveniently schedule enrollment appointments.

Never has there been so much support for risk-based transportation security policy.

A TT program would enhance national security and improve our economic output through increased business travel and commercial transactions and free scarce economic resources for pursuing terrorists where they sleep.

NB: This is a guest post article by Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition.

In a blog post before Christmas, the TSA provided holiday travel tips for getting through security lanes, and touted some of the features of its mobile Web and iPhone MyTSA apps.

The “Can I Bring My” feature enables travelers to search whether an item is permitted and a crowd-sourcing wait-time tool details security wait-times at departure airports.

“The more people who use this, the better, so spread the word!” the TSA says of the wait-time tool.

But, interspersed among practical tips for navigating airport security lanes, the TSA shows off its lighter side.

Here’s a sampling from the TSA joke department:

• “Annoying Family Members: We’ve had many requests, but we cannot add annoying family members to the No Fly List.”

• “Travel Advice for Frosty the Snowman: You are not frozen solid and are larger than 3.4 ounces, so you may not board the plane.”

• “Mistletoe: Although the name may sound a bit nefarious, mistletoe (not missile-toe) is permitted. Just don’t expect the person sitting in the middle seat to kiss you.”

• “Christmas Sweaters: While some Christmas sweaters some can have a nauseating effect on passengers, they are currently permitted through TSA checkpoints.”

Meanwhile, one year after the underwear-bomber tried to bring down a Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit, Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said airport body-scanners and pat-downs will remain in place and she credited them for making air travel safer.

The TSA is engaged in discussions with American and Air Canada about a trial program in Boston and separately Delta is in contact with the agency about an experiment at another airport, reports USA Today.

Passengers would print their luggage tags at customized, airport self-service kiosks, the report says, noting that this wouldn’t compromise airline security because the screening system would be unaltered.

Luggage tags feature a barcode and the destination airport code. The bags would be screened as usual and the tags would be scanned before being loaded onto the aircraft.

The programs, of course, would bring labor cost savings to airlines, which increasingly are using self-service kiosks at the airport.

Virgin Atlantic has new branding to show off to the world so has put together another of its glossy new TV and web campaigns featuring the usual impossibly beautiful cabin crew and pilots, and slick graphics.

But clearly the body scanners are now becoming another part of the travel experience – so much so that Virgin has a segment in the ad dedicated to them (giving it a chance, of course, to show a man in his underwear).

Catch it at 0m:10s in…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hbib-A6NpW8

The TSA has unveiled TalktoTSA as a means to communicate with the customer service person at the airport you are complaining — or raving — about.

TSA Administrator John Pistole, who took office July 1, says on the TSA website: “After leaving your feedback, it will be sent directly to the person in charge of TSA customer service at the airport for which you are commenting. If you ask for a response, you will receive one.”

The idea is a good one by the TSA.

Of course, there is no word, however, on how timely the responses will be .

The hitch in the TSA’s new customer service move, however, is that consumers can provide their feedback to the TSA through an old-fashioned form that looks like this:

You click on a map and that populates a field that indicates the state the airport is located in.

That’s a nice little feature.

But, with all the modern Web communications tools that are available today, is providing consumers with a wooden form the best the TSA can come up with?

How about some live chat with a TSA customer service staffer?

Or even communicating via email would be more lively than filling out a clunky form.

Of course, passengers can provide their email addresses if they want a response, the TSA says.

The idea is a good one — let’s see how well the TSA executes on this promise of better communications with travelers.

In twin announcements, the TSA says it began this month rolling out 150 backscatter-imaging technology units — i.e. naked scanners with X-rays — to airports across the country, and 300 more are on the way this year.

In addition, the TSA announced today that it is expanding its use of Explosive Trace Detection technology at U.S. airports in security lines, at the security checkpoint and in boarding areas.

The body scanners already are in use at around 20 airports across the country, and about a dozen more — including airports in Boston, Charlotte, Cincinatti, Fort Lauderdale, Kansas City, Los Angeles, San Jose, Oakland, Columbus and San Diego — will be getting them soon.

Here’s the deployment scenario for the body scanners:

The TSA says the scanners are safe. They use backscatter and millimeter wave technology.

“Backscatter technology projects low level X-ray beams over the body to create a reflection of the body displayed on the monitor,” the TSA says.

