This story about surveillance in China from the Los Angeles Times is nothing new. Sure, the Chinese government is installing 300,000 new surveillance cameras in Beijing in order to spy on foreigners. Big deal. The money quote is here:

The West might have a stronger argument in questioning China's potential for intrusive surveillance if it weren't moving rapidly in the same direction. London is believed to have the largest number of closed-circuit TV cameras of any city in the world. Many countries have seen vast troves of personal data lost or stolen. Financial records and phone calls are now routinely monitored.

Way to lead by example, West! We all thought that the Internet would make China more free and democratic. Turns out that the threat of terrorism has turned formerly democratic countries into less free and less democratic countries. It won't be long before the U.S. government is contracting with Chinese firms to think up ways in which Americans can be covertly monitored.

And what does London's surveillance get it? The cameras don't reduce crime.

Posted by Mark at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Because personal data, for some reason, finds its way onto laptops that are then lost or stolen.

The Clear program is not, as it initially appears, a way to skip the security line at the airport. For $100 per year and some intrusive background checks, you get to ... skip ahead in line. But you still have to go through regular security just like everyone else.

Security systems are only as good as the human beings who administrate them. If some fool is able to download personal information onto his laptop -- probably unencrypted -- then the millions and billions of dollars that we've spent on a complex security system means absolutely nothing. It's very simple to implement good computer security: for example, one rule would be under no circumstances is sensitive information ever to leave the office, no matter what your title is.

Posted by Mark at 4:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The "maverick" Sen. John McCain's spokesperson said today that McCain will command the same powers of warrantless wiretapping and "inherent" authority that President Bush has argued for:

[N]either the Administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the ACLU and the trial lawyers, understand were Constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001. [...]

We do not know what lies ahead in our nation’s fight against radical Islamic extremists, but John McCain will do everything he can to protect Americans from such threats, including asking the telecoms for appropriate assistance to collect intelligence against foreign threats to the United States as authorized by Article II of the Constitution.

According to Wired's Threat Level blog, "The Article II citation is key, since it refers to President Bush's longstanding arguments that the president has nearly unlimited powers during a time of war. The administration's analysis went so far as to say the Fourth Amendment did not apply inside the United States in the fight against terrorism, in one legal opinion from 2001."

A quick look at Article II of the U.S. Constitution will demonstrate that warrantless wiretapping is not one of the powers given to the president. The theory that he can collect foreign intelligence initially comes from his authority as "commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States," as well as several Supreme Court opinions. The president's case for warrantless wiretapping rests largely on United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297 (1972), which mandated that the president does not have the authority to conduct domestic wiretapping "without the detached judgment of a neutral magistrate." Interestingly, President Nixon made exactly the same argument as President Bush; namely, that "the surveillance was lawful, though conducted without prior judicial approval, as a reasonable exercise of the President's power (exercised through the Attorney General) to protect the national security." Nixon also made the assertion that the understanding of the technical parts of electronic surveillance were beyond federal judges, meaning they would be unqualified to judge the qualities of such surveillance; former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said as much when he intimated that federal judges weren't qualified to adjudicate issues of terrorism.

Here's another good one: "These Fourth Amendment freedoms [from "unreasonable search and seizure"] cannot properly be guaranteed if domestic security surveillances may be conducted solely within the discretion of the Executive Branch. The Fourth Amendment does not contemplate the executive officers of Government as neutral and disinterested magistrates." For the president to argue that he is allowed to conduct wholly domestic electronic surveillance -- as is the case with the telecom wiretapping -- without a warrant contravenes the language of the very case he uses to bolster his opinion! Bush's minions are content to quote parts of cases that support the president's arguments and are equally content not to mention that there are vast swaths of the same cases that contradict the president's statements of "inherent" authority. Ultimately, as with the Youngstown steel case, the court decided against granting the president his crazy, self-proclaimed powers. "We recognize, as we have before, the constitutional basis of the President's domestic security role, but we think it must be exercised in a manner compatible with the Fourth Amendment," wrote the court in the 1972 case. "In this case we hold that this requires an appropriate prior warrant procedure." The case, by the way, was decided 8-0 (newly-minted Justice Rehnquist, formerly of the Nixon Justice Department, did not take part in the case). There was no hesitation or ambivalence on the part of the Supreme Court in this matter. In an unequivocal, unified voice, it declared, "The president has no constitutional authority to conduct warrantless domestic surveillance."

