Jewish & World News

The chorus is growing louder against the Transportation Security Administration’s new carry-on guidelines that will allow knives on board airplanes. Just days after the TSA released new guidelines that will allow travelers to bring small knives, souvenir baseball bats, golf clubs, hockey sticks and other sports gear on planes, Sen. Charles Schumer has called on the agency to reverse itself.

Knives, golf clubs and some other currently prohibited items will soon be allowed to be carried on to airplanes, the Transportation Security Administration announced Tuesday. Box cutters, larger blades and knives with molded handles will still be banned from carry-on luggage. According to the federal agency, the move will help agents better focus on finding higher threat items like explosives. The TSA released the following statement Tuesday afternoon: “Through TSA’s layered approach to security, and to align more closely with International Civil Aviation Organization standards, effective April 25, 2013 TSA will allow knives that do not lock, and have blades that are 2.36 inches or 6 centimeters or less in length and are less than 1/2 inch in width, novelty-sized and toy bats, billiard cues, ski poles, hockey sticks, lacrosse sticks and two golf clubs as part of their carry-on baggage. This is part of an overall Risk-Based Security approach, which allows Transportati...

More than two million people have been screened through TSA’s Pre Check program, said the agency on July 27. The program is available to U.S. citizens traveling domestically, who are members of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Trusted Traveler programs and frequent travelers with participating airlines at many of the busiest airports across the country. "As TSA Pre Check continues to expand to additional airports and passenger populations, we are seeing exponential growth in participation," said TSA Administrator John Pistole in a statement on July 27. "We are on track to bring TSA Pre Check to 35 airports by the end of 2012 and even more next year."

A 2010 video of an airport screener patting down a 3-year-old boy in a wheelchair has become the latest Rorschach test of the public's attitude towards the TSA, pitting agency defenders against those who say the video shows the child being treated like a terrorist. Posted on YouTube Saturday night by the child's father, the video had nearly 1,000,000 hits by Tuesday morning.

A Florida airport is pushing to join 16 other U.S. airports in opting out of Transportation Security Administration screening in favor of private screeners. Orlando Sanford International Airport has been trying to get approval since last year to join the TSA's Screening Partnership Program, which helps airports hire qualified private screening companies to enforce security protocol set and overseen by the TSA. The airport's application has been denied twice. "We're not booting the TSA. This is a TSA program created by congress," said Larry Dale, the airport's president and CEO.

After years of criticism, the Transportation Security Administration is taking the initial steps to modify screening for people age 75 or older. Beginning Monday, the TSA will test procedures allowing those passengers to leave their shoes on, as well as light outerwear. Other changes are intended to reduce the likelihood that older passengers will be subjected to a pat-down.

The Transportation Security Administrating says it has stopped several suspicious items recently at area airports. One incident took place Friday. That’s when a TSA agent at Newark-Liberty International Airport spotted two hand grenades inside a passenger’s carry-on bag. Turns out the grenades were inert replicas and meant to be used as gearshift knobs in a car.

The federal Transportation Security Administration is defending its decision to confiscate a frosted cupcake from a Massachusetts woman flying from Las Vegas . The TSA says in a blog comment posted Monday the cupcake was packed in a jar filled with icing, which is considered a gel under a policy designed to secure travelers from terrorists seeking to evade detection by using explosives made of plastics, liquids or gels.

Traveling on planes is stressful enough for passengers over the holiday, but even more so if someone has a disability or medical need. Now the Transportation Security Administration, which has endured widespread criticism for intrusive pat-downs, is launching a toll-free help line to get travelers through security checkpoints. The agency announced Thursday the start of TSA Cares, designed to assist travelers in need before they get to the airport. The idea is to answer questions about screening procedures and what the travelers should expect.

Sacramento, CA - An airline pilot is being disciplined by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for posting video on YouTube pointing out what he believes are serious flaws in airport security. The 50-year-old pilot, who lives outside Sacramento, asked that neither he nor his airline be identified. He has worked for the airline for more than a decade and was deputized by the TSA to carry a gun in the cockpit. He is also a helicopter test pilot in the Army Reserve and flew missions for the United Nations in Macedonia. Three days after he posted a series of six video clips recorded with a cell phone camera at San Francisco International Airport, four federal air marshals and two sheriff's deputies arrived at his house to confiscate his federally-issued firearm. The pilot recorded that event as well and provided all the video to News10. At the same time as the federal marshals took the pilot's gun, a deputy sheriff asked him to surrender his state-issued permit to ...

Holiday travelers thinking about bringing a thermos for hot Christmas coffee aboard their flight may be stopped short at the gate this year. Transportation Security Administration officials issued an alert Thursday for agents to take a closer look at empty insulated drink containers at security checkpoints, citing them as potential instruments in a terror tactic, the Associated Press reports.

