This article gives some insight into the flaws of the National No-Fly List associated with CAPPS and CAPPS II. Along with the horror stories of existing problems, there are examples of why the new plan for CAPPS II is even worse than the current one.

"Remember, this isn't just about privacy, it's also about accountability," Tien says. "It's not just Orwell -- it's Kafka."

A bigger problem with CAPPS II, though, is that it may not work very well at finding terrorists. In May 2002, Samidh Chakrabarti and Aaron Strauss, two graduate students in computer science (and a few other disciplines) at MIT, decided to see if they could come up with an algorithm that terrorists might use to beat a profiling system like the current version of CAPPS. After studying everything that is publicly known about CAPPS, the pair determined that anyone with the will and not very many resources could easily get around the system. They concluded that airlines would be safer if, instead of profiling, they instead selected a portion of fliers at random and subjected them to more thorough searches for weapons. (Chakrabarti and Strauss wrote up their findings in a term paper for a class, but it was picked up by First Monday, a peer-reviewed academic journal on the Web.)

'Please step to the side, sir'

Decius wrote:
] Interz0ne talk censored due to DMCA notice (blogging from the
] sequestered talk (which is instead a discussion about what
] occured)).

As an update, I sent an email to the editors of Salon about this. I have since received two updates, the latter being the most important. Farhad Manjoo is looking into the details for writing this article and has contacted me for more information. If you would like to submit information as well, please let me know today so that I can get your contact information to him. Farhad is the reporter who has written some of the best stories dealing with the hacker community, such as detailed stories about the DMCA, Dmitry Skylarov, the inability to discuss the security of voting machines and more. Do a search at Salon.com for his name and you'll see plenty of articles. This is a very good thing.

Dolemite

RE: Interz0ne: Cease and Desist Letter - 20030411

] A software designer was being held Thursday as a material
] witness in a terrorism investigation after FBI agents
] searched his Hillsboro home and his office at Intel.
]
] According to neighbors and co-workers, Maher Mofeid
] Hawash, 38, was the target of Thursday's searches by the
] FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.

This was March 21st; He is still being held, and no one will tell the family any more than he is a 'material witness'. He's been in the US for 15 years. The only thing that puts him into question is 2 donations of about $5000 each to the Global Relief Foundation, which has come under scrutiny of the FBI.

From the http://www.freemikehawash.org/ site:

"On Thursday, March 20, 2003, our friend and colleague Maher (Mike) Hawash was arrested ("detained") as a "material witness" by the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force in the parking lot of Intel Corp's Hawthorne Farms parking lot. Simultaneously, FBI agents in bulletproof vests and carrying assault rifles awoke Mike's wife Lisa and their three children in the home, which they proceeded to search. Since then, Mike has been held in the Federal Prison at Sheridan, OR."

This scares the crap out of me. What has America become?

FBI, Joint Terrorism agents search home in Hillsboro

] The previous Meat Meat Meat! section contained, I
] believed, the finest examples of hideously glistening
] meatage I'd ever seen.
]
] I was wrong. Thanks to patron Jody, we now have this rare
] volume from the fabled Family Circle collection. Steady
] your gorge; this is going to be a rough one.

MEAT! MEAT! MEAT! part 2.
Hooray!

LILEKS (James) : Gallery of Regrettable Food : MEAT!

] NEAR KARBALA, Iraq, March 31 -- As an unidentified
] four-wheel-drive vehicle came barreling toward an
] intersection held by troops of the Army's 3rd Infantry
] Division, Capt. Ronny Johnson grew increasingly alarmed.
] From his position at the intersection, he was heard
] radioing to one of his forward platoons of M2 Bradley
] Fighting Vehicles to alert it to what he described as a
] potential threat.
]
] "Fire a warning shot," he ordered as the vehicle kept
] coming. Then, with increasing urgency, he told the
] platoon to shoot a 7.62mm machine-gun round into its
] radiator. "Stop [messing] around!" Johnson yelled into
] the company radio network when he still saw no action
] being taken. Finally, he shouted at the top of his voice,
] "Stop him, Red 1, stop him!"
]
] That order was immediately followed by the loud reports
] of 25mm cannon fire from one or more of the platoon's
] Bradleys. About half a dozen shots were heard in all.
]
] "Cease fire!" Johnson yelled over the radio. Then, as he
] peered into his binoculars from the intersection on
] Highway 9, he roared at the platoon leader, "You just
] [expletive] killed a family because you didn't fire a
] warning shot soon enough!"

A Gruesome Scene on Highway 9 (washingtonpost.com)

] The people I spoke with at Umm Qasr said they were happy
] about the removal of Saddam, as he had held them in
] terror for years. They took me to see the local Baath
] Party headquarters. They told me that many bad things
] happened there and that most of those picked up in the
] middle of the night and taken to that building were never
] seen again.
]
] I entered the building and walked around. I couldn't
] help noticing the excitement in the people's voices
] as they pointed out the bullet holes and the charred
] remains of where the building burned.
]
] That was when I first got the sense that these people
] were really eager to see Saddam and Baath gone.
]
] I asked several what they thought of the US/UK plan to
] remove Saddam. They told me: "Now that they have
] started to remove him, they cannot stop. If they do, then
] we are all as good as dead. He still has informants in
] Umm Qasr and he knows who is against him and who
] isn't."

ArabNews: Exclusive: 'If They Stop Now We're As Good As Dead'

The real meanings of the pictures from ready.gov.

Great Suggestions on How to Handle Terrorist Attacks

Yet another anti-Bush rally that I wish I could have attended.

The protesters would disrobe, form the Chinese symbol for peace, and a photographer would climb up into a cherry picker and take their picture from above. I wasn't really sure how nudity was going to help the peace movement, but I'd never gotten naked in front of more than two people at a time, and the idea of doing it for something I believed in seemed like a great idea.

Salon.com Life | Bushes against Bush

WASHINGTON - President Bush's aides did not forcefully present him with dissenting views from CIA and State and Defense Department officials who warned that U.S.-led forces could face stiff resistance in Iraq, according to three senior administration officials.

This is much like having bad news and not telling grandpa. "No, don't tell him, it'll only upset him."

Charlotte Observer | 03/29/2003 | Bush reportedly shielded from dire forecast

] Then all of a sudden, some big powerful democratic
] country has one of those election things, someone new
] takes over, and suddenly they actually MEAN what they
] say?!?! How the hell is someone like me supposed to know
] when they're serious in their threats to invade?
] I miss Bill Clinton.
]
] :: Saddam "No Nukes Here" Hussein 12:39 AM

LOL!

Saddam's Blog