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Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.
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Screwdriver, Matches, Vaseline, and a Note
Legal Network Podcast on Patriot Act Renewal
The Steady Creep of Statist Control
Summary of Hawash Case
Legal Network Podcast on Patriot Act Renewal
The Steady Creep of Statist Control
Summary of Hawash Case
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Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Screwdriver, Matches, Vaseline, and a Note
All it takes to get a fighter jet escort these days is a small handful of normal, everyday items that anyone in America could be carrying in their pocket. Oh, and a note with the word al-Qaida somewhere on it.Anyone who thinks we are actually more secure with these ninnies scrambling fighter jets every time someone looks at them wrong is nuts. The TSA buffoons are now confiscating nasal spray. Vicks Sinex Nasal Spray, for christ's sake!
I realize it's all part of the, "If we can't do something useful let's at least do something visible" mentality that permeates our security efforts, but it really is stupid and makes these people look like abject morons.
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- A London-to-Washington flight was diverted to Boston's Logan Airport after a distraught passenger pulled out potentially dangerous items, according to a media report on Wednesday. Fighter jets escorted the flight after the woman produced a screw driver, matches, Vaseline and a note referencing al-Qaida, the Associated Press reported, citing an airport spokesman. United Flight 923 landed safely, Logan spokesman Phil Orlandella said, the AP reported.
Posted by: 
Terry Frazier at 11:35 AM
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Categories: Homeland Security, Policy & Regulation
Terry Frazier at 11:35 AM
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Friday, November 18, 2005
Legal Network Podcast on Patriot Act Renewal
Coast-to-Coast is a series of general interest legal podcasts produced by the LegalTalkNetwork and hosted by Robert Ambrogi and J. Craig Williams. These two bill themselves as the "top legal bloggers" and I find that bit of hubris a little offputting, but they do have some good shows.Today's 'cast on The Patriot Act presents two views - a former FBI agent turned Congressional candidate and an ACLU representative. It's an interesting discussion and well worth listening. Both sides make valid points, and both sides are really worried about excesses already occurring.
Posted by: Terry Frazier at 5:18 PM
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Categories: Homeland Security, Policy & Regulation, Privacy
Terry Frazier at 5:18 PM
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The Steady Creep of Statist Control
The insidious creep of anti-terrorism laws to include all criminal activity - and the complementary definition creep which links every potential criminal activity to the support, promotion, or funding of terrorism - continues unabated amid abusive government behavior and growing use of secret National Security Letters that prevent recipients, under penalty of jail, from ever disclosing that they've been served. From a Washington Post investigative report:Senior FBI officials acknowledged in interviews that the proliferation of national security letters results primarily from the bureau's new authority to collect intimate facts about people who are not suspected of any wrongdoing. Criticized for failure to detect the Sept. 11 plot, the bureau now casts a much wider net, using national security letters to generate leads as well as to pursue them. Casual or unwitting contact with a suspect -- a single telephone call, for example -- may attract the attention of investigators and subject a person to scrutiny about which he never learns.The PATRIOT ACT Renewal bill - our first chance to undo many of the wrongs pushed through by the Bush Administration's John Ashcroft - is being gutted. It appears that rather than striking the most onerous parts of the PATRIOT Act, the bill is actually making them worse. EFF has all the requisite information.
Historically, what countries have embraced such laws - subjecting millions of citizens to secret surveillance, making it a crime to disclose the surveillance, and hiding the reality of the laws from the public? If you answer this question honestly you'll be hard-pressed to find a democracy on your list.
Posted by: Terry Frazier at 2:36 PM
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Categories: Homeland Security, Privacy
Terry Frazier at 2:36 PM
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Saturday, May 3, 2003
Summary of Hawash Case
The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has a good article on the Mike Hawash case. It's as good a summary of the case as I've seen, noting the difficulty the government faces in identifying and prosecuting domestic terrorists, as well as looking realistically at both the results and consequences of those efforts.
[...] As with the detention of Mr. Hawash, the case against the Portland Six also has drawn criticism from civil libertarians and others who feel that the government has been overly zealous. When the six were arrested in October, Attorney General John Ashcroft called the event "a defining day in America's war against terrorism," and said that "a suspected terrorist cell within our borders" had been "neutralized." Evidence that has emerged so far, however, appears to give little support to the contention that the group was a real terrorist cell. Despite months of intensive surveillance of the defendants by the FBI before their arrests, no allegation has been made that they were plotting any violent action after they returned home from China. Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra said that the department views sleeper cells to be any group that "conspires to support terrorists," regardless of whether it was planning any violent action here.The criminal complaint and lengthy affidavit in the Hawash case offer little actual evidence of what Mr. Hawash's intentions were. The sole exception is a partial transcript of a conversation recorded by a confidential FBI source with one of the other defendants in the case, Jeffrey Leon Battle. In it, Mr. Battle said a "Palestinian" who was "married to a white woman ... left with us to go fight." [WSJ Online]
Posted by: Terry Frazier at 11:15 AM
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Categories: Privacy, Homeland Security, Patriot Act
Terry Frazier at 11:15 AM
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