Transportation Security Administration

Retired Rear Adm. David M. Stone, who once headed the Transportation Security Administration and was the first federal security director at Los Angeles International Airport in the critical months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has died. He was 57. Stone's untimely death occurred over the weekend, several days after attending an awards ceremony for TSA employees in Arlington, Va., agency officials said. He had traveled to the event from his home in Bangalore, India, where he worked for Cisco Systems Inc. as a senior executive in charge of safety and security.

A program that lets preapproved air travelers zip through faster security lines will be expanded this year to 35 of the nation's largest airports, Transportation Security Administration officials announced Wednesday. The pilot program, dubbed PreCheck, lets travelers who get TSA clearance avoid what have become the most annoying steps of post-9/11 screening: removing shoes, belt and coats. PreCheck has been tested for several months with frequent travelers who fly with several major airlines at seven airports, including Los Angeles International.

There is more turbulence at the agency charged with airport security: The Transportation Security Administration is losing its third director in as many years. TSA chief David M. Stone will leave the job in June, spokesman Mark Hatfield said Friday. No reason for the move was provided and no replacement was announced. The change comes as the new Homeland Security secretary, Michael Chertoff, is considering restructuring the entire department, which includes TSA.

Sen. Rand Paul was blocked from boarding a flight at the Nashville airport Monday morning after refusing to consent to a body pat down at a security checkpoint, according to a Transportation Security Administration official and the senator's office. The senator, a tea party favorite who has been critical of the TSA, was passing through security when he triggered a routine alarm and then refused a pat down by TSA screeners. “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,” TSA spokesman Greg Soule said in a statement.

Even though it was a serious subject, I had to laugh at a part of your March 1 report, "Security Breach Closes Half of LAX." It stated, "Before the Transportation Security Administration assumed control, American Airlines maintenance employees would have checked security equipment, including magnetometers and X-ray machines . . . each morning." But since the Transportation Security Administration assumed control, "it is unclear whose job that is." This must be big government at its worst.

Travelers usually try to get in and get out of Los Angeles International Airport as quickly as possible. Who wouldn't? But in their haste, here are 25 things they might have missed: Full-body scanners were deployed late last year after it was revealed that contraband items were slipping past Transportation Security Administration screeners. LAX has 22 of the big machines, each monitored by a worker in a separate room so the revealing images remain out of view. If a luggage scanner alarm goes off, a yellow bar on the monitor directs a TSA worker to the area in the luggage where the suspicious material is. Chocolate and cheese commonly trigger the machines, because the two foods have the same density as explosives.

It's a Thursday evening, and the landing lights of incoming LAX flights glow like torches from Westchester to the San Gabriels. Torch one, 200 lives suspended in air. Torch two, 500. Torch three, 350 awaiting their return to loved ones, bosses, business meetings, auditions and, for many, the soul-saving comfort of their own pillows. This high-wire act is more than just symbolic of the seventh-busiest airport in the world. It speaks to the risks involved, the importance of procedure, the crushing, timed-to-the-minute routine.

If you've had a laptop computer lost or damaged during security screening at Los Angeles International Airport, you are not alone. Laptop computers are the item most often listed as lost or damaged in claim reports filed against the Transportation Security Administration at LAX, according to an analysis of TSA records. In a three-year period, passengers at LAX filed 1,702 claims, second only to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, with 2,277 claims, according to the records for November 2007 to December 2010.

The Transportation Security Administration suspended Verified Identity Pass Inc. from enrolling travelers in its pre-screening program after a laptop containing the records of 33,000 people went missing. The company, based in New York, lost possession of the laptop July 26 at San Francisco International Airport. The laptop contained unencrypted pre-enrollment records of individuals interested in joining the program, the Transportation Security Administration said Monday in a statement.

Screeners at airport checkpoints will not frisk passengers of the opposite sex, the head of the Transportation Security Administration announced Wednesday. John Magaw, who heads the security agency, said male screening agents would pat down males and female workers would do the same for women. "You will not have a male frisking a female," Magaw said. In addition, the security agency is setting standards for when to frisk passengers at airport checkpoints, Magaw said.

Question: Please clarify the Transportation Security Administration's limitations on volume of fluids allowed in a single container to be carried onboard in the 1-quart plastic bag, which raised the issue of 3-1-1 (3 ounces, 1-quart bag, 1 bag per person). I was in Italy and wanted to bring back a vial of Modena's famed balsamic vinegar. In Europe, volume is expressed in metric, and the smallest container I could find was 100 milliliters, which is 3.3 ounces. I chose not to bring anything back.

