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DHS's 'Secure Flight' Program Proven Insecure
News.com is reporting the somewhat unsurprising news that a government program we were assured was 'perfectly safe', has actually been proven to be a privacy nightmare. The 'Secure Flight' program matched air traveler information with commercial databases in the interests of national security. The charter for the program specifically forbade the TSA from accessing this information; the organization got their hands on it anyway. The Department of Homeland Security has released a report, detailing these findings and analyzing the situation. The News.com piece makes it clear the report was released on Friday in an attempt to obscure it from public notice; it was only linked to from a DHS subsite, and has not shown up on the DHS or TSA main pages. From the article: "The report from the Homeland Security privacy office takes pains to say that the privacy compromises over Secure Flight were 'not intentional,' and includes a list of seven recommendations to avoid similar mishaps in the future. Those include explaining to the public exactly what's going on and creating a 'data flow map' to ensure information is handled in compliance with the 1974 Privacy Act. This isn't the first report to take issue with Secure Flight. Last year, auditors at the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that the program violated the Privacy Act."
Am I the only one who had read "the 1984 Privacy Act" ?
...it hasn't any right at all to be anything but a Boolean, at least at first. DHS has a right to check for the answer to the question 'Is this person a terror suspect?', and perhaps 'Is this person a known friend or confidant of a terror suspect?'. ONLY if the answer to one of those questions is 'yes' have the underpaid security monkeys at the airport got any right whatsoever to see any information on people. All too often, the quest for 'security' is just another grab for power and intimidation.
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
I wonder how long it will be before we hear politicians praising a new bill to remove these constraints, framing it in terms of a "wall" which prevents the TSA from effectively securing our skies, like they did when they wanted to let foreign intelligence and domestic law enforcement exchange data?
See, this is why I'm always skeptical of these things. And for some reason, critics are always written off as paranoid or unrealistic. I wonder if they said the same things when people warned that the new "small" income tax would quickly grow?
the report was released on Friday in an attempt to obscure it from public notice
It's an old trick to release news on a Friday night, when less people are going to see it. Also, any day in which a major news story (superbowl, oscar night, day after elections, etc.) is scheduled -- those are the days to read the newspaper carefully-- those are days that are typically used to obscure potentially damaging news.
In a 24-hour news cycle it's much harder to hide bad news from the public, but there are still golden times when the government and others are virtually guaranteed no one will be paying attention. Kudos for bringing this story to light.
Sorry dudes in the US; you really, really need to clean up your privacy laws to actually protect the individual and not to favor major business (and making identity theft darn easy in the bargain).
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Sorry, but "not intentional" doesn't cut it when something happens that was explicitly forbidden in the charter of the program.
If I sign a contract that specifically says I can only get X under condition of Y and Z, then breaking those conditions invalidates the contract. Secure Flight should be terminated and TSA be made liable for any and all damages.
Why is it that governments and corporations can fuck up constantly on a scale that makes you dizzy while any natural person doing a fuckup on a similar scale would be locked away for life?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The Murder rate in the USA is 16,000 PER YEAR.
y /Missile-Not-Flight-77.html
The US terror rate since (and before) 911 death toll was 3,300 TOTAL.
We maintained our constitution for over 200 years with the number of murders growing the whole time, and we didn't take that as a reason to torch our own constitution.
911 shouldn't have changed a damn thing. Yet it seems as if the Bush team has milked it to build the bedrock for a police state. Given their political donations come from the same private interests that profit from such draconian right wing lunacy, it looks like the Bush team staged it themselves, quite honestly.
http://www.the7thfire.com/Politics%20and%20Histor
Getting security "locked down" is the wrong answer. Getting the nazis out of office is the right answer.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
Chooo! Choo! All tokers know that, duh!
Your comments about the murder rate vs. terror rate and torching the constitution were strong.
You lost me with the conspiracy theory about the neocons planning 9/11. As much as I distrust Cheney, Rumsfeld, and their puppet, the theories about missles hitting the Pentagon just aren't credible to me. At most, I will believe that 9/11 was a happy accident which Cheney leveraged to enrich his friends at Haliburton. He sold it to Bush as an opportunity to finish what his dad had started. Rumsfeld? Well, that guy wanted to prove a war could be fought on the cheap and wanted to take credit for that accomplishment. Turned out it can be fought on the cheap, so long as you're not concerned with winning.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Whereas in the UK, we voted for a bunch of people hwo arent supposed to be Neo-conservative, and ended up with a police state anyway.
