National Security put at risk?
Our intelligence agents could be killed or tortured?
Who cares - this guy's made me look bad!

CIA Staffer Says He Warned Cheney, Libby of Leak's Danger

"I thought there was a very grave danger to leaking the name of a CIA officer," the briefer from Langley, Craig Schmall, said he told Messrs. Cheney and Libby during a morning session at the vice president's residence. "Foreign intelligence services where she served now have the opportunity to investigate everyone whom she had come in contact with. They could be arrested, tortured, or killed."

- rob 5:13 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush to Jeb: "these are my toys."

Bush to Dad: "sorry I crashed the car."

Bush to Laura: "whatever"

Bush to America: 'I'm the decision-maker' on Iraq

Little boy doesn't even know what 'constitution' means

- rob 3:30 PM - [PermaLink] -

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I promise, I have lots I want to post, and will eventually - in the meantime this is good for a laugh (if you find the fact that the security of our democracy is as weak as an easily forged key funny).

The BRAD BLOG : DIEBOLD VOTING MACHINE KEY COPIED FROM PHOTO AT COMPANY'S OWN ONLINE STORE!

Good lord in heaven. How dumb are these guys at Diebold?! Can you believe the United States has actually entrusted them to build a security system for the original U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights?!

After everything else... now comes this.

It was revealed in the course of last summer's landmark virus hack of a Diebold touch-screen voting system at Princeton University that, incredibly, the company uses the same key to open every machine. It's also an easy key to buy at any office supply store since it's used for filing cabinets and hotel mini-bars! That is, if you're not a poll worker who already has one from the last time you worked on an election (anybody listening down there in San Diego?).
...
This idiotic company has had a photograph of the stupid key sitting on their own website's online store!

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Could an attacker create a working key from the [Diebold website] photograph? Ross [Kinard of SploitCast] decided to find out. Here’s what he did:

I bought three blank keys from Ace. Then a drill vise and three cabinet locks that used a different type of key from Lowes. I hoped that the spacing and depths on the cabinet locks’ keys would be similar to those on the voting machine key. With some files I had I then made three keys to look like the key in the picture.

Ross sent me his three homemade keys, and, amazingly, two of them can open the locks on the Diebold machine we used in our study!

Later in the afternoon that Brad Blog posted this, Diebold took the photo of their website.

- rob 1:53 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Are you a bad guy and want to know if the FBI is on to you? The answer is CLEAR.

Schneier on Security: "Clear" Registered Traveller Program

CLEAR, a private service that prescreens travelers for a $100 annual fee, has come to Kennedy International Airport. To benefit from the Clear Registered Traveler program, which is run by Verified Identity Pass, a person must fill out an application, let the service capture his fingerprints and iris pattern and present two forms of identification. If the traveler passes a federal background check, he will be given a card that allows him to pass quickly through airport security.
...
But the stupid idea is the background check. When first conceived, traveler programs focused on prescreening. Pre-approved travelers would pass through security checkpoints with less screening, and resources would be focused on everyone else. Sounds reasonable, but it would leave us all less safe.

Background checks are based on the dangerous myth that we can somehow pick terrorists out of a crowd if we could identify everyone. Unfortunately, there isn’t any terrorist profile that prescreening can uncover. Timothy McVeigh could probably have gotten one of these cards. So could have Eric Rudolph, the pipe bomber at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. There isn’t even a good list of known terrorists to check people against; the government list used by the airlines has been the butt of jokes for years.

And have we forgotten how prevalent identity theft is these days? If you think having a criminal impersonating you to your bank is bad, wait until they start impersonating you to the Transportation Security Administration.
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I think of Clear as a $100 service that tells terrorists if the F.B.I. is on to them or not. Why in the world would we provide terrorists with this ability?

- rob 5:11 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush is going to stress going to Mars
Bush is going to stress energy independence
Bush is going to stress a balanced budget
Bush is going to stress the end of steroid use in baseball
Bush is going to stress a competent administration

What do those things have in common? They are things that won't happen with Bush as President.

Bush expected to stress energy security

WASHINGTON - A year after warning America of its addiction to oil, President Bush is expected to renew concerns about energy security in his State of the Union address. But will the rhetoric be followed by action? Up to now, the record has been mixed.

Aides hint of a major pronouncement on energy in the speech before Congress and the nation Tuesday night. Yet the president is expected to take a predictable path, urging expanded use of ethanol in gasoline, more research into cleaner burning coal and on gas-electric "hybrid" cars, and greater nuclear energy.

He may tweak his voluntary program on climate change. Aides, however, say the president remains opposed to mandatory cuts in carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases as has been proposed in Congress.
...
But when it comes to weaning the country away from oil, the president's critics say his rhetoric has not been matched by action.

"President Bush actually cut funding for the key energy-saving technologies," says Joseph Romm, a former head of the renewable fuels and efficiency programs at the Energy Department during the Clinton administration.

The department's requests for renewable fuel and conservation programs have stayed flat at about $1.18 billion annually over the past six years Â? really a decline if inflation is considered, energy efficiency advocates say.

"Since 2002, the energy efficiency programs at the Energy Department have dropped by a third in real dollars," says Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Safe Energy, a private advocacy group.

And though Archer Daniels Midland needs a new corporate jet, we really have to cut out this ethanol from corn crap. At best it is a wash, but some studies show that between production and then the inherent loss in fuel efficiency with corn ethanol that more oil is used to take a trip to the hummer dealer while driving with corn ethanol than if you were driving with good old dictator gas.

