Posted by Blogger Bob, TSA Blog Team
As part of her CBS Evening News interview with Katie Couric discussing Osama bin Laden retaliation threats, Secretary Napolitano visited the Transportation Security Operations Center (TSOC) also known as the Freedom Center.
The Freedom Center can be seen in the interview, and I’m guessing some of you might want to know a little more about it. I know it piques my interest when I see an operations center full of computers and giant displays. It makes me want to push buttons and stuff. Anyway, it’s our main information center, where analysts monitor the entire transportation network and connect TSA with the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Aviation Administration, FBI, and other law enforcement and security agencies. When an incident happens such as a plane being diverted, a bomb threat, airspace violation, etc, the TSOC is fully involved in these types of scenarios.
You might wonder what that is in the photo that secretary Napolitano is being shown in the photo. It’s a memorial composed of a World Trade Center girder, Pentagon stone, and a fragment from the wreckage of Flight 93. It serves as a reminder of why we do what we do and what we’re trying to prevent and all TSOC employees pass by it every day when they arrive at their jobs.