The numbers for homeland security grant money for fiscal year 2006 are out, and while the budget for the program was cut by $120 million, nearly all of that cut was absorbed by New York and Washington, D.C. Now the politicians are out crying to the press because they won’t get all the pork-barrel projects they wanted.
Archives: May 2006
The 212-796-0735 mystery
Posted: May 31, 2006 4:18 am
Updated: May 31, 2006 1:39 pm
Back in the days of the Cold War, spies found ingenious and unusual ways to communicate with each other, hiding their communications in plain sight, whether encrypted or not. For instance, an intelligence agency case officer might contact one of his agents (spies) by placing an ad in the personals section of the local newspaper. This practice, it seems, continues today.
Supreme Court rules against government whistleblower
Posted: May 30, 2006 4:08 pm
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that government employees who speak out aren’t always protected by the First Amendment. In the 5-4 decision in Garcetti et al. v. Ceballos, the Court ruled that government employees are not protected by the First Amendment when they speak about matters pertaining to their jobs.
Minuteman Project builds border fence
Posted: May 29, 2006 1:04 pm
If you want something done right, they say, you have to do it yourself. That seems to be the attitude of members of the Minuteman Project who began construction of a 10-mile section of fence on the Arizona border with Mexico Saturday.
U.S. uses state secrets privilege in two more NSA lawsuits
Posted: May 28, 2006 11:51 am
The United States filed papers Friday in two federal lawsuits filed over the National Security Agency terrorist surveillance program, invoking the state secrets privilege to have the lawsuits dismissed.
Remembering Memorial Day
Posted: May 27, 2006 7:38 pm
The practice of remembering and honoring those who have fallen in our wars remained largely unchanged for generations, until government mucked things up in 1968 by passing the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. Today, we show our appreciation by beginning our school children’s summer vacations, sleeping late on Monday morning and spending the week traveling to the nearest water park when we should be honoring their sacrifices.
What would James Bond do?
Posted: May 26, 2006 8:21 pm
Updated: May 27, 2006 1:20 pm
Members of the House Intelligence Committee said Friday that press disclosures of classified programs intended to find terrorists caused damage to national security. But a former National Security Agency intelligence analyst disagrees, saying the programs themselves damage national security.
Funding cut for DHS pay-for-performance system
Posted: May 26, 2006 4:37 pm
Government employee unions are fighting tooth and nail any attempt to overhaul government personnel systems to pay employees based on performance, rather than just being listed on the payroll. And in the Department of Homeland Security, where it could be argued that such a system is desperately needed, the unions have won again, putting homeland security in jeopardy.
VA computer security sucks
Posted: May 26, 2006 2:46 pm
Veterans Administration officials told Congress on Thursday that a department employee had been routinely taking home data on over 26 million veterans for over three years before it was stolen from his house in an apparent burglary May 3.
Why I cannot continue to vote for Republicans as the lesser of two evils
Posted: May 25, 2006 11:18 pm
There used to be a time where I could, without guilt, vote for Republicans as the lesser of two evils. The thought of John Kerry sitting in the White House frightened me, so I was able to vote for Bush in 2004 and be reasonably certain that I did the country a favor. I don’t regret that vote, but I certainly won’t be repeating it.
Hurricane states: You’re on your own, again
Posted: May 25, 2006 6:35 pm
The federal government is a slow, stupid, plodding bureaucracy which can’t respond quickly to anything. And if you’re counting on them to save you when the next hurricane hits, you may well find yourself dead. A Department of Defense official told Congress Thursday that DoD and Homeland Security need as much as a week to prepare to respond to a major disaster. And those of you living in hurricane territories will immediately recognize exactly how stupid that is.
Bush orders seized Jefferson documents sealed in corruption case
Posted: May 25, 2006 6:01 pm
President George W. Bush on Thursday ordered sealed for 45 days records that the Department of Justice seized from the office of Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) on Saturday.
