Going through airport security is such a pain these days. They’re still taking tubes of toothpaste, bottles of water, and anything else over three ounces away from passengers, and they’re still letting guns and bomb-making components pass right through.
Archives: October 2006
Google intelligence cooperation reprise
Posted: October 30, 2006 5:22 pm
Updated: October 30, 2006 6:24 pm
Something strange happened over the weekend. A story I wrote over eight months ago about Google’s quiet cooperation with the U.S. intelligence community suddenly got picked up all over the Internet.
While I’d like to comment individually at all of the sites which have picked up the story, that would unfortunately be far too time-consuming. Even linking to them all would take too long at this point. So please consider this your response.
FBI raids creator of fake boarding pass generator
Posted: October 28, 2006 7:28 pm
Updated: October 29, 2006 12:53 pm
Exposing flaws in airport security by talking about them will get you watched closely by government agents. Hi, guys.
Creating a compelling demonstration of just how stupid the federal government is, though, will get you a less-than-friendly visit from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, followed by a predawn raid the next day.
Spellings plan to prepare us for the “new flat world”
Posted: October 28, 2006 1:43 pm
Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings notes that college graduates have an unemployment rate of 2% as compared to an overall unemployment rate of 4.6%. This, I guess, is not tolerable.
Kelo v. Pataki. Not.
Posted: October 28, 2006 5:15 am
New York, New York. It’s a wonderful town. Unless your piece of it gets targeted for eminent domain.
Fake boarding passes clear airport security
Posted: October 27, 2006 4:22 pm
Updated: October 27, 2006 5:14 pm
“This is your final boarding call for Al Kyder and Terry Wrist.”
If you really are an Al-Qaeda terrorist, a satirical television series, or Robert Johnson, getting past the no-fly list and the security checkpoint could be as simple as, well, making up a name and printing your own boarding pass.
Homeland Stupidity unscheduled downtime
Posted: October 27, 2006 6:21 am
Updated: October 31, 2006 2:21 pm
Homeland Stupidity was unavailable for several hours Thursday night due to an unexpected failure of our DNS provider.
Bits of homeland stupidity
Posted: October 26, 2006 12:26 pm
In the course of my reporting, I get far more stories than I have time to do anything about. Here are three of the silliest things I’ve heard all week.
TSA pushes port worker ID despite security, operational flaws
Posted: October 26, 2006 9:55 am
The Transportation Security Administration wants to move forward with its plan to issue “secure” identification cards to airport, railway and maritime workers, even though a test of the system revealed significant problems with its security and general operation, without fixing the problems first.
Surveillance city arrests drug dealers, can’t find woman’s killer
Posted: October 26, 2006 4:05 am
It seems those surveillance cameras that are being installed all over the country as part of the so-called “war on terror” are being diverted to a different war: the so-called “war on drugs.”
In Dillingham, Alaska, which has one public surveillance camera for every 30 residents, authorities last week broke up a marijuana grow operation and arrested ten men on various drug charges.
Special Comment on the Military Commissions Act
Posted: October 24, 2006 4:36 pm
I’m not generally much into posting things I receive in my e-mail, but this one struck me as all too appropriate. These things need to be said. They need to be heard. They need to be understood. Before the people find themselves in a brightly lit, cold prison cell.
U.S. bans Vegemite?
Posted: October 24, 2006 6:23 am
Being an American, I’ve never really been interested in trying Vegemite, that staple of many Australians’ diets.
Until I heard that the U.S. had banned it.
“Evil” court imprisons eminent domain protester indefinitely
Posted: October 24, 2006 3:24 am
Eminent domain protester Lauren Canario, who was arrested last month for criminal trespass in New London, Conn., after refusing to leave a property seized by the city for private development, appeared in court Monday and was ordered held indefinitely for trial at an unscheduled future date which a court official said could be as much as a year in the future.
