Customs and Border Protection says its officers used facial comparison technology to intercept an impostor arriving to the bus terminal at the Pacific Highway Port of Entry in Washington from Canada. The woman was using her sister’s U.S. passport and COVID vaccination card because she had not been vaccinated. The woman was being processed through Simplified Arrival when she was caught.
Department of Homeland Security
Chief Procurement Officer Paul Courtney on Dec. 6 sent a letter to industry partners notifying them that following a federal court granting a preliminary injunction prohibiting the department from enforcing vaccine mandates for federal contractors in Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee, DHS will not enforce the vaccine clause in contracts, task orders or delivery orders in those states. He also says that in “those states where the clause has not yet been included, government efforts to insert the clause are suspended.”
The Transportation Security Administration has appointed six new industry officials to the 40-member Surface Transportation Security Advisory Committee, which advises the agency’s administrator on surface transportation security matters. The new appointees are Jared Cassity, chief of safety and alternate national legislative director for SMART Transportation, Peter Grandgeorge, national security and resiliency advisor for Berkshire Hathaway Energy, Brian Harrell, vice president and chief security officer AVANGRID, Norma Krayem, chair of the cybersecurity, privacy & digital innovation practice group at Van Scoyoc Associates, Robert Mims, director, technology security, nuclear and electric security operations and chief information security officer at Southern Company Gas, and Lowell Williams, director, cyber security operations at Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency announced the first 23 members of its new Cybersecurity Advisory Committee, a mix of private sector, legal, local government, and policy experts that will help provide advice and recommendations to the agency on various matters. The committee will hold its first meeting Dec. 10. CISA Director Jen Easterly has asked National Cyber Director Chris Inglis to help in establishing the committee and setting its priorities. The committee’s charter calls for 35 members.
IDEMIA’s IDEMIA National Security Solutions subsidiary has appointed three new vice presidents to their executive leadership team. The appointees are: Sandra Joyner Williams, previously with Parsons Corp., is vice president of Department of Defense and Intelligence Community Operations’ Marg Schulenberg, the facility security officer at NSS, is now vice president of security and business operations, and Mike Ronayne, who was senior director of identity solutions, is now vice president of federal civilian operations.