All this is moot if McCain's spokesman is not speaking for him, but I don't think so. Over the years, McCain -- who was once truly a "maverick" in the Republican party -- has normalized his beliefs. After his failed 2000 presidential bid, McCain surely realized that the key to winning the Republican nomination was falling into lock-step with the Republican mainstream. Sadly, the Republican mainstream is exactly the wrong place to be on civil liberties matters, as Republicans in the White House are willing to sacrifice constitutional guarantees in exchange for security.

Posted by Mark at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Bush administration's public defense of its warrantless wiretapping program, called the Terrorist Surveillance Program, rests on myths, half-truths, deceptions, and outright lies. The administration hopes that the American people won't investigate its arguments for themselves. It's a good gamble, because if the people found out the truth behind what the administration claims about the TSP, they would unilaterally condemn it and demand to know the truth about it. When conservative Uncle George visits this weekend, let him know why he's wrong to support spying on people "who have something to hide."

The president has the power to guarantee that warrantless surveillance is legal

Under the Constitution, only the judiciary branch has the power to say what is and is not legal. The president’s claims of legality were based not on a judge's opinion, but the opinion of the Justice Department. While the Justice Department may provide support for the president’s belief that the TSP was legal, Justice’s opinions are by no means binding, nor do they carry any weight as anything more than advice. When the president claims that he assured telecommunications companies that the program was legal, keep in mind that his assurance was not legally binding.

FISA is too out of date to be useful

Even though the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was signed into law in 1978, it has been amended as technology has progressed, including in the USA PATRIOT Act.

FISA takes too long to work and is too cumbersome in this post-9/11 world

Actually, FISA currently permits the government to engage in foreign intelligence surveillance for up to three days before requiring a warrant. The Bush administration would like to paint a picture of FISA as requiring that mountains of paperwork be tackled before surveillance can begin, resulting in the loss of valuable intelligence due to bureaucracy. This simply isn’t true. The authors of FISA understood that some surveillance would need to be immediate, and they inserted provisions for such surveillance. The administration can begin the process of surveillance first and then begin the process of obtaining a warrant.

Fat-cat class-action lawyers stand to benefit from lawsuits against telecom companies, so lawsuits against telecom companies are morally unjustified

Giant private law firms and not involved in these cases, in which some 40 Americans have sued AT&T, Verizon, and others based on their belief that those companies gave their private information to the government without a court order. It is civil liberties groups like the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation that are filing these suits on behalf of petitioners who believe they were illegally wiretapped. The ACLU and EFF do not bill their clients $500 an hour; indeed, they don’t bill them at all. The organizations filing these suits may recover court costs, but those reflect only the cost of going through court proceedings. These companies will not make a profit off of these cases. There is no money to be made here; if there were, then you can believe giant private law firms would be involved.

Telecom companies were acting in “good faith,” so the lawsuits are morally unjustified

Whether or not telecom companies acted in good faith is irrelevant. They broke the law. And they didn’t do it unwittingly. The administration approached several telecom companies about voluntarily wiretapping, including AT&T, Verizon, and Qwest. Only Qwest declined to assist the government, since it thought the program was illegal and might open the company up to lawsuits. It doesn’t make sense that AT&T’s and Verizon’s lawyers didn’t think the same thing. The telecom companies knew that the legality of the program was questionable, so they must have been offered something by the administration that outweighed the damage that could be caused by lawsuits.

If we don’t grant immunity to telecom companies, they’ll never help the government again

A FISA warrant compels a telecom company to assist the government in foreign intelligence surveillance, if requested. Moreover, if the TSP had occurred under the auspices of FISA, we wouldn’t be arguing about immunity; FISA grants immunity to those who assist the government under a FISA warrant. There are protections within the U.S. Code that prevent a telecommunications provider from voluntarily surrendering subscriber information to the government. If the issue is, "They'll never voluntarily surrender information ever again," then all the better! They shouldn't have been doing that in the first place; the government should have obtained a FISA warrant.

