Wow, what does this say about our country?

Let's indoctrinate our children sooner to the invasions of privacy! w00t!

I wanna buy a boat load and send them to all the liberal's kids...

Amazon.com: Playmobil Security Check Point: Toys & Games

Insiders are not, after all, the main threat to networks, a detailed new analysis of real-world data breaches has concluded.

Verizon's 2008 Data Breach Investigations Report, which looked at 500 breach incidents over the last four years, contradicts the growing orthodoxy that insiders, rather than external agents, represent the most serious threat to network security at most organizations.

Seventy-three percent of the breaches involved outsiders, 18 percent resulted from the actions of insiders, with business partners blamed for 39 percent -- the percentages exceed 100 percent due to the fact that some involve multiple breaches, with varying degrees of internal or external involvement.

I've been wary of "business partners" for years... which is why they ALWAYS get firewalled onto their own segment. However, many companies who claim to be security vendors, advocate allowing them directly into the internal and server segments. Scary... and stupid.

PC World - Business Center: Insider Threat Exaggerated, Study Says

WASHINGTON, DC (WUSA) Powerful computer software linked to security cameras are the latest technological weapon being deployed to defend the homeland.

9 News Now has learned that key transportation installations throughout the Washington DC area are employing video analytics, a type of software that is able to detect threats caught on security cameras.

Sweet!!! Now we can let the computer and trained security guards (read low paid monkees) make the decisions about who is dangerous! W00h00, your tax dollars hard at work!

WUSA9.com | Washington, DC | New Technology To Battle Terrorism

(oh no, they got me ranting...)

Soothing music is played to calm passengers in the checkpoint queue area, allowing behavior detection officers to better identify suspicious passengers.

WTF is a behavior detection officer? It sounds like a "Profiler" to me... exactly what training is required to become a TSA Profile Gestapo?

Does this ring of KGB or the SS to anyone?

God, they've removed our rights, raised our taxes, restricted our movements, and NOW they're making new uniforms, new checkpoints, and new, new, new, new... tax expenditures.

Where is the "Frequent Traveler" program that was promised three years ago? How about not making any new shit, until you deliver the shit you promised already?

Where is the congressional oversight on the spending from this Fraudulent organization who is supposed to be making travel SAFER? Please, can anyone provide any correlation to the safety of air travel, and the spending on the TSA?

NO? I didn't think so...

(end rant)

TSA's version of the new Airport Checkpoint

The puzzle is how AT&T thinks that its proposal is anything other than corporate seppuku.

Scary article, really important stuff, but I LOVE the line above... :)

Why does AT&T want to know what you're downloading? - By Tim Wu - Slate Magazine

In a drug case from San Diego County, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco likened computer surveillance to the "pen register" devices that officers use to pinpoint the phone numbers a suspect dials, without listening to the phone calls themselves.

We lose yet another privacy right... they're falling like flies...

SAN FRANCISCO / Judges OK warrantless monitoring of Web use / Privacy rules don't apply to Internet messages, court says

GO NEW HAMPSHIRE!!!

I just saw this news today!

New Hampshire is banning the Real-ID act... I just may have to move!

Now if we can get others to do the same!

Great move! :)

Representatives BAN Real ID - A Concord Monitor Article - Your News Source - Concord NH 03301

I recognize that there may sometimes be a need for secrecy in certain national security investigations. But I've now been under a broad gag order for three years, and other NSL recipients have been silenced for even longer. At some point -- a point we passed long ago -- the secrecy itself becomes a threat to our democracy. In the wake of the recent revelations, I believe more strongly than ever that the secrecy surrounding the government's use of the national security letters power is unwarranted and dangerous. I hope that Congress will at last recognize the same thing.

Even I, have a timeline on what I can talk about, from when I was in the military. While I understand and honor the secrecy that I was sworn to, I can also understand the frustration with receiving a gag order, without any judicial oversight.

I feel that these NSL's are wrong, and it's about time that someone brings them to light. We need to let our legislators know, it's time for a change... draconian laws that allow this type of abuse are not the American way.

My National Security Letter Gag Order - washingtonpost.com

And yet another loss of privacy, without so much as a whimper from anyone...

I can't believe it...

So much the better for using encryption, obfuscation, and one-time pads (all in combination) for securing email...

The Postal Accountability and Enforcement Act had a signing statement attached to it that said, "The white house believes the postal law has always given the president the right to open the mail, in quote, exigent circumstances."

This is a radical departure to our constitutional rights, and should be raised to the highest level of challenge, so that the President and the Attorney General would have to follow the current laws that require a warrant to open mail... not just anytime they "feel" threatened...

NPR : Federal Government Can Now Open Citizens' Mail

Oh, by the way, since the cold war ended and Russia has become "democratic" state, we've begun to see more and more of the influences that come with being democratic.

We're being beaten at our own game., and instead of helping the Russian people, we're continuing to build a divide, that will create another conflict.

Perhaps the better way to solve this problem is to open up some of the technology...?

I truly don't know the "right" answer, but having to start another "cold war" isn't something that I am looking forward to... nor is having to fight data loss on a different front.

globeandmail.com: Russian spies target Western technology