Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

A dilettante blog from the great progressive state of West Virginia.

The willow is too close to the house.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

This really is a full service blog.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

This fight is for everything.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Peak wingnut was a lie.

You are here: Home / Archives for Security Theatre

First They Came For My Burner

by | 80 Comments

This post is in: ,

Following the lead of privacy trailblazer Mexico, we’re going to start recording the ID of everyone who buys a prepaid cell phone. I’m sure you can guess the reason why:

“This proposal is overdue because for years, terrorists, drug kingpins and gang members have stayed one step ahead of the law by using prepaid phones that are hard to trace,” Schumer said.

The firecracker non-bomber used a prepaid cell phone to call a Craiglist seller to buy his Nissan Pathfinder. Ergo, prepaid cell phones are bad. If he had used a pay phone, we’d be installing security cameras in every booth. If he had used two tin cans with a string, we’d be regulating the sales of baked beans and butcher’s twine.

I realize this is merely a proposal, but is there any doubt that it will pass in an election year when the secret passphrase (“terrorism”) is used? We’re just lucky that Schumer didn’t decide to ban Craigslist, Nissan Pathfinders or gas barbeque grills.

First They Came For My BurnerPost + Comments (80)

Security Rag

by | 16 Comments

This post is in: 

For some reason, going through airport security always reminds me of this song.

Also, too, I’ve always wondered why the MacGyver/Lex Luthor alchemists who hate us for our freedom are capable of creating a mix of exotic explosives in an airplane potty, but they could never do anything with a laptop battery, which contains heavy cylindrical objects connected with wire.

Security RagPost + Comments (16)

Enough About Rahm. Can We Sack Holder?

by | 243 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Seriously:

Attorney General Eric Holder said for the first time today on ABC’s “This Week” that the Obama administration is open to modifying Miranda protections to deal with the “threats that we now face.”

“The [Miranda] system we have in place has proven to be effective,” Holder told host Jake Tapper. “I think we also want to look and determine whether we have the necessary flexibility — whether we have a system that deals with situations that agents now confront. … We’re now dealing with international terrorism. … I think we have to give serious consideration to at least modifying that public-safety exception [to the Miranda protections]. And that’s one of the things that I think we’re going to be reaching out to Congress, to come up with a proposal that is both constitutional, but that is also relevant to our times and the threats that we now face.”

I’ve completely had it with this administration’s complete obeisance to the national security state and their willingness to adopt indefensible positions.

Enough About Rahm. Can We Sack Holder?Post + Comments (243)

If the TSA Ran New York

by | 57 Comments

This post is in: 

James Fallows imagines a Times Square Security Administration (TsSA) and gets it about right:

– All vans or SUVs headed into Midtown Manhattan would have to stop and have their contents inspected. If any vehicle seemed for any reason to have escaped inspection, Midtown in its entirety would be evacuated;

[…]

– The restrictions would never be lifted and the TsSA would have permanent life, because the political incentives here work only one way. A politician who supports more open-ended, more thorough, more intrusive, more expensive inspections can never be proven “wrong.” The absence of attacks shows that his measures have “worked”; and a new attack shows that inspections must go further still. A politician who wants to limit the inspections can never be proven “right.” An absence of attacks means that nothing has gone wrong — yet. Any future attack would always and forever be that politician’s “fault.” Given that asymmetry of risks, what public figure will ever be able to talk about paring back the TSA?

The whole thing is worth a read.

If the TSA Ran New YorkPost + Comments (57)

Unsurprising News

by | 39 Comments

This post is in: ,

In addition to being expensive and compromising privacy, the new full-body scanners that the TSA is installing don’t work.

“I don’t know why everybody is running to buy these expensive and useless machines. I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747,” Rafi Sela told parliamentarians probing the state of aviation safety in Canada.

“That’s why we haven’t put them in our airport,” Sela said, referring to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport, which has some of the toughest security in the world.