We need the Terrorist Surveillance Program to fight terrorism

We have no idea whether or not we need the TSP, as we do not know what its efficacy is beyond the protestations of the Bush administration that it has averted terrorist attacks. Additionally, there are documents that suggest that the administration wanted to begin warrantless surveillance of Americans well before the September 11 attacks. The only reason that surveillance didn't proceed was because there was no reason important enough to justify it. With the September 11 attacks, the administration could justify warrantless wiretapping on national security grounds, as it has done repeatedly since we found out about the TSP.

We’re dealing with a different enemy, here, and we need different tools

FISA allows surveillance of any foreign agent, regardless of whether or not he is associated with a country's government. Terrorists still use phones as they always did. Not requiring a warrant for surveillance does not make us better at intercepting terrorists’ calls. The terrorists who plotted to blow up a plane in the U.K. using liquid explosives were discovered through old-fashioned, non-warrantless police-work.

Democrats are “playing politics” with the nation’s national security

Back in February, Senate Democrats wanted more time to deal with the Protect America Act, a temporary enlargement of surveillance powers that were set to expire soon. In press conferences, President Bush said that Democrats had had ample time to review all the paperwork surrounding the PAA, and that they should stop dragging their feet and make the law permanent. In fact, Democrats had been requesting key documents for months, and the administration saw fit to give them the documents about a week before PAA was set to expire. It could be that the administration intentionally didn’t want to give the Senate enough time to evaluate the program, and then go on TV and suggest that they had been lazy for six months. Democrats were also haranguing about a provision that would grant retroactive immunity to telecom companies that had aided in the TSP.

In response to Bush's insistence that the law not be allowed to expire, since it was so important for national security, Democrats offered to extend PAA for another thirty days. If Bush thought that the PAA was so important to protecting American security, it stands to reason that he would want it to be in force and would sign such an extension to the law. In fact, Bush threatened to veto any temporary extension that crossed his desk, insisting that the Senate’s time was up and it had to make the law permanent. A White House insider said that this was a calculated political move, designed to make the Democrats appear soft on national security and force their hand in the way the president wanted. While the Democrats were willing to extend PAA, it was President Bush who refused such an extension so he could go back later and say that the Democrats weren’t serious about national security. It sounds more like President Bush was, in his own words, “playing politics.”

Posted by Mark at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Why is it that flying always makes me think about security? Especially in light of this article and this article from over the weekend.

The first article was written by a pilot for The New York Times' flying blog, "Jet Lagged." The pilot, Patrick Smith, maintains that not only are security procedures, like shoe removal, explosive swabbing, and liquid prohibition, poor customer service, but they don't work, either. The British terrorists who wanted to blow stuff up by using liquids were not anywhere near carrying out their plan; they hadn't even bought tickets! Their plot was not foiled by a sharp TSA screener who saw the terror their liquids could cause: it was good, old-fashioned, non-warrantless police work.

Smith presents an interesting case. Prior to the September 11 attacks, he says, the mindset of plane hijacking was fundamentally different. Up to that point, planes had been used to hold hostages and receive demands. Flight crews were instructed to carry out the terrorists' demands, the assumption being that (1) it was better to protect the lives of the passengers and crew, and (2) they would catch the terrorists later, anyway. It's the same mentality law enforcement uses with kidnapping: pay the kidnapper now, get the kid, and then locate and arrest the kidnapper. It's a strategy that works; most kidnappers get caught.

But, on September 11, the hijackers of those four planes had a different idea in mind: they never planned to hold anyone hostage. The flight crew (aided by their belief that the hijackers were wearing bombs, which apparently turned out to be fake and designed to provoke acquiescence) did as the terrorists commanded, which is what they were trained to do. No more, says Smith: "Any hijacker would face a planeload of angry and frightened people ready to fight back." A set of unique loopholes was exploited by the terrorists, and our current security screening procedures wouldn't have caught them today any more than it would have caught them then. The box-cutters? "A deadly sharp can be fashioned from virtually anything found on a plane, be it a broken wine bottle or a snapped-off length of plastic," says Smith. Our prohibitions on liquids are also silly, as "the threat of liquid explosives does exist, but it cannot be readily brewed from the kinds of liquids we have devoted most of our resources to keeping away from planes." We already prohibit combustible or unstable chemicals and aerosol containers of any kind in either checked or carry-on luggage. (Perhaps the TSA would consider that the terrorists have cooked up a time-release liquid bomb that lives in their carry-on luggage? They would, and probably have, but that would mean a level of inconvenience that is apparently more frightening than the prospect of a plane blowing up. The indication that this is possible tells us one of two things: either they are incompetent, or actual security isn't the real reason for their security measures.)

