Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Don't Fly During Ramadan

varnull.adityamukerjee.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 986 posts

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#171

Post by chimeracoder »

aasarava wrote: post #155

Can anyone point to a good reference explaining what your rights are and what to do if questioned and/or detained by the TSA?

I linked to Flex Your Rights[0] in the blog post. They have two great videos (both available for free on Youtube) about dealing with police encounters.

Unfortunately, the TSA are not police officers, and so you don't have the same rights as you do when dealing with police officers. (Notice how the police officers refused to be present during the pat-down - I didn't mention this in the article, but the cops stepped out of the room every time the TSA officers patted me down).

If anybody has a good, analogous resource for dealing with TSA and the FBI, I would love to know.

[0]http://www.flexyourrights.org/

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#172

Post by wwweston »

eshvk wrote: post #6

This makes me so angry. This was one of the reasons I got out of consulting. Every fucking time, I would get an enhanced check. Surprisingly enough, it is nothing new. This is something you face if you are a minority. Hell, I remember a friend from back in Africa whose dad got blacklisted in the nineties because he had a beard. Brown catholic guy with a beard got blacklisted. The only difference now is that at least…

Possibly worth noting that Jet Blue has had some other problems in their history:

http://photographyisnotacrime.com/2008/09/30/the-video-that-...

http://www.jessdugan.com/blog/13699650/JetBlue-stole-my-came...

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#173

Post by toddmorey »

corresation wrote: post #72

It is a terrible ordeal, but for all of the other factors brought up the critical factor is that he set off an explosion detector (and clearly it doesn't get false positives often given the response they showed). Everything else (about Ramadan, being Hindi, the color of one's skin, etc) may be nothing more than decorations, and no one here knows what would happen if John Smith Anglosaxon set off the same detector in…

If events like Oklahoma City, Boston, and Sandy Hook have taught us anything, it's that terrorism doesn't have an ethnic profile. It's not only insulting, but also extremely unsafe to assume otherwise.

I'm surprised and embarrassed by how representatives of my country treated him. I'm embarrassed by their cultural ignorance. There should at least be some better training.

However, this should be a technology discussion and I completely agree with your comment. The question is about the machine, how often it provides a false positive, and how likely it is for someone to come in contact with a legal and common chemical that can set it off. In short: what have we sacrificed for this measure of safety, and does it really provide the advertised benefits?

If we have decently calibrated explosion detectors, then in the unlikely event that they do go off, I for one want that individual questioned very thoroughly, ethnicity and religion aside.

The title of the article should be: "Don't fly after handling Permethrin."

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#174

Post by angersock »

jrockway wrote: post #140
angersock wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've a friend who spent a good deal of time recently in Khazakhstan, and she was very amused by my attempts to express my fears of the United States becoming an authoritarian police state. She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about and all these other sorts of issues. The distressing thing is that we've been putting so much machinery into place, and gotten…

The distressing thing is that we've been putting so much machinery into place, and gotten the noose so well fitted, that when the bottom drops out we'll only have the briefest of short, sharp shocks before we find ourselves in a terrifyingly efficient machine of oppression. Or you can take the train.

Oh, there may not be a choice about that.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#175

Post by JshWright »

ferdo wrote: post #163
JshWright wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss the fact that he triggered the explosive residue detector several times? As the article itself describes... when he skipped the pat-down (and therefore skipped the ERD), no one batted an eye at his race.

Correction: they claimed he triggered the detector. It's not a wise course to take government employees at their word.

'They' also claim the contrails from airliners aren't spreading mind control agents...

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#176

Post by swombat »

walls wrote: post #150
steven777400 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My bags have set off the explosives detector before, twice. (In both cases, due a heart medication that apparently triggers false positives). I was not taken into a back room or interrogated for hours. They searched me and my bags in more detail, asked some questions, and concluded it must have been a false positive. The experience took about 15 minutes each time. This was a few years back, but I don't recall if it w…

I don't think any airports had 'explosive detectors' before 9/11.

Most European airports have had those as long as I can remember (definitely since the mid 90s).

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#177

Post by jwr »

angersock wrote: post #104
jwr wrote: post #73

The land of the free. As I read more and more of those stories I can't help but wonder at how things changed. I am from a formerly-eastern-europe-soviet-bloc country (Poland) and these kinds of oppressive techniques sound very familiar. The haziness of procedures, lack of basic rights, intimidation, no accountability of state officials -- we've seen all that until 1989. At the time, while the communist regime was imp…

I've a friend who spent a good deal of time recently in Khazakhstan, and she was very amused by my attempts to express my fears of the United States becoming an authoritarian police state. She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about and all these other sorts of issues. The distressing thing is that we've been putting so much machinery into place, and gotten…

> I've a friend who spent a good deal of time recently in Khazakhstan, and she was very amused by my attempts to express my fears of the United States becoming an authoritarian police state. She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about and all these other sorts of issues.

And she is right — the US is nowhere near being an authoritarian police state. But it is on a slippery slope, and those of us who have experienced a police state and can detect certain symptoms are deeply worried.

What's even more worrying is that this quiet (it is quiet, Hacker News represents at a first approximation 0% of the voting population) change takes place in a country which is the #1 military, financial and political world power.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#178

Post by duggieawesome »

lukeqsee wrote: post #79
ck2 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It echos of rounding up everyone who is Japanese and throwing them into concentration camps. It's amazing how many people don't know we had concentration camps in the USA in recent history. We are just a hop skip and jump away from that again, all it would take is another major nightmare.

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment I had never heard of this.

Yeah, it's a part of American history that schools skip quite often.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#179

Post by iyulaev »

jrockway wrote: post #140
angersock wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've a friend who spent a good deal of time recently in Khazakhstan, and she was very amused by my attempts to express my fears of the United States becoming an authoritarian police state. She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about and all these other sorts of issues. The distressing thing is that we've been putting so much machinery into place, and gotten…

The distressing thing is that we've been putting so much machinery into place, and gotten the noose so well fitted, that when the bottom drops out we'll only have the briefest of short, sharp shocks before we find ourselves in a terrifyingly efficient machine of oppression. Or you can take the train.

T.S.A. officials respond that the random searches are “special needs” or “administrative searches” that are exempt from probable cause because they further the government’s need to prevent terrorist attacks.

Sigh.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#180

Post by angersock »

amirmc wrote: post #131
angersock wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've a friend who spent a good deal of time recently in Khazakhstan, and she was very amused by my attempts to express my fears of the United States becoming an authoritarian police state. She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about and all these other sorts of issues. The distressing thing is that we've been putting so much machinery into place, and gotten…

> "She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about... " The thing is, they don't need to follow you around the same way as in the 'old days' because, like many things, modern technology makes it easier and more efficient. The tyranny of the future isn't going to be like that of the past. That makes it difficult to explain the dangers to people.

All of our intuitions betray us these days, whether it is how to behave on a social network or how to properly handle your privacy.
Post reply on HN