Request Submitted To: Transportation Security Administration
Category: Surveillance
Year Filed: 2010
Background
The Transportation Security Administration has the responsibility and authority for ensuring the security of all modes of transportation, including, among others, civil aviation, ferries, passenger rail, and mass transit. In dealing solely with air travel safety, the TSA employs over 48,000 officers at hundreds of airports across the country to screen passengers and their baggage, using an array of technologically advanced systems such as x-ray systems, walk-through metal detectors, exp0losive trace detection equipment, trained K-9s, advanced imaging technologies and more. These technologies are not limited to the screening of passengers entering boarding areas, but extend as well to all public areas of airports.
Given its connection to the events of 9/11, security at Logan International Airport in Boston has figured prominently in TSA air travel safety measures. Among other steps, TSA has installed three AIT whole body scanning portals in Logan’s Terminal A with more apparently ordered. TSA has assigned a number of Behavior Detection Officers (BDOs) to Logan. Automobiles entering the parking garage in Logan’s Terminal B are subject to search upon entry.
The implementation of these measures, particularly as they move beyond the screening of passengers, raise significant public questions about their increasing intrusion on personal privacy and their effectiveness in increasing public safety, to say nothing of their high cost and their safety. Yet these measures often have been rolled out with little or no public input until they are already in use.
As TSA moves beyond the “sterile area” of the airport and even beyond the airport perimeter, the public will continue to have questions and concerns about the safety of new technologies, the privacy safeguards and the cost-benefit analysis of employing many of these methods. In order to provide more information to the public about how these technologies and methods work in practice, this request sought documents containing data and information underlying the implementation of these methods.
- 08/31/2010 – TSA Correspondence
- 09/01/2010 – TSA Correspondence
- 09/01/2010 – TSA Correspondence – 2
- 09/01/2010 – TSA Correspondence – 3
- 09/01/2010 – TSA Correspondence – 4
- 09/15/2010 – TSA Acknowledgement
- 02/16/2011 – TSA Response
- 02/16/2011 – TSA Response to ACLU Request
- 08/17/2011 – TSA Response to ACLU Request
- 10/07/2011 – TSA Response to Appeal
- 12/30/2012 – Denial of Appeal
- 05/26/2015 – TSA Response to ACLU Request
- 02/24/2014 – TSA Response
- TSA Instructor Guide for SPOT Program
- TSA Instructor Guide – Lesson 1
- TSA Instructor Guide – Lesson 2
- TSA Instructor Guide – Lesson 3
- TSA Instructor Guide – Lesson 4
- TSA Instructor Guide – Lesson 5
- TSA SPOT Program Participant Guide
- TSA SPOT Proficiency/OJT Checklist
- What is SPOT? Infosheet
- TSA 20 Layers of Security
- Example: Unlawful Use of Race or Ethnicity
- Example: Lawful Use of Discernible Traits
- SPOT Process
- Behavioral Indicators and Weights
- Section 2 of the SPOT Referral Report Handout
- SPOT Referral Report
- SPOT Narrative Report
- Bibliography Non-Verbal Communications Handout
- Expectations Behavior Detection Officer (BOO)
- Cover Sheet
- Instructor Guide – Lesson Plan – Whole Body Imager – Configuration
- Instructor Guide – Lesson Plan – Whole Body Imager – Pat-Down Procedures
- Instructor Guide – Lesson Plan (AIT) – Configuration
- Instructor Guide – Lesson Plan (AIT) – Operations
- Instructor Guide – Lesson Plan (AIT)- Configuration
- Life Cycle Cost Estimate
- Priv Impact Assessment for TSA Whole Body Imaging
- Priv Impact Assessment for TSA Whole Body Imaging
- Priv Impact Assessment Update for TSA Whole Body Imaging
- TSA Statement on New Pat-down Procedures
- Special Study – Quick Look Report on Smiths Ionscan Sentinel II and Sentinel II Modular Portal Regression Test
- TSA – Procurement Specification for AIT for Checkpoint Operations
- TSA System Evaluation – L-3 Communications ProVision 100
- TSA System Evaluation Report – Rapiscan Secure 1000 Dual-View
- Whole Body Imager – Standard Operating Procedures