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TSA Withdraws Subpoenas Against Bloggers
wwphx writes "In the wake of public outcry against the Transportation Security Administration for serving civil subpoenas on two bloggers, the government agency has canceled the legal action and apologized for the strong-arm tactics agents used."
"We didn't realize our dick move would receive so much public attention."
Since their new guideline was published everyone is going to know about these changes in security. If only these bloggers would have kept quiet, the only ones who would know would be the millions who go through the airports. Someone has to pay for a lapse in secrecy of this magnitude!
Look here at my left hand, which is withdrawing the subpoenas everyone is upset about.
Over here, is my right hand, doing nothing at all (except issuing new ones to other bloggers).
Morons: 0
> 1 Braincell Persons: +1
Cooperate - and get two hours of grilling and a borked laptop. And the half-assed apology.
Tell the feds to go get a clue about procedure and return with a warrant - get the half-assed apology and keep your electronics in working order.
I can assure you, the best way to get rid of dragons is to have one of your own.
Will they also refrain from doing this kind of thing next time, or do so only if the victim doesn't keep quiet?
In any case, this blogger's refusal to keep quiet is inspiring.
. . . but someone should have to fall on his or her sword over this. If those field agents acted on their own, it would be they; if not, then whoever they worked for that authorized the tactics should be holding a sign saying "WILL WAND YOUR CROTCH FOR FOOD."
Damn, I bet his machine is full of spying devices, including one where the audio card used to be.
Hard to imagine installing a spying device with a glowing red LED, but then the TSA isn't known for its stunning efficiency. More likely the just screwed up his computer and some standard warning light was activated.
They should owe him a new computer and say 100 hours of consulting time to ensure that his data and software are properly transfered to the new computer. Say $30K total.
Has there been an offer of compensation? Has anyone been fired?
If not, then it's not an apology, it's just regret at being caught.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
What, trust them to give him a replacement computer? Under the circumstances I'd request the CASH and buy my own laptop.
If it's a MacBook, then there's a little flap at the end of the audio jack. Behind that flap is an LED that is used to transmit SPDIF audio over fiber. (The Apple SPDIF adapter is longer than a standard audio jack, and pushes past the jack to the LED).
If you are exceptionally violent with the machine, I suppose it's possible to damage or dislodge the flap, which would cause red light to shine out the audio jack whenever the sound card is on. Between this, a broken keyboard, and a "ton of bad sectors," it sounds like they took the Israeli approach to handling people it thinks don't agree with its tactics. Except the TSA managed to actually destroy data.
in my mind is: Did they stop legal action against him because they FOUND the source of the leak?
It looks like a black MacBook (look at the power supply on top of it).
"The agents then tried to image his hard drive, but were unable to do so."
Hehehe. Maybe they didn't know how to image it because it wasn't Windows? :-)
As much as the conspiracy theorist in me would like to believe they added spying devices to the computer, chances are they just screwed up the hard drive in shipping. Of course either way it's unacceptable and they owe him the value of his time, fixing the thing, and lost data.
I believe that there is a federal law against the violation of civil rights under color of authority. That is to say, using the power of a law authority (police, FBI, TSA, whatever) to violate the rights of a citizen. As I understand it, this is a federal felony. I hope these bloggers and others who the TSA applied the "strong arm" to with these illegally obtained supoenas will make the appropriate criminal complaints. Hopefully, the ACLU will also help to deal with this outrageous behavior on the part of the TSA.
yeah, buddy.
Welcome to the age of social media on the internet, where not only does stuff *not* stay secret for long, it spreads faster and farther than ever before, and to people who otherwise wouldn't give a fit because a friend or family member they care about *does*.
This is the magic of still living in a (semi) free society.
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
Hopefully the first in a long line of realizations that when you do something stupid publicly, you can't harass or sue someone for pointing that out.
Notice the guy who caved in to their threats ends up out a laptop.
The guy who didn't cave and refused to bend over still has his working computer hardware.
As always "never talk to the police" wins again. Even when you have done *nothing* wrong (and not just in the domain they are telling you they care about, across all domains) there are only two things you should say to the police:
1. No you may not search that/open that/have that/come inside.
2. I'm not saying anything without my lawyer present.
That's the funniest part of the whole FA. Like something out of the simpsons for crying out loud.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
TSA = Thugs Standing Around
In the picture with the article the power supply is indeed an Apple one, and the laptop looks like a black MacBook.
