I'm going to be in a hip hop video being shot next week by Ryan Junell. The song is called Under Surveillence by the group Variable Unit.
By a strange coincidence, that very same day I was recruited for the video, Billy Jam sent me this story, which details a situation where Dave Paul, owner of San Francisco's tiny Independent BOMB Hip Hop record label, was questioned by two Secret Service Agents who were responding to a tip from Cheaptickets.com, who claimed Paul had made threatening statements about the Shrub while purchasing tickets over the phone.
Check it out:
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Hip Hop Record Label Owner Dave Paul Interrogated By Secret Service Under Suspicion Of Being Threat To President George W. Bush by Billy Jam for HipHopSlam.com |
"The Secret Service showed up at my door. I was not here. They had told my mom that I had said some stuff on the phone and that I needed to answer to it. So I called the agent on his phone and he claimed that cheaptickets.com had reported to them that I had said some things about George W. Bush when I was on the phone working on my flight. I assured them that I said absolutely nothing and they wanted to come over and interview me in person, which they did with two agents. And they even wanted to come in and take a look around my room to make sure that there were no photos of "so-called person" with a target drawn on it or something to that effect. I don't know if it's someone at cheaptickets lying or maybe the Secret Service just used that as an excuse to investigate since the name of the record company.... I even gave them a flyer for tonight's show but they didn't look like they were too interested. I invited them down. They were pretty nice about it. I think just because when you're making flight reservations and the company name is what it is and that's what on your credit card and it shows four people going to Oklahoma City that I'm sure someone at cheaptickets pulled a red flag on it."Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad: http://www.hiphopslam.com/news/hhs_news_service_020a.html • SPECIAL REPORT! — Bomb Hip Hop owner Dave Paul Interrogated by The Secret Service HIP HOP RECORD LABEL OWNER DAVE PAUL INTERROGATED BY SECRET SERVICE UNDER SUSPICION OF BEING THREAT TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH by Billy Jam exclusive to HipHopSlam.com On October 22nd, in what has to be one of the weirdest turn of events in post September 11th America, Dave Paul, the owner of San Francisco's tiny independent BOMB Hip Hop record label was paid an unexpected visit by two US Secret Service agents. The two government agents were reportedly following up on a tip from a source that claimed Paul had made a threatening statement about US President Bush while buying airline tickets to Oklahoma City for himself and three other DJs (Pone, Quest, T-Rock) who were all flying out very late that night on tour to celebrate the recently released "Return of the DJ Vol. 5". Immediately after the federal investigators left the Noe Valley home that Paul shares with his mother, he talked with HipHopSlam.Com NEWS from his home office phone. During that phone conversation he appeared unusually guarded and self edited. Later that evening at club MILK, scene of the hometown concert for the new DJ album, the still shaken DJ/label owner explained that he didn't want to use particular words over the phone because he believed it may be bugged: noting that he had been noticing unusual "clicking sounds" for several days but - up until then - had made nothing of it. During that phone conversation we asked him to explain exactly what had transpired? His response: "The Secret Service showed up at my door. I was not here. They had told my mom that I had said some stuff on the phone and that I needed to answer to it. So I called the agent on his phone and he claimed that cheaptickets.com had reported to them that I had said some things about George W. Bush when I was on the phone working on my flight. I assured them that I said absolutely nothing and they wanted to come over and interview me in person, which they did with two agents. And they even wanted to come in and take a look around my room to make sure that there were no photos of "so-called person" with a target drawn on it or something to that effect. I don't know if it's someone at cheaptickets lying or maybe the Secret Service just used that as an excuse to investigate since the name of the record company.... I even gave them a flyer for tonight's show but they didn't look like they were too interested. I invited them down. They were pretty nice about it. I think just because when you're making flight reservations and the company name is what it is and that's what on your credit card and it shows four people going to Oklahoma City that I'm sure someone at cheaptickets pulled a red flag on it." One of the words avoided by Paul was that of Bush's and also his label's name, BOMB, which as we know is a no-no to utter in any airport. And apparently now just to say it over the phone while buying tickets is also a no-no. Later that evening Paul said that he figured that the whole incident was just some random check and that there would most likely be nothing more to it. However after doing some research and investigations of our own at HipHopSlam we uncovered something interesting: the fact that on the 1995 BOMB album, Return of the DJ at the very end of the *Invisible Scratch Pickles' track that there was sample of a news reporter saying "After the bombing, police in Oklahoma City issued an all points bulletin for three men - at least two of them described as being of middle eastern origin. This in response to an eyewitness who claims to have seen them at the scene. Federal officials say they have leads but no suspects." Coincidence or implication that the Feds have been studying old BOMB compilations in their "homeland security" efforts? On October 26th we caught up with Dave Paul, who was in Texas en route to the Houston show that evening, and asked him if he thought the Secret Service had been researching this deeply and uncovered this news bite (sampled incidentally by QBert)? He said he doubted it but that it was an uncanny coincidence. Again he reiterated that he figured the Secret Service were probably just doing a routine check and that most likely he wouldn't hear from them again. So would he consider changing the name of his record label from BOMB to something else for fear of future repeat scenarios? "No!" - he said. The BOMB Hip Hop DJs Dave Paul, Quest, T-Rock, and Pone will play Dallas on Monday, October 27th and be back in California by October 29th. For more info on the tour or music visit: www.bombhiphop.com *NOTE: Early spelling of the Piklz name when the crew was a trio feat. Qbert, Shortkut, and Disk. This same track also appeared with the sample intact on Bill Laswell's "Altered Beats" compilation when the crew was billed a quartet with Mixmaster Mike added
Note: As with any effective Dictatorship, this time around, the public will not be informed as to which airlines will be implementing the CAPPS II program. Such information will be kept secret from American citizens.
Soon passengers will be receiving one of three "color codings" based on things like who you're traveling with and where you're going. (What's that got to do with your risk? Your guess is as good as mine.)
I wonder if wearing one of John Gilmore's "Suspected Terrorist" buttons bumps up your rating a notch? :-)
Here's the Washington Post story on it, and a video clip from KRON news in San Francisco.
In the most aggressive -- and, some say, invasive -- step yet to protect air travelers, the federal government and the airlines will phase in a computer system next year to measure the risk posed by every passenger on every flight in the United States.The new Transportation Security Administration system seeks to probe deeper into each passenger's identity than is currently possible, comparing personal information against criminal records and intelligence information. Passengers will be assigned a color code -- green, yellow or red -- based in part on their city of departure, destination, traveling companions and date of ticket purchase.
Most people will be coded green and sail through. But up to 8 percent of passengers who board the nation's 26,000 daily flights will be coded "yellow" and will undergo additional screening at the checkpoint, according to people familiar with the program. An estimated 1 to 2 percent will be labeled "red" and will be prohibited from boarding. These passengers also will face police questioning and may be arrested...
The new system, called Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-screening System II (CAPPS II), has sparked so much controversy among both liberal and conservative groups that the TSA has struggled to get it going. Delta Air Lines backed out of a testing program with the agency earlier this year, and now the TSA will not reveal which airlines will participate when it tests a prototype early next year. If all goes as planned, the TSA will begin the new computer screening of some passengers as early as next summer and eventually it will be used for all domestic travelers.
"This system is going to be replete with errors," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's technology and liberty program. "You could be falsely arrested. You could be delayed. You could lose your ability to travel."
Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45434-2003Sep8.html
washingtonpost.com
Fliers to Be Rated for Risk Level
New System Will Scrutinize Each Passenger, Assign Color Code
By Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 9, 2003; Page A01
In the most aggressive -- and, some say, invasive -- step yet to protect air travelers, the federal government and the airlines will phase in a computer system next year to measure the risk posed by every passenger on every flight in the United States.
The new Transportation Security Administration system seeks to probe deeper into each passenger's identity than is currently possible, comparing personal information against criminal records and intelligence information. Passengers will be assigned a color code -- green, yellow or red -- based in part on their city of departure, destination, traveling companions and date of ticket purchase.
Most people will be coded green and sail through. But up to 8 percent of passengers who board the nation's 26,000 daily flights will be coded "yellow" and will undergo additional screening at the checkpoint, according to people familiar with the program. An estimated 1 to 2 percent will be labeled "red" and will be prohibited from boarding. These passengers also will face police questioning and may be arrested.
The system "will provide protections for the flying public," said TSA spokesman Brian Turmail. "Not only should we keep passengers from sitting next to a terrorist, we should keep them from sitting next to wanted ax murderers."
The new system, called Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-screening System II (CAPPS II), has sparked so much controversy among both liberal and conservative groups that the TSA has struggled to get it going. Delta Air Lines backed out of a testing program with the agency earlier this year, and now the TSA will not reveal which airlines will participate when it tests a prototype early next year. If all goes as planned, the TSA will begin the new computer screening of some passengers as early as next summer and eventually it will be used for all domestic travelers.
"This system is going to be replete with errors," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's technology and liberty program. "You could be falsely arrested. You could be delayed. You could lose your ability to travel."
