The Times piece is called Theater of the Absurd at the T.S.A., so you can imagine the content. We’re sure some at DHS and TSA will whine about the piece, but it’s hard to fault its conclusions. We’re doing the wrong things for airport security, and for poor reasons, and nobody in power seems to have the balls to admit it even though everyone outside the system seems to know that it’s all bullshit.

The root problem, as some experts see it, is the T.S.A.’s reliance on IDs that are so easily obtained under false pretenses. “It would be wonderful if Osama bin Laden carried a photo ID that listed his occupation of ‘Evildoer,'” permitting the authorities to pluck him from a line, [Security expert] Mr. Schneier said. “The problem is, we try to pretend that identity maps to intentionality. But it doesn’t.”

What’s worse, the TSA is actively hostile to attempts at improvement:

Ostensibly interested in what security specialists and legal authorities on privacy issues thought of its Secure Flight plans, the agency convened an advisory group in January 2005. (Mr. Schneier was a member.) Nine months later, when the advisers turned in their final report, it showed that the T.S.A.’s planners had given little or no thought to basic security issues, such as the problem of stolen identities.

Expressing frustration, the T.S.A.’s advisers said in their report that the T.S.A. had been so tight-lipped when talking to them that they never received the information they needed to make a single substantive recommendation.

Professor Blaze [CS at the University of Pennsylvania] has a great deal of experience publicly discussing the most sensitive of security vulnerabilities. He acknowledged that disclosure of a security weakness prompts “a natural and human response: ‘Why should we help the bad guys?'” The answer, he said, is that the bad guys aren’t helped — because they almost certainly already know a system’s weak points — and that disclosing the weaknesses brings pressure on government agencies and their suppliers to improve security for the good guys.

Emph. added. This isn’t news; anyone worth a damn in cryptography knows that knowledge of an encryption algorithm shouldn’t give you an advantage in trying to crack it — or, at least, it won’t if the algorithm is sound. Secret encryption methods are assumed to be insecure.

The article concludes:

The issues raised by the discovery of security vulnerabilities are not new. A. C. Hobbs, a locksmith who in 1853 wrote the book on locks and safes (the title: “Locks and Safes”) knew that “many well-meaning persons” assume that public exposure of a lock’s insecure design will end up helping criminals.

His response to this concern is no less apt today than it was then:

“Rogues are very keen in their profession, and know already much more than we can teach them.”

It’s not any different now, but apparently the TSA thinks it is. It’s horrifying how wrong they are.

The Bush administration wants to review and approve all USGS scientific findings prior to publication, from articles to presentations. This review may take from a couple weeks to six months.

Yeah, that seems like a GREAT idea.

Or, specifically, he hates blogs, and has introduced legislation designed to neuter the blogosphere.

Despite what the media say, McCain is not a good guy. He’s a party hack and a craven power-monger. Fuck him and his horse, and don’t be fooled into thinking he’s some kind of outsider candidate.

And, oddly, sometimes they don’t quite get it when we say, truthfully, “because they’re like the bastard child of right-wing loonies and the Weekly World News.”

I mean, how else can you explain them running a story on how soy milk makes kids gay? The headline is, we shit you not, “A Devil Food Is Turning Our Kids Into Homosexuals.” Where do they FIND these nutbirds?

New York State Troopers made a game of DUI arrests so much that they openly arrested people they knew weren’t drunk. The goal was “the 100 club,” meaning 100 arrests in a year.

According to the report, it took serious misconduct for the troopers to log that many DUI arrests. The report said troopers were discouraging people from taking breath tests.

The troopers told people that if they took the breath tests they would have to stay in police custody longer before they could post bond and be released, the report states.

Subsequent laboratory tests showed that many of the people arrested did not have drugs or alcohol in their systems, or had amounts well below the legal limit.

People with authority and power must be watched even more closely than normal citizens. They should get no pass at all an the abuse of this power, because if they do, they’ll just become bigger bullies. We have to have police, but we don’t have to tolerate this kind of bullshit.

The drug warriors think they know better than doctors how to manage pain, and have been locking up pain management specialists for prescribing painkillers in volumes the DEA (not the AMA) thinks of as excessive.

Great. Consider for a bit whether or not it’s a good idea for thugs as the DEA to have veto power over medical decisions made by highly trained physicians.

Via Wired News:

The first public meeting of a Bush administration “civil liberties protection panel” had a surreal quality to it, as the five-member board refused to answer any questions from the press, and stonewalled privacy advocates and academics on key questions about domestic spying.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which met Tuesday, was created by Congress in 2004 on the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, but is part of the White House, which handpicked all the members. Though mandated by law in late 2004, the board was not sworn in until March 2006, due to inaction on the part of the White House and Congress.

The three-hour meeting, held at Georgetown University, quickly established that the panel would be something less than a fierce watchdog of civil liberties. Instead, members all but said they view their job as helping Americans learn to relax and love warrantless surveillance.

More at Wired’s 27B Stroke 6 blog.

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour is basically responsible for the evisceration of the state’s highly successful anti-smoking campaign — which was funded not by taxpayer dollars, but by the tobacco settlement.

Mississippi’s program was funded by a settlement with tobacco companies, and was noted as one of the best in steering kids clear of a lifetime of tobacco use. So how did Barbour manage to destroy an effective program that wasn’t costing taxpayers a dime?

Barbour complained that the program received its funding directly from the courts and that it needed legislative approval, according to Myers. When the legislature passed a bill to continue the funding, Barbour vetoed it and went back to the courts to withdraw all remaining monies from the program.

That’s slight of hand you won’t see on a stage in Las Vegas.

Way to go.