The case was originally argued to determine whether an anti-Hillary Clinton feature film — produced by conservative group Citizens United — constituted political advertising. But the grounds of the case were eventually expanded to a number of campaign finance precedents. Said Justice John Paul Stevens in his sharp minority opinion, “Essentially, five justices were unhappy with the limited nature of the case before us, so they changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law.”

Most telling to us, Cleta Mitchell, a conservative election lawyer, said the justices had “ripped the duct tape off the mouths of the American people, to allow them to exercise their First Amendment rights to support and oppose candidates, to criticize elected officials and candidates at any time, without the need to ask the government.”

But last time we checked, corporations are not people, and unlimited money is not free speech. Perhaps she meant that corporations are just organizations of people? But the Constitution was not designed to entitle corporations to First Amendment protections. (And though Citizens United is a nonprofit corporation, they received direct corporate funding for the movie they produced.)

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Innocent passengers have nothing to hide.

Ever the reactionaries, the fine people at the Transportation Security Administration (as directed by the US Department of Homeland Security) have hatched some wide-ranging measures in order to alleviate the rest of us from the twin burdens of humanity and freedom. But the fun part is in how they’ve implemented these restrictions.

Of course the only true prevention for criminal acts on passenger planes is to ban travelers from planes entirely. Failing that, you might consider behaving in as arbitrary and random a way as possible, in order to… well, to confuse the terrorism out of your patrons. You might also increase the number of pat-downs (definitely), perform more physical inspection of approved carry-on luggage (probably), and institute even more draconian rules for the final hour of flight (maybe).

Airline officials have also decreed that, during the final hour of flight, it is now up to individual captains to decide whether passengers can move from their seats, can use pillows or blankets, or can hold anything on their laps, including laptop computers. Some flights found travelers being instructed to keep their hands visible.

TSA spokeswoman Sterling Payne said the agency would “continually review and update these measures to ensure the highest level of security.”

Or not. Maybe. Sometimes.

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Idiot.

The federal government may think it’s doing people a favor by providing them with access to food, but it’s doing them a disservice if it also robs them of the motivation necessary to break free from dependency.

(via National Review Online)

What are you going to do with the poor! First they single-handedly crash the economy, then they immediately start asking for bailouts. Says Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, “Food stamps is quasi money.” They is indeed. Not to mention the fact that every penny leeched by the needy takes away from another executive’s bonus money, meaning that this country may soon be at risk of suffering an executive incentive deficit.

(via NYT)

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New “fast-pass” traffic lanes between California and Mexico promise to speed processing of the 55,000 vehicles that enter the U.S., provided they’re willing to be tagged with background check information encoded into their SENTRI PortPass, which features Automatic Vehicle Identification (AVI) transponder technology.

This sprint toward fascism is met by the popular press without criticism. On the “morning news” this week (which is easily the happiest TV news there is) they were hyping the new $99.95 “Clear Card” which allows travelers to jump to the head of the security line in participating airports. It doesn’t actually get you through security, it just pops you to the top. And all you have to do is submit your bio stats, along with a retinal scan, and this data is encoded into the card for easy scanning!

The angle they played up was the convenience. The angle they didn’t play up was that this data was stored by a government contractor: “Clear® is a subsidiary of Verified Identity Pass, Inc.” A contractor, mind you — which means that they take your data for profit. A corporation storing your data. That’s… um… I think they have a word for that.

It’s not even the clear card itself, but the press’ attitude toward these things that really got me. Where’s the outcry? (Well, it’s online, but that’s not surprising.) This is how the fascists win: by making it “convenient” to give up your freedoms, and by framing “privacy” as difficult or, even worse, as suspicious.

