"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast"
-Oscar Wilde		 Brilliant at Breakfast title banner "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself."
-- Proverbs 11:25
"...you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?" -- Steve Gilliard, 1964 - 2007

"For straight up monster-stomping goodness, nothing makes smoke shoot out my ears like Brilliant@Breakfast" -- Tata

"...the best bleacher bum since Pete Axthelm" -- Randy K.

"I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum." -- "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (1954-2015), They Live
Saturday, September 22, 2007

Sorry, but there is no legitimate security reason for this
Posted by Jill | 1:07 PM
Don't tell me this is about national security:

The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials.

The personal travel records are meant to be stored for as long as 15 years, as part of the Department of Homeland Security's effort to assess the security threat posed by all travelers entering the country. Officials say the records, which are analyzed by the department's Automated Targeting System, help border officials distinguish potential terrorists from innocent people entering the country.

But new details about the information being retained suggest that the government is monitoring the personal habits of travelers more closely than it has previously acknowledged. The details were learned when a group of activists requested copies of official records on their own travel. Those records included a description of a book on marijuana that one of them carried and small flashlights bearing the symbol of a marijuana leaf.

The Automated Targeting System has been used to screen passengers since the mid-1990s, but the collection of data for it has been greatly expanded and automated since 2002, according to former DHS officials.

Officials yesterday defended the retention of highly personal data on travelers not involved in or linked to any violations of the law. But civil liberties advocates have alleged that the type of information preserved by the department raises alarms about the government's ability to intrude into the lives of ordinary people. The millions of travelers whose records are kept by the government are generally unaware of what their records say, and the government has not created an effective mechanism for reviewing the data and correcting any errors, activists said.

The activists alleged that the data collection effort, as carried out now, violates the Privacy Act, which bars the gathering of data related to Americans' exercise of their First Amendment rights, such as their choice of reading material or persons with whom to associate. They also expressed concern that such personal data could one day be used to impede their right to travel.


Last month Mr. Brilliant and I went to Jamaica. It was our 18th trip to that country. We go to Jamaica for a number of reasons, primarily because it's inexpensive to stay there, and there are places to stay where you never, ever have to get dressed up. Right now our favorite places to stay are here and here. Club Ambiance is great because we can book directly with the hotel (which is nice if you have to cancel for work reasons), you don't have to dress up at ALL, and you can do it for about a grand a head. Sunset at the Palms is a way to stay in Negril and enjoy that great beach and great sunsets without getting hassled as much as you can on Long Bay. It's a little pricier, but not much. But given Jamaica's reputation as a haven for hippies (one which really no longer fits), I'm sure that having a passport stamp for Jamaica every year is a red flag for the DEA. As a result, we're always very careful when we pack. For example, we usually bring coffee and a new, sealed package of nondairy powdered creamer, because we drink a lot of coffee while on vacation. And we leave it there because of the red flag that an open container of white powder would trigger.

It's a shame that you can't even vacation where you want to without worrying if it makes the government suspicious.

I'm also paranoid because of all this surveillance of dissidents. Every time I fly someplace, I'm amazed that I'm not on the no-fly list yet. I'm even careful about the books I pack. This year I wanted to bring the latest Jodi Picoult novel about a school shooting, and decided not to, for fear of the TSA deciding that I was looking to shoot up a school. I also don't bring any nonfiction political books. I can just imagine what having a copy of Armed Madhouse would do. I'm sure if they made me turn on my MP3 player, the preponderance of Air America podcasts would be a red flag.

Think I'm being overly dramatic? Guess again (this from the article cited above):

Zakariya Reed, a Toledo firefighter, said in an interview that he has been detained at least seven times at the Michigan border since fall 2006. Twice, he said, he was questioned by border officials about "politically charged" opinion pieces he had published in his local newspaper. The essays were critical of U.S. policy in the Middle East, he said. Once, during a secondary interview, he said, "they had them printed out on the table in front of me."


There is absolutely no reason why any of this stuff is necessary. It's none of the government's Goddamn business what I read or where I go on vacation or what I wear or what I listen to. They can say it's about finding patterns of behavior that might be somehow consistent with what their silly ideas of what a terrorist would do are, but there is no way I will ever believe that. Like everything this Administration has done since it decided to look the other way and let terrorists attack this country, it's about creating a police state where its own citizens have to live in fear of its own government.

Update: But wait, there's more! This via Jane at Firedoglake:

In a major shift, the National Security Agency is drawing up plans for a new domestic assignment: helping protect government and private communications networks from cyberattacks and infiltration by terrorists and hackers, according to current and former intelligence officials.

From electricity grids to subways to nuclear power plants, the United States depends more than ever on Internet-based control systems that could be manipulated remotely in a terrorist attack, security specialists say.

The plan calls for the NSA to work with the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies to monitor such networks to prevent unauthorized intrusion, according to those with knowledge of what is known internally as the "Cyber Initiative." Details of the project are highly classified.


As Jane says,

I’m sure the NSA is exempt from the politicization that every other department in the federal government has been subject to under the Bush administration, and that when they call anti-war activists terrorist sympathizers and traitors they are only kidding.


And who's coordinating the whole mess? Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell -- the same Mike McConnell who lied last month when he claimed that the intrusive FISA law passed last month helped facilitate the arrests of the so-called terrorists in Germany.

Labels:

0 comments
Bookmark and Share