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Registered Traveler ID Initiative
Broadcatch writes "At the coming CardTech/SecurTech
in Washington D.C. the Transportation Security
Administration will make their first public announcement of the Registered
Traveler ID Initiative . Seems they haven't gotten the word that ID
cards are a bad
idea."
Oh my God! This traveler ID is so evil! We must burn down the White House for our indignation!
That was awesome.
These politicians trying to push this through are
just playing on the fears of the people who really
have no idea what happened on 9/11!
They KNEW exactly who was getting on these planes!
Not one of the terrorists used a fake identity or alias!
All of them were suspected terrorists, and they all
used their own identity.
The government is just trying to shift the blame
away from themselves for failure to actually block
these terrorists from boarding the planes ALL AT
THE SAME TIME.
Same goes for the cameras with the face-recognition
software... they're POINTLESS, except they allow
the US government to track it's own citizens!
- Preferences: Solaris 10 (servers), Ubuntu (desktops), Solaris 11 (personal servers) -
And that number is 615639
Seems they haven't gotten the word that ID cards are a bad idea
I'm sure they said the same stuff back in the day when drivers licences came out, but now everyone has it, if not a drivers licence at least an ID so they can still get their beer.
Jesus saves souls and redeems them for valuable cash prizes
While we as citizens of a free country may balk at the idea of having a national ID system, in europe, where social policies are much more advanced and education in general is higher, these systems are commonplace. Take Russia for example, Boris Yeltsin implemented a similar program in his regime and they haven't had any problems with it since. It seems to me that ID cards are an excellent idea in these trying times.
?-|||-----x<*))))><
How ironic that they don't know how bad national IDs are, considering that the Bush administration are conservative Christians!
Here's why national IDs are bad:
Revelations 13:16-18
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
At every airport gate, ship dock, bus platform and train station....a guy that kinda looks like the guy in the Sprint PCS commercials, but with a mustache and wearing a black leather coat walks up to everyone and says: "your pay-pers pleese!"
"internal passport".
Okay, maybe that's not what they're doing *quite* yet... but if I've ever seen a slippery slope, that's where this one's heading to.
But really... if you aren't doing anything extremely wrong you've got nothing to hide. I know the idea is that the more power you give the government the more it will abuse that power, but honestly, nobody cares about going 5 miles over the speed limit, your saturday night poker game, or equivilant crimes and nobody ever will.
If I can carry a piece of plastic with me that will help stop thousands of terrorism related deaths a year I'm all for that.
sig.
The problem that needs to be addressed is how will the system fail? What safegaurds will be in place to protect you if your card is lost or stolen? What recourse will you have to remove false information about you from the databases? What are the ramifications of someone successfully couterfeiting one of these cards?
I don't think the idea of a national ID card/database is inherently bad, but there are a number of question that need to be addressed to make sure the system's cost in loss of freedom does not outweigh its benefit.
Brevity is the soul of wit
-- Polonius
I'm not trolling, but could someone please tell me what the "privacy concerns" surrounding this are? I checked out all three of the links included in the post about why ID's are so "bad," but the closest thing I got to an explanation was having catch-phrases like "internal passport" thrown at me. I really do want to know what's got everyone's panties in a bunch. Please reply.
Reading the story you find out this is not a national ID system. /. already (ie: retinal scanning) they can pass these people by so they can do their jobs quickly, rather than waiting in a security line everyday just to go to work. We do that enough on city "expressways" already..
TSA has made important progress in selecting a uniform system of identification, a card-based biometric information system, that will support positive identification of individuals working in the transportation sector and encompassing the aviation, train, shipping, and trucking industries.
This system is not for you, the everyday individual. This is for making sure people like stewards on airlines don't have to go through security checks everyday to see if they're carrying a bomb. Using new authentication technology that's been discussed on
The argument is necesarially that these measures would have prevented past terrorist attacks, but tht it might help prevent future ones. It doesn't get to the root problem of what happened on September 11th (there's a lot of people who really really really really really hates us), but that wouldn't be a reason to not do this.
Of course, the more security you put in place, the more secretive nefarious people will try to be. I wonder if it's more likely to catch a terrorist who knows there's extreme security so they're very delibrate in their actions and extremely careful, versus catching a terrorist who thinks there is minimal security so is less likely to be so secretive and careful.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
This is an admonishment against ID's from a religious perspective.
Oh how I'd love to metamod this one...
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
While the TSA scrambles to secure airports terrorists will likely just find another way to accomplish their goals while the rest of us stand in a "security" line designed to make us feel safer.
Does anyone else remember the bogus Pan Am security screening fee from years back? They didn't actually do extra screening but the impression of doing more made the passengers feel better...
On a clear disk you can seek forever
I've heard that the anti-christ is coming from Europe. When all of Europe is as one, then he shall arise, placing his mark on Europeans with biometric id cards, created to use sexidecimal.
Sorry US, you don't get to participate in the fall of the World, unless you want to start cooperating with the rest of the world. Oh right, nevermind.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
The idea is to positively ID people working in the transporation business.
TSA has made important progress in selecting a uniform system of identification, a card-based biometric information system, that will support positive identification of individuals working in the transportation sector and encompassing the aviation, train, shipping, and trucking industries.
This is bad for several reasons. First, it won't solve anything. All it will do is further infringe upon the privacy of people working in this sector. The terrorists did not strike at us by impersonating workers, but just regular travellers.
It also won't do any good if/when it's used on people just going from place to place. Once again, the terrorists did not forge any identification. They didn't have to. Replacing one form of ID with another in this case is just stupid.
Nonsense like this is just bringing us closer to a locked down state where you must have your papers in order to go anywhere. And to think, at one point, this nation mocked the Russians for this kind of crap.
Why bother.
George's Electronic Security, Transportation, And Papers Organization
Bucknell theme for AOL Instant Messenger
Personally I don't see what the big deal is if this is combined with some consumer protection:
United airlines has a right to demand that I provide proof of who I am, if it's a condition of them doing business with me. Just like I have the right to demand that United's pilots wear a pigmy white tailed monkey on their heads if it a condition of me flying with them. If either one of us doesen't like the demands that the other is making, then fine. We just won't do business with each other.
Now if United started babbing about my travel details, then I'd be rightfully pissed.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Very longwinded Very boring. Only such rambling could hide something like an ID card initiative. I couldn't find the initiative in the somnulence that was that speech .. My endurance was just not powerful enough to see through the fog..
Eat at Joe's.
Even though there are no visible problems with the nation ID system in Russia, that doesn't mean there aren't problems. The things that people should be worried about (abuse of power, theft, fraud) are, for the most part, crimes that will be kept secret.
Abuse of power will be kept secret for the obvious reason that the government will not want people to know about it. The other types of crimes relating to the IDs (theft, fraud, identity theft) will also be kept more secretive because the government will not want to provide evidence that the system is enabling more crimes.
I think we should sit back and take a long while and think about ID cards. As another poster pointed out, the terrorists of 9/11 didn't do anything that could have been prevented by having national ID cards.
neurostarThey're not talking about a national ID card system.
The page (which is a poor one, since it's really just an agenda for presentations) covers two topics. One is an ID system for transportation workers, so that they have some way of verifying that the guy in the tarmac in a blue jumpsuit really is an employee who is allowed to be there. That is arguably a good thing. Many professions have this. I go to a hospital and my doctor is wearing an ID badge, and that makes me feel good, because if I trust the badge, I'm reasonably assured that this main isn't some psycho pretending to be a doctor. The TSA is looking at a way to unify the many different systems under one, so that rather than having 50 different types of identification depending on where you go, everyone will have the same types of ID. They're not implementing a new system. They're making an existing one more standardized.