Instead of throwing people's laptops around, these guys need to get to work. There is plenty of work to go around, from airports to every other kind of transportation facility you can think of.
Federal agencies are full of people who want to carry and gun and work security, since it's easier to stomp around with a badge than to do the drudge work of investigation. Every agency wants to have a police force of its own.
TSA is a special case, since it actually is a sort of police force. So put these smart guy agents on the front line, at airport screening lines, where their elite abilities can be better appreciated. And shorten waiting times.
In Soviet Russia, the TSA withdraws YOU!
Hydraulic pizza oven!! Guided missile! Herring sandwich! Styrofoam! Jayne Mansfield! Aluminum siding! Borax!
Did they get the information they were looking for?
Does "giving up" keep them from answering for their behavior in front of a judge?
The glowing red audio jack means that the jack it trying to output audio via optical digital.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOSLINK
It sounds like they knew they wouldn't find anything, so a few "accidental" drops to the laptop was their preferred interrogation method. While I do find this works sometimes on PC's, it rarely works on a laptop.
It sounds like they were looking to punish him for posting it, rather than actually looking for information.
At one company I worked for, we received a few computers from Europe. They had been shipped separately, just because that's how they arrived for shipment. One showed up at our office in pieces. The pieces appeared ok, but not a single part worked. I'm pretty sure they thought we were smuggling something inside the computer. Come on, was it necessary to remove and manhandle the motherboard, just to see that it didn't contain any drugs? We didn't get an apology, nor reimbursement for it. the US Customs stance was, "That's the way we got it, when we inspected it.". Ya, right.
Consistency is not in their methodology though. We shipped a lot of equipment around to various locations. Most got there fine. The occasional piece was mishandled by the shipping companies. Some were held for weeks by customs. It makes it hard to work, when you ship say 20 pieces, and only 15 show up on time.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
"We didn't realize our dick move would receive so much public attention."
This is AFTER they took the guy's laptop, imaged it and returned it to him with a corrupted disk, reportedly.. of course they don't need the subpoenas anymore.
As I mentioned yesterday. the subpoena probably wasn't valid. Once one of the recipients announced he would challenge it in court, the TSA probably withdrew it because they were going to look even dumber when a Federal judge threw it out.
There are some real questions about a law enforcement organization having administrative subpoena power. In criminal investigations, subpoenas should come from a judge. Congress has repeatedly refused FBI requests for that power. I don't think that Homeland Security has it, either. But regulatory agencies with narrow remits often have it, so they can demand records relevant to whatever they regulate. The Department of Transportation had it for use in safety investigations and such. Typically they'd be asking for maintenance records.
When Homeland Security picked up the Transportation Safety Agency from the Department of Transportation, they got DoT's administrative subpoena authority in the transfer. That's what Homeland Security was trying to use here. That clearly went beyond Congressional intent. And in any case, the subpoena hadn't been approved by one of the short list of people authorized to approve it.
The blurb you make insinuates that they "caved in" when in fact one of the bloggers gave up their laptop so in all likelihood they got the info they wanted off that laptop and that's why they dropped the subpoena.
- A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
Well, that's nice of them, but it should have never happened in the first place.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Is it me, or does the "Federal Agent" badge look really tarnished now, from the technology vantage? I mean, who out there *can't* image a hard drive? I'll bet they broke it because they weren't grounded. Besides, opening a laptop these days, that's a difficult task. Need more than a few certifications, I say. Last time mine was professionally serviced, it needed a motherboard replacement after it was fixed. So, I wonder if the federal agents just took the laptop to the Geek Squad and asked them to do it for them?
LITTLE BROTHER, Detroit, Sunday -- The American-based terrorist group "Department of Homeland Security" (the Arabic term for "Department of Homeland Security") has successfully hobbled the American economy once more.
