DHS Sec. Kelly Announces New Airport Security Measures

Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly confirmed Wednesday that his department will be implementing additional measures aimed at securing air travel from terrorist threats.

Kelly spoke at the Council for New American Security Conference at Washington, DC’s Mayflower Hotel, calling for a system-wide tightening of airline security. In his prepared remarks, Kelly stated, “My conclusion is this: it is time to raise the global baseline of aviation security.”

The speech continued:

Today, I am announcing a first step toward this goal by requiring new security measures to be applied to all commercial flights coming into the United States. These measures will be both seen and unseen, and they will be phased in over time.

They will include enhanced screening of electronic devices, more thorough passenger vetting, and new measures designed to mitigate the potential threat of insider attacks.

Kelly’s remarks and the accompanying fact sheet were short on specifics, advocating a flexible approach:

Our enemies are adaptive, and we must be too. A number of the measures we plan to put in place can be dialed up or down in a risk-based, intelligence-driven manner. And over the next several weeks and months, we’ll work with our partners to ensure these measures are fully implemented.

What is clear is that efforts will focus on international flights bound for the United States.Two hundred and eighty overseas airports in 108 countries will be subject to the new measures, which may include total bans on laptop computers and other electronic devices larger than a phone. In March, Secretary Kelly implemented such a ban on all flights to the United States originating from the Middle East and North Africa. Extending this ban to Europe and other areas has been discussed both domestically and in international negotiations.

While today’s announcement does not mandate such a ban, it may be part of the “seen and unseen” measures that make up the Department of Homeland Securities’s plans to protect airline traffic.