The second is the Registered Traveler ID. This system is a voluntary system for frequent flyers to bypass the tedious and sometimes invasive security procedures at airports and train stations. Basically, you go through the background checks, etc. once, and then you can skip all the feel-down lines and breeze your way to the gate. Basically, they want to make it easier for people to travel. If you, as a citizen, don't want to be registered, don't get the card. You can go through the long lines with other unregistered travelers and your "privacy" (or the illusion of it) is safe.
Hey pompus "security and safety conscious" jerks, unless you are a Native American, then someone up your family tree came over on a boat/plane too. It is true, some people from other countries do actually like to visit america, and they're not here to hurt us, though I'm sure there is a little poking fun at our "traditional ways".
get some culture...
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
I read the links but found no concrete information on what this is about, but "Registered Traveler ID Initiative" sounds very disconcerting.
I just watched "The Hunt for Red October" again last week. There's a scene where the would-be Soviet defector sub Captain (Sean Connery) and First Officer (Sam Niel) are discussing what they'll do in America. The first officer would like to live in Montana but says something like "I might buy a recreational vehicle and travel from state to state...they let you do that? No papers?" Captain: "No papers."
If an airline wishes to offer me some quick pass ID so I don't need to mess with security and get molested every time I board an aircraft, I'd be inclined to accept. If the government offers me a quick pass ID to do same, I'm very concerned, as they have no bloody right to tell me whether I can board a plane or not.
Graham
Linux - Fast Pane Relief
Oh, wait a minute.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
if you aren't doing anything extremely wrong you've got nothing to hide.
Such as finances, credit, family problems, etc? I have not committed crimes, and I don't ever want to have an ID system that can provide a ton of information about me. I do have something to hide - my personal life, because my life is my business, not Uncle Sam's.
If I can carry a piece of plastic with me that will help stop thousands of terrorism related deaths a year I'm all for that.
I have yet to hear an argument of how national IDs would stop terrorists. Another poster pointed out that the 9/11 hijackers did nothing that could have been prevented with the existence of a national ID. I fail to see how such and ID could help anything.
neurostarI think that is part of the problem.
Quoting bible scripture as an argument went out the around the Enlightenment, but maybe that specific branch of thinking has not hit you or the current administration.
Help fight continental drift.
The question for Americans isn't if an ID card is a good idea, the question is how many ID cards everybody should have and what the "good" guys do with all the data they collect. Let's see: driver license, social security card, credit card, library card, student ID, etc...
;).
Then the whole thing is neatly organized in commercial and government databases. All that supplemented by the nefarious census database. What else could the government possibly want to know about you, except perhaps your color preference?
ID cards are a fact of modern life; all of us already have half a dozen of them--unless you live you life as a hermit, or your one of the bad guys.
The real issue is controlling what the government and commercial entities do with all the data they collect. And in the U.S. it's pretty much anything goes. They even let convicted criminals like Poindexter play with all those databases; a guy who has already demonstrated a complete disregard for U.S. laws restricting what the government can do. Then again, he's proven himself trustworthy to his superiors, which is obviously more important.
I don't think the government wants ID cards any more than the people, because with an ID card, there'd be laws that restrict access to the information. Right now, all that information is available in a free for all--free as in access, not beer
OR
Kevin Smith tossin Matt Daemon out of the train, lighting up a cigarette ... with a remake phrase of "no papers" ...
For safety sake, say no to safety!!
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Maybe it's just me. Are we moving towards that Orwellian view of the future???
Sacraficing freedom for percieved safety.
http://www.Slaveway.com
Quoting bible scripture as an argument went out the around the Enlightenment...
If you would care to read the post, you would see that he was not arguing, but pointing out and inconsistency and contradiction.
neurostarWell it looks like it won't be long before America finally becomes one of those countries where you hear those words that every freedom-loving person has been trained to despise:
"May I see your papers [please]?"
ID cards can be lost or stolen. Iris scanners take too bloody long (>10-15 seconds staring into one) and watching to see whether someone's going to grab an ID or a gun is tiresome.
Why not implant a chip in the forehead of everyone? A little stick and *bam* you're done. Serial number of chip keyed to your DNA/fingerprints/ass prints. Or you can simply use a barcode tatooed on the back of a hand in invisible ink that shows up under UV. A simple *bleep* with a barcode scanner and you've identified Citizen X or Criminal Y.
</sarcasm>
Boris Yeltsin implemented a similar program in his regime and they haven't had any problems with it since.
The key word here is "regime." A regime is actually what some of us are trying to avoid...
It is a loss numerological translation for the name of the Roman Emperor Nero, who persecuted Christians with intense fervor.
Your ignorance of recent American history is astonishing. Ask the victims of COINTELPRO whether they had anything to hide or not. What are you going to do if what you've done wrong is merely disagree with the government's abridgement of your civil rights as guaranteed under the Constitution? It's happened before, right here in the US of A. Did you know the Bush administration is floating the idea of an internal spy agency? Read your history, people. We are in bad trouble.
"No matter where you go, there you probably are." -- Buckaroo Heisenberg
The need is not to make transportation safe against terrorism. The need is to find all the places where a terrorist act could kill thousands of people and work to harden up such targets. Utility infrastructure, nuclear plants, chemical facilities, and related operations need tighter security. That will save more lives than IDing travellers.
The cornerstone of our loegal code and our constitution is that you do not have to demonstrate to the government that you are innocent of crimes. I'm not saying that the presumption of innocence precludes government IDs, but it does mean that law abiding citizens should not have to carry a piece of paper to prove they are law abiding.
If you think that all of the information that would be included on any sort of national ID isn't already easily avaiable, you're ignorant, stupid or both.
:)
Besides, do you really think that the US government needs to issue you a card before they can invade your privacy and track your movements? It's the government, for God sakes!
If you're really cynical, ID cards might even be a good thing. If it makes it easier for the government to invade your privacy (remembering that they can do it at will already), than at least it'll be cheaper! You've already lost all semblence of privacy, at least you can get it at a discount.
Maybe that's how the Republicans plan to cut taxes...
If you are doing nothing wrong, and have nothing to hide, then *no one*, ESPECIALLY the government, should be asking.
*Only* if there is cause for suspicion should anyone ever be questioned, period. Even then, that's often just a flimsy excuse.
That is the basis of a free society. Once *innocent* people are subjected to this on a regular basis.. then society is no longer free.
And once the populace accepts this sort of 'presumed guilty' treatment, then its all over.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
In this case Christian, but the problem I see is scripture not the specific variety.
Help fight continental drift.
I'm from Spain, and I want to share a more "European" ( UK doesn't count :-P ) point of view.
:-P) but its use. But even in US, IDs are widely used (to buy beer, to sign contracts). The trouble is that these IDs don't come with citizenship, but for other reasons... why do I need to learn to drive, or to get registered in Social Security, just to justify to the clerk that I can buy beer? If I went to a library at 15, how could I use a drivers license or Social Security number to get to borrow a book, if I couldn't have neither of them?
I'll asume that the fact that having an ID is not bad by itself (okay, the number of the beast and that all
Also, there is the paranoia about people targetting you by your ID. In Spain, the National ID systems only is a way to certify that you are who you say you are. And no, once my clerk has checked that I'm old enough, he/she doesn't write my ID number into a computer terminal so the government can know what kind of beer I'm buying. And when I borrow a book from the library, the data about it is kept internally just in case I delay in returning it. I'm pretty sure my government doesn't record what videos do I rent, or that they are not searching for my fines, etc., etc. And don't worry, if they are really interested in that data, they can just get it from Social Security
Another issue is verification.... 50 states, 50 driver license ID (and other types or IDs)... for people trying to falsify one or to cheat cops, there is a wide range for it, isn't it? Are your cops so well trained that any cop at Florida can check the validity of an Alaskian ID without trouble?
