Wastholm.com

US President Barack Obama gets precious few opportunities to announce a victory. So it's no wonder he chose grand words on Sunday night as the TV crews' spotlights shone upon him and he informed the nation about the deadly strike against Osama bin Laden. "Justice has been done," he said.

It may be that this sentence comes back to haunt him in the years to come. What is just about killing a feared terrorist in his home in the middle of Pakistan? For the families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks, and for patriotic Americans who saw their grand nation challenged by a band of criminals, the answer might be simple. But international law experts, who have been grappling with the question of the legal status of the US-led war on terror for years, find Obama's pithy words on Sunday night more problematic.

A passenger managed to waltz past JFK's ramped-up security gantlet with three boxcutters in his carry-on luggage -- easily boarding an international flight while carrying the weapon of choice of the 9/11 hijackers, sources told The Post yesterday.

The stunning breach grounded the flight for three hours Saturday night and drew fury from Port Authority cops, who accused the Transportation Security Administration of being asleep on the job.

...

The TSA spokeswoman Davis insisted that the traveling public was not at risk.

"There have been a number of additional security layers that have been implemented on aircraft that would prevent someone from causing harm with boxcutters," she insisted.

Presumably, he didn't bring any toothpaste on board, so there was never any real danger.

FOR the first time since World War II, Japan is establishing a secret foreign intelligence service to spy on China and North Korea and gather information to prevent terrorist attacks.

The spy unit has been created under the wing of Japan's peak intelligence agency, the Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office, or Naicho. It is modelled on Western intelligence services such as the CIA, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service and Britain's MI6.

The existence of the new Japanese espionage capability is revealed in a leaked US diplomatic cable obtained by WikiLeaks and provided exclusively to the Herald.

The Department of Homeland Stupidity is hard at work as usual:

In addition, no high risk cargo will be allowed on passenger aircraft. Toner and ink cartridges over 16 ounces will be prohibited on passenger aircraft in both carry-on bags and checked bags on domestic and international flights in-bound to the United States.

(Emphasis mine.)

I can’t wait to see what “high risk cargo” they will ban next. Didn’t that guy a while back have explosives hidden in his underwear? Maybe they should ban underwear.

I found this via an NYT interview with security expert Bruce Schneier, in which he says:

It’s not that the terrorist picks an attack and we pick a defense, and we see who wins. It’s that we pick a defense, and then the terrorists look at our defense and pick an attack designed to get around it. Our security measures only work if we happen to guess the plot correctly. If we get it wrong, we’ve wasted our money. This isn’t security; it’s security theater.

Word.

"Israelis, unlike Canadians and Americans, don't take s--- from anybody. When the security agency in Israel (the ISA) started to tighten security and we had to wait in line for — not for hours — but 30 or 40 minutes, all hell broke loose here. We said, 'We're not going to do this. You're going to find a way that will take care of security without touching the efficiency of the airport."

That, in a nutshell is "Israelification" - a system that protects life and limb without annoying you to death.

The chairman of British Airways [Martin Broughton] has launched an attack on "completely redundant" airport checks and said the UK should stop "kowtowing" to US demands for increased security.

...

Mr Broughton said no one wanted weak security, but he added: "We all know there's quite a number of elements in the security programme which are completely redundant and they should be sorted out."

IS CYBERWARFARE (a) one of the biggest threats of the 21st century or (b) an elaborate hoax designed to extract money from gullible governments? Stuxnet, the computer worm running rampant in Iran's nuclear facilities, tells us the answer. An analysis

of the worm by computer security company Symantec makes it abundantly clear that a few lines of malicious computer code can trip electricity grids, burn out power-station generators, pollute water supplies and sabotage gas pipelines. That cyberattacks can become real-world attacks is no longer a matter of conjecture.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Tuesday it's too early to say when aviation officials can lift a ban on liquids on board flights despite international officials saying it could come as early as 2012.

Still good news though. I hadn't heard they were even considering ending this "if you bring toothpaste on a plane, you're helping the terrorists!!!1!" nonsense.

Members of a European Parliament subcommittee dealt a blow to US-EU relations by voting to reject a proposed bank data sharing deal between the US and Europe in a preliminary vote on Thursday.

The agreement allows the US to access information gathered by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) about bank transfers within Europe. SWIFT manages global transactions between thousands of financial institutions in over 200 countries.

Members of the parliament's civil liberties committee voted by 29 votes to 23 to reject the SWIFT deal, arguing that the deal fails to protect the privacy of EU citizens.

US authorities say access to bank details is vital to counterterrorism efforts, but many in Europe object to the widespread invasion of privacy.

It is now compulsory for people selected for a scan to take part, or they will not be allowed to fly.

The new security rules have been introduced following the attempt to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day.

There have been concerns the scanners breach passengers' rights to privacy.

Transport Secretary Lord Adonis said in the immediate future only a small proportion of airline passengers would be selected for scanning.

In a written statement to the House of Commons, he said: "If a passenger is selected for scanning, and declines, they will not be permitted to fly."

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