In the two years since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist hijackings, air security has taken a high priority, and the government has spent $9 billion on improvements. Thousands of explosives-detection machines now scan checked luggage at airports across the nation. A new force of federal airport screeners staffs checkpoints, though next year some airports may revert to private screeners. Cockpit doors have been reinforced, and hundreds of airline pilots now carry guns. In addition, the force of undercover air marshals has been expanded, and as many as 5,000 federal immigration and customs agents will be trained to bolster the force on a temporary basis when the government perceives a heightened threat.
Still, many holes in security persist. Airports and aircraft still appear easy to penetrate, illustrated last month by an accidental landing of several boaters on the airfield at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Air cargo remains vulnerable, as virtually none of the items stowed alongside luggage in the aircraft hold are screened for explosives. Government officials continue to assess how best to respond to the possibility of a shoulder-fired missile attack at a commercial airliner, which they maintain is a serious threat.
In the coming months, major airports in Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver and Dallas will embark on extensive construction projects to build explosives-detection machines into conveyor-belt systems that sort checked luggage being loaded onto planes. (Other airports, including Washington's, are waiting in line for hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding.)
Clearly, the TSA says, the job of protecting the nation's skies is not done.
"Given the dynamic nature of the threat we deal with, it would be impossible to predict when the work would be finished" on air security, said TSA spokesman Robert Johnson. "We don't think it will ever end."
The government says the most significant change in security is still to come in the form of CAPPS II. The current computer screener program was developed by U.S. airlines in the mid-1990s in response to government and public pressure to improve air security after terrorists blew up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
The existing system identifies certain passengers as risky based on a set of assumptions about how terrorists travel. For instance, passengers are flagged for additional screening if they bought a one-way airline ticket, or if they paid with cash instead of a credit card. Passengers who present a threat under these and other criteria are issued boarding passes that bear a coding of "SSS" or "***."
But the TSA, recognizing that the system is outdated and easy to fool, wants to replace it and put the government in the role now played by the airlines in making security assessments.
Under the new program, the airline will send information about everyone who books a flight to the TSA, including full name, home address, home telephone number, date of birth and travel itinerary. If the computer system identifies a threat, the TSA will notify federal or local law enforcement authorities. The agency has not indicated the number or type of personnel needed to oversee the program.
The TSA will check each passenger in two steps. The first will match the passenger's name and information against databases of private companies that collect information on people for commercial reasons, such as their shopping habits. This process will generate a numerical score that will indicate the likelihood that the passenger is who he says he is. Passengers will not be informed of their color code or their numerical score. The second step matches passenger information against government intelligence combined with local and state outstanding warrants for violent felonies.
Airlines like the system because they think it will reduce time passengers spend at security checkpoints and lower the likelihood that they will be delayed for their flights. The TSA said the program is expected to flag fewer people than the current computer screening system. The agency intends to test the program in several phases to ensure that it works as promised.
"If it delivers the way it's envisioned, it's going to be a significant, positive change," the TSA's Johnson said. "It's going to be a lot fewer people [flagged], but we think it will be the right people."
David A. Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, worries that the computer screening program will go beyond its original goals. "This system is not designed just to get potential terrorists," Keene said. "It's a law enforcement tool. The wider the net you cast, the more people you bring in."
As the government takes a new, large role in one aspect of screening, it is rolling back its presence in another. By late 2004, some airports are expected to replace the federal screening force with private screeners. A security law passed after the terrorist attacks allows airports to "opt out" of the government's federal screening workforce in November 2004. Many airports, frustrated with the staffing cuts and the inability to control the number of screeners at each station, believe they might have more control over the operations if a private company were in charge.
"I've been in various meetings with many airport managers who are saying, 'We don't want as much government control around,' " said James McNeil, chief executive of McNeil Technologies Inc., which provides security screeners at the airport in Rochester, N.Y., one of five test airports that employ private screeners. McNeil said he has talked to 20 to 30 airports that are interested in his services. A large association of the nation's airports estimates that many small airports will opt out of government screeners next year because their limited flight schedules require that screeners work flexible hours. The government will still have a role in security because the private screening companies will operate under contracts managed by the TSA.
If many airports, particularly large hubs that handle a major portion of the nation's 30,000 daily flights, choose to revert to the private screening force, some aviation industry leaders have wondered what that will mean for the TSA.
The agency, created just months after the terrorist attacks, has already seen some of its authority stripped. The Federal Air Marshal Service has moved to a law enforcement division within the Department of Homeland Security, as has the agency's explosives unit. Some of its security directors claim they are still out of the loop on some of the agency's latest intelligence on air security.
Johnson, the TSA spokesman, hinted that the agency's future is unclear.
"We've got a department-level organization now created for that sole purpose [of fighting terrorism] and it only makes sense, where necessary, to economize and coordinate," Johnson said. "There will always be a need to provide the best aviation security possible at airports. Whether it's under one flag or another, it really makes no difference."
Protecting privacy from the 'new spam'
By Peter Swire for the Boston Globe.
Overlooked in the heated rhetoric has been a victim of the RIAA's campaign - the privacy of all those who surf the Internet or send e-mail. On the RIAA view, your sensitive personal information on the Web would be available to anyone who can fill out a one-page form. Congress can and should step in to fix this problem immediately.The problem began in late 2002, when the RIAA demanded that Verizon Online, an Internet service provider, identify one of its customers based on an accusation that the person may have violated copyright laws by swapping files.
Verizon declined, citing the threats to customer privacy, due process, and the First Amendment. Was Verizon overreacting? No.
The new process starts when any website operator, recipient of an e-mail, or participant in a P2P network learns the Internet Protocol address of the home user. These IP addresses are automatically communicated by the nature of the Net, but until now only the ISP could usually match an IP address with a user's identity.
When a copyright holder fills out a one-page form, however, a federal court clerk must now immediately issue a subpoena. That subpoena orders the ISP to turn over the name, home address, and phone number that matches the IP address.
This procedure violates due process. There is no judicial oversight and only the flimsiest showing of cause. Furthermore, Internet service providers risk large penalties if they even question the validity of a subpoena.
Privacy is destroyed because it becomes so easy to reveal the identity of Internet users. The First Amendment is undermined because of the chilling effect if every e-mail and every post to a Web page can be quickly tracked back to a home address and phone number.
The early use of these subpoenas has shown startling mistakes by copyright holders. One recording industry subpoena this spring - based on a patently incorrect allegation - nearly closed down a college astronomy department's Web server in the middle of exam week. A major studio has sought a subpoena based on the careless assertion that a tiny computer file was a copy of a Harry Potter movie. (It was a child's book report instead.)An even greater risk is putting this subpoena power in the hands of anyone willing to pretend to have a copyright claim. These fraudulent requests will be impossible to distinguish from legitimate ones.
This flood of legally sanctioned harassment will quickly become the ''new spam,'' with the kinds of abuses as limitless as the Internet itself:
The most common use may be that of website operators who want to identify their visitors for marketing purposes or for more nefarious reasons, including identity theft, fraud, or stalking.
Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/208/oped/Protecting_privacy_from_the_new_spam_+.shtml
Protecting privacy from the 'new spam'
By Peter Swire, 7/27/2003
THE BATTLE is heating up between the recording industry and those who download copies of their favorite music. the Recording Industry Association of America is bringing hundreds of lawsuits nationwide against home users of peer-to-peer (P2P) software, including students at Boston College and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah recently used a Senate hearing to suggest that copyright owners should be able to warn home users once or twice, and then actually destroy the computers if the apparently infringing songs were not removed.
Overlooked in the heated rhetoric has been a victim of the RIAA's campaign - the privacy of all those who surf the Internet or send e-mail. On the RIAA view, your sensitive personal information on the Web would be available to anyone who can fill out a one-page form. Congress can and should step in to fix this problem immediately.
The problem began in late 2002, when the RIAA demanded that Verizon Online, an Internet service provider, identify one of its customers based on an accusation that the person may have violated copyright laws by swapping files.
Verizon declined, citing the threats to customer privacy, due process, and the First Amendment. Was Verizon overreacting? No.
The new process starts when any website operator, recipient of an e-mail, or participant in a P2P network learns the Internet Protocol address of the home user. These IP addresses are automatically communicated by the nature of the Net, but until now only the ISP could usually match an IP address with a user's identity.
When a copyright holder fills out a one-page form, however, a federal court clerk must now immediately issue a subpoena. That subpoena orders the ISP to turn over the name, home address, and phone number that matches the IP address.
This procedure violates due process. There is no judicial oversight and only the flimsiest showing of cause. Furthermore, Internet service providers risk large penalties if they even question the validity of a subpoena.
Privacy is destroyed because it becomes so easy to reveal the identity of Internet users. The First Amendment is undermined because of the chilling effect if every e-mail and every post to a Web page can be quickly tracked back to a home address and phone number.
The early use of these subpoenas has shown startling mistakes by copyright holders. One recording industry subpoena this spring - based on a patently incorrect allegation - nearly closed down a college astronomy department's Web server in the middle of exam week. A major studio has sought a subpoena based on the careless assertion that a tiny computer file was a copy of a Harry Potter movie. (It was a child's book report instead.)
An even greater risk is putting this subpoena power in the hands of anyone willing to pretend to have a copyright claim. These fraudulent requests will be impossible to distinguish from legitimate ones.
