DHS's 'Secure Flight' Program Proven Insecure 131
News.com is reporting the somewhat unsurprising news that a government program we were assured was 'perfectly safe', has actually been proven to be a privacy nightmare. The 'Secure Flight' program matched air traveler information with commercial databases in the interests of national security. The charter for the program specifically forbade the TSA from accessing this information; the organization got their hands on it anyway. The Department of Homeland Security has released a report, detailing these findings and analyzing the situation. The News.com piece makes it clear the report was released on Friday in an attempt to obscure it from public notice; it was only linked to from a DHS subsite, and has not shown up on the DHS or TSA main pages. From the article: "The report from the Homeland Security privacy office takes pains to say that the privacy compromises over Secure Flight were 'not intentional,' and includes a list of seven recommendations to avoid similar mishaps in the future. Those include explaining to the public exactly what's going on and creating a 'data flow map' to ensure information is handled in compliance with the 1974 Privacy Act. This isn't the first report to take issue with Secure Flight. Last year, auditors at the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that the program violated the Privacy Act."
Friday news releases... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's an old trick to release news on a Friday night, when less people are going to see it. Also, any day in which a major news story (superbowl, oscar night, day after elections, etc.) is scheduled -- those are the days to read the newspaper carefully-- those are days that are typically used to obscure potentially damaging news.
In a 24-hour news cycle it's much harder to hide bad news from the public, but there are still golden times when the government and others are virtually guaranteed no one will be paying attention. Kudos for bringing this story to light.
Take the train. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:So. It was proven pointless long before that. (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.kolumbus.fi/av.caesar/wtc/wtc7_2.jpg [kolumbus.fi]
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/3990/wtc7roof7
It well known by people on the ground that WTC7 was going to collapse.
Here's some accounts from firefighters [bautforum.com] on the scene that day. They describe the severe structural damage, large fires, and the potential for collapse.
Wrong.
http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e207/Mercury2/p
Beyond that, you still have to explain the downed street lights [tripod.com] along the highway, and the damage generator [911review.com].
You should watch this video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=YVDdjLQkUV8 [youtube.com]
Absolute idiocy. The steel certainly doesn't have to melt before it fails. And what does the alleged molten metal actually prove? Explosives don't melt steel, and they certainly aren't capable of keeping that steel molten weeks after they've been detonated.
Thermite/thermate doesn't fit the alleged phenomenon either, unless you're suggesting that there was so much of the stuff at the site that it was burning for weeks in order to keep the metal in a liquefied state. (We've all seen videos of thermite at work. The metal resolidifies within a minute after the thermite is expended.)
Here's a better video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=dWemhf8fZ2w [youtube.com]
It clearly shows the eastern mechanical penthouse collapsing into the building a full 5 seconds before the western penthouse collapses, followed immediately by the rest of the building. Not nearly as clean as you'd like people to believe by showing them only one video of the collapse.
Stop fooling yourself, please.
Re:you were making great points (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:you were making great points (Score:1, Interesting)
Here, for the conspiracy theorists, is why I am convinced it was NOT planned to go down the way it did:
1) Every target was strategic (the WTC was the primary comms hub for the East Coast). Any one of those targets being destroyed would have greatly weakened the US's ability to resist a real attack.
2) Every target contained a concentration of Cheney's allies. Say what you want about these guys, they take care of their own.
If the Neocons had actually planned the attack or expected it to succeed, they would have targeted a less well-heeled neighbourhood (consider that they had no compunction about turning foreign mercenaries loose on NO) and a place that would trigger more outrage (say Disneyland). They probably would have also targeted both coasts to increase the visibility of the attacks.
Re:Lock 'em up! (Score:1, Interesting)
Yes, although the government does indeed have all of this information, it is not generally cross-referenced. I spent many years writing some really nasty fuzzy logic algorithms for a private company, in an attempt to relate property tax, assessment, and sales history records of real estate property. In 99% of the communities i worked, the tax department, assessors office (assessment records), and register of deeds office (sales history) used different unique identifiers from one another for the same property, so if someone wanted to get the sales history on a property that they already have the tax record for, there is no good way other than manual lookup.
A more common example of a clear problem with government recordkeeping is the mere fact that Title Insurance companies exist in the USA. If you're not familiar with title insurance its basically this: When you buy land / buildings, you get title insurance, which is insurance to cover your ass in case the government fucked up the true ownership of a property.
Now keep in mind that it's the governments job to collect taxes on property and to effectively do it, they need to know who owns that property. Also, real estate property does not move, ever, since its land and the buildings on top of the land. If the government can't keep track of this type of information, i don't see how they can possibly keep track of things that move, etc