Security

Great article (PDF) in the Washington Post about the increasing amount of secrecy in the government and the country - and why it is a disturbing trend. This democracy we live in was built on an open sharing of ideas - remember that the original settlers were escaping religious persecution - and too much secrecy in our government perverts its foundations. As the saying goes, the best disinfectant is sunlight. Hopefully our next administration will reverse the current trend.

But the notion that information is more credible because it's secret is increasingly unfounded. In fact, secret information is often more suspect because it hasn't been subjected to open debate. Those with their own agendas can game the system, over-classifying or stove-piping self-serving intelligence to shield it from scrutiny. Those who cherry-picked intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war could ignore anything that contradicted it. Even now, some members of Congress tell me that they avoid reading classified reports for fear that if they do, the edicts of secrecy will bar them from discussing vital public issues.

People hear about children being abducted on the news what seems like very often these days. So they assume the streets aren't very safe, and as a result, kids don't get the freedom to roam the way that I did when I was young. But are things really the way that they seem - or are people just more paranoid because of their perceptions?

What to do if someone has stolen your identity - started using your social security number, name, credit cards, etc. A thorough 24-point checklist.

Very interesting article in The New Yorker on the (finally) increasing influence of non-traditional military methods in the non-traditional non-battlefield of the "war on terror." Looking at the social networks of people in the countries and places where terrorists are coming from is important to figuring out how to function there - militarily or otherwise - since we are often now not fighting these countries themselves but people hiding within them, so we have to work with and use the people there to g

Poison for the paranoid, or why everyone should be mindful of ubiquitous surveillance:

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."
- Duc de Richelieu 1585-1642

"Even a modestly competent district attorney can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich."
- Sol Wachtler, Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals

More and more nightclubs are using scanners to check ID on people who are entering. While it is a great way to automate the process and much more easily find fakes, it also allows them to capture all the information on the license - your name, address, birthday, license number, eye color , and other miscellaneous information. Generally they just want it for marketing information.

Everyday conversation used to be ephemeral. Whether face-to-face or by phone, we could be reasonably sure that what we said disappeared as soon as we said it... Privacy was the default assumption. This has changed. We now type our casual conversations. We chat in e-mail, with instant messages on our computer and SMS messages on our cellphones, and in comments on social networking Web sites like Friendster, LiveJournal and... MySpace. These conversations...

(I always forget to publish these scheduled articles...)
Although the article appears on the front page of the business section (An Obsession with Leaks and Plugs, PDF), it really ought to be a general op-ed. The current climate of secrecy, fear, and paranoia engendered by the administration already seem to be having ill effects on journalism, and as one could possibly even argued by the recent goings on at Hewlett-Packard, big business. The aptly titled "sunshine laws" that have been enacted in many places across the country passed because of the general feeling that democracy works best out in the open, in the brightly visible light of day. Exactly what about that is unclear to the current administration?

The widening gap between what the administration is saying about the war in Iraq and the war on terror is somewhat disturbing. You know something has got to be wrong when the agencies are quietly reporting things are much worse than the press releases say - they want to be sure when the shit actually hits the fan that they had covered their own ass...

I recommend reading the short article about the chemicals the English terrorists were planning to bring on the plane (theoretically) and the seriously low probability they would have had in doing any damage.