Category: The World

Act VI: Light My Fire

I don’t smoke. I have never been a regular smoker of anything. Except maybe salmon. Nevertheless, I am seriously considering buying a lighter. Not just any lighter, but a genuine Zippo lighter.

Why? Because Zippo is standing up for your rights, and asking the TSA just what they are thinking with their latest missive. Perhaps they take umbrage with the news coverage specifically saying “Zippo-type” lighters would be prohibited on airplanes. Perhaps they are concerned what this will do to business.

In any event, Zippo offers an excellent debate. They begin by conceding that lighters probably don’t belong in the cabin. However, Zippo lighters meet rigid safety criteria, as tested by independent entities, that suggest they are perfectly safe for checked luggage. Especially since ammunition and aerosol cans — arguably items of at least similar risk — are allowed in checked baggage. In conclusion, they “believe this rule is unnecessary for public safety.” Period.

So if this is not about public safety, what is it about?

Don’t think to hard about how the rules protect you, since this is the same agency that might have put a Canadian government official on the No-Fly List. Of course U.S. authorities can neither confirm nor deny this.

Intermission: Newsreel

A moment of silence, please, for the American soldiers who have died in Iraq. The number is now over 1500. This number does not include contractors and journalists. Do not forget them. Support the troops by praying for peace and their safe return home.

Meanwhile, back on Capitol Hill, Senate Republicans are trying to ram through bankruptcy “reform” again, despite Democratic attempts to add amendments to protect consumers. This is an item of critical importance when you consider that half of all bankruptcies involve substantial medical debts and credit cards — another source of debt — are woefully underegulated. The same Senate voted against a measure that would make credit card companies clearly notify consumers of their ludicrous policies.

Elsewhere in Washington DC, President Bush and his administration are seeking to quash a bunch of lawsuits by invoking the “secrecy privilege.” Now, the principle behind this privilege, which has been used now and again for two centuries, is that some facts just have to stay secret for the sake of national security. However, in this day and age one can’t help but wonder if it is being used now to silence a whistle-blower retaliation case and accusations of torture.

I am more than a little bothered by the current tendency to decry inconvenient science as “unproven theories.”

Whether it’s putting stickers about “evolution” on science textbooks, or disseminating simply false information about contraception, (or even the number of people who still think most overrated dictator of 2003 Saddam Hussein had anything at all to do with 9/11) there seems to be a more than trivial part of the population that would rather put their heads in the sand than look at reality.

I read recently that the most important scientific breakthroughs often come, not with the words “eureka!” but rather with “that’s funny…” Scientific theories often represent nothing more than our best current understanding of the world. Most of the time, we cannot “prove” these theories, but we can confirm or refute them by obtaining data that is either “consistent” with the theory, or “inconsistent.” The latter tends to indicate a problem with the theory. When a scientist — a real scientist and not just someone who knows a few facts and is willing to parrot the party line — comes across facts that do not fit theory, he looks at those facts and tries to figure out why. Is there a measurement error? Has something gotten into the data that shouldn’t be there? Is this some peculiar exception to the theory? Can the theory be refined to reflect this new data? Or is the theory simply wrong?

At some point, there is enough confirming data that a theory is accepted as more or less right. We don’t need more experiments to tell us that actions have opposite and equal reactions, or that germs cause disease, or that water is made up of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen.

Information keeps coming in that suggests that the theory of climate change, or global warming, is coming to pass. The world is definitely getting warmer on the whole, and strange things are happening to our weather as a result. The Pacific Northwest is having an unusually warm, dry winter, so the bulbs are blooming early and summer drought is expected. Las Vegas has had snow two years in a row. Field biologists in Alaska have noticed changes over the course of years. Europe and Japan have had record heat waves. Florida has been pounded with more hurricanes than usual.

How much confirming data do we need?

