> The main reason for the TSA to outsource the questioning of travelers and scoring of answers is to evade the rules applicable to collection and use of personal data by Federal agencies. … The nominal “fly/no-fly” decision will still be made by the TSA, not the contractor. But that “decision” will be a rubber-stamp approval or disapproval based solely on whether the app shows a “pass” or “fail” score, or whether the would-be traveler doesn’t have a suitable smartphone or is otherwise unable or unwilling to complete the app-based process.
You hear the drug trade is really lucrative but you're not allowed to sell drugs, so you send your money to a contractor that sells drugs, they give you more money back, and you technically haven't "sold drugs."
Somehow, thinking breaks down at the boundary between systems, because inexplicably the constraints or guarantees of the consuming system do not propagate to the providing system.
TSA could and should be (made) identity-agnostic, with its mandate to protect vehicles and occupants. Immigration is what should care about the individual that's being allowed into the country.
You just had your servers hacked into and all your database are belong to them. The black hats demand X number of BitCoins as ransom, but you cannot pay because it violates certain laws. So you hire an intermediary who pays for you, thereby avoiding the legal problem.
The killing example still bites you because the intent to kill, knowing & abetting, etc still matters, regardless of method to do so. It's not just the murder, but also everything around the murder that gets swept into it.
It seems to me data collection is illegal, so TSA doesnt do it directly -- the problem is that TSA intends to collect, and knowingly (and provably?) works around it, but is not being punished for it.
This is not really true. The TSA does not intend to collect, but to obtain an "ok person", "not-ok person" stamp. Then they decide with the info they gathered in the conversation with the person in question. They are not obtaining the data and have no intention of doing so. Yet a stamp like "criminal activity in the past" would be a questionable one. I don't know how they stamp the person.
Nevertheless I think they are doing a bad thing, because you can rest assured that this collected data won't get deleted, possibly even sold to 3rd parties.
This also seems like it pretty unambiguously still breaks the law. Has it been tested in court yet?
I wonder if it's kind of a "it's small fry, and these businesses are getting their data back, we'll turn our backs to it unless it's actual violent terrorists receiving ransom money" sort of thing.
> I wonder if it's kind of a "it's small fry, and these businesses are getting their data back, we'll turn our backs to it unless it's actual violent terrorists receiving ransom money" sort of thing.
1. It's difficult to believe that organized crime isn't involved in at least some ransomware schemes.
Strange, this is kinda what Huawei is being accused of in Iran. They used a proxy company to do business with a sanctioned country. Although Huawei seemed to directly control the company management, whereas Arete IR is technically an independent company hired as a contractor.
Super common for everything happening with Iran/Sudan/N. Korea. Shell companies inside of shell companies. Demands & markets don't stop just cuz of sanctions...
"You hear the drug trade is really lucrative but you're not allowed to sell drugs, so you send your money to a contractor that sells drugs, they give you more money back, and you technically haven't "sold drugs.""
Funny how these things turn out; convicted arms trafficer Oliver North ended up running the NRA for a while, before he was pushed out by the current head, Wayne LaPierre, who is currently under investigation by the NY AG for stealing organisational funds.
And notorious ghoul Elliot Abrams, who lied to congress about the involvement of the US Government trafficking weapons in Iran and Nicaragua during the Contra affair was just made United States Special Representative for Iran by Trump.
Of course they were all pardoned by Bush right before he left office to complete the coverup per the advice of Bush's corrupt Attorney General, William Barr.
They're like despotic little cats with how many political lives they have. We really need to start prosecuting corruption at this level if only to keep these criminals out of office in the future.
The same NY AG who ran for office on a platform of investigating the NRA for nakedly political reasons (ie. because of their political influence and stance on gun rights).
Have you read about all the improprieties at the NRA under LaPierre? He hired his wife and daughter and then expensed private jets for vacations because they were "doing work". He hired a contractor to pay his credit card bill to hide the fact that he was expensing hundreds of thousands of dollars of clothing.
You'd think people dedicated to gun rights would be mad that millions of their dollars went to enriching a dozen already rich dudes, instead of whatever the charity is for.
Don't forget serving as the bag-man for foreign money being funneled to the GOP; the NRA is a straight line to GOP coffers.
The NRA hasn't represented the rights of gun owners for years, but sure is happy to push for gun manufacturers, and anyone else willing to donate money.
My money says that, while Ollie North is a hard-right former USMC officer who is willing to bend rules for the CIA -- "exitus acta probat", etc. -- he wasn't down for blatant corruption and shilling for foreign powers.
The CEO has no fiduciary duty here under any law whatsoever.
The NRA is a private organization. The morals of corporate decision making (or lack thereof) is an internal matter that should be resolved internally according to org docs in a civil court.
There is nothing criminal to hire your wife as an employee.
There is nothing criminal about using the company issued credit card for expenses.
The company is of course free to bring litigation for malfeasance of company assets, but that would be the company, referring to the contract between employer and employee that defines what is allowed and what is not. The DA is nowhere to be seen.
If either was the case, 20% of corporate managers would be in jail.
The DA has nothing to do with this. Except of course its a political overreach which is repugnant.
The problem is they don't believe it. The NRA publishes like a dozen or more political magazines that tell the members its all a lie, meant to shutdown their organization that is standing up for their rights against the evil liberals. The members have been conditioned over the last 15 years or so not to believe in the media except their own propaganda outlets. The problem is on one point they are right the NY AG campaigned on shutting them down. So now when she says she has evidence of financial impropriety and there internal propaganda arms says "see she is dong what she said she would do, she is making it up to get ride of us so she can take your guns" they ignore the evidence of wrong doing.
Of course they never heard about Oliver North trying to kick LaPierre out for this because LaPierres cronies kicked Oliver out instead then turned around and lied to their members that Oliver North was the one stealing. Its insane.
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Bureaucratic policies do not specify what is ethically or legally permissible, they specify how an organization has decided to do things.
Contracting with an outside organization whose policies are more suited to the task at hand is usually easier than refactoring the bureaucracy you live in.
Not always. For things that matter, government is perfectly capable of instituting harsh penalties for trying to game the system and boundaries between systems ( check sanctions and OFAC regulations with their strict liability; no messing around, the end result is what matters ). I am certainly not suggesting they should do it the same in TSA, but it is more of an indication that flying is not an issue here.
You hear the drug trade is really lucrative but you're not allowed to sell drugs, so you send your money to a contractor that sells drugs, they give you more money back, and you technically haven't "sold drugs."
Somehow, thinking breaks down at the boundary between systems, because inexplicably the constraints or guarantees of the consuming system do not propagate to the providing system.
TSA could and should be (made) identity-agnostic, with its mandate to protect vehicles and occupants. Immigration is what should care about the individual that's being allowed into the country.