Category Archives: Freedom

Quote of the day–Joan Burbick

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The mystique of the Western gun rested on an inflated belief in the individual and the power within reach of an ordinary human being.

[…]

The gun has become a fetish–an emotional response to a changing America, the idea that somehow, the social problems of the U.S. will be solved through private gun ownership and a lot more guns.

Joan Burbick
Professor of English and American Studies at Washington State University
Author of Gun Show Nation: Gun Culture and American Democracy
Quotes found at Guns R Us — Is it time to re-examine the West’s fascination with firearms? in Missoula Independent By: Ray Ring August 16, 2007
[It’s interesting to me that Mr. Ring referred to Ms. Burbick as “Jean Burbick” instead of “Joan Burbick”. Typical of an anti-gun bigot–getting the facts straight don’t seem to matter. Please note that Burbick is engaging in a bit of projection with her claim “the gun has become a fetish”. It’s the anti-gun bigots that believe gun regulation have magical power to protect people. And Burbick also overlooks that the concept of individual power, and even the individual itself, is the one distinguishing difference between Western Civilization and all others. For her to denigrate the concept of individual power and rights is to undermine the very basis of our culture.–Joe]

Quote of the day–INITIATIVE 971

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Shall we modify and make new laws such that (A) probation and early release are eliminated, (B) the limit of DUI is set at zero and pictures from advanced technology cell phones with timestamps of drinking or drug taking is acceptable in any court, and (C) all violent offenders must have Global Positioning System (GPS) chips installed in their body by the government. The ATG must sue if non-conformance exists anywhere.

INITIATIVE 971
Washington State
[Some people just won’t be happy until they have a police state.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Robert A. Heinlein

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Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay–and claims a halo for his dishonesty.

Robert A. Heinlein
Double Star
[I was looking for this when I ran across the Bruce Willis quote I posted yesterday. I thought I had read all the Heinlein books but as I listened to this book on the way to and from Idaho last weekend I didn’t remember a single thing from it. Perhaps I had missed it when I was doing all my Heinlein reading 30 years ago. Or it could be that I am just getting old. There are three signs that indicate you are getting old. The first one is losing your memory so that could explain it. I don’t remember what the other two signs are.–Joe]

More OUO material

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I got in trouble with PNNL because someone thought my daughter might have had access to “Official Use Only” material. The material in question was marked OUO but was never OUO. We managed to get evidence of that after filing a motion to compel with the judge but legally it just didn’t matter. Someone saw the markings, didn’t bother to check to see if the markings were valid, see if Xenia actually had access, and acted accordingly–I lost my job. Here is another document marked OUO: I Found Ted Kennedy’s Safe! (nice demonstration video of .50 BMG capabilities). I reported the OUO material from the TSA about three weeks ago.

What’s interesting to me is that you find quite a lot of stuff if you do a search for “Official Use Only” on Live Search (142,637 items) or Google (about 815,000 items). Most of that is not actually government OUO material but some of it is and was put on websites and indexed when it really shouldn’t have been. And then there is the stuff marked as OUO for political purposes. And even some of the material marked and protected as OUO is still available under the Freedom of Information Act:

The For Official Use Only designation is also used by CIA and a number of other federal agencies, but each agency is responsible for determining how it shall be used. The categories of protected information may be quite different from one agency to another, although in every case the protected information must be covered by one of the nine categories of information that are exempt from public release under FOIA.

Some agencies use different terminology for the same types of information. For example, Department of Energy uses Official Use Only (OUO). Department of State uses Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU), formerly called Limited Official Use (LOU). The Drug Enforcement Administration uses DEA Sensitive. In all cases the designations refer to unclassified, sensitive information that is or may be exempt from public release under the Freedom of Information Act.

The fact that information is marked FOUO does not mean it is automatically exempt from public release under FOIA. If a request for the information is received, it must be reviewed to see if it meets the FOIA dual test: (1) It fits into one of the nine FOIA exemption categories, and (2) There is a legitimate government purpose served by withholding the information. On the other hand, the absence of the FOUO or other marking does not automatically mean the information must be released in response to a FOIA request.