What is a subject for debate is exactly why the world is getting warmer. Is it the “greenhouse effect” of Carbon Dioxide trapping heat? How does that fit with the fact that the world has been getting less sunlight over the last few decades? Is this just a perfectly normal fluctuation in the temperature that humans are only now able to measure?

It is not possible to run experiments on something as large as the world’s climate, and even if it were possible it would be extremely irresponsible; if something went wrong it could have absolutely devastating consequences, like the death of all life on the planet. However, just because we can’t experiment doesn’t mean we can’t look for things that happened at the same time. We do know that as the world has been getting warmer, humans have been putting out progressively more pollution. Our power plants and car engines put out more carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide our cows fart more methane, and our trees are being cut down more than at any point in the past. We can’t prove that these things cause global warming, but we can’t rule it out either. And in any event, pollution isn’t good for us, either.

That is why people are getting involved. Shareholders are holding corporations responsible for pollution. That is why the Kyoto Agreement went into effect this week, and why some states and municipalities are trying to comply with it even if the United States won’t. Kyoto won’t cure the world on it’s own because too many countries are exempt. This is a real shame, because the underdeveloped nations that are exempt had the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the developed world. If they seized the chance to install clean technology the first time, they could skip the environmental and health consequences that we face here.

Kyoto is not perfect, but it’s better than anything else on the table. Unless of course you are one of the huge polluters.

In closing, I don’t like Hillary Clinton, but I do like this idea: make Election Day a national holiday, mandate receipts for voting, and require all the new rules to be in place by the 2006 elections. Remember, this isn’t about partisanship, it is about making sure your vote counts. As many really close elections as they have been in the last five years, that’s really important. Thanks to Pandagon for pointing out this item.

Depending on what your news source is, you may have read that there are new guidelines for driver’s licenses, or you may have read that immigration laws have been tweaked. Believe it or not, this is the same bit of legislation. You can read the bill here.

During this discussion, I will overlook the fundamental difference between a “drivers license,” whose purpose is to show that one is a competent driver, and an “identification card,” whose purpose is to verify the identity of the bearer. Many if not most people use a drivers license as an identification card, but that does not make them synonymous. There are many people who, for whatever reason, need to be identifiable and yet do not drive.

Now, I don’t think anyone would disagree that an identification card should include certain basic bits of information: name, date-of-birth, address, a picture. Since it will be used to verify identity, it makes perfect sense to verify that the applicant is who he says he is. It is also, frankly, in everyone’s interest to make identity documents difficult to forge or falsify. This bill goes beyond that.

This bill wants your state DMV to check your Social Security number against SSA files, digitize your picture, put a scanned image of your birth certificate and immigration papers and social security card and who knows what other information in a digitized database forever, and make your complete driving record available to every other DMV in the country. Your state has the option of refusing to comply with these standards, but if they do not only will your state lose all it’s interstate highway funds; you and every citizen of your state will not be able to use your “non-compliant” drivers license for federal identification purposes, including boarding an airplane.

Rather inconvenient.

But wait, there’s more. The stated purpose of this bill is to close the loopholes under which the 9/11 boys were able to get “legitimate” identification. This here is an anti-terrorism bill, and it’s unAmerican to be against anti-terrorism. And since we all know that all terrorists are foreigners — except for McVeigh, and the Unabomber, and Krar, and let’s just not talk about the Earth Liberation Front or the cornucopia of other homegrown radical violent groups — this bill deals harshly on immigration issues. Illegal immigrants will not be able to get compliant identification at all (no problem, they shouldn’t be here). There will be new rules on amnesty and political asylum: “Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House minority leader, said the bill ‘targets legitimate victims of persecution – innocent people under threat of torture or death for their religious beliefs’ and ‘unconstitutionally forbids federal judges from hearing asylum cases involving real threats of torture.'”