This flood of legally sanctioned harassment will quickly become the ''new spam,'' with the kinds of abuses as limitless as the Internet itself:
The most common use may be that of website operators who want to identify their visitors for marketing purposes or for more nefarious reasons, including identity theft, fraud, or stalking.
Porn sites and gambling sites could track down visitors and demand payment not to reveal the user's identity, all under the pretext of enforcing the site's ''copyright.''
Private investigators will gain an unstoppable way to turn an e-mail address into a person's name and physical address.
Fortunately, a better alternative is clear. Courts have already used ''John Doe'' procedures where one party tries to learn the name of an anonymous Internet user. In these cases, users can object (anonymously) to having their identity revealed. The judge looks at the facts. If the person is engaged in illegal piracy, then the judge reveals the name and orders effective sanctions. If the copyright holder or scam artist does not have a winning case, then the user names remain private.
John Doe legislation of this sort is being considered now in California and should become a priority in Congress as well. The RIAA lawsuits against users are beginning now, long before the appeal of the Verizon proceeding will be decided.
Before the ''new spam'' proliferates, we should have fair procedures in place that will protect intellectual property while protecting privacy, free speech, and due process as well.
Peter Swire is professor at the Moritz College of Law of the Ohio State University, and was the Clinton Administration's chief privacy counselor.
This story ran on page E11 of the Boston Globe on 7/27/2003
This story, which features Emerald Yeh, aired sometime last week on San Francisco's KRON Channel 4.
The stills below provide most of the important information.
KRON On The Do Not Call Registry (Small - 6 MB)
A Safer System for Home PC's Feels Like Jail to Some Critics
By John Markoff for the NY Times.
In an effort to retain the original open PC environment, the Microsoft plan offers the computer user two separate computing partitions in a future version of Windows. Beyond changing the appearance and control of Windows, the system will also require a new generation of computer hardware, not only replacing the computer logic board but also peripherals like mice, keyboards and video cards..."This will kill innovation," said Ross Anderson, a computer security expert at Cambridge University, who is organizing opposition to the industry plans. "They're doing this to increase customer lock-in. It will mean that fewer software businesses succeed and those who do succeed will be large companies."
Critics complain that the mainstream computer hardware and software designers, under pressure from Hollywood, are turning the PC into something that would resemble video game players, cable TV and cellphones, with manufacturers or service providers in control of which applications run on their systems.
In the new encrypted computing world, even the most mundane word-processing document or e-mail message would be accompanied by a software security guard controlling who can view it, where it can be sent and even when it will be erased. Also, the secure PC is specifically intended to protect digital movies and music from online piracy.
But while beneficial to the entertainment industry and corporate operations, the new systems will not necessarily be immune to computer viruses or unwanted spam e-mail messages, the two most severe irritants to PC users.
"Microsoft's use of the term `trusted computing' is a great piece of doublespeak," said Dan Sokol, a computer engineer based in San Jose, Calif., who was one of the original members of the Homebrew Computing Club, the pioneering PC group. "What they're really saying is, `We don't trust you, the user of this computer.' "
Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/30/technology/30SECU.html
June 30, 2003 A Safer System for Home PC's Feels Like Jail to Some Critics
By JOHN MARKOFF
SAN FRANCISCO, June 29 - Your next personal computer may well come with its own digital chaperon.
As PC makers prepare a new generation of desktop computers with built-in hardware controls to protect data and digital entertainment from illegal copying, the industry is also promising to keep information safe from tampering and help users avoid troublemakers in cyberspace.
Silicon Valley - led by Microsoft and Intel - calls the concept "trusted computing." The companies, joined by I.B.M., Hewlett-Packard, Advanced Micro Devices and others, argue that the new systems are necessary to protect entertainment content as well as safeguard corporate data and personal privacy against identity theft. Without such built-in controls, they say, Hollywood and the music business will refuse to make their products available online.
But by entwining PC software and data in an impenetrable layer of encryption, critics argue, the companies may be destroying the very openness that has been at the heart of computing in the three decades since the PC was introduced. There are simpler, less intrusive ways to prevent illicit file swapping over the Internet, they say, than girding software in so much armor that new types of programs from upstart companies may have trouble working with it.
"This will kill innovation," said Ross Anderson, a computer security expert at Cambridge University, who is organizing opposition to the industry plans. "They're doing this to increase customer lock-in. It will mean that fewer software businesses succeed and those who do succeed will be large companies."
Critics complain that the mainstream computer hardware and software designers, under pressure from Hollywood, are turning the PC into something that would resemble video game players, cable TV and cellphones, with manufacturers or service providers in control of which applications run on their systems.
In the new encrypted computing world, even the most mundane word-processing document or e-mail message would be accompanied by a software security guard controlling who can view it, where it can be sent and even when it will be erased. Also, the secure PC is specifically intended to protect digital movies and music from online piracy.
But while beneficial to the entertainment industry and corporate operations, the new systems will not necessarily be immune to computer viruses or unwanted spam e-mail messages, the two most severe irritants to PC users.
"Microsoft's use of the term `trusted computing' is a great piece of doublespeak," said Dan Sokol, a computer engineer based in San Jose, Calif., who was one of the original members of the Homebrew Computing Club, the pioneering PC group. "What they're really saying is, `We don't trust you, the user of this computer.' "
The advocates of trusted computing argue that the new technology is absolutely necessary to protect the privacy of users and to prevent the theft of valuable intellectual property, a reaction to the fact that making a perfect digital copy is almost as easy as clicking a mouse button.
"It's like having a little safe inside your computer," said Bob Meinschein, an Intel security architect. "On the corporate side the value is much clearer," he added, "but over time the consumer value of this technology will become clear as well" as more people shop and do other business transactions online.
Industry leaders also contend that none of this will stifle innovation. Instead, they say, it will help preserve and expand general-purpose computing in the Internet age.
"We think this is a huge innovation story," said Mario Juarez, Microsoft's group product manager for the company's security business unit. "This is just an extension of the way the current version of Windows has provided innovation for players up and down the broad landscape of computing."
The initiative is based on a new specification for personal computer hardware, first introduced in 2000 and backed by a group of companies called the Trusted Computing Group. It also revolves around a separate Microsoft plan, now called the Next Generation Secure Computing Base, that specifies a tamper-proof portion of the Windows operating system.
The hardware system is contained in a set of separate electronics that are linked to the personal computer's microprocessor chip, known as the Trusted Platform Module, or T.P.M. The device includes secret digital keys - large binary numbers - that cannot easily be altered. The Trusted Computing Group is attempting to persuade other industries, like the mobile phone industry and the makers of personal digital assistants, to standardize on the technology as well.
The plans reflect a shift by key elements of the personal computer industry, which in the past had resisted going along with the entertainment industry and what some said they feared would be draconian controls that would greatly curtail the power of digital consumer products.
Industry executives now argue that by embedding the digital keys directly in the hardware of the PC, tampering will be much more difficult. But they acknowledge that no security system is perfect.
The hardware standard is actually the second effort by Intel to build security directly into the circuitry of the PC. The first effort ended in a public relations disaster for Intel in 1999 when consumers and civil liberties groups revolted against the idea. The groups coined the slogan "Big Brother Inside," and charged that the technology could be used to violate user privacy.
"We don't like to make the connection," said Mr. Meinschein. "But we did learn from it."
He said the new T.P.M. design requires the computer owner to switch on the new technology voluntarily and that it contains elaborate safeguards for protecting individual identity.
The first computers based on the hardware design have just begun to appear from I.B.M. and Hewlett-Packard for corporate customers. Consumer-oriented computer makers like Dell Computer and Gateway are being urged to go along but have not yet endorsed the new approach.
How consumers will react to the new technology is a thorny question for PC makers because the new industry design stands in striking contrast to the approach being taken by Apple Computer.
Apple has developed the popular iTunes digital music store relying exclusively on software to restrict the sharing of digital songs over the Internet. Apple's system, which has drawn the support of the recording industry, permits consumers to share songs freely among up to three Macintoshes and an iPod portable music player.
Apple only has a tiny share of the personal computer market. But it continues to tweak the industry leaders with its innovations; last week, Apple's chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, demonstrated a feature of the company's newest version of its OS X operating system called FileVault, designed to protect a user's documents without the need for modifying computer hardware.
Mr. Jobs argued that elaborate hardware-software schemes like the one being pursued by the Trusted Computing Group will not achieve their purpose.
"It's a falsehood," he said. "You can prove to yourself that that hardware doesn't make it more secure."
That is not Microsoft's view. The company has begun showing a test copy of a variation of its Windows operating system that was originally named Palladium. The name was changed last year after a trademark dispute.
In an effort to retain the original open PC environment, the Microsoft plan offers the computer user two separate computing partitions in a future version of Windows. Beyond changing the appearance and control of Windows, the system will also require a new generation of computer hardware, not only replacing the computer logic board but also peripherals like mice, keyboards and video cards.
Executives at Microsoft say they tentatively plan to include the technology in the next version of Windows - code-named Longhorn - now due in 2005.
The company is dealing with both technical and marketing challenges presented by the new software security system. For example, Mr. Juarez, the Microsoft executive, said that if the company created a more secure side to its operating system software, customers might draw the conclusion that its current software is not as safe to use.
