Category: 7. Obsession with National Security
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Judge Dismisses NSA Wiretapping Case
Great news for those who love bad news: A federal judge has dismissed Jewel v. NSA, a case from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on behalf of AT&T customers challenging the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans’ phone calls and emails. In the ruling, issued late Thursday, U.S. District Court Chief […]
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The CIA's Feline Weapon
From Wiki Petey: Acoustic Kitty was a CIA project launched by the Directorate of Science & Technology in the 1960s attempting to use cats in spy missions. The first cat mission was eavesdropping on two men in a park outside the Soviet compound on Wisconsin Avenue in Washington, D.C. The cat was released nearby, but […]
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Michael Chertoff's Greedy Fearmongering
My buddy Alan was right: The body scanner is sure to get a go-ahead because of the illustrious personages hawking them. Chief among them is former DHS secretary Michael Chertoff, who now heads the Chertoff Group, which represents one of the leading manufacturers of whole-body-imaging machines, Rapiscan Systems. For days after the attack, Chertoff made […]
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Liberty, Safety and Privacy
From Glenn Greenwald: The Constitution is grounded in the premise that there are other values and priorities more important than mere Safety. Even though they knew that doing so would help murderers and other dangerous and vile criminals evade capture, the Framers banned the Government from searching homes without probable cause, prohibited compelled self-incrimination, double […]
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Millions of Missing Bush Admin. Emails Found
Burn it to a CD, mail it to your grandma: “The liberal groups CREW and National Security Archive litigate for sport, distort the facts and have consistently tried to create a spooky conspiracy out of standard IT issues,” Stanzel said in a statement. The 22 million e-mails “would never have been found but for our […]
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Leaked: Script for 'Security Theater'
The Transportation Safety Administration’s operating manual just got leaked online. Gems: The improperly redacted areas indicate that only 20 percent of checked bags are to be hand searched for explosives and reveal in detail the limitations of x-ray screening machines. …. The document contains a list of items for which screening is not required including […]