The law applies to everyone

And when we fail to prosecute crimes by "special people", everyone loses. Elected officials deserve the highest scrutiny. Those entrusted with enforcing the law must, must, be held to the same standards they judge others.

Special license plates shield officials from traffic tickets

Telecom immunity

The president insists that Congress pass his preferred version of the domestic spying bill, with telecomm immunity, saying "The companies were told by government leaders after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, “that their assistance was legal and vital to national security,” the president said. “Allowing these lawsuits to proceed would be unfair.”

Let me get this straight. Both sides of Congress passed a FISA extension bill, the difference being the House version doesn't have retroactive telecom immunity. Both would keep the ability of the NSA to conduct warrantless spying in America. Because Bush refuses any scenario but getting everything he wants, including telecom immunity, the extension expires and the NSA chief claims Americans are in danger because of it. But they then blame the expiration on those who correctly separate the extension from the immunity issue!? What twisted illogic is that? I can't understand why people buy this.

If telecom assistance was legal, as the president says, then the companies have nothing to fear from a lawsuit. Then why give them immunity? Senator Kennedy says the same thing, in an amazingly coherent argument:

And Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts said the president was using “the specter of terrorism” to push his own agenda.

“If the telecommunications companies didn’t break the law, they do not need immunity,” the senator said. “If they broke the law, the American people deserve to know the size and scope of their lawbreaking. Adhering to the rule of law would not ‘aid our enemies’ — it would uphold the very principles we are fighting for. The President’s position has nothing to do with protecting Americans and everything to do with sweeping under the rug illegal activity by his administration and his corporate partners.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/washington/28cnd-bush.html?hp

Amtrak to begin random screening

Schneier calls it right: security theater. No defined threat, only to "make people feel safer". The right to travel really has been destroyed in this country. An excuse that many people had for airport security was if you didn't like it, you could take a train. Well, can you now?

I can't find the released video that Amtrak put out of officers searching a train, but it really shook me to the core--it didn't feel safe to me. It felt like a police state, with the searchers fingering the triggers on their automatic weapons as they searched a peaceful train with no actual threat.

The reality is Amtrak may have actually been a viable replacement for short-haul airplane flights, at least if high-speed rail had been put in more places in the country, but with intrusive searches and stupid policies, now the airlines and Congressmen must be happy to continue their attempt to destroy the rail infrastructure in America.

1-31-07

Never forget!



1-31-07, the day Boston authorities freaked out over the ATHF Mooninites ads. They had been hanging for two weeks without people freaking out over Aqua Teen Hunger Force characters outlined in LEDs.

I have a video of a still-hanging Mooninite in a Hyde Park Institution(tm).

NYC detector bill

This will probably be my last comments on the proposed New York City bill to regulate detectors, hopefully because it sounds like some people realize the inanity of the bill; two very insightful sentences in this article from the Downtown Express
:

(NYPD Deputy Commissioner for counter terrorism)Falkenrath would not commit to publishing a list of approved devices or approved device specifications, because he said that list could give terrorists information about what the city is capable of detecting.

Vallone replied that the council normally does not pass bills with such broad language, but that he would defer to the Police Department’s judgment in this case.

So in other words, you need a permit for your detectors, but they won't tell you which detectors you'll need a permit for. Nor could manufacturers build devices to specifications for sale in NYC, because they wouldn't be able to know what those specifications were.

More on the New York Geiger Counter law

From the report of the committee on public safety:

However, the emergence and commercialization of new and highly sophisticated technology developed for the purpose of detecting weapons of mass destruction brings with it the possibility that the private sector will acquire detection capabilities which were previously used only by properly trained military and law enforcement officials.

I love how science and education had nothing to do with the invention or previous use of this technology. Geiger counters must have sprung from the forehead of the Police Commissioner! They couldn't have been invented in 1911, because the government says they're new.

P.S. No more Cloud Chamber experiments either, because those would detect radiation. Can't alarm the masses.

New York wants to ban geiger counters

I'm not making this up:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/a-license-to-check-for-wmds/

is reporting that New York City wants to require "licenses" for any detector for nuclear, biological, or chemical detectors. We know how "permitting" devices works in Chicago--they never banned handguns in the city, they simply stopped issuing permits for them.


Is this Mr. Dangerous?

What exactly is so bad for someone to possess a detector? The claim is that the Police Department wants to prevent mass panic. In reality, they want to control information. They want to prevent citizens from making their own judgement and force them to rely on "authorities". Why not make a law to make it a crime to create a false panic? There's probably one already on the books, so we don't even need any more laws to deal with it. How many false panics have we had? What? None?

This as more than an attempt to prevent false panic from misinformed geiger counter owners. I see it as the city declaring that individuals are not allowed to think or do on their own, that they must be informed only by the authorities, that the police always know what's best. That's a bunch of bull.

