When Bush first floated the idea of a "Department of Homeland Security", just
the name sounded Gestapo-ish enough to give me serious reservations. Now this?

http://www.cbsnews.com:80/stories/2007/06/16/eveningnews/main2939438.shtml
"New Security Rules For Small Boats, Planes"

Vaughn





--
Will poofread for food.

In article >,
"Vaughn Simon" > wrote:

> When Bush first floated the idea of a "Department of Homeland Security", just
> the name sounded Gestapo-ish enough to give me serious reservations. Now
> this?
>
> http://www.cbsnews.com:80/stories/2007/06/16/eveningnews/main2939438.shtml
> "New Security Rules For Small Boats, Planes"

scary, isn't it?

--
Bob Noel
(goodness, please trim replies!!!)

On Jun 17, 9:27 am, "Vaughn Simon" >
wrote:
> When Bush first floated the idea of a "Department of Homeland Security", just
> the name sounded Gestapo-ish enough to give me serious reservations. Now this?
>
> http://www.cbsnews.com:80/stories/2007/06/16/eveningnews/main2939438....
> "New Security Rules For Small Boats, Planes"
>
> Vaughn
>
> --
> Will poofread for food.

Makes you want to move to a free country, doesn't it? There has to be
someplace in the world that is still truly free, it sure isn't here
anymore!

On Jun 17, 11:27 am, "Vaughn Simon"
> wrote:
> When Bush first floated the idea of a "Department of Homeland Security", just
> the name sounded Gestapo-ish enough to give me serious reservations. Now this?
>
> http://www.cbsnews.com:80/stories/2007/06/16/eveningnews/main2939438....
> "New Security Rules For Small Boats, Planes"
>
> Vaughn
>

<SARCASM ON>

"Out in the middle of Minnesota, a small car is really not a problem.
But when you take a small car and put it in Manhattan or Pennsylvania
Avenue the threat dynamic becomes much different," says security
expert Paul Krutz.

Homeland Security is contemplating new requirements including
mandating IDs for the operators and passengers of small cars,
installing tracking transponders, and subjecting passengers to
terrorist watch list checks.

"It's overkill. It's not going to have the payback," says Ed Bacon who
drives a Geo Metro.

Bacon has been driving in Manhattan for more than 20 years. Getting ID
from all of his passengers may seem like a good idea, but he says it
just won't work.

"You get a lot of last minute requests," he says. "My neighbor might
call and ask for a ride to the grocery store, or a stranded friend
might call from the subway station. How am I going to get that
information to authorities?"

<SARCASM OFF>

("Andrew Sarangan" wrote)
> "You get a lot of last minute requests," he says. "My neighbor might
> call and ask for a ride to the grocery store, or a stranded friend
> might call from the subway station. How am I going to get that
> information to authorities?"
>
> <SARCASM OFF>


Didn't anybody in HS see:

Speed (1994)
The Gauntlet (1977)
Dirty Hary (1971)

Don't forget the buses.


Paul-Mont
(Sam Lowry) "I only know you got the wrong man."

(Jack Lint) "Information Transit got the wrong man. I got the *right* man.
The wrong one was delivered to me as the right man, I accepted him on good
faith as the right man. Was I wrong?"

Brazil (1985) ....rent it!

"Vaughn Simon" > wrote in message
...
> When Bush first floated the idea of a "Department of Homeland Security", just the name sounded Gestapo-ish enough to
> give me serious reservations. Now this?
>
> http://www.cbsnews.com:80/stories/2007/06/16/eveningnews/main2939438.shtml
> "New Security Rules For Small Boats, Planes"
>
> Vaughn
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Will poofread for food.
>
>

Where have you all been? Have any of you ever been walking down the street, just minding your own business, when a cop
stopped you and asked to see your ID? Have you ever said no? Did you pay the price for saying no? This has been going on
for years, and no-one seems to give a damn....