Software developers and computer security experts, however, said they were not confident that Microsoft would retain its commitment to the open half of what is planned to be a two-sided operating system.
"My hackles went up when I read Microsoft describing the trusted part of the operating system as an option," said Mitchell D. Kapor, the founder of Lotus Development Corporation, and a longtime Microsoft competitor. "I don't think that's a trustworthy statement."
One possibility, Mr. Kapor argued, is that Microsoft could release versions of applications like its Office suite of programs that would only run on the secure part of the operating system, forcing users to do their work in the more restricted environment.
Microsoft denies that it is hatching an elaborate scheme to deploy an ultra-secret hardware system simply to protect its software and Hollywood's digital content. The company also says the new system can help counter global cybercrime without creating the repressive "Big Brother" society imagined by George Orwell in "1984."
Microsoft is committed to "working with the government and the entire industry to build a more secure computing infrastructure here and around the world," Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman, told a technology conference in Washington on Wednesday. "This technology can make our country more secure and prevent the nightmare vision of George Orwell at the same time."
The critics are worried, however, that the rush to create more secure PC's may have unintended consequences. Paradoxically, they say, the efforts to lock up data safely against piracy could serve to make it easier for pirates to operate covertly.
Indeed, the effectiveness of the effort to protect intellectual property like music and movies has been challenged in two independent research papers. One was distributed last year by a group of Microsoft computer security researchers; a second paper was released last month by Harvard researchers.
The research papers state that computer users who share files might use the new hardware-based security systems to create a "Darknet," a secure, but illegal network for sharing digital movies and music or other illicit information that could be exceptionally hard for security experts to crack.
"This is a Pandora's box and I don't think there has been much thought about what can go wrong," said Stuart Schechter, a Harvard researcher who is an author of one of the papers. "This is one of those rare times we can prevent something that will do more harm than good."
a.k.a. Register In The "No Call" Registry (and It's Illegal For Telemarketers To Call You)
A few months ago, I got all hot and bothered about the news that our cell phone numbers would soon be made available to telemarketers via 411 info.
One solution to this is to sign up for the "Do Not Call Registry."
Most telemarketers cannot call your telephone number if it is in the National Do Not Call Registry. You can register your home and mobile phone numbers for free. Your registration will be effective for five years.
If a telemarketer calls you during that time, you can file a complaint.
It just took me less than a minute to register my home and cell phone numbers.
This is a follow up to my earlier post regarding cellphone numbers being added to 411 lists, which I still think, as it stands, is a really bad idea.
There's more at stake here than the (I believe, still valid) concern of actually be charged money by your phone company every time you are contacted by a telemarketer, which would also be horrible and unfair to consumers, but isn't nearly as worrisome as establishing a practice of charging people extra if they don't want their personal information sold.
If discounts are offered to people that are willing to allow their number to be included in a directory, that's one thing. But again, it would need to be properly represented to the consumer that they were trading something valuable -- their personal information -- for a discount.
That said, it's not only about telemarketers. It's about privacy. If I want someone to have my cell phone number, I'll give it to them. Otherwise, they can email me and request it, and if I want to give it to them, I will.
In general, I would rather be emailed than called on the phone -- especially from people I'm not expecting.
The way it is now, I have a little control over who calls me on my already too busy telephone. I should not have to pay money to have my number remain unlisted. It is a right, not a privilege, in my opinion.
This is the wrong direction for these kinds of services to go -- making people opt-out of having their information made public. They should always have to explicitly opt-in to such services. This is dangerous if giving up one's personal information in order to participate in a basic communications service, such as cell phones, becomes the exception, and not the rule.
Hope this clarifies my broader privacy concerns surrounding these types of policies.
Commercial interests are gearing up to benefit from making our personal cell phone information to the public.
Soon 411 will be able to sell your cell phone number to make extra money from its service. You'll have to pay extra if you want to keep your number unlisted.
I think this is horrible news -- A directory service for cell phones only makes sense if you have to opt-in to it, not if the burden is on you to not only opt-out of it, but pay for the privilege.
Now we'll have to pay to be unlisted!
This seems more like a service you should have to pay to be included in, not the other way around.
Cell phone's are largely "private" lines. If someone wants their business line listed, they can take the time to list it. The average person shouldn't have to take up their time and valuable resources to make sure they've opted out.
Also, one mistake and the average person will have to foot the cost of getting a new phone number, so they can "try again" at protecting their privacy.
Please let me know if anyone knows how this can:
1) be stopped.
2) changed from an "opt-out" policy to an "opt-in" policy where the burden will be placed on the people who want to participate, not the people who want to protect their privacy.
3) be "opted out" of, at NO CHARGE, with confirmation IN WRITING, so a company can be taken to court if a mistake is made, and far enough (like a year) in advance of the roll out that we can no for sure that our privacy will be protected.
4) be made a built-in requirement for customers to be provided with a freely-available opt-out option at the same time they purchase a cell phone to make it as easy has possible to protect their privacy.
Privacy needs to be the default -- not the paid-for exception.
Please keep an eye out for developments on this front and let me know about them! Thanks!
Wireless numbers to be added to 411
Large cell phone carriers on board with plan, source says
The centralized database of wireless numbers would be off limits to telemarketers, and consumers would be able to choose whether to have their numbers listed or unlisted, according to people familiar with the process.Individual carriers would determine whether subscribers would have to pay to be unlisted.
Other privacy options are possible, too.
For example, wireless phone users might choose to be unlisted but willing to receive a short text message, sent through the directory service, from someone trying to contact them.
The nation’s largest carriers are on board with the plan, according to an industry source who spoke on condition of anonymity. Their support makes sense: If carriers charged a dollar or so for 411 requests for a wireless number that could be a huge revenue boost for an industry struggling with high debts and tough competition.
Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/887175.asp?cp1=1
Wireless numbers to be added to 411
Large cell phone carriers on board with plan, source says
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW ORLEANS, March 18 — Looking for a friend but don’t have her phone number with you? For now, you can call directory assistance for her home number, but her wireless digits are off limits from 411. That’s about to change, however. After years of hesitation, cellular providers are getting close to making wireless numbers available to 411 callers.
The database of wireless numbers would be off limits to telemarketers, and consumers would be able to choose whether to have their numbers listed or unlisted.
ALTHOUGH THE INFORMATION service probably won’t be available until next year at the earliest, some details already are clear.
The centralized database of wireless numbers would be off limits to telemarketers, and consumers would be able to choose whether to have their numbers listed or unlisted, according to people familiar with the process.
Individual carriers would determine whether subscribers would have to pay to be unlisted.
Other privacy options are possible, too.
For example, wireless phone users might choose to be unlisted but willing to receive a short text message, sent through the directory service, from someone trying to contact them.
The nation’s largest carriers are on board with the plan, according to an industry source who spoke on condition of anonymity. Their support makes sense: If carriers charged a dollar or so for 411 requests for a wireless number that could be a huge revenue boost for an industry struggling with high debts and tough competition.
About 5 percent of U.S. households have gone totally wireless and eliminated traditional landlines, according to the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, which is hosting a huge industry trade show in New Orleans this week.
WIFI ROAMING REMAINS DISTANT
While the industry quietly moves toward establishing wireless 411, that kind of consensus and cooperation has been absent at the CTIA show when it comes to the explosion of the wireless Internet access technology known as WiFi.
Because WiFi uses unlicensed airwave frequencies to inexpensively radiate Internet connectivity over short distances, every day brings news of aggressive plans to deploy WiFi “hot spots.”
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IBM Corp. said this week it would work with two technology companies to infuse 1,000 truck stops with WiFi access. Toshiba and Accenture are touting a package of hot spot gear and network management software.
But analysts, WiFi providers and companies thinking about joining the fray say the technology will be hindered unless the industry lets users seamlessly roam from one WiFi network to another.
No one really wants to buy access in one airport, only to have to pull out the credit card again and sign up anew at a downtown cafe.
“We need universal roaming across hot spots more than we ever needed it with cellular,” said Sky Dayton, founder of Boingo Wireless, a company working to link WiFi hot spots with each other — and with the slower data networks that send information to wireless phones.
But while some companies say they can facilitate aspects of WiFi roaming, WiFi operators and would-be providers say big issues have yet to be worked out — including how to link billing systems and assure a consistent quality of service among hot spots.
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David Chamberlain, an analyst with Probe Research, said wireless phone carriers might be in the best position to bring about WiFi roaming because they already have relationships with millions of customers and billing software for cellular roaming.
But that day doesn’t seem near.
Nextel Communications CEO Tim Donahue said Tuesday that WiFi is not “ready for prime time yet.” Sprint PCS chief Len Lauer said he’s discouraged to see free WiFi hot spots popping up in hotels and other public places because that might make it difficult for anyone to profit off it.
“The cellular operators,” said Lawrence Brilliant, chief of WiFi wholesaler Cometa Networks, “have got to decide whether they see it as friend or foe.”
Ashcroft Out of Control
Ominous Sequel to USA Patriot Act
By Nat Hentoff for the Village Voice.