Article the Second! The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that the TSA isn't just watching your shoes, your belt, your watch, the contents of your pockets, the inside of your carry-on, the inside of your checked luggage, and the connector ports of all your electronics. They're also watching your facial expressions:

Travelers at Sea-Tac and dozens of other major airports across America are being scrutinized by teams of TSA behavior-detection officers specially trained to discern the subtlest suspicious behaviors.

TSA officials will not reveal specific behaviors identified by the program -- called SPOT (Screening Passengers by Observation Technique) -- that are considered indicators of possible terrorist intent.

[...]

"In the SPOT program, we have a conversation with (passengers) and we ask them about their trip," said Maccario from his office in Boston. "When someone lies or tries to be deceptive, ... there are behavior cues that show it. ... A brief flash of fear."

A commenter at Boing Boing, the source of this article, posted the definition of "facecrime" from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, which is relevant here. But airports in Israel do the same thing -- not to scrutinize your facial expressions, but to check your answers. If you don't have ready answers for their questions, then they believe something's up. The same goes for crossing the border. On my way back from Canada, I was asked some simple questions like "Where did you stay?" and "What did you do?" As Maccario indicates, the officers weren't interested in my answers -- only in the fact that I had ready answers. They didn't look at my face, though. The belief that the face can somehow point out things about a person comes to us from physiognomy, an outdated "scientific" method in which a person's outer features are indicators of his or her personality. Recall that President Bush, years ago, looked into President Vladimir Putin's eyes and saw nothing but puppies and ponies. Non-science is not science!

Happy flying!

Posted by Mark at 4:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Now, on to wiretapping!

Glenn Greenwald from Salon and Ryan Singel from Wired's Threat Level blog take Time columnist (and pseudonymous author of Primary Colors) Joe Klein to the cleaners.

Klein, in a recent column published in the print edition of Time, makes ridiculous assertions about propsed updates to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, including the assertion that the government is required by FISA to get warrants for wholly foreign communications. As Greenwald and Singel point out, FISA has never required this, and will never require this, because it doesn't even make sense. The government doesn't need permission from U.S. courts to spy abroad on nationals of other countries. Klein makes several other stupid statements, which only cause problems for those of us on the left who want to be credible. It's hard to be credible when people associated with you are making statements that aren't true, especially if those statements are out of ignorance. How, then, can we be trusted?

Greenwald correctly lambasts Klein for saying, regarding immunity for telecom companies that capitulated to the Bush administration and illegally gave away subscriber information without a warrant, that he favors "selective immunity to those telecoms who can provide written proof that they were acting in response to a direct order from the government."

Greenwald responds with an appropriate level of outrage:

Seriously, in what country does Joe Klein live? Can someone please explain to him that in the United States, the President doesn't have the power to give "direct orders" to violate the law? And what kind of person who isn't in the military runs around talking about "direct orders" from the American President at all? That isn't how our country works. Presidents obviously don't have the power to give "direct orders" to anyone to break the law, let alone civilians and private companies. Why does that even need to be explained?

That a supposed Democrat like Joe Klein would say that the president should be allowed to give "direct orders" is indeed frightening. But, if you read the rest of Greenwald's piece, you'll see that it comes to no surprise, as Klein is more than willing to compromise on individual liberty if it comes up against national security.

Incidentally, the government never ordered telecoms to give away information. You'll recall that Qwest Communications refused to comply with the government's request after its lawyers determined, correctly, that giving confidential subscriber information without a warrant was against the law. The rest of them capitulated for reasons that remain unknown (a desire to appear patriotic? Back-room promises of tax breaks or favorable legislation?). AT&T even famously created a secret room in its downtown San Francisco office for the sole purpose of allowing the NSA to monitor AT&T phone calls.

Happy thanksgiving!

