Morning Security Brief: United Removes Security Gates, Guard Shoots Coworkers, Cyber Attacks, and More

►The Air Line Pilots Association contends that United Air Lines is paying to remove extra folding security gates that are now added to new-built Boeing 787s as a result of the 9-11 terrorist attacks. The association contents that the removal of the gates makes no sense, as they further protect the flight deck.

►Last Friday, a team of private security guards from G4S Cash Solutions Canada was gunned down by one of their own as they drove an armored truck onto the campus of the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, to restock ATM machines. After and exchange of gunfire, three guards were dead, another critically injured, and one more was on the run. That guard, Travis Baumgartner, was later arrested at the U.S.-Canadian border with $330,000. G4S is now conducting an internal investigation. The Calgary Globe and Mail reports, "At a joint news conference with police, Jean Tallion, president and chief executive officer of G4S Cash Solutions Canada, told reporters in Edmonton that while the company’s focus remains on the recovery of the critically wounded security guard, as well as the families of the three killed in the melee at the University of Alberta, it’s also in the midst of its own probe into 'many matters' related to the robbery allegedly carried out by one of its own employees."

►The Washington Post reports that Christopher Geldart, the District's new homeland security director, says that the United States is vulnerable to a state-sponsored, large-scale cyber attack. "Those vulnerabilities were revealed in an internal exercise with the office of the city’s chief technology officer and also a recent national level exercise," says the Post as part of an interview with Geldart.

► USA Today is taking a look at airport check-in processes of the near future. "The goal is for fliers to move almost non-stop through security from the curb to the gate, in contrast to repeated security stops and logjams at checkpoints," the story says. "After checking their luggage, passengers would identify themselves not with driver's licenses and paper boarding passes, but by scanning fingerprints or irises to prove they have an electronic ticket." More on the streamlined, technology-rich processes at USA Today Travel.