June 10, 2008 by sbrammer.

I came across the following article and thought that the people that come up with crap like this have little or none common sense. But then again, what government agency does have common sense?

In a major change of policy, the Transportation Security Administration has announced that passengers refusing to show ID will no longer be able to fly. The policy change, announced on Thursday afternoon, will go into force on June 21, and will only affect passengers who refuse to produce ID. Passengers who claim to have lost or forgotten their proof of identity will still be able to fly.

As long as TSA has existed, passengers have been able to fly without showing ID to government agents. Doing so would result in a secondary search (a pat down and hand search of your carry-on bag), but passengers were still permitted to board their flights. In some cases, taking advantage of this right to refuse ID came with fringe benefits–being bumped to the front of the checkpoint queue.

For a few years after September 11, 2001, TSA’s policies when it came to flying without ID were somewhat fuzzy. The agency, like many other parts of the Bush Administration, has hidden behind the shroud of classification–in TSA’s case, labeling everything Sensitive Security Information.

Seeking to clarify the rules, activist John Gilmore took the U.S. government to court in 2004. Gilmore chose to take a particularly hard line, by refusing to show ID to TSA and also by refusing to undergo the more thorough “secondary screening” search. He eventually lost his case before the 9th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals.

While the judges were not willing to let Gilmore avoid the secondary screening search, they did at least recognize the right to travel without showing ID–providing that passengers are willing to be subject to a pat down and a bit of probing:

“The identification policy requires that airline passengers either present identification or be subjected to a more extensive search. The more extensive search is similar to searches that we have determined were reasonable and consistent with a full recognition of appellants constitutional right to travel.”

Since then, in at least two letters to citizens, TSA has re-affirmed this right. In March 2008, a TSA official wrote that:

“If a traveler is unwilling or unable to produce a valid form of ID, the traveler is required to undergo additional screening at the checkpoint to gain access to the secured area of the airport.”

A change in policy

In a press release issued on Thursday with little fanfare, TSA announced a major change in its rules.

“Beginning Saturday, June 21, 2008 passengers that willfully refuse to provide identification at security checkpoint will be denied access to the secure area of airports. This change will apply exclusively to individuals that simply refuse to provide any identification or assist transportation security officers in ascertaining their identity.”

This new procedure will not affect passengers that may have misplaced, lost or otherwise do not have ID but are cooperative with officers. Cooperative passengers without ID may be subjected to additional screening protocols, including enhanced physical screening, enhanced carry-on and/or checked baggage screening, interviews with behavior detection or law enforcement officers and other measures.”

To clarify: Passengers who refuse to show ID, citing a constitutional right to fly without ID will be refused passage beyond the checkpoints. Passengers who say they have left their ID at home, will be searched, and then permitted to board their flights.

While TSA’s announcement stated that the goal of the change was to “increase safety,” this blogger disagrees. The change of rules seems to be a pretty obvious case of security theater. Real terrorists do not refuse to show ID. They claim to have lost their ID, or they use a fake.

TSA’s new rules only protect us from a non-existent breed of terrorists who are unable to lie.

Fixing flaws vs. security theater

In a research paper published in 2007, I outlined a number of glaring loopholes allowing the total circumvention of the much criticized no-fly lists. The two main flaws were that passengers can modify boarding passes, and that they can refuse to show ID.

In December 2007, TSA began testing out a secure, authenticated, tamper-proof boarding pass scheme. It has since been rolled out to a number of major airports around the country.

With hundreds of millions of dollars having already been spent on the various no-fly lists, it is at least interesting to see that someone at TSA is now spending time on fixing the loopholes in the system. The most glaring of this has long been the fact that passengers can refuse to show (or claim to have forgotten) their ID. Simply put, without being able to know who is walking through a checkpoint, there is no way to know that the “bad guys” have been caught by the no-fly list.

TSA’s new rule, while perhaps motivated by a desire to beef up security, is significantly flawed. Terrorists will lie, and claim to have lost their ID–while law-abiding citizens wishing to assert their rights will be hassled, and refused flight.

Of course, all of this is premised on the idea that the no-fly list is actually a useful safety tool–something that I, and a number of other prominent security experts, strongly disagree with. Simply put, terrorists do not pre-register their intent.

As Bruce Schneier has noted before, the no-fly list is a collection of hundreds of thousands of people who are too dangerous to fly, but not guilty enough to be charged with a crime.

These are interesting times, indeed.

Posted in sbrammer, Current Events | Print | 1 Comment »

April 23, 2008 by sbrammer.

Yesterday, i heard a story on our local TV station that minimum wage may go up. After i heard that, i thought to myself WTH is wrong with people with the whole minimum wage thing. If this is your first time on this site, read this first, then come back and read this post. It will make more sense if you do. The following are comments that agree with me that raising the minimum wage is not good for the economy.

If the government wants to help the poor this isnt working because over 90% of the population earning minimum wage are teenagers coming from middle income houses not head of household people. When minimum wage gos up so dose unemployment prices go up benefits go down and on the job training go’s down which could be very useful to teenagers.