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[The TSA Supervisor on duty] grabbed the baggie as it came out of the X-ray and asked if it was mine. After responding yes, he pointed at my comment and demanded to know “What is this supposed to mean?” “It could [mean] a lot of things, it happens to be an opinion on mine.” “You can’t write things like this,” he said. “You mean my First Amendment right to freedom of speech doesn’t apply here?” “Out there (pointing pass the id checkers) not while in here (pointing down),” was his response.
(via flyertalk.com)

Facing public scrutiny, TSA spokeswoman Yolanda Clark later backpedaled, saying that Bird was free to express his opinion, that writing on bags is not prohibited. “The passenger was never detained by TSA,” she explained. “Local law enforcement briefly interviewed him and determined he had not broken any laws, and he was allowed to fly.”

BoingBoing’s own Cory Doctorow describes his experience with arbitrary seizure of property:

I flew from SFO to LAX yesterday morning, and was robbed at gunpoint by a TSA agent, who stole my cologne, face-wash, and moisturizer. She said that my moisture baggie could only contain vessels of 3 oz or less’ worth of moisture. I pointed out that all these vessels did have less than 3 oz’ worth of moist substances in them, as they were all half-empty, and she said yes, but the vessels were capable of holding more than 3 oz.
(via BoingBoing)

I feel safer already. Don’t you?

(via BoingBoing)

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The projects that moved, their new code names, and the agencies that took them over haven’t previously been disclosed. Sources aware of the transfers declined to speak on the record for this story because, they said, the identities of the specific programs are classified.

Knowledge of everything is too compelling a thing to give up. After all, total awareness corrupts totally.

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Foresman likened his agency’s role during any Internet attack to an orchestra conductor, coordinating responses from law enforcement, intelligence agencies, the military and private firms. The government’s goal is a “symphony of preparedness,” Foresman said.
(via Seattle Post Intelligencer)

(via Boing Boing)

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Take the commonly-cited Safeway Club Card, which purports to offer shopping patrons lower prices, instantly! The cost? Only the time it takes to fill out the registration form, of course–and this is true as long as the participant is willing to forego some privacy in the process. At the same time, the marketers never pass a chance to foster brand loyalty. It’s a symbiotic relationship:

The result is a changing consumer universe in which customers increasingly are asked to make an Information Age trade-off: In exchange for discounts and other blandishments, they must share data with corporations about who they are and what they buy. This bargain can open individuals up to unprecedented scrutiny. (via Washington Post)

This image of convenience with no strings attached is carefully-managed by public relations firms working in tandem with such marketing corporations as the Catalina Marketing Company (“Influencing attitudes with incentives…”), one of the largest data warehousers collecting data from supermarkets across the country.

But how far does this go? Can the practices used to compromise basic consumer privacy also be used to erode civil liberties? Certainly, if it translates to additional comfort. And convenience is the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s opiate of choice for its latest ploy to foil the nasty terrorists.

New “fast-pass” traffic lanes between California and Mexico promise to speed processing of the 55,000 vehicles that enter the U.S., provided they’re willing to be tagged with background check information encoded into their SENTRI PortPass, which features Automatic Vehicle Identification (AVI) transponder technology.

That’s not too much of a sacrifice to ensure safety for all, is it? Especially if it means you can fast-pass it! Can we afford such frivolous (and increasingly obsolete) luxuries as privacy when unprovoked terror threatens us from every corner? After all, the innocent should have nothing to hide, isn’t that right? And if there’s one good thing about living in the Panopticon: at least you know you’re safe from each other.

“To be incessantly under the eyes of the inspector is to lose in effect the power to do evil and almost the thought of wanting to do it.” – Jeremy Bentham, 1791

Very comforting indeed.

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In a CNet article, Declan McCullagh writes:

Starting three years from now, if you live or work in the United States, you’ll need a federally approved ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments, or take advantage of nearly any government service.
…
Why did these ID requirements get attached to an “emergency” military spending bill? Because it’s difficult for politicians to vote against money that will go to the troops in Iraq and tsunami relief.

Free-thinking individuals may want to pay a visit, or find other ways to protest this bad idea.

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