DHS stuntman Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab caused a minor conflagration aboard a Detroit-bound plane on Saturday. "It worked spectacularly well," said his father, Nigerian banker Bnkr. Alhaji Umaru MUTALLAB. "He sent TWENTY-FIVE MILLION (25,000,000.00) Twitter messages about it. 'Stuck on runway for 1/2hr oh well catch up on da vinci code should hv time 2 finish b4 destroying USA.' I would have sent the full collection of messages to the authorities, but they were unfortunately unable to forward me a mere three thousand Twitter messages to enable my expenses in doing so."
This year, as every year, Umar had sent his relatives Christmas cards reading "MERRY CHRISTMAS, YOU WESTERNISED PIG-DOGS, SLEEP WELL FOR TOMORROW YOU SHALL BURN IN AGONY FOR ALL ETERNITY, ALLAH BE PRAISED". However, it appeared he had become "radicalised" by a sojourn in London, during which he read a book about George W. Bush, a close personal friend of the bin Laden branch of the Saudi royal family, and was inspired to take the fight to American soil. "Whenever the infidel appears complacent," he wrote to a friend, "we shall send a DHS operative to do something pathetically stupid and harmless that we may take as an excuse to torture more civilians and make movement within American yet more impracticable. Praise Allah! Praise Jesus!"
The "DHS" has crippled America's economy since its initial attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001. Air travel has all but ceased in the country and international visits have plummeted. Those few daring to travel find themselves cavity-search, X-rayed and anally probed. Some "DHS" operatives, brazenly working in plain sight, have become celebrities and tourist attractions, such as Big Bertha at Seattle Airport.
Mr Mutallab said the family were relieved Umar had finally made his public debut. "Apart from the obvious gigs selling our story to credulous Western news outlets, we can finally take down that God-awful shrine with the twin towers and the effigies, clean the place up and, who knows, maybe rent out the spare room at last. Are you sure you don't have three thousand (3,000.00) messages you can spare to facilitate the transmission of another twenty-five million to yourself? Please assist, dear one!"
http://rocknerd.co.uk
WTF, is up with the TSA/CPB agents at airports wearing mirrored sunglasses and shit like that when working with the public (indoors). I find it insulting.
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
Awesome. Amazing Apple. They use devices that have been standard in my desktop for several years, and in Sony laptops, in HP laptops, in Lenovo laptops...
No violence necessary. And there's no flap. It's a microswitch that detects whether the longer connector is there or not. If that switch gets knocked into the wrong position, the computer assumes there's a digital connector in place and enables that hardware.
This happens occasionally to people. The fix is to take a bobby pin (rubber coated, please) and push it beyond the switch, then pull the switch back towards you, then pull it out. Either that or put in a real 1/8" TOSLINK connector and pull it out.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
The hardware is back but whats loaded onto it?
Its an old trick to search something and give it back with a logger or spyware.
Then raid again/sneak and peek, or have an upload of the log at a later date.
ebay the hardware asap or take to a security expert and then ebay.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Must think of the children and the terrorists. And the children terrorists.
As a parent, I'd guess you don't have kids.
Newsflash!: Children ARE terrorists!!
Your quoted comment is both repetitive and redundant. ;-)
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Incinerate it and ask the online community for donations to replace your TSA'ed laptop. He'll have a brand new one in no time.
I would guess they imaged it and replaced the hardware, keeping the original drive.
Stupid totalitarian Nazi-like Pigs against bloggers re underpants bomber. How's that for a short and sweet comment? Unfortunately, I can't just let it go with that. Please forgive me. I had booked a flight with Westjet to Palm Springs just after the Detroit fiasco. When I called Westjet some dingbat female weenie responded to my mild criticism of the ludicrous anti-passenger measures adopted by airlines by saying, It's for your benefit. Don't be such an ingrate. [I paraphrase]. What crap! The father of the bomber alerted US and other security weenies about his crazy son. The stupid bastards ignored it. No communication between various police/security/spy agencies resulted in his entering the US without scrutiny. After the many screw-ups by the "authorities", now they take it out on us innocent passengers. What a bunch of idiots. Its no wonder I hate to fly airlines. If it wasn't for my wife who keeps her head up her ass on such issues, I'd have driven. Never again. The airlines are also too stupid to notice the long-smoldering irritation of potential passengers with the nonsensical and totally ineffective security measures which only work against innocent and honest citizens.