Terrifying Things I have in My Head. There are a few of them. Like radiation detectors at borders and the Spanish Flu. Money Laundering, risky business, C.I.A. National debt, Plame Game, Red Yuan who the …. is Johnnie Ray? Oh. I once had a classmate, who was a retired NYPD […]

CBP Officer Jenny catches more drugs than anyone else.

Dear Officers and Inspectors, I joined this organization three years ago because this country, and the INS, had been so generous to myself and my family. It’s been a good gig and a fun ride. Yesterday I turned in my shield; it didn’t feel good but it had to be […]

GovExec.com, always a good source of inside-DHS information shares this tidbit from a closed-door information security meeting: Chertoff is thinking about Outsourcing Total Information Awareness. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff this week floated an idea to start a nonprofit group that would collect information on private citizens, flag suspicious activity, […]

I’ve been asked by o thers for the CFR code for reinstatement of permanent employess. Here it is: Code of Federal Regulations Title 5: Administrative Personnel 335.103 Agency promotion programs …Except as provided in paragraphs©(2) and (3) of this section, competitive procedures in agency promotion plans apply to all promotions […]

At every CBP airport there is a team called the Passenger Analysis Unit (PAU). These people sit in cubicles and read over the flight manifests looking for “Bad Stuff”. When they find it, they send someone out to intercept the suspects at the plane’s gate (long experience shows that people […]

I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason why TSA screeners in Denver decided to make pengins walk through the metal detectors before boarding a flight. It probably has something to do with loopy DC regulations and the possibility that a hand grenade is hidden in their fuzzy little bellies: Or […]

It’s a strange moment when you look in your closet and think “damn, I need more colors.” * * * Someone asked the coffee guy at the airport if he knew me. When I was described as the Customs Officer who wears glasses, it didn’t help. Lots of Customs people […]

Stephenson points me to news that DHS is forcing some asylum seekers and other high-risk aliens to wear electronic tracking bracelets. The frame presented by immigration-rights advocates is that this is creeping totalitarianism and an unacceptable attack on civil liberties by a security-obsessed Administration. While I’m (like many Democrats) am […]

I just heard a report on NPR about a group of Chinese Muslim s who have been in Guantanmo. We’ve decided that they’re no longer a threat. The Chinese government wants us to hand them over so they can try them on terrorism charges. We don’t want to hand them […]