Congressman Calls for Arrest of Security Researcher

Christopher Soghoian writes "Yesterday, I published a tool that allows you to Create your own boarding pass for Northwest flights. This was an attempt to document the fragile and broken state of identity/security for domestic flights in the US. Today, Congressman Markey (D-Mass) has called for my arrest." From the ABC article: "'I don't want to help terrorists or help bad guys do bad things on airplanes, but what we have now is what we in the industry call security theater. It's made to make you think you're secure without actually making you secure,' Soghoian said. 'As a member of the academic research community, I consider this to be a public service.' Soghoian admits that he hasn't actually tried to use one of the boarding passes yet."

Comments

Re:not likely

[kfg]

Otherwise, you know, you couldn't be prosecuted for faking a bill of sale for a car, or a life insurance policy, or printing counterfeit currency, or most other forms of fraud that involve a printed document -- and you surely can.

I just created a fake bill of sale for a car. I have committed no crime, because I have not proffered it as genuine to anybody.

Fraud is a crime of intent.

KFG

Re:Ummm. The First Amendment?

[yorktown]

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court takes a very loose view of what the Constitution says. For example, it considers building a hotel and condominiums as "public use" for the purposes of eminent domain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_L ondon

Note that all four of the dissenting justices in the Kelo decision were appointed by Republicans.

Flash Update: The FBI is at The Door

[klausner]

Chris reports that the FBI is knocking on his door. The boarding pass generator is also (at least temporarily) down.

Let Markey know what you think

[psykocrime]

I suggest that all concerned Slashdotters contact congressman Markey and let him know what you think.

Re:not likely

[psykocrime]

I suspect very strongly that in the case of money, simply having the means to create counterfeit bills will probably land you in a whole heap of trouble.


This is why every American should immediately go visit FIJA and learn the truth about serving on a jury. Hint: you can judge the law as well as the facts, and juries ARE the "last line of defense" against oppressive government / bad laws. See Jury Nullification and/or Peter Zenger for more.

If I'm ever serving on a jury, I can guarantee you that I won't be voting to convict in any "victimless crime" situation, or anything where somebody is being charged with violating some bullshit law. Hung jury or acquittal, here we come.