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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?

#831

Post by falcrist »

baix777 wrote: post #781
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you have all this talk of "bump stocks" and "ghost guns" and "assault weapons" and whatnot, but it's all just smoke and mirrors to assuage fears. The goal isn't to save lives. The goal is to assuage fears. I don't take any gun policy seriously that purports to save lives if it isn't focused on handguns and suicides. It's also politics. If you actually wanted to solve the problem, well, like two thirds of US fire…

It is interesting to compare US vs Canadian suicide rates to see what impact gun ownership could have. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

While I agree with the idea that removing a quick and accessible means of suicide can reduce suicide rates, there's a huge caveat on that article.

> we did not have the ability to control for differences between the two countries including poverty, unemployment, health systems, cultural, or other differences

The authors go on to suggest that they may in fact be underestimating the amount of suicides that could be averted with reduced gun ownership, but there are an awful lot of confounding factors that are simply not addressed in this paper.

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

#832

Post by betterunix2 »

dsauerbrun wrote: post #221
angott wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Europe you're not required to take off your belt because of an arbitrary rule like shoes in the US. They just tell you to take it off because most belts have metal parts so they will likely trigger the metal detector.

I thought the shoes being taken off wasn't arbitrary. I thought it was because of the shoe bomber(Richard Reed)

The fact that the shoe rule does not apply to precheck speaks volumes about how arbitrary it is...

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

#833

Post by bregma »

tcoff91 wrote: post #724
js2 wrote: post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pretty much if you're a US citizen they already have your fingerprints. False. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/how-app... My spouse and I renewed our passports in the last 10 years, and got our kids passports for the first time. We did not provide fingerprints. I am a U.S. citizen. I went through an SF86 clearance in the early 2000s and don't recall even that requiring my fingerprints (but I co…

You didn't have to give your fingerprints when you got a driver's license?

Where on earth would people accept such an encroachment on their privacy and right to unreasonable search and seizure just to obtain proof they have passed an examination? Soviet Russia? The DDR? Orwell's Oceania?

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

#834

Post by heavyset_go »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #817
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #807

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> improve mental health I think that this is a poor target. How do you set out directly targeting mental health? What are the biggest causes of mental health issues? https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/learn/index.htm CDC lists causes such as childhood trauma, trauma from medical issues, biological factors, alcohol or drugs, and loneliness or isolation. How do you set out to tackle loneliness or isolation? How do you he…

It seems like free therapy would help with all of this? Therapy is part of free health care in other countries if I recall. Also free health care would help prevent people from ending up in dire straits.

This reminds me of the "This is fine" cartoon by KC Green[1]. Therapy treats the symptoms and not the cause of societal problems.

I do agree that therapy and free healthcare would help and are needed, but alone they are not a solution.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2016/5/5/11592622/this-is-fine-meme...

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

#835

Post by t-writescode »

ubermonkey wrote: post #796

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…

And one big thing that used to happen that doesn't anymore:

* Family would stay together basically right up to the gate. Eating dinner together, possibly, before a flight was had, or picking people up right from the plane, in situations where half the family flies away and the other half stays.

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

#836

Post by cogman10 »

maxwell wrote: post #802
Y_Y wrote: post #793

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The 18th century "regulated" means "well trained" today. What implies that any restrictions on the type of arms which may be possessed would be Constitutional? Where is the ambiguity outside of misunderstanding the contemporary meaning of "regulated"? "Bearing" doesn't mean using/firing weapons, of course, it's about preventing any authority from monopolizing violence. Certainly the founders—you know, the violent, en…

The way the US government works today is VERY different from the government setup by the founders. Trying to divine what they would and wouldn't have wanted (understanding that they were all over the board on opinions) isn't a useful exercise.

The founders didn't want a federal military, they wanted each state to run their own military.

The founders didn't want a strong federal government, they wanted to states to be highly sovereign.

The founders put in the bill of rights to limit the federal government's actions, not state government actions.

The government completely changed after the civil war with the 14th amendment. The constitution was written primarily to limit the powers of the federal government. States were free to put, for example, requirements on religion to run for office.

McDonald v. Chicago would have been appalling to the founders, because it's the federal government trampling over the rights of a state government.

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

#837

Post by aeternum »

umvi wrote: post #789
aeternum wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the threats are legitimate and every death counts but it also makes sense to prioritize and focus our limited attention to areas where it has the most impact. Terrorism kills something like 28k/year whereas Covid has killed 5 million.

The majority of the ~5 million that covid killed would have been dead of old age, heart disease, etc. in 5-10 years anyway. Covid just shaved off a few years of life expectancy; the same people would have shown up in CDC death counts as heart disease or natural causes statistics a few years later. With the 28k killed by terrorism, not so much. You have a lot more young and healthy dying with decades of life expectanc…

We'll see, it's a falsifiable prediction, which is good, but we won't really know until we get the excess death numbers for the next 5-10 years.

Even in the 25-44yr age range, we see a pretty significant increase in deaths: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e2.htm#F2_down

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

#838

Post by betterunix2 »

bedhead wrote: post #40

Things like this are why I'm so cynical about COVID stuff. We have an unconditional commitment to stupid reactive policies that elevate symbolism far above sensibility, and boy does it have a lot of inertia. The parallels between COVID and our post-9/11 reaction are eerie.

The only parallels are between COVID conspiracy theorists and 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Nearly all federal COVID guidance from the CDC has been well-reasoned and carefully balances public health goals with the reality of life in America. State and local measures have been questionable, but all that says is that state and local governments are not really up to the task and should have universally deferred to the CDC.

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

#839

Post by jedberg »

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".

I'm just lazy and call it TSA Pre. :)

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

#840

Post by yesdownvoteme »

The level of political commentary here is anemic, most likely from the heavy handed censorship employed by both moderators and users.

TSA isn't about security or safety, it's about control and power.

But the ability for anyone on HN to even begin this conversation is basically impossible.

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