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TSA Lied About Protecting Passenger Data 613

Posted by CowboyNeal from the big-brother-tells-all dept.
wk633 writes "A report by Homeland Security Department Acting Inspector General Richard Skinner, said the agency misinformed individuals, the press and Congress in 2003 and 2004. It stopped short of saying TSA lied. Bruce Schneier does say 'the TSA lied' on his blog." Scary stuff, and yet it's even scarier how little the general public has caught on.
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TSA Lied About Protecting Passenger Data More

TSA Lied About Protecting Passenger Data

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  • Never (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Predflux ( 851314 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @09:19AM (#12065503)
    The general public never catches on, it's normal.

    That's what's really scary.

    • The general public is distracted... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ites ( 600337 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @09:52AM (#12065730) Journal
      One of the major instruments of the ruling political class is to divide and distract public opinion with intense moral-laden debate about subjects that in most other countries are treated as private matters.

      Morality-driven debate is such a powerful tool because you can, by fine-tuning the argument, get a balanced 50-50 split on just about any subject.

      And so, we get the endless debates about gay weddings, about living wills, about abortion, about the "theory" of evolution, about the role of religion in public structures, and so on.

      Meanwhile debate about subjects that in any open democracy would make the front pages, would bring millions onto the streets, and would topple presidents... almost totally absent.

      The general public does not debate the role of the state, the yawning chasms in the democratic process, the boom in military spending, gerrymandering, government-sponsored TV "news", political prisoners, torture, the corruption of every agency meant to protect the public, the environment, the economy into an agency designed to exploit and abuse...

      Give the plebians bread, and circuses, and you can pretty much do what you like.

      • Re:The general public is distracted... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Golias ( 176380 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @11:10AM (#12066305)
        And so, we get the endless debates about gay weddings, about living wills, about abortion, about the "theory" of evolution, about the role of religion in public structures, and so on.

        Meanwhile debate about subjects that in any open democracy would make the front pages, would bring millions onto the streets, and would topple presidents... almost totally absent.

        The general public does not debate the role of the state, the yawning chasms in the democratic process, the boom in military spending, gerrymandering, government-sponsored TV "news", political prisoners, torture, the corruption of every agency meant to protect the public, the environment, the economy into an agency designed to exploit and abuse...

        So, you are saying that the issues like gay weddings, living wills, abortion, and the teaching of evolution simply are not worthy of debate?

        The reason nobody in America debates about the issues you want to get us riled up about is because our current society is very stable, and there is nearly a consensus (for better or worse) on all of them.

        Other than libertarian crackpots like me (and a handful of pie-eyed college kids), nobody cares about the concept of "limited government."

        Almost everybody agrees that the military is one of the few things worth throwing vast sums of money at.

        Most older folks still watch TV news, but more and more people are simply turning to other sources, to get away from the endless parade of Michael Jackson trials and whatnot.

        The "political prisoners" and "torture" you speak of are not nearly the hot-button issues you wish they were.

        Government agency corruption has always been with us. Anybody who thinks it's an invention of either Bush or Clinton is simply too young to know any better.

        Meanwhile, the issues you dismissed so quickly are critically important to the culture.

        Marriage is the basic unit of family organization upon which our entire civilization is built. While I happen to think that government has no business prohibiting families made up of same-sex couples (or even multiple-partner marriages), there are those who strongly feel otherwise, and not simply for reasons of puritan bigotry. Their objections are not entirely without merit.

        Living wills and abortion both get down to a very fundamental question: At what point do your rights, specifically the single most important right of survival, begin and end? When does a person become a person? When to they cease to be a person? Are we entitled to waive our own right to life under certain circumstances? These are big questions, and the minutae of how the answers are applied can impact millions of people.

        Evolution is the theoretical model upon which all of our modern knowledge of biology is built. It is absolutely vital to the long-term advancement of science that it is taught in schools. At the same time, Darwin's second book, The Descent of Man, runs afowl of several major religions regarding man's relationship to other animals. Balancing the need to teach "this is what our best science has established" with the need to avoid saying "your family's religion must be incorrect superstition" is a challenge which presents no easy answers (unless you are willing to dismiss the other side's concerns out of hand.)

        The role of religion in public structures is also a problem. Our first Ammendment states that our government must neither endorse nor hinder any specific religion. Some people feel that public displays of religious dogma constitute an endorsement. Others feel that banning such dogma from all public places constitutes a hinderance. The problem with the debate is that both sides are completely correct. You can't really ban religion from all public places without restricting the free practice, and you can't really have public space and/or resources promoting religion without forcing those who oppose it to be in the position of contributing to it with their tax dollars.

        The religion clau

        • Re:The general public is distracted... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by h4rm0ny ( 722443 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @11:37AM (#12066568) Journal

          So I'm inclined to reject your entire point. The debate of these other issues does not stifle discussion of the things you happen to wish people were fretting about more.