Let's hear him talk about geothermal, solar, wind, tidal, power. Let's hear him talking about ending restrictions to cane sugar from Brazil so we can produce efficient cane sugar ethanol (much less oil used to produce that). Let's see him talking about aiding our poverty stricken southern neighbors who could produce massive amounts of can sugar. Imagine the benefit to Haiti and others, while we gain the benefit of diminishing our need for foreign oil. Because foreign oil is a risk to our environment, a risk to our economy, and a very grave risk to our national security. Every time we buy a gallon of gas we are in a way subsidizing terrorism. Where do you think all the money in the mid east for bin Laden and pals is coming from?

Never mind, let's hear him talk like an overwhelmed and scared little boy, let's interpret what his blinks mean in Morse code, let's cringe as he pouts and preens. At lease we know that is going to happen.

- rob 5:08 PM - [PermaLink] -

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CREW Should Sue

Imagine the FBI's lie funding operations for a year or two - but not only for the money - it would be nice to see a lie by Bush's government actually have a negative consequence for them - instead of us.

BREAKING: DOJ Inspector General finds FBI provided public with "inaccurate" info. about Foley e-mails

The Department of Justice's Inspector General issued a report on that vindicated CREW's conduct in the Mark Foley matter. We were vindicated -- and it's now clear that the FBI provided information about our role that was "inaccurate." Our statement is below.

In July 2006, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sent the emails to the FBI for investigation. In October, after the FBI revealed that it had not conducted any investigation into the emails, CREW requested an IG inquiry into the FBI’s inaction. Days later, CREW sent a second letter to the IG asking for a review of FBI misstatements regarding CREW’s conduct in the matter.

In its report, the IG concludes that the FBI should have taken some action when CREW sent the Foley emails to the Bureau in July and it should have “notified CREW, the complainant in this case, that the FBI declined to open an investigation.” The IG based this assessment, in part, on the fact that the language in Rep. Foley’s emails “fell within the type of behavior that the FBI warns against in its Parent’s Guide to Internet Safety.”

Regarding the misstatements to the media regarding the information CREW provided to the FBI, the IG found that “statements attributed to the FBI and the Department about CREW and the Foley e-mails were not accurate.” First, the IG found that contrary to the FBI’s claims, the emails CREW forwarded were not redacted by CREW and that the “emails still contained the full names of the pages and the House employee to whom the emails were sent.” Further, the IG found that despite statements to the contrary, the FBI “did not seek additional information from CREW,” other than one follow-up phone call. Finally, the IG found that the emails were provided to CREW in July 2006, not April as an unnamed FBI source had claimed.

The report concludes that “the information provided by the FBI and the Department inaccurately portrayed the information that CREW provided to the FBI, and inaccurately suggested that CREW’s actions were the cause of the FBI’s decision not to investigate the emails.”

- rob 4:14 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Don't Forget - If you are at Sundance - or know someone who is - they can still catch a screening of Freeheld - A new Documentary by Cynthia Wade.

Please forgive me as I repeat what I wrote about it last year:

A new documentary by a friend of mine, Cynthia Wade, who made the amazing HBO doc Shelter Dogs (which I talked about here on TCS back in January 2004 ) has been selected to be shown at the 2007 Sundance film festival!

The movie is Freeheld – and trust me you will be hearing a lot more about it in 2007:

From the Freeheld site:

Lieutenant Laurel Hester is dying.

All she wants to do is leave her pension benefits to her life partner - Stacie, so Stacie can afford to keep their house. Laurel is told no; they are not husband and wife.

After spending a lifetime fighting for justice for other people, Laurel - a veteran New Jersey detective - launches a final battle for justice. Knuckle-biting, dramatic Freeheld chronicles a dying policewoman's bitter fight to provide for the love of her life.

Here’s even more scoop on the film from Cynthia:

The story that I have been following is one of Laurel Hester, the NJ Lieutenant who was denied passing on her EARNED pension benefits to her domestic partner, Stacie Andree, because they weren't legally married.

Without the pension, Stacie was going to lose their 2-bedroom ranch house in Point Pleasant, which they renovated together (Laurel was the designer and Stacie the builder). Stacie is an auto mechanic. Laurel spent 27 years putting her life on the line for the citizens of New Jersey -- 25 of them for Ocean County, where she solved double homicide and also put a murderer/rapist behind bars.

The 5 Republican Freeholders denied her repeated requests ... but 3 weeks before Laurel died, she won the right to transfer her benefits to Stacie, and thus started a domino effect across NJ and the nation.

During filming Cynthia had consistent, exclusive access with Laurel and Stacie - she was at all the meetings, slept in their home, and lived with them.

This film is going to be a big deal in 2007 – and the Sundance folks know it.

Here is info about Freeheld being chosen for Sundance:

• The Sundance Film Festival in Park City, UT will beFreeheld's WORLD PREMIERE.
• 7,732 In total, feature length & short films were submitted for consideration (4,445 were short films).
• FREEHELD was only one of 8 American short documentaries to be selected, and only one of 12 short documentaries in total.

Freeheld began screening on Friday, January 19th and will end its run on Saturday, January 27th.
Below are the last 2 times and locations for FREEHELD screenings

• Tue. Jan 23, 8:30 pm, Holiday II (156 SEATS)
• Sat. Jan 27, 4:00 pm, Holiday IV (164 SEATS)

- rob 3:26 PM - [PermaLink] -

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