| April 2005 Archives | « March 2005 | Main | May 2005 » |
April 29, 2005 | TSA Wargames
The TSA has vowed to use every tool, however anachronistic, to win the war. Critics charge that the TSA is too focused on fighting the last war and that new techniques are called for.
My take: Well, see for yourself and judge if you think these guys can really win a post-modern war.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 04:01 PM | TrackBack
April 29, 2005 | Friday Bicycle Blogging
Tomorrow is May Day, the real Labor Day, a celebration of the people who died to get you an 8-hour work day and of the Haymarket Massacre. All that and its a celebration of spring, too.
And of course, bicycles.
Saturday marks the opening day of the 2005 racing season at the recently revamped Kissena velodrome in Queens, NY.
As faithful readers will remember I am suing the time-space continuum, but alas it (unmindful of the reality that it is a theory, not a fact) is still keeping me from being at the track to cheer on the surly, unkempt messengers (Team Puma) who are hell-bent on using their NYC street skills to take down the Lycra boys.
Read more about the team in this quite well-designed online version of Fixed Magazine.
Fixed's editor Bucky Turco will be there, along with 1986 Olympic cycling medalist Nelson Vails, a messenger from Harlem who won a silver medal in the Los Angeles Olympics.
Bucky sez:
These champion races and Fixed magazine are going to continue spreading the word about this sub culture sport and its devotees, blue collar riders who have a shot at going from bike messengering to the Olympics, like Nelson did.
The velodrome, originally showcased in the '64 World's Fair, was just renovated and sounds great. Its sounds like a fabulous place for an old-old-school Six Day race, that Bucky has been muttering about.
Read more about it and find more photos like the one I stole here at About.com's Queen's entry on tomorrow's race. While you're there, tell the page editor John Roleke hello. He might not remember me, but back in the e-day, we both slaved away for the Man who serves the Man.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 02:47 PM | TrackBack
April 26, 2005 | Encrypted Passports, Maybe?2400 comments, a handful of news articles in some of the most respected media outlets in the world and one public debunking have got the State Department rethinking encryption of the proposed RFID passport.
After the ACLU demonstrated at this year's Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference that the RFID chip could be read from far further than the government had been claiming, the State Department's lead on the project, Frank Moss, is rethinking the necessity of some smart encryption.
That, according to Kim Zetter's follow-up to my earlier articles on the E-passport in today's Wired News.
Frank Moss, deputy assistant secretary for passport services, told Wired News on Monday that the government was "taking a very serious look" at the privacy solution in light of the 2,400-plus comments the department received about the e-passport rule and concerns expressed last week in Seattle by participants at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference. Moss said recent work on the passports conducted with the National Institute of Standards and Technology had also led him to rethink the issue."Basically what changed my mind was a recognition that the (reading distance) may have actually been able to be more than 10 centimeters, and also recognition that we had to do everything possible to protect the security of people," Moss said.[...]
Basic Access Control prevents skimming because it doesn't allow remote readers to access data on the passport without the passport being physically opened and scanned through a reader. It also prevents eavesdropping since it would encrypt the communication channel that opens when the data is sent from the chip to the reader.
Moss said the solution was originally rejected because the United States never planned to include more data on the RFID chip than what could be easily read simply by looking at the passport. That being the case, they believed that anti-skimming technology, such as metal fibers in the passport cover, would prevent anyone from surreptitiously reading a passport as long as it was closed. [...]
Full story here.
There's more of course.
The ACLU is filing a FOIA to see what the State Department's own tests had to say about read range.
Most of the 27 visa waiver countries, which have to start issuing some sort of E-passport by October, are pushing for another year to comply. If they don't get it, then visitors from countries such as England and Australia will have to go to U.S. embassies to get a visa.
Congressman James Sensenbrenner, the powerful head of the Judiciary Committee, doesn't want to let them have that time, and said it was those countries fault for choosing bad technology.
How long does that argument hold up if the U.S. delays the roll out of its own passport because it initially chose insecure technology?
Moreover his resolve may not hold up since the State department says it won't even have readers at ports of entry by then. Also the penalty for non-compliance is double-edged since the State Department really does not want to issue visas to German tourists at busy and understaffed embassies. (Understandable since no one really wants to talk to German tourists.)
Anyhow, moral of the story.
Get your passport now (it's good for 10 years), so you don't have to microwave it later if the government gets it wrong.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 11:42 AM | TrackBack
April 25, 2005 | UnredactedSenate Democrats are criticizing John Bolton, Bush's nominee for United Nations ambassador, on a number of fronts -- from allegations he tried to get analysts fired for not toeing his line on Cuba to portrayals of him as a man given to abusing subordinates (interns of the world, take heart).
But most intriguingly, Democrats are raising questions about Bolton's requests to the National Security Agency to reveal the names of American in NSA transcripts.
For those unfamiliar, the super-secretive NSA, which dwarfs the CIA, specializes in eavesdropping, but is prohibited by law from targetting Americans.
Anytime they pick-up a conversation that involves a "U.S. Person," they have to redact that part of the transcript and they insert a term such as "named American" or "named American official."
John Bolton, it turns out, asked the NSA to reveal those names ten times since 2001, which Democrats seem to suggest means he was spying on his superiors.
Now, I know from talking with various folks that the NSA takes its no-spying on Americans obligation seriously, so I was fascinated that Bolton asked for the names.
But it turns out it looks like the volume of Bolton's requests weren't out of the ordinary.
In fact, the NSA has revealed names some 3000 times since January 2004.
So are Democrats making a mountain out of a bad moustache?
Possibly, though I assume that if one sees a pattern in the kind of documents Bolton asked about (such as trying to get inside dope on a superior), there could be a case to be made.
Regardless, raising the issue got Los Angeles Times reporter Greg Miller to start asking questions, and here's what he found.
For those of you who don't know much about the NSA, James Bamford's books on the agency are fascinating. Start with Body of Secrets, which dishes dirt and then make your way to his first book on the agency, Puzzle Palace, which focuses much more on the agency's bureaucratic history.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 12:03 PM | TrackBack
April 25, 2005 | Freelancer FighterA. Aaron Weisburd is a freelancer.
But he specializes in targetting Islamic radicals on the web, according to Ariana Eunjung Cha's article in the Washington Post.