          Although the GP does imply that these other issues are irrelevant, which you are right, they are not, the point I think was that they do deflect attention away from issues such as political corruption, erosion of rights and economic sleight-of-hand.

          When you can whip the people up into a frenzy over deeply personal issues and make these the issues on which the electorate make decisions, then you can get away with anything else you like. There is no reason why for example, the abortion debate has to follow party lines. It's a matter of personal belief and the politicians should vote accordingly.

          Instead what you have is a situation in which two parties have very similar policies for anything that affects the health of the nation, but draw up their divisions on more "moral" issues that are picked to be very divisive. There are forces between both parties that are very happy with this - choice on the issues that they couldn't care less about, none on the things that matter to them.

          It is naive to think that this isn't deliberate.

          • Re:The general public is distracted... (Score:5, Insightful)

            by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @02:16PM (#12068289) Homepage Journal
            So basically Douglas Adams hit the nail on the head in HGG with:

            The President is very much a figurehead - he wields no real power whatsoever. He is apparently chosen by the government, but the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage. For this reason the President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it.

            Extend to all politicians' public personas and the words 'sad but true' come to mind.

        • Re:The general public is distracted... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Tassach ( 137772 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @12:02PM (#12066832)
          While I happen to think that government has no business prohibiting families made up of same-sex couples (or even multiple-partner marriages), there are those who strongly feel otherwise, and not simply for reasons of puritan bigotry.
          Really? I personally haven't heard any arguments against gay/poly marriages that were not rooted in ignorance, bigotry, or both. Every argument I've heard effectively boils down to one of the following:
          1. It's wrong because the Bible says so. (Fallacy: Appeal to Authority [fallacyfiles.org])
          2. It shouldn't be allowed because it goes against long-standing societal traditions (Fallacy: Appeal to Tradition [nizkor.org])
          3. It's a gay/liberal/$BUGBEAR conspiricy to undermine "traditional family values" (Fallacy: Appeal to Hatred [fallacyfiles.org]
          Their objections are not entirely without merit.
          I disagree. Arguments based on logical fallacies are entirely without merit.

          There may be a well-reasoned, logical argment supporting the view that the state has a compelling interest to grant special legal benefits to people who are in one class of binding long-term relationships while denying those benefits to all other classes of long-term binding relationships, but I have yet to hear one.

          • Re:The general public is distracted... (Score:5, Insightful)

            by learn fast ( 824724 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @12:38PM (#12067148)
            What he's doing is saying that it's not entirely without merit. This is rhetorical sleight of hand.

            You can make any two things sound quite the same if you just get vague enough.

            Opposition to gay marriage is not entirely without merit because nothing would be entirely without merit. But if you don't think of that you just nod and smile and think he's uttered a wise truth. It isn't entirely without merit.

            Look at it quantitatively.

            Merit(gay marriage debate) = 0.000001
            Merit(corruption of national security) = 0.4

            But, you see, the gay marriage debate is not entirely without merit. Also, 2 is a number, and 3 is a number, so therefore 2 is 3.

        • Re:The general public is distracted... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 28, 2005 @12:18PM (#12066964)
          "So, you are saying that the issues like gay weddings, living wills, abortion, and the teaching of evolution simply are not worthy of debate?"

          At the federal level? Damned right. Which of those subjects you've listed is not capable of being discussed by states, towns, churches, and individual people? The federal government is there to organise wars, diplomatics, and anything else too big for any one state to handle. So why are they now handing-down diktats saying who can be allowed to go to certain churches, or how a particular doctor should behave?

        • Re:The general public is distracted... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by ninewands ( 105734 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @01:21PM (#12067590)
          In general I agree with you rather well-written discourse on the importance of a dialog on issues of public morality in society, but must disagree with your dismissal of the GP poster's point.

          The problem we are faced with is that we have a government in place that is using "moral issues" as a smokescreen while it actively works at dismantling free speech, freedom of association, any and all social safety net programs and the constitutionally mandated system of checks and balances and separation of powers. All in the name of more tax breaks for the wealthiest 0.8% of income earners and at the expense of the other 99.2%.

          Poverty, the presumption of innocence, freedom from cruel and unusual punishments, torture, freedom of conscience and social justice are also "moral issues," but I don't see that government breaking its arm patting itself on the back over their stands on these issues. The "moral issues" debate in this country is purely a matter of an excessive neo-conservative President and his cronies in Congress pandering to a group of wealthy fundametalists (and worse!) and their flocks of obedient followers in order to cement their grip on political power. There is no serious interest in the "morality" of the President's stand on the issues he is promoting, it's ALL about keeping the Radical Religious (dare I say "theocratic") Right-wing "core-of-the-power-base" group happy.

