Tag: links

"The folks from Clamcase stopped by our trailer this afternoon with some of the first finished products to roll off the assembly lines…"

Great art by Adam Watson. The Chewbacca is the best.

"[B]ecoming a zombie would be embarrassing more than anything, as it is a clear message that you're just a total idiot."

This bit is all fun of win. Sorry, Nathan.

Good advice, and something I didn't have enabled before, when I *did* leave my phone behind. (Thankfully, a good samaritan turned it in to appropriate parties.)

"Meerkat turns SSH tunnels — a fairly obscure and complicated concept — into a feature anyone should be able to use, and does so in a very Mac-like way."

Justin Miller, Meerkat's creator, wrote this tutorial on combatting the Firesheep HTTP session hijacking plug-in.

"An easy-to-use SSH tunnel manager built specifically for the Mac."

"Sessions keeps track of your open windows and tabs for you, with automatic periodic backups for easy and robust session restoration across launches. If the current panoply of tabs gets to be too much for either you or Safari, simply save a snapshot of the session at any time and start fresh, secure in the knowledge that you can go back and revisit all of those links in their associated context at your future leisure."

John Tyner's now-famous encounter with the TSA in San Diego over the body scanning machines and enhanced pat-down policy, including the video he shot.

John Tyner attempts to answer some common questions that showed up via e-mail and in the comments section of his original post on his TSA encounter in San Diego.

John Tyner explains why he filmed his processing through the TSA checkpoint at San Diego.

John Tyner answers his critics, noting that he's not opposed to airline security, rather the current methods of body scanning and enhanced pat-downs is ineffective and not where we should be putting our resources.

"The government, via the TSA, is saying that travelers can opt out of the protections afforded them by the U.S. Constitution. The problem with this is that there is no comparable alternative to flying for travel over long distances. By federalizing the security of all air travel, the government has severely limited (note that I do not say "removed") people's ability to move freely about the country by making them choose between air travel and their 4th amendment protections. Taken as a whole, the government is effectively removing the restrictions placed on it by the constitution by making it seem as though the people are willingly accepting the change…"

The federal government has inserted itself between two private parties involved in a business transaction, which just happens to be about traveling freely within the borders of one's own nation.

"If a plane was hijacked and crashed once per week, you would still be more likely to be killed driving to the airport to get on that plane. The takeaway from this should be that terrorism (in the air) just isn't that common."

Tyner notes that while we must take security of airliners seriously, the fears behind this particular security threat are really overblown.

Good overview of John Tyner's encounter with the TSA in San Diego. I would note that if it is indeed a violation of federal law and/or regulations to not finish the screening process once inside the security checkpoint, perhaps the TSA should make this information prominent outside each security checkpoint.

I would suggest you NEVER let the TSOs take you to a private room for screening. If there is absolutely no way to get out of it, do NOT go alone. Demand a travel partner go with you, or a member of local law enforcement. Never let it be your word against the TSA's.

Don't expect any help out of America's House of Lords any time soon.

Has video of Paul introducing the legislation on the House floor.

Basically, Paul introduces a one-paragraph bill taking away any immunity government workers may have for things private individuals are not allowed to do. Thus, if we can’t grope a stranger without it being an assault, neither can TSA employees. Say bye-bye to the enhanced pat-down, and hello Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.

Designed in 2008, but getting lots of attention now thanks to the enhanced pat-down policy. Oleg needs to get this made as a sticker and sell them. I can only imagine how many we'd start seeing at TSA checkpoints, thanks to sly passengers.

The first of what we hope are many common-sense measures: children 12 and under now exempt from enhanced pat-down.

Video of Christine Holland explaining how a TSO groped her as part of the enhanced pat-down.

"For example, many security experts have urged TSA to adopt techniques, used with great success by the Israeli airline El Al, in which passengers are observed, profiled, and most importantly, questioned before boarding planes. So TSA created a program known as SPOT — Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques. It began hiring what it called behavior detection officers, who would be trained to notice passengers who acted suspiciously. TSA now employs about 3,000 behavior detection officers, stationed at about 160 airports across the country.

"The problem is, they're doing it all wrong. […]

"'It's not an Israeli model, it's a TSA, screwed-up model,' says Mica. 'It should actually be the person who's looking at the ticket and talking to the individual. Instead, they've hired people to stand around and observe, which is a bastardization of what should be done.'"

