Homeland Security Dept. Issues Safety Act Certifications The Homeland Security Department has approved the first designations and certifications of anti-terrorism technologies under the Safety Act, eight months after it began accepting applications. Sellers of the approved technologies are granted limited protection from liability lawsuits, including immunity from punitive damages and limits on the amount the company must pay for liability insurance coverage. The protection is designed to encourage companies to deploy technologies that will prevent, detect, identify or deter acts of terrorism or aid in recovery from attacks. Industry representatives have complained that the application is too long and complicated and requires disclosure of too much proprietary information. DHS said, “The application itself is currently undergoing revision as the department considers feedback from applicants, businesses, and industry groups in order to make the process as user-friendly as possible.” The department said it will issue a revised rule on Safety Act protection “in the near future.” Last month three congressional committee chairmen urged Secretary Tom Ridge to streamline the application process. One of them, House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA), said, “The Safety Act must work as intended: To speed up the deployment of these technologies, not to slow them down.” (SAA, 5/28) The first four products to win approval are: *Lockheed Martin’s risk assessment platform, the computer system that power the airline passenger screening program known as CAPPS II; *Michael Stapleton Associates SmartTech System and Explosion Detection Services, a system that allows bomb technicians to examine suspicious items from remote locations; *Northrop Grumman’s biohazard detection system, which has been selected by the U.S. Postal Service to analyze environmental samples and detect potential biological threats at mail-sorting facilities; and *Teledyne Brown Engineering Inc.’s WaterSabre, which uses a high-powered stream of water to cut open suspicious containers.