[Circulating $1 Coin Direct Ship Rolls]

[Travel enthusiasts who buy thousands of dollar coins with credit cards that award frequent-flier miles for purchases at NPR]

UPDATE – From the US Mint website:

“The United States Mint has eliminated the credit and debit card purchase of $1 Coins through its Direct Ship Program effective July 22, 2011. Customers who wish to purchase $1 coins through the Direct Ship Program can still do so by wire transfer, check, or money order. Customers who wish to purchase the coins by wire transfer may fax their order to: (202)756-6585.”

The SailMail system implements an efficient email transfer protocol that is optimized for use over communications systems that have limited bandwidth and high latency.  Satellite communications systems and SSB-Pactor terrestrial radio communications systems both have these characteristics.   The SailMail email system’s custom protocol substantially reduces the number of link-turn-arounds and implements compression, virus filtering, spam filtering, and attachment filtering.  The combination of the protocol, compression, and filtering dramatically improves communications efficiency.

[SailMail Site]

“There were a total of 674 passengers, not counting crew or the terrorists themselves, on the flights on which these incidents occurred. By contrast, there have been 7,015,630,000 passenger enplanements over the past decade. Therefore, the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning.”

[Read the full text at FiveThirtyEight]

During flight, the aircraft operator must ensure that the following procedures are followed:

1. Passengers must remain in seats beginning 1 hour prior to arrival at destination.
2. Passenger access to carry-on baggage is prohibited beginning 1 hour prior to arrival at destination.
3. Disable aircraft-integrated passenger communications systems and services (phone, internet access services, live television programming, global positioning systems) prior to boarding and during all phases of flight.
4. While over U.S. airspace, flight crew may not make any announcement to passengers concerning flight path or position over cities or landmarks.
5. Passengers may not have any blankets, pillows, or personal belongings on the lap beginning 1 hour prior to arrival at destination.

[Read the full text at Gizmodo]

Philosecurity.org has posted a real copy of an American citizen’s DHS Travel Record retrieved from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol’s Automated Targeting System (ATS). This was obtained through a FOIA/Privacy Act request and sent in by an anonymous reader.  The document reveals that the DHS is storing the reader’s:

• Full credit card number and expiration

• IP address used to make web travel reservations

• Hotel information and itinerary

• Full Name, birth date and passport number

• Full airline itinerary, including flight numbers and seat numbers

• Cruise ship itinerary

• Phone numbers, including business, home & cell

• Every frequent flyer and hotel number associated with the subject, even ones not used for the specific reservation

[Article on Philosecurity.org]     [PDF of the original document]