{"id":713,"date":"2006-03-08T09:53:57","date_gmt":"2006-03-08T14:53:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/?p=713"},"modified":"2009-04-12T21:25:59","modified_gmt":"2009-04-13T01:25:59","slug":"fighting-misuse-of-the-patriot-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2006\/03\/08\/fighting-misuse-of-the-patriot-act\/","title":{"rendered":"Fighting Misuse of the Patriot Act"},"content":{"rendered":"

Schneier on Security: Fighting Misuse of the Patriot Act<\/a><\/p>\n

I like this idea<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I had to sign a tedious business contract the other day. They wanted my corporation number — fair enough — plus my Social Security number — well, if you insist — and also my driver’s license number — hang on, what’s the deal with that?<\/p>\n

Well, we e-mailed over a query and they e-mailed back that it was a requirement of the Patriot Act. So we asked where exactly in the Patriot Act could this particular requirement be found and, after a bit of a delay, we got an answer.<\/p>\n

And on discovering that there was no mention of driver’s licenses in that particular subsection, I wrote back that we have a policy of reporting all erroneous invocations of the Patriot Act to the Department of Homeland Security on the grounds that such invocations weaken the rationale for the act, and thereby undermine public support for genuine anti-terrorism measures and thus constitute a threat to America’s national security.<\/p>\n

And about 10 minutes after that the guy sent back an e-mail saying he didn’t need the driver’s license number after all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like this person’s idea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-bv","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":244,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2004\/10\/27\/good-patriot-act-summary\/","url_meta":{"origin":713,"position":0},"title":"Good Patriot Act Summary","author":"Keith Survell","date":"October 27, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a good summary of the Patriot Act. Worth a read - it's fairly objective. I always like things that let you make up your own mind.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":416,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2005\/02\/15\/entymology-of-patriot\/","url_meta":{"origin":713,"position":1},"title":"Entymology of PATRIOT","author":"Keith Survell","date":"February 15, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"This was so amusing, I'm sharing it with you. It was found on the comments section of a Slashdot article.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1168,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/06\/09\/follow-up-on-comcastic-support\/","url_meta":{"origin":713,"position":2},"title":"Follow-Up on “Comcastic Support”","author":"Keith Survell","date":"June 9, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In a follow up to this post on my experience with Comcast Support, I have... good news! I wrote in to Comcast this morning via their website because I was having some Internet trouble - it was being a bit flakey. I wrote to them telling them about my previous\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "personal"","block_context":{"text":"personal","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1113,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/05\/14\/bob-barr-possiblelibertarian-presidential-candidate\/","url_meta":{"origin":713,"position":3},"title":"Bob Barr – Possible Libertarian Presidential Candidate?","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"If you've been a reader of my blog for any length of time, you've probably noticed I lean rather heavily towards the libertarian end of the political spectrum (not really a spectrum, per se, more of a 2-D grid, but I digress...). So it should come as no surprise to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":492,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2005\/05\/13\/real-id-summary\/","url_meta":{"origin":713,"position":4},"title":"Real ID Summary","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 13, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Because most people are too lazy to read the bill itself, (and frankly, it's filled with so much legalese that most people can't understand it) here's an honest, unbiased breakdown of the bill's ID-relevant sections.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27175,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2026\/01\/30\/the-book-1984-has-never-been-so-relevant\/","url_meta":{"origin":713,"position":5},"title":"The Book “1984” Has Never Been So Relevant","author":"Keith Survell","date":"January 30, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"1984 was supposed to be a warning, not supposed to be an instruction manual - yet we seem to be treating it as the latter, rather than the former... disturbingly so, especially as of late.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"doubleplusungood (1984)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2013\/06\/doubleplusungood-1984.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2013\/06\/doubleplusungood-1984.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2013\/06\/doubleplusungood-1984.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2013\/06\/doubleplusungood-1984.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2013\/06\/doubleplusungood-1984.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2013\/06\/doubleplusungood-1984.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}