Too bad if you're innocent, you're not flying anyway.

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In a Washington Post article, they address the problem of false positives, where an innocent person is "wrongly detained" because their information is similar to someone's on the no fly list.

A specific example in the article is of Keiran O'Dwyer, a veteran American Airlines pilot who has been stopped and questioned over 80 times since 2003. They say that besides him, there are around 15,000 people, per week, that apply for redress for being mistakenly targetted due to TSA's screening systems.

An agency official said in an interview that the system, launched in February 2006, has eliminated about 17,500 detentions involving people entering the country at airports, seaports and at land borders. It is part of what the government says is an effort to prevent terrorism while not inconveniencing travelers or violating their privacy and civil liberties, though it is not yet applied to domestic flights.

Maybe, just maybe, people should be free from surveillance if they're not doing anything wrong?

Read about it here.

The question is, what will happen now that it's being monitored by the court that should have been monitoring it in the first place? Why is Bush allowing this? It can only be because he thinks they won't do anything about it.

If you're not doing anything wrong, the government should leave you alone!

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Here's a snippet from Ars Technica about how it's not just the FBI abusing power these days. From the article:

Wired's Ryan Singel adds a bit more to the story with the tidbit that the Pentagon plans to hang on to the records and feed them into TALON, the database project that the military uses for the data-mining part of its anti-terrorism efforts. Great! This is especially encouraging in light of the comments of Pentagon officials quoted by the Times who claim that these records are typically used to knock names off of the suspects list. In other words, they look at the records, determine that Mr. Smith is completely innocent, has no ties to terror, and got his money legitimately, then they promptly feed his data into an anti-terror database.

Is there anything that doesn't have RFID anymore?

(Image used under: Creative Commons 2.0 [SRC])

EPIC reports that the Department of Homeland Security is creating a passport-like system that will be required for travelers between the US, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Bermuda. This "passport" will contain RFID and very little security. From the article:

The federal government has been increasingly using RFID technology in its identification documents. The Department of Homeland security last year began using RFID-enabled I-94 forms in its United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology ("US-VISIT ") program to track the entry and exit of visitors.¹⁹ This year, the State Department began issuing RFID-enabled passports to U.S. citizens.²⁰ Only 23% of U.S. citizens have passports.²¹ Therefore, under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, U.S. citizens would have to carry either a passport, which costs $97 for first-time applicants, or a PASS card. As the proposed Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative PASS card, U.S. passport, and US-VISIT I-94 entry and exit forms all contain RFID chips, if the PASS card proposal is adopted, then all U.S. citizens carrying either a passport or PASS card and visitors entering the country through US-VISIT will be able to be tracked using RFID technology.

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Schneier reports on a murder that was captured on a city camera system. He clearly thinks that such systems are pointless though the article seems to present it as being good (it caught a thief after all).

By using the worst possible scenario, however unlikely, it becomes easy to scare people into supporting something you personally want. When it comes to camera systems everywhere, remember this: absolute security can be acheived through absolute surveillance. This is true, but absolute surveillance also brings zero privacy and freedom.

ID Theft is a problem. It's a shame no one is talking about the solution.

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EPIC reports in their newsletter that for the 6th year in a row, Identity Theft is the #1 consumer complaint for the year. It's interesting to know that despite the massive and growing problem, the Credit Freeze remedies that would greatly curb the problem aren't being made available to most people.

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According to EFF:

Colorado-based Ciber, Inc., the largest laboratory that tests software used in U.S. voting systems, has been temporarily banned from approving new systems following problems discovered last summer by the Election Assistance Commission (EAC).

The EAC found that Ciber was not following proper quality- control procedures and could not document that it was conducting all the required tests. Ciber's renewed petition for accreditation is currently under EAC review.

It's almost like they don't even know what they're doing.

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Schneier reports that the government will begin encrypting all laptops. This is in response to case after case of stolen laptops leading to loss of personal data such as in the case with the Veterans Administration.

Considering that the typical response is to offer worthless credit monitoring services to make it look like they're doing something when they're actually not, this is a welcome change. Now if only they'll hold employees accountable for keeping the key/token/passwords in the same bag with the laptop…

Sony literally hacked US citizens and got a slap on the wrist.

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Consumer Affairs reports a settlement with 39 states for Sony's use of a "rootkit" to try and prevent users from copying their music. This forced DRM was detected by computer experts and quickly raised a stir.

Most importantly,

Sony said it was "pleased" with the settlement and said it would stop using copy-protection software that cannot be easily removed from consumers' PCs