The son of a former Los Angeles fire chief was charged Monday with bribing a federal Transportation Security Administration officer at Los Angeles International Airport to help him smuggle marijuana past security on nine separate trips. Millage Peaks IV admitted to FBI agents that he and his associates made the trips with the aid of a TSA officer, whom they paid $5,000 to $6,000 in bribes to avoid detection, according to an FBI affidavit. Peaks and TSA Officer Dianne Perez were arrested on bribery charges Sunday following what the FBI said was his most recent attempt.

It's a Thursday evening, and the landing lights of incoming LAX flights glow like torches from Westchester to the San Gabriels. Torch one, 200 lives suspended in air. Torch two, 500. Torch three, 350 awaiting their return to loved ones, bosses, business meetings, auditions and, for many, the soul-saving comfort of their own pillows. This high-wire act is more than just symbolic of the seventh-busiest airport in the world. It speaks to the risks involved, the importance of procedure, the crushing, timed-to-the-minute routine.

As reports surface that U.S. officials are concerned about terrorists smuggling explosives into the U.S. within their bodies, one presidential candidate would do away completely with the government agency charged with screening passengers. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, a libertarian, would instead privatize airline security. In his weekly "Straight Talk" telephone address last weekend Paul said the agency infringed on privacy rights of passengers while doing little to keep the nation safe.

A controversial bill that would have criminalized "intrusive" pat-downs by airport security died in the Texas Legislature on the final day of a special session Wednesday, but some lawmakers say they will take up the legislation in the future. The bill, which prompted federal officials to threaten to ground flights in the state, failed during the Legislature's regular session in May, but was revived when Gov. Rick Perry ordered that it go on the special session's agenda. The bill passed in the Senate, but in the House a four-fifths vote was required to suspend constitutional rules and bring the bill to a vote.

The decision by Texas Gov. Rick Perry to revive legislation that would criminalize "intrusive" pat-downs by airport security drew expected praise from grass-roots conservatives, rankled opponents who called it political pandering and reignited threats from federal officials of grounded flights in the state. But it may not even come to a vote. HB 41, which would make it a crime for federal agents to touch a person's anus, genitals, buttocks or breasts without probable cause, is at peril of dying in the state House, as Republican Speaker Joe Straus has pledged not to consider it in its current state.

FOR a trip to Canada in October, we bought a digital camera, took one picture and placed it back in the original box and into our checked luggage. Upon arrival in Vancouver, nothing seemed suspect until I opened the box -- no camera. Between the airline and Transportation Security Administration, who can say who's responsible for the loss? In hindsight, it may have been our mistake, but our fear is not so much of others but rather the TSA and airline employees. LAX travelers, beware.

Venezuela's aviation agency is criticizing a U.S. travel advisory stating that the U.S. can't vouch for the security of flights departing Venezuela. The National Civil Aviation Institute insists that Venezuela's airports are in full compliance with international standards set by the U.N. agency overseeing civil aviation. Institute President Jose Luis Martinez Bravo denied that Venezuela's government had blocked U.S. officials from visiting its airports. But he acknowledged disagreement with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration on its request to evaluate security.

Travelers usually try to get in and get out of Los Angeles International Airport as quickly as possible. Who wouldn't? But in their haste, here are 25 things they might have missed: Full-body scanners were deployed late last year after it was revealed that contraband items were slipping past Transportation Security Administration screeners. LAX has 22 of the big machines, each monitored by a worker in a separate room so the revealing images remain out of view. If a luggage scanner alarm goes off, a yellow bar on the monitor directs a TSA worker to the area in the luggage where the suspicious material is. Chocolate and cheese commonly trigger the machines, because the two foods have the same density as explosives.

One nasty partisan battle in Washington that gets less attention than it deserves is the ongoing fight over the Transportation Security Administration, which heated up recently after House Republicans voted to slash the TSA's funding and a key House committee issued a report concluding that private contractors could handle airport security more efficiently than federal employees. It would appear that many Republicans have forgotten why airport screening was federalized to begin with. Before 9/11, airport security was handled by private contractors, whose performance was considered suspect by aviation experts long before they allowed 19 hijackers with knives and box cutters to board planes that fateful day. The TSA was created two months later to give the government more oversight, but some GOP lawmakers have been grumbling ever since — and the grumbling has turned to action in the wake of two decisions by new TSA chief John S. Pistole.