It did not take long for one e-mail to catch his attention: Ekhlaas.com was offering instructions on how to steal people's personal information off their computers. It was a new development for an Islamic discussion site accustomed to announcing "martyrdom operations," or suicide bombings, against U.S. troops and others in Iraq.Weisburd quickly listed the discovery in his daily log of offensive and dangerous sites, alerting his supporters. A few days later, Ekhlaas experienced an unusual surge in activity, the hallmark of a hacker attack, forcing the company hosting the site to take it down.
It was another small victory for Weisburd, one of a new breed of Internet activists. Part vigilantes, part informants, part nosy neighbors, they search the Web for sites that they say deal in theft, fraud and violence.
Law enforcement both likes and loathes him. They like him for the tips, they loathe him for getting sites shut down that could provide valuable leads.
And the whole project raises some profound questions.
When is a denial of service attack justified?
When is trying to shut down speech justified?
If your goal is eradicating hate and terrorism, is it better to allow hatred and incitement to happen publicly in order to better fight it or to drive it back to the fringes?
What is the difference, if any, between speech and action?
Would you feel differently if Weisburd were targetting spammers and identity thieves?
I got no answers, after all, its only Monday morning.
But I do have things to think about, which is a good way to start the week.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 09:48 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 25, 2005 | Matrix ReloadedThe MATRIX, a controversial law enforcement database designed to collate states' public records and commercial records, ran out of money April 15.
Civil liberties groups targeted the system as a state run successor to the Total Information Awareness system. The ACLU used FOIA to acquire documents showing the system was designed to use predictive data-mining (think pre-crime).
Florida officials now say that this capability was never given to the 13 participating states.
Even though federal funding has run out, Florida wants to begin anew, this time with a few changes.
Instead of a central database, Florida wants a system that can search databases remotely. This should improve accuracy and cut down on costs for other states -- though it will significantly impact the system's speed.
Florida is also looking to add data it did not have before -- specifically insurance data. What that actually means is hard to know.
There's more for those of you interested in my story in today's Wired News.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 09:35 AM | TrackBack
April 21, 2005 | If You're Smoking in San FranciscoDennis Roddy, an old-fashioned reporter (that's a compliment folks), a gentleman intellectual and columnist at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, turned in a little piece on San Francisco a couple of months ago, but it escaped my sight.
Many of you may have read Roddy's absurdly well-written profile of John Gilmore, (c'mon admit it, how many of you EFF-heads knew Gilmore worked as a Tilt-A-Wheel operator and was once shot).
Well, Roddy had a little something else to write on his trip to San Francisco.
Bill Scannell, a public relations consultant with whom I dined here last week, tells of the adventure of ordering a beer in a city in which sex and politics are indistinguishable and all-encompassing."I asked the bartender what beer he would recommend. He said, 'As a gay man and as a gay bartender, I think you should have...' " Scannell shrugged. "Sometimes you want to shake these people and tell them, 'I don't care what you are. What do you do?' "
It has been so many years that it is hard to recall that when my uncle first moved here after the war, San Francisco was a conservative town that occasionally held an earthquake. Forty years later, Jeanne Kirkpatrick stood before the Republican National Convention and dismissed "the San Francisco Democrats." Geography alone was enough to doom the 1984 Democratic slate.
After his wife died, my uncle brought her back to Johnstown, buried her in her family's plot at St. John's Cemetery, and returned to San Francisco. He came here because there was work as a university librarian, an established, even stodgy, community, and weather nice enough for him to golf in early spring and late autumn.
In 1976 one of my closest friends left Johnstown because he was gay. He ended up in famously gay-friendly San Francisco. He was a leftist as well, and San Francisco is so left it is a wonder the cars keep in the correct lanes. It is strange to think about, but as we play the red-state, blue-state game there is much reason to consider the implications of a nation in which someone would select a home not for the climate but its political comfort level.
In San Francisco, the feel-like temperature for the Democrats is a balmy 78. For George Bush, it is arctic. Those of us in the gelatinous middle are left to wonder at a town in which people walk with such moral certainty about everything from smoking (banned) to sex (encouraged) to driving (aggressive). It could be argued, I suspect, that this place is Dallas for lefties.
Finish reading the whole thing here.
Now for the record, I officially doubt Scannell's anecdote, but someday kids I'll tell a real story about a San Francisco bar.
It involves, as one could guess, drinking with Roddy in a San Francisco lesbian bar. A San Francisco lesbian bar that you can, though Roddy didn't, smoke in.
Until then, keep your eyes on his column and wonder to yourself what Pittsburgh has on your city to deserve such well-chosen words in its daily rag.
I'd trade almost all of the Chronicle lifestyle staff and all of its editorial board (hell, Pittsburgh I won't make you take Ken Garcia), for one Dennis Roddy.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 04:01 PM | TrackBack
April 21, 2005 | One Good Linedeserves more credit than it usually gets.
Matt Welch, blogging over at Reason's Hit & Run, takes on the stupidity of the U.S. government's selective restrictions on the number of people a religion can send to Cuba.
Santeria has limits; the Catholic Church doesn't.
Master Welch sez:
"I guess freedom's just another word for Don't Fuck With Our Totally Successful Cuba Policy."
Whole thing here.
Welch's related story on the Cuban ban's effect on baseball history is here.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 03:24 PM | TrackBack
April 21, 2005 | Roger Roger, Lighter LighterAirplanes are getting better mileage now, thanks to an odd tactic of forcing passengers to throw away fuel. Yes, its a paradox (an actually interesting paradox), but the government is now requiring all passengers to discard their personal lighters before boarding a commercial airliner.
According to Ken Kaye's story in Florida's Sun-Sentinel, airport screeners in three Florida airports confiscated over 1,000 lighters on April 15, the day the lighter ban went into effect.
Scores of smokers were caught by surprise as they arrived at South Florida's three major airports on Thursday and learned cigarette lighters were banned on board airliners.[...]"I'm guessing I'm going to throw them out before I get on the plane," said businessman John Ray, as he prepared to fly from Palm Beach International Airport to Austin, Texas. "You think I can write off my lighters when I get home?"[...]
Although a traveler still may carry up to four books of matches, lighters are now forbidden in a person's pockets or carry-on items to prevent terrorists from easily igniting explosives on an airplane, the TSA said.
While the weight savings may seem minimal, think of the effect in the larger terms of the effect of 2.8 million passengers a day. In fact, little birdies tell me that the savings might actually rescue the beleagured industry and that industry analysts are already preparing to release buy recommendations on nearly all airline stocks.
