TSA Backs Off Content Filtering; Still Won’t Budge on 3 OZ of Deodorant

After a national uproar over the Transportation Security Administration blocking “controversial opinions” categorized websites using the content blocking infrastructure acquired by the TSA at taxpayers’ expense, the TSA is now unblocking that content, and exposing themselves to whatever risks they had previously determined existed that warranted the block in the first place.

Shocker that the TSA makes horrible decisions on questionable security grounds, huh?

From WashTimes here:

After an uproar from conservative bloggers and free-speech activists, the Transportation Security Administration late Tuesday rescinded a new policy that would have prevented employees from accessing websites with “controversial opinions” on TSA computers at work.

The ban on “controversial opinion” sites, issued late last week, was included as part of a more general TSA Internet-usage policy blocking employee access to gambling and chat sites, as well as sites that dealt with extreme violence or criminal activity.

But the policy itself became controversial as the Drudge Report and a number of conservative bloggers highlighted the possibility that the policy could be used to censor websites critical of the agency or of the Obama administration in general. The American Civil Liberties Union also questioned the language.

First of all, as I mentioned yesterday, no one seems to grasp what content filtering is and how it works. Every site on the Internet has already been classified and categorized by companies who get paid lots of money to make these decisions and get those categories right.

And if the TSA made a security-based decision to block internet content that it thought posed a risk to their critical infrastructure, then that is absolutely their right and responsibility to do so. And neither the ACLU, nor the American press, should be able to dictate to any government agency how to govern their network. But if they reversed their policy due to political criticism, what does that say about their security and risk evaluation processes? Broken?

And if the TSA can’t decide to block web content effectively, how can it justify banning a 4oz roll-on bottle of Speed Stick? Why doesn’t the American Press get up in arms about the rest of the retarded security decisions the TSA is mandating against travellers?