Quotulatiousness

November 15, 2010

Art Carden calls for the abolition of the TSA

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Liberty, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:27

Has the TSA finally gone too far? Art Carden certainly thinks so:

Full Frontal Nudity Doesn’t Make Us Safer: Abolish the TSA

The Republicans control the House of Representatives and are bracing for a long battle over the President’s health care proposal. In the spirit of bipartisanship and sanity, I propose that the first thing on the chopping block should be an ineffective organization that wastes money, violates our rights, and encourages us to make decisions that imperil our safety. I’m talking about the Transportation Security Administration.

Bipartisan support should be immediate. For fiscal conservatives, it’s hard to come up with a more wasteful agency than the TSA. For privacy advocates, eliminating an organization that requires you to choose between a nude body scan or genital groping in order to board a plane should be a no-brainer.

But won’t that compromise safety? I doubt it. The airlines have enormous sums of money riding on passenger safety, and the notion that a government bureaucracy has better incentives to provide safe travels than airlines with billions of dollars worth of capital and goodwill on the line strains credibility.

November 14, 2010

Life replicates art, kinda

Filed under: Books, Cancon, Education, Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:02

As one of the comments on this article in The Cord points out, it’s highly ironic that “at a speech about a book detailing how the police did nothing to uphold the laws of the land the university did exactly the same thing.”

What was scheduled as a speech by Globe and Mail columnist Christie Blatchford turned sour tonight as protesters opposing the journalist’s new book Helpless: Caledonia’s Nightmare of Fear and Anarchy, and How the Law Failed All of Us took over the stage.

Three protesters locked themselves together at the centre of the stage where Blatchford was meant to speak at the University of Waterloo’s (UW) Humanities Theatre in Hagey Hall, with another individual acting as their “negotiator”. A fifth, Tallula Marigold, acted as the group’s media representative.

“We don’t want people who are really, really racist teaching [the people we love],” said Marigold of Blatchford. “And we don’t want that person to have a public forum because it makes it dangerous for others in the public forum.”

If nothing else, the passion of the protesters has persuaded me that I must buy and read Blatchford’s latest book . . .

Well, give them partial credit for their answer . . .

Filed under: Liberty, Media, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:33

Another article where the headline really carries the whole story:

WSJ Warnings About Privacy-Invading Cookies Carry Privacy-Invading Cookies
Can you move this one to the ‘Irony’ section?

The Wall Street Journal posted a story yesterday about the Obama administration’s plan to add a privacy watching task force to evaluate rules on cookies, metacookies, flash cookies and all the other online threats to consumer privacy.

[. . .]

Of the threatening, deletion-resistant Flash cookies they revealed on in my browser, tracking my trip over to the NYT to read more: two from the Wall Street Journal.

November 12, 2010

Former TSA agent says “Shut Up And Get In The Scanner”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Liberty — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 16:57

A former TSA scanner talks about the uproar about the full body scanners:

As a former TSA Federal Security Officer aka “screener” I have seen some incredible stuff come through the airport. I have worked in every position over the 5 years I was there. I have screened you, your carry on luggage, your checked luggage and even cargo you may have sent someplace. I have seen tons and trust me a naked image of you is not a problem.

When I worked in the checkpoint and screened passengers and their carry-on luggage, not only could I see what you had in your carry-on bag, I could see you. I could connect the image on the screen with the passenger. If that didn’t humiliate you then this tiny little naked image shouldn’t either. The TSA officer who is looking at the image will never see you and you won’t see them. But that vibrator in your carry-on luggage that looks like it would satisfy an elephant, yeah I see that and I see you standing right in front of me. But sure be offended by the naked x-ray image a person in another room is seeing, don’t worry about the vibrator at all or the other weird and crazy crap in your bag.

[. . .]

The Invasive Pat Down [. . .] is bullshit. It is a terror tactic by TSA to get you to walk through the more thorough body scanner. I can’t defend TSA on this one. I have talked to the TSA officers and it is no more effective than the old pat down procedure. They tested it out with trainers and each other. It is purely a terror tactic by TSA. Shame on TSA and anyone who has to get one should write a complaint in afterward. You still have to get it though if you want to get on the plane. Throwing a fit will not get you out of it.

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I’ve pretty much given up on flying except for distances that are impractical for driving. I sure haven’t missed the “joys” of airport security for the last few years.

