Any and All Disruptive In-Flight Behavior Now "Terrorism"

America is now reaping what the Patriot Act hath sown: much behavior that flight attendants consider disruptive, whether it be a loud argument, throwing food, or spanking a child, is now considered 'terrorism' under the law. This is what happens when you let power-hungry neocons paint the law with overly broad strokes: some guy gets thrown in with all the other Al-Qaeda suspects because he had one too many martinis on a plane.

LA Times
Bruce Schneier

FBI Looking for Terrorists contributes to pervasive Financial Fraud

Turns out that all of these Ponzi schemes and otherwise financial fraud might not be as prevalent if the FBI allocated as many resources as in the past to stopping these crimes. Unfortunately, the Bush administration's emphasis on terrorism put more FBI officers chasing bad guys that may or may not exist and less on things that are now putting people on the streets. Another endearing chapter in the Bush administration legacy.

File a FIOA request, get some of DHS's profile of you

A Newsweek reporter filed a FOIA request to obtain what the government, DHS specifically, was tracking about him (as any citizen is entitled to do). Here is the report and discussion on Slashdot. Nothing really surprising, but it is worth noting.

US Using Viagra in Afghanistan to win over Warlords

The CIA and US military are using Viagra as a bribe to win over Afghani warlords. This is sick for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that taxpayer money is being used to perpetuate traditional Afghani cultures of polygamy, forced marriage and child rape. Awesome. Also see another Turley post on the subject of the plight of Afghani women.

Man About to Reveal All about Bush Administration Dies

'Michael Connell, the Bush IT expert who has been directly implicated in the rigging of George Bush's 2000 and 2004 elections, was killed last night when his single engine plane crashed three miles short of the Akron airport.'

from here

Well, what an unbelievable coincidence! Someone who was being threatened by Karl Rove, et al gets killed right before he divulges any incriminating information on them. Something here stinks of elephant. Kind of reminds me of Bruce Ivens.

Rumsfeld linked to Torture by Senate Armed Services Committee

And, not surprisingly, the mainstream media did not care and no meaningful action to ensure discontinuation of these practices and policies is going to be taken. A microcosm of the last eight years, indeed.

Coverage:
Greenwald
Reuters

Another NSA Data-Mining Site Being Built

Seems that the Virgina site was just getting way too crowded with all of our phone and email records, so the NSA is building a new data-mining operation in Texas. As luck would have it, this facility is right next to Microsoft's immense data center there, and the NSA wanted assurance that Microsoft's data would be in the area before choosing to move in next door. As if crappy products weren't enough of a reason to not use Microsoft stuff.