You're saying that if you are a suspect you must be guilty. I spit on your national ID.
What about those types of activities? Bizarre but harmless sexual orientation, pulling a fast one on your spouse or SO, the list could conceivably go on and on. Concentrated surveillance on citizens of any nation by its government is a bad idea.
It's also only speculation that it would prevent terrorist attacks, there's plenty of data that suggests that our intelligence knew that public air carriers were being considered as weapons, that the WTC was a target, even some that suggests that it was allowed to be carried out to further the goals of the administration. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but if I was...
This is what the ultimate goal is, at least until they can scan DNA in real time, from a resonable distance.. then 'tagging' will be moot.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Twas sarcasm, as I was promoting it as a good idea(TM) & making a religious reference that was probably a little too mundane now that I think on it.
to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
'nuff said. Benny F. said it all.
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
The Register
By Thomas C Greene in Washington
We all know that truth is stranger than fiction, and here we have an apparently real item straight from the realm of Tom Clancy. Imagine a huge, absolutely huge, central database containing both the official and commercial data of every single citizen, run by the US military ostensibly for anti-terror and Homeland Security purposes, and all of it under the direction of a convicted felon.
Well the database is in development and coming soon, according to the New York Times; and the felon who will run it is disgraced Reagan administration liar, dirty-trickster and cover-uper Admiral John M. Poindexter, who Dubya has taken out of mothballs to keep us all safe from dreadful evildoers.
Poindexter got caught up in a little Federal crime spree called Iran-Contra a decade ago, stood trial and was convicted, but managed to escape responsibility on an odd technicality.
As told succinctly by FAS.org, Poindexter was "Indicted March 16, 1988, on seven felony charges. After standing trial on five charges, Poindexter was found guilty April 7, 1990, on all counts: conspiracy (obstruction of inquiries and proceedings, false statements, falsification, destruction and removal of documents); two counts of obstruction of Congress and two counts of false statements.
District Judge Harold H. Greene sentenced Poindexter June 11, 1990, to six months in prison on each count, to be served concurrently. A three-judge appeals panel on November 15, 1991, reversed the convictions on the ground that Poindexter's immunized testimony may have influenced the trial testimony of witnesses. The Supreme Court on December 7, 1992, declined to review the case. In 1993, the indictment was dismissed on the motion of Independent Counsel."
Now he's in charge of the newly-invented Information Awareness Office, a part of that mixed bag of good and bad, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and he's got his eye on basically every scrap of data about every single citizen. The system Poindy is preparing to unleash on us "will provide intelligence analysts and law enforcement officials with instant access to information from Internet mail and calling records to credit card and banking transactions and travel documents, without a search warrant," the NYT article says.
And he's in no way embarrassed by his role ensuring that the US military and federal law enforcement and intelligence spooks can quite conveniently spy on the populace. He's said openly that the US government "needs to 'break down the stovepipes' that separate commercial and government databases," the article says.
Poindexter joins a slew of Reagan-era retreads and Iran-Contra alumni now operating brazenly in Dubya's bureaucracy. No doubt he feels quite comfortable among such familiar company, though I doubt I could say the same for the rest of us. ®
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
A look at the hall of fame will show you that that is the most commented Slashdot story ever. And it's still growing.
Is this related to the ID card controversy?
"People in the US have a right to travel and associate without being monitored or stopped by their government, unless they are actually suspected or convicted of a crime, and unless that suspicion is reasonable."
From the Gilmore v. Ashcroft FAQ at Cryptome
-- Are you an EFF member yet?
Reading the story you find out this is not a national ID system.
/. already (ie: retinal scanning) they can pass these people by so they can do their jobs quickly, rather than waiting in a security line everyday just to go to work.
... NOT. I have a friend who flies 737s for United, and while he occasionally gets annoyed (and has some absurd anectdotes from) going through security, he is quick to point out that allowing one group to bypass the security checks creates a catastrophic point of failure, where all a terrorist has to do is get a job doing grunt work for an airline, and they can walze right past security.
... if it hits me, I die, but the odds are very good it won't hit me, and I'm not going to waste time and energy being afraid of it.
... and I fear it much, much more than I fear some illiterate fanatics from camel-fucking country (apologies in advance to the moderate majorities of those places for my tongue in cheeck jab at American prejudices).
Not yet. But we already know, indeed have it on public record, that they want a national ID system, that that is their ultimate goal, and while they may not admit to this being a first step, it certainly appears very much like a first step in that direction.
"Those of you with our voluntary ID will have convinience, while those of you without our voluntary ID will be stand in line, be thoroughly scanned, perhaps even patted down or more invasively searched. Welcome to the New World Order, citizen!" How many will choose the latter, because the former is even more distressing than being tracked everywhere, particularly if you travel frequently?
This system is not for you, the everyday individual. This is for making sure people like stewards on airlines don't have to go through security checks everyday to see if they're carrying a bomb. Using new authentication technology that's been discussed on
Great idea
Even now it is a problem, with everyone going through security, but at least the existing system, while imperfect, makes the logistic of smuggling weapons and expolisves on board very non-trivial.
This approach isn't going to improve security, indeeed it will do the opposite, by creating an exploitable exception to security.
What it will facilitate is the government tracking (some) of its citizens. Frankly, I'd rather suffer a 9/11 event once each year and take my chances (my car would still be 17 times more likely to kill me), than to turn over that kind of power to my government.
Indeed, terrorism doesn't particularly frighten me (and I work across the street from the Sears Tower, a big target if there ever was one). It is like lightning
Now, our government on the other hand, is ubiquitious. The odds of its behavior impacting me are 100%
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
No, really, why don't some of you all come up with some solutions to these national security and intelligence problems.
:)
Here's the process...
1. Work 10+ years in the intelligence/national secutiry/CT/etc. field at an operational level.
2. Based on your work-related experience, come up with some solutions. Beware that no matter what solution you suggest, you will be compared to 'the gestapo' because of the thousands of 'experts' on 'abuses of power by U.S. intelligence agencies' who 'know' that everything directed by Oliver Stone is 100% factual/accurate/etc.
There's alot more to these problems than is ever reported by wired.com.
Yes, some of the terrorists of 9/11 were travelling under 'flagged' IDs. One of the main things that kept them from being caught was a lack of a database link between overseas and domestic intelligence/seciruty agencies.
Some agencies knew they were in the country, and issued alerts for them to be detained. The ability to get that alert to every domestic law enforcement person in time was not available.
Everyone who reads slashdot.org be brutally honest with yourselves - what would the comments have read like if 1 year before 9/11 slashdot.org reported on a government plan to link databases between the State Dept., INS, CIA, and FBI. Most of you would have been against it, assigned some dark and false ulterior motive to such a plan, etc.
Here are some cold, hard, facts - totally free democracies are very easy targets for terrorism and hostile intelligence agencies.
The reason the KGB has such a great track record in terms of intelligence work is because they worked against the most open societies the world has ever known and they worked for the most oppressive/closed society the world has ever known (US and UK intelligence personnel who operated against the Gestapo during WW2 quickly found out that it was impossible - IMPOSSIBLE - to run penetration agents inside the Soviet bloc during the cold war - by 1960 all agents run vs. the Soviet bloc were citizens of the Soviet bloc -communist CI/internal security was an order of magnitude better than what the Gestapo could do, and the Gestapo agents were more intelligent and better trained than most communist agents). KGB intelligence officers and terrorist operatives were/are not genetically superior to your average FBI CI Officer (that's counter intelligence for the unknowing). The simple fact is that the deck is stacked massively in favor of the bad guys due to 'form of government'. If you want to give the good guys (and they ARE the good guys - I am one of them and I don't care what porn you look at...send me the links...and I don't care what conspiracies you buy into, and I don't care about anything you do until you start wiring money to the bank account of one of the 18 best operators that Al-Q has 'on the books' at the moment - and the same goes for my superiors and co-workers) a better chance you are going to have to TRUST them to use the powerful tools (hopefully placed) at their disposal in a responsible manner.