As I’ve said before, I hardly watch corruption cases, as it’s so endemic to the system as to almost not be newsworthy. But this one is really starting to heat up. In case you have no idea what’s going on, here’s a brief:
Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity
Posted: May 25, 2006 10:04 am
John Stossel, “scourge of the liberal media,” has written a second book, Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel — Why Everything You Know is Wrong which, unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to read yet. However, I did get a chance to hear Stossel speak about his new book Tuesday at the Cato Institute.
NSA collected pre-9/11 phone calls for analysis
Posted: May 25, 2006 4:41 am
If you received a phone call from the Middle East and, when done, proceeded to make telephone calls to other people within the U.S., you just might be a terrorist, according to a report on the National Security Agency’s telephone record collection program.
Michael Chertoff is looking for me
Posted: May 24, 2006 9:03 pm
In separate venues Wednesday, two high-level government officials defended the U.S. record against terrorism, saying the government has been highly successful at preventing terrorist attacks and putting terrorists in prison.
FEMA not ready for next hurricane
Posted: May 24, 2006 6:34 pm
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is not fully prepared to respond to a major natural disaster due to staffing shortages and does not expect to be fully staffed until sometime in July, officials said Wednesday. A continued lack of coordination with state and local officials on evacuation procedures and a levee system not ready for another hurricane compound the problems.
Homeland Stupidity grows to fight growing stupidity
Posted: May 24, 2006 4:35 pm
Homeland Stupidity is undergoing a few changes, and for my regular readers, I thought it would be a good idea to let you know what you’re about to see.
School district restricts student blogging
Posted: May 24, 2006 11:47 am
Members at a Chicago, Illinois-area school district have decided that student blogs they deem inappropriate may lead to denial of extracurricular student privileges. The Community High School District 128, ironically headquartered in Libertyville, Ill., voted Monday night to amend the codes of conduct at Libertyville and Vernon Hills High Schools to read, “Maintaining or being identified on a blog site which depicts illegal or inappropriate behavior will be considered a violation of this code.”
Ignore that gun at your head and vote for who we want you to
Posted: May 24, 2006 11:30 am
How much does it cost to rig elections so that the candidates don’t have to? How much does it cost to permanently lock third parties out of the political process? How much does it cost to ensure that only the truly corrupt get into public office? How much does it cost to lose what little remains of your freedom?
Just six dollars.
Four innocent people remain in Guantanamo Bay
Posted: May 23, 2006 3:43 pm
After the release earlier this month of five ethnic Uighurs who were being held in Guantanamo Bay despite not being enemy combatants — or involved with terrorism at all — four more people known to be innocent remain imprisoned there.
Low morale persistent at Homeland Security
Posted: May 23, 2006 10:10 am
Updated: May 23, 2006 10:50 pm
Low morale continues to plague the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, resulting in widespread vacancies in senior-level positions all over the department as well as general understaffing. DHS will “probably” do something about it, according to its top human resources official.
VA loses sensitive personal info for 26 million vets
Posted: May 22, 2006 1:41 pm
Updated: May 23, 2006 11:53 am
The Department of Veterans Affairs reported Monday that a laptop computer containing the names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers of over 26,000,000 veterans was stolen from the home of an employee who had taken the data home without authorization.
New Orleans votes for lesser of two evils
Posted: May 22, 2006 9:03 am
New Orleans mayor C. Ray Nagin was re-elected Saturday by a vote of 52 percent to 48 percent against his challenger, Mitch Landrieu, the current lieutenant governor of Louisiana. And, Nagin said in his victory speech, for all of the “folks who went to the other side, who went to the red-light district, I forgive you.”
Libertarian Party offers politician removal service
Posted: May 21, 2006 9:15 am
Updated: May 21, 2006 9:36 am
The National Libertarian Party unveiled a redesigned web site Sunday, and as part of the redesign it’s offering what it calls its “Politician Removal Service.”
