Railroad Association Says TSA's Hacking Memo Was Wrong 121
McGruber writes "Wired reports that the American Association of Railroads is refuting the U.S. Transportation Security Administration memorandum that said hackers had disrupted railroad signals. In fact, 'There was no targeted computer-based attack on a railroad,' said AAR spokesman Holly Arthur. 'The memo on which the story was based has numerous inaccuracies.' The TSA memo was subject of an earlier Slashdot story in which Slashdot user currently_awake accurately commented on the true nature of the incident."
Lying again? (Score:5, Interesting)
Fearmongering (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the railroads are the last form of transportation where TSA is not allowed and they want their grubby little hands in the pot. There is literally a conspiracy going on to track every citizen where they are. They can already track your car with all the camera's (to monitor traffic or give you tickets) and license plate detection in unmarked and regular police cars as well as pull you over, detain you indefinitely and search you without cause if you are 200mi from a US border or airport. Now they want in on the train stations too so all railways would be included in their 200 mile zones?
I say, kill the beast while you still can. The TSA needs to be shut down immediately.
How inconvenient for TSA (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure TSA is unhappy about this. They've long been talking about their intent to spread out into other modes of transportation. Since Amtrak's police have been throwing them out of train stations lately, they've no doubt been searching for any politically-convenient justification they can find to invade rail transit. Doubly so since Amtrak ridership is at an all-time high with people taking trains for the sole purpose of avoiding TSA.
For the politically-active among us, this is perhaps a good opportunity to write to U.S. congresspeople to alert them about TSA's misrepresentation of this report, as well as state congresspeople to encourage them to pass state-level legislation reining in TSA (Tenth Amendment Center has a pre-written Travel Freedom Act [tenthamendmentcenter.com] that works at the state level to criminalize invasive TSA screening procedures).
TSA isn't going to stop their reign of sexual assault and desecration of Constitutional rights until and unless the people stop it for them. Public opinion has been turning against TSA lately, especially with the three elderly travelers who were strip-searched late last year (about which TSA blatantly lied). Now is as good a time as ever to push your elected officials to stop TSA. The site in my sig is a good resource, as is Freedom To Travel USA [fttusa.org]. Please do anything and everything you can to help stop TSA.
Scaremongering, inventing enemies. (Score:4, Interesting)
Thats what u.s. 'deep government' backed by private interests have used to keep suppressing freedoms and keep progress and plurality outside not only u.s. but all nato members :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio [wikipedia.org]
Every nato member got one of these founded in their own country. these underground organizations then staged assassinations of non-u.s./nato aligned political figures, journalists, activists. in most cases, extra steps were taken to set up leftist (or whatever opposing faction) terrorist organizations which were actually under control of these gladio clones. these terrorist organizations then staged terror attacks while claiming to be doing these for the political views that gladio wanted to alienate public from. for most of the cold war, this was left ideas. and not surprisingly, in all countries these terrorist attacks were used to alienate public from those political views, marginalize their ideas, and also implement various 'security' measures and laws to limit freedoms.
i dont need to tell any american that after soviet union ended and there was no way that this scheme would work, suddenly the 'terror threat' from islamist groups replaced these - and you all know what happened after 2001. ...................
this is no different. in case you have noticed, we are having an extremely ridiculous amount of 'cyber threat' bullshit coming out of not only private interests, but also the government. they are basically just applying the same policies they used to control every aspect of life, to internet. internet was 'way too much' free for them.
i think we dont need to even dwell on the fact that tsa is just a cog in this machine. but, they are floppy at it.
Re:Fearmongering (Score:5, Interesting)
Not surprising.. (Score:3, Interesting)
medical care (Score:4, Interesting)
I have relatives from out of the country staying with us. One of them had a medical issue. We took her to several doctors, got x-rays, and perscriptions. Everything was surprisingly cheap, unless we were purchasing brand name medication.
Of course, surgical procedures and chronis conditions may be another story, but we didn't pay all that much more than 200 bucks for 3 doctors visits, medication, and the x-rays. I figured it was going to be closer to 1,000 based off what I see insurance is billed for on my own visits.
Re:Scaremongering, inventing enemies. (Score:4, Interesting)
Lovely reading in the official Team B report, thoughtfully provided in PDF format at the end of that page.
I found out about Team B, btw, through a BBC documentary, 'The Politics of Fear', findable on Youtube or at your friendly neighborhood video pirate.
Re:medical care (Score:4, Interesting)
I have relatives from out of the country staying with us. One of them had a medical issue. We took her to several doctors, got x-rays, and perscriptions. Everything was surprisingly cheap, unless we were purchasing brand name medication.
Of course, surgical procedures and chronis conditions may be another story, but we didn't pay all that much more than 200 bucks for 3 doctors visits, medication, and the x-rays. I figured it was going to be closer to 1,000 based off what I see insurance is billed for on my own visits.
If providers would bill me what they bill to insurance, it might actually be worthwhile to drop to a major medical plan with a $5K deductible and pay out of pocket for routine costs (which fortunately for me has meant annual routine checkups and one x-ray in the past few years).
However, when I wanted to self-refer myself to a specialist for a specific problem, they quoted an office visit rate that was nearly 10 times higher than what they bill to insurance and any treatments would be billed at similarly high rates. I asked them about a discount for self-pay and they said that their policy was firm, the insurance rate is a negotiated rate with the insurance company and if I wanted to self-pay, I'd have to pay the full quoted rate.
So I ended up going to my primary care physician under insurance, insurance paid me to go through several sessions of his prescribed physical therapy before he was willing to refer me to the specialist that I wanted to go to in the first place.
Health care would be much more affordable if health care providers had to charge self-pay patients their lowest negotiable rate for that treatment.