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In March 2019, the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general found that the Transportation Security Administration was taking far too long to hire its security screeners. On average, TSA takes 252 days to hire screeners, who are frontline employees vital to the agency's mission. In private industry, it usually only takes from a few days to four months to hire a new employee, according to the Workable human resources website. ... Given the role played by its security screeners it's, of course, essential that TSA work toward hiring only the most capable, most qualified candidates. However, by any reasonable standard,...

Apple is having a bad week. Just days after Face ID was hacked and the company’s “user-hostile” iPhone battery practices were exposed, an extraordinary story of Apple neglect has resulted in a warning every iPhone and iPad user needs to know about. Picked up by AppleInsider, security firm Check Point has revealed it has found a way to hack every iPhone and iPad running iOS 8 right up to betas of iOS 13. This spread covers eight years of devices (iOS 8 supports the 2011 iPhone 4S) and, with Tim Cook stating there are 1.4BN active iOS devices around the...

The late Saul Alinsky, the legendary left-wing community organizer, must be looking up from wherever he is and smiling. The direction lately taken by the Democratic Party shows they’ve bought into his tactics, hook, line and sinker. In his most famous book, “Rules for Radicals,” he opens with the following observation: “What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. ‘The Prince’ was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. ‘Rules for Radicals’ is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it...

A Republican congressman from Illinois is calling for universal background checks and raising the legal age to purchase guns following the weekend's back-to-back mass shootings. Rep. Adam Kinzinger wrote an op-ed published on Medium advocating for the gun reform legislation Monday, in the wake of two in less than 48 hours in Texas and Ohio that killed a combined total for more than 30 people. “After every shooting, the conversation runs like a broken record with some who believe banning all guns is the answer, while others advocate for arming more and more people to protect against these dangers,” Kinzinger...

According to a June 12, 2019 article in the Washington Post, Transportation Security Administration security screeners are "short-staffed, poorly paid and suffering meager morale." What's also worrying, is that the situation for TSA screeners (or "Transportation Security Officers," as they're officially known) is likely to worsen by next year. And unfortunately, the chronic short-staffing issue is nothing new to the government security agency, as 2006 news reports, as well as government inspector general findings, reveal. Indeed, air travel has increased so much since TSA's creation that it's overwhelmed the agency's ability to increase staffing in response .... Solutions do exist,...

Remote exploitation can be achieved with no user interaction. Five bugs in Apple’s iMessage service for the iPhone have been uncovered that require no user interaction to exploit, including one that would allow remote attackers to access content stored on iOS devices. First discovered by Google Project Zero security researcher Natalie Silvanovich, Apple has fully patched four of the flaws as part of the 12.4 iOS update. CVE-2019-8646 is the bug that allows an attacker to read files off a remote device with no user interaction. An exploit could leak the SMS database, binary files like images and more. Silvanovich...

Federal prosecutors this week charged a Seattle woman with stealing data from more than 100 million credit applications made with Capital One Financial Corp. Incredibly, much of this breach played out publicly over several months on social media and other open online platforms. What follows is a closer look at the accused, and what this incident may mean for consumers and businesses .... Erratic (Paige A. Thompson) also posted frequently to Slack about her struggles with gender identity, lack of employment, and persistent suicidal thoughts.

Equifax will pay up to a record $650million to settle US federal and state probes into a massive 2017 data breach of personal information, authorities said on Monday. The largest-ever settlement for a data breach draws to a close multiple probes into Equifax by the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Board (CFPB) and nearly all state attorneys general. It also resolves pending class-action lawsuits against the company. 'This company´s ineptitude, negligence, and lax security standards endangered the identities of half the US population,' New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.

'Defending democracy' initiative to resist nation-state attacks Microsoft has demonstrated its ElectionGuard electronic vote system at the Aspen Security Forum under way in Colorado and warned that nearly 10,000 of its customers have been targeted by nation-state attacks.ElectionGuard aims to enable end-to-end verification of voting. Voters receive a tracking code and can check via a web portal that their vote has been counted, and, crucially, not altered. The portal does not show the content of the vote, protecting voter confidentiality. "It will not be possible to 'hack' the vote without detection," said Microsoft's Tom Burt, CVP of Customer Security and...

There’s something about cameras that seems to divide our nation, while at the same time pointing out dizzying differences in terms of how we evaluate the technology based on who is using it. We already know that privacy advocates (for lack of a better term) hate facial recognition software when it’s used by law enforcement of any kind. However, most of them don’t seem to have any problems with Facebook and other social media apps “tagging” them and their friends at the latest party. Speed cameras are also seen as being evil, even if they do occasionally catch violent felons...