Reccomended reading for slashdot.org on the history of the CIA during the 'big conspiracy' times:
'The Very Best Men'
Written by a 'suspicious' reporter who was given access to OSS and CIA files released under the FOIA.
Slashdot rules. Keep up the good work. Don't try and build a nuclear weapon and you probably won't attract any attention to the porn on your computers.
Anonymous Cowardly Good Guy
I think that was obvious. The idea of increased airport security is supposed to make the public feel safer, not to make the public safer.
Centralization breaks the internet.
The reason fighting the last war is a classic military mistake is that typically your foe is prepared for you to attack him in the old way. If we do not defend against similar attacks, our enemies would be foolish not to continue to use the same methods. The smart thing is to prevent similar attacks, and prepare for new types of attacks. Whether or not they are doing it well, I do think that is what our government is attempting to do.
Brevity is the soul of wit
-- Polonius
If security doesn't improve in the transportation sector, there's no reason not to try that approach again. It's remarkably cheap, after all. One would have to be a bit more careful of the passengers, but I think that could be dealt with.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Why create a new form ID?
The next big attack will be elsewhere.
Exactly. We shouldn't even bother checking bags any more, cause that's not where they're going to attack. Umm...
I actually would have no problem giving up some personal information in order to be less inconvenienced, especially when traveling. Heck if I could be dropped off from the cab and through security in 15 minutes I'm all for a traveler card.
A landmark legislation is being railroaded through after the past elections where the repubs took control over the gov.
You Are a Suspect
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
ASHINGTON -- If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage, here is what will happen to you:
Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend -- all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database."
To this computerized dossier on your private life from commercial sources, add every piece of information that government has about you -- passport application, driver's license and bridge toll records, judicial and divorce records, complaints from nosy neighbors to the F.B.I., your lifetime paper trail plus the latest hidden camera surveillance -- and you have the supersnoop's dream: a "Total Information Awareness" about every U.S. citizen.
This is not some far-out Orwellian scenario. It is what will happen to your personal freedom in the next few weeks if John Poindexter gets the unprecedented power he seeks.
Remember Poindexter? Brilliant man, first in his class at the Naval Academy, later earned a doctorate in physics, rose to national security adviser under President Ronald Reagan. He had this brilliant idea of secretly selling missiles to Iran to pay ransom for hostages, and with the illicit proceeds to illegally support contras in Nicaragua.
A jury convicted Poindexter in 1990 on five felony counts of misleading Congress and making false statements, but an appeals court overturned the verdict because Congress had given him immunity for his testimony. He famously asserted, "The buck stops here," arguing that the White House staff, and not the president, was responsible for fateful decisions that might prove embarrassing.
This ring-knocking master of deceit is back again with a plan even more scandalous than Iran-contra. He heads the "Information Awareness Office" in the otherwise excellent Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which spawned the Internet and stealth aircraft technology. Poindexter is now realizing his 20-year dream: getting the "data-mining" power to snoop on every public and private act of every American.
Even the hastily passed U.S.A. Patriot Act, which widened the scope of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and weakened 15 privacy laws, raised requirements for the government to report secret eavesdropping to Congress and the courts. But Poindexter's assault on individual privacy rides roughshod over such oversight.
He is determined to break down the wall between commercial snooping and secret government intrusion. The disgraced admiral dismisses such necessary differentiation as bureaucratic "stovepiping." And he has been given a $200 million budget to create computer dossiers on 300 million Americans.
When George W. Bush was running for president, he stood foursquare in defense of each person's medical, financial and communications privacy. But Poindexter, whose contempt for the restraints of oversight drew the Reagan administration into its most serious blunder, is still operating on the presumption that on such a sweeping theft of privacy rights, the buck ends with him and not with the president.
This time, however, he has been seizing power in the open. In the past week John Markoff of The Times, followed by Robert O'Harrow of The Washington Post, have revealed the extent of Poindexter's operation, but editorialists have not grasped its undermining of the Freedom of Information Act.
Political awareness can overcome "Total Information Awareness," the combined force of commercial and government snooping. In a similar overreach, Attorney General Ashcroft tried his Terrorism Information and Prevention System (TIPS), but public outrage at the use of gossips and postal workers as snoops caused the House to shoot it down. The Senate should now do the same to this other exploitation of fear.
The Latin motto over Poindexter"s new Pentagon office reads "Scientia Est Potentia" -- "knowledge is power." Exactly: the government's infinite knowledge about you is its power over you. "We're just as concerned as the next person with protecting privacy," this brilliant mind blandly assured The Post. A jury found he spoke falsely before.
...listening to the EFF might be a bad idea. Did anyone ever take a moment to think that it just might be ok not to listen to these morons? Uh-oh, now I'll probably be kicked off /. for life for saying that. Oooh!
Think about this. What does everyone think when they see someone arrested. Our first instinct is not that they are innocent, unless perhaps it is a black man in LA.
:-(
When the two sniper suspects were arrested, what did you hear people saying? Did they say the accused snipers? No, everyone on the news even is calling them the snipers. UNTIL A COURT FINDS THEM GUILTY, THEY ARE INNOCENT, AND JUST ACCUSED! If the media brands them of guilt, then what chance of a fair trial do they have? And what about their lives after? They won't be able to get a decent steady job even if they tried.
The media is an animal when it is in regards to court cases in the US. And the Canadian media isn't far from catching up
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I think you are right, lightning doesn't strike the same place twice. If you were funded by middle-east oil kings where would you strike? I'd stike places which would make the US even more dependent on middle-east oil. Perhaps a large dam (like Hoover) or a nuclear power station (like Indian Head). This would cause a alot of death, destruction. But as an added bonus it would cause shut-down in most of those facilities for a long time giving long-lasting effects. Scary.
discussion, contains text of SF chronicle article on airline no-fly lists used to harass and delay peace activists
article explaining how if you look nonwhite or have the wrong sort of beard you get fingerprinted at the Canadian border
Stay safe! Stay home! Be good and don't say anything!
Next they'll be fingerprinting us at toll booths and you'll have to have a visa to travel from state to state. Hey, it worked for the USSR- for a while.
As a matter of fact I was searched too, the last time I flew anywhere (rare, for me). I suppose next time I'll be strip-searched, or beat up a bit. However, I do have one big advantage- I'm white. And I don't wear a beard, or particularly long hair.
Interesting times we live in. So this is what it's like to live in cold war USSR. Remember, there won't be a problem if you stay home and don't ask any questions!
You guys have no idea how innocent ID cards are. We in Europe have them for years and we sure don't feel like being watched.
The next time the terrorists strike you'll blame the government again. Maybe you should blame yourself for not listening to your security experts.
Face it, you guys know IT, but you know nothing about security. You have no idea how all these terrorists in the last year were caught before they made any damage.
(I'm sure this will get moded down to -2 in 1 minute)
I love the assumptions that terrorism will automatically be so motivated that it'll move heaven and earth to hurt us. They hate us because we're NICE. Riiiight. So we stop being nice and they're supposed to stop hating us? Uh-huh.
American citizens didn't start wanting to make the Middle East a sheet of glass (a desire I've literally seen post 9/11- 'kill them all, men women and children') until the United States was literally attacked- not threatened, but physically attacked with great loss of life.
