Live data from Hacker News

Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

aclu.org

41–50 of 617 posts

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#41
post #32

Open question, here: Doesn't this backfire and make TSA more likely to operate on the basis of profiling alone? What makes a traveler suspect? This reminds me of Sowell's distinction between 'Type I' and 'Type II' discrimination: when all other information is forbidden from you, you'll end up using the only information you have as your heuristic, however noisy and biased that information might be compared to a more c…

Unpopular opinion: why is profiling bad in context of airplane security? If 100% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people of X country (Xians), and 0% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people from Y country (Yians), it seems like a pointless charade of political correctness to check Xians and Yians with equal frequency. I say profile the heck out of Xians. Stop and frisk 100% of Xians an…

It doesn’t work. The TSA is horrendously ineffective and is the definition of security theatre. This just hurts people needlessly.

Much like the no fly list which is a huge violation of due process.

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#43
post #31

Haven't read the opinion, but I'd anticipate that this will be reversed on appeal. My guess is that this was either an Obama or Clinton judge. Both my Crim Pro and Con Law professors skipped border search cases and summed them up with "you have no rights at the border." That's been the common law since King Tut.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denise_J._Casper Obama Judge. But you should realize you are basically saying Judges are not impartial arbiters, but rather biased based on who appointed them.

[dead]

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#44
Yeah, too bad the border control agents basically do what they want and this case means nothing.

They'll do the same thing, and someone will say "But what about Alasaad v. McAleenan?" and in the small windowless holding room the agent will say "What about it? You want to leave, unlock your phone."

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#45
post #32

Open question, here: Doesn't this backfire and make TSA more likely to operate on the basis of profiling alone? What makes a traveler suspect? This reminds me of Sowell's distinction between 'Type I' and 'Type II' discrimination: when all other information is forbidden from you, you'll end up using the only information you have as your heuristic, however noisy and biased that information might be compared to a more c…

Unpopular opinion: why is profiling bad in context of airplane security? If 100% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people of X country (Xians), and 0% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people from Y country (Yians), it seems like a pointless charade of political correctness to check Xians and Yians with equal frequency. I say profile the heck out of Xians. Stop and frisk 100% of Xians an…

[deleted]

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#46
post #32

Open question, here: Doesn't this backfire and make TSA more likely to operate on the basis of profiling alone? What makes a traveler suspect? This reminds me of Sowell's distinction between 'Type I' and 'Type II' discrimination: when all other information is forbidden from you, you'll end up using the only information you have as your heuristic, however noisy and biased that information might be compared to a more c…

Unpopular opinion: why is profiling bad in context of airplane security? If 100% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people of X country (Xians), and 0% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people from Y country (Yians), it seems like a pointless charade of political correctness to check Xians and Yians with equal frequency. I say profile the heck out of Xians. Stop and frisk 100% of Xians an…

It's bad because it doesn't work. Your hypothetical is just that, hypothetical. Doesn't work in practice. Also, violated due process.

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#47
post #32

Open question, here: Doesn't this backfire and make TSA more likely to operate on the basis of profiling alone? What makes a traveler suspect? This reminds me of Sowell's distinction between 'Type I' and 'Type II' discrimination: when all other information is forbidden from you, you'll end up using the only information you have as your heuristic, however noisy and biased that information might be compared to a more c…

Unpopular opinion: why is profiling bad in context of airplane security? If 100% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people of X country (Xians), and 0% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people from Y country (Yians), it seems like a pointless charade of political correctness to check Xians and Yians with equal frequency. I say profile the heck out of Xians. Stop and frisk 100% of Xians an…

I'll (possibly inaccurately) assume this is in good faith. The most obvious reason that profiling is bad, even in your inaccurate and simplistic hypothetical scenario, is that just because all airplane terrorist attacks came from people of X country, does not imply that everyone from X country commits terrorist airplane attacks. Therefore you are unfairly and immorally forcing invasive searches on many innocent people of X country. If you have any empathy for the innocent people of X country, you will realize how horrible this is.

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#48
post #31

Haven't read the opinion, but I'd anticipate that this will be reversed on appeal. My guess is that this was either an Obama or Clinton judge. Both my Crim Pro and Con Law professors skipped border search cases and summed them up with "you have no rights at the border." That's been the common law since King Tut.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denise_J._Casper Obama Judge. But you should realize you are basically saying Judges are not impartial arbiters, but rather biased based on who appointed them.

Not quite. I’m saying that liberal judges tend to ignore the law when it comes to highly political issues.

For example, how many opinions have you read from Ginsburg where she says “I personally disagree with this outcome, but the law is clear.”? Quite rarely.

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#49
post #32

Open question, here: Doesn't this backfire and make TSA more likely to operate on the basis of profiling alone? What makes a traveler suspect? This reminds me of Sowell's distinction between 'Type I' and 'Type II' discrimination: when all other information is forbidden from you, you'll end up using the only information you have as your heuristic, however noisy and biased that information might be compared to a more c…

Unpopular opinion: why is profiling bad in context of airplane security? If 100% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people of X country (Xians), and 0% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people from Y country (Yians), it seems like a pointless charade of political correctness to check Xians and Yians with equal frequency. I say profile the heck out of Xians. Stop and frisk 100% of Xians an…

[deleted]

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#50
post #32

Open question, here: Doesn't this backfire and make TSA more likely to operate on the basis of profiling alone? What makes a traveler suspect? This reminds me of Sowell's distinction between 'Type I' and 'Type II' discrimination: when all other information is forbidden from you, you'll end up using the only information you have as your heuristic, however noisy and biased that information might be compared to a more c…

Unpopular opinion: why is profiling bad in context of airplane security? If 100% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people of X country (Xians), and 0% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people from Y country (Yians), it seems like a pointless charade of political correctness to check Xians and Yians with equal frequency. I say profile the heck out of Xians. Stop and frisk 100% of Xians an…

Your opinion is unpopular because it makes no sense and does not improve security. The attacker will simply recruit a "Yian" because that's your blind spot now.
Post reply on HN