The bill is so broadly and poorly written as to make illegal chlorine pool testers, geiger counters, and even your own nose. What if I make a radiation detector out of a fluorescent light bulb or LED? Are you going to require permits for those too?

EDIT: Schneier compares it to locked fire alarm boxes that slowed the response to the Great Chicago Fire.

End of the year non-review #3: Civil rights and the government,

I continue running through my overflowing Google Reader "Starred Items" list.

TSA to punish fliers for facecrime a la New screening technology might detect terrorists before they act


The TSA and DIY culture clash I used to naively think as long as it passed the swab test, the TSA would professionally act accordingly and let it through, as it couldn't possibly be explosive. It seems that any exercise of your rights means immediate retaliation. The days of me refusing to let screeners and the Secret Service take photos through my cameras is probably over.

Watching FISA fizzle
Chris Dodd's actions on the telecom immunity provisions made me reconsider who I'm voting for in the primaries. More here.

DEA War on Plants
98% of all "seized marijuana plants" is wild hemp with no active drug content.

Another Man Arrested For Using Free Cafe WiFi

Ethicist Says Nothing Wrong With Using Free WiFi
When your operating system automatically connects and uses an open wifi system, how the hell can anyone claim that's illegal? Close your systems if you don't want people to use them off-site. This nonsense is why we don't currently have a ubiquitous and free wifi in dense cities.

My own philosophy comes from the old days of radio, where any radio wave entering your home or your personal space was fair game to receive and listen to. Telecom interests lobbied and paid campaigns well to get the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, which suddenly made certain wavelengths illegal to listen to, all because their cordless and cellular phones were poorly designed and completely open to listening.

Australian DRM from 1923 - dumb radio idea that refuses to die

The Schneier section.
Bruce Schneier usually gets it right about security and insecurity in the world.

• We're All a Little Nervous in a post-1748 World The stupidity and inanity of prohibiting public photography and "note-taking".
  
  
• Buildings You Can't Photograph
  This should be entitled "Buildings They Claim You Can't Photograph". Know your rights: The Photographer’s Right
  
  
• Essay on Fear
  
  
• I have nothing to hide, why should I care if the government looks at it?
  Why this argument is fallacious.
  
  
• Security Theater Imagine the cost of all the security, all the waiting in security queues, all the overreactions. What does that cost us economically?
  
  
• U.S. Government Threatens Retaliation Against States who Reject REAL ID
  
  
• Interview with National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell
  
  
• The War on the Unexpected
  

Papers Please: Arrested at Circuit City for refusing to show ID, receipt
Remember that you are never required to show a receipt to leave a store. I never do, and it saves me much time on leaving busy stores like Fry's.
A members-only store may issue such rules, but common law says when you bought the item, it's yours. Some of the people exercising this right are jerks, but that doesn't excuse the stores and their aggressive rent-a-cops.

Insect Spy

Protesters might even nab one with a net -- one of many reasons why Ehrhard, the former Air Force colonel, and other experts said they doubted that the hovering bugs spotted in Washington were spies.

So what was seen by Crane, Alarcon and a handful of others at the D.C. march -- and as far back as 2004, during the Republican National Convention in New York, when one observant but perhaps paranoid peace-march participant described on the Web "a jet-black dragonfly hovering about 10 feet off the ground, precisely in the middle of 7th avenue . . . watching us"?

They probably saw dragonflies, said Jerry Louton, an entomologist at the National Museum of Natural History. Washington is home to some large, spectacularly adorned dragonflies that "can knock your socks off," he said.

At the same time, he added, some details do not make sense. Three people at the D.C. event independently described a row of spheres, the size of small berries, attached along the tails of the big dragonflies -- an accoutrement that Louton could not explain. And all reported seeing at least three maneuvering in unison.

"Dragonflies never fly in a pack," he said.

Paranoia from activists or real? I'd really like to know--this is tantalizingly straddling the border between the kooks and real technologies. I don't trust either sides' judgement or statements on this.

California Police Camera Surveillance Increasing
The only solution now that public surveillance is out of the bag is to require the government to open up all the video and use of the system to the public. ,

Video of Man Tasered to Death
Incredibly uncomfortable, so much so I haven't watched it. Tasering is torture and our society uses them way too much. Overescalation is epidemic.

Your color laser printer has been compromised and is leaking data.

Why we can't allow the telecoms immunity

The telecoms allowed broad and widescale spying on domestic communications prior to and after the September 11th attacks from the NSA. This illegal action wasn't about terror operations, but just the easy access to constitutionally protected communications that allowed the "war on drugs" to escalate.

New York Times: Wider Spying Fuels Aid Plan for Telecom Industry

None of this is any surprise to anyone watching the wholesale destruction of the American Republic by the current administration. To listen to the director of the NSA is to think that the USA is endangered by discourse and independent thought. God forbid Americans not violate the law--oh wait, that's only for patriots.