How many of you can identify the situations in which WE have identifiably physically attacked other countries and caused loss of life? We have a history of taking action like that, in the absence of declared war, sometimes by proxy (Israel) and our name's on every ammo clip.
If we were not physically assaulting people's homelands it would be a MUCH harder sell for some character to go 'Hey, here's an idea- go to the United States and BLOW YOURSELF UP AND DIE!'. It takes a very large amount of rage and despair to buy into something like that. If the threat is less urgent, that idea won't fly anymore.
Instead, our US leaders seem to want to go, 'Hey, here's an idea- let's keep everybody afraid and punish them terribly if they ARE terrorists, and intimidate them if they look kinda like terrorists, and we'll call 'freedom' the ability to sit home and not be blown up!' I think they are collaborating with the real terrorists to instill fear, for their personal gain. I find that pretty contemptible. If you're walking down the street you can be hit by a car, but that doesn't mean people need to be locked in small car-proof boxes. Freedom is risk and opportunity. You can't split off the risk part and discard it.
Which may never have happened, if our foreign policy did not produce some real terrorists- but look at the responses to this, and who benefits! It doesn't even matter if there are any terrorists left anymore, or if all of Al Quaeda lies buried in Afghan rubble. Probably dozens of us slashdotter media geeks could fake new Osama videos just as good as if they were real. It's no longer about terrorists at all- ask the UK, or Palestine, about living with continued violence. At this point it is about a radical shift in the structure of United States government, and whether it meets resistance or not, THAT is the war we currently have. The terrorists are mere assistants in this process. They have been co-opted.
"The homeland security people are fighting the last war, not the next one."
Not even. They're not even dealing with Pearl Harbor very well.
They want to fingerprint tourists. They want to issue manditory national ID. They want machines to collect your e-mail. They want to monitor the use of your library card...
Ignoring what these do to civil liberties for the moment, what do they intend to do with all this gathered information? Just like they've been doing since before the organization of the CIA, all this information will be locked away in some filing cabinet in the basement of some federal building somewhere.
Pearl Harbor and 9/11 both came about because of the focus on information gathering instead of information interpretation. And ideas like this are set to make the same mistakes over and over again well into this new century.
Information may be ammunition, ammo is pretty useless if you don't have a gun.
Not a national ID?!
Did you know that they created a National ID in Finland one year ago on this day, and the day after everybodies' bank accounts were emtpy!
When Sweden got their national IDs a hundred years ago, birthrate fell to (and still is) 0! Everybody could find out everything about everybody else, and suddenly nobody wanted to reproduce!
Norwegian National IDs have built in radio transmitters, and the Big Bad Government has put receivers everywhere. Norwegians can't even take a sh*t without having it registered in the government's database (that is run by the Mafia!) how many grams of excrements they left!
Danes are required to check each others National IDs before saying Hello!
It's true! National IDs are BAD, mmmkay?
...
Come ON. If little piss-ant countries like us in Scandinavia can have National IDs without problems, why shouldn't the big and glorious nation of USA be able to handle it? I find it difficult to believe that your government is so corrupt, so incompetent and so basically naughty that a National ID is impossible without a Big Brother situation. And if it is, why whine about the National ID instead of making sure that the incompetent government goes away?
Or perhaps you could find a very big corporation that could run the database instead, it seems to work so well for other things.
From the other side of the pond, you look a bit silly sometimes.
And I'm not saying this to flame you, although I realize that many will take it that way. We europeans seem to have a different view of the world, and it just doesn't really fit with the governmental paranoia that seems to leak out of the cracks on slashdot as soon as anyone says anything that has the world "government" in it.
Has anyone here had the pleasure of flying lately with TSA doing security?
What a F*IN nightmare. Lonnnnnnng lines while 10-15 of these goons are standing around picking their nose.
And how much is this B.S. costing the honest american working citizen??????? All for the "extra comfort" level of being safe.
Wake up people! Your not any more safe now than you where 1 year ago.
Trolling Trolling Trolling........Keeps those post ah' rollin.....
These cards are voluntary just like the dillon's cards were at the supermarket. They start with a big fanfare to get people to sign up. They promise coupons for people that have signed up. Then once a reasonable number of people have the cards, they jack the price up for the people that don't.
Give me break, it doesn't make sense to standardize something if you don't expect to be able to make people use it.
Are you the same good guy that stood in a darkened window taking pictures of me when I marched in protest of the war on Iraq? Were you standing in the shadows when I was out on the street decrying the nuclear arms race? Did you track my visits to indymedia.org during the WTO protests in Seattle? So now you want to compare my financial records to my voter's registeration to the list of magazines I subscribe to? Why not, goodfellow. I trust you.
But isn't it about time for you to come out in the open? You guys skulk around like nobody wants to see your face. Don't be shy. Really. The next time there's a demonstation on your watch, why not join in? Or just make an appearance--you don't have to agree with everything being said--you can just talk to people.
From what I can see, ID is only half of the solution. How about ID, and video face scanning?
Now, from what I understand, scanning faces isn't very accurate, combine it with an ID system and a set face scanning system. (That means simply, while your carry on baggage is going thru, stop, face camera, show id,swipe card, *click*, ok continue.)
Next step is fingerprinting.
The passport and Social Security cards are national IDs. But we don't have people walking or driving down the street being stopped and questioned to verify possession of either of them.
For some strange reason, people in America assume that the mere existence of a national ID means that police will have the right to stop people on a whim to check if they have an ID. That is ridiculous. I've worked abroad, and known people who've worked abroad where the country had a national ID and nothing of that sort happened. The ID is for the purpose of identification, not for some Nazi "your paperz pleez" verification. It is something used only when you would logically have to identify yourself anyway regardless of whether a national ID exists. If the government wants to become like Nazis the lack of a national ID system isn't going to stop them.
I only had to show it two times in the nearly three years I was there: when accepting a job, and applying for a driver's license. In all those cases I would logically have had to identify myself in some other way if a national ID didn't exist. It is a fallacy to say that the lack of a national ID allows you to keep your anonymity. When you show other forms of ID or use a credit card, they know who you are. Lack of a widely implemented national ID system only makes it easier to do identity theft, easier for illegal aliens to fake legal status, and does nothing to preserve your anonymity.
Note that I don't agree with a system that makes mere non-possession of the ID a crime, or allows any form of law enforcement to check for the existence of the ID on a whim. I do see it being useful for situations where you would need other ways of identifying yourself if no national ID system existed, as it would be simpler to check if somebody else was faking your identity - which is not so easy now if somebody else in another state if pretending to be you. And it would be easier to catch fakes if there was a single, machine readable standard. It probably wouldn't do much to prevent terrorism though.
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
why not have unique number tatoos on the inside of forearms? its quite fashionable so people wont really mind. Or it could be invisible to our eyes, but readable by machines only. every now and then you could upgrade your information like bank accounts, credit, tax records, health...just wave your arm out of the car and the tolltax is paid. Prior art actually, so no question of patenting.
It's valuable to have your input here, and your point is well-taken (at least, I think I've taken it well). I'll go read the book. However, I think the tough job that intelligence has doesn't diminish some of the objections here. How is this database really going to help? I'm not talking about the criminal/INS/FBI databases... I'm talking about travel records, commercial stuff, etc. This smacks of more technology worship which could displace genuine efforts at human intelligence. Second, how are we going to insure this isn't abused? Having Poindexter dismiss oversight as beaurocratic stovepiping doesn't inspire any confidence. Power corrupts. The only check for that is oversight and tranparency. Without that, we stand as much a risk of becoming the "bad guys" as the bad guys.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
"Here are some cold, hard, facts - totally free democracies are very easy targets for terrorism and hostile intelligence agencies."
