Live from Austin!

A US court has ruled that authorities cannot force people to incriminate themselves by divulging their encryption passwords.

This is in marked contrast to the UK, where the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) makes it a crime to decline to hand over all your incriminating files if the police demand it. If the case doesn’t involve national security, you can be put in jail for two years. If it does, five years.

Of course, the authorities would only use that power if absolutely necessary to fight terrorism, right? Well, the first person to fall afoul of section III of RIPA was an animal rights protester. She claims she didn’t have any encrypted files.

Got any old encrypted e-mails for which you no longer have the key? The RIPA has no limit, they can demand keys for files years old. Lost or forgotten the key? Someone sent you something encrypted with the wrong key? Off to jail you go.

From CQ Politics:

Like Hansel and Gretel hoping to follow their bread crumbs out of the forest, the FBI sifted through customer data collected by San Francisco-area grocery stores in 2005 and 2006, hoping that sales records of Middle Eastern food would lead to Iranian terrorists.

The idea was that a spike in, say, falafel sales, combined with other data, would lead to Iranian secret agents in the south San Francisco-San Jose area.

OK, I confess: I have purchased and eaten falafels on several occasions. I’ll come quietly.

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The Boston PD was doing the job the people of Boston hired them to do: Protecting the innocent. They knew that if those Mooninite Terrorists linked up, Boston would be a pile of ashes. You cannot escape the Quad Laser. Jumping is useless.”

—Dirkus Maximus

It’s also worth noting that someone actually made and planted fake pipe bombs in Boston in the last few days, but he wasn’t arrested.

The police and government in Boston are just looking dumber by the minute.

Apparently speaking a foreign language in an airport is now deemed suspicious, and grounds for questioning you and making you miss your plane.

Today’s news:

An authoritative US intelligence report pooling the views of 16 government agencies concludes America’s campaign in Iraq has increased the threat of terrorism.

[...]

The report, Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States, points out the “centrality” of the US invasion of Iraq in fomenting terrorist cells and attacks. One section of the 30-page report, Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement, describes how the American presence in Iraq has helped spread radical Islam by providing a focal point for anti-Americanism.

While arguing that there has been success in dismantling the leadership of al-Qaida and its ability to plan major operations, the report says that radical cells have moved to more than 5,000 websites to organise and spread their message.

—Guardian

Update: I note with interest that the State Department has quietly resumed publishing statistics on US civilians killed by terrorism, so I’ve updated my RedvsBlue postcard from 2004.

When I wrote “alleged foiling of a terrorist plot”, I did wonder if I was being too cynical. Apparently not:

A senior British official knowledgeable about the case said British police were planning to continue to run surveillance for at least another week to try to obtain more evidence, while American officials pressured them to arrest the suspects sooner. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.

In contrast to previous reports, the official suggested an attack was not imminent, saying the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some did not even have passports.

So, nobody was about to get on a plane after all, with or without explosive hair gel or deadly iPods. They hadn’t even carried out their first dry run.

And the fact that police felt they needed more evidence suggests to me that it will eventually emerge that there was very little evidence at all.

As a result of the latest alleged foiling of a terrorist plot, new restrictions have been placed on airline travelers flying between the UK and US. Specifically:

• No laptops.
• No PDAs.
• No iPods or other electronic audio or video players.
• No books.
• No cameras.
• No beverages or other liquids.

As someone used to flying, I don’t set foot on a plane without at least a book, an audio player to drown out the screaming children, and a large bottle of water. Now, they say everything on the above list must be checked in to the hold.

An 8 hour flight, plus 2+ hours at the airport, with no music, no video games, not even a paperback book? Check my SLR and laptop in, so the baggage throwers can destroy them or steal them, like they stole my iPod charger and camera charger? Are they insane?

Yet according to the BBC, they’re thinking about whether to make these restrictions permanent. If they do, I think the airline industry is finished. I can’t imagine voluntarily flying anywhere with those restrictions in place.

I’ve had some pretty hellish flights. Like being trapped for 4 hours on a motionless plane stuck on the runway with no air conditioning. Like flying across the Atlantic, with the ‘flu, on a plane full of cheerleaders. (Really.) Try to make me go through something like that with no books and no music and I’d be a wreck.

