WikiLeaks reveals more than just government secrets

Glenn Greenwald on all the Wikileaks hand-wringing.

Amplify’d from www.salon.com

The WikiLeaks disclosure has revealed not only numerous government secrets, but also the driving mentality of major factions in our political and media class.  Simply put, there are few countries in the world with citizenries and especially media outlets more devoted to serving, protecting and venerating government authorities than the U.S.  Indeed, I don't quite recall any entity producing as much bipartisan contempt across the American political spectrum as WikiLeaks has:  as usual, for authoritarian minds, those who expose secrets are far more hated than those in power who commit heinous acts using secrecy as their principal weapon.

First we have the group demanding that Julian Assange be murdered without any charges, trial or due process.  There was Sarah Palin on on Twitter illiterately accusing WikiLeaks -- a stateless group run by an Australian citizen -- of "treason"; she thereafter took to her Facebook page to object that Julian Assange was "not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders" (she also lied by stating that he has "blood on his hands":  a claim which even the Pentagon admits is untrue).

The way in which so many political commentators so routinely and casually call for the eradication of human beings without a shred of due process is nothing short of demented.

Those who demand that the U.S. Government take people's lives with no oversight or due process as though they're advocating changes in tax policy or mid-level personnel moves -- eradicate him!, they bellow from their seats in the Colosseum -- are just morally deranged barbarians.

Then, with some exceptions, we have the group which -- so very revealingly -- is the angriest and most offended about the WikiLeaks disclosures:  the American media, Our Watchdogs over the Powerful and Crusaders for Transparency.  On CNN last night, Wolf Blitzer was beside himself with rage over the fact that the U.S. Government had failed to keep all these things secret from him:

Then we have The New York Times, which was denied access to the documents by WikiLeaks this time but received them from The Guardian.  That paper's Executive Editor, Bill Keller, appeared in a rather amazing BBC segment yesterday with Carne Ross, former British Ambassador to the U.N., who mocked and derided Keller for being guided by the U.S. Government's directions on what should and should not be published (video below):

It's one thing for the Government to shield its conduct from public disclosure, but it's another thing entirely for the U.S. media to be active participants in that concealment effort.

Then we have the Good Citizens who are furious that WikiLeaks has shown them what their Government is doing and, conversely, prevented the Government from keeping things from them.

Before setting forth why these WikiLeaks disclosures produce vastly more good than harm, I'll state several caveats as clearly as I can.  Unlike the prior leaks of war documents, there are reasonable concerns about this latest leak (most particularly that impeding diplomacy makes war more likely).  Like all organizations, WikiLeaks has made mistakes in the past, including its failure to exercise enough care in redacting the names of Afghan informers.  Moreover, some documents are legitimately classified, probably including some among the documents that were just disclosed.

Nonetheless, our government and political culture is so far toward the extreme pole of excessive, improper secrecy that that is clearly the far more significant threat.  And few organizations besides WikiLeaks are doing anything to subvert that regime of secrecy, and none is close to its efficacy.  It's staggering to watch anyone walk around acting as though the real threat is from excessive disclosures when the impenetrable, always-growing Wall of Secrecy is what has enabled virtually every abuse and transgression of the U.S. government over the last two decades at least.  Read more at www.salon.com

 

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TSA Backscatter X-ray Backlash

Some of Bruce Schneier's stream of consciousness on the topic.

Amplify’d from www.schneier.com

A woman has a horrific story of opting-out of the full body scanners. More stories: this one about the TSA patting down a screaming toddler. And here's Dave Berry's encounter (also this NPR interview.

Sadly, I agree with this:

It is no accident that women have been complaining about being pulled out of line because of their big breasts, having their bodies commented on by TSA officials, and getting inappropriate touching when selected for pat-downs for nearly 10 years now, but just this week it went viral. It is no accident that CAIR identified Islamic head scarves (hijab) as an automatic trigger for extra screenings in January, but just this week it went viral. What was different? Suddenly an able-bodied white man is the one who was complaining

This video provides tips to parents flying with young children. Around 2:50 in, the reporter indicates that you can find out if your child has been pre-selected for secondary, and then recommends requesting "de-selection." That doesn't make sense.

Nor this story. The author convinces people on line to opt-out with him. After the first four opt-outs, the TSA just sent people through the metal detectors.

There's talk about the health risks of the machines, but I can't believe you won't get more radiation on the flight. Here's some data:

A typical dental X-ray exposes the patient to about 2 millirems of radiation. According to one widely cited estimate, exposing each of 10,000 people to one rem (that is, 1,000 millirems) of radiation will likely lead to 8 excess cancer deaths. Using our assumption of linearity, that means that exposure to the 2 millirems of a typical dental X-ray would lead an individual to have an increased risk of dying from cancer of 16 hundred-thousandths of one percent. Given that very small risk, it is easy to see why most rational people would choose to undergo dental X-rays every few years to protect their teeth. More importantly for our purposes, assuming that the radiation in a backscatter X-ray is about a hundredth the dose of a dental X-ray, we find that a backscatter X-ray increases the odds of dying from cancer by about 16 ten millionths of one percent. That suggests that for every billion passengers screened with backscatter radiation, about 16 will die from cancer as a result.

Jeffrey Goldberg asked me which I would rather see for children: backscatter X-ray or enhanced pat down. After remarking what an icky choice it was, I opted for the X-ray; it's less traumatic.

