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'Terrorist Intent' Detector Set for Demo Next Year

(Feb. 25) -- New security technology at airports around the country is creating a furor over concerns that the screening devices can "see" beneath people's clothes. Now, the Department of Homeland Security is set to take technology one step further with a screening system that would, in a sense, peek inside your head.

The Future Attribute Screening Technology, or FAST, is designed to spot terrorists, or more specifically, people who are thinking about carrying out terrorist acts.

"The theory we're looking at here is [whether] there's a way to look at you, and only you, in a specific situation, and based on your presentation, make an assessment that you're showing indicators of what we call malintent," Robert Burns, the deputy director of the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency, told AOL News. "Malintent, as defined by the problem, is the intention or desire to cause harm."

[...]

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/homeland-security-set-to-demonstra...

There are just a few problems with this, for instance ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, March 5, 2010
Contact: Nikos Leverenz 916/248-0338 or ACLU-Sac public affairs 916/996-9170

ACLU warns that attacks on ‘disfavored groups’
at universities one more challenge for students
already hit hard by drastically-rising costs

SACRAMENTO – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Sacramento County today said recent “bias-related incidents” at California schools – including one at the University of California Davis where a Jewish student had a swastika carved into her door – ought to result “in a heightened commitment to student safety.”

The ACLU said the attacks are just one more challenge for California students, who have faced drastically increased student fees and tuition costs, which were protested throughout the state Thursday.

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski writes scathing dissent in Fourth Amendment case

When a judge called for United States v. Lemus to be reheard en banc, the majority of judges in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals did not vote to rehear the case. Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote an absolutely blistering dissent to that denial. With Judge Paez joining in the dissent, he wrote:
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This is an extraordinary case: Our court approves, without blinking, a police sweep of a person’s home without a warrant, without probable cause, without reasonable suspicion and without exigency—in other words, with nothing at all to support the entry except the curiosity police always have about what they might find if they go rummaging around a suspect’s home. Once inside, the police managed to turn up a gun “in plain view”—stuck between two cushions of the living room couch—and we reward them by upholding the search.

Did I mention that this was an entry into somebody’s home, the place where the protections of the Fourth Amendment are supposedly at their zenith? The place where the “government bears a heavy burden of demonstrating that exceptional circumstances justif[y] departure from the warrant requirement.” United States v. Licata, 761 F.2d 537, 543 (9th Cir. 1985). The place where warrantless searches are deemed “presumptively unreasonable.” Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 586 (1980).

Epic Fail in Congress: USA PATRIOT Act Renewed Without Any New Civil Liberties Protections

News Update by Kevin Bankston

Yesterday evening, the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to renew three expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act, after the Senate abandoned the PATRIOT reform effort and approved the extension by a voice vote on Wednesday night.

Disappointingly, the government's dangerously broad authority to conduct roving wiretaps of unspecified or "John Doe" targets, to secretly wiretap of persons without any connection to terrorists or spies under the so-called "lone wolf" provision, and to secretly access a wide range of private business records without warrants under PATRIOT Section 215 were all renewed without any new checks and balances to prevent abuse. Despite months of vigorous debate, when PATRIOT renewal bills providing for greater oversight and accountability were approved by the Judiciary Committees of both the House and the Senate, Democratic leaders' push for reform fizzled in the face of staunch Republican opposition buoyed by recent hot-button events such as the attempted bombing of an airliner on Christmas Day and the shooting at Fort Hood.

Why the 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy is doomed

By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey
Saturday, February 13, 2010; A21

When the Pentagon's top brass announced last week that they no longer believe military unit cohesion suffers from the presence of openly gay men or women in the ranks, they effectively transformed a policy question into a legal one, to which the answer is clear: Congress can no longer mandate discrimination in the armed forces on the basis of sexual orientation.

In the 2003 case Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law criminalizing same-gender sexual relations, reasoning that such conduct was part of a constitutionally protected liberty interest. The court also suggested that the Texas statute was vulnerable to challenge as a denial of equal protection of the laws. And it is application of the equal protection doctrine to the military's professional assessment of the impact that openly gay service members have on combat effectiveness that is likely to be the end of "don't ask, don't tell."

Related? Cyber War-Game scheduled for Feb. 16
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.. the KB971033 update is scheduled to deploy to the manual downloading "Genuine Microsoft Software" site on February 16, and start pushing out automatically through the Windows Update environment on February 23.

Who Owns Your PC? New Anti-Piracy Windows 7 Update "Phones Home" to Microsoft Every 90 Days

Greetings. Sometimes a seemingly small software update can usher in a whole new world. When Microsoft shortly pushes out a Windows 7 update with the reportedly innocuous title "Update for Microsoft Windows (KB971033)" -- it will be taking your Windows 7 system where it has never been before.

And it may not be a place where you want to go.

Need to Trim Corrections Spending, Governor? Stop Wasting Money on the Death Penalty!
Created 01/11/2010 - 1:27pm
By Natasha Minsker

If Gov. Schwarzenegger thinks he can cut $3.5 billion from state spending on corrections, he is being unrealistic and impractical.

In his state of the state address Wednesday, Gov. Schwarzenegger promised to restore the California dream by increasing funds for education and cutting funds for prisons in the budget proposal he releases today. That’s a great theory. But his only real proposal is to outsource prison administration to private companies. The state’s powerful prison guards’ union will ensure that plan fails. Meanwhile, the governor continues to slash education, health care, and other vital services.

So let’s consider something the governor can actually do right now to make a serious dent in the corrections budget: convert all 700 death sentences in California to permanent imprisonment saving the state $1 billion over the next five years.