          Peace,
          ninewands

      • Re:The general public is distracted... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by BitGeek ( 19506 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @11:29AM (#12066480) Homepage
        Its often amusing how your political position can cause you to say things that go against what you'd normally say....

        The "Ruling political class" is some amalgam of the democrats and the republicans, and both groups prevent debate about significant topics--espeically morality.

        My basic morality is that people are not your property. This is a moral position that both democrats and republicans violate at will.

        Both parties want people enslaved by taxes and absurd laws, and so they create this charade wher you are (like most americans) deluded into thinking its the other parties fault. And your republican counterparts are deluded into thinking its the democrats fault.

        The reality is, the "Ruling Political Class" is both of these parties-- the socialist republic we have become (do you really think our elections are fair? Even if it were so, this is a republic.)

        But your right-- the general public, including slashdot readers-- won't engage in debate. Who would consider the argument that taxes are immoral? (And yet, who can come up with a counter argument?)

        We've all been trained to stop thinking about politics-- to reduce politics to a football game of hatred, whereby we blame everything on the "other party" and make them out to be evil.

        I hate republicans as much as the next guy, but its amazing to me how my friends who are liberal will ascribe all evil to them, but never notice when democrats do the same exact things.

        The reality is, the mafia is in control. Not the italian mafia, the political mafia. Our government is nothing more than a parasite and mechanism by which cowards use fools to enforce control over the populace-- and not for the populaces benefit.

        If you actually think about politics for awhile, and look into economics, you quickly become an anarchist.

        If government was worth paying for, taxes would be voluntary. But they aren't, and they aren't for a reason.

        Government's role and purpose is to exercise exactly the kind of control you're wondering how they are exercising.

        People don't debate politics? Could it be they were taught in *government* schools not to think about politics?

        • The funny thing about the "ruling political class" in America is: anyone can be in it. If you get actively involved in politics at a young age, and really have a knack for fundraising and other political skills which are genuinely useful to the current political process, you'll go far.

          It's just that people confuse marching in protests or doing other politically meaningless stuff with the process of working *within* the system needed to worm one's way into the inner circles of politics.

          It may be a small e

      • Re:The general public is distracted... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by John Seminal ( 698722 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @11:46AM (#12066691) Journal
        It is WELL KNOWN that politicians don't even view people as important. Watch "War Room" to get an idea how political insiders think. According to "them" there is 38% of the country as red, 38% of the country as blue, and the middle is what they are interested in. The will do whatever they can during an election to capture the middle. States where more than 60% of the base is either makes candidates not campaign there. I remember visiting Ohio during the last election. There was a 30 second commerical for either Bush or Kerry almost every half hour. I was shocked. In my state, I could go a whole day and see 2 or 3 or 4; In Ohio I saw 30 a day.

        One of the major instruments of the ruling political class is to divide and distract public opinion with intense moral-laden debate

        The first part is correct, the second is wrong. Politicians divide not based on intense moral issues, they polarize their base when needed. Bush claimed we MUST fight the war in Iraq because WE were THREATENED. It turned out later, when the threat was shown to be non-exsistant, his reasons changed. Morality had very little to do with it. Morals have little to do with Social Security or Taxes or where government should build schools or highways. Governments function has very little to do with religion, unless you count the prayer the Senate says each morning.

  • They shrug it off... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Monday March 28, 2005 @09:19AM (#12065506)
    Nevertheless, most of the transfers that we reviewed were executed between parties bound by agreements forbidding additional sharing or disclosure of the passenger information. Of the more than 12 million records transferred, a passenger's data was inappropriately disclosed to the public in only one instance. In this instance, a government contractor's inappropriate disclosure of information was inadvertent.

    So, because it was a government contractor and not the government itself I should be fine with the one slip up because the contractor just didn't have the proper amount of care necessary to carry out the task with the proper amount of security necessary?

    Let me guess, the person who's information was divulged has little or no option of recourse against the contractor. Of course this report doesn't say anything about that. Will the contractor be used again? Why wasn't the contractor listed in the report so that everyone knows who they are. After all, they leaked someone's private info, I think the public should at least know that they shouldn't be dealt with at any time.

    TSA's policy environment with respect to privacy has changed substantially since its inception. From its inception, TSA recognized personal privacy and confidentiality as important concerns. Especially in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks, finding a balance between these concerns and transportation and aviation security was a difficult challenge.

    There is no need for a balance. Regardless of the emergency state of the nation people's privacy should not take a back seat. We all know Ben Franklin's comment and it rings true here.

    Regardless of passenger data sharing, lists of known problem individuals, etc, people are going to get on that plane and cause problems (whether directly or indirectly). We are always a step behind and trying to close holes that were used in the past. The terrorists will always find some hole we haven't closed because they haven't used it before.

    Our weak attempts at ending terrorism do nothing but erode our freedoms and that's exactly what they want to have happen. Way to go!

    Scary stuff, and yet it's evem scarier how little the general public has caught on.