(UPDATE: While their stocks will inevitably climb higher than a 747 at cruising altitude, pay no attention to the airline industry talk about using the fuel in the confiscated lighter to actually propel the plane and giving discounts to passenges based on the number of lighters they surrender. That's lighter-the-sky technology and such whispers are simply intended to to pump up stock prices to sub-orbital levels and to lure unsuspecting passengers into making planes even more lighter by bringing more than one lighter to the airport.)
Of course, that's ironic too, since this rule got a major boost from the supposedly anti-corporate agit-prop filmmaker Michael Moore, who prominently featured Senator Dick Durbin expounding on the evils of lighters in the classic Fahrenheit 9/11.
You might remember this as the segment either before or after the one decrying the lack of state police defending the coast of Oregon from boatloads of Islamic fundamentalists intent on destroying Nike factories.
(Please no one tell them that Nike moved all its factories overseas and that if you want to light a shoe-bomb, you might try doing that in the bathroom, so other passengers don't see you)
As you recall both segments were biting indictments of the Bush Administration's *snort* supposed *airquotes* homeland security efforts.
Anyhow, enough about Michael Moore.
Today, I'm giving away for free, for you my readers and for you Google hounds (Shoutout to Jerome from Duluth, GA), a free business idea.
Yes, its little known but I come up with hundreds of business ideas a day, and its only my lack of motivation and startup captial, that I'm not posting to my blog while sipping from a freshly split open coconut and lounging in a hammock from my own private Koh.
Anyhow, here's the idea. You "hire" an 8 year-old intern (find one at a charter school near you) to stand near the checkpoint and beg passengers to donate their soon to be confiscated lighters for a charity, African Abes, that ships the lighters to school children in the African bush so they will have light at night to study by.
Then at the exits of airports, you have some other iontern sell the lighters to nicotine starved pax for $1.00 a pop or $10 for a vintage Vietnam War zippo that some still-shell-shocked vet was forced to hand over before he could get on a plane to visit the VA hospital in D.C. for a double-blind study investigating whether massive does of Viagra can cure ex-grunts who wake up in the middle of the night yelling "Man down, Man down."
It's a brilliant business model indeed, and this is me letting you, my dear readers, know how damn lucky you are I didn't already file a business method patent on this puppy.
Light 'em, if you got 'em.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 10:39 AM | TrackBack
April 20, 2005 | Hearings Worth the TitleThe Patriot Act will get another going over tomorrow morning in the House Judiciary committee, yet another in a series of hearings that have been far more extensive and rational than the debate that preceded its hasty passage or followed its implementation over the last three years.
Ohio State law professor Peter Swire, who served as privacy czar in the Clinton Administration, will testify tomorrow, and from what I've heard, he's got more than one interesting point.
For those of you who use VOIP or are considering switching, you might pay attention to his analysis of how Patriot Act rules regarding government access to stored communication, such as voice mail, make it unintentionally easier for the government to get a hold of VOIP conversations.
He's also going to talk a little about the history of Clinton era attempts to update surveillance laws and how the Judiciary Committee actually thought those proposals were overbroad prior to September 11.
And finally, he'll have something to say in defense of another round of sunset provisions, which he argues will force the Justice Department to be judicious in its use of its powers and force the country to have another debate about particular powers in another few years.
While some of this is wonky, its important stuff, its the stuff of democracy and its more than worth your time to click over, read his written testimony and to look at what representatives from the Justice Department, the FBI and the Center for Democracy and Technology have to say.
Its actually pretty heartening to see the level of debate going on in Congress. Unfortunately, much of it is considered to dry to cover by mainstream media outlets, who prefer instead to lavish hours of coverage on the pope death/resurrection watch.
David Keene, who heads the American Conservative Union, sees the same thing I'm seeing.
Here's what he had to say in a recent email, which in deference to the depth of the debate in Congress, I'll quote in full:
As party wrangling over judges, ambassadorial nominations and the ethics of Republican and Democratic leaders alike makes Congress look more and more like an asylum in which the inmates have truly seized control, it is interesting to note that islands of civility and sanity still exist.Remarkably, one such island is the Senate Judiciary Committee, where in the last weeks senators of both parties have begun a serious examination of the so-called USA Patriot Act. The act was cobbled together in the days after Sept. 11, 2001, and passed hastily by a Congress and administration scrambling to deal with an unprecedented threat to our security. It granted long-sought investigative and law-enforcement powers to the government but raised the hackles of civil libertarians and even worried many of those in Congress who voted for it.
Those concerns were enough to persuade a majority in Congress to "sunset" some of the more controversial parts of the legislation to force a review in hopefully calmer times and after everyone had some experience living under it. That sun will set Dec. 31 of this year on the provisions Congress wanted to look at more closely, unless action is taken before then.
The hearings began with testimony from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who, while unsurprisingly defending everything his agency has done since Sept. 11, expressed an apparently sincere willingness to look anew at the act, listen to its critics and perhaps even accept reforms as long as they don't "compromise our security interests."
Critics of the act were heartened by his tone. They were accustomed to being accused willy-nilly of being soft on terrorism or in league with the enemy by his predecessor, even when raising questions about the extraordinary government powers granted in the act.
To be fair to former Attorney General John Ashcroft, it must be noted that under his direction the Department of Justice acted far more responsibly in pursuing the war on terrorism than many of his critics have believed. Abuses under the act were rare, and he didn't utilize the powers given him to the degree that he might have. Thus much of what critics have feared might happen hasn't happened - yet. Now Congress is looking for ways to guarantee that it won't happen tomorrow.
As attorney general, Ashcroft bothered his critics more with his rhetoric and his unwillingness to consider the legitimacy of any questions about the act, or the potential threat some of its provisions posed to innocent citizens, than anything. One of his former congressional colleagues told me over lunch one day that, while "I love John, I can't understand why he or any other rational human being would go before the House Judiciary Committee and answer the chairman's questions by essentially telling him to go pound salt."
Ashcroft was, of course, mostly right about the act. Most of the provisions included in its several hundred pages were needed and are relatively uncontroversial. They did update law enforcement's ability to operate in an evolving hypertechnological world and allowed law enforcement and intelligence agencies to coordinate and communicate in ways that had been prohibited and had handcuffed them in the war on terror.
