Unlike most other federal agencies, the Department of Homeland Security has thrown up walls of bureaucracy in front of auditors, causing long delays in access to information necessary to oversee the department, the Government Accountability Office said this week.
Archives: April 2007
Peace Bridge border inspection talks end
Posted: April 26, 2007 11:08 pm
Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff broke off talks with Canada on Wednesday over a plan to move the U.S. border inspection facility at the Peace Bridge from its current location in Buffalo, N.Y., to the Canadian side of the border.
The dispute, it turns out, was over when the U.S. could take fingerprints of Canadians who aren’t even crossing into the U.S.
Ten years left for Social Security
Posted: April 26, 2007 3:01 am
By 2017 Social Security will begin paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes and will have to begin redeeming bonds from the Social Security Trust Fund. Worse, Medicare is expected to cross the same line later this year, resulting in a massive fiscal crisis.
Astroglide denies responsibility for customer information slip
Posted: April 25, 2007 11:18 pm
Updated: April 30, 2007 1:31 am
The saga of Astroglide customer information being leaked onto the Internet appears to be coming to a close. The company has finally managed to remove all of the data from its Web site, as well as from Google’s cache, and someone finally managed to reach a company spokesperson to get a statement.
Waste in FEMA trailer maintenace contracts
Posted: April 25, 2007 4:48 am
The Federal Emergency Management Agency wasted billions of dollars by awarding contracts for services to maintain and remove emergency trailers for people displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to politically well-connected and financially risky companies, according to an inspector general’s report released Monday.
It’s only suspicious if you’re dressed like a “terrorist”
Posted: April 24, 2007 10:41 pm
If you’re a potential threat, and you want to get those critical pictures of a bridge or a nuclear reactor, what do you do? After all, these days you’re bound to have cops on your ass within minutes.
Astroglide tries to plug 260,000 customer data leak
Posted: April 23, 2007 8:13 pm
Astroglide, which was notified last week of a data breach compromising more than 260,000 records of people who ordered free samples of its products, has taken down its page for ordering the free samples and removed the last of the records from its Web site.
Government wants your money AND your life
Posted: April 23, 2007 2:50 pm
Democrats in Congress are desperate to do something about the so-called tax gap, but they know that if they raise taxes, they’ll be out on their asses in 2008. So they’re going to try to squeeze ordinary Americans a little differently.
Astroglide data breach exposes customer information
Posted: April 21, 2007 9:41 am
If you’ve ever tried Astroglide, you know it’s some of the slipperiest stuff ever made. I could tell you stories, but that sort of story isn’t appropriate on a site where children might be reading. Instead, I’ll tell you another story, a story about people who use Astroglide.
Astroglide suffered a data breach this week. People who ordered free samples of the company’s products from their Web site from 2003 to the present may have had their names and email and shipping addresses published on the Internet.
If spyware is outlawed, only outlaws will have spyware
Posted: April 19, 2007 8:36 pm
A bill to outlaw certain forms of spyware is making its way through the House of Representatives. But if you think it will actually prevent spyware from getting on your computer, you have a lot to learn about government.
When government has your identity, you aren’t safe
Posted: April 19, 2007 10:49 am
Trust the government with your identity and you just might lose it. Even if the identity thief is already in prison.
Why I gave Ron Paul $100
Posted: April 18, 2007 3:19 pm
In the interest of full disclosure I will say that earlier today I contributed $100 to the Presidential campaign of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).
And while I certainly don’t agree with every single thing Ron Paul has ever said, nor with every single position he holds, I feel at this time that he’s better than any of the other candidates I’ve seen so far from any of the three parties.
Backpacks give Newton, Mass., school officials bomb scare
Posted: April 18, 2007 12:15 pm
Even living as close to Boston as I do, I don’t always get the news about happenings in and around Boston until much later. So more than a week after it happened, I find out about yet another stupid bomb scare, this time at a high school in Newton, Mass.
The expanding welfare state
Posted: April 17, 2007 11:26 am
The era of big government didn’t end with Ronald Reagan, and it didn’t end with Bill Clinton.
Over half of all Americans receive government handouts of some sort, according to an economic analysis published this week.
Oh Alphonso! FHA Modern is So Subprime!
Posted: April 16, 2007 10:58 am
HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson is asking Congress to pass a proposal for a “modernization” of FHA mortgage loan programs.
Waste and fraud are HUD’s long suit. Like other HUD heads Alphonso Jackson wears it well. But according to Alphonso, the FHA needs letting out in order to cover the subprime mortgage slump.