Ok, swell, point of agreement.
Point one, in the US that's the deal we willingly trade some security for freedom. Don't mess with that, do NOT go beyond that point. That's an order, not a request, dig? You work for us, not the other way around, dig that too? If not, do some historical reading.
"You" are not our masters, nope, WE are your masters. Your check and pension mean less than nothing, understand? Less_than_nothing. We LIKE it like that, it's DESIGNED that way on purpose. YOU guys usurped that a long time ago at the point of a gun barrel, so no pompous "it's worse in the soviet union". Well ya, DUH, and we DON'T want it to get that bad. It's getting "worse like in the soviet union" one step at a time, step by step, the boiling frog principle. The deal is, a lot of folks just happen to NOT be frogs and can see what's happening. Don't talk down to them either. It insults them and it is insulting to yourself.
OK,I'm done lecturing now, we're back to being pals. Nothing personal, just needed to be said out loud. The following is just DATA.
POINT TWO, this one is REAL important.
For this "you guys" is generic soup agency volk.
WTC got attacked TWICE. Not ONCE but TWICE. The SNITCH "YOU GUYS" HAD INSIDE THE Al QUEDA CELL did NOT want to use a real truck bomb, when he saw the device was LIVE he freaked out, he thought it was a sting with a faux device. He was ORDERED to go ahead and set it, by some faction inside one of "you guys" orgs. This is called a CLUE.
POINT THREE
Yep, certainly not all of you guys are bad, we understand that and appreciate it, BUT, there's certainly some factions with a "not nice" agenda, aren't there? We WANT allies, we WANT to trust, but understand, a lot of "you" have been brainwashed or are ignoring high level- I mean HIGH level order giving upstairs god level- traitorus complicity in not only wtc 1 but wtc 2 and OKC/murragh and some others. This is REALITY, DEAL WITH IT.
POINT FOUR --go after the white guys in suits, start looking at the "put" options the days prior to 9-11 and the "connections" there. SERIOUSLY look there, see how far you get, who stops you, and remember those names. Look at the bosses who ordered agents in phoenix, minneapolis and a few places in florida to stand down. Look at the bosses of the number 2 guy at the DLI in monterey who shut him up. Follow the food chains, see where they go. Stop insisting that this snake has no head, or that the head consists of "only" radical muslims, they are tools, part of the body of the snake but not the snake's head. You are being USED. THINK the unthinkable because it's HAPPENING and it's IMPORTANT that it's stopped before "they" get too far with it. Or are you forgetting the 3 thousand high level taliban who got flown out of ashcanistan during the war "timeout"? WHO ORDERD THAT AND WHY? It HAPPENED. Find out who let in the al queda KLA albanians and who trained them and where, and where did they all go to, because it happened. Who had the JUICE to get them pulled off of state's narco terr list? Think about "things" like that. You KNOW screwy stuff is going on, you can't avoid it. You KNOW it's wrong.
The crime, motive, profit, opportunity-start from a clean slate and re look at things. You'll see some clues that can lead to more and more.
Good luck. I mean it.
link to a real audio, skip ahead to the second hour and listen to it, interview with david schippers on this subject. names dates events
http://arc2.m2ktalk.com/alexam/101001.ram
"In that case, maybe you had better let go of the desire to run secret police as well as the KGB, and approach the terrorism problem from a different angle, like not blowing up their countries, instilling puppet governments, and meddling in their politics at the behest of American political and business interests."
.01% causes all the problems. Terrorists in the moden era make the problem more difficult to solve, because they knowingly hide amongst the innocent 99.99%, and strive to make collateral damage a common occurance. Because collateral damage helps to recruit others to the evil .01%. In short, the Muslims of Kosovo...as in the truck driver, his family, and his parents, do *not* support Al-Q. But that doesn't make for good press...so you aren't going to see them interviewed on CNN. Homeless people in India given chocolate to carry signs of Bin Laden for a 20 min. march (I'm not kidding) make for better press - that's what you see on CNN.
Let's compare your comment to reality.
The first contact Bin Laden had with the U.S. was when his band of religous freedom fighters was trained and equipped by the U.S. to help him to be more effective in his fight against the Soviet Union, which had invaded Afghanistan and was racking up an impressive toll of civilian/non-combatant casualties.
As far as blowing up countries, it was the U.S. that (initially) uniltaterally went to war in Kosovo to stop a campaign of genocide that targeted civilians of Muslim faith that lived in the area. Many current members of Al-Q were back then 'shooters' for the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army), which was supplied (and saved, as they were getting slaughtered by their opponents) by...you guessed it...the U.S.A.
So, in my book - Bin Laden betrayed the U.S., and the West in general. Even moreso because when the Soviet Union *did* leave Afghanistan, contrary to your accusations...the U.S. and the U.K. took a decidedly 'hands off' approach to who would now rule Afghanistan. 'They won their Nation back, they can determine what gets done next'.
Well, we all know what happened - or, we can all read about what happened if it isn't part of our job to know what happened. I'll give you the cliff's notes version: they started another civil war, between numerous 'warlords'. The rest is history. The bottom line is if the U.S. or the U.K. *had* stepped in to provide some post-conflict stability, the Taliban may never have wound up in control of Afghanistan.
And let me make something clear about that - I don't care if the Taliban runs Afghanistan according to extremist Muslim standards. The U.S. doesn't go after someone just because they don't let women enroll in higher education courses. The U.S. may not sell weapons to such a regime, but the U.S. has more pressing problems than overthrowing regimes so kids can read 'Harry Potter' without being pursued by fanatic Muslim secret policemen.
It's when the Taliban knowingly allows terrorist groups to train and find safe harbor in territory under the control (and thus the responsibility), and said terrorist groups begin causing big problems, AND the Taliban elects to do NOTHING about it that the U.S. (and the rest of the civilized world) is FORCED to do something about it.
If you really take a close, unbiased look at the whole picture you will find out that the U.S. (among many other Nations 'hated' by extremists) does a heck of alot more good for the helpless people of the world than it does harm. Plenty of people seem to conveniently forget that the vast majority of the food and medical aid and funding (no strings attached funding I might add) for the displaced persons of the 'stan' region came from the U.S. for at least the past 10 years.
You are making a common error for someone with no real world exposure to relevant events (and this isn't anything bad - it's like me commenting on slashdot.org on something computer related - I could read/hear information but my knolwedge of the subject will still be less complete than someone who works with computers as an engineer - no matter how much I read and/or hear): the majority of the Muslim world does not agree with the views of Al-Q, or it's leaders, etc. Just like your average bus driving Palestinian does not want to kill every Jewish person on the planet. It's been the same for thousands of years - the worst
There is no perfect solution. The best planned operations can go slightly awry, and slightly awry can mean some people get hurt, or alot of people get killed. What is unfair is the assumption that there is no attempt by the 'good guys' to avoid such damage.
Good Guys (evil government agents, evil military people, etc.) are just like everyone else in most cases. Some of the most dangerous people you could ever meet played D&D in high school, and the % of special operations guys I know who play GTA3 during every moment of their spare time would blow you away. Such people find no joy in little kids getting killed when a bomb is 100 meters off target. In fact, it keeps them awake at night.
But put yourself in their shoes for 20 seconds - do you not attack a terrorist group and assure that 50+ innocents will be killed, or do you attack and do your best and roll the dice on collateral damage knowing that you have done your absolute best to minimize the chance of such an accident taking place?
Understand a couple of things:
1. Terrorists will fire weapons from a house surrounded by school children, because 'terrorism is 50% operations and 50% propoganda'. The type of people you are dealing with consider it a 'win' if the 'Good Guys' return fire and kill some of the kids - that's propoganda points. Terrorists in general have nothing in common with someone that has compassion for the helpless, the innocent, etc.