Even spokesmen for the ACLU acknowledge that 95-98 percent of the act was needed and has their support. They don't support repeal and don't believe any of the reforms they and conservatives like me support would hamper the war on terror.
What they do believe is that the reforms contained in what has become known as the SAFE Act, introduced in the Senate by Democrat Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Republican Larry Craig (Idaho) even as Gonzales was testifying, would safeguard individual liberties if some future Justice Department decides to use powers granted to fight terrorists for less legitimate reasons.
Reforms contained in the SAFE Act have the support of senators as different as Durbin and Craig and groups as diverse as the American Conservative Union (which I head) and the ever-contentious ACLU. This gives the act an opportunity finally to be taken seriously.
What's perhaps more impressive is that members of Congress from both sides of the aisle in both houses are sitting down together for a serious look at legislation that affects us all but is as susceptible to demagoguery as anything before them.
Although the jury will remain out for a while, this could conceivably be taken as evidence that Washington is not quite as dysfunctional as most of us fear.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 11:26 PM | TrackBack
April 19, 2005 | 40 YearsSenator Kent Conrad started reminicising at a Congressional hearing in March and let slip that a relative of his had been a CIA station chief some 40 years ago.
He also said his name: Harden Smith.
Though it been biblical time since Smith worked in Libya, his name remains classified as the CIA considers station chiefs to be covert operatives.
John Donnelly of Congressional Quarterly has more on this and the later attempt to expunge the record here.
After the hearing, the Budget Committee got a call from the Pentagon requesting that the panel delete the line from its official transcript, which it did. On the committee’s Web site, most hearings are available on Real Video, but clicking on the link to watch the March 1 hearing brings up “file not found.”Conrad was not the only one who was asked to delete the information. Congressional Quarterly, which posts transcripts of hearings on CQ.com, likewise was asked to remove this one. The request to CQ, like that to the Budget Committee, came not from the CIA but from the Pentagon’s Office of Legislative Affairs. It did not come until a month after the hearing, without explanation of the putative security risk. CQ declined.
There’s nothing wrong with the government asking news organizations to delete information that it deems to be classified, as long as there’s no explicit or implied threat of retaliation against the news outlet, said Steven Aftergood, an expert on government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. But in this case, he said, there does not appear to be a security imperative that justifies a deletion.
“This individual is retired,” Aftergood said of Smith. “The fact that in the past he may have served undercover is no longer national security information.”
Posted by Ryan Singel at 10:02 AM | TrackBack
April 15, 2005 | Bush Not Emailing It InPresident Bush told a gathering of newspaper editors that he doesn't email his daughters because he's worried his email would be subject to the Freedom of Information Act, according to this Reuters story.
But when it comes to e-mail, Bush said he avoids it because "everything is investigated in Washington" and as a result "we're losing a lot of history, not just with me, but with other presidents as well."As a result, he does not use this form of communication to talk to his twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara.
"I don't want you reading my personal stuff," he told the editors.
"There has got to be a certain sense of privacy. You know, you're entitled to how I make decisions. And you're entitled to ask questions, which I answer. I don't think you're entitled to be able to read my mail between my daughters and me," he said.
Now, I have no idea how this was received by his audience, but any reporter familiar with FOIA should be laughing.
First, the White House is mostly, and the President totally, exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.
Second, even if he were not, no FOIA officer would ever release an email sent from a government employee to his or her daughter, unless it were about giving her a no-bid contract to run nightclubs in Iraq.
You just don't get that kind of personal information with a FOIA -- it would fall under exemptions.
Frankly, it's a lame answer to the current problems with FOIAs.
(Though I would like here to publicly thank the FOIA officers at the Social Security Administration for their recent work.)
And, Bush should know, or someone should tell him, that he has more to fear from Mossad snooping on his emails than he does from the few reporters willing to go through the hassle of filing FOIAs that too often result in pages of redacted nothingness.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 09:53 AM | TrackBack
April 14, 2005 | Load Up on Toner, FolksA Senate Commerce Committee flack sent me this today:
Commerce Committee Approves “Junk Fax” Bill.
Then just seconds later, I got this correction: Commerce Committee Approves “Junk Fax Prevention” Bill.
The original would be funny, except for the fact, that, well, the original is closer to the truth.
The Senate, being urged on by the Nation's second most biggest bestower of campaign funds, the National Association of Realtors, is looking to make it legal for any business to fax you provided you have ever called, spoken to, visited or purchased anything from that business in the last seven years.
In a hearing yesterday, Senator Barbara Boxer, standing up for a little common sense, said the bill should be called the "Junk Fax Promotion Act."
The rapid action on the bill is intended to stop pending FCC rules that will require any business to have a signed permission slip in order to fax anyone anything even resembling an ad.
Almost everyone knows that is too onerous (especially since you can't fax the permission slip), but instead of allowing for a simple verbal or emailed consent to be enough, Congress is making it possible for companies to spam you mercilessly at your own expense and creating a gigantic loophole that will be abused by junk faxers.
For those of you nerdy enough to go look up the bill, its S. 714 and will soon go to Senate floor. A version of this passed the Senate late in last year's session, and its highly likely this bill, or some modified version, will be signed into law soon.
Better start checking Froogle for cheap toner.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 12:39 PM | TrackBack
April 14, 2005 | Data Leaks: So In, They Are Out?Ralph Lauren, the mainstay of upper-middle class fashion, has decided to jump on the data leak bandwagon, letting it be known that hundreds of thousands of their customers' names and credit card numbers have fallen into the hands of ne'er-do-wells.
Ralph Lauren, ever tasteful and demure, doesn't quite want to trumpet its leak, perhaps fearing being as tarty as Paris Hilton.
The security breach was reported in Thursday's editions of The Wall Street Journal, which quoted "people with knowledge of the matter" as saying the data was stolen at Polo Ralph Lauren.A spokeswoman at Polo Ralph Lauren, which is headquartered in New York, said "we have no comment at the moment" on the report. She asked that her name not be used.
But still, now that ever preppy's favorite flannel sheet retailer has gotten in on the action, one can only wonder if the trend has peaked.
How long can it be until every knock-off Gucci handbag shop in Chinatown starts announcing that their IT systems (their cellphones, presumably) were hacked?