On Sun, 17 Jun 2007 15:27:16 GMT, "Vaughn Simon"
> wrote in
>:

>When Bush first floated the idea of a "Department of Homeland Security", just
>the name sounded Gestapo-ish enough to give me serious reservations. Now this?
>
>http://www.cbsnews.com:80/stories/2007/06/16/eveningnews/main2939438.shtml
>"New Security Rules For Small Boats, Planes"

Homeland Security is contemplating new requirements including
mandating IDs for the operators and passengers of small boats and
planes, installing tracking transponders on boats, and subjecting
passengers on private jets to terrorist watch list checks.

But one report says the first new rules will be issued at summer's
end, and passengers on private jets will have to be checked
against terror watch lists.




It's already happening:

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/01/realid_costs_an.html
January 30, 2007
Real-ID: Costs and Benefits
The argument was so obvious it hardly needed repeating. Some
thought we would all be safer -- *from terrorism, from crime, even
from inconvenience -- *if we had a better ID card. A good,
hard-to-forge national ID is a no-brainer (or so the argument goes),
and it’s ridiculous that a modern country like the United States
doesn’t have one.

Still, most Americans have been and continue to be opposed to a
national ID card. Even just after 9/11, polls showed a bare majority
(51%) in favor -- *and that quickly became a minority opinion again.
As such, both political parties came out against the card, which meant
that the only way it could become law was to sneak it through.

Republican Cong. F. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin did just
that. In February 2005, he attached the Real ID Act to a defense
appropriations bill. No one was willing to risk not supporting the
troops by holding up the bill, and it became law. No hearings. No
floor debate. With nary a whisper, the United States had a national
ID.

By forcing all states to conform to common and more stringent
rules for issuing driver’s licenses, the Real ID Act turns these
licenses into a de facto national ID. It’s a massive, unfunded mandate
imposed on the states, and -- *naturally -- *the states have resisted.
The detailed rules and timetables are still being worked out by the
Department of Homeland Security, and it’s the details that will
determine exactly how expensive and onerous the program actually is.

It is against this backdrop that the National Governors
Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and the
American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators together tried to
estimate the cost of this initiative. “The Real ID Act: National
Impact Analysis” is a methodical and detailed report, and everything
after the executive summary is likely to bore anyone but the most
dedicated bean counters. But rigor is important because states want to
use this document to influence both the technical details and
timetable of Real ID. The estimates are conservative, leaving no room
for problems, delays, or unforeseen costs, and yet the total cost is
$11 billion over the first five years of the program.

If anything, it’s surprisingly cheap: Only $37 each for an
estimated 295 million people who would get a new ID under this
program. But it’s still an enormous amount of money. The question to
ask is, of course: Is the security benefit we all get worth the $11
billion price tag? We have a cost estimate; all we need now is a
security estimate.

I’m going to take a crack at it.

When most people think of ID cards, they think of a small plastic
card with their name and photograph. This isn’t wrong, but it’s only a
small piece of any ID program. What starts out as a seemingly simple
security device -- *a card that binds a photograph with a name --
*rapidly becomes a complex security system.

It doesn’t really matter how well a Real ID works when used by the
hundreds of millions of honest people who would carry it. What matters
is how the system might fail when used by someone intent on subverting
that system: how it fails naturally, how it can be made to fail, and
how failures might be exploited.

The first problem is the card itself. No matter how unforgeable we
make it, it will be forged. We can raise the price of forgery, but we
can’t make it impossible. Real IDs will be forged.

Even worse, people will get legitimate cards in fraudulent names.
Two of the 9/11 terrorists had valid Virginia driver’s licenses in
fake names. And even if we could guarantee that everyone who issued
national ID cards couldn’t be bribed, cards are issued based on other
identity documents -- *all of which are easier to forge.

And we can’t assume that everyone will always have a Real ID.
Currently about 20% of all identity documents are lost per year. An
entirely separate security system would have to be developed for
people who lost their card, a system that itself would be susceptible
to abuse.

