Archive for the ‘news media’ Category

*Updated with photo

San Clemente’s Greg Long, who has emerged in recent years as the world’s premier big-wave surfer, added another major accomplishment to his resume by winning the prestigious Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau contest Tuesday at Waimea Bay on Oahu’s North Shore.

With enormous waves pumping in from the north, Long survived a nearly sheer drop down one of the larger set waves late in the event’s final heat. Judges scored the ride a perfect 100, which helped propel Long past Kelly Slater, who had led through most of the daylong competition.

The mountainous wave, with a face exceeding 40 feet, exploded at Long’s heels and a towering wall of whitewater swept over him like a horizontal avalanche. He received the score on the heaviness factor and the potential consequences if he did not make the drop.

“I’m humbled just  to be in this event,” Long said afterward of a competition that honors a legendary North Shore waterman and is held only on years when truly epic conditions exist.

Long, a regular standout in the yearlong Billabong XXL Big-Wave Awards, caught another wave as the heat drew to a close, for a lesser score, but it was enough to give him a 10-point lead over Slater in the best-four-scores format.

Waimea was at its earth-shaking best, with the swell holding most of the day and pulsing even larger toward the end of the competition, which featured literally dozens of remarkable rides, but also breath-taking wipeouts, broken boards and the world’s elite big-wave surfers thrilling crowd of thousands by charging all the way into the 15-foot shore break.

This marks only the eighth time in 25 years the Aikau contest was held. Slater, who has an unprecedented nine ASP World Tour titles, won the Aikau event in 2002. Bruce Irons, who finished fourth Tuesday, was the defending champion after winning in 2004. Sunny Garcia, a former world champion, was third.

– Pete Thomas

Photo: Greg Long in action at Waimea Bay. Credit: Kelly Cestari

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The federal government improperly posted an internal guide to its airport passenger screening procedures on the Internet in a way that could offer insight into how to sidestep security.

The document outlines who is exempt from certain additional screening measures, including members of the U.S. armed forces, governors and lieutenant governors, the mayor of Washington, D.C., and their immediate families.

It offers examples of identification documents that screeners accept, including congressional, federal air marshal and CIA ID cards; and it explains that diplomatic pouches and certain foreign dignitaries with law enforcement escorts are not subjected to any screening at all. It said certain methods of verifying identification documents aren’t used on all travelers during peak travel crushes.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which oversees airport security, said the document is outdated. It was posted in March by TSA on the Federal Business Opportunity site. The posting was improper because sensitive information was not properly protected, TSA spokeswoman Kristin Lee said.

As a result, some Web sites, using widely available software, were able to uncover the original text of sections that had been blacked out for security reasons. On Sunday, the Wandering Aramean blog pointed out the document in a posting titled “The TSA makes another stupid move.”

According to the blog, TSA posted a redacted version of the document but did not delete the sensitive information from the file. Instead of removing the text, the government covered it up with a black box. But the text was still embedded in the document and could be uncovered.

TSA asked that the document be removed from the Federal Business Opportunity site on Dec. 6 after the security lapse was reported in a blog. But copies of the document — with the redacted portions exposed — circulated on the Internet and remain posted on other Web sites not controlled by the government.

Lee said TSA takes the incident seriously and a review is under way.

Noting that the transportation agency uses multiple layers of security, Lee said, “TSA is confident that screening procedures currently in place remain strong.”

The document, marked “sensitive security information,” includes instructions on how it should be stored to avoid compromising security: Electronic copies should be password-protected; hard copies should be in separate binders and stored in cabinets or desk drawers; and missing copies should be immediately reported.

The document also describes these screening protocols:
–Individuals with a passport from Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, or Algeria, should be given additional screening unless there are specific instructions not to.
–Aircraft flight crew members in uniform with valid IDs are not subject to liquid, gel, aerosol and footwear restrictions.
–Wheelchair and scooter cushions, disabled people’s footwear that can’t be removed, prosthetic devices, casts, braces and orthopedic shoes at certain times may be exempt from screening for explosives.

Intelligence officials have warned of prosthetic devices and wheelchairs being used to conceal weapons and other contraband.

“Some of these devices may have been used to exploit a perception that security and law enforcement officers offer disabled or pregnant individuals a more relaxed inspection,” said an August 2007 TSA intelligence note marked “for official use only” and obtained by The Associated Press.

Former TSA Administrator Kip Hawley said the document is not something a security agency would want to inadvertently post online, but he said it’s not a roadmap for terrorists.

“Hyperventilating that this is a breach of security that’s going to endanger the public is flat wrong,” Hawley said.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., was more concerned.

“Undoubtedly, this raises potential security concerns across our transportation system,” Thompson wrote the agency Tuesday in a letter recommending that an independent federal agency be found to review the incident. The chairwoman of the panel’s transportation security subcommittee, Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas, also signed the letter.

Thompson’s Senate counterpart, Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said the episode was “an embarrassing mistake that calls into question the judgment of agency managers. … That it was incompetently redacted only compounds the error.”