Two people are walking through a metal detector on the London Underground. One comments to the other that it’s “a piece of shit that wouldn’t stop anyone”.

Result: they are stopped by police, searched, and charged with an offense under Section 5 of the Public Order Act, which prohibits “Using threatening words or behaviour likely to cause alarm, harassment or distress”.

In other words: pointing out stupid ineffective security might distress the sheep, so pass a law and fine anyone who does it.

Meanwhile, last month Mark Thomas took part in a repeat of a previous demonstration, where people turned up wearing T-shirts in support of the PKK.

Since the 2000 Terrorism Act, UK law has classed as terrorism anything which “involves serious damage to property” or “is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system”, so long as it’s done with the intent of influencing government. That makes for an awful lot of terrorists; and the kicker is section 13:

A person in a public place commits an offence if he-

(a) wears an item of clothing, or

(b) wears, carries or displays an article,

in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that he is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation.

So if your T-shirt causes “reasonable suspicion” that you support an organization that has caused damage to property with the intent of influencing government behavior—like, say, Greenpeace—you can be fined, put in prison for 6 months, or both.

There’s more. Under section 19, if you become convinced that someone else has committed such an offense “in the course of a trade, profession, business or employment”, then you are committing a crime unless you tell the police about the suspect “as soon as is reasonably practicable”.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is trying to ban the sale of various chemicals to people who don’t have an explosives manufacturing license from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF).

Fair enough, you might think—unless you know enough chemistry to recognize some of the substances on the list.

Aluminium powder, for example. Am I wrong to think that a terrorist will be smart enough to work out that given the softness of aluminium, you can use a bar of aluminium metal and a grinding wheel?

Sodium benzoate requiring an explosives license might be a bit of a problem for the food industry, where it’s used as a preservative.

And best of all, they want to make salicylate compounds outright illegal. That would presumably include acetyl salicylic acid, better known as aspirin.

Of course, I’m assuming you can’t cook up explosives using a box of aspirin, a bottle of sparking wine and a ground up aluminium ruler. If I’m wrong, I’m sure I’ll be corrected.

Here’s a brief run-down of the lowlights from the “REAL ID Act” passed by the House yesterday.

• Overstaying a visa becomes grounds to deny a driver’s license. There are many, many people who are now legal immigrants who have at some stage overstayed a visa period. Overstayed a student visa by a few days back when you were a student? No license for you!

  Plus, do you want all those illegal immigrants driving around with no license, no insurance, and without having passed a driving test? The government thinks you do and that it will improve your personal security…

• The act reduces the allowed list of reasons to be granted asylum, so the petitioner now has to prove that their claim arises from persecution due to race, nationality, religion, or political group membership. Merely having your life at risk will no longer be sufficient. There will also need to be corroborating evidence; even if the state knows full well that the petitioner was tortured, they’ll be able to demand proof.

• The act amends the law to allow the US to deport victims of terrorism. For example, Colombian refugees who were forced to make “protection money” payments to FARC death squads would now be liable for deportation for financial ties to a terrorist organization, without the government actually needing to present any evidence that the payments supported terrorism. The mere fact of monetary ties to FARC, whatever the circumstances, would be enough—and it’s believed that the majority of Colombian refugees have had money extorted from them by FARC.

  Also, the government can refuse entry if they think you might be likely to engage in terrorist activity in the future. They don’t need actual evidence that you’ve ever committed any crime.

• If a person is barred under the act, their spouse and children are also barred, even if they had nothing to do with the alleged activities.

• Homeland Security can override any law short of the Constitution if it’s to enable them to build barriers or roads. If it’s cost-efficient to build a new road across your back yard, using toxic waste carried there by 12 year old kids working 18 hour days, the government can now contract Halliburton to build it that way. Oh, and there’s no judicial oversight allowed; “no court shall have jurisdiction”.

• Oh, and everyone who’s an official of the PLO is now banned from the USA, including the UN building in New York. That’ll help the peace process.