Additionally, any ID system involves people: people who regularly
make mistakes. We’ve all heard stories of bartenders falling for
obviously fake IDs, or sloppy ID checks at airports and government
buildings. It’s not simply a matter of training; checking IDs is a
mind-numbingly boring task, one that is guaranteed to have failures.
Biometrics such as thumbprints could help, but bring with them their
own set of exploitable failure modes.

All of these problems demonstrate that identification checks based
on Real ID won’t be nearly as secure as we might hope. But the main
problem with any strong identification system is that it requires the
existence of a database. In this case, it would have to be 50 linked
databases of private and sensitive information on every American --
*one widely and instantaneously accessible from airline check-in
stations, police cars, schools, and so on.

The security risks of this database are enormous. It would be a
kludge of existing databases that are incompatible, full of erroneous
data, and unreliable. Computer scientists don’t know how to keep a
database of this magnitude secure, whether from outside hackers or the
thousands of insiders authorized to access it.

But even if we could solve all these problems, and within the
putative $11 billion budget, we still wouldn’t be getting very much
security. A reliance on ID cards is based on a dangerous security
myth, that if only we knew who everyone was, we could pick the bad
guys out of the crowd.

In an ideal world, what we would want is some kind of ID that
denoted intention. We'd want all terrorists to carry a card that said
“evildoer” and everyone else to carry a card that said “honest person
who won't try to hijack or blow up anything.” Then security would be
easy. We could just look at people’s IDs, and, if they were evildoers,
we wouldn’t let them on the airplane or into the building.

This is, of course, ridiculous; so we rely on identity as a
substitute. In theory, if we know who you are, and if we have enough
information about you, we can somehow predict whether you’re likely to
be an evildoer. But that’s almost as ridiculous.

Even worse, as soon as you divide people into two categories --
*more trusted and less trusted people -- *you create a third, and very
dangerous, category: untrustworthy people whom we have no reason to
mistrust. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh; the Washington, DC,
snipers; the London subway bombers; and many of the 9/11 terrorists
had no previous links to terrorism. Evildoers can also steal the
identity -- *and profile -- *of an honest person. Profiling can result
in less security by giving certain people an easy way to skirt
security.

There’s another, even more dangerous, failure mode for these
systems: honest people who fit the evildoer profile. Because evildoers
are so rare, almost everyone who fits the profile will turn out to be
a false alarm. Think of all the problems with the government’s no-fly
list. That list, which is what Real IDs will be checked against, not
only wastes investigative resources that might be better spent
elsewhere, but it also causes grave harm to those innocents who fit
the profile.

Enough of terrorism; what about more mundane concerns like
identity theft? Perversely, a hard-to-forge ID card can actually
increase the risk of identity theft. A single ubiquitous ID card will
be trusted more and used in more applications. Therefore, someone who
does manage to forge one -- *or get one issued in someone else’s name
-- *can commit much more fraud with it. A centralized ID system is a
far greater security risk than a decentralized one with various
organizations issuing ID cards according to their own rules for their
own purposes.

Security is always a trade-off; it must be balanced with the cost.
We all do this intuitively. Few of us walk around wearing bulletproof
vests. It’s not because they’re ineffective, it’s because for most of
us the trade-off isn’t worth it. It’s not worth the cost, the
inconvenience, or the loss of fashion sense. If we were living in a
war-torn country like Iraq, we might make a different trade-off.

Real ID is another lousy security trade-off. It’ll cost the United
States at least $11 billion, and we won’t get much security in return.
The report suggests a variety of measures designed to ease the
financial burden on the states: extend compliance deadlines, allow
manual verification systems, and so on. But what it doesn’t suggest is
the simple change that would do the most good: scrap the Real ID
program altogether. For the price, we’re not getting anywhere near the
security we should.

This essay will appear in the March/April issue of The Bulletin of
Atomic Scientists.