But wait! There’s a special bonus in section 102. “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to waive, and shall waive, all laws such Secretary, in such Secretary’s sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section…. Notwithstanding any other provision of law (statutory or nonstatutory), no court shall have jurisdiction to hear any cause or claim arising from any action undertaken, or any decision made, by the Secretary of Homeland Security pursuant to paragraph (1); or to order compensatory, declaratory, injunctive, equitable, or any other relief for damage alleged to arise from any such action or decision.”

Maybe my legalese is rusty, but that sounds like it can be reduced to “The DHS has the right to do whatever it wants, and the courts have no authority to stop them or even charge them a fine.” DHS wants to fill the Rio Grande with acid? Fine. DHS wants to erect a giant replica of the Berlin Wall on the border with Canada? Great. DHS wants to clear-cut a forest so illegal aliens can’t use the trees for cover? Alrighty then.

As long as you are planning to write your Senator, you might want to read this set of articles: How to owe $40K by doing nothing, and Tighter Bankruptcy Law Favored, 2005 dance mix.

Imagine with me.

It is a couple weeks before national elections. Everybody is worried about terrorism, and whether it could disrupt voting. There is widespread violence, and the police are powerless to stop it. Sometimes, they are targets themselves. Military and law enforcement officers are patrolling every major city, heavily armed; they have an “us versus them” philosophy, and do not hesitate to shoot first and ask questions later. News networks are pressured to limit coverage of these events. Things seem to be getting worse.

In an effort to prevent disruptions to the elections, the border has been closed to all entry except those returning from religious pilgrimages. Citizens outside the country who wish to vote are encountering problems with the registration system. Interstate travel has been closed down and car traffic prohibited except for certain government officials and military troops. Waco, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Las Vegas, and Flagstaff are under martial law. In some places, even the location of polling places is secret. Citizens in these cities must wear ID badges at all times, and travel in or out is almost impossible.

Several dozen people have been arrested preemptively. Some argue that they are militants or militant inciters who would have made trouble. Others aren’t so sure. Some point out that we used to consider people innocent until proven guilty, that we used to arrest people for crimes, not thinking about crimes. Since no names are released, it is impossible to know whether the arrests are politically motivated. Odds are good they are not being treated well.

There is much rumbling in the West Coast Blue States about how the United States Government does not represent them, and hasn’t for a long time. A number of people seem to have forgotten that The Governator only played a commando in movies, and seem to believe he can lead armed rebellion. The NAACP and several other large minority groups have called for members to boycott the elections, and there is some question whether certain more militant members might not be violently enforcing this boycott. Meanwhile, in places like Ohio, Florida, Washington, and Chicago, people openly comment that this election will be no different from any in the last 50 years; just because more than one name appears on the ballot does not mean that the candidates chosen by those in power will not win.

Speaking of the candidates, they fear for their lives. Most of them will not even admit in public that they are running. They issue no statements, have no advertising, give no news interviews. A dizzying array of alternative parties confuse the issue further. The citizens who do think there is something to be gained by voting are frustrated, because they can’t find out anything about who is running and what they stand for. If they live to vote, they are reduced to randomly selecting candidates.

The international community is rightly concerned. They question whether it is possible to hold free and fair elections in this environment. They question whether it will even matter.

What would you do?

This didn’t happen in the United States, but it is happening right now in Iraq. The whole situation is a big mess, and only getting bigger by the day.

Act Four, Heathrow and Environs

According to CNN, This Is London, and Reuters, a British Airways flight had a little problem. Somehow — and American officials blame BA — a man whose name was on the Do Not Fly list boarded a flight from London to New York City. This was not discovered until the plane was over international waters.

American officials refused to allow the plane to land as scheduled, instead demanding that the plane land at Bangor, Maine. Thus, the situation could be dealt closer to the middle of nowhere than to New York City. Instead, the airline decided to have the plane turn around and land at Heathrow, avoiding international incident.

This turned out to be a very lucky break for the gentleman in question. It turns out that the man merely had a similar name to someone who might be connected to Moroccan terrorists, that he was “not under investigation for carrying out any terrorist act.” In fact, he was questioned by Scotland Yard and then released.