Posted by Mark at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Far be it for President Bush's outgoing Homeland Security Advisor, Frances Fragos Townsend, to leave with dignity. This morning, Townsend told reporters that al Qaeda may target the United States around next year's elections, since "we know that al Qaeda views these periods as being a particularly vulnerable period." She cites the Madrid train bombings in 2003 as an example (ultimately, the PSOE's candidate, who was against the Iraq War, José Luis Zapatero, beat the conservative candidate, incumbent prime minister José Maria Aznar).

Sounds bad! Surely you must have some credible intelligence telling you that there might be attacks. I mean, after all, pretty much everyone knows that an organization like al Qaeda would try to influence voters by timing an attack with our election. That's sort of a given, and that's sort of what terrorists do: they instill fear in the civilian population in order to get what they want from the government. Al Qaeda would want to blow something up around election time so that we get frightened enough to elect a leader who will remain tough on terrorism -- tougher, even, than President Bush -- and thus validate al Qaeda's continued existence and mission.

So, Frances, back to that credible intelligence.

"We don’t have any specific information."

Oh. So, you're saying that al Qaeda might attack us next fall based on "our experience and what we know"? I see. And this has nothing to do with scare-mongering? You're sure this is about security? It's the same focus on security Dick Cheney had when he said, in 2004, that electing John Kerry might mean that we would be attacked again? You're only saying this out of a desire to keep us safe by giving us a warning ... a year in advance? I'll set iCal to "remind me again in 10 months."

Posted by Mark at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I went back to Ohio last week to see the family and was unsurprised to find out that airport security is still terrible.

If you're flying on Continental Airlines and you see "SSSS" in the lower right-hand corner of your ticket, then congratulations, you're subject to a "secondary search." The only way I know that this is what "SSSS" means is because the TSA screener at the very beginning of the security checkpoint -- the one who gives you the okay on your boarding pass -- missed the secondary search and waved me through to a normal line. The second screener -- who is about ten feet away -- saw it and escorted me to the secondary line, circling "SSSS" at the bottom and letting the first screener know that she had missed it.

A secondary search is actually a search for explosives residue. You must walk into a machine that blows air over you and then analyzes the results, to determine whether or not you had explosives residue on you. The machine looks very expensive and was made by GE. I'll be sure to buy more of their stock.

Then, you are escorted to a table where a TSA screener goes through your carry-on items and swabs them for explosives residue with a little piece of paper that he puts into a machine that does an instant explosives residue check. The screener swabbed the inside of my carry-on bags (taking care to use a different little paper every time) and took special care with my electronics. Note that "care" doesn't mean that he didn't handle them so as not to break them. No, "care" here means that he was extra-interested in electronics. I had two cell phones, an iPod, and a laptop among my carry-on and pocket items. He swabbed each of these separately, especially in the connector openings. It occurred to me that, based on this security check, the TSA labors under the impression that explosives can be hidden only in electronic devices. I had an Altoids container and a toiletry bag in my carry-on luggage. He pulled out neither to examine it more closely. The Altoids container could have been just as likely as my cellular phone to contain explosives. Moreover, he didn't examine the toiletry bag to make doubly sure it didn't contain any lethal liquids or gels.

Why give electronics special attention? If they feel as though a detonator or other device can be hidden only in electronics, why swab them? A detonator contains no explosive parts. Unless they think that it could contain regular old explosives. But why not swab everything that could potentially contain an explosive? Also, it is patently absurd to think that only an electronic device could contain a detonator. It would be more easily hidden, but it could have been in the Altoids container. Also, he never asked me to turn any of the devices on to prove that they were really the electronics they appeared to be.

What was accomplished during this secondary search? We learned that I didn't have any explosives residue on my person or on my stuff. We paid special attention to electronic devices, while ignoring the non-electronic devices that could have just as easily contained explosives. (For the record, I didn't bring any explosives.) We didn't check the electronics to make sure that they weren't detonators, and we didn't check my toiletries to make sure I didn't have any liquids or gels.

I was prompted to write this after reading this story at The Consumerist about a new TSA pilot program in which you will have to remove all the electronics from your carry-ons and place them in a separate bin. When I go to Ohio for my annual Christmas trip, I take a lot of electronics. I can't imagine how pulling all of the electronics out of my bag will "speed up the screening of carry on-baggage," especially if I have to rifle through everything to find the various electronics.

