Via the tremendously brilliant Boing Boing, there is a op-ed piece by Richard Clarke (DE/EN), anti-terrorism czar to the Clinton and Bush II administrations, chairman of the 9/11 Commission and cyber-security authority, that once again demonstrates the boundless work-shopping potential of the hubris and reach of the US Department of Homeland Security.
His modest proposal urges the President to augment the role of the DHS and reality (through extended metaphor) by directing the agency to
screen all electronic communications leaving the US—literally or figuratively as one would screen baggage or freight, not checking one's laptop at the boarding-gate for contraband but rather outbound information, bits and bytes. This sort of outbox surveillance would not only hinder piracy but also help stop corporate espionage, the editorial maintains. Apparently, American innovation has slipped not because of lack of investment in the sciences and education but rather due to thievery of good ideas by the usual suspects. As it that were not enough, DHS should also monitor the รฆther for any American data that may have been kidnapped and in circulation beyond its borders. How this dragnet would work—compelling something incorporeal like data to submit to inspection, interrogation, surrendering fluids, removing its shoes and belt, being harassed by goons, irradiated, a whole process that’s quite off-putting to tourism and might make the data not want to travel back there—I can’t imagine. To try to realize the impossible, however, will surely cause a lot of damage all around since such insane measures usually don’t collapse on themselves without residual and collateral damage.
