Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

Yesterday, Jim Cook made a post on the main blog listing a number of protests that fizzled out, one of which was the National Opt Out Day. However, I believe National Opt Out Day actually worked, but not in the way it was intended to. The facts of the matter are not as well known and so the full impact of the Opt Out Day protests have been lost on most of the general public.

The TSA has made a big show about how next to nobody actually opted for a pat down. While that is true, it’s also a distortion of the facts. Nobody opted for a pat down because the TSA had turned off a number of the full body scanners on National Opt Out Day. What does this tell me? Either the TSA is so worried about making sure to have good public relations and save face, or the full body scanners aren’t needed and/or aren’t as effective as the TSA likes to tell us. It also seems that just the threat of people opting out was enough to scare the TSa into shutting things down.

Speaking of which, how effective are the full body scanners? That’s a good question and one which I have to say, it could be better. For example, the full body scanners failed to detect bomb parts hidden on one passenger’s person and in another case, Adam Savage blundered through a TSA full body scanner while carrying two twelve inch long razor blades. A lot of people like to point at Israel’s airports and wonder why we can’t be more like them. I, however, think that the Dutch have a better way of going about full body scans. It seems they have bought a number of machines (designed and made in the USA) for their airports which show contraband on a generic mannequin display and which doesn’t generate an image of the person being scanned. It seems these units also cost less than what the TSA has now.

There are a number of things we could be doing differently, but to say National Opt Out Day was a failure doesn’t do it justice.

One of the most depressing features of our times is that the very technology that was supposed to liberate us through the democratization of media is being used against us. Americans have pulled back from publishing themselves on the Internet, and have fallen again into passive habits of using the online resources others create for them, watching, reading, chatting, and most of all buying.

We’re told that privacy is no longer a reasonable expectation, that we should be grateful that the government is continually conducting surveillance on our personal communications, and intruding into groups of activist dissidents using Patriot Act powers. It’s all for our own safety, we’re told.

The Homeland Security Regime is a paternalistic Big Brother, and we’re told not to worry our heads none – Big Brother is watching!

Of all the 9 members of the Hutaree arrested for their part in a conspiracy to kill police officers and their families with the aim of sparking a nationwide civil war, Mark Schauer represents the most of any U.S. Representative.

Congressman Schauer had a scheduled appearance in Lenawee County, where most of the arrests were made. His appearance was on Monday, the day after the arrests of the alleged terrorists were made public.

So, what did Schauer do in recognition of the Hutaree arrests? What did he say?

Nothing. In the face of homegrown terrorism centered in his own congressional district, Congressman Mark Schauer was silent. He said nothing. He did nothing. Now, two days later, Schauer continues his path of silence and inaction.

Why was Schauer afraid to speak out against extremism? Is he afraid that he’ll lose the votes of Hutaree supporters?

All this talk about military robots, and Homeland Security drones sounds like a bunch of science fiction. Even as I write about it, I think to myself, “This sounds like some kind of weird conspiracy theory involving tinfoil hats.”

For that reason, to accompany our articles about the threat of military drones, I think it’s important to offer our readers some simple photographic evidence of what’s going on. Here’s one pixel from that larger picture:

This photograph comes from the White House archives, and it shows President George W. Bush and his Secretary of Homeland Security standing right in front of a robotic airplane. The official seal of the Department of Homeland Security is shown on the robot.

Last year, we warned about the electoral implications of the nomination of Martha Coakley to the U.S. Senate. Coakley supported the Patriot Act, alienating the progressive base of the Democratic Party. Mike Capuano, who was one of the few to vote against the Patriot Act back in 2001, would have been a much better choice, and could have rallied Democratic voters to beat Scott Brown.

All that’s history now. What’s not history is the Patriot Act.

Just last week, the House of Representatives voted to pass an extension of the Patriot Act without any reforms at all, sneaking the vote in as an approval of an unspecified amendment to a Medicare bill.

Two-thirds of the House Democrats voted with the Republicans to approve the reform-free extension of Patriot Act spying powers that the government uses against Americans. Mike Capuano was not one of them. Capuano voted against the perpetuation of George W. Bush’s spying programs.

“You may recall that in 2001, I voted against the Patriot Act because I strongly believed that it did not do enough to protect our cherished civil liberties. I continue to have serious concerns about some of its provisions,” Capuano wrote, explaining his vote. “I want to be clear that it is important to give law enforcement the tools they need to pursue criminals. However, there is a way to do that and still recognize the importance of civil liberties – and such a solution is not currently being pursued by the House and Senate.”

Thank you, Representative Capuano, for taking a stand against the politics of fear.

I admit that I thought that this t-shirt would become irrelevant after the election of 2008. In 2010, I’m learning that it’s as timely as ever.

