Airport Security

The Clear registered traveler program, which promised to speed fliers through airport security lines, has been shuttered. Clear, which began about four years ago, had enrolled more than 250,000 travelers, each paying nearly $200 a year, and operated at 18 airports, including Atlanta, Denver, San Francisco, and Washington Dulles. At Logan International Airport in Boston, the program was offered only through Delta Air Lines in Terminal A. Users of the Clear system got high-tech ID cards to verify their fingerprints or iris patterns at designated security kiosks.

The woman who caused a security scare that resulted in a flight from Paris to Charlotte, N.C., being diverted to Bangor, Maine, will not be charged but will be returned to France, federal prosecutors in Maine said today. Lucie Zeeko Marigot, 41, was investigated by the FBI on possible charges of interfering with a flight crew throughout Tuesday night and into this morning. She appeared before US Magistrate Judge Margaret Kravchuk this afternoon, prosecutors said. But prosecutors told the court that, based on further...

WASHINGTON - US security officials are warning airlines that terrorists are considering surgically hiding bombs inside humans to evade airport security. And as a result, travelers may find themselves subjected to more scrutiny when flying in the heart of summer vacation season, especially to the United States from abroad. Bombs-in-the body is not a brand new idea, but recent intelligence indicates a fresh interest in using this method, as people-scanning machines in airports aren’t able to detect explosives hidden inside humans.

A US Airways flight from France to North Carolina was diverted Tuesday to Bangor, Maine, escorted there by two F-15 fighter jets, after a passenger behaved suspiciously, authorities said. But "there appears to be no indication that there was an actual threat to the flight," Boston FBI spokesman Greg Comcowich said late this afternoon. Flight 787, which was headed from Paris to Charlotte, landed safely in Bangor at 12:05 p.m.. There were 179 passengers and nine crew members on board the Boeing 767, according to the airline.

WASHINGTON - Hand sanitizer makes it through security in one airport, then it's confiscated at another. Screening lines back up because only two of six lanes are open. And then there's the occasional all-too-intimate pat down. Those complaints and other frustrations make the nation's airport security agency about as popular as the IRS. Indeed, only the Federal Emergency Management Agency, still suffering from its mishandling of Hurricane Katrina, ranks below the Transportation Security Administration among the least-liked federal agencies, according to a new Associated Press-Ipsos poll.

WASHINGTON — Cabinet secretaries, top congressional leaders, and an exclusive group of senior US officials are exempt from toughened airport screening procedures when they fly commercially with government-approved federal security details. Aviation security officials would not name those who can skip the controversial screening, but other officials said those VIPs range from such top officials as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and FBI Director Robert Mueller to congressional leaders such as incoming House Speaker John Boehner, who avoided security before a...

WASHINGTON -- Nearly three years after the Sept. 11 attacks, two key elements of the Bush administration's effort to bolster airport security remain works in progress: more rigorous background checks of passengers and a better way to check for explosives in luggage. A plan to prescreen air travelers for terrorist connections, once described by the administration as an urgent need, has been sent back to the drawing board. And only eight of 441 commercial airports have systems recognized as the best at quickly and effectively screening checked baggage.

It has been nearly a decade since Al Qaeda terrorists hijacked two planes that took off from Logan International Airport and flew them into the World Trade Center. Now, Logan is viewed as one of the safest airports in the country — a distinction that can be both a blessing and a curse. It was the first US airport to test an Israeli technique for identifying suspicious passengers, the first to arm its police with submachine guns, and the only one to train all its front-line employees to identify suspicious behavior.

President Barack Obama has signed legislation to toughen oil and gas pipeline regulations and another to ease airport security procedures for members of the military on official travel. The president signed the legislation Tuesday as part of a post-holiday, back-to-business day that included approval of several other measures approved by Congress late last year. The pipeline law aims to close gaps in federal safety regulations made apparent by a fatal gas pipeline break near San Francisco in 2010.

If you’re traveling this holiday season, here are a few things from the Transportation Security Administration you should know about airport security measures: Q. Who gets chosen to go through a full-body scanner? A. If you’re in a security line with a scanner, you may be directed to go through it. If there’s a backup, you may be sent through a metal detector instead. Logan Airport has 17 full-body scanners, at least one at every major checkpoint. Scanners are now at 69 airports nationwide.