    They have caught on to what they were told to. They seriously believe that they are now safer that their privacy has been eroded. They are dazzled with big numbers and small reported incident numbers (i.e. how many people were affected by the Patriot Act).

    People want to be told what to think. They want to be told they are safe and they will seriously believe they are. People who think otherwise are labeled "paranoid" and not worthy of belief. Only those that continually fill the heads of their citizens with spin are worthy of listening to. Who are we kidding? How is the public supposed to "catch on" when they are bombarded by government sponsored propaganda centered around the positive influence the TSA has had on airline safety? If we watched network-sponsored TV news we might have had a different view on the whole situation right? The government propaganda pieces looked and sounded quite legit as they were meant to. So the people that don't rely on personal research and news from multiple outlets really did believe the TSA was doing things in their best interests.

    What I believe is scary is that people just shrug it off and say, "all administrations do these things." Perhaps, but this one was caught and you still don't care.

    • Re:They shrug it off... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hsmith ( 818216 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @09:23AM (#12065536)
      apathy is going to be the death of the west

    • Some people might call me un-American, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by paranode ( 671698 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @09:49AM (#12065713)
      I think things like the TSA are Osama's greatest victory over the US. What better way to destroy a free republic with much greater strength in arms but to dismantle its own liberty from within? Make the people afraid, knowing that their leaders will erode rights and freedoms all in the name of security.

      • Re:Some people might call me un-American, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by geoffspear ( 692508 ) * on Monday March 28, 2005 @10:20AM (#12065923) Homepage
        Of course, by making such a statement, you're accepting the Bush administration's assertion that terrorists hate us because we're free. In reality, they don't care that we're free; they have other reasons for hating us.

        If the US was a totalitarian dictatorship that strongly supported Israel and put troops in Saudi Arabia to protect our oil interests there and in Kuwait, Osama would hate us just as much as he does now. Freedom is orthagonal to the issue.

        • Re:Some people might call me un-American, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Foobar of Borg ( 690622 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @10:35AM (#12066025)
          Freedom is orthogonal to the issue.

          True, but that is going off on a tangent ;).

          Seriously though, it seems to me that the other big problem is that all that government is doing with all the excessive airline regulations is trying to fight the war we just lost. Instead of figuring out what is the best way to deal with the overall threat, the governement simply tries to handle what has already been screwed up and tries to apply makeshift patches to the holes.

          One of the biggest blunders generals tend to make is to try to fight the last war instead of the war they are actually in, such as some of the generals in World War One who were still using tactics from musket-and-cannon wars like the Crimean War. This is basically what is happening now with the TSA regulations.

          • Re:Some people might call me un-American, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

            by slo_learner ( 729232 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @11:35AM (#12066539)
            I believe that to some extent what you say is true, but I also think there is another issue to pay attention to here. If you look at how the Patriot Act was written, there is a very intentional obfuscation. Some of these measures are misdirected efforts to fight the previous war, and some are ham handed grabs for power by our government. The line is blurred, and there are well intentioned people at all levels of government that don't understand what they are doing to our country in the name of security, but there are also some who are making a concerted effort to erode our liberties. The trick is deciding whos who, and giving the culprits the treatment they deserve.
          • One of the biggest blunders generals tend to make is to try to fight the last war instead of the war they are actually in

            We are in wars we don't even know about, and probably won't know about for 20 to 30 years. Not only did we assasinate duly elected heads of state in democratic countries, and replace them with dictators, but we did it and nobody knew. Check out what the CIA did in South America the past couple decades to get a clue.

        • Don't misunderstand me (Score:5, Informative)

          by paranode ( 671698 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @10:37AM (#12066035)
          I'm not saying Osama hates us for our freedom. I am saying that he is using the most effective technique for weakening our country being that he cannot defeat us with military might. His motivations are immaterial to the point I'm trying to get across, please don't pollute it with your politics.

        • Re:Some people might call me un-American, but... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by bigpat ( 158134 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @12:03PM (#12066842)
          Good point, the only feasible goals in supporting terrorist attacks within the united states is to force us to increase security within our borders therefore causing us to use resources that might have otherwise have gone to the middle east. Also, increased security has the effect of reducing economic activity, so there will eventually be fewer resources that we can spend on middle east intervention. The last effect of terrorist attacks that seems of interest is to force us to retaliate as indescriminately as possible and therefore swelling the ranks of their forces.

          Check, check and check.

          None of the Al Qaeda goals give a damn about freedom, one way or the other.

          Only domestic terrorists would really care about forcing the government to take our freedoms, the aim being to make the government the enemy of the people or in their eyes to force the government to show its true face.

    • I think most people just learn to accept mediocrity & corruption behind the curtains of most organizations, because they see it themselves. When most people hear official PR-speak or read a privacy policy and whatnot, they know it's all BS on some level; nobody really cares.