238 passengers were delayed over 6 hours because one guy, who turned out to not be a terrorist.

Air Travel in the United States could be crippled by putting J. Smith on the Do Not Fly list.

Act Five, DHS Headquarters

In Act Four we learned that determining a person’s identity is not the same as determining whether or not they are a threat. This is to say nothing of the mental gymnastics we must use to see the logic in a list of people so dangerous they must not be allowed on an airplane, but yet are so innocent that there is no grounds to arrest them.

This simple logic has no place here at the DHS.

Mere hours ago, Tom Ridge announced enhanced expediting of international visitors through JFK Airport, the very airport that BA jet was to have landed. Here’s how it works: someone who wishes to visit the United States essentially completes a customs check before arriving, then checks out at a JFK kiosk when they arrive. Part of this pre-clearance process involves an iris scan so the kiosk can tell the same person did the interview as actually arrived. Assuming the smart-card on which this data is stored is not damaged going through the scanning equipment. I am not sure what this is supposed to prove.

Mr. Ridge would also like to see fingerprint information on every American passport. His reasoning is that we require it of other countries, so what’s fair is fair. Critics point out that it will be expensive to put that information on the passports, and even more expensive to have the information read. Do you prefer having a forensics expert at every international airport, or an expensive machine reader?

If the expense is not enough to make you blanch, let’s talk about the civil liberties. The Fifth Amendment says you have the right not to incriminate yourself, right? Except now to get a passport they are talking about wanting to have a complete set of fingerprints. We have no assurance that these prints will not be checked against a database of prints from unsolved crimes. “I’ve got nothing to hide” is not a good enough answer. Just because you did not commit a crime is no insurance that you will not be questioned; maybe you happened to touch something in a place where a crime later occurred; maybe you just happened to have a false positive. Which brings me to my final point.

Fingerprint scanners can have a false positive rate of up to 2% and a false negative rate of up to 7% Think about the number of international travelers there are every day. There were 239 people on that BA flight in Act Four; we are talking about having to question as many as 16 of them as the result of a false negative. A Boeing 777-300 seats 550 people. We are talking about potentially having to do an expanded security check for 38 people who are falsely singled out as not matching their own fingerprints. On one flight. Dallas Fort Worth International Airport had 4,429,005 international passengers in 2003. Seven percent of that is over 310,000, about 850 false-negative passengers every single day, 35 every hour.

Strike one, it’s expensive; strike two, it doesn’t work; strike three, it doesn’t actually identify who might be a threat.

Why exactly are we talking about doing this?

I confess, when it was very first suggested that airport screeners should be employees of the Federal Government, I thought that was a good idea. I mistakenly believed that this meant they would have to meet the same standards as many other Federal employees, including that they pass a civil service exam and have their background checked. I was wrong. TSA screeners don’t even strictly speaking have to have a GED.

So, here we are 3 years into the Age of Terror-Threats. Today, we have a new nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security, an emotionally charged title which is supposed to make us think of Mom, Baseball and Apple Pie (and maybe ’57 Chevys), but unfortunately makes me think of European Nationalism. I hope Mr. Kerik is wearing protective gear, because he is about to walk into a big mess.

I am speaking of a problem so big that even editorial cartoons are piling on. I speak of invasive searches at the airport. Here is one account, another account wherein it is made clear that the TSA is not permitted to clarify the situation, and a rebuttal from someone who obviously does not understand the problem. To be selected for such a search, one does not need to set off any alarms, merely have an unusual shape. There is some evidence that the TSA doesn’t even follow their own rules when conducting such searches. Such incidents may well be severely under-reported due to a fear of being placed on a Do Not Fly list.

Just because people are not submitting formal complaints to the TSA does not mean they aren’t complaining.