"A Gizmodo investigation has revealed 100 of the photographs saved by the Gen 2 millimeter wave scanner from Brijot Imaging Systems, Inc., obtained by a FOIA request after it was recently revealed that U.S. Marshals operating the machine in the Orlando, Florida courthouse had improperly-perhaps illegally-saved images of the scans of public servants and private citizens."

And we're lied to as the government tells us these machines aren't even capable of saving images.

"'It is mindboggling for us Israelis to look at what happens in North America, because we went through this 50 years ago,' said Rafi Sela, the president of AR Challenges, a global transportation security consultancy. He's worked with the RCMP, the U.S. Navy Seals and airports around the world.

'Israelis, unlike Canadians and Americans, don't take s— from anybody. When the security agency in Israel (the ISA) started to tighten security and we had to wait in line for — not for hours — but 30 or 40 minutes, all hell broke loose here. We said, "We're not going to do this. You're going to find a way that will take care of security without touching the efficiency of the airport."

That, in a nutshell is 'Israelification' – a system that protects life and limb without annoying you to death."

A-MEN.

"[A] site-based initiative to inform the public of the injustices and discrimination from the Transportation Security Administration & Department of Homeland Security, in order to get the public involved and to promote a way to end the usage of the Full Body Scanners and pat downs."

Jeff Buske's special underwear features a strategically placed fig leaf design and uses a powdered mix of tungsten and other metals (which won't set off the airport metal detectors) to protect one's privacy when undergoing security (or medical) screenings.

George Will: "The average American has regular contact with the federal government at three points — the IRS, the post office and the TSA. Start with that fact if you are formulating a unified field theory to explain the public's current political mood."

Goldberg's account of his first encounter with the new, enhanced patdown. "This past Wednesday, I showed up at Baltimore-Washington International for a flight to Providence, R.I. I had a choice of two TSA screening checkpoints. I picked mine based on the number of people waiting in line, not because I am impatient, but because the coiled, closely packed lines at TSA screening sites are the most dangerous places in airports, completely unprotected from a terrorist attack — a terrorist attack that would serve the same purpose (shutting down air travel) as an attack on board an aircraft."

"[T]o avoid giving gross offense to the Afghan public, and to prevent the appearance of an uncontrolled security state, the US military forbids use on Afghan civilians of the very practices the TSA is now making routine for civilian travelers at US airports."

I think if it's good enough for Afghan citizens, it's good enough for U.S. citizens, no?

A blast from the past; Jeffery Goldberg, November 2008: “The whole system is designed to catch stupid terrorists,” Schnei­er told me. A smart terrorist, he says, won’t try to bring a knife aboard a plane, as I had been doing; he’ll make his own, in the airplane bathroom. Schnei­er told me the recipe: “Get some steel epoxy glue at a hardware store. It comes in two tubes, one with steel dust and then a hardener. You make the mold by folding a piece of cardboard in two, and then you mix the two tubes together. You can use a metal spoon for the handle. It hardens in 15 minutes.”

"But come November 24th, here's an idea you might try to make the day extra-special. It's a one-word idea: Kilts. Think about it — if you're a male, and you want to bollix-up the nonsensical airport security-industrial complex, one way to do so would be to wear a kilt. If nothing else, this will cause TSA employees to throw up their hands in disgust. If you want to go the extra extra mile, I suggest commando-style kilt-wearing. While it is probably illegal to fly without pants, I can't imagine that it's illegal to fly without underpants."

"It is a source of continual astonishment to me that pilots — many of whom, it should be pointed out, are military veterans who possess security clearances — are not allowed to carry onboard their airplanes pocket knives and bottles of shampoo, but then they're allowed to fly enormous, fuel-laden, missile-like objects over American cities."

"One obvious technique the TSA is using to funnel passengers through the back-scatter imager is to waste their time — many people can't afford to wait five minutes for a pat-down, and will exchange the humiliation of the Federal Dick-Measurer for a speedier trip through security."

Jennifer Abel tees off in this editorial on TSA apologetics.

Now you know where to fly out of in Orlando. (If you can.)

Joe Flood contends the TSA's "Blogger Bob" is engaging in Orwellian doublespeak.

Would be interesting to see what comes of this, if anything.

Money quote all flyers should print out and take with them to the airport: Under 18 U.S. Code Section 2244, " 'sexual contact' means the intentional touching, either directly or through the clothing, of the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh or buttocks of any person with an intent to abuse, humiliate, harass, degrade."

The anti-body scanner/groping Opt-Out Day site for The Privacy Coalition.

Isaac Z. Schlueter stages a minor revolution at a TSA checkpoint armed only with radiation health information disseminated by UCSF.