Secret Service Dude, Where's My Car?

12:20 PM -- Tom Ridge is a man of the people -- sort of.

Ridge, who became Americas first-ever Homeland Security Chief (may we call him a Czar?) in 2003, reached out to attendees at this week’s Infosecurity show in New York with sympathy for the inconveniences he helped engineer.

“How many of you have been through secondary screening at the airport 20 times?" he moaned in his keynote speech. "I have!"

Now, I'm not complaining about something that's for the good of us all, and it's great to know Tom's just a regular guy in my league. But he should have stopped there.

The former Pennsylvania governor also said transportation is one of his biggest problems since stepping down from the U.S. Cabinet earlier this year. (See Ridge Issues Security Challenge.) Apparently, it was a shock to his system when the Secret Service no longer took care of his transport needs. ”How many of you have had to borrow a car from your kids?” he queried.Well, I lost my own detail in an expenses cutback years ago, Tom. But hey, them's the breaks.

James Rogers, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch