No wonder we mistrust government

I'm not one of those who reflexively hate the government. If it weren't for government supporting infrastructure like roads and utilities, I wouldn't be able to live my reasonably comfortable modern life.

Yet government does have a way of attracting venal people, doesn't it?

Remember back in the run-up to the 2004 elections, when electronic voting was a hot topic? It was extremely controversial because many of us had the good sense not to trust the venal people who had sold state and local election officials on their proprietary voting systems, systems that were proven over and over to be vulnerable to remote manipulation because their operating systems and processes had never been subjected to rigorous scrutiny. These companies had every incentive to rush their work because being adopted by a municipality, county, or stste virtually guaranteed them a lock on that market for a minimum of several years (nobody changes systems adopted after a lengthy period of consideration absent a crisis). Moreover, these companies bet that any concerns about how their stuff actually worked would be trumped by a rising tide of popular sentiment in favor of high-tech voting solutions to reduce the expense and slowness of elections.

Back in September, The Register described how the CIA used untested software to guide some of its drone aircraft. The CIA allegedly pressured one of its civilian contractors, Netazza, to ensure that Netazza's new drone would be running a special software package provided by another company, IISI. Although another of Netazza's drone models was running the software package, Geospatial, the new drone was built from different hardware. (Apple fans, you may be amused that the older drone used a Motorola PowerPC chip while the newer one used an Intel x86 chip.) IISI told Netazza it would take two months to port the software. That was too long for Netazza and the CIA. Allegedly a CIA employee contacted IISI directly to explain the urgency of the work, and when that didn't produce results, Netazza undertook the work itself without telling IISI. The result, again allegedly, was an illegally reverse-engineered port of the IISI software that contained significant flaws affecting the drone's navigation, throwing it off by what one Netazza employee described as "from 1 to 13 metres." That matters when the job is to assassinate someone, as the drones apparently were supposed to do. (Netazza filed suit against IISI in 2009; IISI counterclaimed. I haven't been able to find a resolution to the whole mess after a very quick Web search.)

And finally, we have the current furor over the Transportation Security Administration's full-body scanners, currently being rolled out at airports across the country. I've read so many articles about this lately, I hardly know where to begin. A correspondent for The Atlantic wrote about this in October; more recently, and perhaps more notoriously, John Tyner described his experience at San Diego International Airport when he refused not only to go through the full-body scanner, but also refused to permit a full pat-down search, the official alternative to the scanner. Tyner told the agent who was preparing to pat him down, "if you touch my junk, I'll have you arrested." He was not permitted to board the aircraft (understandably, and even Tyner admits this was entirely reasonable) and was escorted (note that term) from the screening area by what he believes was a local police officer. Shortly thereafter, as he was preparing to leave the airport entirely, he was approached by yet another official. Tyner writes:

He informed me that I could not leave the airport. He said that once I start the screening in the secure area, I could not leave until it was completed. Having left the area, he stated, I would be subject to a civil suit and a $10,000 fine. I asked him if he was also going to fine the 6 TSA agents and the local police officer who escorted me from the secure area. After all, I did exactly what I was told.

The encounter went on for a bit before Tyner decided he had had enough.

I asked if [sic] tried to leave if he would have the officer arrest me. He again said that no one was forcing me to stay. I looked him in the eye, and said, "then I'm leaving". He replied, "then we'll bring a civil suit against you", to which I said, "you bring that suit" and walked out of the airport.

Apparently the TSA is considering doing just that.

The TSA has been asking for a backlash for a long time. The San Diego Union Tribune article about the investigation of the Tyner incident blandly states:

Since the rollout of the imaging scanners there has been controversy over the quality of the images, which show limited details of a person’s entire body, and the possible saving of the images – something TSA has denied is possible.

The TSA's denial is flat-out contradicted by the facts: the U.S. Marshals Service stored 35,000 body-scan images between February 2010 and July 2010. Don't believe me? Better talk to the six U.S. senators who wrote a letter to the director of the Marshals Service on 19 August 2010, asking about the widely reported story.

And then there was the charming TSA agent who pretended to find cocaine in travelers' luggage. He said it was meant as a joke. Apparently he was bored with his official duties, which at the time consisted of "evaluating new screening equipment." He was fired, but the damage to the TSA's reputation was already done. Another TSA agent was arrested in May for stealing "from a wheelchair-bound woman passing through a security checkpoint at Newark Liberty International Airport."

These jokers took advantage of their positions of authority, more than living up to the crudest stereotypes of law enforcement officials who sought their jobs to indulge in power trips. Venal people.

UPDATE: Netezza and IISI settled their suit.