A bladder cancer survivor from Michigan who wears a urostomy bag that collects his urine says a rough pat-down by a security agent at Detroit Metropolitan Airport caused the bag to spill its contents on his shirt and pants. 

He looked like Public Enemy No. 1 by the way security screeners were treating him -- and he's only 8 years old. The little boy is seen on a disturbing Internet video being forced to take off his sweatshirt and stand bare-chested as he is surrounded by four airport-security agents, one of whom runs the back of his hand across the front of the boy's pants. The child is then sent on his way.

To the list of instructions you hear at airport checkpoints, add this: "Put your palms forward, please." The Transportation Security Administration soon will begin randomly swabbing passengers' hands at checkpoints and airport gates to test them for traces of explosives. Previously, screeners swabbed some carry-on luggage and other objects as they searched for the needle in the security haystack -- components of terrorist bombs in an endless stream of luggage. But after the Christmas Day attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit, Michigan, the TSA began a program of swabbing passengers' hands, which could be contaminated by explosive materials, experts say. The TSA will greatly expand the swabbing in the coming weeks, the agency said. "The point is to make sure that the air environment is a safe environment," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told CNN. "We know that al Qaeda [and other] terrorists continue to think of aviati...

Philadelphia inquirer by  Daniel Rubin Just when I thought I was out of the Transportation Security Administration business for a few columns, they pull me back in. Did you hear about the Camden cop whose disabled son wasn't allowed to pass through airport security unless he took off his leg braces? Unfortunately, it's no joke. This happened to Bob Thomas, a 53-year-old officer in Camden's emergency crime suppression team, who was flying to Orlando in March with his wife, Leona, and their son, Ryan. Ryan was taking his first flight, to Walt Disney World, for his fourth birthday. The boy is developmentally delayed, one of the effects of being born 16 weeks prematurely. His ankles are malformed and his legs have low muscle tone. In March he was just starting to walk. Mid-morning on March 19, his parents wheeled his stroller to the TSA security point, a couple of hours before their Southwest Airlines flight was to depart. The boy's father broke down the stroller and...

Ten thousand airport security workers will now have access to secret intelligence on terrorist threats and anti-terror tactics in an effort to stop attacks on planes. The decision hopes to empower higher-level workers as part of an effort to bring a level of professionalism and seriousness to airport security. The 10,000 workers are comprised of managers, supervisors, and behavior detection officers who roam airports looking for suspicious people. The access to new information will give workers "context to things they see every day which may otherwise not appear unusual," TSA spokeswoman Sterling Payne said. To this point 750 employees have received added security clearance. It will take two years for all 10,000 workers to be cleared. Fox 5

The Transportation Security Administration is denying reports that the guard on duty during Sunday's security breach at Newark Airport was talking on his cell phone. The Daily News says the guard was on the phone when an unidentified man walked past a security checkpoint. But the TSA says that report is false. The breach caused flights to be grounded for several hours and passengers to be rescreened. The agent has since been reassigned to non-screening duties pending the outcome of the investigation. The TSA has not commented on the paper's report that the agency will post two agents at all Terminal C exits instead of one, in response to the incident. Read More: NY1

LOS ANGELES - CBS Reports: "TSA agents are there to keep the skies safe. but we uncovered an afterhours party where TSA agents were allegedly caught on tape using drugs. It comes as LAX is beefing up security in the wake of the Chritsmas bombing attempt." On a day the mayor was touting security ... "Here at LAX we're ahead of the curve on security measures." And the local head of TSA acknowledged the burden of keeping travelers safe ... "The TSA has a huge mission to protect America's transportation network." We expose TSA Agents -- busted for drugs! In a party caught on tape. One the agency doesn't want to talk about. I asked an official, "Does this tape trouble you." They replied, "I told you I cannot comment on that incident." The investigation began late last year when a TSA Agent was arrested for allegedly counterfeiting parking passes here at the employee parking lot. In his house, police found a videotape....

Surveillance cameras at Newark Airport were not working when a man walked into a secure area without being checked — a breach that set off near pandemonium at the busy terminal and inconvenienced thousands of travelers, officials said today. The failure of the Port Authority-owned equipment forced Transportation Security Administration officials to get footage from Continental Airlines’ backup cameras, which delayed the reporting of Sunday’s incident by about 90 minutes, the officials said. Once the breach was confirmed, Terminal C was shut down for nearly six hours. The man who got through was never found. Port Authority officials and cops are furious they were never told the cameras had failed, sources said. Even though they own them, it is the TSA’s responsibility to make sure they are functioning, officials said. It is unclear how long the cameras was inoperable. In addition to causing the cancellation of nearly 100 flights, thousands of passengers had to be led from the secu...