RTFA: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/12/feds-eff-…

The Bush administration on Tuesday will try to convince a federal judge to let stand a law granting retroactive legal immunity to the nation’s telecoms, which are accused of transmitting Americans’ private communications to the National Security Agency without warrants.

At issue in the high-stakes showdown - set to begin at 10:00 a.m. PST - are the nearly four dozen lawsuits filed by civil liberties groups and class action attorneys against AT&T, Verizon, MCI, Sprint and other carriers who allegedly cooperated with the Bush administration’s domestic surveillance program in the years following the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The lawsuits claim the cooperation violated federal wiretapping laws and the Constitution.

In July, as part of a wider domestic spying bill, Congress voted to kill the lawsuits and grant retroactive amnesty to any phone companies that helped with the surveillance; President-elect Barack Obama was among those who voted for the law in the Senate. On Tuesday, lawyers with the Electronic Frontier Foundation are set to urge the federal judge overseeing those lawsuits to reject immunity as unconstitutional. At stake, they say, is the very principle of the rule of law in America.

“I think it does set a very frightening precedent that it’s okay for people to break the law because they can just have Congress bail them out later,” says EFF legal director Cindy Cohn. “It’s very troubling.”

I watched the FISA debate on the Senate floor, and although I was sometimes encouraged by the discussion, I was equally disappointed by the arguments I heard.

Retroactive Immunity is unacceptable if only because there were some phone companies that refused to comply, on the basis that they suspected it was illegal. Let’s be clear: certain companies proactively determined this would be illegal. This is a perfect case for a … what do you call it? Oh yeah: a Judge. See, a Judge would clear up the uncertainty because there’d be a record of the judgment. This could later be overturned, but that’s a world apart from the current situation.

The whole idea about warrants (or the FISA court, for that matter) is to determine if an action is legal BEFORE you commit that action.

RTFA: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/11/28/200…

Worker dies at Long Island Wal-Mart after being trampled in Black Friday stampede

Wow.

RTFA: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/11/24/the-right-to-…

We hereby petition the incoming Obama administration for a modest change, an immediate change that would signal a new direction for air travelers, a new freedom for frequent fliers. Here it is: recognize the need of Americans in the friendly skies to bear tools that fit in their pocket, by which we mean the ever-so useful pocket knife, also known by its brand names, the Swiss Army Knife and the Leatherman Multi-tool.

Ever since 9/11, pocket knives and their owners have been separated at airport security checkpoints everywhere, never to be reunited. According to the TSA, knives are prohibited, except “for plastic or round bladed butter knives.” Who carries a butter knife in his or her pocket or purse? The TSA’s unhelpful “Summer Travel Tips” says: “Pocket knives, self-defense sprays and other potential weapons are also prohibited.” What a huge misunderstanding! Pocket knives are tools. If you consider them to be weapons, certainly they are Weapons of minimal Destruction (WmD).

FYI: If you happen to put said knives into checked luggage, the TSA just might steal everything, and it probably won’t end up on eBay if that happens.

RTFA: http://rawstory.com/rawreplay/?p=127

News Corp. is reporting that firefighters are being asked by the Department of Homeland Security to spy inside people’s homes and businesses while in the line of duty of putting out fires.
The following video is from FOX’s FOX Report, broadcast on November 25, 2007

The firefighters stay on the front lines of our terrorism war.

RTFA: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/the_…

Someone — these are all real — notices a funny smell, or some white powder, or two people passing an envelope, or a dark-skinned man leaving boxes at the curb, or a cell phone in an airplane seat; the police cordon off the area, make arrests, and/or evacuate airplanes; and in the end the cause of the alarm is revealed as a pot of Thai chili sauce, or flour, or a utility bill, or an English professor recycling, or a cell phone in an airplane seat.

Of course, by then it’s too late for the authorities to admit that they made a mistake and overreacted, that a sane voice of reason at some level should have prevailed. What follows is the parade of police and elected officials praising each other for doing a great job, and prosecuting the poor victim — the person who was different in the first place — for having the temerity to try to trick them.

Really good Bruce Schneier essay about reporting suspicions and spying on your neighbor.