Chertoff Group

Co-founded by Michael Chertoff, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security(DHS) (2005-2009), and Chad Sweet, most recently Chertoff's chief of staff at DHS, the Chertoff Group consults on security, focusing on risk management and mergers & acquistion advice; they also do crisis management in a partnership with Burton Marsteller.

Chertoff has made numerous media appearances and statements encouraging the use of full body scanners at airports, which the Transportation Safety Administration first bought while he was Secretary. He disclosed, on CNN, that Rapiscan Corporation, among the Chertoff Group's clients, is the major manufacturer of such machines; the Washington Post clarified its headline was based on the statement of FlyersRights.org, which opposes the use of scanners. In a Washington Post op-ed, he made the point that this type of technology could have detected Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the attempted "underwear bomber" of Northwest Airlines Flight 253; the op-ed said he represented a manufacturer of such machines.

Two senior members of the Chertoff Group, Jeffrey Runge and J. Bennet Waters, advise Bioneutral Group on the security implications of its antimicrobial technology, as well as business strategy. Sweet said "We believe BioNeutral’s formulations have the potential to address several difficult problems facing the Nation, including influenza pandemics, national security threats such as anthrax, and in preventing expensive and dangerous hospital acquired infections.”