Even if terrorists were able to pull off one attack per year on the scale of the 9/11 atrocity, that would mean your one-year risk would be one in 100,000 and your lifetime risk would be about one in 1300. (300,000,000 ÷ 3,000 = 100,000 ÷ 78 years = 1282) In other words, your risk of dying in a plausible terrorist attack is much lower than your risk of dying in a car accident, by walking across the street, by drowning, in a fire, by falling, or by being murdered.

So do these numbers comfort you? If not, that's a problem. Already, security measures—pervasive ID checkpoints, metal detectors, and phalanxes of security guards—increasingly clot the pathways of our public lives. It's easy to overreact when an atrocity takes place—to heed those who promise safety if only we will give the authorities the "tools" they want by surrendering to them some of our liberty.

Kameror som gör det möjligt för flygsäkerhetspersonal att se igenom passagerarnas kläder ska införas även på storflygplatserna i Rom och Milano.

...

I USA används tekniken bland annat på ett 20-tal flygplatser.

The program would collect the name, gender and birth date of the approximately five million Canadians who fly through American airspace en route to destinations such as the Caribbean, Mexico and South America, even if their planes don't touch the ground in the States.

...

The council said this would force Canadian airlines to breach either Secure Flight or the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, a federal privacy law that applies to Canadian companies.

The move of SWIFT the data server to Switzerland would be an excellent opportunity to stop the nearly unlimited access of US authorities on EU bank transactions. But EU justice and interior minister are apparently keen agree a deal as soon as possible, on 30 November. Why 30 November? Because one day later, on 1 December 2009, the EU’s Lisbon Treaty will be in force and would allow the European Parliament to play a major role in the negotiations of the deal with the USA. A deal one day before will be a slap in the face of democracy in the EU.

A proposal by the Homeland Security Advisory Council, unveiled late Tuesday, recommends removing two of the five colors, with a standard state of affairs being a “guarded” Yellow. The Green “low risk of terrorist attacks” might get removed altogether, meaning stay prepared for your morning subway commute to turn deadly at any moment.

...

The new system, if approved by the agency, would consist solely of Yellow, Orange and Red.

The internet agency Kavkaz Centre provides reporting of events in the Islamic world, the Caucasus, and Russia. One of Kavkaz Centre's chief objectives is to report events in the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria connected to the Russian military aggression against the CRI. Besides we also provide international news agencies with news-letters, background information and assistance in making independent journalistic work in Caucasus.

Here’s a real copy of an American citizen’s DHS Travel Record retrieved from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol’s Automated Targeting System (ATS). This was obtained through a FOIA/Privacy Act request and sent in by an anonymous reader (thanks!)

The document reveals that the DHS is storing the reader’s:

* Credit card number and expiration (really) * IP address used to make web travel reservations * Hotel information and itinerary * Full Name, birth date and passport number * Full airline itinerary, including flight numbers and seat numbers * Cruise ship itinerary * Phone numbers, incl. business, home & cell * Every frequent flyer and hotel number associated with the subject, even ones not used for the specific reservation

Computerised records of all 250 million journeys made by individuals in and out of the UK each year will be kept for up to 10 years. The government says the database is essential in the fight against crime, illegal immigration and terrorism.

Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people’s personal computers without a warrant.

The Hacker's Choice, a non-commercial group of computer security experts, has released a video showing a cloned passport being approved by a security scanner at a Dutch airport. When the reader scans the passport it is revealed to belong to one Elvis Aaron Presley, complete with picture.