Another G20 meeting, another blow against free speech

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:45

If you followed the progress of the last G20 meeting in Toronto, you’ll recall the street theatre it gave rise to. The politicians meeting behind barricades, barbed wire, and thousands of police and soldiers weren’t the story — the story was the protest. In turns, it was peaceful, randomly vandalistic, and then violently suppressed. I was generally against the whole thing, both the G20 itself and the protests that were generated by its presence.

Christopher Hume has been attending the Canadian Civil Liberties Association public meetings about the events of that weekend:

In anticipation of the violence that has become de rigueur at such gatherings, South Korea has mobilized 50,000 police officers and put its armed forces on the highest security alert.

Sound familiar? It should. We did exactly the same thing — and in the process revealed ourselves to be oafs. And not just oafs, but nasty oafs.

Just how nasty is being documented by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. It’s holding public meetings this week in Toronto and Montreal to hear from victims of police violence at the G20. Their stories were at once riveting and tedious. Riveting because the pain is so obviously real; tedious because they’re all the same.

The fact is that G20 summits have no place in the city. The gatherings, which come with full imperial trappings, are a contemporary version of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. That was the legendary meeting in 1520 between King Henry VIII of England and King Francis I of France. As the name implies, it was a diplomatic extravaganza where fountains flowed with wine, where palaces were constructed — and where nothing was accomplished.

[. . .]

A city is its infrastructure. That infrastructure is what we inhabit, and what enables us to inhabit the city. But because of security concerns, G20 organizers and their uniformed henchmen feel they must shut down that infrastructure, and with it, the city.

The tales of police callousness and brutality being heard at the CCLA are a disturbing reminder of the lengths to which the state will go to ensure its safety even at the cost of ours. It’s like the old line from the Vietnam War about having to destroy a village in order to save it. In this case, Torontonians, and by extension all Canadians, had their right to security suspended so as not to compromise the participants’ security — or, more to the point perhaps, not to inconvenience these terribly important people.

Earlier posts on the G20 idiocy here.

New book for kids about to fly for the first time

Filed under: Humour, Liberty — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:33

Mark Frauenfelder has the book to give to your child before going to the airport:

Got to start ’em early . . . by the time they’re full-grown, they’ll accept any intrusion from government officials as a matter of course.

The original version (in French) is here.

November 11, 2010

Even more reason to believe that ACTA is a bad deal

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Law, Liberty, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:45

From the folks at BoingBoing:

New revelations on ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a secretive global copyright being privately negotiated by rich countries away from the UN: ACTA will require ISPs to police trademarks the way they currently police copyright. That means that if someone accuses you of violating a trademark with a web-page, blog-post, video, tweet, etc, your ISP will be required to nuke your material without any further proof, or be found to be responsible for any trademark violations along with you. And of course, trademark violations are much harder to verify than copyright violations, since they often hinge on complex, fact-intensive components like tarnishment, dilution and genericization. Meaning that ISPs are that much more likely to simply take all complaints at face-value, leading to even more easy censorship of the Internet with nothing more than a trumped-up trademark claim.

November 10, 2010

“Don’t you know who I am?” UK style

Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 14:34

It’s all very well to pass restrictions on the peons, but when those restrictions are applied to your aristocratic self, you’re apparently entitled to rant:

Britain’s anti-terror chief launched an astonishing attack on airport security staff after they stopped her taking a banned amount of liquid onto a plane.

Home Office minister Baroness Neville-Jones, in charge of national security, was en route to a Washington summit when she was found to have an over-sized aerosol can in her bag.

[. . .]

The Baroness was ticked off by border staff, who did not recognise her. But she took offence when they told her how important security is.

The 71-year-old Baroness, known for being haughty, ranted: “Of course I know how important it is, I’m the Security Minister.”

It’s so tedious to have to put up with back-chat from the peasantry, isn’t it?

Pat Condell: Free speech in Europe

Filed under: Europe, Law, Liberty, Religion — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:24

November 8, 2010

We’d love to talk about this First Amendment case, but we’re not allowed to

Filed under: Government, Law, Liberty, Media, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:08

I sometimes wonder if there was ever any point in the US founding fathers putting that pesky Bill of Rights in place, when it’s so easy for those rights to be circumvented:

Liptak, who has seen part of the secret 10th Circuit order that keeps the amicus brief sealed, says one reason the appeals court gave for its decision is that allowing distribution of the brief would help I.J. and Reason publicly make their case that Reynolds is being persecuted for exercising her First Amendment rights. One of their goals, the Court said, “is clearly to discuss in public amici’s agenda.” Obviously, we can’t have that.