  • Transportation Security Administration (TSA) (Score:5, Informative)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) * on Monday March 28, 2005 @09:20AM (#12065511)
    Is it really that hard to write out the name of the Acronyms at least once?

    Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Lied about Protecting Passenger Data. Then you can talk about the TSA until you blue in the face. Is the BSA the Business Software Alliance or the Boy Scouts of America?

    Sure we work with computer all the time and take Acronyms all the time and many are very complex.. CPU, RAM, ROM, GNU, etc... It is fine when you are talking about computer stuff. But when you start moving to government Acronyms or Business Acronyms, we should get a better description. Is PSC Play Station Console, Public Service Commission, or Pubic Safety Control? Please think before you start using acronyms especially in less geeky topics such as business, law, politics, governments, and non astronomy sciences. Even if it is geeky related if there is a change that a lot of people wont know what you mean please spell it out.

  • spelling bee? (Score:3, Funny)

    by ack154 ( 591432 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @09:20AM (#12065518)
    What's "evem" more scarier is the Slashdot spell checker.

  • Does this suprise anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 28, 2005 @09:21AM (#12065519)
    Honestly? The TSA is a bureacratic mess, they can levee fines against anyone they deam fit for any reason they see fit and don't even have to tell you why. You can't complain, you can't do anything about it. Yet, it is all done for your "safety."

  • Wait... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by daveschroeder ( 516195 ) * on Monday March 28, 2005 @09:21AM (#12065525)
    So, the DHS Office of the Inspector General says in its own report that the TSA "misled" people about protecting passenger data, which is essentially saying they lied, we'll lambast them for not specifically saying "lied" and rally around a blogger (I don't care who it is) just because they use the word "lied"?

    I don't get it.

  • The government lied? (Score:4, Funny)

    by EmagGeek ( 574360 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @09:21AM (#12065526) Journal
    No fucking way... I can't believe it.. the government would never lie...

  • Page 40 (Score:5, Informative)

    by the_skywise ( 189793 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @09:22AM (#12065532)
    Conclusions:

    "Although we found no evidence of harm to individual privacy, TSA could have taken more steps to protect privacy. TSA did not consistently apply privacy protections in the course of its involvement in airline passenger data transfers. This inconsistency pertained to TSA's efforts in acquisitions, contract enforcement, and internal practice."

    So no evidence was leaked but they could've done a better job.

  • even scarier (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SQLz ( 564901 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @09:26AM (#12065558) Homepage Journal
    Scary stuff, and yet it's evem scarier how little the general public has caught on.

    Even scarier is how the original poster thinks the general public can catch on to anything. This is the country where we need to put car seat instructions in 5th grade english so parents can understand them.

    • Re:even scarier (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ntshma ( 864614 )
      Do you think car seat instructions could be made better by making them more complex?

    • Re:even scarier (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Scrameustache ( 459504 )
      we need to put car seat instructions in 5th grade english so parents can understand them.

      Life-saving devices require idiot-proof instructions.

      However, the people in charge of your physical security should not themselves be idiots who dismiss concerns over information security.

  • Scary, huh? (Score:4, Informative)

    by skadus ( 821655 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @09:30AM (#12065580) Homepage Journal
    Scary stuff, and yet it's evem scarier how little the general public has caught on.
    I suppose even scarier is the inability for the person writing the summary to explain who the TSA is (Transportation Security Administration), what they do [wikipedia.org], why the government is involved, and how it affects me. A 'summary' should give me enough information that I don't have to RTFA to understand what the hell is going on, right?

  • Alternative Coverage (Score:5, Informative)

    by LakeSolon ( 699033 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @09:33AM (#12065601) Homepage
    Aero News Net (ANN), a great daily news site for aviation, has been covering this as well.

    Part 1 [aero-news.net]
    Part 2 [aero-news.net]
    Part 3 [aero-news.net]

    ~Lake

  • Privacy, as if... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by treerex ( 743007 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @09:35AM (#12065613) Homepage

    I've said it before, and I'll say it again: as far as the US Government is concerned, especially since 9/11 and The Patriot Act, citizens have no expectation of privacy. If you think otherwise, you are deluding yourself. People keep saying, "Oh, the government will never lie to me. They are required to protect privacy." As if. The government will tell you what you want to hear to passify you, and when found out will either flush things down the Memory Hole or give you a nice 'mea culpa' and continue doing the same thing.

    As far back as 1995 Ellen Alderman and Caroline Kennedy wrote in The Right To Privacy that our rights, especially those under the Fourth Ammendment, were slowly being eroded.

    But as another poster said, the bulk of the American population don't know, and more importantly, don't care.

    • Re:Privacy, as if... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      This is a democratic republic. We are the government.