Part of why I’m doing all the FOIA requests is to demonstrate that the material Xenia supposedly had access to, which was a major component the supposed reason I was fired, is in fact available to anyone that asks for it. This doesn’t matter in a legal sense in terms of a wrongful termination lawsuit–they could make up a rule that says people can’t trim their nose hair or some such thing and fire people that do. Of course this is all rather embarrassing to PNNL and they are just ignoring the FOIA requests–because they think the law doesn’t apply to them. The person that said “See this badge?  This means the law doesn’t apply to us.” was Newton Brown, who instigated the investigation against me.

More details on the entire story of what happened to me at PNNL including how they let unauthorized people, perhaps including foreign nationals, have access to hundreds of computers with OUO material on them, some other time–I want to reload some ammo this morning before I have lunch with Barb.

Quote of the day–Tamara K.

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How can government eliminate poverty? Poverty is government’s stock in trade.

Tamara K.
August 11, 2007
Yes, wouldn’t it?
[Read the post if this out of context quote doesn’t make sense to you. Beyond what is in the post think about all the lost wealth complying with filling out paperwork, wasted government projects, and complying with pointless government regulations.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Steve Swain

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I don’t know of a single incident where CCTV has actually been used to spot, apprehend or detain offenders in the act.

The presence of CCTV is irrelevant for those who want to sacrifice their lives to carry out a terrorist act.

You need to do this piece of theater so that if the terrorists are looking at you, they can see that you’ve got some measures in place.

Steve Swain
August 3, 2007
‘Ring of Steel’ coming to New York
Swain served for years with the London Metropolitan Police and its counter-terror operations and now works for Control Risk, an international security firm.
[Found via Bruce. If you don’t see the folly of the security theater argument send me an email and I’ll explain.–Joe]

A much needed change

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Some of my FOIA requests to PNNL are over two years old. And even after I won an appeal from an early denial they still are refusing to send me the data. We’ll, not exactly refusing. Every week when my lawyer calls them up asks what the status is they say, “I’ll have to get back to you on that.” And, of course, they don’t. Repeat the next week.

In another case, in response to a FOIA request, they deleted a bunch of material (I found out via a late night anonymous phone call) and told me they did a “thorough search” and no such documents were found. My lawyer reworded the request and resubmitted it. They ignored both it and my congress critter’s repeated requests to comply.

Remember the batch of requests I made almost seven weeks ago? They had 20 business days to respond and I’ve not received even a “go pound sand” response. Like I have said before they think the law doesn’t apply to them.

This may make it easier for me to change their tune:

The Senate on Friday unanimously approved a measure that would extend the open-government requirements of the Freedom of Information Act to private contractors and increase penalties for federal agencies that do not comply.

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Sens. Patrick Leahy and John Cornyn, R-Texas, sponsored the legislation to speed agency responses and compel the government to more accurately track pending requests. The legislation was blocked from a floor vote for months because Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and the Justice Department objected to several provisions.

One would have allowed requesters who file lawsuits to recover their attorney fees. Under the compromise, a requester would be able to recover the fees unless the claim is found to be “wholly insubstantial.”

[…]

Other provisions would extend FOIA compliance to private contractors who keep records on government work and would protect fee waivers for “legitimate journalists, regardless of institutional association.” That means waivers would apply to bloggers and others based on the Internet.

Quote of the day–Mark Twain

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Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.

Mark Twain
[It’s a bit simplistic but as a general rule I’m inclined to agree. Majorities have a strong tendency to ignore inalienable rights and abuse minorities. And I’m talking about all types of minorities including those based on things like sexual orientation and habits (include “sex workers”), recreational drug use, gun ownership, and types of hobbies (think “model rocketry”).–Joe]

Quote of the day–Martha Stout

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A person without conscience, even a smart one, tends to be a short sighted and naive individual who eventually expires of boredom, financial ruin, or a bullet.

