| December 2004 Archives | « November 2004 | Main | January 2005 » |
December 16, 2004 | Photographing the Photographers
Richard M. Smith of computer bytes man fame sent me this little tidbit about getting in trouble for photographing a Customs' sign showing visitors to prepare to give their fingerprints and digital photos to the U.S Visit system.
I made the mistake today of violating DHS's privacy by shooting a photo in a hallway leading to the passport checking area at the Atlanta airport. My wife and I were returning from a vacation outside of the U.S. I was promptly chewed out by a passport agent for taking the photo because it was against new DHS security rules. There were signs about these new rules at the passport counters, but not in the area where I took the photo.Ironically the photo was of a sign explaining the new US-VISIT program which requires all foreign visitors to be fingerprinted and photographed when they arrive and leave the U.S. It is not clear to me why my photo represents a security risk...
Posted by Ryan Singel at 10:52 AM | TrackBack
December 16, 2004 | Stashing the StashJohn Perry Barlow, former Grateful Dead Lyricist and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, had little luck yesterday fighting the TSA's baggage screening process that led to his arrest in September 2003, when a screener found pot hidden in a bottle of ibuprofen in his bag, according to Mary Anne Ostrom's article in the Mercury News.
Barlow had claimed he was the subject of an unlawful search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment; the screener can look in checked baggage for explosives and incendiary devices that might be used to blow up an airplane, his attorney argued, but not drugs.It was a pair of laser gloves Barlow used at the Burning Man festival that initially caught the baggage screener's attention when an X-ray machine showed wires, electrodes and batteries in checked luggage.
Barlow's attorney had tried to convince the judge that his client's case would expose the federal agency's baggage check policies as nothing but ``a stalking horse'' for much broader criminal investigations. The defense did elicit testimony from airport police that they work closely with the Transportation Security Administration, Drug Enforcement Agency and baggage screening contractors to act on drug tips, but that's not what led to Barlow's arrest.
I think Barlow's arguments are actually pretty sound. If cops get a warrant to search your house for illegal weapons, they should not be able to open bottles in your medicine cabinet to check for illegal drugs. If they search your house and you've got an ounce of pot sitting out on the coffee table, then the cops are fine, by law, to arrest you for possession. (Of course, that's leaving aside the question of whether pot or any drugs should be criminalized).
)
That said, Barlow's arguments are not nearly as interesting as his friend John Gilmore's arguments are.
(Funny side note: according to this entry on Barlow's blog, Barlow had Gilmore post bail for him last year, but that almost did not work because, although Gilmore had enough cash, he refused to show identification.)
Posted by Ryan Singel at 10:34 AM | TrackBack
December 15, 2004 | CORRECTION: ***UNPREPARED FOR DELIVERY***I got two emails today with the "prepared for delivery" version of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge's remarks today in Los Angeles where he was announcing a homeland security grant.
The corrected text starts off:
LOS ANGELES - Good afternoon. It is great to be here at Fire Station 27 with the people who are on the front lines protecting this city and our nation. The LA Fire Department Museum and Fallen Firefighter Memorial next door vividly remind us of the sacrifices our first responders make every day to keep our communities safe....
The original text reads:
LOS ANGELES - Good afternoon. I thought I was coming to Hollywood to audition as the next James Bond. Despite the fact that my wife tells me I’m as handsome as Pierce Brosnan and as suave as Sean Connery, I did not get the part. Studio said I don’t have the right accent. Well I can fix that. I just hired a new speech coach, Governor Schwarzenegger…I told the studio, “I’ll be back.”It is great to be here at Fire Station 27 with the people who are on the front lines protecting this city and our nation. The L.A. Fire Department Museum and Fallen Firefighter Memorial next door vividly remind us of the sacrifices our first responders make every day to keep our communities safe...
They should have corrected these jokes before he delivered them. (If indeed, the poor guy actually did try to tell these jokes).
Bureaucracies are good for many, many things. (No really, they are.)
Creating humor intentionally is not one of them.
In fact, I hear Ridge's jokes bombed so badly, he later had to raise the threat level.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 02:48 PM | TrackBack
December 13, 2004 | Dorgan Wydens BanPassengers will soon be banned from bringing butane lighters onto airplanes, thanks to a provision in the intelligence reform bill set for the president's signature.
The ban is the developmentally disabled brainchild of Democratic Senators Byron Dorgan and Ron Wyden.
