***** Transportation and Cargo Security: Threats and Solutions. By Kathleen Sweet; published by Prentice Hall; available from ASIS, item # 1670, 703/519-6200 (phone), www.asisonline.org [1] (Web); 416 pages; $63 (ASIS members), $69 (nonmembers).

On any given day at America’s airport terminals, grandmothers are asked to remove their shoes, raise their arms, and submit to a wanding with a magnetometer. That is in stark contrast to commercial transportation security, where even nearly seven years after 9-11, risks far greater than grandma go unchecked.

The book Transportation and Cargo Security: Threats and Solutions provides a comprehensive look at the myriad details involved with the complex, dynamic world of commercial transportation security. It includes information on maritime, land (railroad, trucking, mass transit), pipeline, and air transportation modes.

The book’s 14 chapters provide a thorough overview of the specific topics that cross sectors, such as threats, countermeasures, and personnel concerns, as well as laws, regulations, government agencies, and standards for specific sectors.

Many books on these security topics include over-the-top statistics and fail to present a pragmatic view. Transportation and Cargo Security takes a practical yet hardheaded look at the core issues, which gives the reader a superb understanding of the various threats to the transportation system.

What is frustrating is that the book often refers to laws passed just after 9-11, yet many agencies and industries are still noncompliant with the many requirements contained in those laws.

Transportation and Cargo Security: Threats and Solutions is an excellent reference that anyone who deals with transportation security will find extremely valuable. This is the book that everyone in transportation security should have read.

Reviewer: Ben Rothke, CISSP, is a New York City-based senior security consultant.

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