Incompetence & Corporate Greed: Business As Usual

Government hit by rash of data breaches

Thu Jun 22, 8:07 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The government agency charged with fighting identity theft said Thursday it had lost two government laptops containing sensitive personal data, the latest in a series of breaches encompassing millions of people. The Federal Trade Commission said it would provide free credit monitoring for 110 people targeted for investigation whose names, addresses, Social Security numbers — and in some instances, financial account numbers — were taken from an FTC attorney's locked car.

Welcome to Hell. This is the place where those who forcibly invade your privacy on the premise of the promise to protect you fuck the job up so badly that you end up becoming ever more vulnerable than before. Please voters, next time the government offers to ‘help’ protect you (yes, even from terrorism), please decline their offer. Their remedies are often as ridiculous as the bungling incompetence that created the problem in the first place. What the fuck is ‘credit monitoring’ anyhow, and how is notifying me six months after the fact that someone has misused my identity and run up bills in my name going to help?

The only way to stop the government from cruising, using, and abusing our personal information is to hold those government agents personally accountable for any breach of secrecy on their part. As it stands, government employees and their supervisors can hide from responsibility behind the flag or the agency that employs them. This rule should apply for corporations that do the same. (See next story.)

AT&T rewrites rules: Your data isn't yours

- David Lazarus

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

AT&T has issued an updated privacy policy that takes effect Friday. The changes are significant because they appear to give the telecom giant more latitude when it comes to sharing customers' personal data with government officials. The company's policy overhaul follows recent reports that AT&T was one of several leading telecom providers that allowed the National Security Agency warrantless access to its voice and data networks as part of the Bush administration's war on terror. AT&T said in a statement last month that it "has a long history of vigorously protecting customer privacy" and that "our customers expect, deserve and receive nothing less than our fullest commitment to their privacy."

Yeah, right. I have a news flash for the assholes at AT&T. My data is my data. The only fucking reason I would ever share it with you greedy, lying mother fuckers is because I have to, and admittedly sometimes even want to, in order to freely obtain your services which, funny enough, I have to pay for as well. No one expects a contract for wireless services to rise to the legal level of ‘attorney-client privilege’, nor do I demand that commonly shared information be held by AT&T as some inviolable state secret. I did, however, take their promises of ‘protecting consumer privacy’ rather seriously, would not have secured their services otherwise, and AT&T has not kept, nor likely did they even intend to keep, their word. In fact, they volunteered themselves to go leagues beyond lying and deceiving their customers. Now that they are facing innumerable law suits, they have changed their contract to cover their already oversized arrogant fascist asses.

I believe AT&T did what they did to gain access to larger markets and perhaps evade government scrutiny of their financial dealings. This is a ‘You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ kind of proposition, and it amounts to bribery and influence peddling at the expense and liberty of American consumers. AT&T is not a patriotic organization run by and for freedom loving American citizens. It is, first an always, a voracious money gathering machine and, for the sake of greater profit through using government, doesn’t give a flying fuck about what its consumers think.

It’s not a wild conspiracy theory; just business as usual.

U.S. Military Links Karzai Brother to Drugs

June 22, 2006 4:48 PM (Brian Ross and Gretchen Peters Report, ABC News)

U.S. military documents, obtained by ABC News, list the brother of Afghanistan president Karzai as a "problem maker" in the pay of drug lords. Wali Karzai is described in the documents as "receives money from drug lords as bribe to facilitate their work and movement." The documents, marked secret, appear to be part of a "U.S. military targeting assessment" produced in January 2005. The documents were downloaded from a computer flash disc sold at an Afghanistan street bazaar for $200. The Los Angeles Times reported on similar documents discovered in a street bazaar in April, but did not report the allegations about Karzai. U.S."I was never in the drug business, I never benefited, I never facilitated, I never helped anyone with the transportation of any kind," he said. Officials say they continue to investigate how sensitive documents ended up in the street bazaar.

What I have suspected all along is horribly true. It is easier to use FOIA in other nations around world than it is here in the US providing, however, that you want classified American information. Remind me next time to call ‘Ahmed’ in Kandahar next time I need a driver’s license or a copy of my birth certificate. It’s also true that you never know what kind of priceless treasures may turn up at flea markets or local garage sales.

You cannot continue to bullshit me and say that we are winning the war on anything when our military and intelligence agencies can’t even keep their ‘intelligence’ secure. The other and even bigger problem is who we, sans condom, jump into bed with in order to fight this ‘noble’ war. If this guy is deep into the drug trade then why aren’t we taking him out? This government can’t expect anyone to take their ‘war’ on drugs or terror seriously when Tommy Chong gets federal prison time for selling bongs on the internet while drug lords throughout the world get a pass because they are ‘useful’ assets. Please find better assets.

Now I know that some of you are going to say “In order to fight the war on terror, we have to ally ourselves with, and use the resources of some unsavory characters on the inside.” Here’s a little reminder of how that turns out. This war, whatever war we are in now (just pick one), is a direct result of that type of strategy, as we, once upon a time, used the unsavory Osama bin Laden and the equally barbaric Saddam Hussein as allies to oppose whatever boogeyman those times presented. Think about where we are and we got here. It's not rocket science really, though it must feel like it to some of you.

That shit always backfires on us and ends badly. So why do they keep trying it? The answer in this case is Hamid Karzai, former UNOCAL executive and now funny hat-and-cape-wearing puppet dictator of Afghanistan. Pipelines, baby. It’s always about the fucking pipelines. That’s why we stopped the Soviets and that’s why we hate the Taliban more than they even deserve to be hated. The profit margin for such undertakings is always worth the risk. America’s taxpaying working class foots the bill for covert operations, diplomacy, puppet regimes, and war. American men and women give their blood on battlefields with names we can’t pronounce so that the oil and gas executives can reap the profits of selling that gas and oil to the very same American people who already sacrificed themselves to secure the corporation’s growing economic opportunity. No matter how much money is spent on the ‘war’, the ones who stand to gain the most have lost nothing, win or lose. How do I get that job?

Just business as usual.

Wadi Karzai, in response to the allegations, has set up a website and adjoining telephone hotline to gather information leading to the arrest and capture of the real drug producers and traffickers in Afghanistan. Anyone with information (that means you AT&T, we know you’re listening) can call 1-800-DRG-LORD or visit Wadi at www.ciadrugdealer.net. Wadi has also denied any involvement in the murder of Nicole Simpson and has no idea where Jimmy Hoffa is buried.