Category Archives: Security
Three Weeks Wasted for Every Year of Work in LA
The Courage Campaign has posted an interesting chart of productive time wasted due to traffic congestion in Los Angeles:
They contend that for every year of work a person does in the office, three weeks worth of time is wasted in a car.
Availability also must be a worry, especially in cases of regional disasters, as congestion can only get worse when everyone has to act at the same time (in response) rather than with the intent to keep their own schedule.
CIA launches a ‘Spy-book’
The BBC reports that the FT reports that the CIA is launching a site modeled after social networking sites:
A-Space, due to launch in December, will feature web-based email and software recommending issues of interest to the user said Mike Wertheimer, a senior official at the Department for National Intelligence (DNI).
He told the FT that the new infrastructures would help break down some of the physical communications problems in the intelligence community.
“I am unable to send email, and even make secure phone calls, to a good portion of the community from my desktop because of firewalls,” he said.
Firewalls blocking email and phone calls at the CIA? Somehow I doubt it.
Imagine what Cheney and Scooter could do to their political foes with this kind of database.
Mr Wertheimer added that while it had looked for collaboration from overseas, foreign intelligence agencies had been “the folks most virulently against” sharing information through an “intelligence library”.
I suspect they were opposed to having the US dictate the terms of the libarary and sharing, rather than opposed to the idea of sharing information. It is the habit of conservative US politicians to try and strong-arm allies in one-sided deals and then bash them for being “uncooperative”.
The Story of an Abu Ghraib Witness
The BBC provides some sad commentary on how Donald Rumsfeld undermined American soldiers who tried to protect their country:
When the accused soldiers were finally removed from the base, [Joe Darby] thought his troubles were over.
And then he was sitting in a crowded Iraqi canteen with hundreds of soldiers and Donald Rumsfeld came on the television to thank Joe Darby by name for handing in the photographs.
“I don’t think it was an accident because those things are pretty much scripted,” Mr Darby says.
“But I did receive a letter from him which said he had no malicious intent, he was only doing it to praise me and he had no idea about my anonymity.
“I really find it hard to believe that the secretary of defence of the United States has no idea about the star witness for a criminal case being anonymous.”
Rather than turn on him for betraying colleagues, most of the soldiers in his unit shook his hand. It was at home where the real trouble started.
Even if Rumsfeld was told by his staff that there was no anonymity necessary, one would think that he could have cared enough to confirm or figure it out himself for a high profile and sensitive operation. The bottom line is he was entirely removed from the welfare of the Americans serving under him. And that makes for VERY ineffective security management.