The Founders Never Imagined a Bush Administration

President Bush has given Commander-in-Chief Bush unlimited wartime authority. But the "war on terror" is more a metaphor than a fact. Terrorism is a method, not an ideology; terrorists are criminals, not warriors. No peace treaty can possibly bring an end to the fight against far-flung terrorists. The emergency powers of the president during this "war" can now extend indefinitely, at the pleasure of the president and at great threat to the liberties and rights guaranteed us under the Constitution.

Why Data Mining Won't Stop Terror

Finding terrorism plots is not a problem that lends itself to data mining. It's a needle-in-a-haystack problem, and throwing more hay on the pile doesn't make that problem any easier. We'd be far better off putting people in charge of investigating potential plots and letting them direct the computers, instead of putting the computers in charge and letting them decide who should be investigated.

But that's just not the way people work. People give up when the answers aren't obvious. It's been that way forever. Remember "Lost in Space"? Remember the robot? Every time the Robinsons got in trouble the robot was the go-to guy ("Robot, robot, by the wall -- say something stupid and save us all.").

People expect technology to give them answers when they haven't got a clue. Those who actually work with and understand technology know better.

The Terrorist Threat of Paying Your Credit Card Balance

Remember, all the time spent chasing down silly false alarms is time wasted. Finding terrorist plots is a signal-to-noise problem, and stuff like this substantially decreases that ratio: it adds a lot of noise without adding enough signal. It makes us less safe, because it makes terrorist plots harder to find.

This story smells a bit fishy. Either it's a hoax or the bank was just trying to cover for their own mistake.

Bush declares war on freedom of the press

"The significance of this cannot be overstated," says prominent New York litigator Glenn Greenwald. "In essence, while the President sits in the White House undisturbed after proudly announcing that he has been breaking the law and will continue to do so, his slavish political appointees at the Justice Department are using the mammoth law enforcement powers of the federal government to find and criminally prosecute those who brought this illegal conduct to light."

"This flamboyant use of the forces of criminal prosecution to threaten whistle-blowers and intimidate journalists are nothing more than the naked tactics of street thugs and authoritarian juntas."

BOING BOING'S GUIDE TO DEFEATING CENSORWARE

The fact is, there's no effective way to censor the Internet in broad strokes. Only dumb CIOs and totalitarian governments like the UAE believe that adding censorware to your network will prevent the naughty stuff from slopping in.

Agreed. Likewise, the lame excuse that it's "for the children" just doesn't wash. Use one of the many proxys described in the Boing Boing Guide.

Robot moved by a slime mould's fears

The Physarum polycephalum slime, which naturally shies away from light, controls the robot's movement so that it too keeps out of light and seeks out dark places in which to hide itself.

Kinda creepy. They gave it six legs, but it still looks like a big spider. I hate spiders.

Secure Flight Suspended!

An ambitious program to check every domestic airline passenger’s name against government terrorist watch lists may not be immune from hackers, a congressional investigator said Thursday.

And because of security concerns, the government is going back to the drawing board with the program called Secure Flight after spending nearly four years and $150 million on it, the Senate Commerce Committee was told.

Bill Scannell, a privacy advocate who manages the Web site
UnSecureFlight.com , welcomed Hawley’s announcement.

“Once again the vampire’s been driven back into its coffin,” he said. “Whether the administration is willing to shoot it with a silver bullet is another question.”