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20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

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Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#791

Post by da_chicken »

pklausler wrote: post #766
ineptech wrote: post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The assumption that the armed population and the forces trying to impose tyranny will be on opposite sides is looking pretty tenuous.

As well as the assumption that the kind of weaponry available to the population is effective against that available to the "tyrants".

We just spent 20 years in Afghanistan proving how effective and potent a modern military is against guerilla tactics. I think it's become pretty clear that if you're not willing to ignore the generally accepted rules of engagement, they will just outlast you.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#792

Post by ridaj »

switch007 wrote: post #358
ridaj wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been clear excess deaths (mortality rate increases) from all causes combined during waves. Most evaluations of excess deaths that I've seen conclude that Covid deaths are undercounted not over counted.

They didn’t cite excess deaths however. Hence my question Again, you say “covid deaths”. That is not precise.

Do we say "death from car accidents" or "death with car accident"? Do we discount terminal cancer patients, diabetics and asthmatics from car accident stats because they had a preexisting condition? In the case of covid as with car accidents, it's a distinction without a difference. Yes people are more predisposed to die from covid because of them, but analyses of all-causes excess mortality do not support the hypothesis that there is a large difference between deaths with covid and deaths from covid.

EDIT: except when there isn't enough testing, which underreported deaths with covid towards the beginning of the pandemic.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#793

Post by Y_Y »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #783
vowelless wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, guns. Very few people die because of mass shootings. Adjusted for how armed Americans are, gun violence in this country is tiny. And seeing what an armed citizenry can do against the full American force (Afghanistan), an armed population is a necessity against tyranny in America.

Pea shooters will allow you to stop the US Army on home soil? They have total information awareness, tanks, space/air power, snipers, GPS bombs, etc. Afghanistan was lost because of our tolerance of corruption and intolerance for spending money on a speck of dirt. Oppression of the US will be far more worth the money to a tyranny. If the second amendment actually said what gun people say it does (literalist/"strict c…

> A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

That's the whole thing. I think the most literal interpretation is that people have a right to bear arms, and you cant infringe that, by telling them they can't bear any arms. Obviously reasonable people will differ here, but I don't think it's fair to say that it unambiguously grants the right to bear any kind of arms at all.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#794

Post by RandallBrown »

wyldfire wrote: post #758
jedberg wrote: post #612

The way you know it is all security theater is TSA pre. I haven't taken my shoes off, my laptop out, or gone through the hands-on-your-head scanner in years, because the TSA pre-check line doesn't require any of that. Because apparently verifying my ID before arrival at the airport makes me less of a threat. Or maybe it's the $80 they get every few years that makes me less of a threat...

Aside: when I talk about this program, I refer to it as "T-S-A precheck" because it's depicted as "TSA Pre ". I often hear it referred to as "TSA Pre" and it seems to be the case here too. I agree that the signage is unclear but I don't think it's intended to be called "TSA Pre".

Until this specific thread I've never seen or heard it referred to as "TSA Pre". It has always been precheck. I suppose now I'll start to notice people doing it.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#796

Post by ubermonkey »

Certainly not.

People who were paying attention back then knew this. This kind of intrusion is a ratcheting function.

I feel like HN is a sort of older crowd, so a good chunk of those who can read this probably remember pre-9/11 travel, but for those that don't:

I have, nearly every day of my adult life, carried a Swiss Army Knife. It's insanely handy, and not at all something that would be parsed as a weapon. (Even in 2021, the models I favor are legal for personal everyday carry in the UK, which is at this point somewhat notorious for restrictive knife laws.)

Before 9/11, I carried it on the plane, in my pocket. I was also through security in mere moments -- sure, we still emptied our pockets, and took off big belt buckles (not me, but I live in Texas, so I saw it often) or chunky jewelry that might set off the metal detector, but security was a very very quick process.

Nobody cared how much liquid you had in your carry-on.

And we were almost exactly as safe then as we are now. Security expert Bruce Schneier has pointed out repeatedly that the only things that REALLY made a difference post-9/11 were (1) the reinforced cockpit door and (2) the now universal understanding that passengers must resist.

Everything else is bullshit theater. *And in point of fact TSA is very, very bad at their job, and has NEVER prevented an attack.*

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#797

Post by RandallBrown »

cammikebrown wrote: post #707
extra88 wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

U.S. passports do not require getting fingerprinted. U.S. Visas require fingerprinting. I don't think fingerprinting kids is universal or even the norm. I haven't found anything that says it's required anywhere. I have found information about parents having their child's fingerprints in their own records and examples of programs emphasizing that only the family has the record, they're not kept by local government, le…

I remember cops coming to my elementary school (this would have been around 1995) and fingerprinting everyone “for fun”.

I had this happen too. We put our fingerprints onto an "ID" card we got to keep. As far as I remember the fingerprints didn't actually go anywhere else.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#798

Post by Tostino »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #783
vowelless wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, guns. Very few people die because of mass shootings. Adjusted for how armed Americans are, gun violence in this country is tiny. And seeing what an armed citizenry can do against the full American force (Afghanistan), an armed population is a necessity against tyranny in America.

Pea shooters will allow you to stop the US Army on home soil? They have total information awareness, tanks, space/air power, snipers, GPS bombs, etc. Afghanistan was lost because of our tolerance of corruption and intolerance for spending money on a speck of dirt. Oppression of the US will be far more worth the money to a tyranny. If the second amendment actually said what gun people say it does (literalist/"strict c…

Mustard gas for the masses!

Absolutely agreed though, it's a very internally inconsistent viewpoint from my perspective.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#799

Post by AtlasBarfed »

Y_Y wrote: post #793
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pea shooters will allow you to stop the US Army on home soil? They have total information awareness, tanks, space/air power, snipers, GPS bombs, etc. Afghanistan was lost because of our tolerance of corruption and intolerance for spending money on a speck of dirt. Oppression of the US will be far more worth the money to a tyranny. If the second amendment actually said what gun people say it does (literalist/"strict c…

> A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed. That's the whole thing. I think the most literal interpretation is that people have a right to bear arms, and you cant infringe that, by telling them they can't bear any arms. Obviously reasonable people will differ here, but I don't think it's fair to say that it unambigu…

At the time of writing, "Arms" was muskets.

So you've already stated that it isn't reasonable to allow the other "arms". So why is anything more than a single shot barrel-loaded rifle allowed?

Of course the reason is that there is a massive industry in making guns and a rabid source of people that can be scared into buying their wares. The reason the laws are the way they are is because of the economics of the lobby and not any principle.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#800

Post by MrCybertooth »

GhostVII wrote: post #537

We should have some kind of dashboard tracking how many people die from terrorism, car crashes, heart disease, COVID, etc., and how much time and money we spend trying to prevent these deaths. We are just so terrible at evaluating risk, for some reason it is OK to waste everyone's time with over the top security to stop a tiny portion of terrorism deaths, while still being OK with high speed limits that kill thousand…

Count of total death is just a 'metric' and something that can be 'optimised' and done 'cost benefit analysis' upon, unless it is your child or family member who is the casualty. I would like to understand how okay anybody would be when told that their daughter died because the government felt it was a waste of money to prevent it.
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