Dorgan's dumb crusade was featured prominently in Micheal Moore's agit-prop documentary, Fahrenheit 911, since Moore included anything in the documentary that might reflect badly on the Bush Administration, regardless of whether the criticisms were logically consistent.
Dorgan says that if shoe bomber Richard Reid had had a butane lighter, he might have been able to blow up the plane. That might be true, but the better question is why didn't he have a lighter? I doubt it was because of security. And why the hell didn't Reid go into the bathroom to light the damn bomb?
My guess? Reid is as mentally deficient as the idea of banning lighters.
Moreover, does Dorgan have any idea why the TSA has not added butane lighters to the list of banned items, despite his continual and very public haranguing of TSA officials to do so?
It's because the TSA knows that looking for lighters is a useless, futile search that will only inconvenience and anger travelers.
Lighters aren't easy to spot in luggage and they aren't dangerous, except when used in conjunction with a fuse connected to a bomb. And fuses can be lit with matches. And bombs can be detonated with a a two dollar wristwatch (Bojinka).
When you have two million people a day boarding airplanes, you look for the immediate threats. Bombs, guns and knives.
Dorgan and Wyden are members of the Senate, not the House of Representatives. They should start acting like it.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 10:52 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
December 13, 2004 | KerikNanny problem, my ass.
Josh Marshall has been all over this story. Allegations of mob ties, extra-marital affairs, unreported gifts when he was a NYC employee and treating a post in Iraq as a place to hang out until workmen finished renovations on a New Jersey mansion.
Lawyers at White House say they were aware of all this, but not the nanny problem.
If so, the White House needs not just a new nominee, but some new vetters as well.
Steve Gilliard has more on the affairs, where all this info is coming from and who should get questioned next.
As for the next one to be nominated?
My guess is Undersecretary for Border Security and Transportation Asa Hutchinson, not Senator Joe Lieberman.
Lieberman might get a nod for the U.N. post, but he's a little too concerned about privacy to take the Homeland Security post in the Bush Administration.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 10:13 AM | TrackBack
December 10, 2004 | The J WordI was talking to someone on the phone today, from my landline to their cellphone.
This person lives in D.C.
At some point in the conversation, I was asking this person for some help before I had to embark on a 'jihad' of phone calls to complain about something.
At the exact moment I said the J-word, the call ended.
I called back and the person I was talking to said they had not moved or done anything odd at that moment. Up to that point the connection had been very clear.
I ain't much of a conspiracy theorist, but that's sure is some coincidence.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 01:07 PM | TrackBack
December 10, 2004 | Help Buy Michelle Malkin a Newspaper SubscriptionHer subscription seems to have lapsed sometime in 2002. Otherwise, I can't understand why she thinks Norman Mineta is in charge of airline security.
Yesterday Malkin reposted an old "Impeach Norm Mineta/ Liberty and Security..Not Bureaucracy" bumper sticker on her blog, in response to news that Mineta was staying on as the head of the Transportation Department.
She objects to Mineta because in 2002, he opposed racial profiling at airports.
Now if Malkin had actually been reading the newspaper, she'd know that Mineta is not in charge of airline security anymore. The Transportation Security Administration was carved out of the DoT in the spring of 2003. Mineta has nothing to do with whether airline screeners single out dark-skinned people, (which Malkin thinks they should do because white people are never terrorists.
If you happern to run into Malkin somewhere (maybe while she's supervising the Muslim re-education camps), please tell her that Admiral James Loy headed up the TSA until November 2003, when he was promoted and then replaced by Admiral David Stone, who continues to head the TSA. Asa Hutchinson, as the Undersecretary for Border and Transportation Security, also has jurisdiction.
The reason you should tell her is to save her from parading her ignorance on television. She has some ill advised plans...
Maybe I'll wear the bumper sticker on my forehead the next time I'm on TV...
Then again, Malkin may well get the newspaper or have an Internet connection and knows all this, but simply prefers her subscription to the new Old West theory of reporting: When facts get in the way of a rant, print the rant.
Of course that could lead Malkin to go on national television with a bumper sticker on her forehead announcing her total ignorance of the events of the last two years.
So on second thought, readers, do us all a favor.
