Immigrants arrested in the United States may be held indefinitely on suspicion of terrorism and may not challenge their imprisonment in civilian courts, the Bush administration said Monday....

Sen. Chris Dodd said prior to the election that he regrets the decision not to filibuster the MCA: "I regret now that I didn't do it . . . This is a major, major blow to who we are."

I agree with Dodd's assessment. These are not minor policy issues. These are issues that strike at the heart of American values. The larger themes are truly disturbing. Not the least of which are the attacks and attempts to marginalize the American legal system.

The Military Commissions Act in action

Samsung has partnered with Korea university and developed the machine-gun equipped robotic sentry. It is equipped with two cameras with zooming capabilities one for day time and one for infrared night vision. It has a sophisticated pattern recognition which can detect the difference between humans and trees, and a 5.5mm machine-gun.

Yet another milestone on the path toward robots that hunt, kill, and eat people, and use their flesh to generate electric power.

The future is about as bright as a muzzle flash.

Samsung develops machine gun sentry robot costs $200k - Newlaunches.com

WASHINGTON, DC—After months of aggressive campaigning and with nearly 99 percent of ballots counted, politicians were the big winners in Tuesday's midterm election, taking all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, retaining a majority with 100 out of 100 seats in the Senate, and pushing political candidates to victory in each of the 36 gubernatorial races up for grabs.

Politicians Sweep Midterm Elections

An interesting way of watching to focus of history change.

US Presidential Speeches Tag Cloud - Chirag Mehta : chir.ag

Congressman Markey, thank you for taking the time to look closer at this situation, and to hear the voice of the security community.

“On Friday I urged the Bush Administration to ‘apprehend’ and shut down whoever had created a new website that enabled persons without a plane ticket to easily fake a boarding pass and use it to clear security, gain access to the boarding area and potentially to the cabin of a passenger plane. Subsequently I learned that the person responsible was a student at Indiana University, Christopher Soghoian, who intended no harm but, rather, intended to provide a public service by warning that this long-standing loophole could be easily exploited. The website has now apparently been shut down.

“Under the circumstances, any legal consequences for this student must take into account his intent to perform a public service, to publicize a problem as a way of getting it fixed. He picked a lousy way of doing it, but he should not go to jail for his bad judgment. Better yet, the Department of Homeland Security should put him to work showing public officials how easily our security can be compromised.

“It remains a fact that fake boarding passes can be easily created and the integration of terrorist watch lists with boarding security is still woefully inadequate. The best outcome of Mr. Soghoian’s ill-considered demonstration would be for the Department of Homeland Security to close these loopholes immediately."

MARKEY: DON'T ARREST STUDENT, USE HIM TO FIX LOOPHOLES

Update: Ed Markey put out a press release today taking a more reasonable stance on this.

Congressman Markey,

While I'm not one of your constituents, your statements and actions often have an impact that reaches beyond your district. Yesterday you were quoted in several news media outlets as having called for the arrest of Christopher Soghoian, a PHD candidate at the University of Indiana Bloomington, because he created a web page that generates phoney airline boarding passes. As you are likely aware, your call was answered by the FBI who reportedly broke into Soghoian's house last night and seized all of his computer equipment.

I am a professional computer security researcher. I work for one of the worlds largest IT companies. My job involves finding vulnerabilities in software systems and getting them fixed. Responsible vendors are usually very responsive and willing to work with my team when we contact them with information about problems with their products. Through this process we are able to locate and repair vulnerabilities in IT infrastructure before the bad guys can find them and exploit them. However, there are always a few unsophisticated people who seek to shoot the messenger instead of dealing with the flaw.

Christopher Soghoian is one of the good guys. He is not a criminal and he is not enabling criminals. He did not create the vulnerability in the boarding pass screening process. This problem has existed for years, and it has been noted in other quarters, most recently by Sen. Chuck Schumer. However, the problem hasn't been fixed. Soghoian's website was intended to demonstrate how simple this is, and he has clearly and repeatedly stated that his intent in creating the site was to raise awareness about the problem so that it will be fixed. His website does not make this much easier than standard desktop publishing software available on anyone's personal computer.

Your call for his arrest, and the subsiquent events that have unfolded over the past 24 hours, have done serious harm to the national security of the United States. You could have simply contacted him, informed him of the legal problems that one could face for operating such a website, and discussed shutting it down. By choosing instead to prosecute him you are sending a message to security professionals in this country that if you observe a problem with national security policies or practices and make people aware of those problems in good faith so that they might be fixed, the government will treat you as an enemy and will prosecute you if possible. The inevitable result will be that people will hold their tongues, and problems will persist until they are discovered by someone who has malicious intent.

I strongly urge you to reconsider your position on this matter. The current course of action is not in the best interests of this country.

Respectfully,
Tom Cross

Tom Cross's Letter to Ed Markey

"The Bush Administration must immediately act to investigate, apprehend those responsible, shut down the website, and warn airlines and aviation security officials to be on the look-out for fraudsters or terrorists trying to use fake boarding passes in an attempt to cheat their way through security and onto a plane."

Shoot the messenger! Shoot the messenger! For the love of god won't somebody PLEASE shoot that messenger!?

Update: This story is developing fast. According to a security researcher (who is maintaining their anonymity), Christopher Soghoian has been approached by the FBI. He has not been heard from since claiming that the FBI was at his door during a conversation with the unnamed researcher. The FBI is denying that he is under arrest, however the page with the boarding pass generator went down shortly thereafter. The rest of his website is still up and his IM account are both still online.

More information can be found on the Wired blog and BoingBoing.

Update2: Here is another quote from the Wired article linked:

In reality, the "loophole" is nothing new. Security expert Bruce Schneier wrote about it in 2003, and the online magazine Slate covered it as major news in 2005. Soghoian points out that Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York) publicized the same security hole in April 2006. "Perhaps Sen. Schumer will end up being my cellmate," Soghoian said.

Update3: Chris has been raided by the FBI and many of his possessions have been seized.

Ed Markey advocates shooting the messenger

We The Creators of this site, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish Fantasy Congress for the United States of America.

In this game, we give you the power to draft and manage a team of members from the U.S. Congress. Enjoy our gift to you, o great nation: the power to play politics!™

Interesting. Great idea!

As a side note, I think the "Broken Government" series that CNN is doing is excellent journalism.

Fantasy Congress - Where People Play Politics!

If the Ninth Circuit does agree with Judge Pregerson that computer searches are "non routine," there's a decent chance that this case would be the first computer search and seizure case to get to the Supreme Court.

Sweet! I find the prospect of random laptop searches at borders to be offensive to the idea of a free society on many levels. Finally, someone has argued, and a court has accepted the arguement, that this isn't Constitutional. Now, we'll get to find out if the higher courts agree. Its on!

The Volokh Conspiracy - District Court Holds That Border Searches of Computers Require Reasonable Suspicion:

The dude gets points for putting his web server on port 2006. The dude does not get points for using a light blue tint to indicate "no senate race."

Election 2006: Senate and House Races Updated Daily