TSA adventures

No, I don't think so.

Read some of the back issues of Bruce Schneier's "Cryptogram" newsletter (no cost). He's a writer on issues involving cryptography and security (cyber- and otherwise). He's been a serious critic of the TSA approaches (and many other forms of public and government reaction to security and terrorism challenges) for years... refers to a lot of them as "security theatre", or "responding to Hollywood threats" (i.e. threat scenarios which sound plausible and horrific, but don't stand up to a real critical analysis).

Terrorists are stupid, otherwise they'd be doing a helluva lot more.

OTOH they don't have to...they can just sit back and watch Uncle Sam stripping pretty young twenty-somethings, looking for boogeymen in their private places, and laugh.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

Speaking of conspiracy theories, and I'm pretty sure this isn't the alcohol talking or the nonprescription stress medicine, but in either case, the conspiracy idea is this (well, at least I know it's just a stupid conspiracy theory idea, presented entirely for your entertainment)

The "Underpants Bomber" was a "set-up."

Please discuss. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

That's exactly what I've been saying for months, if not years.

Thanks! Rich

The bad news is, sarcasm is usually wasted on those who need it the most. )-;

Thanks, Rich

Check; everyone should avoid validating them by using alternate transport. That might include private as well as corporate planes, maybe for hire?

Don't blame the TSA. They aren't the only ones with big mouths. I've had background checks done for various projects. They (those who shall remain unnamed) interviewed my neighbors. They told them what it was for and, although they did suggest that the details of the interviews not be shared, kids have a way of finding out. And 'FBI agents' are just too cool to not tell ones friends about.

So everyone in the neighborhood knows. Not a big deal, as the population density of Boeing engineers is pretty high and background checks are not unheard of.

Perhaps that is your interpretation of the way the Brits ransacked homes looking for document paper that did not have the King's tax stamp?

The unreasonable searches performed by the King's men are what prompted our 4th amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure.

The varied applications of this concept stem from the King's tax stamp on writing paper.

It fairly points out the US distaste for Police State behavior in the USA.

But you think the whole US Constitution was about "favoring tax evaders"?

Early on, there wasn't much taxation to evade in the USA!

Are you just seeing it that way because you're a Socialist which makes taxation exciting to you?

Please describe what you think Barney Frank's part was in the sub-prime fiasco and whether he is a socialist.

The Mexican drug war spilling across the border has changed the dynamics a bit. When you consider the national threat that the porous border presents, the underwear probing of the TSA seem really silly. As the unemployment rate goes up, the cheap labor argument could get REALLY costly for politicians who continue the border fiasco.

She doesn't have any credit card theft protection insurance then?

Be very careful what you say from here on in. This is a searchable public forum and I would be willing to bet you have signed the even more draconian US equivalent of the UK's Official Secrets Act.

And now everyone knows - that isn't terribly smart of you.

There are two clear points that stand out. The morons that set security levels in the US have once again blundered by making that information about you visible to morons without adequate security clearance. The second is that they were so poorly trained or supervised that they used that information in a way that disclosed it to a third party. I can't say that I am surprised - it is typical of US military intelligence.

Not unexpected for a nation that loses many GB of secure information to a single lowly intelligence officer and thence to Wikileaks without detecting that the network was haemorrhaging data to a particular node.

I still remember how hurt they looked when after announcing on US TV that they were so smart they were tracking OBL using his satellite phone when he had the temerity to switch it off permanently.

It is quite amusing to try searching "strictly confidential" and "top secret" on customers intra-nets. I know of a couple that had to totally disable global search on documents after seeing what happened.

The TSA is all about street theatre to make the travelling US public feel safer. They are still pretty useless at preventing folk boarding planes with a few round of live ammunition in pockets etc. Heathrow picks them up almost every time as transit passengers as screened. The security operatives there are not myopic halfwits but well trained and know how to use *all* the features of their equipment.

Regards, Martin Brown

That was what motivated the whole war of independence.

True, and when the British government decided to get the American colonists to pay something closer to their fair share of the costs of keeping the kingdom running, the colonists got out from under.

There's nothing specifically socialist about taxes. Governments of every political complexion collect them, because that's what's pays for the servies that governmens provide.

He believed in the thoroughly capitalist idea of a property-owning democracy, and was happy to provide financial incentives to get the banks to make home loans to people who lived in low-income areas. The idea is that when people have got a stake in the economy - by owning some part of a house that is worth money - they'll think like capitalists.