2. If the U.S., the U.K., etc. were to tomorrow state that they would intervene in no way whatsoever internationally, all it would do is give a 'green light' for alot of bad guys in terms of planning. There are many 'neutral' Nations in the world that derive alot of security from the unspoken threat that if, say, an Austrian bus was blown up tomorrow...more assets than those of Austria alone would be deployed to hunting down and taking (dead or alive) the members of the group responsible for such an act.
Bin Laden betrayed those who helped him in his hour of need. 20+ warlords who fought alongside Bin Laden vs. the Soviet Union in Afghanistan (and who also received training and equipment from the U.S., U.K., etc.) fought alongside U.S. and other Western troops recently in Afghanistan vs. the Taliban and Al-Q. They are not traitors. Bin Laden has no valid reason for his hatred of the U.S. in my book.
Another nutshell example...citizens of Saudi Arabia were very glad to have the U.S. and the U.K. there 10 years ago...when Iraqi forces were just across the border and things were looking bad. How do you get beyond being grateful for someone protecting *your* sovereignty with *their* young men and women in only 10 years? I can't get into that in detail at the moment...not enough time. That's a topic for a 5+ page discussion.
"Instead, our US leaders seem to want to go, 'Hey, here's an idea- let's keep everybody afraid and punish them terribly if they ARE terrorists, and intimidate them if they look kinda like terrorists, and we'll call 'freedom' the ability to sit home and not be blown up!' I think they are collaborating with the real terrorists to instill fear, for their personal gain. I find that pretty contemptible. If you're walking down the street you can be hit by a car, but that doesn't mean people need to be locked in small car-proof boxes. Freedom is risk and opportunity. You can't split off the risk part and discard it."
Our leaders are required to address these problems by the same documents you quote. "Provide for the common defense" ring a bell? People didn't have the ability to release anthrax or kill 3000+ in a day with 16 operatives when the constitution was written. It is one of the responsibilities of the government of the U.S. to protect the citizens of the U.S. from foreign threats.
As for 'instilling fear for personal gain' - you are either being extreme for the sake of an argument or you are unbalanced. The powers that be, were they as evil as you imply, already have the power and assets at their disposal to wreak more havoc on innocent citizens than you can imagine. Fortunately, your average military person, government agent, etc. is not as evil as you have seen in 'JFK'. Trust me, if the director of the FBI, and everyone who worked for him, were as evil and without morals as you imply, you could be disappeared with great ease. A good example of this happening in real life is early 1940's Germany. The current powers that the military, LE, and intelligence communities are asking for are not even remotely in the same league as what the SD, Gestapo, Abwehr, etc. had access to in the 1940s. And the social system, educational system, government, etc. that produced such people is vastly different than the system that produced your average FBI agent or US Marine as he is today.
But that is what bad guys do. Good guys exist to zap bad guys, probably because they watched 'Shane' too many times when they were kids.
Really, honestly - everyone reading this probably went to school at one point or another with someone who 'works for the government'. Do you all really think that 'they' are that much different from 'you'?
Anonymous Cowardly Good Guy
No, that wasn't me with regards to the arms race.
:)
But know that there were organizations in the U.S., funded by the KGB, who were organized to march 'for U.S. disarmament' while at that very moment the Soviet Union was violating the most recent disarmament treaties...in secert...unknown to everyone - except satellite photo analysis guys who worked for the 'Good Guys'.
So look at it this way - there probably was someone standing in the shadows. They didn't care about you. Did you know that there were people cheering with you who were on the payroll of the KGB? Sure, it was probably 1 in 1000, but that '1' is someone who a Good Guy has been assigned to 'deal with' (watch, gather data on, etc.).
I had nothing to do with computers. I don't know what indymedia.org is. I actually think the most honest 5% of the people against the WTO have a valid point. I've talked to cops who were at the WTO protests. For every 'real, honest' protester I heard there were 20 people who got crazy because they like to break stuff and run around like a madman. Pretty funny actually. From you experience is it true?
Protesting against war with Iraq is fine. It's your right and even people who work for the government are proud when citizens don't agree with everything the government says or does like little sheep. That's important. But remember too that one of the greatest weaknesses of a repiblic or a democracy is that the citizens have the power to enact things that will kill said republic or democracy. Read up about how the Athenians voted to abrogate their own constitution, and to put all of their generals to death without trial (not kidding). So it's absolutely necessary that you be allowed to protest. It's also absolutely necessary that someone organizing protests be 'outed' if they are on the payroll of a foreign government that is hostile to the U.S. If citizens are knowingly misled by a professional program of disinformation, and vote based on that misleading - that is not good. It has happened before. Thus, there will be people watching. Not to belittle you and others, but it's kind of 'arrogant' to assume that they are watching *you*. If you were protesting the WTO because you don't like the WTO, you were probably protesting - as opposed to trying to cause massive damage to the infrastructure of a modern city, or trying to hit a cop with a bow and arrow because you 'hate cops'. There are cameras at banks. They aren't there for you. They are there for me, after I retire and cannot support my vodka habit (joke).
"But isn't it about time for you to come out in the open? You guys skulk around like nobody wants to see your face. Don't be shy. Really. The next time there's a demonstation on your watch, why not join in? Or just make an appearance--you don't have to agree with everything being said--you can just talk to people."
Because the people you are referring to (I'm overseas as opposed to domestic, so it doesn't really apply to me) have files on them compiled/kept/updated by the bad guys, by other Good Guys (who sometimes are bought off by the bad guys, and provide information to the bad guys), etc. For a person involved in CI/CT surveillance to be photographed and IDd would be a very bad thing. Bad guys would know his face, which could blow some important eyeball surveillance. Terrorists (as opposed to enemy professional intelligence officers, which tend to work by a more civilized set of rules, as funny as it may sound) would out and out assassinate such a person at McDonalds while he/she was having a hamburger with the kids. This has happened - alot. There's a database somewhere on the internet...I can't recall the address. It's a civilian database of every recorded terrorist attack - look at the U.K. and Germany in the '80s - numerous cases of terrorists killing IDd intelligence officers (mostly British), often in instances such as 'walking home from football match with son'. It goes without saying that the terrorists didn't really bother to select 'semi-auto' on their weapons to avoid hitting innocent bystanders.
Anonymous Cowardly Good Guy
I recently read a book on the nazi regime
and it's apparatus and was appalled at some similarites in design, relative nomenclature, and purpose to HomeLand Security, Office of Information Awareness.
Don't we, as concerned citizens have a duty to
oppose unwarranted intrusions into our personal lives, any place at any time?
And if not..why don't we?
National ID cards are a good idea if you are a working man or woman who is a citizen of the USA. THis is true because the USA is a rich country with a great infrastructure, a stable political history, a culture that is well suited to capital investment, all of which attract capital investment. Thus, there is a relatively good opportunity for the working citizen to sell his/her goods and services here, to sell his/her LABOR.
However, a national ID card is a bad idea for those who derive the major part of their livelihood from buying the goods and services offered by the working citizens of the USA. This group consists mainly of the investor class. This class is a definite minority of American citizens. National
ID cards are a good idea for the working majority and a bad idea for the investor class minority because with the fragmented system of identification that currently exists in the USA, the investor class (both the American citizen investor class and the investor class from other countries) are able to influence the politicians so as to be able to bring in large amounts of illegal alien cheap labor, thus dropping the cost of labor (in real terms). This is good for the investor class and bad for the working class American citizen.
Also, this means that with greater supply of labor, the investor class can drop the amount of fringe benefits, such as medical care, which is good for the investor class, and bad for the working class American citizen, because more of them will die of cancer, etc.