Dispatches from the Drug War
Posted: May 21, 2006 6:38 am
You have certainly seen the “Anti-Drug” commercials on television. You know, the ones that encourage kids to find some more interesting or useful alternative to doing drugs. Well, a new study comes up with a startling conclusion: watching anti-marijuana commercials actually reduces negative attitudes toward marijuana. And as usual, there’s a government contractor behind the scenes raking in the taxpayer dough.
Open discussion: The big one
Posted: May 20, 2006 5:38 pm
I’m a bit busy doing actual reporting (shocker!) this weekend and so the blog will be a little slower than I’d like. Yes, I know I said I wasn’t a journalist. Things change.
I’m working on a couple of stories which are eating much more of my time than I’d like, and since I wanted to try something new and different here anyway…
The news just keeps breaking
Posted: May 20, 2006 4:31 am
Updating stories previously covered at Homeland Stupidity in computer security, worker identification, and smoking bans.
BellSouth asks USA TODAY for retraction of NSA story
Posted: May 19, 2006 9:34 am
On Thursday, BellSouth sent a letter to USA TODAY asking the newspaper to “retract the false and unsubstantiated statements” that it printed May 11 regarding the company’s alleged cooperation in a National Security Agency program to collect telephone call detail records of ordinary Americans.
CIA torture victim’s case thrown out of court
Posted: May 18, 2006 5:12 pm
So you thought courts were for the administration of justice? Where did you get a crazy idea like that? That’s not how it works. Khaled al-Masri learned that the hard way today.
You might recall al-Masri as the Lebanese-born German citizen who was kidnapped at the Macedonian border, shipped off to Afghanistan, and tortured by the Central Intelligence Agency for months, before they finally admitted they had the wrong guy.
Actors prepare for border security theater
Posted: May 18, 2006 9:58 am
Updated: May 18, 2006 2:18 pm
The President hath spoken: Let there be border security. At those words, hundreds of people in Washington jumped up and began preparing to do their part to stage what will become at best border security theater, and at worst a border security nightmare.
Has anybody seen Jimmy Hoffa?
Posted: May 17, 2006 7:55 pm
The Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a search warrant at a horse farm in Milford Township, Mich., on Wednesday, apparently looking for Jimmy Hoffa.
How telephone call detail record collection works
Posted: May 17, 2006 9:34 am
Updated: May 17, 2006 6:43 pm
Last Thursday, USA TODAY published a story saying that AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth have been providing customer telephone call detail records to the National Security Agency, an allegation which BellSouth and Verizon have vigorously denied. Verizon even went so far as to say that it does not record local telephone calls, a claim I personally know to be false.
This is how telephone companies record the details of your calls, including local calls. In this case study, I use BellSouth as an example, though I have verified that AT&T, Verizon and Qwest record calls in a substantially similar manner (though Qwest does not seem to record unmetered local calls). Where there are significant differences, I note them.
Verizon: We didn’t do it
Posted: May 17, 2006 7:03 am
Updated: May 17, 2006 10:03 am
On Tuesday, Verizon issued a second statement to news media regarding its alleged role in a National Security Agency program to collect telephone call detail records for most Americans. Verizon denies turning over any call records to the NSA.
Collected intel on the NSA collecting call records
Posted: May 17, 2006 6:25 am
Much has been written over the past week about last Thursday’s USA TODAY story about the National Security Agency collecting call detail records from AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon for all of their customers, allegations that BellSouth and Verizon have denied. I’ve collected some of the best news updates and analysis from the last week:
Pentagon released 9/11 surveillance camera tapes
Posted: May 16, 2006 2:17 pm
I don’t often do breaking news, but this is important. The Pentagon has finally released the videotapes from outside the Pentagon which show United Flight 77 crashing in to the building. If you were watching FOX News an hour ago, you probably already saw them.
Bush proposes border security theater
Posted: May 16, 2006 5:30 am
President George W. Bush went on prime time television Monday night to talk about immigration reform. “We will fix the problems created by illegal immigration, and we will deliver a system that is secure, orderly, and fair,” he said. So he proposes to send the National Guard to patrol the border, a task for which they are ill-prepared and not at all trained.
