The last week has had a number of interest revelations about the two men who bombed Boston and, apparently, intended to bomb New York as well. I’ve been accumulating these articles for a week and waiting for a common thread to emerge. And I think I’ve found it.
The first thing that emerges from the reporting is that Uncle Ruslan had it right the first time he spoke to the press: these guys were losers. … Read more
One of the worst temptations after a high-profile crisis like Boston is to surrender some of our freedom for the illusion of safety. Perhaps this was justifiable after 9/11, when he had 2800 dead and weren’t sure what Al-Qaeda’s capabilities were. But even in that case, we can see now, after ten years, that we gave too much. Warrantless wiretapping, surveillance, no-fly lists, TSA, torture, the spectre of drones in American cities, the Patriot Act. … Read more
Justice Department documents released today by the ACLU reveal that federal law enforcement agencies are increasingly monitoring Americans’ electronic communications, and doing so without warrants, sufficient oversight, or meaningful accountability.
The documents, handed over by the government only after months of litigation, are the attorney general’s 2010 and 2011 reports on the use of “pen register” and “trap and trace” surveillance powers. The reports show a dramatic increase in the use of
You know that scene in every mediocre spy movie where the surveillance team finally busts the bad guys only to find out the bad guys were really a surveillance team for another agency? Yeah, that just happened:
He saw something. He said something. And he inadvertently uncovered a secret spying operation that the New York Police Department was running outside its jurisdiction.
In June 2009, a building superintendent at an apartment complex near the
More hi jinks are a foot at our local airports, and these I can’t blame on TSA. We all know about the zero common sense tolerance approach that Homeland Security takes in keeping us safe from those olive complected terrorists, keeping one step ahead of the jihadists is no small feat, so when John and Yoko decided to come pay us a visit, they got the welcome wagon is spades, God save the queen:… Read more
Don’t you just hate it when you read some scintillating article and they leave out the pertinent stuff? Thankfully I’ve got my FOIA request, penned and ready to go, but since that new revision of the FOIA I wrote about earlier, I will probably get a response like this ,” Thank you for your request about information on our recent discovery of a sex toy, we regret to inform you that no such incident took … Read more
A few days ago Seattle Outcast in one of his comments mentioned how the TSA was expanding their influence out of the airports and hitting the streets in Tennessee. My reaction was I’m sure like everyone else’s , that old Franklinism about security/liberty immediately came to mind, saying to myself ,”Here we go again”.
It is amazing how much leeway a government can be given by a willing populace if that rope is couched in … Read more
The LA Times has one of the periodic exposes of how bloated the security and anti-terrorism sector of our economy has become. As we’ve noted many times, it seems that policy and spending are driven not by a comprehensive overlook of the terror threat but by people sitting around, having a few drinks and imagining what terrorists might do.
On the edge of the Nebraska sand hills is Lake McConaughy, a 22-mile-long reservoir that in
Oh, come on. You’re not surprised at this, are you?
As part of the TSA’s request for FY 2012 funding, TSA Administrator John Pistole told Congress last week that the TSA conducts 8,000 unannounced security screenings every year. These screenings, conducted with local law enforcement agencies as well as immigration, can be as simple as checking out cargo at a busy seaport. But more and more, they seem to involve giving airport-style pat-downs and
Remember WikiLeaks? You have to unless you have been off world. They put out all that embarrassing information that was supposed to make the US look bad, but instead made the Obama team look that way? All that hubbub about the need to keep secrets by the aggrieved and embarrassed governments, and all the pap about the freedom of information and all that from the WikiLeaks people? Well, seems like the universe has a sense … Read more
