DHL

(Image is in the Public Domain)

In a continuing effort by the Bush administration and the ridiculous Department of Homeland Security to make sure there's not a country left in this world that supports us, the DHS has suddenly abandoned talks with Canada about traveler pre-screening.

"It's unacceptable to say it can't be figured out," former U.S. ambassador Gordon Giffin said Thursday from Calgary. "The U.S. can't just throw up its hands. It's almost childish, like they're taking their marbles and going home," said Giffin, who served in Canada from 1997 to 2001. "It's just not productive. For Pete's sake, we're working with Canada. We're not working with some Third World country."

Because we really needed another way to be spied on...

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

CNN posted an article about tiny transmitters embedded in some Canadian coins and planted on contractors with security clearance. From the article:

In a U.S. government warning high on the creepiness scale, the Defense Department cautioned its American contractors over what it described as a new espionage threat: Canadian coins with tiny radio frequency transmitters hidden insidee. Experts were astonished about the disclosure and the novel tracking technique...

Okaaaaay…. So, this is "creepy", and "novel"? First of all, coins can be given away very easily thus defeating the point of tracking the recipient. Second, the metal of the coin will inhibit the transmitters. Third, tracking technology already exists and is being used now. It's called rfid and it's already being put into our merchandise and even our clothes. Basically, it's much worse than coins.