EDITED TO ADD (1/30): There's REAL-ID news this week. Maine became
the first state to reject REAL-ID. This means that a Maine state
driver's license will not be recognized as valid for federal purposes,
although I'm sure the Feds will back down over this. And other states
will follow:

"As Maine goes, so goes the nation," said Charlie Mitchell,
director of the ACLU State Legislative Department. "Already bills have
been filed in Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Georgia and
Washington, which would follow Maine's lead in saying no to Real ID,
with many mores states on the verge of similar action. Across the
nation, local lawmakers are rejecting the federal government's demand
that they curtail their constituents' privacy through this giant
unfunded boondoggle."
More info on REAL-ID here.

EDITED TO ADD (1/31): More information on Montana. My guess is
that Montana will become the second state ro reject REAL-ID, and New
Mexico will be the third.

It also assumes that all terrorists are on the watch list.


"Vaughn Simon" > wrote in message
...
> When Bush first floated the idea of a "Department of Homeland Security",
> just the name sounded Gestapo-ish enough to give me serious reservations.
> Now this?
>
> http://www.cbsnews.com:80/stories/2007/06/16/eveningnews/main2939438.shtml
> "New Security Rules For Small Boats, Planes"
>
> Vaughn
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Will poofread for food.
>
>
>
>

In article >,
Larry Dighera > wrote:

> Real-ID: Costs and Benefits
> The argument was so obvious it hardly needed repeating. Some
> thought we would all be safer -- *from terrorism, from crime, even
> from inconvenience -- *if we had a better ID card. A good,
> hard-to-forge national ID is a no-brainer (or so the argument goes),
> and it’s ridiculous that a modern country like the United States
> doesn’t have one.

True story...
I was talking to a friend the other day about cell phones.
He then told me about an instance he witnessed in a Circuit City story a
couple days earlier.
A group of five young Mexican males arrived in a vehicle ahead of him.
He walked into the store behind them. They went to the cell phone area
and began looking at the phones. One fellow wanted to buy phone and
phone plan. The clerk asked for a drivers license for identification.
Not one of the four had a drivers licence. The clerk asked for any form
of identification in an effort to make the sale. Again, not one of them
had any identification.

(Disclaimer to the rabid political oriented who inhabit this group: This
is not an anti-immigrant rant, this is just a true story.)

On Jun 17, 2:12 pm, john smith > wrote:
> In article >,
> Larry Dighera > wrote:
>
> > Real-ID: Costs and Benefits
> > The argument was so obvious it hardly needed repeating. Some
> > thought we would all be safer -- *from terrorism, from crime, even
> > from inconvenience -- *if we had a better ID card. A good,
> > hard-to-forge national ID is a no-brainer (or so the argument goes),
> > and it's ridiculous that a modern country like the United States
> > doesn't have one.
>
> True story...
> I was talking to a friend the other day about cell phones.
> He then told me about an instance he witnessed in a Circuit City story a
> couple days earlier.
> A group of five young Mexican males arrived in a vehicle ahead of him.
> He walked into the store behind them. They went to the cell phone area
> and began looking at the phones. One fellow wanted to buy phone and
> phone plan. The clerk asked for a drivers license for identification.
> Not one of the four had a drivers licence. The clerk asked for any form
> of identification in an effort to make the sale. Again, not one of them
> had any identification.
>
> (Disclaimer to the rabid political oriented who inhabit this group: This
> is not an anti-immigrant rant, this is just a true story.)

Not trying to defend these individuals, but if someone wants to buy a
prepaid phone and a prepaid plan, I don't see why you need to show any
id.

"Vaughn Simon" wrote:

> When Bush first floated the idea of a "Department of Homeland Security",
> just the name sounded Gestapo-ish enough to give me serious reservations.
> Now this?



"There ought to be limits to freedom."
- George W. Bush, May, 1999

"Andrew Sarangan" > wrote in message
oups.com... wrote:
Not trying to defend these individuals, but if someone wants to buy a
prepaid phone and a prepaid plan, I don't see why you need to show any
id.

Of course, we don't know if they were trying to buy prepaid phones. Prepaid
phones excepted, cellphones are seldom sold "free and clear", they are usually
discounted when you sign a contract to buy cell service for a minimum number of
months. If you run off with the phone, the carrier loses.