      Furthermore, the "Right to Privacy" is not actually present anywhere in the Constitution. Quite to the contrary, my free speech rights trump your "privacy" rights every time. If I know your name, e-mail address, and phone number, I can give them out to whoever I like. Don't like it? Then be careful of who you share your info with.

      • Re:Privacy, as if... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 28, 2005 @10:08AM (#12065837)
        Then be careful of who you share your info with.

        That's a good point, as far as non-governmental entities are concerned.

        However, considering that the government requires that they have information about it's citizens, they've taken the choice out of our hands. Do you understand that?

      • Re:Privacy, as if... (Score:5, Informative)

        by LaCosaNostradamus ( 630659 ) <LaCosaNostradamus&mail,com> on Monday March 28, 2005 @10:58AM (#12066182) Journal
        Furthermore, the "Right to Privacy" is not actually present anywhere in the Constitution.

        The US Constitution does not function as a list of ALLOWED things, and then we assume everything else is disallowed. Instead, the Constitution outlines the DISALLOWED functions of government (as well as the actual functions), and basically everything else is a right retained by states and people.

        Therefore, we DO have the right to privacy. The Constitution says nothing about; hence, we have it ... unless the government attempts to specifically outlaw it. (Note from this that a bunch of common law assumes that we have some level of privacy.)

        You need to read up on the philosophy of Constitutional law. You just don't understand the US Constitution.

    • Re:Privacy, as if... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Fuzzums ( 250400 )
      Governments should be all about protecting the individual, but on the moment theiy're fucking our privacy here, there and everywhere.

      This world is getting weirder by the day now.

      "But if you havent done enything wrong, you don't need to be affraid." Right. So implant me a chip and give me a barcode. That shouldn't matter either.

      The only difference is that governments in the us and the eu are doing everything to tell me I'm living in constant danger of getting killed.

      And a ctually that is true. I believe

  • Homeland Insecurity (Score:5, Interesting)

    by flajann ( 658201 ) <[ed.xmg] [ta] [llehctim.derf]> on Monday March 28, 2005 @09:39AM (#12065637) Homepage Journal
    The real annoying thing is that there is no way the system can really work at stopping terrorists, unless they are already *known* to be terrorists.

    I personally spoke with a large software firm about this very issue -- how can such a system keep the false positives low to nill while catching the ocassional needle or two in a very large haystack, and they waffled on the question. Considering the number of terrorists are extremely small with regards the rest of the population, how can you possible have enough data to be statistically significant? Again, they waffled on the question, giving a half-baked "executive response" rather than anything concrete.

    The real truth is we are far more likely to die in a car crash than to die at the hands of a would-be terrorist. Yet, billions are being poured into Homeland Insecurity and the TSA efforts, and what do we have? High false positive rates, millions of needlessly harrased travelers, and it's hard to get a fix on the false negative rates since terrorists are so rare to begin with.

    In short, the entire approach makes no sense.

    But try explaining this to the general public, who tend to be dumb as boards when it comes to basic statistics and probabality.

    90% of the public is simply unable to think, but merely jumps from one belief pattern to another. That my friends is the problem.

    • Highway Insecurity (Score:4, Informative)

      by Kozar_The_Malignant ( 738483 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @11:04AM (#12066256)

      >The real truth is we are far more likely to die in a car crash than to die at the hands of a would-be terrorist. Yet, billions are being poured into Homeland Insecurity and the TSA efforts, and what do we have? High false positive rates, millions of needlessly harrased travelers, and it's hard to get a fix on the false negative rates since terrorists are so rare to begin with.

      More people in the United States were killed in traffic accidents in September 2001 than were killed in terrorist attacks in the same month. That is also true of August 2001, October 2001, and all subsequent months. The difference is that the figures for terrorism deaths in all of thase other months is zero. (2001 deaths =42,900) [nsc.org]

      The thing stopping airliner takeovers is the passengers willingness to take on the terrorists as in the Pennsylvania hijacking. TSA is there to comfort the rubes who fly once every five years. It also provides jobs for those who can't hack it at McDonald's.

    • Re:Homeland Insecurity (Score:3, Informative)

      by kfg ( 145172 )
      In short, the entire approach makes no sense.

      You are presuming that the sense to be found in it has something to do with catching terrorists.

      Silly boy.

      KFG

  • How can this data mining improve air security? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by shoppa ( 464619 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @09:40AM (#12065643)
    OK, the TSA screwed up. The DHS was involved in covering it up. Big deal. We all know whenever you've got such beauracracies there'll be screwups and coverups.

    My big question: how can it do any good to train an expert system to recognize terrorists, when all the sample data is by definition from non-terrorists? I mean, there were no terrorist actions on any Jet Blue flights in that time frame. This data is useful as "known negatives" in the test for terrorists, but where do they get the data for "known positives" to train the system?