And millimeter wave technology bounces electromagnetic waves off the traveler’s body, creating a black-and-white, three-dimensional image which a TSA officer can view on a monitor to see if any weapons are present.

In addition to the scanners, the TSA is taking other steps to weed out explosives.

TSA officers would swab travelers’ hands or luggage to determine if traces of explosives are present.

Under the economic stimulus law, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, there was $15 million in funding for 400 fixed Electronic Trace Detection units, and the 2011 budget calls for 800 portable ETD units at a price tag $39 million.

After swabbing travelers’ hands or luggage — and this will be done randomly — TSA officers place the swab inside ETD units for analysis.

“Since it will be used on a random basis, passengers should not expect to see the same thing at every airport or each time they travel,” the TSA states.

Following the Christmas day attempted bombing on a Northwest flight, the TSA piloted the use of ETD technology at Raleigh Durham Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport, Orlando Airport, and at two regional airports in North Carolina.

With today’s announcement, the deployments will be expanded to additional airports.

Like the ETD units, the body scanners also were funded through economic-stimulus law monies.

While it’s unclear how much stimulation will be going on, it’s certain there will be lots more poking and perusing at the nation’s airports.

The TSA’s Dept. of Homeland Security recently contracted with Morpho Detection for a few hundred of its Itemiser DX desktop units, which are designed to detect explosives in fixed locations at airport checkpoints.

The almost $16 million contract was partially funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The Christmas Day Northwest Flight 253 incident, in which a passenger allegedly had explosive materials on his body as the jet was set to land in Detroit, highlighted the need for more optimum ways of screening passengers for explosives.

The DX desktop units, pictured below, are used with swabs, known as “traps,” to test for the presence of explosives, and are said to be the first trace detectors which can test for positive and negative ions simultaneously.

Morpho Detection spokesman Steve Hill says the TSA already uses an earlier product, the Itemiser 2, for secondary passenger screening.

The Itemiser DX is designed to upgrade those earlier products at airports around the U.S.

The stimulus law, which was designed to create jobs and nurture economic activity, comes with transparency requirements.

You can view details of the Morpho Detection award and project– including the longitude, latitude and Congressional district where the work is being done –  here.

Of note, the project summary details the number of jobs it created.

The amount? Zero.

One such company is Guardian Technologies International which backs claims in the UK media this week that the widely talked about scanners do not accurately detect low-density substances such as liquid and powder explosives.

Unsurprisingly the company has a product of its own to peddle, the PinPoint threat detection and identification system, but equally it raises an interesting point if the much lauded body scanners are unable to pick up the very materials that the recent alleged Northwest 253 bomber had on his possession.

Guardian Technologies has illustrated the differences between its own system and that of existing scanners with a series of images released this week.

The company also claims that the body scanners are also open to the frailties of human operation and decision-making – in other words, a non-mechanical system for detection cannot be as reliable as one which uses software and digital imaging to detect suspicious objects.

As a member of the traveling public who, over the years, has adjusted my habits in order to streamline the airport security experience not only for myself but for fellow passengers, I want it to be known that I will be adjusting my habits again to take in account the use of full body scanners.

Not only will I be wearing pants that don’t require a belt and slip on shoes, and sorting all my personals into plastic baggies for easy screening, now I will be checking in my carry-on luggage which, for so many years, has been the only luggage I have had to bring on any trip up to a week in length.

I fully understand the need for security and I appreciate your desire to heighten measures at airports, especially in light of recent events.

I am however, concerned that the way in which your security measures have been implemented are purely reactive and not proactive.

Given the rush in which these scanners have been brought into service, I am concerned that there has not been enough testing done to ensure passenger health and privacy is protected.

I would, therefore, like to make it very clear that should naked images of me appear on the Internet that were derived from the use of the full body scan or if I should acquire any form of medical condition attributed to the twenty or more scans I will be undergoing this year, I may consider taking appropriate legal action and seeking compensation in all of the jurisdictions in which I underwent a scan.

Also note that any other individuals who have undergone similar humiliation or medical distress as a result of the rapid deployment of these scanners will also be invited to join any action launched in these jurisdictions.

This letter is by no means a threat, either intended or implied, but rather a simple acknowledgment that, as a traveler, it appears that I have no choice in whether or not I am screened in this way.