Interior Department blocks access to blogs
Posted: October 23, 2006 3:59 am
Updated: October 23, 2006 5:24 am
After an inspector general’s report earlier this month revealed Interior Department employees were wasting time at work on auction, gaming, pornography and online gambling sites, the department hastily implemented blocking — of blogs.
Tangram to help “connect the dots” in intelligence puzzle
Posted: October 23, 2006 1:39 am
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is building a new intelligence analysis system known as Tangram to search large, diverse sets of intelligence data looking to “connect the dots” and find previously unknown terrorist activity.
Privacy experts are, of course, deeply concerned about the program’s complete lack of privacy protection.
Fort Meade fire displaces military intelligence unit
Posted: October 21, 2006 12:23 am
Updated: October 21, 2006 7:41 am
The military intelligence unit responsible for spying on Americans had to evacuate its Fort Meade, Md., offices Friday after a six-alarm fire broke out.
State Department proposes $20 RFID passport cards
Posted: October 20, 2006 7:05 pm
This week the U.S. State Department proposed the introduction of wallet-sized passport cards for Americans who travel frequently to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean, which would cost less than a regular passport and allow frequent travelers to cross the border more quickly at land and sea crossings. But privacy groups are worried about the use of RFID chips in the passport cards.
Hacking Democracy on HBO
Posted: October 19, 2006 3:25 pm
Premium access channel HBO will release a documentary film entitled Hacking Democracy on November 2, five days before elections are held across the United States. The 80 minute documentary follows Seattle writer Bev Harris on a frightening investigation into the security of America’s electronic voting systems.
Dispatches from the Drug War
Posted: October 18, 2006 9:04 pm
In this episode, dedicated to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, or Propaganda, federal officials break the law while spreading misinformation to advance their anti-freedom agenda.
Homeland Security’s new web site sucks
Posted: October 18, 2006 8:18 pm
On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security rolled out an apparently redesigned Web site, after spending “more than a year of research and planning” and God knows how much money on the department’s incompetent webmaster. Going beneath the surface, it seems little has actually changed. And the new site has already caused significant problems for people trying to find information.
Marquette University is patently offensive
Posted: October 18, 2006 7:34 pm
“As Americans we must always remember that we all have a common enemy, an enemy that is dangerous, powerful, and relentless,” humorist Dave Barry once wrote. “I refer, of course, to the federal government.”
This, apparently, is “patently offensive” to State-worshipping academics at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wis.
DHS computer security management still needs work
Posted: October 17, 2006 6:16 pm
Despite significant progress made in the last year, the Department of Homeland Security’s information security processes still have not been able to assure the security of the department’s systems, an Inspector General’s report said.
Homeland Stupidity Voter’s Guide
Posted: October 15, 2006 11:35 pm
Updated: October 16, 2006 1:50 am
I have a confession to make: I hate politics. I can’t stand it. It’s almost never anything but people who were elected to do one thing that go off and do something else, almost always against the interests of the people. Republicans and Democrats alike do it, even this election season. What’s a freedom-loving American to do?!
Old military radios risk friendly fire incidents
Posted: October 14, 2006 6:05 pm
The Air Force A-10 close air support jet is what goes in when soldiers on the ground call for air support. But most of the 356 jets in service have radios that have trouble communicating securely with ground troops, while a $60 million radio upgrade has been put off due to budget constraints.
The Air Force only has 63 newer radios for the jets which can communicate securely without a three-to-five second delay that could result in a friendly fire incident, Air Combat Command officials said.
DoD admits error in adding Quakers to threat database
Posted: October 13, 2006 10:29 pm
A peaceful anti-war protest conducted April 30, 2005, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was incorrectly listed in a Defense Department intelligence database as a potential terrorist threat, and the problems with the database corrected, a DoD spokesman said Thursday.
Bureuacrats accidentally liquidate homeland security copier
Posted: October 12, 2006 11:44 pm
After a screwup by government bureaucrats spending federal homeland security money in which they embarrassed themselves by accidentally selling off the $8,000 copier they’d just acquired for pennies on the dollar, the bureaucrats are, instead of being sensible and moving on, are being even more stupid and preparing to spend even more money to get “their” copier back.