Stop illegal spying
Posted: April 15, 2007 2:18 pm
“Terrorists win when the fear of them induces us to destroy the rights that make us free.” Those were the words of one victim of post-9/11 anti-terrorism hysteria to a Congressional committee on Wednesday. So we got national security letters, a terrorist surveillance program, and probably many other programs, but instead of stopping terrorists, these programs have targeted ordinary Americans.
Why I won’t buy an iPod
Posted: April 15, 2007 8:12 am
I’m in the market for a new portable media player, since my current one is getting rather old, not to mention full. Naturally, I looked at the current crop of iPods. They’re excellent hardware and work well. But I won’t buy one, not because of the iPod itself, but because of Apple’s no-privacy policy.
Cops bust yet another tomato grower
Posted: April 13, 2007 8:12 am
Police in Pullman, Wash., got a tip from a “concerned citizen” that a grow operation was going on in an apartment that he’d just visited. Two hours later, police had their search warrant, and eight police officers went in, guns drawn.
It was indeed a grow operation. The residents were growing tomatoes.
The Joshua Bell busking, or, pearls before bureaucrats
Posted: April 13, 2007 4:54 am
Updated: April 13, 2007 8:44 am
Joshua Bell is perhaps America’s finest classical musician. Just this week he accepted the Avery Fisher Prize for his accomplishments. I admit I wouldn’t know; I’ve never been much into classical music. But I can recognize stupidity anywhere.
REAL ID, the bureuacrat’s wet dream
Posted: April 12, 2007 6:00 pm
The REAL ID Act will be a real nightmare for many reasons, only one of which is the fact that government bureaucrats will finally get most of the errors out of their massive databases on virtually every American.
Washington state pretends to reject REAL ID
Posted: April 12, 2007 10:33 am
Washington state Gov. Chris Gregoire is expected to sign a bill passed last week which would ostensibly prevent the state from participating in the REAL ID program, at least until the government ponies up some money to pay for it.
Not voting won’t help either
Posted: April 11, 2007 1:21 pm
What would happen if officials held an election, and nobody voted?
This actually happened Tuesday of last week in Missouri City, Mo., where one city councilman got to keep his seat, not only because he ran unopposed, but because nobody came out to vote — not even himself.
Lost or stolen identities
Posted: April 11, 2007 5:53 am
The biggest threat to your personal identity, as you should know by now, is the government. It has the largest databases, the most information about you, and the most corrupt people. So it’s no surprise that government data about you is a prime target for identity thieves. Here are a few more examples.
Have you used a gun in self-defense?
Posted: April 10, 2007 8:59 am
Have you ever used a gun in self-defense, or defense of another? If so, there’s something you may want to do.
ACLU in Texas helps protect traveling gun owners
Posted: April 7, 2007 6:20 am
The American Civil Liberties Union has joined the National Rifle Association to help protect the rights of Texans to travel with their guns, a move that has almost everybody scratching their heads.
Homeland Stupidity Forum
Posted: April 6, 2007 9:22 am
There being some actual demand from regular readers of this site for a forum on the topics covered here, I’ve started one.
National Pork Service
Posted: April 6, 2007 3:29 am
Pork. You know, wasteful, pointless government spending on ridiculous boondoggles like a bridge to nowhere or the world’s most expensive bus stop ($1.5 million). In case you haven’t heard, the government has declared a war on pork, and it’s going about as well as the war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war on terror…
Census bureau gave up WWII internment camp evaders
Posted: April 5, 2007 6:05 am
Updated: April 5, 2007 6:48 am
The United States Census Bureau turned over names and addresses of American citizens of Japanese descent to the Secret Service during World War II. How dare those supposedly patriotic Americans not turn themselves in to their designated concentration camps!
TSA misses liquid explosives, weapons in tests
Posted: April 4, 2007 4:42 am
The Transportation Security Administration is supposed to be interdicting, among other things, liquid explosives, before someone manages to smuggle them aboard an aircraft and blow it up in a highly implausible movie-plot threat. Instead, they’ve been seizing and throwing away your bottled water and soda. So it shouldn’t be any surprise that TSA screeners at Denver International Airport failed to find 90% of weapons and explosives during recent tests.
Too busy to be April fooled
Posted: April 2, 2007 5:18 am
In case you haven’t noticed, there haven’t been any posts here in several days. This is primarily because I’ve been wrapped up with another project which has taken up virtually all of my time since the last post. To make it up to you, I’m just going to give you links to several interesting items in my unread list for you to enjoy.