Since I have no choice, should you choose to proceed with screening me, I would expect that you and your agency would take full responsibility for any negative consequences that are related to your use of this technology.

I hope that you have taken the time to ensure that by the time I walk through that full body scan next month, that my genitals will be appropriately obscured and that my fragile DNA will be appropriately protected from mutation causing radiation.

All the best for safe and secure 2010.

Kind Regards,
Stephen Joyce

In a blog post, TSA Punts on Security, Johnson, co-founder of BERG Associates and former deputy director in the U.S. State Dept.’s Office of Counter Terrorism, says the TSA’s procedures, which went into effect Jan. 4,  “likely increase the chance that terrorists will succeed in putting a bomb onboard an in-bound commercial airliner.”

Johnson notes that Al Qaeda has recruited people from many countries beyond the TSA’s prime focus of flights that originate or stop in Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen [countries of interest] and Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria [U.S. designated state sponsors of terrorism].

After all, Johnson notes, the terrorists who commandeered planes on 9/11 departed from U.S. airports.

In a phone interview, Johnson told Tnooz that the new TSA procedures for flights in-bound into the U.S. revert to the “absurd notion” of “threat-based security,” which was in place prior to 9/11 when the FAA had responsibility for airline security and tried to “play Kreskin to figure out where the threat came from.”

As he wrote on his blog: “When you have a ‘security’ based system you are making a huge bet that the intelligence community will be able to alert you when the threat changes. So if Al Qaeda decides to put an underwear bomb on a recruit from Georgia or Uzbekistan or Mali we probably will not find out about the ‘new’ threat until the bomb wearer sets his bollocks on fire or the bomb actually goes off.”

Johnson told me it would be easy for terrorists to come up with “work-arounds” to the  gaps in the TSA’s new procedures and instead the TSA should be establishing uniform security procedures, including the use of trace and bulk explosives detection technologies. [He notes he has no financial interest in any of these technologies.]

These explosives detection technologies should be combined with “profiling,” Johnson says, although not racial/ethnic profiling, which has limited utility and is also susceptible to work-arounds. Instead, the TSA should work up a profiling system based on studying things such as travel patterns, he adds.

As for the TSA’s increased use of pat-downs, Johnson notes that “pat-downs won’t tell you if someone’s hiding explosives in his underwear.”

Johnson says the introduction of whole-body imaging systems, the so-called naked scanners, would be “better than nothing,” but wouldn’t be an adequate substitute for a more comprehensive system that combines explosive detection technologies and profiling.

Some experts and pundits have called for adoption of security techniques — including the study of passenger behavior during ticket-counter questioning and database searches — employed by the Israelis. In fact, in this National Post story, Rafi Sela, a security consultant at Ben Gurion Airport, speculates that Nigerian suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab would have never been able to board an aircraft in Israel because of the security techniques in play there.

However, Johnson downplays the usefulness to the U.S. of Israel’s methodologies, saying the Israelis “are legends in their own minds” because they have “maybe 32 planes” and a “very small target to protect.”

Johnson’s viewpoint is sobering, to say the least.

As he wrote in his blog:

“The failure of TSA to impose genuine, uniform security procedures and practices is criminal negligence. The new measures announced yesterday amount to nothing more than cosmetic gestures that will do little to keep air passengers safe. Enjoy your next trip.”

Meanwhile, the new TSA measures, which also call for the enhanced screening of a majority of in-bound travelers beyond those passengers who pass through countries under the microscope, picked up the support of the National Business Travel Association and the U.S. Travel Association.

The NBTA applauded the quick implementation of the new TSA measures, and was heartened that federal officials will be meeting with airport leaders to determine next steps.

And, the U.S. Travel Association called the new procedures “appropriate,” but called for a detailed review and analysis “of the most effective systems, techniques and technologies to secure the travel process.”

The U.S. Travel Association also called on the U.S. Congress to agree on the final passage of the Travel Promotion Act to show international travelers “our increase in security is matched with an increase in our welcome.”

Certainly, there is a wide range of viewpoints on these critical issues.

But, starting Jan. 4, the TSA has dug in with “long-term, sustainable security measures,” which alter the flavor of the air-traveler experience for flights inbound to the U.S. for the forseeable future.

