Archive for July, 2008
Thursday, July 31st, 2008
Look Who Got Out of Gitmo
Former detainee Abdullah Saleh Al-Ajmi wrote poetry while at Guantanamo Bay, making puns out of American legal terms like 'Miranda' while he was held there.
The Kuwaiti national was released in 2005.
In 2006, Al-Ajami's poems were read in a "Guantanamo teach-in" sponsored by Seton Hall Law School. Many U.S. attorneys and civil rights activists […]
No Comments » - Posted in The Al-Qaeda Threat by Annie Jacobsen
Monday, July 28th, 2008
Is FBI’s Aafia Siddiqui, Prisoner 650 at Bagram?
According to this article, several former prisoners at the US detention center at Bagram, Afghanistan say Aafia Siddiqui is being held there. Siddiqui is the first and only female sought by the FBI for questioning about Al Qaeda. The FBI considers her "armed and dangerous."
The Pakistani national graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) […]
No Comments » - Posted in Behind the Scenes by Annie Jacobsen
Saturday, July 26th, 2008
Homeland Security Meets the Mob
I have a piece over at Pajamas Media called Homeland Security Meets The Sopranos: The Transportation Security Administration seems to have taken a page from the mob.
“Revenge is a delicacy best served cold,” the mafia saying goes. Recent events involving the Department of Homeland Security — a CNN reporter watch-listed and a former federal […]
No Comments » - Posted in Federal Air Marshals, U.S. Homeland Security by Annie Jacobsen
Thursday, July 24th, 2008
71-Year Old Amputee Bullied By TSA
A 71-year old amputee named Robert Perry, en route to Florida to celebrate his 50th wedding anniversary, gets his pants pulled down by a power hungry TSO. Do we really pay this agency $5+/- billion dollars a year to behave like this? It's time to read Erich Fromm.
"I have power, I have power, I […]
No Comments » - Posted in Airport Security & Screening by Annie Jacobsen
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008
CNN on TSA’s Witch Hunt
Here's an interesting still frame from CNN's news story of last week: TSA Launches Witch Hunt Against Federal Air Marshal Whistleblowers.
This is the air marshal, in shadow, who authored an email encouraging fellow air marshals to talk to CNN about widespread agency corruption.
Embarrassed, the TSA is now spending an unspecified amount of taxpayer […]
No Comments » - Posted in Federal Air Marshals by Annie Jacobsen
Thursday, July 17th, 2008
Bomb Dectector Bought by USG was a $32 Million Scam
Sniffix: the $6,000 per-unit bomb detection device that turns out to work on "the same principles as a Ouija board." You have to admit, even the name sounds suspicious.
Michael Grabell reports for ProPublic.com.
According to the company, Sniffex could detect explosives up to a football field away by reading the "interference between the magnetic […]
No Comments » - Posted in U.S. Homeland Security by Annie Jacobsen
Thursday, July 17th, 2008
You-Tuber of Note: The Aviation Intelligencer
Bookmark this one. The Aviation Intelligencer posts news clips under this moniker:
"A video is worth a thousand TSA lies and denials."
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No Comments » - Posted in Airport Security & Screening by Annie Jacobsen
Thursday, July 17th, 2008
Burlingame on 9/11 Flight Crew Memorial
Debra Burlingame writes about the recently dedicated 9/11 flight crew memorial — what it looks like and what it means — with elegant clarity.
It makes perfect sense that this memorial would not be an abstract work of art with its subject matter intentionally obscured, if not impossible to discern. Instead, it is a classical figurative […]