Around here, you can buy prepaid phones at the drugstore or supermarket and
nobody cares who you are.

Vaughn

On Sun, 17 Jun 2007 12:35:23 -0700, Andrew Sarangan
> wrote in
. com>:

>
>Not trying to defend these individuals, but if someone wants to buy a
>prepaid phone and a prepaid plan, I don't see why you need to show any
>id.

How is the CIA supposed to know who they are eavesdropping on if ID
isn't required to purchase the phone? :-)

In article . com>,
Andrew Sarangan > wrote:

> Not trying to defend these individuals, but if someone wants to buy a
> prepaid phone and a prepaid plan, I don't see why you need to show any
> id.

This was not for prepaid plan and phone.
This was for a phone and monthly service plan.
After relating this story to me, I laughed and mentioned that I thought
they usually bought prepaid cards for exactly the reason that they do
not have identification.

"Dan Luke" > wrote in message
...
>
> "There ought to be limits to freedom."
> - George W. Bush, May, 1999

He's right. The limits to any person's freedom should be the freedoms of
other persons and nothing more.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Steven P. McNicoll > wrote:
>
> "Dan Luke" > wrote in message
> ...
>>
>> "There ought to be limits to freedom."
>> - George W. Bush, May, 1999
>
> He's right. The limits to any person's freedom should be the freedoms of
> other persons and nothing more.

One of our founding fathers would vehemently disagree:

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little
Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
- Benjamin Franklin, A Historical Review of the Constitution
and Government of Pennsylvania, 1759

Our 'elected' (?!!?) leader of this country has basically
turned this country into a place where our founding fathers would
probably have taken the latter of Patrick Henry's options.

BL.
- --
Brad Littlejohn | Email:
Unix Systems Administrator, |
Web + NewsMaster, BOFH.. Smeghead! :) | http://www.wizard.com/~tyketto
PGP: 1024D/E319F0BF 6980 AAD6 7329 E9E6 D569 F620 C819 199A E319 F0BF

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writes:

> Makes you want to move to a free country, doesn't it? There has to be
> someplace in the world that is still truly free, it sure isn't here
> anymore!

Developing democracies often have a high level of freedom, if they don't
suffer from too much corruption. As democracies evolve, they trade freedom
for a false sense of security, until they cease to be democracies any more.

Bravo Two Zero writes:

> It also assumes that all terrorists are on the watch list.

That's easy to ensure: just put _everyone_ on the watch list.

Mxsmanic > wrote in
:

> writes:
>
>> Makes you want to move to a free country, doesn't it? There has to
>> be someplace in the world that is still truly free, it sure isn't
>> here anymore!
>
> Developing democracies often have a high level of freedom, if they
> don't suffer from too much corruption. As democracies evolve, they
> trade freedom for a false sense of security, until they cease to be
> democracies any more.
>



Bwawhahwhahwhahhwhahwhahwhahwhahwhahwhahwh!


Bertie

Mxsmanic > wrote in
:

> Bravo Two Zero writes:
>
>> It also assumes that all terrorists are on the watch list.
>
> That's easy to ensure: just put _everyone_ on the watch list.
>

OK, terrorist boi##

Bertei

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote:


>>
>> "There ought to be limits to freedom."
>> - George W. Bush, May, 1999
>
> He's right. The limits to any person's freedom should be the freedoms of
> other persons and nothing more.

That isn't what he was talking about.

"Dan Luke" > wrote in message
...
>
> That isn't what he was talking about.
>

Ya think?

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote:

>> That isn't what he was talking about.
>>
>
> Ya think?


Yes.

"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...

>
> How is the CIA supposed to know who they are eavesdropping on if ID
> isn't required to purchase the phone? :-)

Don't worry. Your voiceprint is on file.

On 2007-06-17 08:27:16 -0700, "Vaughn Simon"
> said:

> When Bush first floated the idea of a "Department of Homeland Security", just
> the name sounded Gestapo-ish enough to give me serious reservations. Now this?
>
> http://www.cbsnews.com:80/stories/2007/06/16/eveningnews/main2939438.shtml
> "New Security Rules For Small Boats, Planes"
>
> Vaughn

Yeah, right. You don't know the tenth part of it.