Even with the TSA cheating on their exams, airports aren't necessarily safer.

Posted by Mark at 2:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you've traveled on an airplane in the last six years, then you've been asked for identification. A lot. With parents who lived in different parts of the country, I traveled a lot both before and after September 11. Prior to that date (I think I actually flew in August 2001), you got asked for identification at the ticket counter, ostensibly to prove that the person on the ticket was actually the person who was flying. (Of course, if you were a terrorist, why would you ever use your real name? Furthermore, if you knew that airlines were checking for consistency, why would your ever have an ID -- even a fake one -- whose name didn't match the name on your ticket?)

Then, you got asked two ridiculous questions: "Have your bags been in your possession since you packed them?" Yes. "Has anyone unknown to you asked you to carry anything for them?" No. What purpose do these questions serve? Would anyone ever carry a stranger's things on an airplane? Furthermore, the airline explosion over Lockerbie, Scotland -- which probably prompted the latter question -- was executed by a woman's boyfriend packing her suitcase full of plastic explosives. Not exactly someone unknown to her, and done without her knowledge, as well.

In any event, you got asked for identification just once.

Right after September 11, security was increased to require identification in two more places. Right before the "security checkpoint," you had to show your ID and boarding pass to (1) prove, again, that you were the person on the boarding pass, and (2) prove that you had a boarding pass, since only people who were actually flying somewhere could go past the security checkpoint (and so it remains today). Finally, before you boarded the plane, you had to show the gate agent your ID just to prove -- again -- that you were who you said you were.

All of this adds up to a sort of Wikipedia theory of security -- that is, if enough people analyze an individual throughout the boarding process, then if there are any inconsistencies, they'll be found due simply to the sheer number of people involved in analyzing that person. This assumes, of course, that each person involved -- the ticketing agent, the security screener, the gate agent -- are all equally proficient in security. At each point, though, each security officer is analyzing exactly the same information. If a fake ID gets someone past the ticketing agent, then why wouldn't it get past anyone else? Especially given that it's the ticketing agent who has access to the most information (he or she has access to a computer and a telephone, after all, and is the least hurried person in the process).

Nevertheless, since September 11, we've been asked to show our IDs multiple times before boarding a plane. They've since removed the requirement of showing an ID at the gate (this happened in about 2003, I think), but you are still required to show an ID at the ticket counter (assuming you didn't print your tickets from home and you're checking luggage; if both of these are true, then you can bypass the ticket counter altogether). Where does this get us?

KCTV-5 News in St. Louis, Mo., wanted to find out just how safe this requirement to show an ID (which is a federal law, but is a secret federal law, so you're not allowed to read the text of it; it's enough to know that it exists; cf. Gilmore v. Gonzales). For its investigative report, the station made, from scratch, a convincing-looking ID that contained no markings indicating that it was issued by any state or federal authority but merely appeared to look like such an ID. According to the station, reporters "made it through four security checkpoints in two major airports" with the completely, 100% fake IDs.

What does this prove? (1) The REAL ID Act will do nothing to help security, and if it does help security, then it doesn't do so enough to offset the privacy intrusions the act would require. An identification card with my name on it proves nothing beyond the fact that there is a name on that card. No one actually cross-references that information to make sure that it's true, and realistically, there's no way for that information to be verified. Identification cards don't work as a method of identity verification. Any bouncer at a bar in a college town can tell you that. Why don't ID cards work? Because they're not tied to anything. We're supposed to trust that the information on the card is true, even though there is no independent authority there to verify that the information is true. Such an authority would require privacy intrusion on a massive scale; in order to have true identity verification, we'd need something akin to bar code tattoos (cf. Idiocracy), but even then there's no guarantee that our identity as encoded in the barcode is our actual identity (again, cf. Idiocracy).

At the end of the day, security is about trust. The simplest method of security -- asking who's at the door when the doorbell rings -- is just as secure as requiring people to carry national ID cards everywhere they go, and assuming that those IDs are truthful. If the Land Shark has taught us anything, it's that we can't trust the person on the other side of the door when they say, "Candy gram!"

Posted by Mark at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)