But it gets worse than this. There is plenty of evidence that many screeners are abusing their authority, abusing the fact that nobody gets on a commercial airliner unless they say so. Here is an account of alleged strip searches at one airport and a story of a man who has experimented with the TSA’s rules regarding shoe removal, entitled “Screenings at airports confound men, too.”

Now think about this. We are worried about miniscule quantities of explosives being hidden in women’s bras, but we are only inspecting 10-20% of the tons of cargo that go in the very same airplane. If you wrap a Christmas present in your carry-on or checked luggage, it may have to be unwrapped even though it will be on the plane with you; if you mail it, the same package may go on the same airplane without you, and receive no inspection whatsoever.

I would advise you to write your Congressional representatives, but it has been made clear that Congress will only be considering issues that please “a majority of the majority.”

When can we stop pretending this has anything to do with keeping us safe and everything to do with keeping us in line?

Never confuse identifying a person with looking at an ID.

For a couple of years, the United States has been working on a plan for more secure passports, and using their position as a great nation to force other nations to do likewise. In an effort to contain a lot of information, make it difficult to forge, and have it be processed at a customs office in minimum time, the new passports will include an RFID chip — a very small, low power radio transmitter. This will allow customs officials to gather all kinds of information almost instantly with a mechanical reader. The reader doesn’t even have to physically contact the passport; depending on who you believe the passport can be read anywhere from one to ten meters away.

Business Week calls it “Big Brother’s Passport to Pry.” CNet cites “high tech snooping concerns.” Security expert Bruce Schneier lays it out:

Unfortunately, RFID chips can be read by any reader, not just the ones at passport control. The upshot of this is that travelers carrying around RFID passports are broadcasting their identity. Think about what that means for a minute. It means that passport holders are continuously broadcasting their name, nationality, age, address and whatever else is on the RFID chip. It means that anyone with a reader can learn that information, without the passport holder’s knowledge or consent. It means that pickpockets, kidnappers and terrorists can easily–and surreptitiously–pick Americans or nationals of other participating countries out of a crowd.

The Bush Administration thinks that’s just fine. Really! Maybe out of ignorance, maybe out of pure hubris, they seem to think that surely such readers will never ever be possessed by Bad Guys. Anyone who carries such a passport will be subject to identity theft and potential nationalistically motivated violent acts.

As if that isn’t bad enough, these passports will contain biometric information so primitive that a mere smile can cause identification failure. Talk about “not ready for prime-time” technology.

And have I mentioned the use of covert x-rays as a security device? Or a provision in the new 3000 page federal budget (passed only 2 months late) that allows certain Congressmen or their “agents” to look at anybody’s tax return they case to see? Or a proposal that would force every college in the nation to send the name and Social Security Number of every student to the Federal Government, regardless of their status or financial aid eligibility?

This goes far beyond the over-reaching anything-to-keep-us-safe only-a-criminal-would-object privacy invasions of the PATRIOT Act.

In closing, I bring you abusive employers who demand unpaid overtime rather than create a new job, a possible Senate rule to silence dissent, and a must-bookmark site for anyone who travels frequently, the official FAA airport delay site.

John Kerry has taken a lot of heat over his comments about reducing terrorism to a “nuisance level.” People are asking what exactly that means.

Well, remember when a bomb going off in a bar or on a bus was a sad thing that happened somewhere far away? Remember when PanAm flight 103 went down over Lockerbie and no countries were invaded as a result?

What, you didn’t think September 11 was the first instance of terrorism ever, did you?

We can’t prevent all terrorism everywhere in the world any more than we can prevent all murders. There, it’s been said, it’s unpopular, it’s true. The President says “Our goal is to defeat terror by staying on the offensive.” How do you defeat terror? How will terror surrender? Who will sign the armistice? And against whom shall we be offensive? If it was alright to go into Iraq to stop terrorism, why not Chechnya or Palestine? How do we minimize the fact that the War On Terror will leave civilian casualties which will result in Anti-American sentiment, breeding the next wave of terrorists?

