TSA Agents Helping British Authorities for Olympics Security - as part of the news series by GeoBeats.
The highly anticipated London Olympic games have brought on some extreme security measures. The newest effort involves getting assistance from the US Transportation Security Administration, whose agents will work at various British airports. While the TSA agents will not be allowed to enter any British aircrafts or be permitted past any boarding gates, they are scheduled to arrive at Heathrow and other airports next week.
Given the massive scale of these games, security needs are just as mind-boggling. The company that is handling the safety proceedings is understaffed, causing Olympic organizers to ask the military to supply guards. The total number of British soldiers destined to stand guard for the sporting event is a whopping 17,000, nearly 20% of the entire army.
Physical safety isn’t the only precautionary measure for the 2012 Olympics. For many months now, the National Broadcasting Company, or NBC has been working with Google, conducting "war games" which are designed to test possible disruptions in the Internet video streaming of the summer games. They have run hundreds of problem simulations including "broken broadcast encoders to traffic overloads and hacker assaults on the systems."