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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (529789)	1/26/2004 12:40:43 PM
From: Skywatcher	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Privacy Villain of the Week: NASA-Northwest redux After two years, the public has finally learned that Northwest Airlines did indeed give the National Aeronautics and Space Administration sensitive consumer data for use in a bizarre research program that combined data-mining and "brain-monitoring" technology. There was a more naive time when it seemed the 21st-century total Federal takeover of airport security would merely involve swarms of overpaid, un-fireable federal employees harassing hapless harried travelers with interminable baggage and body searches. But the dangers of "mind-reading" technology didn't occur to even the most strident skeptic. Or did it? Maybe we need to ask NASA. It was revealed back in 2002 that scientists from NASA asked Northwest Airlines for "system-wide Northwest Airlines passenger data from July, August, and September 2001" [<http://www.epic.org/privacy/airtravel/nasa/nasa2.pdf>]. The data was to be used in the still-mysterious program the federal space agency was working on with a commercial firm -- the idea was to use both data-mining and "brain-monitoring" technology installed at airport terminals to somehow identify "threats." The proposed brain-monitoring technology would detect EEG and ECG signals from the brain and heart and then have that data analyzed by software, in combination with previously-floated plans to cross-reference passengers' travel history, credit history, and other information from hundreds or even thousands of databases as part of the Computer-Aided Passenger Pre-Screening (CAPPS) program. In a press release <http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=9061>, Robert Pearce, the Director of NASA's Strategy and Analysis Division, disavowed the report, assuring the populace that "NASA does not have the capability to read minds, nor are we suggesting that would be done." Yet another NASA spokesman, Herb Schlickenmaier, confirmed that reading the brainwaves and heart rates of airline passengers was a goal of NASA's -- the thinking being that such data combined with body temperature and eye-flicker rate could make a sort of super-lie detector. However, the PowerPoint presentation <http://www.epic.org/privacy/airtravel/foia/foia1.html> delivered by NASA to Northwest in December, said NASA has "Non-invasive neuro-electric sensors under development as a collaborative venture between NASA Ames and commercial partner." This contradicts the NASA statement that "We have not approved any research in this area." If this is how NASA assembles policy, it's little wonder their hardware assembly has a dismal track record. Does the tweezer brigade <http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,61008,00.html> really need a weapon of this magnitude? And could it really work? What of those who simply fear flying, or being frisked, or being forced to drink their own breast milk? How often will NASA's scanners confuse such brain waves with those of terrorists? The federal travel checkpoints are rapidly moving past inconvenient farce and into something more sinister. Instead of mandating security procedures, bailing out airlines that failed in that area, and then taking over the whole system themselves, the federal government should back off and let airlines assume the full costs of security failure as well as the benefits of respectful treatment of travelers. Consumers can subject themselves to full-body-and-brain scans, opt for Concealed Carry Air, or choose something in between, weighing privacy, security, comfort, convenience and cost for themselves. Such individual choice and flexibility has never been the hallmark of the centralized, goal-oriented space agency. The folks at NASA have apparently been so successful in their quest to quash private-sector competition in space travel, that they feel free to use the tax dollars of those they've left planet-bound to sift through travel data and cook up hare-brained mind-reading schemes. And at least one airline gladly helped them do so. If that doesn't make for Privacy Villainy, nothing does.

To: Neocon who wrote (529789)	1/26/2004 12:44:06 PM
From: Skywatcher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Having the Arab world against us like this does NOT lead to any stability...in fact Saddam would have imploded on his own as things were so bad there.... meanwhile: Cheney 'Waged War' on Blair Iraq Strategy by James Blitz in London and Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington Dick Cheney, US vice-president, "waged a guerrilla war" against attempts by Tony Blair, the British prime minister, to secure United Nations backing for the invasion of Iraq. Mr Cheney remained implacably opposed to the strategy even after George W. Bush, US president, addressed the UN on the importance of a multilateralist approach, according to a new biography of Mr Blair. The US vice-president, along with the neo-conservatives in the Bush administration, has consistently argued that the US could be constrained by the UN's inability to reach agreement over the need to invade Iraq. He told the World Economic Forum in Davos at the weekend: "There comes a time when deceit and defiance must be seen for what they are. At that point, a gathering danger must be directly confronted. At that point, we must show that beyond our resolutions is actual resolve." The extent of Mr Cheney's opposition emerges in the biography of the British prime minister by Philip Stephens, the Financial Times' political columnist. In the run-up to the war, Mr Blair worked closely with Mr Bush to try to secure prior UN backing. But Mr Stephens writes that Mr Cheney's opposition to UN involvement left Mr Blair uncertain whether Mr Bush would go down the UN route until he uttered the relevant words in his speech to the UN general assembly in September 2002. One Blair aide remarked: "[Mr Cheney] waged a guerrilla war against the process . . . He's a visceral unilateralist". Another agreed: "Cheney fought it all the way - at every twist and turn, even after Bush's speech to the UN." In the US, Democrats have also accused Mr Cheney of putting pressure on intelligence agencies to produce evidence Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. On Friday, David Kay, the top US weapons inspector in Iraq, resigned, saying he did not believe Iraq had large stocks of biological and chemical weapons. Mr Stephens' book reveals a string of acid interventions by Mr Cheney during critical talks between the president and prime minister at Camp David in September 2002. Once, he directly rebuked Alastair Campbell, Mr Blair's communications director. In occasional contacts with British officials, Scooter Libby, the vice-president's chief of staff, made little secret of his boss's scorn for multilateralism. He once jibed: "Oh dear, we'd better not do that or we might upset the prime minister." Mr Stephens also reveals that Mr Blair was concerned about relations with other European leaders, particularly Jacques Chirac, French president. Mr Blair confided in close aides before the Iraq war that he believed Mr Chirac was personally "out to get him" because he feared the UK prime minister was usurping his own position as the natural leader of Europe. According to Mr Stephens, the prime minister came to the view that Mr Chirac wanted to see him fall from power after receiving intelligence reports about the French president's private conversations. © Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2004 CC