  • This is actually shocking (Score:5, Interesting)

    by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @09:43AM (#12065666) Homepage
    I worked for the TSA for over a year and a half. I was a god-damned screener -- I was checking passengers and baggage both. I have little respect for most of the other screeners and for the management. (Did you know the hiring process was little more than "first-come-first-served" and that people were hired before background checks were complete? They didn't even check resumes much of the time! People were placed in management roles at the age of 18! Their last job at a burger joint! This is a no-shitter!) But enough of that. The TSA is also filled with a lot of well-meaning people who really want to do a good job. But I have yet to detect deceit in any of the people I have encountered regardless of how high in rank. I am honestly shocked.
    • first-come-first-served ... hired before background checks ... didn't even check resumes ... management roles at the age of 18

      What does this honestly sound like to you? To me, it sounds like:
      • Gravy Train - The Federal money was rolling in, and there was little oversight.
      • Empire Building - A new bureaucracy created without oversight leads to massive building of little management empires.

      The American people bought this farce hook, line and sinker. Today, we are literally no safer onboard an aircra

  • The public (Score:3, Insightful)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @09:54AM (#12065748) Journal
    The public does not catch on, because it does not want to know. They wrap every little problem with euphemism and hope for the best. Hence the patriot act II and beyond.

  • OK Slashdot. Time to wake up. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by munch-o-matic ( 576475 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @10:19AM (#12065919)
    THIS IS A RANT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

    What the fuck is all this rhetoric about "the general public" not realizing their rights are being trampled and billions of their dollars are being wasted on the TSA?

    Who the fuck are you, and what are you doing about it? YOU are the general public, assholes. All you are doing is whining on Slashdot about how goddamned smart you are compared to everyone else because _you_ really know how inept the TSA is, and no one else is clever enough to figure this out.

    WTF?? Put up or shut up. Do something about the problem, or simply shut the fuck up.

    This is just bullshit from people who aren't doing a damn thing except following the herd to slaughter while marching meekly to their deaths, self-righteously proclaiming their outrage louder than the next.

  • It's the Roman Empire all over again (Score:5, Insightful)

    by panurge ( 573432 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @10:29AM (#12065985)
    I keep saying it, when I feel brave enough to open the mouth hole in my gold-plated mumetal helmet. The recent history of the USA is turning into the history of the Roman Empire. (Hence the obsession with the Persians, now known as the Iranians). Bread and circuses for the proles, and an emperor who arises from an oligarchy which justifies every suppression of civil liberty by claiming that the Empire is threatened from within and without. Among the empires that have used the restriction of travel as a method of social control are the Roman empire, the Soviet Union, and the past and current Chinese empires.

    Well, folks, when the guys with funny helmets turn up at the gates on their little horses and the government turns out to have done a runner, don't say you weren't warned.

    Oh, actually it just turns out that a government agency was doing what government agencies do all the time. I apologise for the wild exaggeration. So now please put down the Taser and let me get on the goddam airplane.

  • Isn't this whole TSA thing based on a lie anyway? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bayleaf ( 809062 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @10:50AM (#12066120)
    The lie being that if the US government spend loads of money on checking on people who come into the country by air, this will have any effect on terrorists at all? As I see it, the known terrorists would all be planners, the operatives aren't expected to last long anyway (life expectancy as a human bomb is not good). So, unless you have some way to identify a person, who has never been heard of before, as a fanatic, you have no hope of catching anybody this way. Even then, terror operations can take weeks or months to plan and execute, whats to stop them from coming in via Mexico for example? So if the people involved in it lie, are you surprised?

  • Treason (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @11:01AM (#12066214) Homepage Journal
    President Bush has been running a huge fraud. The ultimate opportunist, he exploited the 2001 planebombings to invade the totally unrelated country of Iraq, though now selling F15s to our "allies" in Pakistan, whose intelligence agency backed Qaeda's takeover of Afghanistan, while distributing stolen nuke tech to Libya, N. Korea, and Iran. He has been running a vast police state that tortures and kills people rounded up on circumstantial suspicion, holding them for years without even charging them or any due process, without producing any results. He's produced gigantic laws based on known lies and elaborate fictions, from the false Saddam/Osama connection through the need for violating Americans' Constitutional rights to capture Osama - where is he? Lying about WMDs to terrorize Americans and Congress into invading, his dereliction of security has bred an actual armed threat in a postapocalyptic state in Iraq, as former conventional military bases are looted by a predictabel international convention of the usual bad guys.

    I'm old enough to remember when Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about a blowjob. Bush has lied about a war that has killed thousands of Americans, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, hundreds of our allies, and gets worse every day - counter to all their lies about brevity and local support. If ever there were a "high crime and misdemeanor", it's sending us to a disastrous war on a series of lies. Where are the Republican cries for presidential "dignity" and "integrity"? Let's impeach this monster immediately, for treason. Before he does any more irreparable damage.

