MetaFilter posts tagged with homelandsecurity

The Ebay Solution?

Chinese Jet Pilot — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:41:02 -0800

U.S. Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain may be computer illiterate, but his campaign does think highly of eBay. Sen. McCain and Governor Palin have each suggested eBay as a fix for the economy, tool for government reform, and strategy for homeland security. Perhaps it's because former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, in spite of disagreeing with parts of his technology platform, is co-chair of McCain's campaign?

"Are we in the midst of a coup?"

homunculus — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 20:50:14 -0800

2009: A True Story. "My name is Sara Ford and I am 18 years old. I moved to California at the end of last year. Before the first attacks... before everything changed." [Via] On YouTube: Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5, Episode 6, Episode 7, Episode 8, Episode 9, Episode 10, Episode 11, Episode 12, Episode 13. NSFW.

Interpreting Due Process

Forktine — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 08:30:51 -0800

An Interpreter Speaking Up for Migrants: Erik Camayd-Freixas is a professor and a legal translator who assisted in the fast-track trial and sentencing of the over 400 illegal immigrant workers in Postville, Iowa, who were arrested on criminal charges involving identity theft rather than the usual deportation proceedings. Unusually for a court interpreter, who maintain a strict code of impartiality and neutrality, Camayd-Freixas spoke out, writing "that the immigrant defendants whose words he translated, most of them villagers from Guatemala, did not fully understand the criminal charges they were facing or the rights most of them had waived." The Times article has a video interview with Camayd-Freixas. His 14-page essay can be read here (pdf). It is vividly-written: He stared for a while at the signature page pretending to read it, although I knew he was actually praying for guidance and protection. Before he signed with a scribble, he said: “God knows you are just doing your job to support your families, and that job is to keep me from supporting mine.” There was my conflict of interest, well put by a weeping, illiterate man. Adding an additional layer of ethical complication is that many of the workers were Mayan Indians from Guatamala -- the people who were victims of a massive genocide in the 1980s.

Non-lethal injections

Kirth Gerson — Wed, 14 May 2008 08:11:47 -0800

The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country "The government's forced use of antipsychotic drugs, in people who have no history of mental illness, includes dozens of cases in which the "pre-flight cocktail," as a document calls it, had such a potent effect that federal guards needed a wheelchair to move the slumped deportee onto an airplane."

Bovine terrorism is a bomb in a bull.

Afroblanco — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:02:29 -0800

Slate asks, "What's behind the boom in homeland-security and emergency-management majors?"

Mockingbird 2.0?

augustweed — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 13:49:27 -0800

Rehearsing the next terror attack. before 911, the government paid little attention to the role of media and public communications in its national exercises. In 2003, Ogilvy PR was asked by the Department of Homeland Security to develop and manage a full-scale, sophisticated media element in support of TOPOFF 3, its most comprehensive terrorism response exercise ever. The result was a simulated yet eerily realistic news broadcast via the Virtual News Network. The TOPOFF 4 exercise is scheduled to take place October 15-19, 2007.

Please. Do not Reply to All.

mmahaffie — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 20:39:36 -0800

It's a lesson all listserv managers dread learning the hard way: Don't let your subscribers "Reply to All." The WSJ Washington Wire reports on an incident today in which one user's reply started all those on a Department of Homeland Security "Open Source Intelligence Report" e-mail list on a chain-reaction of replies and counter replies that offers lessons on how (not?) to run an e-mail list. Maybe Michael Chertoff was on to something last year when he stopped using e-mail at all.

The Automated Targeting System, the US government's record-keeping system on travelers

ibmcginty — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 08:45:45 -0800

Today's Washington Post: "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." "John Gilmore, a civil liberties activist in San Francisco whose records were requested by the Identity Project... [had an Automated Targeting System file], which he provided to The Washington Post, included a note from a Customs and Border Patrol officer that he carried the marijuana-related book 'Drugs and Your Rights.' 'My first reaction was I kind of expected it,' Gilmore said. 'My second reaction was, that's illegal.'" The program, disclosed in the Federal Register in November and reported on at the time, has been criticized by civil liberties groups(many links at that page) as illegal under the Privacy Act, and by security experts as "a waste of money" (many links at that page too). The reach of the program was unknown until the Post article. Here's the DHS's Privacy Impact Statement (pdf) on the program from last November.

Homeland Security Gets Personal

ericb — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 09:39:54 -0800

The United States and the European Union have agreed to expand a security program that shares personal data about millions of U.S.-bound airline passengers a year. Information that potentially can be used includes "racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership" and data about an individual's health, traveling partners and sexual orientation. "Even a request for a king-size bed at a hotel could be noted in the database." "E.U.'s privacy supervisor expressed 'grave concern' over whether the rules 'will be fully compatible with European fundamental rights,' calling the arrangement 'without legal precedent.'"

Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200

ThePinkSuperhero — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 08:47:20 -0800

Busted! In one of the biggest counterfeit busts in years, a 19-month investigation reached its climax on Tuesday as federal officials conducted early-morning raids throughout the NY metropolitan area, arresting 29 people, seizing more than $230 million in merchandise and ultimately dismantling three operations believed to have imported more than $700 million in fake products over the last 24 months.