Martha Stout
The Sociopath Next Door
[At first I was rather depressed by the book. In the U.S. one in 25 people has no conscience. They can do anything they want and not feel the least bit of guilt. Fear of getting caught and punished yes, but that just means they work a little hard and smarter to get away with whatever they want to do. Torturing animals, torturing humans, lying, cheating, backstabbing, murder, rape, whatever relieves their boredom. Those that follow the rules are stupid and naive. All part of the mindset of the sociopath. And it is the sociopath that is the dictator, the corrupt politician, the serial killer, and one of the reasons the average person needs to own a gun. As I got near the end of the book I heard about what serious deficits they have in their emotional lives and how their lives frequently end. This gave me hope. Hope that perhaps justice is more sure than it sometimes appears to be.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Henry David Thoreau

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Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

Henry David Thoreau
(1817-62)
U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist.
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849).
[Does this remind you of Gandhi in any way? It should. Gandhi studied Thoreau’s writings and put a lot of the theory into practice.–Joe]

Another anti-gun blogger

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As Uncle pointed out (and here) we have a new kid on the block. I left a comment in response to his post Happiness is a warm gun. Comments require approval before they show up so I decided to post it here because I expect the probability of anti-gun blogger Bryan Miller approving the comment are no better than 50-50.

My comment:

I find the following data points about Miller very interesting:

  1. He refers to gun rights activists as “boys”.
  2. When people call him on his inaccurate use of the phrase “assault rifle” he says, “It’s just a name.” Yup, it’s just a name. Just like “n****r” is “just a name” for people with dark colored skin.
  3. He questions the mental qualifications of people with a fondness for a particular hobby that he doesn’t share.
  4. He wants to restrict the rights of certain people.

It’s all part of the mindset Miller has. He apparently believes he is better than others, specifically he is better than people that own or want to own guns. It took me a long time to understand anti-gun people like Miller. I grew up in a place with a very homogenous population and hence there was virtually no elitist mentality other than the typical school stuff of the fourth graders looking down on the second graders and the high school seniors looking down on the freshman. It took some long discussions and email with a recovered liberal friend of mine (see here and “Comments from ‘Mike’ at the bottom of this page) and seeing the racist roots of gun control before it finally clicked into place. It’s even more clear to me from the many discussions I have had with these type of people about what they are trying to do. You can ask them just one question and they will dance around the question and even call you stupid for asking the question–but they won’t answer the question. To them it’s perfectly clear that the question doesn’t need to be answered. What they are doing, what they want to accomplish makes perfect sense and needs no justification. The conclusion was finally obvious to me–the anti-gun people are the bigots of the 21st century. It took me a long time to realize this because I didn’t have any real contact with the more typical bigots until a few years ago. The parallels in mindset and thinking processes were astonishing—but that is a topic for an entire blog post, not just a comment on someone else’s blog. I now have Just One Question for Miller:

Can you demonstrate one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons?

Also, Mr. Miller, when you “explain the Second Amendment” to us, please address the points in this blog posting: An Individual Right. Thank you for providing us with this forum where you show us your true colors and allowing us to show ours.

Quote of the day–Bryan Miller

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These high-sounding lectures from you and your colleagues in the so-called “gun rights” crowd are not even slightly impressive (they are amusing, though). As I’ve written above, society has a duty to mediate between individual privilege (that’s right – privilege – neither you nor any other American has an unfettered “right” to own any weapon he or she wants) and public safety. In this case, the choice is clear. The public safety demands that massively destructive weapons like the Big 50 be prohibited from public purchase. And, you are in a tiny minority if you think Americans, and especially New Jerseyans (who suffered so from 9/11), would rather face the issue AFTER some terrorist knocks over a chlorine plant or similar disaster and hundreds die. Nuff said.

Bryan Miller
July 27, 2007
Put down the ducky — I mean, gun
[Typical elitist mindset–He can’t be bothered to address the points made. Furthermore he is willing to give up, and demand that others give up rights, in the name of “crime prevention”. What a disgusting, revolting, frightening mindset.–Joe]

Posts that get attention

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Interesting. My most recent post about the TSA is getting more and more attention. Most recent is this mention in a forum:

If you really need to believe that you’re safe when you get on a plane, don’t read the above. If you want to realize what a bullshit fantasy “safety” through a “security” agency is, then take the red pill and click the link.

