Security for the Super Bowl, held in Miami, Fla., on February 4, was so tight that no potential threat could possibly have penetrated the multiple layers of defenses surrounding the event. But, it seems, half a dozen pranksters not only penetrated the event but demonstrated that "perfect" security is impossible.
Governments can't always find new and creative ways to lose your personal information, try as they might. So when they can't, they resort to the tried and true. Here are three incidents where government displayed at least some creativity while putting you at risk.
The federal government expects you to do your part to help catch terrorists, by screening everyone you do business with against a public blacklist of suspected terrorists and drug traffickers maintained by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. Worse, people are actually starting to do this, and the national credit reporting agencies are now putting the government's black marks on the wrong people's credit reports.
Being forced by the government to spy on your own neighbors, customers, friends and family. It's coming. And it will be brought to you by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose national security letters have recently attracted national attention due to findings of abuse and lawbreaking by FBI agents.
REAL ID, that bitter pill which will further centralize identification of virtually every American, not to mention cost you untold billions of dollars, is so tough to swallow that many states are balking at it. But one state is eagerly accepting REAL ID after the Department of Homeland Security held out a carrot along with its sharp stick.
With each presidential election the candidates seem more proscribed and the selection process more truncated. Inner party poopers, talking heads and big money try to seal the deal before the ink is dry on the last guy. This time the dumb beats loudest for Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. Hillary and Rudy are more alike than they're different.
Maryland state police conducted what they call a "homeland security" operation Wednesday near the MARC commuter rail station in Brunswick. So, if it's about homeland security, why did the police have drug dogs sniffing cars?
The master list the federal government keeps of known and suspected terrorists, from which other government agencies derive their own watch lists, already hundreds of thousands of names large, is growing out of control, filling with "fragmentary," "inconsistent" and "sometimes just flat-out wrong" information, a top counterterrorism official said.
A hacker who broke into an Indiana government web site and compromised the identities of 71,000 health care workers and 5,600 people who purchased government services online has also targeted other state government web sites. Because, of course, that's where the money is.
Homeland Stupidity passed another milestone last night, with the 10,000th comment left to the site.
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