The
head of the Transportation Security Administration April
18 called on businesses to help develop a national security
plan for transportation systems, the National Journal's
Technology Daily reports.
TSA
Administrator James Loy said TSA "is a rare experiment
in government" because it intends to be a "laboratory
agency" to test security ideas.
Among
the ideas: A TSA initiative to develop an ID 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.
TSA
also wants to link security systems together. But for different
systems to work together, a common language is needed,
Loy said. 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.
Homeland
security success depends upon mapping the nation's infrastructure
and identifying vulnerabilities, Loy said. TSA and the
Homeland Security Department's information analysis and
infrastructure protection directorate will work on that
issue, he added.
Loy
also said TSA would seek new technologies to improve security.
He said that after his speech, he would work with Charles
McQueary, Homeland Security's undersecretary for science
and technology, as McQueary developed a priority list of
tech needs for the department.
Meanwhile,
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has also asked TSA
to prepare a national response plan. It will encompass
everything from preventive measures to consequence management,
Loy said.
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