Tell your senator that the USA will only survive if companies are required to follow the law.

Don't talk about it either

Bruce Schneier on the politics of fear

Bruce Schneier should be on your list of regular reading--he's not voluminous, and when he says something, people should listen, and again he's done it: The Director of National Intelligence claims discourse about how our government functions will kill people!:

Q. So you're saying that the reporting and the debate in Congress means that some Americans are going to die?

A. That's what I mean. Because we have made it so public. We used to do these things very differently, but for whatever reason, you know, it's a democratic process and sunshine's a good thing. We need to have the debate.

As Schneier says, refuse to be terrorized! Don't let America turn into a Police State with State Secrets and Secret Courts. Don't let "exceptions" to the Bill of Rights destroy our freedoms.

True Patriotism and the REAL ID act

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/16/real.id/index.html

After hearing claims that the REAL ID act wasn't about a national ID system, it wouldn't affect much, just standardizing the states' method of issuing driver's licenses, now we hear the truth from Michael Chertoff: They have created a domestic passport--you won't be able to travel without it. Some freedom of travel, eh?

The real patriots are the legislatures and governors of the free states, Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire (Live Free or Die), Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Washington, who stood up against the threats and FUD attacks of the neo-fascists.

Chertoff said there would be repercussions for states choosing not to comply.

Such as? Entering a national park? What fascist state is this? It is time everyone--all Americans, our elected representatives, and true patriots in the executive branch (wherever they might be hiding) to stand up and say NO! to this.

Many states have revolted. The governors of Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Washington have signed bills refusing to comply with the act. Six others have passed bills and/or resolutions expressing opposition, and 15 have similar legislation pending.

and

New Hampshire passed a House bill opposing the program and calling Real ID "contrary and repugnant" to the state and federal constitutions. A Colorado House resolution dismissed Real ID by expressing support for the war on terror but "not at the expense of essential civil rights and liberties of citizens of this country."

I honestly hope the conservatives that are reasserting the states' rights which have been eviscerated in the past fifty years regain them at the Supreme Court, if only to remove the ironic ability of their sponsors' attempt to destroy what's left of our rights.

The ACLU has it right, too:

The databases will provide a one-stop shop for identity thieves, adds the ACLU on its Web site, and the U.S. "surveillance society" and private sector will have access to the system "for the routine tracking, monitoring and regulation of individuals' movements and activities."

The civil liberties watchdog dubs the IDs "internal passports" and claims it wouldn't be long before office buildings, gas stations, toll booths, subways and buses begin accessing the system.

Chertoff is, essentially, failing to uphold the United States Constitution, which he is bound to uphold. He is not a patriot, he is a fear-mongering statist, moving this country to the Police State which we used to fight against for so long.

When chemistry is outlawed, only outlaws will do chemistry

via MAKE, Pharyngula, etc.

Originally at Memepunks.

Posner's failed analysis of domestic spying

Posner writes a defense against the illegal searches of domestic communications:
Posner wrote:

The collection, mainly through electronic means, of vast amounts of personal data is said to invade privacy. But machine collection and processing of data cannot, as such, invade privacy. Because of their volume, the data are first sifted by computers, which search for names, addresses, phone numbers, etc., that may have intelligence value. This initial sifting, far from invading privacy (a computer is not a sentient being), keeps most private data from being read by any intelligence officer.

You can't open up my mail (or e-mail) and look for names, addresses, and phone numbers without violating my privacy. The courts have held that e-mail headers are like pen information on phone calls, but the contents of the message are private. Get that? It doesn't matter what or who in the government opens my private communication, they've opened it and it's a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment.

You've got to have a warrant, mister, with a good reason, signed by a judge (hopefully not Posner), describing exactly what you are looking for and why you think you have sufficient cause. You can't open up everyone's communications fishing for crimes.

P.S. Richard Posner later writes during a chat:

I don't think most people would mind the government's scrutinizing their conversations for information of potential intelligence value if they trusted the government not to misuse the information.

Uhh... yeah, we mind. This fellow probably shouldn't be a judge based on his poor reading of the Constitution. It's not what "most people" would mind, it's whether these things violate the Constitution. And they do.

Computer abuse in copy-protection rootkit software

Ed Felten in Freedom to Tinker finally brings up what's been missing in the debate about aggressive copy-protection schemes, namely, that they are violating computer abuse laws left and right, and the companies should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and penalized just as hard as the "computer hackers" are--putting the CEO of Sony, SunnComm/Mediamax, or First4Internet in jail for four years would show 1. Computer abuse, either by individual or corporation, is not tolerated and 2. Corporations, if they argue they deserve rights just like people, should get the punishments delivered to them as well. Computer abuse applies not only to the crazy copy-protection rootkits but to most spyware as well.