Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Nothing much to report

The end of April came and went and nothing happened. It was suppose to be the end of long hours and working weekends but an increased work load compared to last year and no extra staff means that I'm still working like a dog.

Inspite of that I'm still finding time to have a bit of fun on the weekends. I met up with the guys Friday night for the Fairytales film fest. The movie was "Outing Riley". In a nutshell it was about a guy coming out to his siblings after his parents have passed away and how they react. He had two older brothers, a younger brother, and a younger sister. Somehow that seems vaguely familiar. Saturday we finally made it to an ARGRA dance. We've planned on going before but always seemed to end up staying in or heading to the club. As Jeff mentioned we're not so hot on Twisted at the moment so we actually made it to the dance this time. When we first got there we weren't sure what we had gotten ourselves into. Being a gay rodeo dance they were playing country music but after a couple songs they started playing more dance music. Seeing two guys two stepping around the floor was kind of neat but I probably won't run out and start taking lessons. We were all relieved to learn they still had a buffet. We had heard rumors that they didn't anymore. I really enjoyed the dance. The atmosphere was more relaxed than the club and sometimes it's fun to just have a night out with your friends without assessing every guy that walks by on his potential.
Hopefully work will slow down soon so I can try some of this work/life balance thing that so many people talk about these days. At least the trip to SF is cooming up soon so I'll have a break then. I'm also heading home in July for my brother's wedding although I might get recruited to help wih preparations but it will still be a break from taxes.

Monday, May 07, 2007

Silly Americans

When I read this I just had to share. Sometimes it's just too easy.

Canada's poppy quarters caused sensational warnings of 'spy coins' in U.S.

Mon May 7, 4:49 PM

By Ted Bridis

WASHINGTON (AP) - An odd-looking Canadian quarter with a bright red flower was the culprit behind a false espionage warning from the U.S. Defense Department about mysterious coins with radio frequency transmitters, The Associated Press has learned.
The harmless "poppy quarter" was so unfamiliar to suspicious U.S. army contractors travelling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them. The worried contractors described the coins as "filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology," according to once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails obtained by the AP.
The silver-coloured 25-cent piece features the red image of a poppy, Canada's flower of remembrance, inlaid over a maple leaf. The unorthodox quarter is identical to the coins pictured and described as suspicious in the contractors' accounts.
The supposed nano-technology on the coin actually was a protective coating the Royal Canadian Mint applied to prevent the poppy's red colour from rubbing off. The mint produced nearly 30 million such quarters in 2004 commemorating Canada's 117,000 war dead.
"It did not appear to be electronic (analog) in nature or have a power source," wrote one U.S. contractor, who discovered the coin in the cup holder of a rental car. "Under high power microscope, it appeared to be complex consisting of several layers of clear, but different material, with a wire-like mesh suspended on top."
The confidential accounts led to a sensational warning from the Defense Security Service, an agency of the Defense Department, that mysterious coins with radio frequency transmitters were found planted on U.S. contractors with classified security clearances on at least three separate occasions between October 2005 and January 2006 as the contractors travelled through Canada.
"We'll have a good laugh over it," said John Regitko, who writes a newsletter for a leading coin-collecting organization, the Canadian Numismatic Association. "We never suspected there was such a thing (as spy coins) anyway."
Regitko predicted the quarter will become especially popular among collectors because of its infamy as the culprit behind the spy warning, despite the quarter's wide availability. "Everybody has some in their drawer at home," he said.
One contractor believed someone had placed two of the quarters in an outer coat pocket after the contractor had emptied the pocket hours earlier. "Coat pockets were empty that morning and I was keeping all of my coins in a plastic bag in my inner coat pocket," the contractor wrote.
The Defense Department subsequently acknowledged it could never substantiate the espionage warning, but until now it has never disclosed the details behind the embarrassing episode.
In Canada, senior intelligence officials had expressed annoyance with the American spy-coin warnings as they tried to learn more about the oddball claims.
"That story about Canadians planting coins in the pockets of defence contractors will not go away," Luc Portelance, now deputy director for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, wrote in a January e-mail to a subordinate. "Could someone tell me more? Where do we stand and what's the story on this?"
Others in Canada's spy service also were searching for answers. "We would be very interested in any more detail you may have on the validity of the comment related to the use of Canadian coins in this manner," another intelligence official wrote in an e-mail. "If it is accurate, are they talking industrial or state espionage? If the latter, who?" The identity of the e-mail's recipient was censored.
Intelligence and technology experts were flabbergasted over the warning when it was first publicized earlier this year. The warning suggested that such transmitters could be used surreptitiously to track the movements of people carrying the coins.
"I thought the whole thing was preposterous, to think you could tag an individual with a coin and think they wouldn't give it away or spend it," said H. Keith Melton, a leading intelligence historian.
But Melton said the army contractors properly reported their suspicions. "You want contractors or any government personnel to report anything suspicious," he said. "You can't have the potential target evaluating whether this was an organized attack or a fluke."
The Defense Security Service disavowed its warning about spy coins after an international furor. The United States said it never substantiated the contractors' claims and performed an internal review to determine how the false information was included in a 29-page published report about espionage concerns.
The Defense Security Service never examined the suspicious coins, spokeswoman Cindy McGovern said. "We know where we made the mistake," she said. "The information wasn't properly vetted. While these coins aroused suspicion, there ultimately was nothing there."
A numismatist consulted by the AP, Dennis Pike of Canadian Coin & Currency near Toronto, quickly matched a grainy image and physical descriptions of the suspect coins in the contractors' confidential accounts to the 25-cent poppy piece.
"It's not uncommon at all," Pike said. He added that the coin's protective coating glows peculiarly under ultraviolet light. "That may have been a little bit suspicious," he said.
Some of the U.S. documents the AP obtained were classified "Secret/Noforn," meaning they were never supposed to be viewed by foreigners, even the United States' closest allies. The government censored parts of the files, citing national security reasons, before turning over copies under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.
Nothing in the documents, except the reference to nanotechnology, explained how the contractors' accounts evolved into a full-blown warning about spy coins with radio frequency transmitters. Many passages were censored, including the names of contractors and details about where they worked and their projects.
But there were indications the accounts should have been taken lightly. Next to one blacked-out sentence was this warning: "This has not been confirmed as of yet."
The Canadian intelligence documents, which also were censored, were turned over to the AP for $5 under Canada's Access to Information Act. Canada cited rules for protecting against subversive or hostile activities to explain why it censored the papers.
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Associated Press writer Beth Duff-Brown contributed to this story from Toronto.

And these are the people that are supposed to be protecting the free world? These coins were in general circulation. I can't believe they didn't notice receiving them when they got change at every convenience store. What did the they think? The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) was posting operatives in stores just so we could plant spy gear on US agents? I think we have better things to do with our time.
(I hope RD aka Mitch doesn't mind me stealing his format)