Under the proposed Ashcroft bill reversing that court decision, for the first time in U.S. history, secret arrests will be specifically permitted. That section of bill is flatly titled: "Prohibition of Disclosure of Terrorism Investigation Detainee Information." In Argentina, those secretly taken away were known as "the disappeared."Moving on, under Section 501 of the blandly titled Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, an American citizen can be stripped of citizenship if he or she "becomes a member of, or provides material support to, a group that the United States has designated as a 'terrorist organization,' if that group is engaged in hostilities against the United States."
Until now, in our law, an American could only lose his or her citizenship by declaring a clear intent to abandon it. But~Wand read this carefully from the new bill - "the intent to relinquish nationality need not be manifested in words, but can be inferred from conduct." (Emphasis added).
Who will do the "inferring"? A member of the Justice Department. Not to worry. As John Ashcroft's spokeswoman, Barbara Comstock, says of objections to this draft bill: "The [Justice] department's deliberations are always undertaken with the strongest commitment to our Constitution and civil liberties." (This is a faith- based administration.)
Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:
http://villagevoice.com/issues/0310/hentoff.php
Ashcroft Out of Control
Ominous Sequel to USA Patriot Act
By Nat Hentoff
Village Voice
Friday 28 February 2003
Many of the new security measures proposed by our government in the name of fighting the "war on terror" are not temporary. They are permanent changes to our laws. Even the measures that, on the surface, appear to have been adopted only as long as the war on terror lasts, could be with us indefinitely. Because, as Homeland Security director Tom Ridge himself has warned, terrorism is a "permanent condition to which America must . . . adjust." - American Civil Liberties Union, January 29
Since September 11, 2001, a number of us at the Voice have been detailing the Bush administration's accelerating war on the Bill of Rights - and the rising resistance around the country. This battle to protect the Constitution, and us, has entered a new and more dangerous dimension.
On February 7, Charles Lewis, head of the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity, received a secret, but not classified, Justice Department draft of a bill that would expand the already unprecedented government powers to restrict civil liberties authorized by the USA Patriot Act. This new bill is called the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003. Lewis, in an act of patriotism - since this still is a constitutional democracy - put the 86-page draft on the center's Web site, where it still remains (http://www.publicintegrity.org/).
On the evening of February 7, Charles Lewis discussed this new assault on our fundamental liberties on Bill Moyers's PBS program, Now.
Three days later, on the editorial page of the daily New York Sun, primarily a conservative newspaper, Errol Louis wrote: "[The] document is a catalog of authoritarianism that runs counter to the basic tenets of modern democracy."
I have the entire draft of the bill. Section 201 would overturn a federal court decision that ordered the Bush administration to reveal the identities of those it has detained (imprisoned) since 9-11. This sequel to the USA Patriot Act states that "the government need not disclose information about individuals detained in investigations of terrorism until . . . the initiation of criminal charges."
Many of the prisoners caught in the Justice Department's initial dragnet were held for months without charges or contact with their families, who didn't know where they were. And these prisoners were often abused and out of reach of their lawyers - if they'd been able to find a lawyer before being shifted among various prisons. When, after much pressure, the Justice Department released the numbers of the imprisoned, there were no names attached, until a lower court decided otherwise.
Under the proposed Ashcroft bill reversing that court decision, for the first time in U.S. history, secret arrests will be specifically permitted. That section of bill is flatly titled: "Prohibition of Disclosure of Terrorism Investigation Detainee Information." In Argentina, those secretly taken away were known as "the disappeared."
Moving on, under Section 501 of the blandly titled Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, an American citizen can be stripped of citizenship if he or she "becomes a member of, or provides material support to, a group that the United States has designated as a 'terrorist organization,' if that group is engaged in hostilities against the United States."
Until now, in our law, an American could only lose his or her citizenship by declaring a clear intent to abandon it. But~Wand read this carefully from the new bill - "the intent to relinquish nationality need not be manifested in words, but can be inferred from conduct." (Emphasis added).
Who will do the "inferring"? A member of the Justice Department. Not to worry. As John Ashcroft's spokeswoman, Barbara Comstock, says of objections to this draft bill: "The [Justice] department's deliberations are always undertaken with the strongest commitment to our Constitution and civil liberties." (This is a faith- based administration.)
What this section of the bill actually means is that if you provide "material support" to an organization by sending a check for its legal activities~Wnot knowing that it has been designated a "terrorist" group for other things it does - you can be stripped of your citizenship and be detained indefinitely as an alien. While South Africa was ruled by an apartheid government, certain activities of the African National Congress were categorized as "terrorist," but many Americans provided support to the legal anti-apartheid work of that organization.
Under Section 302 of John Ashcroft's design for our future during the indefinite war on terrorism, there is another change in our legal system. Under current law, the FBI can collect DNA identification records of persons convicted of various crimes. But under the USA Patriot Act II, the "Attorney General or Secretary of Defense" will be able to "collect, analyze, and maintain DNA samples" of "suspected terrorists." And as Georgetown law professor David Cole notes - "mere association" will be enough to involve you with suspected terrorist groups. What does "association" mean? For one thing, "material support," under which you could lose your citizenship.
In reaction to the stealth with which the Justice Department has been crafting this invasion of the Bill of Rights, Democratic senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on February 10: "The early signals from the administration about its intentions for this bill are ominous. . . .
"For months, and as recently as just last week, Justice Department officials have denied to members of the Judiciary Committee that they were drafting another anti-terrorism package. There still has not been any hint from them about their draft bill."
Leahy continued: "The contents of this proposal should be carefully reviewed, and the public must be allowed to freely engage in any debate about the merits of any new government powers the administration may seek."
But where is the debate in Congress or in the media? After a few initial press stories about the USA Patriot Act II, there has been little follow-up. To be continued here.
Arrest Me By William Rivers Pitt for truthout.
Crazy, right?Ask Andrew J. O'Conner of Santa Fe, New Mexico if it sounds crazy. Mr. O'Conner, a former public defender from Santa Fe, was arrested in a public library and interrogated by Secret Service agents for five hours on February 13th.
His crime?
He said "Bush is out of control" on an internet chat room, and was arrested for threatening the President.
Ask Bernadette Devlin McAliskey of Ireland if it sounds crazy. She was recently passing through Chicago from Dublin, where she passed security, when she heard her name called over a loudspeaker. When she went up to the ticket counter, three men and one woman surrounded her and grabbed her passport. McAliskey was informed that she had been reported to be a "potential or real threat to the United States."
Bernadette Devlin McAliskey has spent the better part of her life struggling for the Irish nationalist cause. She did not lob Molotov cocktails at police. Instead, she became a member of British Parliament at age 21, the youngest person ever elected to that post. In 1981 she and her husband were shot by a loyalist death squad in their home. She has traveled to America on a regular basis for the last thirty years, and has been given the keys to the cities of San Francisco and New York.
Upon her detention in Chicago last month, McAliskey was fingerprinted and photographed. One of the men holding her told her that he was going to throw her in prison. When she snapped back that she had rights, she was told not to make the boss angry, because he shoots people. "After 9/11," said one officer, "nobody has any rights."
Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:
http://truthout.org/docs_03/030503A.shtml
Arrest Me
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 4 March 2003
George W. Bush is out of control.
I'll say it again.
George W. Bush is out of control.
I'm waiting for the black government cars to come squealing up in front of my house, for the thump of leather on my stairs, for the sound of knuckles on my door, for the feel of steel braceleting my wrists, for the smell of urine in some dank Federal holding cell as I listen to questions from men who no longer feel the constricting boundaries of constitutional law abutting their duties.
Sounds paranoid, doesn't it? Straight out of the Turner Diaries, maybe. Sounds like I'm waiting for the ominous whop-whop-whop of the blades on a black helicopter churning the air over my home. Sounds like I'm waiting to find a laser dot on my chest above my heart before the glass breaks and the bullet pushes my guts out past my spine.
Crazy, right?
Ask Andrew J. O'Conner of Santa Fe, New Mexico if it sounds crazy. Mr. O'Conner, a former public defender from Santa Fe, was arrested in a public library and interrogated by Secret Service agents for five hours on February 13th.
His crime?
He said "Bush is out of control" on an internet chat room, and was arrested for threatening the President.
Ask Bernadette Devlin McAliskey of Ireland if it sounds crazy. She was recently passing through Chicago from Dublin, where she passed security, when she heard her name called over a loudspeaker. When she went up to the ticket counter, three men and one woman surrounded her and grabbed her passport. McAliskey was informed that she had been reported to be a "potential or real threat to the United States."
Bernadette Devlin McAliskey has spent the better part of her life struggling for the Irish nationalist cause. She did not lob Molotov cocktails at police. Instead, she became a member of British Parliament at age 21, the youngest person ever elected to that post. In 1981 she and her husband were shot by a loyalist death squad in their home. She has traveled to America on a regular basis for the last thirty years, and has been given the keys to the cities of San Francisco and New York.
Upon her detention in Chicago last month, McAliskey was fingerprinted and photographed. One of the men holding her told her that he was going to throw her in prison. When she snapped back that she had rights, she was told not to make the boss angry, because he shoots people. "After 9/11," said one officer, "nobody has any rights."