It always was. But it keeps the population anxious about foreign terrorism. The Mexican drug wars can be seen as more of the same. It isn't as if the consequences of "war on drugs" weren't predictable - it's just Prohibition all over again. You dumped Prohibition because "it filled your land with vice and crime", but once "the Great Experiment" had failed, you went on to repeat it on different recreational drugs, and got a pretty much perfect repication of the original results.

But not for the rich capitalists who make the profits on the cheap labour. As Franco demonstrated in Spain, rich capitalists are too short-sighted to think of making extra money by investing in making the working class more productive.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

LOL I hope you're being sarcastic.

Judging from John's story the bad guys already won! Al-quaida actually managed to make you harass your own people like a snake biting its own tail.

The 'S' in TSA is for stupidity, not security.

Your blatant confirmational announcement was not very bright at all, John.

In fact, your transgression was far worse than what some dork, Nazi mentality system allows their dorks to see of what is left of what was the real world.

So yeah, they breeched protocol due to being too inexperienced and too stupid to understand even the simplest nature of what security is. That usually never happens in a manufacturing environ, so I'd say that their understanding of it doesn't come as easily as yours did. Then you posted here.

But you...

You got onto a worldwide forum and put a target on your back.

YOU definitely breeched both the letter of the mandate and the basic protocol itself, not to mention a law or two. You not only mentioned your status, but you indicated the level.

All because of your anger, you needed to get attention from all of your perceived online peers. How quaint. Why don't you update your facebook too? You could even post pictures. You could even post a schematic or two.

To lose that clearance though... John... one phone call.

This is where you decide which side of the fence you are on, John. Play nice, and have a nice life. Continue acting like you are the best thing this side of a doctorate, and I can assure you that you will never pull such a contract ever again.

You *should* decide to play nice from now on, John. We'll see.

Why? Because I have a "security fetish", and you just slipped, big time.

You need to watch your mouth, and I ain't just talking about this dumb post.

Ew!

What an angry little man you are. It's a wonder you haven't put a shotgun in your mouth and left your useless skull-cap plastered on the ceiling.

Pity, that.

What are you crying about now, retarded little bitch?

Go back to Larkin's retarded little bitch bandwagon, and have a nice life.

Sloman doesn't know the first thing about our Constitution. There's nothing in there about tax evasion.

It's magnificent, a brilliant design by some of the greatest geniuses that ever lived.

Its design takes the worst of human nature, redirects, and harnesses it for the betterment of all.

Economic freedom, personal freedom, privacy, liberty, prosperity, property rights--they're all related, all intertwined. That's the secret of America, and why we've been so successful. At bottom, freedom.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

Slowman only has a podium courtesy of troll feeders.

Stop feeding him and he vanishes.

Unless, of course, he's the only one you feel comfortable conversing with... he's on your intellectual level ?:-) I'm always pleased to note that I'm the highest standard for Slowman's disdain, but please don't feed the jerk. Let him die that most unpleasant of deaths... alone ;-)

-- ...Jim Thompson

| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at

No, but it sets up a sloppy, clumsy system of elections and representation that is wide open to bribery and influence, which was exploited from the start by tax evaders and pork-barrel merchants. You've swallowed the propaganda and ignore the unsavour reality.

Twaddle. My schoolboy classes on contstitutional history talked about the way teh Australina and Canandian constitutions had avoided some of the more fundamental weaknesses of the American constitution, which might be seen as the political equivalent of Windows 3.0 - the founding fathers had learned enough from the Dutch Republic and the Venetian Republic - the DOS and the CP/M stages - to put togehter soemthing that was - just - workable.

The British learned enough from you to put together something slightly better - windows 3.1 - and the Australians and the Canadians got as far as Windows 95. France has been through Widows 98 and Windows NT while Germany - with a bit more help from outsiders - has probably got something that might rate as the Linux of modern constitutions.

That was the - ostensible - ambition. In reality, you've got a lobbyist driven corruption machine.

Freedom for the fat cats to make a lot money, most of it by short- changing their less-well-off neighbours. Economic freedom, property rights, privacy, liberty, personal freedom they all got from the Dutch Republic, and the habit of letting the people who owned the country run the country - the Foundign Tax Evaders took over the many of the mechanisms that allowed the Dutch "regent class" to manipulate the system to the advantage of the members of the regent class, and had enough to sense to make the mechanisms less obvious, so dim-wits like you still can't see them working.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen