Diesel Civil Trust

For the last few years, federal agencies have defended body scanning by insisting that all images will be discarded as soon as they’re viewed. The Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, for instance, that “scanned images cannot be stored or recorded.”

Now it turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images after all. The U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had surreptitiously saved tens of thousands of images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse.

Unfortunately for AT&T’s security infrastructure — and equally unfortunately for customers who bought and activated iPad 3G units on the company’s network — a freelance security research team has reportedly scraped two key tidbits of information from thousands of iPad registrations. As Gawker reports, the hackers exploited a script on AT&T’s site by feeding it ICC-IDs (the GSM SIM card’s identifier code) harvested from iPad user screenshots and interpolated to cover a wider range. The AT&T site obligingly gave back the email address associated with each of the ICC-IDs.

suburbananarchist:

For the metric impaired, Toronto police plan to encircle the summit site, which is the Metro Toronto Convention Centre with a 10ft fence (let it sink in….). Maybe the protesters can keep the G20 attendees caged indefinitely.

TOLEDO, Spain — U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano sought Thursday to allay concerns in some European Union countries over the use of body scanners in airports to thwart terrorists, saying that as the technology develops the devices will be less intrusive.

robot-heart-politics:

“Before the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings, cockpit doors were designed to provide a quiet office environment for pilots. After the attacks, Congress decided cockpit doors should be designed to protect pilots from attackers. Pilots are to focus on flying, no matter what happens in the cabin. In the months after the terror attacks, airlines reinforces [sic] the existing cockpit doors with metal bars. But last year an unruly passenger on a flight from Miami to Buenos Aires managed to kick in a small breakaway panel across the bottom of the door and put his head into the cockpit before a co-pilot clubbed him with an ax. The airline industry was given until this Wednesday to install the new doors in every passenger aircraft with 20 or more seats. FAA spokesman Greg Martin said the deadline will be met. The new door withstands bullets and small explosives and can resist a force equivalent to an NFL linebacker hitting it at Olympic sprinter speed, said Jim Proulx, The Boeing Co. spokesman. Boeing has delivered 4,300 kits that include the new doors, which airlines’ regular maintenance crews can install, Proulx said. Boeing and its supplier designed 31 different door configurations for 18 aircraft models. Airbus Industrie has delivered 557 kits to U.S. operators and about 1,800 worldwide. One reason it’s taken a year-and-a-half to install the doors, Proulx said, is that the company had to do basic research into materials and stress analysis, which cut into time that could have been used for design. Congress gave domestic airlines $100 million for the doors, which amounts to about $13,000 per aircraft — far less than the $30,000 to $50,000 the FAA estimates they actually cost. Airlines are lobbying Congress for more money to pay the difference. The Senate voted on Thursday to directly reimburse the airlines for the cost of the doors, while the House proposed giving airlines cash to pay for new security costs. The issue is likely to be resolved next week. Foreign airlines authorized to operate in the United States also have to install the reinforced doors. Wanda Warner, spokeswoman for the International Air Transport Association, said she expects them to meet the deadline. The International Civil Aviation Organization, the United Nations’ aviation arm, is requiring every airliner in the world to install reinforced cockpit doors by Nov. 1. The association estimates it will cost airlines $2 billion to comply with the directive. The U.S. government won’t reimburse foreign airlines for the cost.”

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Bulletproof Cockpit Doors A Reality - CBS News

Can you say, “Thank you, federal government?”

ROMULUS, Mich. — Air travelers in the United States and worldwide faced heightened security measures that caused delays and canceled flights on Monday, the first business day after the Friday’s terrorism attempt on a jet bound to Detroit from Amsterdam.

soupsoup:

This list on the TSA website of holiday food items that they don’t want people to try and travel with is priceless…

Everyone has favorite foods from home that they want to bring to holiday dinners, or items from their destination that they want to bring back home. Travelers should know that while pies are permitted through the security checkpoint, here is a list of liquids, gels and aerosol items that you should put in your checked bag, ship ahead, or leave at home.

• Cranberry sauce
• Creamy dips and spreads
  (cheeses, peanut butter, etc.)
• Gift baskets with food items
  (salsa, jams and salad dressings)
• Gravy
• Jams
• Jellies
• Maple syrup
• Oils and vinegars
• Salad dressing
• Salsa
• Sauces
• Soups
• Wine, liquor and beer

SHENZHEN, China — China is preparing to build three times as many nuclear power plants in the coming decade as the rest of the world combined, a breakneck pace with the potential to help slow global warming.

The Guardian newspaper dropped a small bomb on the International Energy Agency last night, on the eve of the IEA’s annual release of their signature product: The World Energy Outlook. According to the British newspaper, at least one if not two whistleblowers within the agency were claiming that the IEA’s record of chronic optimism on future oil supply had been disingenuous at best, and moreover, that this positioning had been influenced over the years by pressure from the US.

Can renewable energy save the world from climate change, and do so at a reasonable cost? This column says we can replace some fossil fuel power with renewable power without a major cost increase, but we cannot hope to replace a major fraction of our fossil power with intermittent power sources such as wind and solar energy unless we can develop energy storage technologies.

OKLAHOMA CITY — A new technique that tapped previously inaccessible supplies of natural gas in the United States is spreading to the rest of the world, raising hopes of a huge expansion in global reserves of the cleanest fossil fuel.