Tag: oppression

King County, Washington, requires life vests for swimmers

12:25 pm

Big Brother rules! King County, Washington, has voted to require life vests for swimmers.

[The law] applies to people intertubing, rafting, using a surfboard, canoe or kayak. Swimmers or people wading more than 5 feet from shore or in water more than 4 feet deep would also have to wear life vests. The new ordinance does not apply to people at designated public beaches or for people who are skin diving.

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Theft by TSA employees of passenger valuables a nationwide problem

5:31 pm

Doesn’t this make you feel safer? Theft by TSA employees of passenger valuables has become a nationwide problem.

According to TSA records, press reports, and court documents . . . some 500 TSA officers . . . have been fired or suspended for stealing from passenger luggage since the agency’s creation in November of 2001. The airports servicing New York City—John F. Kennedy, LaGuardia, and Newark Liberty—harbor the most flagrant offenders, but virtually no city in the nation is safe from the TSA’s sticky fingers.

In 2009, a half dozen TSA agents at Miami International Airport were charged with grand theft after boosting an iPod, bottles of perfume, cameras, a GPS system, a Coach purse, and a Hewlett Packard Mini Notebook from passengers’ luggage. Travelers passing through the airport’s checkpoints reported as many as 1,500 items stolen, the majority of which were never recovered.

In May of this year alone, TSA agents were arrested on the suspicion of theft at airports in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Chicago.

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National Speleological Society responds to the demand that all caves be closed to protect bats

12:20 am

The National Speleological Society has responded in strong opposition [pdf] to the demand by the Center for Biological Diversity that all caves on public land be closed to protect bats.

Calling for blanket cave closures across the U.S. is unnecessary, unenforceable, and counterproductive. While cave closures on some federal lands have been implemented, particularly in the eastern U. S., there is no evidence that this action has done anything to contain [white nose syndrome] (WNS). Most people working on WNS understand that bat to bat transmission is overwhelmingly the primary method of transmission, and administrative closing of caves and mines does nothing to prevent that.

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Cruise passengers tell of seven-hour security ‘revenge’ nightmare

11:51 am

The abuse of power: Cruise passengers tell of seven-hour security “revenge” nightmare, forced on them by U.S. immigration officials.

But when a handful of them questioned whether the lengthy security checks at the port were strictly necessary for a group of largely elderly travellers officials were not amused. Although they had already been given advance clearance for multiple entries to the country during their trip, all 2,000 passengers were made to go through full security checks in a process which took seven hours to complete.

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Police yesterday shut the Jefferson Memorial to clear out a crowd challenging a ban on dancing inside the monument.

9:16 am

Police yesterday shut the Jefferson Memorial to clear out a crowd protesting the arrest of five people last week for dancing inside the monument.

One man took to the microphone to demand that all intrusive government policies be overturned, specifically mentioning the need to repeal “Obamacare.” Medea Benjamin [of Code Pink] clarified that some participants also wanted a single-payer system, but that all agreed on the right to dance at the memorial.

On some issues we all agree.

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All new cars starting in June will have a mandatory black box

7:50 pm

Big brother arrives: Starting in June all new cars will have a mandatory black box.

The installation and use of these black boxes can have infinite possibilities for local, state, and federal governments to monitor and record data for a number of other revenue programs that are currently under consideration. In March, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a proposal to institute a tax on mileage to help pay for the federal budget deficit. Additionally, local cities and counties can download information from these black boxes, and they can be used to issue driving citations after the fact in the case of speeding or not wearing a seat belt.

I think the value of my old used Subaru Forester has just gone up!

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Student prohibited from graduation for Facebook comments

10:40 am

Freedom dies: A student was banned from graduation for criticizing his school on Facebook.

In a letter to [the student], [Vice President for Student Development and Services Eric W.] Jackson explained that the reason for his prohibition was the Facebook comments, adding that “[a]ll students enrolled at Saint Augustine’s College are responsible for protecting the reputation of the college and supporting its mission.”

In other words, the students at this hack of a school are required to promote the school at all times. What idiocy.

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