BellSouth denies giving NSA phone call records
Posted: May 16, 2006 3:01 am
On Monday, BellSouth issued a statement denying that it passed bulk phone records of its customers to the National Security Agency, joining Verizon, which issued a denial Friday. AT&T has yet to issue a denial of the allegations.
FBI tracking reporters’ phone calls
Posted: May 16, 2006 1:32 am
A disturbing report from ABC News investigative reporter Brian Ross says that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is collecting the telephone records of ABC News reporters, as well as reporters from the New York Times and Washington Post, in order to root out their confidential sources.
Tice will talk
Posted: May 15, 2006 9:40 am
Since being fired from the National Security Agency a year ago, former intelligence officer Russell Tice has spent his time asking Congress for a hearing on what he says are “probable unlawful and unconstitutional acts” he observed being conducted by the NSA and Defense Intelligence Agency. On Wednesday, he will finally get his hearing.
If you have nothing to hide, you have everything to fear
Posted: May 14, 2006 9:54 am
Updated: May 14, 2006 3:58 pm
Over the last few years a trend has grown, not only in the U.S., but in virtually all developed areas of the world, toward less privacy and more government intrusion into the personal lives of their citizen-subjects. Governments claim the power to make these intrusions in the name of security, and those who support the intrusions into personal privacy generally justify it by saying, “If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear.”
The truth is that the innocent actually do have something to fear from state intrusion into their private lives.
Pork delays transportation worker identification program
Posted: May 14, 2006 6:53 am
Could pork be a threat to homeland security?
It could be, when all homeland security appropriations have to go past the Prince of Pork.
Verizon sued over NSA phone record data mining
Posted: May 13, 2006 10:21 am
Updated: May 14, 2006 2:50 am
When the National Security Agency approached the largest telecommunications carriers in the U.S. for their assistance in compiling a database of every call ever made, most of them readily cooperated. Qwest, however, reportedly told the NSA to go pound sand, noting that the company would face legal liability if the scheme ever became known. Indeed, the program was revealed Thursday, and the first complaints were filed Friday.
Please spy on us, say Americans
Posted: May 12, 2006 2:42 pm
“As a Signals Intelligence officer it is continually drilled into us that the very first law chiseled in the SIGINT equivalent of the Ten Commandments is that thou shall not spy on American persons without a court order from FISA,” said former National Security Agency employee Russell Tice. “The very people that lead the National Security Agency have violated this holy edict of SIGINT.”
“It’s drilled into you from minute one that you should not ever, ever, ever, under any fucking circumstances turn this massive apparatus on an American citizen,” another member of the intelligence community said. “You do a lot of weird shit. But at least you don’t fuck with your own people.”
It seems that the rules have changed.
Bureaucrats fight to hide US-VISIT incompetence
Posted: May 12, 2006 3:25 am
In the last year, the Department of Homeland Security paid over $10 million to a public relations firm to sell the public on the benefits of the US-VISIT program and help it downplay the inevitable incompetence endemic to the bureaucracy.
The NSA can see your phone records, but you can’t
Posted: May 12, 2006 12:52 am
One of the best-kept secrets in the American telecommunications industry was revealed in USA TODAY on Thursday and then splashed across the front page of virtually every newspaper in America Friday. But unless you paid close attention, you might easily miss the secret. The secret is something I first got an inkling of in 2004 while working for a large telecommunications company, though at the time I didn’t know what it meant or what all the implications were.
NSA collects call records for most Americans
Posted: May 11, 2006 4:41 am
The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting call traffic data for most telephones in the United States, without warrants, since shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to reports published Thursday.
The FBI’s corruption crackdown
Posted: May 11, 2006 2:37 am
To hear people talk about it, one would think widespread corruption in government is a new thing. It isn’t. It goes with the territory, in fact; modern Washington is built on what amounts to legalized corruption. But a few things remain illegal, and the recent stories of corruption which have filled the headlines might have something to do with the Federal Bureau of Investigation placing a higher priority on public corruption cases in the last few years.
