Transportation official seeks business advice on security

The head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) on Thursday called on businesses to help develop a national security plan for transportation systems.

"This is an all-hands evolution," TSA Administrator James Loy told a conference on network-centric operations. "We are sort of in this together."

The plan will be a "collection point" for the six different transportation sectors, Loy said, adding that TSA is examining its current and future functions, core competencies and who they need to help them get those, including the information technology industry. The future IT capabilities of the department "will rival any you see in government today," he said.

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge also has asked TSA to prepare a national response plan. It will differ from others by encompassing everything from preventive measures to consequence management, Loy said.

TSA will review existing response-related authorities, eliminate redundancies and close gaps, then test the plan against every imaginable contingency, he said.

Loy said TSA "is a rare experiment in government" because it is intended to be a "laboratory agency" that tests security ideas. The agency's move to the new Homeland Security Department has not lessened its authority. "We are sort of jealously guarding but using to the max every one of those authorities we have been given," Loy said.

To protect the transportation sector, TSA is linking a series of security systems together, he said. But for different systems to work together, a common language is needed. For instance, the telecommunications industry has a different lexicon than the shipping industry. "An IT query is going to be useless if there is not a common language," Loy said.

He also said the success of homeland security depends upon mapping the critical infrastructure of the nation and identifying vulnerabilities. TSA and the Homeland Security Department's information analysis and infrastructure protection directorate will work on that issue, he said.

Loy also said TSA will continue to seek new technologies to improve security. He said after his speech that he will work with Charles McQueary, Homeland Security's undersecretary for science and technology, as McQueary develops a priority list of tech needs for the department.

Loy also said he would like to announce this week the next phase of a TSA initiative to develop an identification system to give workers access to critical components of the transportation system. The system will link to background information supplied by the workers and will use biometrics, such as face, fingerprint or iris scans, to ensure their identities.

Loy also touted the Computer-Assisted Passenger Pre-screening (CAPPS II) program for airline passengers as the technology that will allow a "quantum leap" in both security and customer service. He said that by allowing limited security staff to better confirm passengers' identities, the system will make it easier to target the highest-risk passengers.

"Our effort is not to find a needle in a haystack but to take the haystack off the needle," he said.