Security Theater Sets a Dangerous New Norm in Air Travel

by Eileen | 10:59 pm, March 8, 2013

Recently, is a rare, nay, unprecedented, display of good sense, the TSA announced that, as of April 25, 2013, small knives will again be allowed in carry-on baggage. To date, 9,300 people have signed a petition, sponsored by airline workers unions, to overturn that.  In part, the petition language reads: Our nation’s aviation system is [...]

Privacy, Protest, and Male Nudes

by Eileen | 3:20 am, January 27, 2013

Barack Obama’s government is accelerating its crackdown on civil liberties.  A lot of people who were strongly against surveillance and fear-mongering when George Bush was doing it to stop foreigners with weapons are much quieter when Barack Obama does it to take weapons away from Americans.  For one thing, Bush supported at least one Amendment.  [...]

TSA Monkeys Will Go Back to Paying for Their Porn

by Eileen | 10:30 pm, January 18, 2013

…and, presumably, watching it on their own time.  I don’t know for certain; it’s anyone’s guess what goes on the those break rooms.  At any rate, our blue-gloved faux-security force is now able to devote more of its time to robbing passengers, having lost their x-ray scanners. The line from on high is that Rapiscan, [...]

Mesa County has Time to Play with Drones, but None to Write a Privacy Policy

by Eileen | 5:34 pm, January 16, 2013

As part of the on-going Drone Census project, jointly run by MuckRock and EFF, our very own Mesa County has ‘provided’ data on their drone project.  By provided, I mean they were petty needle-dicks who tried to ignore fulfilling a CORA request with the ever classy game of ‘we-don’t-do-email-send-a-letter-to-tell-us-what-you-already-told-us’. Everyone does that, which proves not [...]

In Which the Washington Bureau Chief Marshalls the Evidence

by Eileen | 2:04 am, January 13, 2013

So this is an interesting decision, especially given the TSA’s recent announcement that, yet again, it wants to use private companies and private datasets to profile airline passengers. Rahinah Ibrahim, a Malaysian national, has been fighting her inclusion on a secret no-fly list since 2005.  She was arrested and held after trying to fly home [...]

Policy from a Politically Manipulative Fantasyland: the TSA’s Latest Bid for All Your Data

by Eileen | 5:06 am, January 12, 2013

The TSA is trying to resurrect a terrible program that been deservedly thwarted since its post-9/11 conception.  It was CAPPS, then CAPPS II, then Secure Flight.  Under all those guises, the goal was the aggregate any and all commercially available datasets into a behemoth database and then generate unique ‘aviation risk profiles’ for any airline [...]

Being Dead is no Excuse to Avoid Getting Felt up by the TSA

by Eileen | 5:18 pm, June 28, 2012

Sometimes, setting a pair of news stories in juxtaposition invites all manner of interesting comment. Take, for example,two items about my favorite federal agency, the TSA.  The TSA of yesterday opened and then spilled an urn of human cremains all over the dirty carpet at Orlando Airport, and laughed as the grieving family scurried to [...]

Attention dastardly terrorists: Do not discuss your Doomsday plots at the Ottawa airport; the Mounties are listening

by Eileen | 2:15 pm, June 18, 2012

The U.S. has airport security practices so insensible and generally offensive to decency that it wouldn’t take much for any other country to set itself apart – in a good way.  For crying out loud, when something as simple as not routinely robbing passengers and feeling up children puts you ahead of the game, how difficult can it [...]

Irritating as they are, the privacy violations we see every day are the least worrying

by Eileen | 12:54 pm, February 10, 2012

Last week saw newsy few days for my favorite freedom fondling cadre.  An iPad stealing spree that somehow lasted a year before the bugger got caught, his coworker who robbed a foreign national blind right in front of a camera, and – of course – sentencing for the last round of pilfering. Ah, yes, the [...]

Radiation may cause cancer. Who knew?

by Eileen | 4:42 pm, February 6, 2012

Under the bogglingly illogical government we have so judiciously elected, there’s no problem in blasting people with radiation so long as it’s not designated to be for medical purposes.  We all know what this means; because airport scanners aren’t rearranging our atoms for a medical benefit, they don’t come under FDA control.  Hence, your guess is as [...]

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