Save your subscription donations, don't tell her about Admiral Stone and keep your Tivos ready for the next time she shows up on Fox News.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 12:46 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 09, 2004 | That Bud Ain't Da BombAn Arizona Public Regulation Commission member, E. Shirley Baca, known for promoting a zero tolerance drug policy in the PRC workplace was arrested for possession of marijuana Wednesday, after TSA screeners found less than an ounce of pot in her checked baggage, according to this story by Mary Perea of The Associated Press.
Now, there's certainly a whiff of hypocrisy in here, though the story doesn't say Baca was taking her pot to work with her.
But more interesting to me, is the fact that a TSA screener found this pot while searching for a bomb.
Here's another case (without even the hint of hypocrisy): John Perry Barlow, one of the founding fathers of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, got busted by the TSA for a relatively tiny amount of pot. He's fighting the legality of the search and running up against my old favorite: sensitive security information.
In Barlow's own words, from an interview with one of my favorite libertarians, Reason magazine's Brian Doherty.
One of the things going on in my mind when I wrote that note [announcing the decision to embrace political activism over lifestyle libertarianism] was that I’d just been busted for having a really trivial amount of marijuana in a checked bag under a PATRIOT Act search. I was arrested, hauled off in irons, an ugly experience. At San Francisco airport, for, like, three joints’ worth of dope.Before the plane took off, Delta employees came on and said, Mr. Barlow, you have to step off the plane, and bring your personal effects. Then San Francisco cops arrested me. I spent the day in Redwood City in jail. It was a chilling experience. It’s happening, and happening a lot. The Transportation Security Administration is now routinely searching checked bags. They are not just looking for explosives. I’ve taken the government on, subpoenaing their training procedures and search requirements to see whether or not any attention is paid to the Fourth Amendment in these searches.
The Constitution doesn’t say anything about national security. The Fourth Amendment is the Fourth Amendment, and they’re gonna have to show me that it isn’t. Right now they are refusing to answer subpoenas. I’m trying to suppress evidence based on it being an improper search.
Most people in this situation just say whatever, and plead out, but I’m willing to put myself on the line for it. The worst that can happen is they’ll be especially nasty if they convict me. It’s a misdemeanor anyway. But to just plead out would be abdicating my citizen’s responsibility to defend the Constitution. You have to fight for your freedom individually and not say, "Oh well, it’s not worth the trouble."
I’m already being a lot pricklier than they expected. They asked for a continuation at the last hearing because they said that the Department of Homeland Security had been unable to come up with a set of guidelines regarding the release of the subpoenaed materials for national security reasons. So our national security depends on whether or not they can get me for carrying marijuana on that airplane.
The ideal thing would be to have charges dismissed with prejudice, and then I sue the shit out of them. I’m merely defending myself right now.
From my admittedly hearsay-based understanding, Barlow's stash was in his suitcase, inside a very small canister inside a dob kit.
Now if you are a TSA screener and open a suitcase and see an ounce of kind bud staring back at them, it's hard to argue that the screener should just ignore the contraband.
(Of course, the question of whether marijuana should be contraband is a whole other question -- the question of whether federal screeners on a flight within California who find the pot of a person with a medical card is an even more interesting and relevant question.)
But the S in TSA stands for security, not surveillance.
TSA screeners looking into baggage should be looking for one thing: any device that poses a threat when stored in the belly of an airplane.
It ain't their business to be looking for drugs of mass distraction or checking to make sure a vibrator is UL compliant.
Their business is to keep your plane from exploding in mid-air.
Look for a bomb, then pass that little suitcase along. In fact, if the TSA likes that slogan, they can have it.
I hereby waive any copyright or trademark or intellectual property rights I may have under the DMCA and the Sonny Bono Disney Copyright Litigation Act.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 09:45 AM | TrackBack
December 08, 2004 | Longer ByrdThe Senate's senior member U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-West Virginia) had this to say about intelliigence reform today. He called his remarks "Playing Politics With Intelligence Reform."
It's a monster of a statement (over 2,500 words), but who am I to edit Mr. Byrd, especially when he is talking about a monster of a bill (615 pages).
The whole statement on the bill, the role of the Senate and the abuse of the conference negotiations is included after the jump.
Here's a Byrd-sized bite.
