Slashdot Mirror
Products Seek Antiterrorism Certification
Makarand writes "According to ABCNews/Forbes, businesses with antiterrorism products for which they are unable to find insurers to provide
liability coverage are lining up to
seek the Homeland Security Department's
seal of approval. Products certified as antiterrorism products enjoy some protection
from liability suits and an official 'seal of approval', making them easier to sell. The Department has started
accepting applications for certification, many likely to come from technology companies such as Qualcomm, Unisys, and others, starting Sept. 1."
being replaced by said shit inhaling
Is it because the Department of Homeland Security isn't even remotely qualified for that task?
Naw, couldn't be....
I too, with a wee bit of despair, find myself less inclined to keep my Sig 228 out and around with the chance that some bozo may come in, shoot himself, and sue me for his stupidity. Hence, Precious (my nickname for the little gal) spends most her time in the safe. *Sigh*
Homeland Security couldn't even say what caused the blackout in New York except that it wasn't terrorism. I, for one, will more likely avoid products with that seal on them instead of running to purchase them.
I hope Microsoft Windows is the first product to get certified since I find that it and Homeland Security have quite a bit in common (including the facts that neither does its advertised job and both hold enough power to quash anything that gets in their way)
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
So Emperor George is going to balance the budget from royalties and kickbacks (in *this* administration?! Never!) from the White Housekeeping Seal of Approval? Reassuring to see how far they've come in 2 yrs of making the country safer...
When all of your wishes have been granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed - Marilyn Manson
An Internet trade group representing Verizon Communications and other companies wants its members' Internet services certified because they play a "unique and pivotal role as a conduit for deployment of antiterrorism technologies."
My bet is that the certification requirement for internet services amounts to "We spy on our users."
Read, L
I'm not intimately familiar with the specifics, but my former employer is pursuing this. I beleive it LIMITS liability, and doesn't eliminate it altogether.
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I think its funny how our culture has so rapidly changed in the last few years. Since the 2001 attack, you can practically get away with selling anything if you claim it makes you "safe" from "terrorism". Even the Bush Administration has used this war to repeatedly justify its misguided "War on Terror" campaigns and ominous "Homeland Security Department".
I personally think it is sad that America has let the terrorist win. Thanks to media and government hysteria, terrorists have become the "boogie man" that everyone seems to fear. In sustaining this hysteria, the US Government has created an environment where they can do practically anything as long as it is keeping the country "safe" from "terrorism".
The good news is that this environment is starting to slowly change. Some of the government's massive corruption is starting to get questioned by members of Congress. I think this marks the first steps in stopping the legacy of tyranny the Bush Administration has caused and restoring the values on which America was founded on.
-Valen
This is really fucked up. A Nazi-esque "Homeland Security" dept (sorry about breaking into your house, tapping your phone, seizing your property, and arresting you without a warrant, but Bob's girlfriend's roommate's secretary said you were a terrorist) in the gov't now is going to help select companies with their marketing? What in the FUCK is going on in this country? This makes Nazi Germany seem sane by comparison. Let's throw these fuckers out of the White House next election and return to some kind of sanity.
If a company's software products were certified I bet everybody would be trying to prove the true weaknesses as fast as possible.
Would this essentially make those who perform the certification the next laughing stock?
Microsoft has shown us that declaring something secure doesn't mean that it actually is.
I certainly hope the certifying individuals have more capacity upstairs than the US patent office when it comes to understanding technology.
Sure lets get rid of our government and you can also say good-bye to most if not all of our means of transportation, communication, research, social services, the list goes on and on and on.
... be afraid! Hell, the country was settled by people with religious persucution complexes.
... everyone is so angry and full of hate for Israel and the US they are blind to what their own governments do to them!
Much of this is privatized anyway. Since we wouldn't be paying riduculous amounts of tax we'd all have extra money to pay for these things directly. And we'd probably get better value for our cash.
. I'll admit I haven't seen the movie but if he's asserting that governments only exist because of terrorism then he's an idiot.
No, he's not. He was commenting on the culture of fear that is propagated by the US media and government. Chronologically it goes something like Afro-Americans, communists, drugs, terrorism
Witness the Middle East
You admitted you hadn't seen Bowling for Columbine , am I right in guessing that you've never been to the Middle East either? People in the Middle east are people exactly like you or me, they are not all angry and full of hate and they are not blind to their own governments. They undoubtable have a much better idea about what is going on in their own region than you do. Just as you shouldn't rely on some random Slashdot poster to tell you about a movie, you shouldn't rely on your local media to tell you about the Middle East. Incidently the US also breeds terrorists - people who bomb abortion clinics, Timothy McVeigh, the Unabomber. Are you going to say that people in the US are all full of hate?
:wq
Actually, the media went on and on and on and on about SARS, as if anyone who even thought about Toronto would keel over and die that second. If anything, I'd say they caused far more people to needlessly panic than belittle the situation.
As for the harm? No, wearing masks isn't in itself harmful. Ignoring the much more likely causes of death life throws at us is, and 9 times out of 10 people put on a mask, figure "I'll live through today", and remain ignorant. Decimating the local economy (think tourism) is. Bankrupting hundreds of farmers because of one cow is, especially for a disease that may not even be transmittable to humans.
Thanks, I'll stay informed about what's real, and not trouble myself over things that will less likely kill me than lightning.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Proof Anti-Terrorism required before purchase...
Call it what you want, but the Department of Homeland Security is the infrastructure for the inevitable police state the US is becoming... not now - but say 40 years from now.
Because if you vote for a third-party candidate in the US (don't know about Australia, but it sounds like it might be the same way) you might as well not vote at all. Look, in the entire 200+-year history of American politics, it has never happened that a small third party has grown to become one of the Big Two; on the rare occasions when the Big Two have changed their names and fundamental political philosophies, it's happened because one of the existing Big Two fell apart and re-coalesced, usually taking large chunks of the Other Party with them. This is how the Democrats formed in the (very) late 18th c., the Republicans formed in the mid 19th c., and how the Democrats and Republicans essentially traded ideologies (without the name change) in the early-to-mid 20th c. On that timeline, BTW, we're overdue for another big shift, and that's something I'd profoundly like to see -- but voting Libertarian or Green or Reform or Socialist ain't gonna make it happen.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.