In 2005, I wrote:

I'm not impressed with this security trade-off. Yes, backscatter X-ray machines might be able to detect things that conventional screening might miss. But I already think we're spending too much effort screening airplane passengers at the expense of screening luggage and airport employees...to say nothing of the money we should be spending on non-airport security. On the other side, these machines are expensive and the technology is incredibly intrusive. I don't think that people should be subjected to strip searches before they board airplanes. And I believe that most people would be appalled by the prospect of security screeners seeing them naked. I believe that there will be a groundswell of popular opposition to this idea. Aside from the usual list of pro-privacy and pro-liberty groups, I expect fundamentalist Christian groups to be appalled by this technology. I think we can get a bevy of supermodels to speak out against the invasiveness of the search.

Exactly two things have made airline travel safer since 9/11: reinforcement of cockpit doors, and passengers who now know that they may have to fight back. Everything else -- Secure Flight and Trusted Traveler included -- is security theater. We would all be a lot safer if, instead, we implemented enhanced baggage security -- both ensuring that a passenger's bags don't fly unless he does, and explosives screening for all baggage -- as well as background checks and increased screening for airport employees. Then we could take all the money we save and apply it to intelligence, investigation and emergency response. These are security measures that pay dividends regardless of what the terrorists are planning next, whether it's the movie plot threat of the moment, or something entirely different. Read more at www.schneier.com

 

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Arrested for tweeting

For some reason, I find this absolutely hilarious.

Amplify’d from languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu

What in the hell motivates the tweeting craze? Twitter seems insane to me. If all my Language Log posts had to be 140 chars I wouldnt be abl

And people wreck their lives tweeting. A UK politician's "joke" suggesting a muslim writer should be stoned to death got him arrested by th

(Dont forget, China is not the only country where you can get arrested simply for online comments; the UK too has no constitutional guarant

And a frustrated UK airline traveler who wrote in jest about "blowing the airport skyhigh" has been fined a total of $3000 for "menacing" tw

Its clear that the lives of these Twitter users would've been far happier and less fraught if they had never heard of Twitter. So why the fu

Comment if you wish but your comments will be strictly limited to 140 ASCII characters. I dont see why you guys should get more leeway thanRead more at languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu

 

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Removing Belts at Airport Security

The obvious answer? SUSPENDERS!

Amplify’d from www.schneier.com

The TSA is making us remove our belts even when we don't have to.

European airports have made us remove our belts for years. My normal tactic is to pull my shirt tails out of my pants and over my belt. Then I flash my waist and tell them I'm not wearing a belt. It doesn't set off the metal detector, so they don't notice. Read more at www.schneier.com

 

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'Are Any Parts of Your Body Sore?' Asks the Man From TSA

One experience with the new body scanner opt-out regulations. Security theater at its finest. The process is obviously geared to make avoiding the scanner as embarrassing and time-consuming as possible. More proof that the TSA doesn't work for you.

Amplify’d from www.theatlantic.com

Eventually, I'm called over for my pat-down. "Do you want to do this privately?" he asks. "No, right here in the middle of the airport is fine," I say.

"The guidelines have changed, just to warn you. We now have to run our hands through your groin until we meet --" "Resistance. Yes, I know," I say.

"Are any parts of your body sore?" he asks.  "No," I say, instantly regretting that I didn't say, "Yes. My groin. Very sore."  Next time.

He feels me up. "Could you widen your stance, please?" he asks. "Hey, I'm not in the United States Senate!" I say, widening my stance.

"How come you don't go through the machine?" he asks me. I give him several more answers than he expected: 1) I prefer to limit my exposure to radiation, which the back-scatter imager produces; 2) I don't think this new technology will stop terrorism; 3) I find the idea of the government taking pictures of my genitalia a discomfiting invasion of privacy; 4) I find the specific pose a person is forced to take inside the machine -- hands up, as in a mugging -- particularly debasing.Read more at www.theatlantic.com

 

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The End of In-Flight Wi-Fi?

Personally, I doubt they will be able to ban in-flight WiFi; there's just too much money in it for the Guvmint to stand in the way.

Amplify’d from www.schneier.com

Okay, now the terrorists have really affected me personally: they're forcing us to turn off airplane Wi-Fi. No, it's not that the Yemeni package bombs had a Wi-Fi triggering mechanism -- they seem to have had a cell phone triggering mechanism, dubious at best -- but we can imagine an Internet-based triggering mechanism. Put together a sloppy and unsuccessful package bomb with an imagined triggering mechanism, and you have a new and dangerous threat that -- even though it was a threat ever since the first airplane got Wi-Fi capability -- must be immediately dealt with right now.

Please, let's not ever tell the TSA about timers. Or altimeters.

And, while we're talking about the TSA, be sure to opt out of the full-body scanners and remember your sense of humor when a TSA officer slips white powder into your suitcase and then threatens you with arrest. Read more at www.schneier.com

 

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Google suing US Department of the Interior for Google Apps snub

Since most people don't ever use 90-95% of Microsoft Office features, I'm not sure the standardization argument holds much water.

Amplify’d from www.engadget.com

Google has filed a lawsuit in the US Court of Federal Claims against the US Department of the Interior for being what it claims as "unduly restrictive of competition." Apparently the DOI wrote up procurement requirements for a hosted email and collaboration solution (it's currently hobbling along with 13 different platforms for its 88,000 users) that specifically stated the software had to be part of the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite. Google thinks there should be a competitive procurement process for the $59 million contract, allowing for potential alternatives to Microsoft (like Google Apps, for instance). The DOI says it's up for open competition on the contract, but it's "standardized" on Microsoft tech. We'll have to see how this plays out. Read more at www.engadget.com

 

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