The Founding Fathers intended Congress to be a check on the power of the Chief Executive, but increasingly Congress appears content to be merely a cheerleader for the president, depending upon which party might be in control at a given moment.The intelligence bill fails to address the unfolding prison abuse scandals in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. The Armed Services Committee has held six hearings on the abuse of prisoners in U.S. military jails. There is mounting evidence that the CIA had some hand in the mistreatment of detainees. The Red Cross has reported on the illegal practices of U.S. intelligence agencies holding "ghost detainees" in secret prisons. Why is this intelligence bill silent on such outrageous policies? How can Congress claim to fix what is wrong with our intelligence agencies if this major piece of legislation doesn't even address such colossal intelligence failures?
The only way to reduce the risk of such failures is to ensure the accountability of this new Intelligence Director to the people's representatives in the Congress. It is Congress that must make the decision to declare war, and it is the Congress that is responsible for the oversight of this new Intelligence Program to help guard against future intelligence failures. It is paramount that the Congress do everything possible to ensure itself access to timely, objective intelligence. Yet, that is not what we see in this legislation.
The conference agreement eliminates provisions to ensure that the Congress receives timely access to intelligence, and it also allows the White House's Office of Management and Budget to screen testimony before the Intelligence Director presents it to the Congress. Whistle blower protections for intelligence officials who report to the Congress also have been stricken from the Senate-passed bill.
The conference agreement creates senior intelligence positions, but exempts many of them from confirmation by the Senate. It eliminates the privacy and civil rights officers included in the Senate-passed bill, and it strips 18 pages of legislative text that would have created an Inspector General and Ombudsman to oversee the Intelligence Director's office. That language has been replaced with one paragraph, authorizing the Intelligence Director, at his discretion, to create or not to create an Inspector General, and provides the Director with the power to decide which, if any investigative powers, to grant the Inspector General.
That means the new Intelligence Director could exempt his office from Inspector General audits and investigations, and that the Congress would not receive reports from an objective internal auditor. The Congress is limiting its own access to vital information within this new Intelligence Office, and it will have, thereby, compromised an essential mechanism for identifying potential abuses within the new Intelligence Program.
Given the dark history of abuses of civil liberties and privacy rights by our intelligence community, I had hoped that the Congress would exercise more caution, but it has not done so in this legislation.
U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd
"Playing Politics With Intelligence Reform"
When the elected representatives of the people allow themselves to be coerced into a process that encourages the abdication of our responsibility to understand and thoroughly review legislation, the people are robbed of their voice in their government.
Senators take an oath to defend the Constitution, and common sense suggests that that means reading and studying the legislation before the Congress. We are duty bound to explore the opinions on all sides of an issue, and to work toward a process that does not exclude opponents or silence the opposition.
In its heyday, the Senate was known as the greatest deliberative body in the world. What we have seen in recent times, however, is a hollow shell of that noble tradition. Time after time, the Senate forgoes its responsibility to deliberate and carefully review legislation, and even defers to others to craft legislation for it.
Legislation is passed by the Senate, and then, too often, hastily rewritten in a conference committee behind closed doors marked, "no minority view admitted." All too often during the 108th Congress, the party leadership has held bills until just before a recess, and then employed disingenuous rhetoric about last opportunities to get something done. Senators preoccupied with holiday schedules and travel plans, for example, timidly roll over and accept whatever is placed in front of them. They do it time and time again.
I anguish about the eroding character of the Senate, and the message it sends to the American people, when this body allows itself to be stampeded into passing legislation without thorough examination. We congratulate ourselves on a job well done, and vote overwhelmingly in support of legislation, and yet we cannot even be bothered to ask questions about the changes made in conference. Like pygmies on the battlefield of history, we cower like whipped dogs in the face of political pressure when it comes to issues like intelligence reform.
I do not claim to know as much about this legislation as the managers of the bill, but I do know about process, and it galls me that the Senate has allowed itself to be jammed against a time deadline in considering this conference report.
This is the most far reaching reorganization of our intelligence agencies since 1947. These changes will remain for decades, and they will impact the security of our nation at countless levels. Such matters ought to be held to a higher standard of consideration by the Congress than is the case here.
This conference report has been reworked and redrafted over the course of two months in a closed door conference, and the Senate has only received a printed copy of the conference agreement less than 24 hours ago. As late as yesterday, the conferees were making changes. It is outrageous to expect Senators to read and understand a 600-page bill in less than 24 hours.
This conference agreement is very different from the legislation that was passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate two months ago. For example, a number of provisions related to the Patriot Act and law enforcement powers have been inserted into this bill, which, again, have never been considered on the Senate floor.