But the story of the copier reveals these bureaucrats aren’t your garden variety stupid. They’re colossally, phenomenally, incredibly stupid.
Toward a stateless society
Posted: October 11, 2006 10:33 pm
Is it possible to have a society without a government?
The Center for a Stateless Society would say so.
FBI short on Arabic speakers
Posted: October 11, 2006 6:41 pm
Of 12,000 Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, only 33 have even a limited proficiency in the Arabic language, hampering the bureau’s ability to investigate terrorism.
Chinese hackers target Commerce networks
Posted: October 10, 2006 8:10 pm
Chinese hackers have targeted computers at the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, prompting an almost unprecedented move to restrict Internet access across the bureau, officials said.
Government employees gamble, view porn online at work
Posted: October 9, 2006 6:38 pm
Computer users at the U.S. Department of the Interior rack up an estimated 104,221 hours of lost productivity in a year surfing online auction and gaming sites, and even more time spent on gambling and pornography web sites, according to an inspector general’s audit released last week.
2006 Great Midwest Marijuana Harvest Festival
Posted: October 8, 2006 4:44 pm
At the state capitol in Madison, Wis., the smell of marijuana is in the air, alternative rock music is playing, and the police are nowhere to be found.
No-fly list confirmed useless to stop terrorists
Posted: October 7, 2006 6:19 pm
Robert Johnson. Gary Smith. John Williams. Daniel Brown. James Moore. These are but a few of the 44,000 names on the federal government’s “no-fly list,” which CBS News said it has obtained and will feature on Sunday’s 60 Minutes television broadcast.
China, our model for education reform
Posted: October 6, 2006 12:09 pm
Do we want our next generation’s philosophy of government based on China’s and India’s philosophies?
Help Homeland Security find potential threats to the nation
Posted: October 5, 2006 1:21 am
The Department of Homeland Security is having all kinds of trouble with its various data mining, natural language and other programs to vacuum in the entire content of the Internet and find potential threats to the nation.
So I thought I could lend them a hand.
NSA surveillance OK pending court appeal
Posted: October 4, 2006 9:52 pm
The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that the National Security Agency can continue eavesdropping on Americans’ overseas telephone calls and e-mail messages pending the outcome of the government’s appeal of a district court decision which had ruled the program illegal.
President Bush forming conference on school violence
Posted: October 4, 2006 4:00 am
A rash of fatal school shootings has again brought the physical safety of our students to the forefront of education discussions. On Tuesday, President Bush announced plans to form a conference on school violence to see what federal action can be taken to support communities in preventing violence and dealing with its consequences.
Investigation of ADVISE data mining program ordered
Posted: October 3, 2006 10:48 pm
A Homeland Security data-mining program which will crawl the Internet looking for potential threats to the country has come under Congressional scrutiny for a lack of privacy protection, cost controls and program guidelines.
Markos Moulitsas is still not a libertarian
Posted: October 2, 2006 2:52 pm
For all of you libertarians who are hearing new calls from Democrats saying that they, not the Republicans, are now the party of smaller, less intrusive government, I say to you, do not believe it.
Especially do not believe Markos Moulitsas, who, despite getting some undue attention for his fatally flawed “Libertarian Democrat” idea, is still, by his own admission, a socialist authoritarian at heart.
How to win the war on terror
Posted: October 1, 2006 7:24 pm
Updated: October 1, 2006 8:17 pm
Reasonable people disagree on how to prosecute the so-called global war on terror. Pick up any newspaper or turn on any news channel and see for yourself the right arguing that we need to do whatever it takes to eliminate this scourge from the planet, even if that means locking up and torturing Americans, and the left arguing that everything we’ve done in the global war on terror is completely wrong and that terrorists are people too.
It might surprise you to learn that I disagree with both of them, and I think they both suffer from the same problem: a lack of vision.