Seriously, data leaks are so last month.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 09:56 AM | TrackBack
April 13, 2005 | Putting Chief in Chief Privacy OfficerNuala O'Connor Kelly, Homeland Security's chief privacy officer, needs some better tools in her tool box -- at least according to News.com's Declan McCullagh.
McCullagh makes a convincing argument that Congress needs to give O'Connor Kelly the power to subpoena Homeland Security officials to turn over documents so she can investigate appropriately.
When politicians were concocting the massive bureaucracy a few years ago, they handed the privacy officer impressive-sounding tasks such as "assuring" that new technologies do not erode privacy and "evaluating" the impact of new government programs.But Congress also neglected to give the job holder the power to twist arms and actually investigate privacy violations.
Nuala O'Connor Kelly, who got the post in April 2003, seems to be honestly trying to report on the sprawling bureaucracy's privacy performance.
O'Connor Kelly started looking into the TSA's role in convincing JetBlue to turn over its entire passenger database -- in total violation of its privacy promises to its customers -- to an Army contractor working on a data mining project, a story I broke for Wired News in September 2003.
For those keeping score at home, the TSA denied to me, the public and Congress that it had any role in that secret transfer or that any of its own contractors got data. That house of outright falsities fell little by little, as O'Connor Kelly finally reported that the TSA actually did ask JetBlue to help and almost a year later, the TSA admitted to Congress that 6 of the nation's largest airlines and a number of airline reservation companies had given data to the agency and its contractors.
Another internal DHS document (PDF)--obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center--reveals the difficulties that Kelly has encountered when asking recalcitrant bureaucrats to disgorge potentially embarrassing information.Kelly was looking into how the Transportation Security Administration was involved with the transfer of passenger data from JetBlue Airways to the Defense Department. She started asking questions. She was rebuffed.
"I had sent my first inquiry to TSA public affairs, my second to (the agency's risk assessment office), but information has not been forthcoming," Kelly said in e-mail to Carol DiBattiste, the transportation security agency's deputy administrator, in November 2003. "This is particularly disturbing...We're getting better information from outside then we have from our own folks at this time."
DiBattiste sounded like she was replying to a pesky reporter when she wrote back: "TSA Public Affairs has no information in response to your request."
How fitting, then, that DiBattiste landed a plum $500,000-a-year job last month with privacy-impaired company ChoicePoint.
In a uncharacteristic fit of generosity, Declan omits the fact that on top of the half million salary, DiBattiste also gets a minimum bonus of $350,000 for 2005 and another $100,000 if she manages to stick around for a year.
At the same time, DiBattiste had no answers for O'Connor Kelly, she had only false ones for Congress. She was then the chief of staff for then-TSA boss Admiral James Loy, who was up for a promotion. He had to get through Senate confirmation and privacy conscious Senators Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins asked Loy about the TSA and JetBlue and its contractors.
His sworn answers to their written questions were flat out false.
Don't take my word for it -- look at page 44 of the Homeland Security Inspector General's cautious and overly redacted report (.pdf) on the data transfers.
TSA employees assisted in preparing responses to a pre-hearing questionnaire for the DHS Deputy Secretary’s November 18, 2003, confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs.55 One question sought information about TSA’s role in the transfer of JetBlue passenger information to Torch Concepts. The November 18, 2003, response to the question stated that TSA provided assistance "…only in the form of an introduction for DOD to JetBlue Airlines [sic]."In late November or early December 2003, TSA staff located a July 30, 2002, memorandum from the CAPPS II program manager to JetBlue’s security director requesting that the airline provide PNR data to Torch Concepts. Because this memo contradicted the Deputy Secretary’s November 18, 2003, response to the Committee on Governmental Affairs, on February 23, 2004, the Deputy Secretary sent a letter to the Chairman of the Committee amending his prior statement. His statement was amended to read, “In a July 30, 2002 memorandum, TSA requested that JetBlue provide archived passenger data to the DOD.” TSA staff did not provide a clear explanation as to why this memorandum was not brought to the Deputy Secretary’s attention before the November 18, 2003, hearing.
In another confirmation pre-hearing question, the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs asked whether contractors working on CAPPS II had used any real world data for testing purposes. The Deputy Secretary’s response was that “TSA has not used any PNR data to test any of the functions of
CAPPS II. TSA is using certain information provided by volunteers, many are DHS employees,” including senior DHS officials. TSA did use volunteered information to test CAPPS II; however, PNR data also was used to test some of the system’s functions.
Now, I reported on these false statements, here and here.
But note, two very interesting things about the defanged IG report, one of the first after Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin was kicked to the curb by the Bush Administration.
One, to preserve the "privacy" of Admiral Loy and his staff, the report omits all names from its report.
Two, note that the report says that one of the statements was corrected. It mentions the other false statement, but neglects to point out or criticize the department for not correcting false sworn testimony to Congress. Neither Loy nor the TSA can claim they don't know about the statement since I reported it in April of 2004, almost a full year before the IG report. I tried to call Loy for clarification, but his office did not deign to respond to my phone call.
And, finally, to come full circle, ChoicePoint's Derek Smith should be very happy to have DiBattiste as his privacy overseer.
She was then Loy's chief of staff. Nothing that went for his signature, especially something that would be signed under penalty of perjury, could have gotten to Loy without her seeing and vetting it first.
But still, it seems her desire to protect her employer and her organization trumped her commitment to the truth and the rule of law.
Nowadays, that seems to be a laudable quality in any high level employee of an organization dogged by questions of impropriety, bad faith communications with the public, and sloppy and invasive information practices. Or it least its one that will get you a million dollar a year paycheck.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 12:02 AM | TrackBack
April 12, 2005 | LexisNexis: Ours is BiggerLexisNexis is sick of all the press ChoicePoint is getting and decided yesterday to one-up its competitor.
LexisNexis announced yesterday that almost ten times as many people were affected by a recent data spill. LexisNexis originally said intruders had gotten at sensitive data on 32,000 Americans. The company says that number is actually 310,000.
By comparison, ChoicePoint was able to put only 150,000 or so Americans at risk of data theft.
The breach occured when unspecified, unathorized parties used legitimate passwords to get data from Seisint, a data profiling firm it recently bought. Seisint is best known as the company that ran the controversial Matrix, a federal government-funded tool that allows police to pull up detailed dossiers on suspects.
Massachusetts Congressman Ed Markey is pissed and he has a email list.