"You've evaded us before," said the officer before McAliskey was deported back to Ireland, "but you're not going to do it now." She never found out for sure how she was a threat to the United States, and is currently filing a formal complaint with the U.S. consulate in Dublin.
There are those who will brush these incidents off. Andrew O'Conner has been an activist for years, and has not hidden his disdain for this looming war in Iraq. Bernadette McAliskey is a world-famous fighter for her people. Some will say the opinions and freedoms of people like this do not matter in the grand scheme. Others will wave these incidents away as random examples of thoughtless action by petty dictators who were foolishly given badges and authority.
I don't.
It is ironic, in a grisly sort of way. Hard-right conservatives spent the entirety of the Clinton administration baying to anyone fearful enough to listen that the President was coming for their freedoms, that it was only a matter of time before the Bill of Rights was destroyed. The myth of the black helicopters, the apocalyptic views of the Turner Diaries, and a smoking crater in Oklahoma City all testified to the brittle paranoia these people promulgated in those years.
Now, those same people have representatives with parallel views on virtually every domestic and foreign policy idea in control of the House, the Senate, the White House, the Supreme Court, the intelligence services and the United States military. These are the people who brought us the Patriot Act, versions 1.0 and 2.0, the people who are responsible for the most incredible constitutional redactions in our history.
Ask Mr. O'Conner and Ms. McAliskey about it. They can tell you what happens to undesirables these days.
When you murder peaceful dissent in America, you murder America itself. When you harass innocent people for their past and present views, you spread fear within an already terrified nation. This is not about some fool of a Secret Service agent jumping the gun on an innocuous online comment, or an airline security officer with a penchant for bullyragging 55 year old women. This is a failure from the top down, an empowerment - by the man charged with defending our constitution - of lesser jackasses with large badges who do not understand nor care for the importance of their positions. This is about failed leadership, and the despoiling of everything that makes this place precious and unique and sacred.
In other words, Bush is out of control.
Bush is out of control.
Bush is out of control.
Come and get me.
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times bestselling author of two books - "War On Iraq" (with Scott Ritter) available now from Context Books, and "The Greatest Sedition is Silence," available in May 2003 from Pluto Press. He teaches high school in Boston, MA.
Suitcase surprise: Rebuke written on inspection notice
By Susan Gilmore for the Seattle Times.
Seth Goldberg says that when he opened his suitcase in San Diego after a flight from Seattle this month, the two "No Iraq War" signs he'd picked up at the Pike Place Market were still nestled among his clothes.But there was a third sign, he said, that shocked him. Tucked in his luggage was a card from the Transportation Security Administration notifying him that his bags had been opened and inspected at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Handwritten on the side of the card was a note, "Don't appreciate your anti-American attitude!"
"I found it chilling and a little Orwellian to have received this message," said Goldberg, 41, a New Jersey resident who was in Seattle visiting longtime friend Davis Oldham, a University of Washington instructor.
Goldberg says that when he took his suitcase off the airplane in San Diego, the zipper pulls were sealed with nylon straps, which indicated TSA had inspected the luggage. It would be hard, he said, for anyone else to have gotten inside his bags.
TSA officials say they are looking into the incident. "We do not condone our employees making any kind of political comments or personal comments to any travelers," TSA spokeswoman Heather Rosenker told Reuters. "That is not acceptable."
Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/134653764_tsasign15m.html
Saturday, March 15, 2003 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific
Suitcase surprise: Rebuke written on inspection notice
By Susan Gilmore
Seattle Times staff reporter
Seth Goldberg says he found this notice — and note — in his luggage after it was inspected earlier this month at Sea-Tac Airport.
Seth Goldberg says that when he opened his suitcase in San Diego after a flight from Seattle this month, the two "No Iraq War" signs he'd picked up at the Pike Place Market were still nestled among his clothes.
But there was a third sign, he said, that shocked him. Tucked in his luggage was a card from the Transportation Security Administration notifying him that his bags had been opened and inspected at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Handwritten on the side of the card was a note, "Don't appreciate your anti-American attitude!"
"I found it chilling and a little Orwellian to have received this message," said Goldberg, 41, a New Jersey resident who was in Seattle visiting longtime friend Davis Oldham, a University of Washington instructor.
Goldberg says that when he took his suitcase off the airplane in San Diego, the zipper pulls were sealed with nylon straps, which indicated TSA had inspected the luggage. It would be hard, he said, for anyone else to have gotten inside his bags.
TSA officials say they are looking into the incident. "We do not condone our employees making any kind of political comments or personal comments to any travelers," TSA spokeswoman Heather Rosenker told Reuters. "That is not acceptable."
Goldberg, who is restoring a historic home in New Jersey, said he picked up the "No Iraq War" signs because he hadn't seen them in New Jersey and wanted to put them up at his house.
"In New Jersey there's very little in the way of protest and when I got to Seattle I was amazed how many anti-war signs were up in front of houses," he said. "I'm not a political activist but was distressed by the way the country was rolling off to war."
Goldberg said he checked two bags at Sea-Tac on March 2 and traveled to San Diego on Alaska Airlines. The TSA station was adjacent to the Alaska check-in counter.
Nico Melendez, western regional spokesman for the TSA, said the note in Goldberg's luggage will be investigated, but he said there's no proof that a TSA employee wrote it. "It's a leap to say it was a TSA screener," Melendez said.
But Goldberg said, "It seems a little far-fetched to think people are running around the airport writing messages on TSA literature and slipping them into people's bags."
He says TSA should take responsibility and refocus its training "so TSA employees around the country are not trampling people's civil rights, not intimidating or harassing travelers. That's an important issue."
Oldham, the UW instructor, said he was so upset by the incident he wrote members of Congress. U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., has asked TSA for a response.
"The Senator certainly agrees with you that it is completely inappropriate for a public employee to write their opinion of your or your friend's political opinion," said Jay Pearson, aide to Cantwell, in a letter to Oldham. He said he expects it may take a month or more to hear back from the TSA.
"I just thought it was outrageous," Oldham said. "It's one of many things happening recently where the government is outstepping its bounds in the midst of paranoia."
Susan Gilmore: 206-464-2054 or sgilmore@seattletimes.com
Today I saw this article on BoingBoing and my friend Cam and I were discussing it while riding in a Taxicab to downtown Austin. (I'm still here for SXSW 2003.)
I mentioned that cab companies around the country already keep information on every pick-up and drop off that takes place, and that the information is already available to the cops without a subpoena or anything. The cops often need a witness or something when a crime has been committed, and can then ask whatever cabby might have been in the area at that time (like in Law and Order). (I gleaned these facts some time ago from my cabbies back home in San Francisco.)
Our Austin cab driver told us that they've had black boxes in Austin for years. That the cops know exactly where every driver is at all times within 10 feet (theoretically), and that they can tell everytime the meter is started or paused, idling, etc., and when the engine turns off and on, etc.
The only way to drive anonymously is to turn everything off inside the car: the meter, blackbloxes, gps, etc. None of the other devices will work without the black box on. (Note: the car itself will operate without the monitoring equipment on.)
Of course, if you turn everything else off, then that in itself looks suspicious (we all mused).
It would appear that the devices currently installed within all of the cabs in Austin, TX already go far above and beyond those described in this WSJ article.
Here's the WSJ article on the subject written by William M. Bulkeley:
Taxis Soon May Acquire Their Own 'Black Boxes'
The devices, somewhat like the "black boxes" in commercial airliners, will sense a crash and automatically report data on speed, location, brake pressure and number of passengers to a crash-records depository run by International Business Machines Corp., Armonk, N.Y.Ralph Bisceglia, director of American Transit, said it expects to get "important feedback on auto-safety features," and to combat fraud. For example, if a cab driver claims he "was under the speed limit and the passenger claims he was speeding, the box will tell you," he said.
The program illustrates the growing interest of insurers and fleet owners in using "telematics" in vehicles to remotely monitor what drivers do, where they go and how the vehicle is performing.
Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB104752623581462300,00.html?mod=telecommunications%5Fprimary%5Fhs
Taxis Soon May Acquire
Their Own 'Black Boxes'
By WILLIAM M. BULKELEY
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Crash-prone New York taxi drivers could soon confront a new witness when explaining accidents to insurers: a black box connected to their car's controls that senses precrash speed and other factors.
Closely held American Transit Insurance Co., New York, which insures 80% of the taxis and limousines in the Big Apple, said the devices will be installed late this summer. The company plans to offer $300 insurance discounts to induce owners of as many as 1,500 cabs to take part.
The devices, somewhat like the "black boxes" in commercial airliners, will sense a crash and automatically report data on speed, location, brake pressure and number of passengers to a crash-records depository run by International Business Machines Corp., Armonk, N.Y.
Ralph Bisceglia, director of American Transit, said it expects to get "important feedback on auto-safety features," and to combat fraud. For example, if a cab driver claims he "was under the speed limit and the passenger claims he was speeding, the box will tell you," he said.
The program illustrates the growing interest of insurers and fleet owners in using "telematics" in vehicles to remotely monitor what drivers do, where they go and how the vehicle is performing.