A friend of mine is Jason Moulton, recently retired from the FBI. He
was the guy who arrested Patty Hearst in his rookie year.

They caught almost the whole group at once because they were all
cashing and writing checks on the same account with the same name, but
the signatures looked different. Now, if the FBI knew THAT in the early
'70s, what do you suppose they know now?

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

In article >,
A Guy Called Tyketto > wrote:
> Our 'elected' (?!!?) leader of this country has basically
> turned this country into a place where our founding fathers would
> probably have taken the latter of Patrick Henry's options.


Really? How is that, exactly?

Where's my freedom to carry a gun for self-protection at all times, even
on an airplane, or in NYC, or Washington, D.C? Where's my freedom to
work hard and put food on my table without being forced to pay for
someone else's? Where's my freedom to be treated equitably, no matter
my income level, under the tax code? Where's my freedom to take sole
responsibility for my own retirement, without having to contribute to
someone else's? Where's my freedom to operate a smoking section in my
restaurant?

Even if George Bush has his secret agents outside my house tapping my
phone, it hasn't resulted in any restriction of liberty at all. On the
other hand, I'd be arrested for carrying a gun on an airplane. I'd be
fined and eventually imprisoned for refusing to pay a higher tax rate to
the IRS. I'd be fined and eventually imprisoned for operating a smoking
section inside my restaurant, where smoking indoors has been banned (an
increasing number of states/municipalities). I'd be fined and
eventually imprisoned for refusing to participate in the government-run
retirement system. None of these activities imposes on the freedoms of
another at all, yet the laws that prohibit them do impose on my freedom.

So, tell me again, what has George Bush done to take away my freedoms?



JKG

On Jun 19, 4:13 pm, Jonathan Goodish > wrote:
> In article >,
> A Guy Called Tyketto > wrote:
>
> > Our 'elected' (?!!?) leader of this country has basically
> > turned this country into a place where our founding fathers would
> > probably have taken the latter of Patrick Henry's options.
>
> Really? How is that, exactly?
>
> Where's my freedom to carry a gun for self-protection at all times, even
> on an airplane, or in NYC, or Washington, D.C? Where's my freedom to
> work hard and put food on my table without being forced to pay for
> someone else's? Where's my freedom to be treated equitably, no matter
> my income level, under the tax code? Where's my freedom to take sole
> responsibility for my own retirement, without having to contribute to
> someone else's? Where's my freedom to operate a smoking section in my
> restaurant?
>
> Even if George Bush has his secret agents outside my house tapping my
> phone, it hasn't resulted in any restriction of liberty at all. On the
> other hand, I'd be arrested for carrying a gun on an airplane. I'd be
> fined and eventually imprisoned for refusing to pay a higher tax rate to
> the IRS. I'd be fined and eventually imprisoned for operating a smoking
> section inside my restaurant, where smoking indoors has been banned (an
> increasing number of states/municipalities). I'd be fined and
> eventually imprisoned for refusing to participate in the government-run
> retirement system. None of these activities imposes on the freedoms of
> another at all, yet the laws that prohibit them do impose on my freedom.
>
> So, tell me again, what has George Bush done to take away my freedoms?
>
> JKG

Military jets intercepting and arresting the pilot doing touch & goes
at a sleepy town airport was unheard of until now.

Andrew Sarangan wrote:

>
> Military jets intercepting and arresting the pilot doing touch & goes
> at a sleepy town airport was unheard of until now.


I must have missed that story. Where did it happen?

In article m>,
Andrew Sarangan > wrote:
> > So, tell me again, what has George Bush done to take away my freedoms?
> >
> > JKG
>
> Military jets intercepting and arresting the pilot doing touch & goes
> at a sleepy town airport was unheard of until now.

And where/when did this happen? Enlighten me.


JKG