This legislation has encountered virulent opposition since the time of its conception, and while it may enjoy the support of a majority of members here today, nobody can say with any confidence or certainty as to how this new layer of bureaucracy will affect our intelligence agencies or the security of our country. We don't know if it will enable them to better guard against a terrorist attack or whether it will cause a host of unforseen problems. And we are failing, in yet another misguided rush to judgment, to take the time and effort to find out.
The Senate barely understands how the experts line up on this bill. The 9-11 Commission is for it, that much we know. But former CIA Director George Tenet said last week that he opposes this bill. That is sobering criticism from someone who, having left government months ago, no longer has any turf to protect.
A distinguished group of national security experts wrote in September that they oppose any intelligence reform this year. That group included former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman David Boren; former Senator Bill Bradley; former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci; former Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen; former CIA Director Robert Gates; former Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre; former Senator Gary Hart; former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger; former Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn; former Senator Warren Rudman; and former Secretary of State George Schultz. We do not know how these experts regard the bill today. Why should Senators forgo the valuable insight of almost every public figure who may actually be able to assess what is in this new version of intelligence reform?
I say again, let us not believe that we understand what has been included in this conference report. It is, in effect, a new bill that is very different from anything the Senate has considered to date. Common sense suggests that the Congress ought to hold hearings on the contents of this new bill, so that we may be informed by experts about its benefits and defects.
There is no reason why the Senate cannot proceed in this prudent manner early next year. Instead of viewing this conference report as the final stage of the process, we ought to consider it the starting point for debate next year. We ought to invite witnesses back to testify on it, and then allow the process to begin anew, outside the election cycle and built on the foundation of knowledge acquired this year.
Instead, we are allowing ourselves to be lulled into the fallacious belief that we must accept this bill or risk its not passing next year, with some even suggesting that a terrorist attack could result without it. That's nonsense, and don't you believe it. No legislation, alone, can forestall a terrorist attack on our country.
The momentum is strong now to reform our intelligence agencies, and I submit that the greater risk is not that the momentum will dissipate next year if this bill does not pass this week, but that the passage of this bill will remove any incentive to focus on the broader intelligence failures that have occurred outside the war on terror.
This legislation is appropriately focused on the failings of 9-11, but oblivious to the many other glaring deficiencies in our intelligence community. Our country went to war in Iraq on the shoulders of false claims about weapons of mass destruction, but this bill dances around that issue on tippy-toes. It is as though Congress is too afraid to mention the fact that faulty intelligence claims deceived the public into believing that there was an imminent threat from Saddam Hussein.
Why is Congress avoiding that critical issue? Is it because some do not wish to expose the role of the White House in feeding bad intelligence to the American people? The Founding Fathers intended Congress to be a check on the power of the Chief Executive, but increasingly Congress appears content to be merely a cheerleader for the president, depending upon which party might be in control at a given moment.
The intelligence bill fails to address the unfolding prison abuse scandals in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. The Armed Services Committee has held six hearings on the abuse of prisoners in U.S. military jails. There is mounting evidence that the CIA had some hand in the mistreatment of detainees. The Red Cross has reported on the illegal practices of U.S. intelligence agencies holding "ghost detainees" in secret prisons. Why is this intelligence bill silent on such outrageous policies? How can Congress claim to fix what is wrong with our intelligence agencies if this major piece of legislation doesn't even address such colossal intelligence failures?
The only way to reduce the risk of such failures is to ensure the accountability of this new Intelligence Director to the people's representatives in the Congress. It is Congress that must make the decision to declare war, and it is the Congress that is responsible for the oversight of this new Intelligence Program to help guard against future intelligence failures. It is paramount that the Congress do everything possible to ensure itself access to timely, objective intelligence. Yet, that is not what we see in this legislation.
The conference agreement eliminates provisions to ensure that the Congress receives timely access to intelligence, and it also allows the White House's Office of Management and Budget to screen testimony before the Intelligence Director presents it to the Congress. Whistle blower protections for intelligence officials who report to the Congress also have been stricken from the Senate-passed bill.
The conference agreement creates senior intelligence positions, but exempts many of them from confirmation by the Senate. It eliminates the privacy and civil rights officers included in the Senate-passed bill, and it strips 18 pages of legislative text that would have created an Inspector General and Ombudsman to oversee the Intelligence Director's office. That language has been replaced with one paragraph, authorizing the Intelligence Director, at his discretion, to create or not to create an Inspector General, and provides the Director with the power to decide which, if any investigative powers, to grant the Inspector General.
