Don't Fly During Ramadan • Hacker News Board

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#381

Post by notahacker » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 7:41 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #318

notahacker wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, the pertinent detail is the fact the man set of explosive detectors. The other details, far from suggesting oppressive state apparatus, suggested an assortment of rent-a-cops and airline staff that really weren't particularly well-prepared for the guy that couldn't account for the explosives and flagged other profiling alarms without actually giving any indication of being an actual threat. If you want…

In this case, the pertinent detail is the fact the man set of explosive detectors. I'd argue that the pertinent detail is that he wasn't actually carrying any explosives. The other details, far from suggesting oppressive state apparatus, suggested an assortment of rent-a-cops and airline staff that really weren't particularly well-prepared for the guy that couldn't account for the explosives and flagged other profili…

I'm not sure whether you're arguing the state was "oppressive" because it had the temerity to put in place a policy of investigating people that set off explosive detectors, or because they weren't competent enough to establish his innocence within minutes, but I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree on both counts

Minimal security theatre isn't oppression, and neither is bungling for five hours.

Let's put things into perspective here. The Syrian government gasses its people largely indiscriminately. The Egyptian government shoots those guilty of the crime of public protest. This guy was, based on reasonable suspicion... asked more questions than competent interrogators would have bothered with and left rather thirsty and ticketless at the end.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#382

Post by koenigdavidmj » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 7:42 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #260

jrockway wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that was the NYPD. Unlike the TSA searches, you can refuse to comply with those.

No, it was the TSA - but Amtrak has dictated exactly how they must behave in stations, and you rarely hear a peep from them. ---- Rail's handling of TSA should be a model http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/06/opinion/don-phillips-tsa-vipr-...

Rail has the advantage that they can just shut down commerce across the country for a few days if the government does anything they don't like, and they have the balls to do it.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#383

Post by greedo » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 7:42 PM UTC

csallen wrote: post #349

greedo wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 y…

Can you cite sources for either of the two claims you made here? I'm genuinely curious.

Here's a link to the legal stuff. I'll find the best link for the red team statement.

http://criminal-law.freeadvice.com/criminal-law/arrests_and_...

EDIT: Here's an example of a red team "success:"

http://www.9news.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=67166&catid=222

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#384

Post by mistercow » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 7:42 PM UTC

corresation wrote: post #352

mistercow wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and no one here knows what would happen if John Smith Anglosaxon set off the same detector in the same situation. We don't have to have direct knowledge of the impossibly specific situation you've constructed. The FBI agent flat out said that it was about his race when he said "a person of your… background". And explosive detectors are not really there to find bombs. They are there to reduce manual searches. If they…

We don't have to have direct knowledge of the impossibly specific situation you've constructed. Instead we have people saying "I am white and I set one off in 2003 in Australia and they let me through, therefore that demonstrates that this is racism" (ignore every case where non-whites got a couple of quick questions and went through). And how utterly provincial are so many people on here? What backwaters do they liv…

>Instead we have people saying "I am white and I set one off in 2003 in Australia and they let me through, therefore that demonstrates that this is racism" (ignore every case where non-whites got a couple of quick questions and went through).

You are correct that anecdotal reports of white people not being harassed after setting off the detectors is not particularly strong evidence.

> Go to JFK or Newark and tell me that they pick on non-whites, and I'll tell you that they must have hundreds of thousands of employees working around the clock to manage that.

Racism is not a matter of "white or non-white". The "blows up planes" stereotype is specific to people who look "Arab". And of course they're not harassing everyone who fits their stereotype; the explosive detector surely did play a role (and people suggesting that it was intentionally triggered are being silly). It's just that your estimate of that being "95% of this story" is grotesquely optimistic.

>Further what an FBI agent purportedly said during the conversational stage is utterly irrelevant.

Perhaps the FBI agent didn't have a sense of the situation before he arrived. I would guess, given his position and the fact that he seemed to be the most competent and perceptive person the author dealt with, that his assessment is as reliable as we can expect to get. It certainly isn't irrelevant. That it was said in conversation is not very relevant. Are you suggesting that he made that comment inaccurately to reassure the author? "You have to understand, we're just very racist"?

As for various things that other commenters have said, I'm not sure what response you want from me. I didn't say them. I'm sorry people can't read?

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#385

Post by cynest » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 7:43 PM UTC

jgalt212 wrote: post #200

jgalt212 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh, Hi Noam Chomsky.

I lose points every time I criticize Noam Chomsky. Who are the other sacred cows on HN that if you criticize you automatically lose Karma? I'll take a stab: Noam Chomsky Paul Graham Elon Musk Jeff Bezos

That wasn't a criticism. It was a short, sarcastic jeer with poor grammar.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#386

Post by pmorici » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 7:43 PM UTC

"Ironically, when I went to the other terminal, I was able to get through security (by walking through the millimeter wave machines) with no problem."

Why go through all of that only to give into the body scanners!

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#387

Post by jnbiche » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 7:43 PM UTC

guard-of-terra wrote: post #313

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…

What's her experiences with Kazakhstan exactly? I've never been there but would expect from any post-soviet country a great deal of nobody caring about you and not many secret police anywhere.

The ex-soviet central Asian republics are packed full of secret police -- until 2006, Turkmenistan boasted one of the world's most famous totalitarian regimes under his Amazingself-for-life President Niyazov, and although his successor has made some reforms, things haven't gotten much better since Niyazov's death. The other republics share the same kind of government to a greater or lesser extent. IWPR at http://iwpr.net has amazing independent coverage of Central Asia, the Balkans, and Africa, and is a good place to keep abreast of what's going on in those regions.

You may be thinking of the former Eastern Bloc countries, which with a few notable exceptions have followed a much more democratic path after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#388

Post by yafujifide » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 7:44 PM UTC

rechjr wrote: post #203

What do we do? For at least a decade, but more markedly so in the last eighteen months or so, I can't get on the Internet without seeing a story like this. Authorities of all sorts ignore any laws they feel like to provide the appearance of security against threats that usually don't exist in the first place. Revelations in technology that show absolutely nothing is secure unless you are manually rolling dice to cons…

Personally, I'm making plans to leave the US. Since few people will listen to me when I explain how bad things are, I do not believe effecting change is a reasonable course of action. Instead, I will try to internationalize my business and my life so that I can interact with pleasant people and escape tyranny.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#389

Post by mikegagnon » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 7:45 PM UTC

msrpotus wrote: post #279

amirmc wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

One of the scariest parts of this is that it seems like surveillance (if not censorship) is much more targeted. If you aren't the NSA's focus or on a TSA watch list, you might not know anything is going on. But if you are unlucky enough to trigger something, you might be visited with unimaginable torment like @chimeracoder was.

Exactly. The biggest threat from surveillance and censorship isn't the imposition on average citizens.

Rather, the risk is that surveillance, censorship, intimidation, selective law enforcement, and so on are targeted at specific political opponents --- such as Aaron Swartz, Barrett Brown, Glenn Greenwald, Marin Luther King Jr. and so on.

Such authoritarian harassment presents a straightforward threat to democracy because it stifles political dissent.

Democracy is incompatible with the stifling of political dissent.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#390

Post by mason240 » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 7:46 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #195

chimeracoder wrote: post #185

Earlier 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?

Instead of forcing others to waste their time and money to suit your irrational need for a security theatre, why don't spend your own time and money moving somewhere else with lots of security - like North Korea.