Each day, dozens of U.S. intelligence officials crowd around a conference table in a small, windowless room in a government building across the street from a shopping mall in northern Virginia. At the head of the table sits the man who perhaps more than anyone else affects Americans most tangibly in the sprawling fight against terrorism since the September 2001 attacks. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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John Pistole, who for decades as an FBI agent breezed past airport security checkpoints, is the faceless bane of air travelers who must remove belts, endure an intimate pat-down or are instructed to throw away a perfectly good 6-ounce bottle of shampoo.

Pistole, 53, now occupies what is among the least desirable roles in all of Washington. He is head of the Transportation Security Administration, the government agency that more than others traces its lineage to the terrorist hijackings of airplanes that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Based on top secret intelligence reports he sees every day at 8:30 a.m., Pistole sets the rules for the nation’s 457 airports about how to protect America’s planes, trains, buses and ferries.

On Thursday, U.S. officials were investigating a new, credible but unconfirmed threat involving an al-Qaida car bomb plot aimed at bridges or tunnels in New York City or Washington to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
ABC