Wednesday, IBM and Norwich Union, a car-insurance unit of Britain's Aviva PLC, announced plans to put black boxes in 5,000 volunteers' cars. The aim is to see whether people who drive less should get lower insurance rates. That program could raise invasion-of-privacy issues, because it keep tabs on when, where and how much the cars are driven.
Jim Ruthven, IBM's program director for telematics, said the taxi program shouldn't raise similar concerns, because data would be sent to computer systems only when a crash occurred. IBM, which is developing what it expects will be a large business in telematics for monitoring and communicating with automobiles, is helping design the system and will run it.
The in-car devices take advantage of the multitude of sensors auto makers have deployed in cars, often under government mandates, to monitor emissions and detect passenger presence for air-bag and seat-belt systems. Normally the information stays in the car, but in the taxi system, IBM plans to connect the sensors to a black box the size of a cigarette pack that would send five seconds worth of data about the car as a text message over the cellphone network, every time an air bag exploded.
The black boxes for taxis will be custom-designed, but ultimately will cost a few hundred dollars a vehicle, IBM predicts.
The program also involves Safety Intelligence Systems Corp., a Atlanta, Ga., company established by Ricardo Martinez, former head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Safety Intelligence is developing a central data repository for real-time crash information that it hopes to sell to insurers, auto makers and governments.
Dr. Martinez, a former emergency-room physician, said that most car crashes are studied only after they occur. "There's very little data, and most of that is from laboratories -- not the real world."
Write to William M. Bulkeley at bill.bulkeley@wsj.com
Libraries post Patriot Act warnings
Santa Cruz branches tell patrons that FBI may spy on them
The signs, posted in the 10 county branches last week and on the library's Web site, also inform the reader that the USA Patriot Act "prohibits library workers from informing you if federal agents have obtained records about you.""Questions about this policy," patrons are told, "should be directed to Attorney General John Ashcroft, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. 20530."
...Section 215 of the act allows FBI agents to obtain a warrant from a secret federal court for library or bookstore records of anyone connected to an investigation of international terrorism or spying.
Unlike conventional search warrants, there is no need for agents to show that the target is suspected of a crime or possesses evidence of a crime. As the Santa Cruz signs indicate, the law prohibits libraries and bookstores from telling their patrons, or anyone else, that the FBI has sought the records.
Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/03/10/MN14634.DTL
Libraries post Patriot Act warnings
Santa Cruz branches tell patrons that FBI may spy on them
Bob Egelko, Maria Alicia Gaura, Chronicle Staff Writers Monday, March 10, 2003
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Along with the usual reminders to hold the noise down and pay overdue fines, library patrons in Santa Cruz are seeing a new type of sign these days: a warning that records of the books they borrow may wind up in the hands of federal agents.
The signs, posted in the 10 county branches last week and on the library's Web site, also inform the reader that the USA Patriot Act "prohibits library workers from informing you if federal agents have obtained records about you."
"Questions about this policy," patrons are told, "should be directed to Attorney General John Ashcroft, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. 20530."
Library goers were swift to denounce the act's provisions.
"It's none of their business what anybody's reading," said Cathy Simmons of Boulder Creek. "It's counterproductive to what libraries are all about."
"I'm not reading anything they'd be particularly interested in, but that's not the point," said Ari Avraham of Santa Cruz. "This makes me think of Big Brother."
The Justice Department says libraries have become a logical target of surveillance in light of evidence that some Sept. 11 hijackers used library computers to communicate with each other.
But the signs ordered by the Santa Cruz library board -- a more elaborate version of warnings posted in several libraries around the nation -- are adding to the heat now being generated by a once-obscure provision of the Patriot Act.
Section 215 of the act allows FBI agents to obtain a warrant from a secret federal court for library or bookstore records of anyone connected to an investigation of international terrorism or spying.
Unlike conventional search warrants, there is no need for agents to show that the target is suspected of a crime or possesses evidence of a crime. As the Santa Cruz signs indicate, the law prohibits libraries and bookstores from telling their patrons, or anyone else, that the FBI has sought the records.
The provision was virtually unnoticed when the Patriot Act, a major expansion of government search and surveillance authority, was passed by Congress six weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But in the last year, Section 215 has roused organizations of librarians and booksellers into a burst of political activity, and is being cited increasingly by critics as an example of the new law's intrusiveness.
SANDERS' REPEAL BILL
Even as a leaked copy of a Bush administration proposal to expand the Patriot Act was circulating, Rep. Bernie Sanders, Ind-Vt., introduced a bill last week to repeal the library and bookstore provisions -- the first bill in the House, and the second in Congress, seeking to roll back any part of the Patriot Act.
Sanders, who voted against the Patriot Act, said he decided to target a "particularly onerous" provision that affects large numbers of people. His Freedom to Read Protection Act would allow library and bookstore searches only if federal agents first showed they were likely to find evidence of a crime.
The bill's 23 co-sponsors include four Bay Area Democrats -- Reps. Barbara Lee of Oakland, Lynn Woolsey of Petaluma, Sam Farr of Carmel and Pete Stark of Fremont.
The Bush administration has refused to say how it has used Section 215 -- prompting a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by library and bookseller organizations -- and has made few public comments on the issue. One statement by a high-ranking Justice Department official, however, may have inadvertently helped to fuel the rollback efforts.
In a letter to an inquiring senator, Assistant Attorney General Daniel Bryant said Americans who borrow or buy books surrender their right of privacy.
A patron who turns over information to the library or bookstore "assumes the risk that the entity may disclose it to another," Bryant, the Justice Department's chief of legislative affairs, said in a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
'INHERENTLY LIMITED' RIGHT
He said an individual's right of privacy in such records is "inherently limited" and is outweighed by the government's need for the information, if the FBI can show it is relevant to an "investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities."
Bryant's letter, dated Dec. 23, was slow to surface publicly but is now being held up by library and bookstore associations as evidence of the menace of government surveillance.
"Bookstore customers buy books with the expectation that their privacy will be protected," said the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, which represents independent bookstores. "If (Bryant) is in any doubt about this, he can ask Kenneth Starr, who outraged the nation by trying to subpoena Monica Lewinsky's book purchases."
"I find it profoundly disturbing that an assistant attorney general asserts that we have lost the right to privacy in that kind of information," said Deborah Stone, deputy director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom. "The republic was founded on the premise that you don't have to share your thoughts."
Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo said Bryant was merely pointing out that patrons voluntarily turn over information to libraries and bookstores and shouldn't be surprised if others learn about it. Corallo also said the provisions pose no threat to ordinary Americans, only to would-be terrorists.
Before demanding records from a library or bookstore under the Patriot Act, he said, "one has to convince a judge that the person for whom you're seeking a warrant is a spy or a member of a terrorist organization. The idea that any American citizen can have their records checked by the FBI, that's not true."
U.S. DECIDES WHO IS TERRORIST
Once the government decides someone is a terrorist, Corallo said, "We would want to know what they're reading. They may be trying to get information on infrastructure. They may be looking in the public library for information that would allow them to plan operations."
Responding to such positions, the leaders of the 64,000-member American Library Association passed a resolution in January calling the Patriot Act provisions "a present danger to the constitutional rights and privacy rights of library users" and urging Congress to change the law.
And while the views of individual librarians are apparently more varied than those of their association, a recent nationwide survey found that most felt the Patriot Act went too far.
Nearly 60 percent of the 906 librarians who replied to a University of Illinois questionnaire between October and January believed that the law's so- called gag order -- which prohibits libraries from disclosing that the FBI has requested their records -- was unconstitutional.
Asked if they would defy an agent's nondisclosure order, 5.5 percent said they definitely would, and another 16.1 percent said they probably would -- even though the law makes such defiance a crime.
In Santa Cruz, where library officials are trying to stir up patrons about the Patriot Act, chief librarian Anne Turner has found a more subtle way to sidestep the gag order, if she ever faces one.
"At each board meeting I tell them we have not been served by any (search warrants)," she said. "In any months that I don't tell them that, they'll know. "
From the "how 'bout telling me something I don't know
U.S. Expands Clandestine Surveillance Operations
The number of secret searches approved by Ashcroft since the 9/11 attacks is triple those authorized in the previous 20 years.
By Richard B. Schmitt for the LA Times.
The Justice Department has stepped up use of a secretive process that enables the attorney general to personally authorize electronic surveillance and physical searches of suspected terrorists, spies and other national-security threats without immediate court oversight.
Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday he has authorized more than 170 such emergency searches since the Sept. 11 attacks -- more than triple the 47 emergency searches that have been authorized by other attorneys general in the last 20 years.
A 1978 law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, enables the FBI and other investigators to conduct intelligence operations under the supervision of a secret federal tribunal known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Over the years, the number of such FISA applications has grown -- and civil liberties' groups and defense lawyers have complained that the law has become a tool to dilute suspects' constitutional rights.
Now, Justice Department officials are pushing the law's limits even further. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, officials have seized on a provision that allows them to launch emergency searches signed only by the attorney general. The department must still persuade the secret court that the search is justified -- but officials have 72 hours from the time the search is launched, and such requests are almost always granted.
Ashcroft's tally was more fuel for critics of the law who contend that it already operates in the shadows.