So we come quickly to the realization that the United States can at best prevent terrorism in the United States and against United States interests such as embassies and military bases/ships.

Anti-terrorism efforts should be primarily a law enforcement action. And that’s not a bad thing. A cop who knows his beat will notice when something is wrong, and we must trust that he will deal with the problem appropriately, as he has been trained to do. But just as the police can’t stop crooks by random searches of passers-by, we will need to use judgment about what methods to use. We will have to ask questions like what are we trying to prevent? Is that a reasonable threat? Will our methods work? What will it cost? Will it cause more problems than it solves? Is the action justifiable in the eyes of the people and the law?

We need to stop saying “That’s fine, as long as it keeps me safe” and start asking “How does this make me safe?”

Does this make you safer?

Let’s start from a point where we can all agree. We all live on planet Earth. It is the only place where our species lives, the only place we know for absolute certain can support our species, and at this point the only planet we know of with sentient life.

These things being the case, it makes sense to take care of our planet. Unless of course you are planning for Armageddon or some other End Of The World. I think I speak for most people when I say I have no desire for the world to end in my lifetime. People who look forward to the End Of The World scare me.

Far from “putting some endangered rodent ahead of the needs of real people,” responsible environmentalism is about making sure we all have clean and safe food, water, air, and land. Far from taking jobs from people and stifling the economy, environmentally friendly industries have the potential to make a lot of money and help the planet. Think about it this way: if we use alternative energy, somebody has to build and maintain the windmills and solar cells just like we would have to do with a coal power plant. There is no inherent reason that “green” technology cannot provide jobs and make money.

There’s trouble outside. There’s chemicals that can make our food unsafe and food sources that might no longer exist if we don’t do something about it and junk in the air making kids sick and fast melting glaciers that might put your favorite beach-side resort underwater. There’s an unusually large number of hurricanes — yes hurricanes! — hitting one fairly small area in a fairly small period of time, and only time will tell if this is the start of a trend. Debate why it might be happening all you like, they are noticing signs of possible global warming in rural America and even in what used to be Tibet. Don’t forget that even the Pentagon has done some projections of what might happen in the event of global warming, and they are not in the habit of spending lots of time and money on completely unlikely events. No, you won’t find a Pentagon report about what to do if Luxembourg falls to Communist religious fanatics and tries to invade the United States.

Keeping this planet in good repair has got to be cheaper than colonizing a new one. Remember that as we count down to Election Day. In fact, this is a darn good time to remind your elected officials that this is the only planet we’ve got.

It sounds like a moderately compelling political thriller: the Government agency that was supposed to figure out what happened to your dead colleagues dropped the ball. Nobody will give you a straight answer about why. So you take matters into your own hands: you research; you examine documents; you figure it out and decide to make things right.

But this isn’t a movie. It’s the real life story of Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald, a company that lost 658 of its 1050 employees in the World Trade Center. Delving into the murky depths of Al Qaida’s financial affairs — where the 9-11 Commission feared to tread — they have filed suit against a variety of Al Qaida financiers. The most notable of these is the nation of Saudi Arabia.

Cantor Fitzgerald is just big enough, just influential enough, and has just enough accountants in house to actually follow the money trail and make this stick. They are also big enough and have enough lawyers to push things to a higher court should the Department of Justice once again claim that the Alien Tort Claims Act is a relic and have the case thrown out.

This company knows how important it is to follow the money, a lesson that a young Senator named John Kerrry learned while investigating and closing down a corrupt bank and, incidentally, uncovering useful information on a wide range of drug dealers, terrorists, and other criminals. As Cantor Fitzgerald’s case unfolds in the courtroom, expect impeccable detective work and stunning revelations. This could tell us more about how and why September 11 happened than is currently known. It could also have disastrous consequences for the United States’ diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia.

Speaking of raw figures and money, if you haven’t seen this list of Bush Administration accomplishments, it’s worth a read.