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The FBI Wants To Know About Your IT Skills
AHuxley writes "The FBI, via the Office of Management and Budget, would like to find out more about your information technology expertise if you are part of InfraGard. Terms like 'practical utility' have been included in a 60-day emergency notice of information collection via the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. Is your boss or cubicle colleague part of InfraGard? It's a private, non-profit organization run as a public-private partnership with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Are they passing info back about you or your company?"
Maybe it's not that sinister but that's the first thing that popped into my head. Looking at the website, it's initial intentions aren't that sinister but mandating that much sharing of information sounds a bit creepy. You guys are going to be DHS'd/FBI'd to death if you're not careful.
The part I don't understand is why anyone would voluntarily become a part of InfraGrad and start "sharing information" about others in the first place.
You're not misreading it.
(In post-9/11 Amerika, InfraGard misreads you. Whadda country!)
I don't see any domestic surveillance embedded in what's online.
this gov org isn't as dumb as you think. or, restated, they aren't total idiots and don't fully disclose their actual intent and purpose.
not all gov agencies are as dumb as bush. in fact, bush's dumbness was a cover. no human could be THAT moronic and rise to the level of the most powerful man in the world if he's truly an idiot.
one of the smartest moves is to act dumb and it requires a certain kind of talent to pull it off. bush had that, innately.
operation TIPS is alive and well; just below the radar. things like this never go away. are you kidding me??
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
They only want information about the IT skills of their own members. How else would they process ONLY 28,000 responses at 2 minutes each? This doesn't even seem to apply to all Infragard members, only:
"Public and private professionals
self-identified as having information technology expertise."
This would also be why it's called:
"InfraGard Knowledge/Skills/
Abilities Profile"
IT seems kindof obvious that they might want to know what the skills of their own members are if they need assistance on something. Not like the FBI knows anything about technology.
Perhaps they're looking for resources for the next time they have an IT issue/project they need to not fuck up. According to their website, you need a background check to join. Seems like a good way to build a database of IT professionals that you don't need to do background checks on after the fact.
The Stasi were very good at collecting information. In fact, they were too good. They collected so much that their analysts couldn't effectively evaluate even a fraction of it. They lacked IT resources (when compared to Western agencies) and the Stasi leadership should have shifted more manpower from spying to analyzing.
The FBI has access to unlimited IT resources, and the US intelligent community if very effective at evaluating the information that they have collected. Just look at how they stopped the underwear bomber . . .
. . . uh-oh . . . never mind . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
What I find striking is the utter lack of information that the FBI's website gives about what Infragard is really about. They give few details about what sort of information they are looking for, and what sort of information they give back to their members. That alone makes it difficult for me to trust...
Palm trees and 8
I sometimes wonder if I am the only one who when passing through an airport security checkpoint is the only one who is more afraid of the TSA than I am of the terrorists. I have a far greater fear of getting arrested for forgetting to remove a leatherman from my bag or not emptying my water bottle than I am afraid of the plane getting blown up be some nutcase.
Yeah well you're not getting the same news I am buddy. Which is really not surprising... Try watch something other than Western media. Islam wants to rule the world? Riiight...
What about this: US does rule the world - most of it anyway - and the islamists are the only ones with enough balls to put up a fight. Why don't the radical extremists terrorize more liberal muslim countries that don't apply Shariah law then like Jordan and Turkey if they really want Shariah law everywhere? Those should be easier to change...
You don't have the slightest clue of what you're talking about. It's because of people with such absurd opinions like yours that eat whatever crap mainstream media feeds them that there are terrorists in the first place and we almost have to get naked when traveling by airplane. If at least the victims were all people like you, the problem would settle quickly...
As for England and Netherlands, well it's price of globalization. Wasn't it supposed to be a good thing anyway?
Ignore the names and parties for the moment.
You can't blame the new guy for what the previous guy set up - that is just being childish and petty. What you can do is blame the new guy for taking a long time to fix the problems left by the previous guy. IMHO it hasn't been a long time yet
In this case I think Jerry Doyle is being childish and petty about where he is laying the blame.
New problems that arise are of course a completely different story but that's not what we are talking about, all this creeping authoritarionism because due process takes too long or requires expensive training of competatant people is well and truly a G.W. Bush legacy. It's not even about the party since McCain actively opposed the more extreme portions of it. It was alway more about things like Wolfowitz getting his girlfriend a better paying job than Rice with less responsibility than actually doing anything to benefit the USA.
oh, I agree.
I'm actually afraid that TSA will blow up an airplane by mistake. Here's a small example.
I take a lot of pictures when I'm traveling for fun. I usually carry about 16hrs worth of batteries (which is about 1 AA / hour at the rate I shoot.) So I go to security w/ my batteries all nicely packaged tight. 4 in the cam, (A cannon S5IS, a good cam for my poor budget) and 3 sets of 4 in my camera bag. Each set is stable, all positives up, all in different locations in the bag. In the camera bag I have a micro tripod, a few lenses & cleaning cloth, and the charger for these batteries.
Some idiot at TSA takes them ALL and dumps em into a big ziplock. Loose, then tried to hand them to me. I just about shit a brick. I'm like hey, you can start a fire... (2650mah rapid discharge cells, not the strongest out there, but nothing to dismiss either) Whoops, I said the magic word. That led to a 20 minute wait while they determined that the batteries and camera posed no risk after they used "TSA tape" to tape them all together in a giant brick. This only after an interview about why I had the batteries and how they could catch fire. (by throwing them all in a bag loose!)
I'd shudder to think how they treat R/C lipos, where mishandling WILL cause a fire vs. might if things are just right...
To those who have never experienced a loose battery setting something on fire, it's not a fun experience.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.