We’ll still buy dozens of these quarter-million dollar devices for every airport, and we’ll soon be treated to stories of TSA agents fulfilling their back-of-the-comic-book, X-ray spectacle fantasies, because that’s just how we roll. We might be able to have a rational discussion about airport security after another decade has passed since 9/11, but right now we’re still hysterical, irrational and willing to spend anything to purchase the appearance of safety.

(via James Fallows)

Unsurprising NewsPost + Comments (39)

What He Said

by | 230 Comments

This post is in: , , , , ,

Greenwald nails this one:

Let’s spend just a moment thinking about what this means. We’ve known since December, 2005, that Bush officials, including at the NSA, committed felonies by eavesdropping on Americans without the warrants required by law — crimes punishable by a five-year prison term and$10,000 fine for each offense. All three federal judges to rule on the question have found those actions to be in violation of the law. Yet there have been no criminal investigations, let alone indictments, for those crimes, and there won’t be any, due to Barack Obama’s dictate that we “Look Forward, Not Backward.” Thus, the high-level political officials who committed crimes while running the NSA will be completely immunized for their serious crimes.

By stark contrast, an NSA official who brought to the public’s attention towering failures and waste at the NSA — revelations that led to exposés that, as Shane put it, were “honored with a top prize from the Society for Professional Journalists” — is now being prosecuted for crimes that could lead to a lengthy prison term. Why doesn’t Obama’s dictate that we “Look Forward, Not Backward,” protect this NSA whistle-blower from prosecution at least as much as the high-level Bush officials who criminally spied on American citizens? Isn’t the DOJ’s prosecution of Drake the classic case of “Looking Backward,” by digging into Bush-era crimes, controversies and disclosures?

Meanwhile, who wants to bet we won’t “look backward” when it comes to this:

Porter J. Goss, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, in 2005 approved of the decision by one of his top aides to destroy dozens of videotapes documenting the brutal interrogation of two detainees, according to an internal C.I.A. document released Thursday.

Shortly after the tapes were destroyed at the order of Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then the head of the C.I.A.’s clandestine service, Mr. Goss told Mr. Rodriguez that he “agreed” with the decision, according to the document. He even joked after Mr. Rodriguez offered to “take the heat” for destroying the tapes.

“PG laughed and said that actually, it would be he, PG, who would take the heat,” according to one document, an internal C.I.A. e-mail message.

The message is clear- you torture people and then destroy the evidence, and you get off without so much as a sternly worded letter.

If you are a whistle blower outlining criminal behavior by the government, you get prosecuted.

I expected better from Obama and Holder.

What He SaidPost + Comments (230)

Cyberwolverines!

by | 60 Comments

This post is in: ,

Former NSA director Mike McConnell thinks we need to gear up for cyberwar, and he has a modest little plan:

We need to develop an early-warning system to monitor cyberspace, identify intrusions and locate the source of attacks with a trail of evidence that can support diplomatic, military and legal options — and we must be able to do this in milliseconds. More specifically, we need to reengineer the Internet to make attribution, geolocation, intelligence analysis and impact assessment — who did it, from where, why and what was the result — more manageable.

“Reengineer the Internet”? But what are we going to do after breakfast, Admiral?

Instead of funneling billions into the Department of Defense, here’s another idea: why don’t put a tiny bit of effort into regulating all the computer-based electronic devices we’re deploying, like “smart electric meters”. We have 8 million of those in the field, and a utility company study found they contained “security failures we’ve known about for the past 10 years.”

Almost every commercial, computer-based system failure follows the same pattern: weak regulatory standards, closed-source software, reliance on security through obscurity, and shoddy engineering discovered after the fact. If we required that every widely-deployed computer-based system was subject to regulation and open review, we’d close the kinds of vulnerabilities that have dogged technology like voting machines and SpeedPass.

Of course, it’s not as much fun to talk about regulation and open review of devices used by millions, mainly because you can’t talk about reacting in milliseconds, use cool code names, or refight the last war:

Ultimately, to build the right strategy to defend cyberspace, we need the equivalent of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Project Solarium. That 1953 initiative brought together teams of experts with opposing views to develop alternative strategies on how to wage the Cold War.

Cyberwolverines!Post + Comments (60)