Some of the Christmas Day mandates about in-flight prohibitions, which drew such scorn, are dropped, but remain optional prohibitions at the discretion of the airlines and pilots.

Under the new rules for U.S. and international airlines in-bound to the U.S., the most rigorous focus is reserved for travelers who are flying from or through countries such as Yemen, Nigeria, Pakistan, Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria. Namely countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism or “countries of interest.”

All of these travelers are slated to undergo “enhanced screening,” which means full body pat-downs, physical inspection of their property, and vetting by advanced explosive detection or advanced imaging technologies [such as whole-body imaging] in airports where they are available.

The stringent screening of these travelers who traverse so-called terrorist states or countries of interest applies only to current itineraries. In other words, if a traveler has Pakistan stamped in his or her passport from a 2006 trip, in theory there is no mandate that this traveler be subject to the most rigorous screening.

But, in contast to the period from Christmas until now, when all travelers on flights inbound to the U.S. were supposed to get pat-downs and have their property and carry-ons inspected, under the new rules only a majority of travelers — not all — will be subject to “enhanced screening” techniques.

However, for the majority of travelers, it appears that high-tech screening devices, when available, will be much more part of the norm.

In sum, it appears that risk-management is at the heart of the new TSA rules.

The most stringent focus is on travelers from countries that the U.S. views as the highest risk.

And, what this all amounts to is that the new rules appear to be somewhat less all-encompassing than those imposed Christmas Day, but are much more imposing than the rules in effect before suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarded the Northwest flight in Schiphol Airport.

Without a doubt, the travel experience has once again changed for the forseeable future.

It remains to be seen how the U.S. will beef up security on domestic or outbound flights as these new rules apply only to in-bound flights.

On the domestic front, travelers may see increased law enforcement presence, but there aren’t major security changes as yet in place for U.S. originating flights.

On a side note, the TSA has indeed updated its website, in contast to the lack of information there about the new rules earlier today, with this statement. Still, not much detail there.

Here are the publicly available highlights from a statement the TSA sent to me:

• Every individual — i.e. 100% — flying into the U.S. and traveling from or through countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism “or other countries of interest” must go through “enhanced screening,” the TSA says in a statement.

• Travelers can expect the use of “enhanced screening technologies,” and the new directives also require “threat-based and random screening for passengers on U.S. bound international flights,” whether they be operated by U.S. or international carriers.

I had asked the TSA for a “copy of the new security rules,” and a spokeswoman provided a statement outlining the above rules, but also noted:

“Security directives are Sensitive Security Information and cannot be released publicly, we do have a statement I can offer you…”

Well, given the Christmas Day terrorism incident onboard Northwest flight 253 and the uproar about two bloggers publishing the resulting security directive and getting Department of Homeland Security subpoenas, now dropped, I kind of realized that the Jan. 4 security directive would not be disseminated publicly by the TSA.

Still, as happened after the Northwest incident, the TSA website today, lacked any useful information about the new rules.

Or even mention of the new rules.

In fact, despite today’s TSA statement about the new security directives, there was nothing as of 4:40 p.m. EST Jan. 3 about the new rules on the TSA website.

On its website Jan. 3, the lastest TSA security update, described as “New,” was this Dec. 27 statement.

The TSA needs to do a better job of communicating with travelers.

I know it was a holiday period, but in these extraordinary times, the TSA would be wise to exert some effort into being more open with the public and to be more informative.

Being more transparent would only help the TSA in gaining broader support from the public.

Incidentally, read the comment here from travel agent Stephanie Diehl on why it is essential for the TSA to be more communicative with travelers.

The agents allegedly wrote the tweet on Frischling’s Blackberry, handed it to him and then asked the blogger to send it, according to the source.

“That way, they could deny that they [the TSA] sent the tweet,” the source says.

The original post follows:

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.”

The tweet, from Frischling’s Blackberry, had a 7:05 p.m. time-stamp on Dec. 29.

Frischling stated publicly four days later, when he declined to comment on the author of that tweet — which seems so stylistically different from his other 13,042 tweets — that his Blackberry was set to Pacific Time so the tweet actually was made at 10:05 p.m. EST.

He’ also tweeted today, Jan. 2: “The TSA Special Agents arrived before 7:00pm [on Dec. 29], left around 9:00pm, returned around 10:00pm for a while.”

