Using U.S. transportation against terrorists.

• Position: Security Beat

One arena where information technologies could be put to good use against terrorists is the nation's transportation system, said Arthur E. Johnson, senior vice president for strategic development at Lockheed Martin Corp.

"The ability to detect the presence of any biological, chemical or even nuclear weapon that might be moving through our country's transportation system will be crucial to homeland security," he told the 2003 Coast Guard Innovation Expo in Baltimore.

The U.S. transportation system is more than simply a target for terrorists, Johnson said. They use it to move their people and weapons, he explained, and that presents an opportunity.

"If the terrorists operate within our transportation system, they of course must expose themselves and become vulnerable," Johnson said. "We just need to think about the security challenge in a slightly different way." Realistically, Johnson said, it never will be possible to harden the entire transportation system against terrorist attacks. "It's too big, and we will never have the money or the time."

Instead, homeland security needs to "become more predictive and more anticipatory," he said. "By taking that path, we can turn our transportation system into a 'Venus fly trap' of sorts ... And in doing so, we can make sure that it is the terrorists who are isolated and constrained by our transportation system--not us."

He noted that, since...