It bears emphasizing that the I.J./Reason brief is based entirely on publicly available information. It does not divulge any confidential grand jury information, protection of which is the rationale for sealing the documents related to Reynolds’ case. The only purpose served by sealing it is to make talking about the case harder.

Discouraging public dissent, of course, is how this case got started. Tanya Treadway, the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted Stephen and Linda Schneider, was so irked by Reynolds’ public defenses of the couple that she unsuccessfully sought a gag order telling Reynolds to shut up. Later Treadway initiated a grand jury investigation that resulted in subpoenas demanding documents related to Reynolds’ activism as head if the Pain Relief Network (PRN), including a Wichita billboard defending the Schneiders and a PRN documentary about the conflict between drug control and pain control. Those subpoenas, supposedly aimed at finding evidence of obstruction of justice, are the subject of Reynolds’ First Amendment challenge.

First there were those secret laws in the wake of 9/11, now you’ve got courts ordering information on First Amendment cases to be kept from the public. One fears to ask “what’s next” for fear that they’ll already have an authoritarian answer teed up and ready to go.

November 7, 2010

See? Anti-drug education is finally working

Filed under: Education, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 13:37

Now that we can get kids to turn in their parents for pot possession:

Two parents are facing drug charges after their child took their drugs to school and told a school officer his parents were breaking the law.

WBTV is not releasing the names of the parents or the name of the school to protect the child’s identity.

The 11-year-old student is in 5th grade at a an elementary school in Matthews. Police say he brought his parents’ marijuana cigarettes to school when he reported them.

Matthews Police say he reported his parents after a lesson about marijuana was delivered by a police officer who is part of the D.A.R.E. program, which teaches kids about the dangers of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco.

Well, thank goodness that this kid’s parents have been saved! I’m sure they’ll just get a stern talking-to from Officer Friendly, they’ll see the error of their ways, and everyone will go out for ice cream sundaes afterwards!

Poor kid. A brief moment of “doing the right thing” may well have ruined three lives. Nice work, Officer Friendly!

Police say both the 11-year old and a sibling have been removed from the parents’ house by social services. Police say they are staying with relatives.

If there were no relatives handy, the two children would probably become wards of the state. And that is something to wish on nobody.

November 4, 2010

Something I’m adding to my Christmas list

Filed under: Books, Humour, Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 07:40

H.L. Mencken was a literary giant in the 1920s and into the 1930s, but fell from the pinnacle of popularity as the Great Depression hit. His consistent opposition to FDR and the New Deal moved him further and further away from the limelight, and his outspoken opposition to the war rendered him all but unpublishable from 1941 until his death. A large collection of his shorter works from 1914 through 1927 were published in Prejudices, running to six volumes.

The books are back in print, in two large volumes, through Library of America. An excerpt from the New York Review of Books just starts to get interesting before the cut-off for non-subscribers:

The material that H.L. Mencken published in a series of six volumes under the title Prejudices was a collection of his journalism written between 1914 and the late 1920s. Most of it, he told a good friend on publication of the first volume in 1919, was “light stuff” with an occasional “blast from the lower woodwind” that would “outrage the umbilicari, if that is the way to spell it.” Such books, he added, were “mere stinkpots, heaved occasionally to keep the animals perturbed.”

Most of the pieces in the first volume — or “series,” as it was called — had originally appeared in The Smart Set, the magazine he had edited since 1914, but they also included articles published in newspapers, as well as material written especially for the book. A painstaking editor of his own work, Mencken also did a good bit of rewriting; stinkpot or not, this was not to be a quick harum-scarum hustling of secondhand goods but a high-quality piece of prose from a master.

Its commercial success surprised him as well as his friend and publisher, Alfred Knopf, who seemed to realize for the first time that Mencken had a promising future, or, as he expressed it to his author, “that H.L. Mencken has become a good property.” The book was quickly followed by Prejudices: Series Two, Series Three, and so on to a final Series Six in 1927, by which time Mencken had developed from a good property into the most exciting literary figure in the country.

H/T to Mark at Unambiguously Ambidexterous for the link.

November 3, 2010

Will it really be a big change in Washington?

