Secret Service Buffoons

[John Kelsey]

At 07:55 PM 4/26/03 -0700, Mike Rosing wrote:
...
>More proof all our fears of the government actually being dangerous are
>totally false.  They are incompetent beyond comprehension.  I think I
>better go check out that movie "Brazil" again.

Unfortunately, dangerous and incompetent are not mutually exclusive.  Just 
ask the people involved in the Steve Jackson Games case.  Or that security 
guard that almost got framed by the FBI for the bombing at the Atlanta 
Olympics.

The fact is, the US government is an enormous organization.  Within it are 
good guys and bad guys, geniuses and morons, and everything 
in-between.  The fact that the FBI and Secret Service are short on clued-in 
computer people tells you little about whether NSA or NASA are, say.  This 
is no different from any other large organization--Microsoft has some 
first-rate security people, for example, even though you might never guess 
that from looking at Internet Explorer.  Agencies like EPA and FDA have 
very sharp scientists working for them, but that may not lead to 
scientifically sound policy coming out of even those agencies, and 
certainly doesn't have much connection to scientifically sound policy 
coming out of Congress, say.

>Patience, persistence, truth,
>Dr. mike

--John Kelsey, kelsey.j at ix.netcom.com
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