That means the new Intelligence Director could exempt his office from Inspector General audits and investigations, and that the Congress would not receive reports from an objective internal auditor. The Congress is limiting its own access to vital information within this new Intelligence Office, and it will have, thereby, compromised an essential mechanism for identifying potential abuses within the new Intelligence Program.
Given the dark history of abuses of civil liberties and privacy rights by our intelligence community, I had hoped that the Congress would exercise more caution, but it has not done so in this legislation.
The 9/11 Commission recognized that its recommendations call for the government to increase its presence in people's lives, and so it wisely endorsed the creation of an independent Civil Liberties Board to defend our privacy rights and liberties. The Senate-passed bill embraced this recommendation and included additional protections to help ensure that executive agencies could not exert undue influence on the Board. This conference agreement scuttles those protections by burying the Board deep inside of the Office of the President, subjecting Board members to White House pressure.
The conferees included language making changes to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the law that blurs the rules on electronic surveillance and physical searches by the U.S. government. This conference report states that the Intelligence Director shall have authority to direct or undertake electronic surveillance and physical search operations pursuant to FISA if authorized by statute or executive order. This is dangerous ground to walk when the president, through executive order, and, without the authorization of the Congress, can direct this new Intelligence Director to undertake electronic surveillance and physical search operations.
Yet another provision would make terrorist crimes subject to a rebuttable presumption of pretrial detention, which means that prosecutors won't be required to show a judge that the defendant is a flight risk. Instead, the defendant will be presumed to be a flight risk. Are Senators sure we are not trampling on the civil liberties of the American people with the hasty passage of this conference report?
Again, few, if any, Senate hearings have been held on these provisions by the full Senate Judiciary Committee. The inclusion of these provisions in Title VI, with so little examination of their real meaning, reminds me of how the Patriot Act itself was enacted: in haste, with insufficient review, and with no real understanding of its true consequences.
These are unsettling provisions, and the Senate ought to insist on its rights to consider them more carefully. The Senate has not had enough time to understand this legislation or its implications. This new Intelligence Director has been granted significant authorities, and the Congress has not done enough to ensure adequate checks on the actions of the Intelligence Director.
With regard to homeland security, the bill authorizes a significant increase in the number of border patrol agents, immigration investigators, and a significant increase in the number of beds for immigration detention. The bill also authorizes increased funding for air cargo security and for screening airline passengers for explosives. All of these are worthy goals, but the provisions are just empty promises. Last September, when I offered an amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations bill to fund these precise activities, the White House opposed the amendment and my Republican colleagues lined up and voted against it. Today, members will line up and vote for more empty promises.
President Bush had the opportunity to support Congressman Sensenbrenner and insist on tougher immigration reforms in this bill, but he welched. Senators talk about reforms needed to protect against terrorism, and the fact is that this bill is a hodge podge of empty border security promises that the Administration has no intention of funding, and that will only encourage the kind of illegal immigration that leaves our country wide open to terrorists.
It may well be that the only problem that this bill will actually fix is one of politics. Passing this bill in the waning hours of the 108th Congress means that, for all intents and purposes, intelligence reform will be removed from the agenda of the next Congress. By passing this bill today, the Senate will be giving political cover to those who wish to dismiss calls for more thorough reform of intelligence agencies to fix problems that are not addressed in the legislation, including the Iraq WMD fiasco and the abuse of prisoners in secret detention facilities.
Intelligence reform should be done right the first time. But the actual implementation of this bill will be shrouded in secrecy and hidden from public scrutiny. Under this conference report, the total amount of intelligence spending will remain classified, so the American people may never know if the President is short-changing the reform effort that this bill requires. Senators ought not be so willing to rush this bill through, knowing that it may serve as political cover for an Administration that has a sorry history of promising big reform efforts that it never funds.
The 9/11 Commission's endorsement of this legislation will mean nothing if these so-called reforms lead to future intelligence failures.
What the American people will remember is that the Congress abdicated its role to protect their security interests. The American people will remember that the Congress empowered an unelected bureaucrat while doing little else to protect against future intelligence failures.
This process has been hurried and rushed from the beginning, and it has been tainted ever since the decision was made to tie its consideration to a political schedule.