Minimum is not a living wage today either. Read about the history of it, it was never intended to be a living wage. A company does not have to provide anybody with a livable wage if they dont want to. A wage is a binding agreement between a company and an employee. If the employee feels he is not getting paid what he is worth, he can ask for a raise, and the comapny has the right to either approve of the increase or deny it. If they deny it, then the employee can get out of the contract agreement and seek employment elsewhere.

Fox News Article

Let’s say I walk into a grocery store with $6.75 today. I can probably pick up a gallon of milk, a dozen eggs, and a loaf of bread with what I’ve got in my pocket. So, the buying power of one hour’s wages is a gallon of milk, a dozen eggs, and a loaf of bread.When the value of the dollar goes down like it did from 1916 to today, we have inflation. In an inflation, the buying power of an hour’s wages go down. For example, if the price of bread, milk, and eggs doubles, it now takes two hours’ wages to buy them, and your buying power is cut in half. Ultimately, if you’re worried about how to pay your bills, it doesn’t matter whether you’re earning $0.16/hour in 1916 or $6.75 in 2006, your real concern is how much buying power you have. Raising the minimum wage to $100/hour does no good if the cost of a loaf of bread is $200. Even though you’d be earning wages that by today’s standards would put you in the top 2% of wage earners, your buying power would be extremely low.

So, let’s say you’re one of those slightly-above-minimum-wage working people, say earning $7.75/hour. We raise minimum wage to $8.75/hour. What do you think your new pay rate will be? Well, for most people, it will be $8.75/hour — the new minimum wage — even though to keep up with the inflation the new minimum wage causes, you’d need to be earning more like $10/hour. Raising the minimum wage puts more workers into the minimum-wage trap.

www.balancedpolitics.org

it will make the price of everything go up so minimum wage will have to go up again, many people will be fired to compensate the salaries of the people that businesses keep, unemployment will go up, people with non-minimum wage jobs but still low paying jobs will suffer (because prices will go up but their wages will not).

Minimum wage in itself is a big con for taking away from the free market. Companies should be able to pay whatever they can find people to work for and not be subjected to a minimum amount they need to pay. Of course this is all the fault of the welfare system which acts as an alternative to working minimum wage jobs. So to keep people from taking handouts that the government provides, the government has forced corporations to offer a more lucrative alternative.

That is all i have for the time being. I will probably write more about this issue since here in IL, the wage will go up again in July for the next two years. In 2010, it will be $8.25\hr for minimum wage. That is more than my first full-time job after college graduation!

Posted in sbrammer, Current Events | Print | 5 Comments »

November 9, 2007 by sbrammer.

According to several reports recently, kids have been getting into trouble for not doing drugs, cheating, or even skipping classes, BUT in trouble for hugging another student. Yes, i said hugging! So, if hugging somebody you haven’t seen in a while or giving a hug to make them feel better is out, what’s next - no hugging or slapping a butt during sporting events like volleyball or basketball on school grounds?

Give me a break!! Whoever came up with that policy was either gay or was jealous since they never got hugs when they were a kid, so what should anybody else.

Posted in sbrammer, Coherent Thoughts, Current Events | Print | 3 Comments »

July 10, 2007 by sbrammer.

A couple of weeks ago, i was re-arranging the schedule due to somebody being let go. I had a meeting with my student workers to work out the schedule. Afterwards i get a phone call from a student worker who worked for me last year who wants to work for a month until he goes back to SIU-C. So, i had to move some people around, and at first they didn’t want to give up hours, but didn’t realize they were getting a 80 cent raise. I explained to them you will still coming out ahead in money and by working less hours.

These made me started thinking. Every year we get a percentage raise, and this year we got a 2% raise and will get another % rasie when faculty neogiations are finished. So, i figured the amount that the student workers were getting to the amount it got raised to, and it is a 12% raise. By 2010, minimum wage will be $8.25\hr here in IL. So, in three years minimum wage workers will receive a 27% increase.

So, people who are working minimum wage jobs, it is a good thing; however people like myself will be getting screwed over. When you get your pay increase, I’m taking a pay cut, because I have to pay more for everything becuase everytime minimum wage goes up, everything else goes up as well. One co-woker said it best: “i’m one dollar closer to being at the poverty level now than i was a few weeks ago. ”

On one hand, I don’t have a problem with minimum wage increase as long as they increase the wages of other people that are close to that. But on the other hand, most of the people working minimum wage jobs are High School or college students working their way through school, and i don’t think they deserve to be making that kind of money. Plus increasing minimum wage will also hurt small businesses. So, pretty much it’s like this: minimum wage people like the increase; people who are wealthy don’t see a difference, but the middle class is the ones getting the raw end of the deal.

We have several positions at the college where the people are making $8\hr. Now when minimum wage went up from $6.50 -> $7.50, you would think people would realize that the minimum wage people are getting very close to the same amount that they are receiving. Plus that full time staff position might require either an Associates degree, a bachelor’s degree or x number of years experience. Oh not to mention, that new hires are getting paid more some people who have been there for several years. What’s up with that?

It’s going to be very interesting for the next few years to see what takes place regarding this issue. Several of us had a discussion one day, and all of us are on the same page about this.

So, let me hear your thoughts, comments on this. Tell others about this, and have them comment as well.

- Seth

Posted in sbrammer, Coherent Thoughts, Current Events | Print | 6 Comments »