Month: April 2006

British Muslim admiral. Congratulations to Rear Admiral Amjad Hussain, Royal Navy, the UK’s first Muslim admiral:

The Royal Navy has appointed its first Muslim Rear Admiral, Pakistan-born Amjad Hussain, a British newspaper said Friday, April 14.

“I count myself very lucky to live in a country where the opportunities have been beyond my imagination,” Hussain told The Sun.

Rear Admiral is the fourth-highest rank in the Royal Navy, equivalent to a major-general in the Army or an Air Vice-Marshal in the Royal Air Force.

Hussain, who has become the highest-ranking ethnic officer among the 200,000 personnel of the British armed forces, said in the Navy one’s work is what really matters. [Al-Muhajabah’s Islamic Blogs]

Just the idea that one’s work is what matters shows how much the Royal Navy has changed. It wasn’t that long ago that it was one’s place in the aristocracy that mattered, and work was at best a bonus.

Probing PayPal’s Patrons. As Tax Day comes closer, so do the snoops: A federal court has granted the Internal Revenue Service permission to… [Hit and Run]

What a shock, the government has given itself permission to ignore the Fourth Amendment again.

AT&T Assisting NSA Surveillance. Interesting details emerging from EFF’s lawsuit:

bq. According to a statement released by Klein’s attorney, an NSA agent showed up at the San Francisco switching center in 2002 to interview a management-level technician for a special job. In January 2003, Klein observed a new room being built adjacent to the room housing AT&T’s #4ESS switching equipment, which is responsible for routing long distance and international calls.

“I learned that the person whom the NSA interviewed for the secret job was the person working to install equipment in this room,” Klein wrote. “The regular technician work force was not allowed in the room.”

Klein’s job eventually included connecting internet circuits to a splitting cabinet that led to the secret room. During the course of that work, he learned from a co-worker that similar cabinets were being installed in other cities, including Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego.

“While doing my job, I learned that fiber optic cables from the secret room were tapping into the Worldnet (AT&T’s internet service) circuits by splitting off a portion of the light signal,” Klein wrote.

The split circuits included traffic from peering links connecting to other internet backbone providers, meaning that AT&T was also diverting traffic routed from its network to or from other domestic and international providers, according to Klein’s statement.

The secret room also included data-mining equipment called a Narus STA 6400, “known to be used particularly by government intelligence agencies because of its ability to sift through large amounts of data looking for preprogrammed targets,” according to Klein’s statement.

Narus, whose website touts AT&T as a client, sells software to help internet service providers and telecoms monitor and manage their networks, look for intrusions, and wiretap phone calls as mandated by federal law.

More about what the Narus box can do. [Schneier on Security]

Unsurprisingly, the people who were so worried about the possibility that the Chinese government might spy on Americans aren’t interested in this. However, the American government is a far greater threat to Americans than the Chinese government.

Gotta Ditch the Fanny Pack, Dude. Portable gadgets are tons of fun, but hauling all those gizmos poses a style and comfort conundrum. Luckily, some contraptions let real men tote their gear without jeopardizing their masculinity. Commentary by Lore Sj

No-Buy List. You’ve all heard of the “No Fly List.” Did you know that there’s a “No-Buy List” as well?

bq. The so-called “Bad Guy List” is hardly a secret. The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control maintains its “Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List” to be easily accessible on its public Web site.

Wanna see it? Sure you do. Just key OFAC into your Web browser, and you’ll find the 224-page document of the names of individuals, organizations, corporations and Web sites the feds suspect of terrorist or criminal activities and associations.

You might think Osama bin Laden should be at the top of The List, but it’s alphabetized, so Public Enemy No. 1 is on Page 59 with a string of akas and spelling derivations filling most of the first column. If you’re the brother, daughter, son or sister-in-law of Yugoslavian ex-president Slobodan Milosevic (who died in custody recently), you’re named, too, so probably forget about picking up that lovely new Humvee on this side of the Atlantic. Same for Charles “Chuckie” Taylor, son of the recently arrested former president of Liberia (along with the deposed prez’s wife and ex-wife).

The Bad Guy List’s relevance to the average American consumer? What’s not widely known about it is that by federal law, sellers are supposed to check it even in the most common and mundane marketplace transactions.

“The OFAC requirements apply to all U.S. citizens. The law prohibits anyone, not just car dealers, from doing business with anyone whose name appears on the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s Specially Designated Nationals list,” says Thomas B. Hudson, senior partner at Hudson Cook LLP, a law firm in Hanover, Md., and publisher of Carlaw and Spot Delivery, legal-compliance newsletters and services for car dealers and finance companies.

Hudson says that, according to the law, supermarkets, restaurants, pawnbrokers, real estate agents, everyone, even The Washington Post, is prohibited from doing business with anyone named on the list. “There is no minimum amount for the transactions covered by the OFAC requirement, so everyone The Post sells a paper to or a want ad to whose name appears on the SDN list is a violation,” says Hudson, whose new book, “Carlaw — A Southern Attorney Delivers Humorous Practical Legal Advice on Car Sales and Financing,” comes out this month. “The law applies to you personally, as well.”

But The Bad Guy List law (which predates the controversial Patriot Act) not only is “perfectly ridiculous,” it’s impractical, says Hudson. “I understand that 95 percent of the people whose names are on the list are not even in the United States. And if you were a bad guy planning bad acts, and you knew that your name was on a publicly available list that people were required to check in order to avoid violating the law, how dumb would you have to be to use your own name?”

Compliance is also a big problem. Think eBay sellers are checking the list for auction winners? Or that the supermarket checkout person is thanking you by name while scanning a copy of The List under the counter? Not likely. [Schneier on Security]

Not mentioned in the referenced article or the comments on the post is the fact that the law is unconstitutional.

Dysfunctional Global Rules Sets. The Washington Post (US Is Studying Military Strike Options on Iran, April 9 2006) adds to articles by Sy Hersh and James Fallows that an attack on Iran is in process. Iran is going to be the end point for… [John Robb’s Weblog]

John Robb makes a case for why a US attack on Iran would actually be a good thing (although I suspect he doesn’t see it that way).

IRAN!. If anybody thinks I paint a scary picture, you should read Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker this week. The most depressing story I have read all year…. [John Robb’s Weblog]

It’s amazing that a bunch of people are talking about launching an unprovoked nuclear attack on another country, yet it’s the intended victims who are described as nutcases.

Don’t sign access contracts [PhotoJournalism]

Mark Hancock, a photojournalist in Texas, has a good article on dealing with the access contracts so popular with musicians’ management.

Charity: It’s a crime. Donald Devine exposes how the federal government discourages doctors from providing charity care. If a doctor bills a patient less than the doctor would bill Medicare/Medicaid for the same treatment, the government will accuse the doctor of fraud. Thus,… By Norman Singleton. [LewRockwell.com Blog]

This isn’t surprising. After all, a patient who receives charity care is a patient who isn’t dependent on the government for care.

Protecting the Little Guy. An NBC News consumer reporter busts two tax preparers who helped a part-time waitress who earned $11,000 last year get… [Hit and Run]

Something to keep in mind when evaluating the honesty of NBC News reporting on the government.