Filed under: Economics, Liberty, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:36

Liberty: consistency matters

Filed under: Government, Liberty, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:13

James Delingpole, after suddenly discovering a man-crush on Marco Rubio, outlines how the Tea Party can still succeed:

[. . .] I’d suggest that the key lesson of yesterday’s mid-terms is this: it is simply not enough to stick a Tea Party label on any old candidate and hope that the US electorate’s growing antipathy towards Big Government will take care of the rest. Christine O’Donnell was more than proof enough of that. Not only did her candidacy allow the liberal MSM to tar the entire Tea Party movement as the natural home of anti-masturbation ex-witches and other fruit loops. But it demonstrated a worrying complacency and ignorance within the Tea Party movement about what it stands for and what it ought to stand for.

Christine O’Donnell puzzled me . . . if she’d actually been a witch, then her anti-masturbation activities made no sense. I’ve met lots of witches, and it’s hard to imagine any of them being anti-sexual in that kind of dogmatic manner. I didn’t follow the story, but I assume that she lost on the basis of both accusations influencing different voting groups.

So, if O’Donnell and other marginal candidates can’t depend on just wearing the “Tea Party” label to get elected, what do they need to do?

The Tea Party does not stand for: banning lesbian or sexually active single women from teaching at schools; discouraging onanism; banning abortion; keeping drugs illegal; God; organised religion generally; guns; or, indeed, Sarah Palin.

The Tea Party stands, very simply, for small government. So long as it understands this, a presidential victory in 2012 is guaranteed. If it forgets this — or doesn’t understand it in the first place — then hello, a second term for President Obama, and bye bye Western Civilisation.

In other words, Delingpole is calling for the Tea Party to be true to a minarchist vision: the least possible government to get the job done.

If you are against Big Government, you are for liberty. If you are for liberty you are also for free citizens’ right to choose whether or not they get out of their trees on cannabis, or indeed whether or not they have the freedom to terminate unwanted pregnancies or never, ever, go to church and in fact worship Satan instead.

Liberty is not a pick and mix free-for-all in which you think government should ban the things you don’t like and encourage you things you do like: that’s how Libtards think. Libertarianism — and the Tea Party is nothing if its principles are not, at root, libertarian ones — is about recognising that having to put up with behaviour you don’t necessarily disapprove of is a far lesser evil than having the government messily and expensively intervene to regulate it.

November 2, 2010

James Delingpole: “Thank God for the Tea Party!”

Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy, Government, Liberty, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:02

James Delingpole clearly wishes he could vote in today’s American elections:

Arriving back at Heathrow late on Sunday night I felt — as you do on returning to Britain these days — as if I were entering a failed state. It’s not just the Third World shabbiness which is so dispiriting. It’s the knowledge that from its surveillance cameras to its tax regime, from its (mostly) EU-inspired regulations to its whole attitude to the role of government, Britain is a country which has forgotten what it means to be free.

God how I wish I were American right now. In the US they may not have the Cairngorms, the River Wye, cream teas, University Challenge, Cotswold villages or decent curries. But they do still understand the principles of “don’t tread on me” and “live free or die.” Not all of them, obviously — otherwise a socialist like Barack Obama would never have got into power. But enough of them to understand that in the last 80 or more years — and not just in the US but throughout the Western world — government has forgotten its purpose. It has now grown so arrogant and swollen as to believe its job is to shape and improve and generally interfere with our lives. And it’s not. Government’s job is to act as our humble servant.

What’s terrifying is how few of us there are left anywhere in the supposedly free world who properly appreciate this. Sure, we may feel in our hearts that — as Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe put it in their Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party manifesto — “We just want to be free. Free to lead our lives as we please, so long as we do not infringe on the same freedom of others”. And we may even confide it to our friends after a few drinks. But look at Australia; look at Canada; look at New Zealand; look at anywhere in the EUSSR; look at America — at least until things begin to be improved by today’s glorious revolution. Wherever you go, even if it’s somewhere run by a notionally “conservative” administration, the malaise you will encounter is much the same: a system of governance predicated on the notion that the state’s function is not merely to uphold property rights, maintain equality before the law and defend borders, but perpetually to meddle with its citizens’ lives in order supposedly to make their existence more fair, more safe, more eco-friendly, more healthy. And always the result is the same: more taxation, more regulation, less freedom. Less “fairness” too, of course.

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