    • Re:Treason (Score:3, Insightful)

      by quarkscat ( 697644 )
      The only problem I have with the case that you
      make for Dubya's treason: it doesn't go nearly
      far enough.

      The two biggest state sponsers of terrorism, and
      the spread of WMD, are Pakistan AND Saudi Arabia.
      Pakistan could not have bankrolled their nuclear
      program by themselves: the Saudis have been behind
      the Pakistani's "Islamic" bomb for decades.

      If you study the evolution of the USA's wartime
      OSS into the CIA, you will appreciate the Saudi
      Arabian duplicity regarding al-Queda. Everywhere
      that you find Saudi oil mo

      • Re:Treason (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Doc Ruby ( 173196 )
        I'll add that the Saudis also funded Bush Sr's Iran/Contra operation, under the National Security guise. And Manucher Gorbanifar, Iran/Contra contractor exec, is back in a driver's seat at the meetings with his old BushCo cronies.

        Just the evidence that Cheney cleared the top-secret (NOFOR) Iraq invasion plan with Bandar, prior to informing Powell, should be enough to indict.

  • Joe Public is too dumb to understand. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by i41Overlord ( 829913 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @11:21AM (#12066427)
    In order for a government to make the common man depend on it, it needs to give the common man an arch enemy. It used to be the Kaiser, communists, drug dealers, and now it's terrorists.

    When the common man doesn't have an absolute enemy to fear, he'll tend not to depend on the government as much. Of course this isn't in the lawmakers best interest.

    Keep your dependents living in fear and they'll always remain your dependents.

  • Not only did the TSA Lie, but ... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by WillAffleckUW ( 858324 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @11:38AM (#12066582) Homepage Journal
    it was just released yesterday that FOIA requests have released official documents showing the Saudis were shipped out of the USA when noone else could fly right after 9/11 by the FBI.

    Sigh, don't you hate it when the conspiracy theorists are right ...
    • It's a quibble, but those "Saudis" were members of the Binladen family from which Osama Bin Laden came (and who has repudiated Osama to the point that they changed their family name). I don't if the danger to the Binladens (presumably from angered US residents) justified their return to Saudi Arabia, but it seems a reasonable action considering that the US needed cooperation from Saudi Arabia in finding the culprits behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

  • And this is the government... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Money for Nothin' ( 754763 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @12:55PM (#12067335)
    This is the government that Americans trust with a significant portion of their retirement (Social Security), their railroad system (Amtrak), their postal system (USPS), education, law enforcement, and so on?

    Bill Clinton lied (about sex w/ Monica), Bush Jr. lied (about WMDs in Iraq), the FBI lied in a secret court [nytimes.com] (to get wiretaps), the TSA lied (about protecting passenger privacy)... where does it end? (especially given the record of older agencies like the FBI and CIA lying to the public)

    At least when Ken Lay and Bernie Ebbers lie, their companies go bankrupt and they (at least in Ebbers case, most likely, though probably Ken Lay too eventually) go to prison.

    But when government fails, what happens? Generally, nothing.

    Mod me as troll/flamebait/overrated now for not promoting heavy doses of socialism (a necessary precondition for a large government to exist, so it can accomplish such abuses as this one)...

  • like the collection of fingernail clippers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Locutus ( 9039 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @01:08PM (#12067462)
    It seems that all these "security" policies are about the "perception" of security and not about actual security. Geesh, they were even collecting fingernail clippers from people visiting the Statue of Liberty....

    Even with all the holes in the original CAPPS system, WHAT were they actually looking for? After all, it flagged most of the hijackers. Then NOTHING resulted from that with regard to actually securing the aircraft. The easily opened cockpit doors also begged to question of how intelligent our security "experts" really are. I've only flown first class a few times but I remember my first time. When they closed the cockpit door and blocked my view of the instruments, I thought how silly it was since that door was so flimsy. This was the early 90's... People already knew about crashing airplanes to impart more damage beyond that of the aircraft and it's occupants.

    All and all, when you look at they foibles of our security systems before Sept 11, 2001, you actually see a system which surprisingly flagged most of the hijackers AND exposed their plan. What else you see is how badly that information was handled. Somehow, this was taken to mean that massive changes in the management of all the existing security departments was required.... It's like a bad wheel bearing is causing vibrations in the car and the owner of the service station tells you to replace the car.

    Bin Laden may have started the ball rolling, but WE are doing a great job at really messing up this country. What next, putting the 10 Commandments in front of every government building to help improve security?

    LoB
  • Beating a dead horse:

    Yeah, I'm sure some of you have magical instant-loading PDF viewers of some sort, but for those of us stuck on sluggish Windows machines using the incredibly-slow-to-load, lock-up-my-computer-while-it's-loading, Adobe Acrobat Reader...

    could we please add a [PDF] warning to links to PDFs?

    It may not be *quite* as bad as goatse, but it still merits a warning...

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