George W. Bush

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I hate it when they tease. Of course, Dennis Kucinich is introducing not one, but 35 articles of impeachment against Bush. Could justice finally be served? Be still my beating heart!

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Child gets foot stuck in escalator due to the Croc brand shoes she was wearing. Most disturbing is this:

CPSC is aware of 77 entrapment incidents since January 2006, with about half resulting in injury. All but two of the incidents involved popular soft-sided flexible clogs and slides.

What the hell is the Consumer Product and Safety Commission doing if they know about this problem and aren't doing anything about it? Of course, if the current head of the CPSC is as bad as the one Bush nominated last time, this is hardly a shock.

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McCain, like Bush would support warrantless wiretaps and telco immunity.

The Article II citation is key, since it refers to President Bush's longstanding arguments that the president has nearly unlimited powers during a time of war. The administration's analysis went so far as to say the Fourth Amendment did not apply inside the United States in the fight against terrorism, in one legal opinion from 2001.

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By putting tons of cameras at different angles on an airplane and carefully inspecting everyone's faces and movements, the EU hopes to identify terrorists before they strike.

There's only a few problems to work out:

1. There's no way to know what a terrorist looks like
2. Removing privacy with no gain is a vast waste of money and resources
3. Mass surveillance hurts everyone and doesn't actually work.

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It seems that wearing a t-shirt with a gun on it is grounds for a ban from flying. I know there's "always two sides", but this is just plain stupid.

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It's amazing and I promise it's no joke, but both congress AND Bush did something right by drafting, passing, and then signing into law the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.

Some provisions of the law include:

- Prohibiting group health insurance plans and issuers offering coverage on the group or individual market from basing eligibility determinations or adjusting premiums or contributions on the basis of an individual's genetic information. Insurance companies cannot request, require or purchase the results of genetic tests, and they are prohibited from disclosing personal genetic information. - Prohibiting issuers of Medigap policies from adjusting pricing or conditioning eligibility on the basis of genetic information. They cannot request, require or purchase the results of genetic tests, or disclose genetic information. - Prohibiting employers from firing, refusing to hire, or otherwise discriminating with respect to compensation, terms, conditions or privileges of employment. Employers may not request, require or purchase genetic information, and they are also prohibited from disclosing personal genetic information. Similar provisions apply to employment agencies and labor organizations.

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I ended up sitting next to Peter Pietra, the head of the privacy department at the TSA. This gave me an interesting opportunity to talk about issues of privacy when dealing with their agency and the first thing I asked was about the pornographic backscatter x-ray devices.

He was clearly frustrated (and I don't blame him) as I'm sure this is a topic that assaults him regularly. The issue is that backscatter CAN see through your clothes, but the TSA orders the devices preconfigured at a level that prevents them from seeing pictures such as these one on the Internet. They are also unable to modify the configuration. In fact what they actually see, as shown on their site, is smeared blob that highlights objects, but not skin.

The issue that I have here is that if the TSA's claims of how they use the technology are true, then what the hell was all the hype about?

Images will be deleted immediately once viewed and will never be stored, transmitted or printed (the passenger imaging units have zero storage capability) Metallic and non-metallic objects are displayed, including all items that a passenger may be carrying on his/her person

Also, according to the website, you can always choose to have a pat-down instead.

I asked Peter about this because it seems to me most people aren't going to know to go to the website and read about Backscatter before being faced with it at an airport, but he said that the sample picture on the web is printed right on the machine and people are supposed to be shown the picture and told of the option for pat down prior to being scanned.

Final Thoughts

I notice that the picture on the TSA site is from behind so probably doesn't fairly show how much frontal detail they would see so for full disclosure, they should show a frontal picture. However, I can understand why someone wouldn't want to show what amounts to nudity on these machines for propriety reasons and don't necessarily consider that evasive.

What more can you ask for than clear disclosure and a reasonable choice? Granted the technology can be used for worse things, but the devices is about as small and conspicuous as a casket so you'll never be scanned without your knowledge. If they are configured correctly, store nothing, and you can opt for a pat down, then perhaps some have been too harsh on both the technology and the agency.

Speaking of, EPIC's article that led me to write about backscatter in the first place unfairly show the capabilities of backscatter ignoring the actual use of the technology by the TSA. I'm sure there's someone from EPIC around the conference somewhere and I'll be sure to ask them about it.

What TSA Sees

What EPIC Shows

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I'm at the Computers Freedom and Privacy conference of 2008 and I'm currently sitting in an interesting panel about something I had no idea about. I assumed that deceptive voting practices meant e-voting, but what they're actually talking about is modern-day Jim Crow laws.

I suppose I should have known better, but I wasn't aware that there were still problems with disinformation encouraging people not to vote. Often the misinformation will come in e-mail or physical mail and will seem very authentic appearing to have come from some state agency or well-known organization. They will try to discourage you from voting by telling you:

• that due to massive expected turnout, Republicans would vote on election day and Democrats the day after (thus eliminating Democratic votes from the election).
• that if you have unpaid parking tickets or child support, you'll be arrested when you go to vote
• that the polling location has changed
• that any ex-cons can't vote (note that this may be true depending on the state you're in, but be sure to check before deciding not to vote)
• that the voting registration deadline has long passed so there's no point in even trying now

There's more, but that's a start. If anyone tells you that you can't vote for some reason or that your polling location/date has changed, verify the information before acting on it!

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While this is barely legal (if it IS legal), I don't particularly have a problem with cell phone companies opening their data to police to help find a person reported as missing. That is, of course, assuming that they don't abuse the power and that missing persons are defined correctly.

As with most government powers, as long as there is independent oversight and proper consequences for abuse, who cares what powers they actually have?