When the 9/11 Commission needed more time to conduct its investigations into the September 11 attacks, the Congress acted magnanimously in granting a two month extension. Senators said at the time: "It would be counterproductive to deny the commission the extra two months it now says it needs to complete its investigations...we cannot feel we are successfully prepared to fight and win the war on terrorism and to protect the American people at home..."
The Founding Fathers would be ashamed of the notion that time is a luxury reserved for the unelected members of independent commissions. What about the Senate, and the elected representatives of the people that serve in this Body? The Framers of the Constitution conceived a Senate that would resist the forces that urge us to bend with each change in the political breeze. To the contrary, the Constitution binds Senators to serve the greater causes of the Republic, and reserves the power of each member to demand more time for debate and thoughtful consideration.
Shame on us for not invoking that wisdom in claiming the additional time we need to better assess this legislation.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 10:36 AM | TrackBack
December 08, 2004 | Business Class Casual CasualtiesThomas Quinn, director of the Federal Air Marshal Service, is again threatening to fire air marshals for not adhering to a dress code, according to this piece by Audrey Hudson in the Washington Times.
Air marshals are being told that if their dress is not up to snuff, they will be suspended from flight duty. <...>One air marshal who asked not to be identified called it "ridiculous" that marshals are expected to blend in with holiday travelers by wearing a suit.
"On Thanksgiving Day, travelers don't wear business suits to visit family and friends," the marshal said. The dress-code policy is a sore point among the traveling marshals, who say it compromises their undercover status.
Now, this is just stupid three ways to Sunday.
But then again, I think the idea of Federal Air Marshals is better than having real air marshalls.
Stick this program in the black budget, have about 20 agents and make everyone think there are 12,000 of them.
It's a cheap way to make sure that anyone contemplating hijacking a plane has to contend with the possibility of an armed law enforcement agent being on board.
And apropos of nothing, does anyone know if air marshals get miles?
Posted by Ryan Singel at 09:55 AM | TrackBack
December 08, 2004 | Intel on Intel ReformLast night, the House approved the intelligence reform compromise. The Senate will follow with a roll call vote today.
For the big picture on the reform's create of a national intelligence director, I defer to one of the giants, Walter Pincus of the Washington Post.
He writes, in part,:
"But the new chief would not be directly in charge of any operations -- not covert actions, the CIA station chiefs around the world, the army of analysts whose job is to connect the dots, or the operators of high-tech collection systems that contribute so much these days to finding and disrupting terrorist plans.The new director also would not have total control over the Defense Department collection agencies, mainly expensive satellite and eavesdropping systems, which provide three-quarters of the country's military and international intelligence.
There are other complications. The new director would have competition for the president's ear. The director of a new national counterterrorism center would be a presidential appointee who would report directly to the president on counterterrorist operations.
This new player is confounding to intelligence experts trying to see how all the new pieces would fit together with the existing system and whether the changes would make anyone safer.
"Have they created a stronger, central, senior person in charge? It is not clear to me that they have," said Winston P. Wiley, a former senior CIA official and terrorism expert. "It's not that budgets and personnel are not important, but what's really important is directing, controlling and having access to the people who do the work. They created a person who doesn't have that."
Full story here.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 09:26 AM | TrackBack
December 07, 2004 | At 615 Pages, It's All Fine PrintThe House is expected to approve the intelligence reform bill conference report tonight. The Senate will likely follow tomorrow.
For those who don't live for legislation, both the House and the Senate passed differing versions. Then each names a team of all-stars that meet to hammer out the differences. This has been what all the stories have been about in the last month. The House has been recalcitrant, not wanting to remove provisions about immigrant drivers' licenses and protecting the Pentagon's turf as long as they could.
Now, on Monday, the conference committee reached a compromise and they now send a unified bill to both the House and Senate for approval, before it goes to the president. Now, neither team can amend the bill without sending the whole thing back to the original committee.
So what they ironed out is what we get:
Here's the civil liberties take on the story.
The bill includes a $40 million dollar proposal for a far-reaching government information-sharing network intended to radically expand the availability of intelligence data across agencies.The system would allow counterterrorism investigators to instantly query a massive system of interconnected commercial and government databases, which hold billions of records on Americans.
The bill also would impose national standards for drivers' licenses and birth certificates, expand the government's wiretap powers and provide funding for research into national biometric identity cards.
To offset these changes, the bill creates a civil liberties board.