I like how he expressed that. Very nice. I remember one time not too long after 9/11 Ry was having Thanksgiving dinner with us and our extended family at my parent’s place. Somehow Ry (software tester extraordinaire–finding flaws is what software testers do) and I started talking about all the vulnerabilities in our country that someone could use to cause us great damage. We were rattling things off so fast that someone had to raise their voice to get in a command to “STOP”. People didn’t want to know. They wanted ignorance. This is baffling to me, but whatever.

Anyway, on to what makes particular posts interesting…

Uncle and Existing Thing (via Uncle) linked to my TSA post. I was thinking Uncle would link to it when I made it. He links to almost anything of mine that is a little out of the ordinary (honest, I have only made him one offer for a free position at Boomershoot–which he hasn’t acted upon. I don’t think that constitutes bribery). Thinking about what makes a post interesting I made the connection to the recent career advice from Scott Adams (via Kim). I have expertise in more than one field and combining that expertise with a somewhat rare political viewpoint (pro-freedom) increases my “value”. In this case it was my expertise in explosives and (computer) security.

I keep wondering if there is a way to combine all my hobbies in an interesting way. But at least for me guns, explosives, and sex just don’t mix.

What TSA really stands for

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It is late at night and I got a little agitated reading some of the comments at Schneier’s blog post about airplane security. When I’m tired my inhibtions drop and I write things I might not normally. Here’s a duplicate of the rant I left in Schneier’s comments:

Regarding dust explosions…

This is about 8 ounces of flour over an ounce of black powder (the original gun powder): https://www.joehuffman.org/FlashTek/06-FFFFgFlour.mpeg

That is in open air. In an enclosed room of an abandoned house a similar test brought the house down. Sorry, that wasn’t my test and I don’t have any video for it.

Shaped charges made from match heads? I don’t think so. The “detonation” velocity is just too slow. It’s more properly called deflagration than detonation for that type of “explosive”. Shaped charges require MUCH faster propagation rates.

Binary explosives are available here: http://www.tannerite.com/ No background check, no license required, delivered to your door via UPS. Now THAT is something you can make a crude shaped charge with.

The “projectile” (typically a slug of molten copper) from a shaped charge is moving at 6 to 10 kilometers per second. At the pressures generated when it hits a “target” everything is “plastic”. Hardened steel develops a hole just like a high velocity stream from your garden hose nozzle punches a hole in a dirt bank. Penetration for a properly configured 10 (ten) gram shaped charges is about 2 inches of steel. Yes–a shaped charge using less than one half ounce of explosives will penetrate two inches of steel. See Explosives Engineering by Paul W. Cooper, ISBN 0-471-18636-8 page 442. Or do you think the doors to the cockpit are more resistant than two inches of steel?

Do you think someone could not get a half ounce of explosives through TSA security? You could probably successfully hide that in your mouth or arm pit if you didn’t want to use some other body cavity.

Oh, and you know why the explosives detectors work fairly well with plastic explosives? It’s, by international agreement (Montreal, March 1, 1991, Article XIII of the Convention on the Marking of Plastic Explosives — http://www.atf.gov/explarson/fedexplolaw/subpartj.pdf ), that all plastic explosives be “marked” by their manufacture with a chemical that is easily detected. Do you think Iran and others are going to abide by that International Convention if they want to provide some terrorists plastic explosives?

We really should spend the $2 billion/year, or whatever it is, on finding and stopping the bad guys before they arrive at the airport/train-station/shopping-mall/etc. than on pointless screening. The bottom line is that the acronym TSA should be reversed–it really stands for “A Security Theater”.

Quote of the day–Will Rogers

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It’s a good thing we don’t get all the government we pay for.

Will Rogers

Quote of the day–Kip Hawley

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Screening ideas are indeed thought up by the Office for Annoying Air Travelers and vetted through the Directorate for Confusion and Complexity, and then we review them to insure that there are sufficient unintended irritating consequences so that the blogosphere is constantly fueled.