"That is a startling increase," said Timothy Edgar, a legislative counsel for the ACLU.
Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:
http://www.latimes.com/la-na-terror5mar05,0,5150443.story
Los Angeles Times - latimes.com
By Richard B. Schmitt, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department has stepped up use of a secretive process that enables the attorney general to personally authorize electronic surveillance and physical searches of suspected terrorists, spies and other national-security threats without immediate court oversight.
Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday he has authorized more than 170 such emergency searches since the Sept. 11 attacks -- more than triple the 47 emergency searches that have been authorized by other attorneys general in the last 20 years.
A 1978 law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, enables the FBI and other investigators to conduct intelligence operations under the supervision of a secret federal tribunal known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Over the years, the number of such FISA applications has grown -- and civil liberties' groups and defense lawyers have complained that the law has become a tool to dilute suspects' constitutional rights.
Now, Justice Department officials are pushing the law's limits even further. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, officials have seized on a provision that allows them to launch emergency searches signed only by the attorney general. The department must still persuade the secret court that the search is justified -- but officials have 72 hours from the time the search is launched, and such requests are almost always granted.
Ashcroft's tally was more fuel for critics of the law who contend that it already operates in the shadows.
"That is a startling increase," said Timothy Edgar, a legislative counsel for the ACLU.
Edgar and others are concerned that law-enforcement officials are pursuing run-of-the-mill criminal cases under the guise of national security. The trouble, they say, is that defendants' customary 4th Amendment rights against unreasonable searches don't apply in FISA cases. Others point to the fact that the number of search warrants obtained by federal investigators in intelligence cases in recent years has started to outstrip the number in criminal cases.
The process "is getting attenuated from any kind of effective judicial oversight," said Joshua Dratel, a New York lawyer who helped represent the National Assn. of Criminal Defense Lawyers in a challenge to FISA last year. "The question now becomes, 'How much can a court tolerate before it reins this in?' "
Currently, the Justice Department is only required to report publicly how many FISA search applications it pursues annually and how many are approved. Several members of Congress have introduced legislation that would expand the reporting requirements -- to detail the number of searches of U.S. citizens, for instance.
"The bare numbers cry out for further scrutiny," said James X. Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington civil-liberties group.
Separately, Ashcroft announced the unsealing of charges in Brooklyn, N.Y., federal court against two Yemeni citizens, Mohammed Al Hasan Al-Moayad and Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed. Ashcroft said the men stand accused of conspiring to provide material support to the Al Qaeda and Hamas terrorist groups through a worldwide fund-raising operation that netted Osama bin Laden $20 million.
According to Ashcroft, a portion of the funds came from the Al Farouq mosque in Brooklyn, a onetime gathering place for Egyptian cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, known as the blind sheik, and other men, all of whom were convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
The men were arrested Jan. 10 in Frankfurt, Germany; the U.S. is seeking their extradition. A Justice Department spokesman said announcement of the arrests was delayed for "operational reasons."
In a related development, U.S. counter-terrorism officials confirmed Tuesday that the second man arrested Saturday in a predawn raid in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, is Mustafa Ahmed Al-Hawsawi, one of Al Qaeda's top paymasters. Hawsawi was captured with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, an Al Qaeda leader believed to be plotting additional attacks on the United States and elsewhere.
The Justice Department has accused Hawsawi of funding the Sept. 11 attacks by wiring more than $100,000 to the hijackers for their living expenses, flight lessons and airline tickets after they arrived in the United States. Just before they embarked on their deadly journeys, several of the hijackers wired the money they had not spent back to Hawsawi in the United Arab Emirates.
Federal law enforcement officials described the arrest as "extremely significant."
"This is a huge catch," one official said Tuesday. "Not as huge as Mohammed, obviously, but one of the more significant arrests we've made since the Sept. 11 attacks."
After he was captured, Hawsawi, a native of Saudi Arabia, initially gave authorities a false name and nationality, claiming he was Somali.
Several senior counter-terrorism officials have described Hawsawi as far more than just a conduit, portraying him as a senior financial operative for Bin Laden and the entire Al Qaeda network.
"Every time we can have any success in cracking the financial network of Al Qaeda brings us much closer to breaking the back of the network itself," one official said.
*
Times staff writer Josh Meyer contributed to this report.
So we can give up all of our freedoms, and create hassles and holdups in every aspect of our daily lives, and there's still really no way to protect ourselves from becoming "soft targets" once the war has begun.
Sounds like another good reason to NOT START THE WAR IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Sounds like an even better reason to NOT GIVE UP ALL OF OUR FREEDOMS since it won't make us any safer anyway.
I have a real problem with articles like this. Parts of it regarding the use of Total Information Awareness are informative, but the rest of it just adds to the hysteria.
Are we drawing up roadmaps for the terrorists now?
Writers and officers are thinking up horrific potential disasters, and printing them up, with details about which places would be best to blow up in order to cause the largest amounts of casualties -- and for what purpose? To let us know how bad it could be if we don't let our freedoms be compromised? To add to the re-freakening of America, perhaps?
At the risk of adding to the hysteria. I bring this article to you.
Fortress America
By Matthew Brzezinski fo the NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/magazine/23FORTRESS.html
February 23, 2003
Fortress America
By MATTHEW BRZEZINSKI
In the last several weeks, as preparations for the war against Iraq
have heated up, it has begun to sink in that this will be a different
conflict from what we have
seen before -- that there may, in fact, be two fronts, one far away
on the ground in the Middle East, the other right here at home. For the
first time in history,
it seems plausible that an enemy might mount a sustained attack on
the United States, using weapons of terrorism. The term ''soft
targets,'' which refers to
everyday places like offices, shopping malls, restaurants and hotels, is
now casually dropped into conversation, the way military planners talk
about ''collateral
damage.''
Earlier this month, the federal government raised the official terrorism
alert level and advised Americans to prepare a ''disaster supply kit,''
including duct tape to
seal windows against airborne toxins. Members of Congress organized news
conferences to demand that passenger jets be outfitted with
missile-avoidance
systems. In major public areas of cities, the police presence has been
especially conspicuous, with weapons ostentatiously displayed. Whatever
the details, the
message was the same: war is on the way here.
The impossible questions begin with where, what and how, and end with
what to do about it. Sgt. George McClaskey, a Baltimore cop, spends his
days thinking
about the answers, and one cold day recently, he took me out in an old
police launch to survey Baltimore harbor. He showed me some of the new
security
measures, like the barriers at the approach to the harbor, which rose
out of the water like stakes in a moat. Cables were suspended between
these reinforced
pylons, designed to slice into approaching high-speed craft and
decapitate would-be suicide bombers before they reached their mark. It
looked fairly daunting.
Then McClaskey maneuvered the boat toward an unprotected stretch of
Baltimore's Inner Harbor. With the temperature dipping into the teens,
the place was
empty. But when the weather is warm, up to a quarter of a million people
congregate on these piers and brightly painted promenades every weekend.
''If I wanted to create a big bang,'' McClaskey said, adopting the
mind-set of a suicide bomber, ''I'd pack a small boat with explosives
and crash it right there.'' He
pointed to a promenade. ''It'd be a catastrophe,'' he declared. ''It
would take 48 hours just for the tide to flush out the bodies from under
the boardwalk.''
The port is lined with large oil terminals, storage tanks and
petrochemical facilities, incendiaries in need only of a lighted fuse.
Even the Domino sugar refinery,
with its sticky-sweet flammable dust, poses a threat. ''Most people
don't think about it,'' McClaskey said, ''but that's a giant bomb.''
The list of vulnerabilities is perilously long in Baltimore, as it is
just about everywhere in the United States. And every one of those
potential targets can set in
motion an ever-broadening ripple effect. Should terrorists manage to
blow up an oil terminal in Baltimore, for instance, the nearby
ventilation systems for the
I-95 tunnel would have to be shut. Shut down the tunnel, and the
Interstate highway must be closed. Close down a section of I-95, and
traffic along the entire
Eastern Seaboard snarls to a halt.
''So how would you defend against frogmen blowing up half the harbor?''
I asked McClaskey.
The sergeant shrugged uneasily. ''Honestly,'' he confessed, ''I don't
think it's possible.'' Like most law enforcement officers in this
country, McClaskey has been
trained to catch crooks, not to stop submerged suicide bombers.
Imagining doomsday possibilities is one thing; we've all become good at
it these past 18
months. Coming up with counterterror solutions is another story, often
beyond the scope of our imaginations. But while that expertise may not
yet exist in the
United States, it's out there, if you know where to look.
''Sonar,'' replied Rear Adm. Amiram Rafael, when I put the same question
to him 6,000 miles away in Israel, perhaps the one place in the world
where terrorism
is as much a part of daily life as commuter traffic. ''It can
distinguish between humans and large fish by mapping movement patterns
and speed.'' Rafael spent
28 years protecting Israel's coastline from terrorists and now consults
for foreign clients. ''If the alarm sounds, rapid response units in fast
boats are dispatched,''
he said. ''They're equipped with underwater concussion grenades.''
''To stun the divers?'' I asked.
''No,'' Rafael said, flashing a fatherly smile. ''To kill them.''
Until recently, the United States