In yesterday’s defeat of Martha Coakley, Massachusetts Republicans explained their votes as motivated by a need to keep the United States safe from the threat of foreign enemies. A Massachusetts voter writes, “Scott Brown will do what it takes to keep America safe and never put the rights of terrorists above yours!” Another, self-described “Reaganite Republican” said that Brown’s agenda would focus on “taking-out-the-terrorists”, apparently forgetting that the Republican Party, in its years of controlling both Congress and the White House, failed miserably to do so.

That’s the weird thing about the Homeland Security regime: It’s not required to make sense. Its job is to create a rough bluster of tough posturing in order to make people feel protected, whether they actually are or not.

Some Americans still have the moral strength not to cower under the Homeland security blanket. Some Americans still choose to live in freedom rather than fear. Wearing this satirical Department of Homeland Insecurity shirt to show yourself as one of the stalwart lovers of liberty.

This morning, I wrote about the news that the EFF has had to file suit to get the Obama Adminstration to respond to Freedom of Information Requests about spying on social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Facebook has acknowledged, in a vague kind of way, that it assists the government in spying on its users, but when the EFF sought particulars, the Obama Administration refused to meet its legal obligation to respond.

Part of my response to this news was to write the article here on Irregular Times. I believe that simply spreading information can provoke some people into action.

But what about me? What would my response be? I looked at my own part in this story, at my own account on Facebook. I saw that while Facebook brings me nice bits of little news about friends I’m not in touch with on a regular basis, the service also brings me a lot of irrelevant bits of information that has nothing to do with me or my relationships to my friends. I saw a lot of advertisements and pointless, relatively boring games. I remembered how it used to be, that when I wanted to know something about one of my friends, I talked to them in person, and if I didn’t want to know about something, I just didn’t ask.

I looked at what Facebook was doing for me, and asked myself whether it was worth allowing government spies to have access to information about my social life. The answer: No, Facebook is not worth it.

So, my response to the Obama Administration’s refusal to be honest about its social networking spy operations is this: I’m off Facebook. I have deactivated my account, and I don’t plan on going back.

The sad thing is that a deactivated account is not a deleted account. While deactivating, the following notice came:

“Note: Even after you deactivate, your friends can still invite you to events, tag you in photos, or ask you to join groups. If you opt out, you will NOT receive these email invitations and notifications from your friends.”

I opted out, of course. Still, I realize that Facebook is keeping all the information I loaded up about my life, and will share that information with government spies if they ever demand it. The deactivation matters, nonetheless: At least I’m not adding new information. My little window in the Facebook panopticon is now shuttered.

We’ve heard quite a bit over the last week about an attack against U.S. government web sites. It’s been a top story on TV and in newspapers, as journalists use alarming terminology evocative of military invasion.

Members of Congress have picked up the alarming tone, speaking in tones of dread about the attack. “A powerful attack overwhelmed computers,” Representative Adrian Smith from Nebraska warned on Friday.

Actually, the attack was not particularly powerful, nor were most U.S. government computers overwhelmed. Mostly what happened is that there were a few glitches in public access to a few government web sites. The American people, including journalists who frequently use government web sites, had to be told that a cyberattack was underway a few days after it began. It wasn’t self-evident.

The attack was a DDOS campaign – dedicated denial of service. It was equivalent to a Ferris Buehler prank in sophistication. Government web sites were inundated with automated attempts to access its web sites, making the sites slow in responding to legitimate users. For the most part, these surges were not successful in disabling government systems.

This form of attack is nothing new. Private web sites have been attacked in this way for years. Irregular Times was attacked in this way a couple years ago by people upset at our irreverent attitude about Islam.

Irregular Times was knocked down for a couple of days, but then we bounced right back. There was no lasting damage. We don’t have any dedicated technnical staff. We’re just a small group of writers. If we can withstand this kind of attack, then the government can deal with the issue easily.

The issue of denial of service attacks is worth paying attention to, because these attacks are an annoying nuisance that interfere with the ordinary free flow of ideals through the Internet. They should not, however, be exaggerated as a new front in the war on terror. Politicians like Adrian Smith who suggest that the USA is under threat from a devious foreign enemy that has the power to destroy the Internet as we know it need to turn down the volume of their rhetoric, and not give the hackers more attention than they deserve.

Homeland Security has reached the inside of the Hilton hotel in Woodland Hills, California, where the Guest Services Directory instructs visitors to “study the layout of the room, and determine anything that might help or hinder emergency exiting”. An engrossing documentary on PBS? That might hinder emergency exiting, if you just have to find out how string theory is related to the philosophy of the Southern Indian dynasty of the first millenium of the Common Era.

A particularly useful instruction is found next to the elevators on the first floor: “ALARM SOUNDS LIKE WHOOP”. Remember: Alarm does not sound like DING or OOOOOOO. Alarm sounds like WHOOP.

Practice that sound now, before you go to sleep.