So that timing, which admittedly is imprecise, might have put the TSA agents by Frischling’s side when the tweet went out from his Twitter account, publicly asking the source to contact him again.

If the source had contacted Frischling again at that juncture, it seems likely the TSA would have obtained the e-mail right then and there.

Frischling invited me on Twitter to “speculate all you’d like on the author of the tweet sent from this account…”

Before I start speculating, I asked DHS via phone and e-mail if the TSA agents actually authored the tweet and pressured Frischling to tweet it, in the agents’ quest to hunt down the source of the leaked document. I also asked whether the TSA has identified the anonymous leaker and taken any actions.

A DHS spokeswoman Jan. 2 says: “I’ve shared your emails with HQ for Monday.  If we can back to you before then, we will, but with the investigation ongoing, there’s not much we are able to comment on publicly.”

So, can you think of any good reason — other than legal repercussions or fear of retribution — why Frischling wouldn’t comment on who actually authored the tweet?

Might someone other than Frischling have drafted the words for the tweet and then pressured Frischling to hit the send button on his Blackberry?

Might the authors have been one or both of the TSA agents or possibly their superiors?

Is Twitter now becoming an investigative tool for governmental authorities? Or maybe the more appropriate question is, how much of an investigative tool is Twitter becoming for law enforcement agencies?

Identifying the author of the tweet is important because Frischling argues that he acted appropriately in facing the TSA onslaught. Frishling says he doesn’t know the identity of the source of the leaked document and did nothing to assist investigators in corralling the source when he agreed, under pressure, to let the TSA examine his computer hard drive.

But, the Dec. 29 tweet from Frischling’s account makes it appear that he became part of the hunt to help the TSA identify the source of the leaked document because the tweet asked the “gentleman who sent Flying With Fish the TSA Security Directive … Thank You! Can you drop me an email?I have a question…”

But, if the TSA actually wrote that controversial tweet and coerced Frischling to tweet it, then that puts a different slant on the tweet and Frischling’s role.

Frischling and I have been going back and forth on Twitter and in the comments section of this post about whether the stance he took and tactics he used, when the TSA was badgering him for his source, were appropriate.

The TSA withdrew the subpoenas against Frischling and Chris Elliott on the evening of Dec. 31 after an outcry on social media networks and in the press. The story of the two travel bloggers getting subpoenaed got tremendous press coverage, with many people arguing that in the wake of the Christmas Day attempted terrorist incident onboard Northwest Airlines flight 253, the TSA might have better focused on improving security than using precious resources to harass two journalists.

Frischling consented to let the TSA examine his computer because he says he didn’t know the identity of the source and had nothing to hide.

Elliott, who might have faced a somewhat different set of circumstances, resisted the TSA’s efforts and didn’t provide the agency with any information about sources.

I tweeted and stated previously that Frischling’s Dec. 29 tweet, which seemed to be a not-very-veiled effort to find the source of the leak, appeared to ratchet up a notch his role in the investigation.

The fact that Frischling won’t comment on the “author” of that tweet, and the curious timing about when the tweet was published, makes me scratch my head and wonder whether or not this would be one of the first publicly discussed cases of Twitter coercion.

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.

Elliott, who wouldn’t comment while the subpoena was pending, says tonight, Dec. 31, that he was hearing all day from multiple sources that the “TSA was going to cave.”

“There definitely was some damage control going on here,” Elliott says.

Elliott says he feels “very pleased with the outcome” as he was prepared to dig in to protect confidential sources.

He was surprised with the speed of the DHS reversal, adding that he knew the department was considering withdrawing the subpoena, but expected the move to come perhaps next Monday or Tuesday.

Short of a withdrawal, Elliott says he and his attorney had been considering filing a motion to quash the subpoena or to allow the clock to run out and let the Jan. 20 deadline lapse. Earlier today, the DHS had extended the initial deadline for compliance with the subpoena from Dec. 31 to Jan. 20 at the request of Elliott’s attorney, but withdrew the subpoena outright this evening.

Among the issues that remain is whether the TSA investigators were able to find the source of the leaked document from their examination of Frischling’s computer or perhaps through other means, making the subpoena of Elliott unnecessary.

The TSA couldn’t be reached for comment.