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Don't Fly During Ramadan

varnull.adityamukerjee.net

231–240 of 986 posts

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

From a legal perspective there's actually a valid point here: they're not conducting universal searches for evidence to use in criminal prosecution, which is mostly the sense that the 4th Amendment is interpreted as applying to. Rather, they're simply enforcing a mandate not to let certain types of objects enter a specified area. Effectively they're arguing that it's no different from, say, a courthouse which has a "No Firearms Permitted" sign on the door and guards and metal detectors to enforce that policy, and for the most part such things are widely accepted to be constitutional.

The main way to fight these "administrative searches" is to show that they are too invasive, or not narrowly tailored to achieve their purpose, both of which are criteria US courts have shown they care about.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#232
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 don't think this is that oppressive. He went through security and set off an explosives detector. The cops showed up and asked some questions. Then he left. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say the government can't hamfistedly accuse you of a crime. All it says is that they have to charge you or let you go in 24 hours, give you a trial, and punish you in a consistent way. They did that here; they asked some ques…

Well, considering that red teams are routinely able to smuggle weapons and simulated explosive devices on aircraft fairly routinely, the current procedures are shit. Security theater at its finest.

And you can't detain someone without reasonable suspicion which gives you the authority to investigate whether a crime has occurred. This detention can't be indefinite, and can't even come close to lasting 24 hours. Once your investigation exceeds around 30 minutes, you have to either arrest the person (assuming probable cause) or release them.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#233
post #80

The end of the story sounds suspiciously like Zersetzung: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi#Zersetzung

I recently read an article about the Stasi. I was strangely fascinated by Zersetzung - as I understand it, one of the main objectives was to supply other people with evidence against your own sanity. "[R]eplacing one variety of tea with another" - No really, that and other ridiculous things happened. Agents of the Stasi went into homes and did that. It is designed to make you seem like a lunatic when you try to explain yourself and get help. Imagine that, being subject to a procedure designed to make you feel utterly helpless and alone. You are right and everything is real, but everything real is now designed to seem strange to other people.

I wonder why wikipedia translates it as "corrosion" or "undermining". The term Zersetzung is more often used as meaning a biological process of degradation. It's dissolution. It's being eaten away by acid.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#234
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There are far more efficient ways to flag people that fit a certain profile. They should have checked all of his belongings and let him go, and not focused at all on his "attitude". Did you miss the part where the machines gave him a positive for explosives?

Did you miss the thread of conversation where false positives happen often and are explained away with lesser screening?

> where false positives happen often and are explained away with lesser screening

Can you offer an alternative scenario of how you would have reacted if you were one of the officers?

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#235
post #133
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you an American? I'm curious, because in my experience the American interment of Japanese is fairly well known among Americans and Japanese, and not well known by everyone else.

Internment is a revisionist word to make it sound less harsh. They were concentration camps.

Yes, "interment camp" is a euphemism for "concentration camp", but to be fair at about the same time "concentration camp" become a euphemism for "death camp".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment#Concentration_camp

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#236
i was detained by airport security in SFO upon arrival for two hours without setting off any alarms. Security kept asking me questions, disappearing into a room, then coming back asking me the same questions. They basically took the phone number of my entire contact list and told me they were calling them.

After i saw them take a few trips to that room, i started suspecting that they are watching me from somewhere and trying to analyze my behavior. i don't know why that idea came to me, but i realized i was extremely nervous and sweating. So i decided to bluff that i am pissed and this is outrageous.

When the security guys came back i started bluffing a bad mood. i turned the table by asking them questions instead. "is there something wrong?", "people are waiting for me outside" were some things i started saying. One security guy asked me to calm down but i kept on bluffing, i told them my flight was twenty one hours long non stop and that they are wasting more of my time. at this point i wasn't bluffing anymore i got really upset.

They disappeared one last time, i started huffing and puffing, and looking for the cameras that were watching me since i was convinced that was the case. When security came back, they simply told me you're good to go. They jokingly asked if i'd rather stay there. i said yes. They both raised their eyebrows and looked at me surprised as if they were about to interrogate me again. Then i jokingly said, i'd love to stay and watch all these hostesses passing by, at that point there was a team of hostesses passing by and we all laughed. They told me that this helps them endure their night shifts!

But the funny part was when i reached home, and started calling my relatives whom the security officers said they are calling. My relatives all said that they received no call, and told me of course those guys always bluff. I don't think i can take security seriously after that incident ever.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#237
Do not try to talk your way out of anything. And you do NOT have to and should not answer any questions from law enforcement or the TSA. Ask repeatedly: Am I being detained? Am I free to go?

Cops can ask for ID (which you do have to provide, sadly) and can briefly frisk you to look for weapons -- if they have reasonable suspicion to believe a crime has or is about to happen.

One other thing of note and what makes this situation a bit odd is that once you get into a TSA line (basically past the first TSA person), you legally have to complete it. But the TSA is not law enforcement and they cannot detain you.

This is different for foreign nationals trying to enter the country (you can be turned away), but U.S. citizens have a right of return (though you can get held for a long time if they make up some reason to suspect you for simply refusing to answer questions.)

And the OP ought to file a complaint with TSA and FOIA the incident report. He should also talk to CCR about a possible lawsuit. Being detained for 18 hours without food or water is dangerous and illegal.

Also fuck JetBlue. Remember they voluntarily turned over their entire customer database to the feds in 2002 to help with datamining. Sounds to me like JetBlue also violated common carriage rules. A captain can refuse to transport a passenger for any reason, but an airline cannot.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#238

"You’ve got people from five different branches of government all in here - we don’t do this just for fun." Exactly. You do it because it's a secure, well-paying job; there's an infinite budget to keep bullies like you working.

"- we don’t do this just for fun - we have to justify our jobs."

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way the people take this country back is to start a third party. A REAL third party, somewhere between the moderate liberals and the libertarians. Without any outside competition, it's just recycling the same type of candidates, with the same policies and with the same disregard for basic civil liberties.

> The only way the people take this country back is to start a third party. If a party was started, it wouldn't be a third party, it'd be something like a fortieth party, excluding strictly regional parties. The reason additional parties aren't competitive is structural in the electoral systems used in federal and state elections, and adding more parties isn't going to change that.

Exactly. So you have to go back yet another step and look at who has power to change the electoral system.

You might think the only answer is a constitutional amendment, which requires a supermajority of Congress, but in fact there's a backdoor: if you have the cooperation of a majority of state governments then you can certify any electors you like. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstat... for an attempt to change the U.S. electoral system in this way.

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