A defense lawyer says a former New York police officer sentenced to more than three years in prison for bribery made "poor decisions" and is remorseful. The U.S. attorney's office says 36-year-old Michael Brady accepted cash payments from a painkilling-pill trafficker to ensure he could carry large amounts of cash through airport security. Brady was sentenced Thursday to 37 months in prison. He had pleaded guilty to bribery and extortion. Brady's attorney says he was vulnerable at the time because he had recently been told of his former wife's lesbian affair.

Over the past three years, al-Qaida bomb makers in Yemen have developed three fiendishly clever devices in hopes of attacking airplanes in the skies above the United States. First, there was the underwear bomb that fizzled over Detroit on Christmas 2009. Next, terrorists hid bombs inside printer cartridges and got them on board cargo planes in 2010, only to watch authorities find and defuse them in the nick of time. Then last month, officials say, al-Qaida completed a sophisticated new, nonmetallic underwear bomb — and unwittingly handed it over to the CIA. The would-be...

WASHINGTON - The CIA thwarted an ambitious plot by Al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen to destroy a US-bound airliner using a bomb with a sophisticated new design around the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden. The plot involved an upgrade of the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas 2009. This new bomb was also designed to be used in a passenger's underwear, but this time Al Qaeda developed a more refined detonation system, US officials said.

The CIA thwarted an ambitious plot by al-Qaida's affiliate in Yemen to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner using a bomb with a sophisticated new design around the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, U.S. officials said Monday. The plot involved an upgrade of the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas 2009. This new bomb was also designed to be used in a passenger's underwear, but this time al-Qaida developed a more refined detonation system, U.S. officials said.

Airport security can try the patience of even the most stoic adults. But for children - especially the youngest - it can be downright scary. Hearing a friend's horror story of how a recent family trip nearly did not happen because his child had a tantrum over surrendering a beloved blankie to the maw of an X-ray machine, I was reminded of a similar trauma in our family. It was a handful of years ago when my now-9-year-old son, wife, and I were on our way to visit family in Los Angeles.

CAIRO - A US woman banned from leaving Egypt as part of its crackdown on foreign-funded prodemocracy groups was stopped from boarding an international flight yesterday, Cairo airport officials said. The officials said Mary Elizabeth Whitehead was trying to board a flight to Germany minutes before takeoff when airport security stopped her. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with police regulations. The spat over the nongovernment groups has caused the deepest crisis in Washington's relations with Cairo in decades.

WASHINGTON - Children 12 years old and younger soon will no longer be required to remove their shoes at airport security checkpoints, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told Congress yesterday. The new policy, which also includes other ways to screen young children without resorting to a potentially personal pat-down, should be rolled out in the coming months, Napolitano said during a Senate hearing on the terror threat to the nation. Napolitano said there may be exceptions.

WASHINGTON -- The government's decision to allow airline passengers to carry small scissors is part of a broader shift in airport security, focusing more on keeping explosives off planes and less on stopping another attack like that of Sept. 11, 2001. Representative John Mica, Republican of Florida, chairman of the House Transportation Committee's aviation panel, applauded the decision as a welcome change in the mindset of the Transportation Security Administration. "They're trying to shift from shaking down little old ladies with scissors and knitting...

If you regularly fly out of Logan International Airport, going through security may become faster and less intrusive by the end of the year. Under an expansion of the federal Transportation Security Administration's "risk-based security" initiative, some travelers will not have to remove their shoes, light outerwear, jackets, or belts as they make their way to departure gates. They also might be able to keep their laptop computers and small containers of fluids - such as shampoo - in carry-on luggage during the screening process.

The TSA said yesterday that it would extend to Logan International Airport and 27 other major airports this year a new screening program that will allow some travelers to avoid removing their shoes and belts, speeding passage through security checkpoints. The agency already has put the PreCheck program in place at seven airports. The move reflects an attempt by TSA, first announced in May, to respond to consumer complaints about passenger screenings. This is the way it works: To participate in the program, travelers must be part of American or...