If you think this sort of things dont happen in european states, your wrong. Were just better at keeping it quiet.
Heard a great line on any questions today (A BBC Radio 4 comedy quiz show):
The americans had a revolution because they were sick of being told what to do from London.
Boy did THEY manage to turn things around.
No, I'm saying 911 was a single event, and if you ask me it looks more like an event planned against hte american people by their own government in an effort to galvanize them against an invisible enemy, in order to gain a more absolute form of dictatorial control. That's what 911 looks like, if you ask me.
v iolent_crime/murder.html
Fighting a war against an invisible enemy, and using that as a justification for searching everyone who passes through an airport, train station, you name it, already encroaches on basic civil liberties. The fact that the enemy is unseen makes it all the more insidious when the right wingers are asking for permission to spy domestically. It gives them the same sort of blank check request that joseph mccarthy had back in the commie witch hunts during the 50's. Have you such a short memory for history as to overlook the terrible right wing history of the 50's?
here. this is the recent murder rate. it's been close to 16000 for a long time.
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/
3030 killed in 911. that's the only terror attack ever done on that scale on us soil. you think that's a good reason to say "screw civil liberty, privacy and forget about not getting searched. forget about the right to carry a can of coke or a letter opener on an airplane. forget all that it's just not worth it.
you are tire kicking. your whole post is just tire kicking. look at the whole argument and fill in the gaps with your own mind.
Secret trials and detentions, patriot act, roving wiretaps, expanded police powers to read things like email, gone to an airport recently?. there's alot more than I know about but there is plenty.
Sheesh. Wake up, people.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
http://www.kolumbus.fi/av.caesar/wtc/wtc7_2.jpg
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/3990/wtc7roof7
It well known by people on the ground that WTC7 was going to collapse.
Here's some accounts from firefighters on the scene that day. They describe the severe structural damage, large fires, and the potential for collapse.
Wrong.
http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e207/Mercury2/p
Beyond that, you still have to explain the downed street lights along the highway, and the damage generator.
You should watch this video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=YVDdjLQkUV8
Absolute idiocy. The steel certainly doesn't have to melt before it fails. And what does the alleged molten metal actually prove? Explosives don't melt steel, and they certainly aren't capable of keeping that steel molten weeks after they've been detonated.
Thermite/thermate doesn't fit the alleged phenomenon either, unless you're suggesting that there was so much of the stuff at the site that it was burning for weeks in order to keep the metal in a liquefied state. (We've all seen videos of thermite at work. The metal resolidifies within a minute after the thermite is expended.)
Here's a better video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=dWemhf8fZ2w
It clearly shows the eastern mechanical penthouse collapsing into the building a full 5 seconds before the western penthouse collapses, followed immediately by the rest of the building. Not nearly as clean as you'd like people to believe by showing them only one video of the collapse.
Stop fooling yourself, please.
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
This seems like a small incremental threat increase given
that the information is already available to anyone who
wants to buy it. Anyone foriegn or domestic regardless
of criminal record can buy data right? That TSA got what
everyone else can access seems a small thing.
What are the greatest threats? Which of these will most likely get you?
National Debt
Trade Inequity
Job Exportation
Oil Dependence / Oil exaustion
Terrorist Attack
Government Intrusion
False Inprisonment
Identity Theft
Neocons
Pinko Liberals
Automated Vote Fraud via Hacked Voting Machines
Contaminated Food or Water
Dumbed down Education
Microsoft World Dominance
I am curious. Which one do you think will actually
make your life "suck" first. Or add one that I
missed.
The lease holder gave the OK to "pull it".
I didn't know you could do that. Can just any building be "pulled", just like that?
("Silverstein's spokesperson, Dara McQuillan, said in September 2005 that by "pull it" Silverstein was referring to the contingent of firefighters remaining in the building, and confirming that they should evacuate the premises.")
You can't take the sky from me...
How about, we shouldn't worry about terrorism - because if we don't get scared, terrorism has FAILED.
The response should have been an investigation, and a change in hijacker handling policy (previous policy was to just give them what they wanted) and a "cockpit door stays locked at all times" policy. And then we should have started flying again the next week, with EXACTLY the same airport security as before.
Everything that was done by the government was instead calculated to terrorize the population, as a power grab.