“How many times must Americans have their most private information: tax records, social security numbers, financial information, health records handed over to thieves in order for companies like LexisNexis to start establishing protections for consumers?” asked Representative Ed Markey.
“LexisNexis has turned a blind eye to protecting its customers, once again. There is no excuse for their lack of action – this abuse of privacy of hundreds of thousands of Americans must stop. The identities of Americans are valued personal possessions, not some product to be carelessly bought and sold and tossed to the wind when they are not useful to these companies.”
I don't know about you but data leak stories are getting really old, though this one-ups-manship is a pretty media savvy way for LexisNexis to revive this debate post-Schiavo-Pope.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 09:27 AM | TrackBack
April 07, 2005 | No Stone LeftJohn Gilmore has long pointed out that the T in TSA is for "transportation," meaning that the agency's focus on aviation would soon expand.
Sara Goo of the Washington Post begs to differ.
TSA's chief Admiral David Stone is being asked to resign come June as part of a larger administration effort to shrink or even get rid of the TSA, according to this story.
Key programs, such as Secure Flight, are being transferred over to offices in Homeland Security proper. Airport screeners, who were federalized after the hijackings in 2001, may soon be replaced by private contractors.
The Transportation Security Administration, once the flagship agency in the nation's $20 billion effort to protect air travelers, is now targeted for sharp cuts in its high-profile mission.[...]
The TSA has been plagued by operational missteps, public relations blunders and criticism of its performance from both the public and legislators. Its "No Fly" list has mistakenly snared senators. Its security screeners have been arrested for stealing from luggage, and its passenger pat-downs have set off an outcry from women.
Under provisions of President Bush's 2006 budget proposal favored by Congress, the TSA will lose its signature programs in the reorganization of Homeland Security. The agency will likely become just manager of airport security screeners -- a responsibility that itself could diminish as private screening companies increasingly seek a comeback at U.S. airports. The agency's very existence, in fact, remains an open question, given that the legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security contains a clause permitting the elimination of the TSA as a "distinct entity" after November 2004.
[...]
"Most Republicans didn't want to create this [agency] in the first place. Democrats see security as an easy target. So you don't have anyone to defend it," said C. Stewart Verdery Jr., a former assistant secretary for policy and planning at Homeland Security's border and transportation security directorate, which includes the TSA. "If someone sneaks a knife through an airport, it makes the news. If the Coast Guard misses a drug boat, no one hears about it."
The TSA won early plaudits for swiftly building the first new federal agency in decades and restoring confidence in the nation's aviation system. It achieved 51 goals demanded by Congress under tight deadlines and took over many responsibilities from the FAA, including the expansion and operation of a program of undercover air marshals. At its peak, it had 66,000 federal employees and met deadlines that were unthinkable by the federal government, installing luggage-scanning technology and hiring a new workforce of airport security screeners within a year.
Bit by bit, however, the agency's responsibilities have steadily dwindled through a succession of directors. Many of its operations have been folded into Homeland Security, which it joined in 2003. The TSA scrapped early plans to create a broad law-enforcement division. The air marshals, who lobbied to leave the agency, were transferred to the department's Immigration and Customs Enforcement division -- to the dismay of TSA leaders. Next, the explosives unit left. Now, the agency's high-tech research labs in Atlantic City are also going to another division of the department
Posted by Ryan Singel at 09:17 PM | TrackBack
April 07, 2005 | Thursday Bicycle Blogging
Normally, I blog only about bikes on fun Fridays, but excuse the break in custom, because today Wired News published my story about growing popularity of fixed gear bikes.
Jim Wirtanen spent 12 years as a bike messenger dodging buses and cabs on the streets of Boston. He earned the name "Deadguy" after being hit by a speeding Lincoln Continental on the third week of the job. The collision threw him 40 feet across an intersection and he hit his head on a light pole.Wirtanen recovered, returned to messaging and for the last 6 years of his career, delivered packages and legal documents using a brakeless, single-speed bike known as a track bike.
Though a bike with no brakes sounds insane to many, Wirtanen swears by it.
"Basically, a track bike is the perfect invention," said Wirtanen, who now works as a mechanic at Harris Cyclery. "You can't make it any better."
Wirtanen is far from alone in embracing the most basic bicycle technology in an age where major bicycle companies focus on the latest in high-tech gear, including full-suspension mountain bikes with SUV-strength disc brakes and ultra-lightweight titanium road bikes with carbon-fiber everything.
Long a favorite of fearless bike couriers, the "fixie" is growing in popularity among young urban American cyclists, who love the bike's pure lines, low price and street cred.
The handsome bikes are everywhere in San Francisco. If you have a good eye, you can even tell who is on one from blocks away by the smoothness of a rider's cadence.
Now, I'm partial to the fixed gear (or fixie), but I don't have one. I have a wheel waiting for the right frame. But I have adopted a single-speed bike, converted from an old Japanese ten-speed found at a thrift store, and turned it into my daily ride. It's simple, its got a fine profile (the lovely red lady gets many compliments), and she keeps me from trying to ride too aggressively.
One of these Fridays, I'll share a photo.
In the meantime, hop over to Wired to read the story and if you want more pictures, try the fixed gear gallery.
And while I'm at it, let me thank all the kind bike folks who took the time to talk to me. This includes Carlos Corujo of Freewheel in San Francisco, Greg Spear over at Pedal Revolution in San Francisco, the guy named Brian who let me take a picture of his Fontana outside Place Pigalle in Hayes Valley, and folks from American Cyclery and KHS Bicycles.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 02:47 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
April 07, 2005 | Secondary SearchesMany people don't know that when you use a search engine and click-through to a website, the website you are going to gets told what search terms you used to get there.
I used to work at a big search company and there was nothing better than reading the found poetry that is a live feed of search queries (unless it was late in the evening, in which case you really did not want to see what people were searching for).
I can't tell from my logs who you are, though if I were industrious enough I might be able to find the logs of queries and IP addresses. I'm not interested in that though.
But I am interested in those of you who were looking for answers and couldn't find them, so I did a little data mining.
- Those wanting to know how to sneak pot onto an airplane (Example search: "get a dope stash through airport security" ): I have no advice for you, except to say that John Perry Barlow's experience should convince you that putting even a small amount of pot in your checked luggage isn't the smartest thing to do.
- Does Peter Jennings smoke? (Example search: "Peter Jenning smoke") I have no idea, but Peter Jennings is my favorite of the Big Three and this was one of the greatest TV moments I've ever seen.