Immigration process stuck in 19th century
Posted: May 10, 2006 6:26 pm
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is responsible for deciding who can immigrate to the U.S. and processing their applications for green cards and for citizenship, hasn’t yet discovered the modern wonder of computers. Its records comprise about 55 million paper-based files housed at the National Records Center in Lee’s Summit, Mo., and attempts to drag the bureau kicking and screaming into the 20th century — nevermind the 21st — are at risk of failure, according to a government audit.
CDC pushes HIV testing for everyone
Posted: May 10, 2006 3:03 am
New guidelines to be released this summer by the Centers for Disease Control call for doctors to begin offering HIV tests to all patients, not just those in high-risk categories. The new guidelines have biotech companies cheering, but others are worried about the possible impact on the estimated quarter million people who don’t know they have HIV.
Homeland Stupidity has moved!
Posted: May 9, 2006 11:11 am
We’ve moved to a new domain! If you’re seeing this post, then you are on the new site. Welcome back to Homeland Stupidity!
Hayden nominated for CIA director amid scandal
Posted: May 9, 2006 1:02 am
I don’t typically talk about things so mundane as corrupt government officials here, as that sort of thing is so entrenched in the Beltway that people only seem to care when it gets way out of hand. And I try to avoid speculating, especially when I don’t have any knowledge of a situation. So I’m not going to say a word about what might have caused two high-ranking Central Intelligence Agency officials to resign abruptly over the last few days.
The news just keeps breaking
Posted: May 7, 2006 5:00 pm
Here are some updates to four stories previously covered at Homeland Stupidity.
Guantanamo Five released to Albania
Posted: May 6, 2006 5:04 pm
Five ethnic Uighurs who had been captured in Afghanistan and held in Guantanamo Bay by the U.S. military after being declared not enemy combatants were released to Albania on Friday, ending a protracted court battle over their continued detention.
Specter: Uribe wants RFID for migrant workers
Posted: May 5, 2006 5:51 pm
Updated: May 5, 2006 6:11 pm
Here’s an interesting immigration idea. Why don’t we put RFID chips inside every foreign person who enters the country?
Terrorist leaders suffer from stupidity
Posted: May 5, 2006 4:45 pm
Updated: May 5, 2006 5:02 pm
If you’re a terrorist leader, one would expect you know how to do simple things like operate a rifle, and one would expect that the people around you would also know how to handle their weapons. Not Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. In video captured by U.S. forces and released Thursday, al-Zarqawi is seen struggling to operate an American-made M249 rifle, while his aides do stupid things such as grab the rifle by its barrel and burn themselves.
What’s wrong with high gas prices?
Posted: May 4, 2006 11:42 pm
Updated: May 5, 2006 12:13 am
There are two big issues that people in the U.S. are concerned about today. I dealt with one of them a couple of weeks ago. And today I’m going to tackle the other one: high gas prices.
Server outage
Posted: May 3, 2006 5:05 pm
Updated: May 4, 2006 8:46 pm
Homeland Stupidity has been up and down, mostly down, over the last day or so. The reason for the outage is due to failed server hardware.
New Orleans disaster plan: Run like hell
Posted: May 3, 2006 4:46 pm
New Orleans, La., mayor Ray Nagin has unveiled the city’s new disaster plan. It’s quite a simple plan: Run for the hills, run for your lives.
Another threat of the idiot box
Posted: May 2, 2006 3:18 am
Updated: May 2, 2006 9:47 pm
There is a danger lurking in your home. This threat, heretofore unknown, can claim the life of your child at every moment. In the last year, this threat has claimed the lives of at least four small children and injured at least 10,000 others.
That threat is the stupidity of their parents. And now they want to make you pay for their stupidity.
Bad cop, no donut
Posted: May 1, 2006 12:05 am
We’ve all heard whispered stories about police officers letting people off the hook, if they give the officer something in return. Something of a sexual nature. Here are four collected stories from this week.