But dying of cancer is not NEARLY as important as the possibility that some clerk may sell that database info to direct mail marketers and we might all get more junk mail. I just love that muscular Slashdot logic.....
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
While you are whining about ID's, (I already have a couple national ID's, ibirth certificate, passport, etc.) the TSA's policy for hiring must meet federal requirements. That means meeting race and gender quotas is more important than ability.
And then there is the "no profiling" policy. The last time I flew, I was "randomly" selected for all the searches. My checked bags, carryon, and boarding check. No problem, but that's hardly random. I'm thinking it's my beard -- my skin is so light I sunburn like a true nerd. That was the only time I've flown since 9/11. I'm curious what will happen next time.
An airline employee told me a passenger in Alaska was pulled off a flight for rolling her eyes when the TSA asked to search her.
Supposing for a minute that it were even possible to create an identification system that could reliably identify travellers, we're still left with this problem:
When they can't compromise the ID system, we'll simply find out how depressingly easy it is to compromise the people instead.
What, you never heard of someone changing their mind? Of being bribed? Blackmailed? Deceived?
Terrorism is social engineering carried out by psychopaths.
The infinite quirks and limitless variations of human psychology will doom every static system meant to lock them down.
And, no matter how much we might want to maintain the fantasy, it simply isn't true that there are "good" people and "bad" people. There are people. Some of them carry evil intent, and sometimes they perform evil acts.
You can't screen for evil at the airport.
Take Mossad for a more useful example of terrorist-finders in an open society, or half the British govt for putting out the fires in Belfast while keeping a society so free that I, as a no-background-check-thank-you MP's intern, could walk right around the tourists' metal-detector at Westminster. Without even flashing my pass. While police were scanning the undersides of cars outsides with the giant dental mirrors.
We should not have to pay for Homeland Security's incompetence with our liberties. You give up too easily.
This is the real point here. Think about the business travellers who fly weekly or more. They'll jump through the hoops for convenience, and they are the airlines' bread and butter.As long as they are in the same line with everybody else, the security checks can't be too slow or invasive. When they get the option of a fast lane, they'll take it. Once they're gone, the "normal" lane can get more and more onerous.
Man, you guys just keep giving me more and more reasons not to go to the United States.
We could come with an ink or a special chip to implemeant under the front skin which would automatically be triggered by a radio reader, then coupling those with a camera at airport and OCR, et voila ! Let us also had automatic weapon to shoot at the would be criminal if the tag is recognized as "terrorisT" or unreadable...
Ho wait a minute.... You did wrote "sarcasm" in your post. Never mind.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
An excellent article I read recently showed (by mathematical and statisical proof) that any security system that isn't entirely random can be bypassed (I'm afraid I don't have the reference - the /. guys will help here I'm sure).
.Although it takes more planning, the guys who wrote it proved that once you have a deterministic way of vetting passengers it actually becomes easier for a prospective terrorist to bypass security.
Very good read, and proves that a 'frequent flyer ID card' is, if anything, a way to make a terrorists life easier.
These are the same people that trace their success back to Regan who's campaign against the waining years of communist russsia was exactly the same Bibilical, Southern Baptist rethoric.
I vividly remember going to church hearing how bad the Commies were because they restricted bibles, routinely detained people without cause, spied on their own citizens, opened personal mail, ect.
It's a sad, sad day when those same people suggest these crazy laws.
When the dust clears, can we try them for high treason against the constiution for what they are proposing. If they are in any way involved in manupulating politics, media, the president's views , then they would be guilty of at least conspericy to overthrow the govt, or something like that. They have openly called the Constitution a roadblock to their plans.. several people involved have openly broke law written specifically to curb their actions..is that not not enough to go on?
SHUT YOUR FACE!
KNOW YOUR PLACE!
this has been a public service announcement from the Department of Homeland Security.
I realize that this comment goes against the political correctness favored by a significant percentage of the slashdot crowd, but Admiral Pointexter is not a convicted felon. True, he was a convicted felon for a time, but the conviction was overturned on appeal and no longer stands. I know that some folks don't like the way our legal system works on occasion, but that's the way it works. It doesn't strengthen one's treatise to pepper it with half truths and lies.
The best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaser bank.
-- Scotty.
"ID papers, travel permits, tickets, please!" Germany in WW2? The old Soviet Union? No, Logan Airport and South Station. The War on Terror will be just as successful as the War on Drugs. Kill 'em to save 'em. Control society to save Freedom. An open ended mandate with no realistically achievable goal, accomplishing the exact opposite results intended but protected from criticism by a form of right-wing political correctness. You gotta love it.
If you're trying to (for instance) prevent people from taking over an airplane, then the answer is simple: you make that impossible, by completely separating the control section of the aircraft from the passenger compartment of the aircraft. A passenger can't gain control of the aircraft if he can't get at the controls.
Similarly, if you don't want people to bomb an aircraft, then prevent them from being able to get one on board. That's what luggage screening is all about.
So how do IDs help with either of those problems? The answer is that they don't.
IDs aren't needed for any stage of airline transportation. They're not needed for the purchase of a ticket (one can use cash for that, or a credit card that requires a code to unlock it. Such a code is usually referred to as a PIN, but that term is actually not accurate), they're not needed to board the plane (you have a ticket for that), and they're not needed for collection of luggage at the destination (you have a ticket for that).
Rental of an automobile is a bit more of a problem, but only because of the possibility that the automobile may get stolen or damaged in an accident. Easy enough to deal with, though: the renter must supply a valid insurance number. If the number is fraudulent, then the actual owner of the insurance policy can get the number changed, just like he can get his credit card number changed in the event that his card is stolen. Proof that you can legally drive requires that you show a driver's license, but there's nothing inherent about a driver's license that requires it to be a photo-ID. Today a driver's license could just as easily work the way ATM cards work: the owner would have to supply a number when using it to rent a car or something.
If you think about it, you'll find that almost everything can be accomplished safely without the use of any form of ID. And the reason is that you're not trying to prevent someone from doing something, but rather trying to prevent someone from doing something. It's the something that needs to be dealt with, not the someone.
The only reason for a government to be interested in an individual is to make life difficult for that specific person. But that's exactly what we don't want to do, really: we want to prevent actions, not individuals.
The only truly valid reason I can think of for government interest in an individual is because they believe that individual has done something harmful. In that case, good classical detective work is what's needed: tracking evidence back to a location and eventually to an individual. You don't generally need an ID card to do that, because such detective work was successfully done long before ID cards were conceived of. Today, once you have DNA evidence, you can verify that it belongs to a specific person by matching it against that specific person's DNA. But it's proper that the authorities be required to get a warrant before performing such a match against a specific individual: the evidence against a person should be more specific than just their DNA.
Keep all this in mind whenever someone claims they need people to carry some sort of ID.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. "
--Benjamin Franklin
and very amusing too. Consifering the situation.
No, you're wrong- they ARE fighting the next war. But it is not against the terrorists, at all. The terrorists are indispensable and if they don't exist they will be invented [google.com], because they are a tool for instilling a climate of fear for the purposes of tightening state control over the populace.
It's not just the US government that employ this technique, the British government have been at it too. They keep dropping hints about terrorism, then denying that they've done so. Clearly, they are doing so in order to create a climate of fear, while trying to avoid panic, to suppress opposition to the "war on terror".
Note that my links are to the BBC, the news organization most supportive of New Labour.
Rule #7: Silence is not acquiescence.
Contrary to what you may have heard, silence of those present is
not necessarily consent, even the reluctant variety. They simply may
sit in stunned silence and figure ways of sabotaging the plan after
they regain their composure.
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