- Is there a class action lawsuit against FreeIpods.com? (Example search: "gratis free ipod scam lawsuit") I have no idea, but there ought to be some legal recourse for all the spam in message boards from the fools seeking other fools to help them get a free lunch.
- Folks looking for the assets of Fax.com: (Example search: "cascade trust kevin katz") - Good luck finding this money, its likely still in a Radcliffe's Swiss bank account (ask for Serge!), but it wouldn't hurt to call Mellon Bank NA in Philadelphia or the Cozen O'Connor law firm.
Some one -off searches I don't know the answer to:
- number of americans concerned about privacy 2005 (ed. note: after all the recent data leaks, I'd guess more than in 2004)
- how to ask a guy on a date in a short notice (ed. note: by phone?)
- usefulness of hunches (ed. note: Go ask Malcolm Gladwell)
- deadbeat dads reported by airline (ed. note: not that I'm aware of, those avoiding child support are free to fly around the country)
- memo to employees do not shout at office (ed. note: a fine policy)
- reasons why people carry lighters and matches (ed. note: you never know when the pilot light will go out)
- bypassing school internet blocks by alternet searching (ed. note: who knew Alternet was in the proxy business and by the way, Alternet still owes me $60)
- number of singel parents (ed. note: I have two and they are both lovely people and thanks for asking)
- dod/black budget (ed. note: a damn good question)
And finally, a lazy web search of my own.
Does anyone out there know why the International Atomic Energy Agency (www.iaea.org and iaea.org) is number one with a bullet in my referrer logs, even though they don't link to me at all?
Posted by Ryan Singel at 10:49 AM | TrackBack
April 06, 2005 | Big TimeMy most excellently brilliant musician friend Kelley Stoltz, who has spent the last four or six or eight years of his life making music in his room on an eight track, is now officially signed to Sub Pop records.
Sub Pop, perhaps best known as the label that launched Nirvana, is home to a bunch of great bands, inluding Low, Sleater-Kinney, the Shins and San Francisco-based Rogue Wave.
Kelley is a sonic genius, a brilliant song writer and a perfectionist who has long worked without recognition. He put out his last album, Antique Glow, as a self-release on vinyl only.
After a couple of years of handing them out and selling them in hand painted covers, he got a local label, Jackpine Social Club, to put it out on CD in the States. The album was also released in Australia and the UK, where Stoltz is much better known than he is here.
In fact, as I've mentioned here before, England's best music magazine, MOJO, profiled him last fall and named his album one of the top 40 albums of 2004. There's also this nice SF Weekly piece from 2003.
Try this little rockin' number, this psychedelic one and some other free mp3s here (especially good to click if you love Echo and the Bunnymen) (hint: headphones are a must to catch his 8 track brilliance).
Look for his new record in September or October.
The boy ain't no joke and its really quite nice to see the world finally coming around to appreciate such a kind and talented guy.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 11:44 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 05, 2005 | More Travel Restrictions ComingThe Department of Homeland Security announced today that starting in 2008 as soon as the end of the year, you will need a passport to visit Mexico, Canada and Bermuda.
From the press release:
The Departments of Homeland Security and State announced today the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative to secure and expedite travel. The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative will require all U.S. citizens, Canadians, citizens of the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda, and citizens of Mexico to have a passport or other accepted secure document to enter or re-enter United States by January 1, 2008.Currently, U.S. citizens, and some citizens of other countries in the Western Hemisphere are not required to present a passport to enter or re-enter the U. S. when traveling within the Western Hemisphere. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA, also known as the 9/11 Intelligence Bill), signed into law on December 17, 2004, mandated that the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, develop and implement a plan to require U.S. citizens and foreign nationals to present a passport, or other secure document when entering the United States.
Actually what the law said was that DHS had to decide what documents -- whether that be a passport, a driver's license, a state identification card or some other identification --, are sufficient to re-enter your own country.
The catch was that the document has to be able to prove both identity and citizenship.
The schedule is as follows:
- December 31, 2005 - Apply the requirement to all travel (air/sea) to or from the Caribbean, Bermuda, Central and South America.
- December 31, 2006 - Apply the requirement to all air and sea travel to or from Mexico and Canada.
- December 31, 2007 - Apply the requirement to all air, sea and land border crossings.
For those interested here's the text of the Intelligence Reform bill and the passport requirement is in Section 7209.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 11:19 AM | TrackBack
April 04, 2005 | Berkeley Chancellor on Data TheftUC Berkeley's Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau sent an email Monday night to some of the 98,000 individuals whose data was stolen last week when a thief made off with a laptop.
Here's what he wrote:
CHANCELLOR'S MESSAGE ON PERSONAL DATA SECURITYAs Chancellor of the Berkeley campus, I was stunned to learn of the theft of a laptop computer in the Graduate Division, which contained personal information for approximately 98,000 current and former graduate students as well as persons who applied to our graduate programs. Our students, staff and alumni expect us to protect the information they have given us confidentially, and we have not maintained that trust. This incident revealed serious gaps in our management of this kind of data. The campus has been instituting new policies to address these issues for several months, and we will do much more. Accountability for this effort ultimately lies with me.
This problem began with what the UC police have called a crime of opportunity. The police believe that the perpetrator was targeting the laptop computer, not the personal information it contained. The stolen computer contained information on most individuals who applied to graduate school at UC Berkeley between fall 2001 and spring 2004 (except law school students); graduate students who enrolled at UC Berkeley between fall 1989 and fall 2003; recipients of doctoral degrees from 1976 through 1999; and other small groups of individuals. Approximately one-third of all of the computer's files contained dates of birth and/or addresses in addition to social security numbers and names. We are not aware of any misuse of this information.
Actually, the problem did not begin with the theft, the problem began with the database and lax information practices. I've also heard that former law students are among those who were affected. Adding insult to rejection notices, the data also included information on those who merely applied to, but were not admitted to Berkeley.
And finally, while these sentiments are all nice and pretty, I've yet to hear a good explanation of why all this data was on a laptop in the first place. What exactly was the point of the database?
There's more to the email, which I will include after the jump.
The theft happened on March 11. We were advised that there was a reasonable probability that the crime would be solved quickly and the information recovered. As that probability decreased, we began informing the people identified on the database. Also, we began to look at the security measures being used in departments across the campus.Our challenge is not that we lack policies governing computer security and the safeguarding of sensitive information. Our policies are clear, and during the last fifteen months we have strengthened them.
