Creeping Totalitarianism

The TSA is well-know for annoying air travelers, but I've been worried for a while about the TSA's attempts to branch out to annoy people using other modes of transportation. As it turns out, I wasn't imaginative enough: After all, why should the Transporation Security Agency limit their activities to annoying only people who are using transportation? They've been thinking … [Read more...] about TSA Metastasis Continues Unabated

I just bought a new laptop computer, and now I'm looking for a backpack with a padded laptop compartment, so I don't break my new toy in the first month. So as I'm looking on Amazon and reading reviews, I notice that a lot of laptops are labeled "Checkpoint Friendly," meaning they open up easily so they can be scanned at the airport. Fuck. When pundits first started complaining … [Read more...] about Checkpoint Friendly

Chicago will be hosting the NATO summit meeting this month, and it's turning into a typical display of government arrogance. For a recent example, the Metra commuter rail system has announced that they will be stopping service on the line that runs through the summit location: Metra plans to operate regular service on 10 of its 11 lines. For the Metra Electric Line, most … [Read more...] about Metra: No Fourth Amendment for You!

One of the things Kip Hawley left out of his explanation of why the TSA sucks is the TSA's infestation of other forms of transportation, such as the one described in this press release from the Houston Metropolitan Transit Authority: In an unprecedented approach that involved four law enforcement agencies - including federal agents - METRO launched a national BusSafe pilot … [Read more...] about More TSA Metastasis

There are many things wrong in this story, but let me focus on this one for the moment: That's right, not only were they forced to live under the accusation of being child pornographers, but the FBI naturally had to seize all their computers, since they contained all the evidence.  Like nice pictures of their cat Fluffy.  Shouldn't that have had some impact on the … [Read more...] about Make Them Stop Taking Our Computers