But the final proposed board is weaker than in earlier versions and less independent than civil liberties groups think is necessary.
As proposed, the board would be appointed by the president without the need for Senate confirmation and does not have the power to subpoena documents from recalcitrant agencies.
Agencies can also withhold documents from the board on national-security grounds.
Both the Center for Democracy and Technology and the American Civil Liberties Union wanted a more independent board with broad powers to investigate alleged civil liberties abuses.
In the coming year, keep your eyes on the civil liberties board and the intelligence network. The latter is full of perils, but could be very useful for inteliigence analysts. The former, well, could be a great behind the scenes force or it could be a sinecure for old, lazy professors.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 05:18 PM | TrackBack
December 06, 2004 | I Have Met The Enemyand its name is 5 U.S.C. § 552(b) (3).
Posted by Ryan Singel at 01:54 PM | TrackBack
December 03, 2004 | Over the RidgeDHS chief Tom Ridge will be suceeded not by Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson, but by former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik.
I don't know enough about him to comment, but Declan McCullagh seems to have done the first relevant googling.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 12:32 PM | TrackBack
December 03, 2004 | If So, My Computer's Vanity Plate Will Be UNSUBFormer CIA director George Tenet told an information security conference that access to the Internet should be on a know-how to surf safely basis, according to this story by UPI's Shaun Waterman (a fine reporter, BTW).
"I know that these actions will be controversial in this age when we still think the Internet is a free and open society with no control or accountability," Tenet told an information-technology security conference in Washington, "but ultimately the Wild West must give way to governance and control." [...]The way the Internet was built might be part of the problem, he said. Its open architecture allows Web surfing, but that openness makes the system vulnerable, Mr. Tenet said.
Access to networks like the World Wide Web might need to be limited to those who can show they take security seriously, he said.
Reminds me of this AP article from a little over a year ago, which Wired News ran with the great headline: Are You Too Stupid to Surf?
Seeing as how I just spent a good 3 hours pulling spyware and stupid downloads off a computer donated to a friend of mine, I understand where Mr. Tenet is coming from.
But really, ninety percent of avoiding adware and viruses can be taken care of by 1) ditching Internet Explorer for a safer browser such as Firefox, 2) turning off previewing (and HTML for that matter) in email programs, 3) not clicking on attachments and 4) not installing programs from untrusted sources.
Once you master those 4 things, you will certainly have a good shot at getting your Internets driving learner's permit.
Update: In the comment section, Edward Hasbrouck suggests using Pegasus, instead of a MS email client. I'd also suggest Thunderbird, if you can get it to run. I couldn't get it to load on either my Win2k or XP Pro machine. I've installed it on others' computers and it seems to work well, but its spam filter ain't as good as the life-saving SpamBayes filter plug-in I use on my Outlook. Now, I write and get a lot of email, so if someone knows a better client for handling a lot of mail that has a *great* bayesian filter built-in, let me know.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 11:45 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
December 02, 2004 | Some Thanks GivingThis site has been getting better and better.
And that has nothing to do with me.
SSN's graphic design guru and code monkey Beth French has been diligently working behind the scenes, tinkering with code and adding features.
Search is now up and running. Category Archives are available (on your left).
And even cooler, almost every page on the site has what they call in the biz "peristent navigation."
That means even if you go to an individual page or an archive, you still get the archives and search bar on the left.
Go see if you get that kind of functionality from Josh Marshall.
Thanks much, B French.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 02:08 PM | TrackBack
December 02, 2004 | (Secure) Flight Arrival Time Secure Flight is coming to an airport near you soon, according to the program's manager Justin Oberman. Oberman told a homeland security conference that the program will come soon to one or two airlines, according to William Jackson's story in Government Computer News. A couple of problems remain:Although TSA has commandeered airlines’ passenger information from June 2004 to use in tests, Oberman said airlines currently don’t collect much of the information needed for Secure Flight. For instance, people often do not provide a home phone number or home address when making flight reservations. He also said there is no plan for how the privacy of additional personal information submitted to airlines would be protected while in the airlines’ possession. Such details presumably must be worked out before Secure Flight passes muster in a Government Accountability Office evaluation of security and privacy, mandated by Congress before the system can go live.Also Congress only gave the TSA $35 million for 2005 fiscal year. I'm highly sceptical that this program will be rolled out in any form in early 2005. My guess, fall 2005 at the earliest and at only a couple airlines.