Our challenge is enforcing these policies, and specifically, rectifying the lack of clear lines of accountability, both personal and departmental. No one would want their personal information stolen and misused. I will insist that we safeguard the personal information we are given as though it were our own. I will provide the resources to ensure that we have the most advanced systems to protect all data.
Here is what we are doing. First, we are responding to the thousands of you who have called our hotline. Many of you may have been frustrated at not reaching a person to talk to. I apologize. We have greatly expanded the capacity of the system, and I believe that it is now fixed. Over the weekend we put a new Security ID Alert button on the University's home page, www.berkeley.edu. The pages describe what happened, where to go if you are worried about the security of your own information, how to place a fraud alert on your credit report, and much more. As of today, we have sent out 6,700 emails to people on the database, and we are mailing letters to the others on the database for whom we do not have email addresses.
The Graduate Division will account for how the theft could have occurred and why sensitive personal information was on a portable, unsecured laptop computer. If individuals have violated clear policy, they will be subject to disciplinary action in accordance with campus procedures.
Because this incident revealed systemic problems on the campus, I have initiated the following actions:
1. We will engage one of the nation's leading data-security management firms to conduct an immediate external audit of how the campus handles all personal information. This firm will examine the security of the systems, the policies and practices regarding access and use of such information, and the policies for insuring that such data are gathered and/or retained only when imperative.
2. While this expedited audit is underway, we will move quickly to require the full encryption of all personal information stored on departmental computer systems. We will also require all units on campus to review again personal data stored on departmental machines and to remove all unessential data.
As soon as we have the external audit, we will no doubt implement further policy and operational changes.
Unfortunately, in this technological age absolute security of all information is impossible. However, this is no excuse for not managing the databases properly. UC Berkeley became the world's premier teaching and research institution by being precise and cutting edge. When it comes to protecting the data we store and use I will insist on the same precision.
Sincerely,
Robert Birgeneau
Posted by Ryan Singel at 09:10 PM | TrackBack
April 04, 2005 | No RespectSSN pal Noah Shachtman has something to say about Homeland Security's third attempt to test anti-terrorism reponses, a full-fledged exercise known as TOP-OFF 3 that includes fake dead people, fake terrorist attacks and even fake paid reporters.
Like any good snobby New Yorker, Shachtman seems happy to find that terrorists unleashed their payload on New Jersey instead (the script makes that plausible by saying they thought they were about to get caught).
As a guy who spent a few years growing up in a small New Jersey town -- a great little town where I got to bike to school, I'm offended by Shachtman's catty and callous response.
Think of all the damage a chemical attack will have on big hair, big malls and big mullets in New Jersey.
Shame on you, Noah.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 10:44 AM | TrackBack
April 04, 2005 | Patriot Act UpdateThe Justice Department obtained a record number of wiretap and surveillance warrants against suspected spies and terrorists in 2004, according to this AP story by Mark Sherman.
But the rise from 2003 didn't even keep up with inflation. In 2004, there were 1,754 warrants issued under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). In 2003, the special FISA court authorized 1,724 requests.
These warrants were originally authorized by Congress in 1978 to allow the FBI greater leeway in tracking spies after surveillance and searches were clamped down on in the 1970s.
Those restrictions came after the country learned of decades of intrusive and politically motivated spying on Americans by Hoover's FBI, the CIA and the Pentagon.
The Patriot Act made it easier for the FBI to get such warrants, by redefining the threshold of suspicion and expanding the possible purposes of a search.
Also of note from last week, one of the most active Senate committees overseeing anti-terrorism programs released a report, called "Three Years after September 11: Keeping America Safe."
The report makes the case for giving the FBI the power to surveil so-called "lone wolf" terrorists, for updating the criminal code to stiffen penalties for possessing deadly weapons -- including dirty bombs, and for cracking down on identity theft.
Also in the mix is support for biometric identification and criticism of Saudi Arabia.
The full report by the Senate Judiciary committee's Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security subcommittee can be found in .pdf format here.
Also notable however is this sentence about the committee's attempt at oversight of the Patriot Act:
While the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have provided information to the Subcommittee, requests to the Department of Justice to provide a comprehensive report assessing the effect and efficacy of the sixteen provision of the Patriot Act subject to “sunset” remain unfulfilled. Such a report is a critical element in the Subcommittee’s, and indeed the entire Committee’s, responsibility to provide meaningful oversight before determining whether to change the law with respect to these provisions.
It's a shame that the DOJ hasn't been more forthcoming about its anti-terrorism efforts with this subcommittee or the American public.
Unfortunately, it takes criticism that comes awfully close to fearmongering to get the Justice Department to share even a sliver of information with the public about how it uses Patriot Act powers.
It is to the Justice department's discredit as a government agency that they refuse to provide even the most rudimentary statistics about their use of Patriot Act powers, unless they are under Congressional mandate.
Their arrogant silence only feeds those who too easily believe in conspiracies.
That institutional silence is also counter-productive, in that it enrages critics who want to have a full and open debate about the limits and necessity of government power.
The full committee, led by Republican Senator Arlen Specter
will hold a hearing on the Patriot Act on Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. (For those not in D.C., Senate hearings are almost always webcast (check the committee's homepage.)
As most of you know, portions of the Patriot Act expire in December unless Congress explicitly reauthorizes them this year.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 09:57 AM | TrackBack
April 01, 2005 | Friday Bicycle Blogging
The NYPD hates these oil cans.
Full story on the NYPD's claim that groups of over 20 people need a permit to meet in a public park here and more on the cops hatred for cyclists here.
Posted by Ryan Singel at 01:02 PM | TrackBack
April 01, 2005 | More Google EvilGoogle is announcing that it is beta-releasing a smart-drink to help you surf better.
But what they say only in the fine print is that the drinks come with secret spy technology:
From time to time, in order to improve Google Gulp's usefulness for our users, Google Gulp will send packets of data related to your usage of this product from a wireless transmitter embedded in the base of your Google Gulp bottle to the GulpPlex™, a heavily guarded, massively parallel server farm whose location is known only to Eric Schmidt, who carries its GPS coordinates on a 64-bit-encrypted smart card locked in a stainless-steel briefcase handcuffed to his right wrist.
Tallk about drinking the Kool-Aid.