Kip Hawley
Head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
April/May of 2007 via an email interview with Bruce Schneier
[Yes, he said that. It was sarcasm. Not that I don’t think there was a certain amount of truth in it as well. Reading the rest of the interview (part of one of five is all that is out) was interesting. As you might expect Schneier is asking the right questions but, at least so far, Hawley is avoiding some of the questions and Schneier isn’t following up as well as I think he should. For example, Hawley gives a feels good answer to claims of 90% failure on weapons detection. But I don’t think there have been any changes that can defeat certain, extremely simple, scenarios.

You are requested to lay your carry-on luggage “flat” on the belt for a reason. That reason is the X-Ray image is produced in the vertical direction. Laying the luggage flat gives the screener the least clutter in the image. It also means that you can present the screener with the most favorable profile of your weapon. Imagine what the profile of a knife looks like on edge and what acceptable carry-on items might look similar or camouflage the knife on edge. It is my contention that short of hand searching or complete emptying of luggage at the check points it will be trivial to get knives past security in your carry-on luggage. Firearms are only slightly more difficult. There may be some things they can do to detect ammunition via nuclear methods but I suspect even that can be defeated if you know what you are doing. It is my contention we would all be much better off if we explored different methods of security.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Plato

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Access to power must be confined to those who are not in love with it.

Plato
[This concept, more fully expressed in the U.S. Constitution, has been around for a very long time. It’s sad this fundamental truth is ignored by the majority of people.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Alan Korwin

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Popularity isn’t the basis for war. The struggle for human freedom is. War is ugly by design, and instigated by tyrants, oppressors, fascists, religious fanatics bent on world domination, and other enemies of freedom.

Alan Korwin
April 2, 2007
Genocidal Peace Supporters

Airport security–including FOUO material

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Someone released a For Official Use Only (FOUO) document from the TSA and MSNBC posted it online. The basics are:

A surge in recent suspicious incidents at U.S. airports may indicate terrorists are conducting pre-attack security probes and “dry runs” similar to dress rehearsals. Past terrorist attacks and plots show that such testing generally indicates attacks will soon follow, according to a joint FBI and Homeland Security assessment.

It’s mildly interesting in that it seems to confirm people are probing our airport security system. My view is that airport security as it’s currently implemented is a lost cause (see also this posting from David Mackett, the president of the Airline Pilots Security Alliance). Those resources would be far better spent on finding the bad guys before they ever arrive at the airport and implementing something else for on board security.

Update: Via Bruce–at least one of the reports was bogus:

The TSA bulletin said the ice packs were covered in duct tape and had clay inside of them.

Sanfilippo said they weren’t covered in duct tape and didn’t have clay inside of them. “It is a little bit off,” he said of the bulletin.

The chief said a Harbor Police officer found what appeared to be hardened old gel that had seeped out of the ice packs and dried, leaving a clay-like substance around the outside edge of the pack.

I wonder if it was incompetence or if the TSA was trying to justify their existence. Both are plausible.

Quote of the day–Daniel J. Solove

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The “nothing to hide” argument speaks to some problems, but not to others. It represents a singular and narrow way of conceiving of privacy, and it wins by excluding consideration of the other problems often raised in government surveillance and data mining programs. When engaged with directly, the “nothing to hide” argument can ensnare, for it forces the debate to focus on its narrow understanding of privacy. But when confronted with the plurality of privacy problems implicated by government data collection and use beyond surveillance and disclosure, the “nothing to hide” argument, in the end, has nothing to say.

Daniel J. Solove
“I’VE GOT NOTHING TO HIDE” AND OTHER MISUNDERSTANDINGS OF PRIVACY
George Washington University Law School
[A rather “dry” intellectual essay. Some of the better points are that government survelance changes the power balance between the individual and the politically powerful and data can be used for purposes beyond what it was orginally intended for. For example (my example, not the authors) 4473’s are intended to enable finding the user of a gun associated with a crime but can also be used to confisicate firearms from everyone. But if you want a snappy answer for someone who claims they don’t have anything to hide tell them to drop all their clothes, you want a picture. Then you want to know all their sex partners and from this point forward you want a live video feed of all their sexual encounters.–Joe]