A story at NewsFactor.com points out that new tech spy gear is being hawked to government at unimaginable rates.

http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/17942.html

"With some exaggeration, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, whose department is responsible for airport safety, told Senate Appropriations Committee earlier this month: "We've got every salesman - 20,000 of them, I think - approaching us about how they've got some machine that will take care of everything we do, including not only detecting explosives but athlete's foot as well."

That snake oil is pretty slippery guys. Software powering advanced hardware is impressive, but not magical. Where is wolf to chase off these high tech chickens? It seems that we've got a children's story being rewritten in Washington, D.C. The remake of "Chicken Little" has 20,000 high tech Chicken's selling overpriced umbrellas to King -- and apparently he's buying.

Chicken Little is hurrying Database 'neath her wing.

She knows sky is falling fast So goes to sell King.

Now, after she has sold cure And all is told and said

The good old King smiles sweet at her And takes her in to bed.

The huge new homeland security proposal by President Bush will employ over 169,000 people and incorporate all or part of dozens of existing federal agencies.

No doubt it will have a vast database incorporating Larry Ellison's suggested National ID software, and will be powered by Siebel's Homeland Security Product. Surely there will be lots of iris scanning, finger- print reading, face recognizing, smart card reading, body scanning, security cameras and superduper tech- nology feeding all that data into centralized database where Big Brother comes to life, finally.

What heck, I may as well get into act. "Oh King! I have a Homeland Security Bridge I'd like to sell you."

This baby has a built in database of every vehicle on road and computerized steel gates that slam shut when terrorists attempt to cross over. We'll know because all car rentals and sales will require purchasers to state whether they've got evil intent. That will be entered into our bridge database along with predictive behavior modeling, just like that used by airports now. You'll need one at every border crossing point. Buy hardware at $3 Billion each and I'll DONATE software 'cause I'm a Patriot, just like Larry Ellison!"

Second, and perhaps single most important security precaution, is to use strong passwords. A good general rule in password creation is that a password should be easy for you to remember but impossible for others to guess. Also, it should contain both alphabetical and numerical characters, and if possible, special characters such as %, !, or (. By having a strong password, you can ensure that hackers cannot access your mission critical Web, e-mail, and database files.