This is a manifestation of the US institutionalized xenophobia. Good manners and taste should keep me from using this submission as another soapbox against how the US views foreigners, but when you see foreigners as enemies, a citizen who looks or acts vaguely "foreign"— I can't offer a precise definition of what "looking foreign" entails, but it's a combination of being a part of a small demographic group, and being…
It's actually a manifestation of the US security state. Foreigners or foreign-looking people are just the first victims. Rest assured, before long everyone in the country will be suspect.
Don't Fly During Ramadan
251–260 of 986 posts
Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan
#252What happened to him is horrendous, and scary. I'm currently living in Palo Alto for work, but every time I travel to and from the USA, I'm always in fear. That said, I have never had an issue; mind you, I've never made the explosives detector beep. I always elect for the pat down too.
While the TSA employees aren't always the friendliest, I haven't had any memorable run-ins with them. On the contrary, they've been actually nice at times. It helps that I always travel clean shaven, and speak to everyone as politely as any Canadian can. :-)
As a counterpoint, the only instance of racial profiling that I encountered while flying was actually in Sault Ste. Marie, ON, Canada. I was traveling with some colleagues back to Toronto; they were Caucasian, and I was the only non-Caucasian. The security agent at the airport decided to "randomly" select me for explosives screening. She was the lone agent, and it's a tiny airport. No one before or after me was "randomly" screened. No one else was non-Caucasian.
I'm not saying that security agents should be fearful of choosing a non-Caucasian for random screening, lest they be accused of profiling or racism. I'm saying that random screenings should actually be random. Also, I can't verify this hypothesis myself since I sucked at probability theory, but I'm pretty sure that only selecting 1 person out of 250+ passengers traveling through the airport is an insufficient sample size for actually detecting a person who may be carrying explosives; you should probably be randomly selecting more people.
TL;DR - USA yay, Canada nay!
Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan
#253To me one of the more troubling aspects of this is that in 2013 and after 12 years, the specialists we have fighting this "war" still have trouble distinguishing between Hindu & Muslim (though obviously Muslims should not be treated like this either). It might be easier for me b/c I'm Hindu but just looking at a name is usually enough to at least get past that part.
To anybody who's vaguely knowledgeable about these things, it not only points out my nationality, but also which region of India I belong to, my religion, and also my caste[0].
[0] Not that I pay attention to caste, but as you can see, Indian surnames contain a lot if information, to anybody even remotely trained in reading them.
Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan
#254The 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…
It's an appalling story and the behavior of the TSA is often reprehensible, but seriously -- this is not a fair comparison. So yes, security guys don't know Hindu from Muslim or Indian from whatever, but it's well-known there is a heightened alert right now, US embassies all over the middle-east and Africa are closed out of security fears, and this guy fit a crude profile AND did something slightly unusual (opted out…
The only part of this story that makes it anything less than a total clusterfuck on the part of the TSA is that their so-called "explosive detector" alerted on something. Fine, it should take about 3 minutes after that to manually pat down / search the individual and find (or not) any explosives they are carrying. If you don't find any (and seemingly they didn't) that's what we call a "false positive". They happen, but that does not justify all the follow-on bullshit.
Seriously, FUCK the TSA. Those assholes are the terrorists as far as I'm concerned.
Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is this a joke? I was searched by the TSA the last time I took Amtrak. They just plopped down a table in the middle of Penn Station and went to town.
I'm pretty sure that was the NYPD. Unlike the TSA searches, you can refuse to comply with those.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/08/10/vipr-a10.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/06/us/tsa-expands-duties-beyo...
(Side note, who the hell comes up with these names, and why hasn't somebody with some experience with marketing and PR talked to them?)
Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan
#256Earlier 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.
So it's OK to be racist if you have another reason to be suspicious?
I think it's more than a little hyperbolic to describe their actions as 'rabid racism'
They had a legitimate reason for suspicion. That reason wasn't the color of his skin, it was the color of a computer screen (a screen that flashes green hundreds of times a day flashed red in this case).
It's quite obvious that much ignorance and xenophobia followed, but I don't think it crossed (laughably subjective) line of 'rabid.'
A friend of mine who is about as 'all American' looking as you can get (white, tall, former marine...) tripped the same alarms after he had been firing a gun at a range the day before. He had an obvious and clear explanation for the alarm, so his experience wasn't as invasive, but they certainly gave him a hard time about it.
Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan
#257This is a manifestation of the US institutionalized xenophobia. Good manners and taste should keep me from using this submission as another soapbox against how the US views foreigners, but when you see foreigners as enemies, a citizen who looks or acts vaguely "foreign"— I can't offer a precise definition of what "looking foreign" entails, but it's a combination of being a part of a small demographic group, and being…
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.
When you say "concentration camp" people think of gas chambers, crematoria, and genocide, which were not components of Japanese internment. The term is still technically correct, but that may be why people are confused and surprised.
Maybe my school was odd... Japanese internment was at least mentioned every year in US History between 7th and 11th grade.
Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
That thought is terrifying. I was afraid I was going to be put on the no-fly list afterwards and would have to travel back to NYC by train (a four-day trip). Even before this experience I used to avoid flying in favor of taking the train. I don't know what I'd do if the TSA became commonplace at train stations.
Take the bus? Drive?
Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan
#259The 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…
The view you have expressed here demonstrates that you have literally no idea what you are talking about.
It is not a "lottery" when the TSA and their goons are profiling people based on race, religion, income, and a host of other criteria.
Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is this a joke? I was searched by the TSA the last time I took Amtrak. They just plopped down a table in the middle of Penn Station and went to town.
I'm pretty sure that was the NYPD. Unlike the TSA searches, you can refuse to comply with those.
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Rail's handling of TSA should be a model
http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/06/opinion/don-phillips-tsa-vipr-...