Everyone who flies has been through it. The long lines. Emptying pockets. Removing your belt and/or jewelry. Taking laptops and electronics out of your suitcases or bags. Having your bag randomly searched or, worse, being subjected to a “random” body patdown. If you’re at a large airport, maybe you’ll get lucky and a bomb-sniffing dog will be there to make the line go twice as fast and save everyone from having to step on everyone else’s foot fungus - but if not, foot fungus it is. And heaven help you if you wore white socks or, God forbid, no socks...

Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday, July 15, 2019 The Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security Issue Third Country Asylum Rule Tomorrow, a joint Interim Final Rule (IFR) issued by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security will publish in the Federal Register.This IFR uses the authority delegated by Congress in section 208(b)(2)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act to enhance the integrity of the asylum process by placing further restrictions or limitations on eligibility for aliens who seek asylum in the United States. Specifically, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security...

Next time you’re waiting in your socks as your luggage is rifled through by security at the TSA checkpoint, you might reflect on how unchecked people and vehicles are getting through security in other parts of the airport. Our Corruption Chronicles blog exposes the disturbing facts. The massive agency created after 9/11 to protect the nation risks security at U.S. airports by letting airlines impose expedited measures to keep traffic flowing, according to government officials interviewed by Judicial Watch. “The airlines call the shots,” said a veteran federal agent who has worked at one of the nation’s largest airports as...

Currently, more than 1 million U.S. airport workers possess badges giving them some level of access to secure areas of the airports in which they work. These “SIDA badges” (SIDA is an acronym for “Security Identification Display Area”) are issued to airport workers after completion of a security background check. … the level of initial background check scrutiny given to prospective airport and airline employees can be a source of concern. To save money – because the background checks and security clearance investigations described above can cost a great deal – most airport workers undergo much more limited vetting. This...

President Donald Trump defended on Monday the treatment of detained migrants and illegal immigrants caught crossing over the border. “We’re not in the hospital business. We’re in the border security business at the border,” Trump said. “And all of a sudden, we’re forced to be in the hospital business.”

With growing concerns over online privacy and securing personal data, more people than ever are considering alternatives to Google products. After all, Google’s business model essentially revolves around data collection and advertisements, both of which infringe on your privacy. More data means better (targeted) ads and more revenue. The company pulled in over $116 billion in ad revenue last year alone – and that number continues to grow. A growing number of people are seeking alternatives to Google products that respect their privacy and data. This guide aims to be the most exhaustive resource available for documenting alternatives to Google...

Extremely disturbing facts about attempts of Islamic State (ISIS) to enter the US soil and create economic chaos have been recently exposed by Anne Speckhard and Ardian Shajkovci in the Homeland Security Today, of June 3, 2019. In the report they wrote, “The vulnerability of the U.S. borders to possible exploitation by terrorists – particularly in light of the heavy migration flow toward our southern border, either by those claiming asylum or relying on smugglers to cross into the country undetected – has been a border enforcement and policy concern since at least 9/11.... Regarding attempts of ISIS and other...

Shortened title. Full title: GOP Rep Calls on Congress to Divert Billions of ‘El Chapo’s’ Drug Funds to Help Construct Border Wall When it comes to constructing a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, one GOP member of Congress is offering a suggestion on how to get the funds for it. Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) wrote a Fox News op-ed published on Tuesday in which he suggested that Congress divert the funds made by Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera to help secure the U.S. southern border. El Chapo is a convicted drug lord who will be sentenced on...

Looking for info/tips on how to prevent identity theft. As we all know, this is a constant threat with all the computer breaches and data being passed around. I recently looked in the mirror and realized I'm getting old, so I decided to tidy up some loose ends in my personal documentation to make things easier for my family if/when I do wind up croaking. Since I went through my whole life without an actual SS card or birth certificate (I do have all my passports dating back to when I was 14 until present, which is still valid). So,...

December 10, 2014: A New York man was arrested that day by Big Apple law enforcement and charged with gun running. Over several months, he’d smuggled at least two AR-15s in addition to approximately 129 handguns into the city, often while flying from Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to JFK International Airport to do so. Once in New York, the firearms were believed to have found their way into Brooklyn’s criminal underworld. The above three incidents, though not alike in the crimes committed, do have common elements which bind them together. For one, airlines and their planes were the locus of...