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Don't Fly During Ramadan

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Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#411

Post by icambron »

rayiner wrote: post #358
Karunamon wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you and I even read the same story?! The guy was clearly being profiled on race and religious background, not just the false positive of the explosives machine.

I'm not sure if you understand what "profiled" means. He was pulled into questioning because he repeatedly set off the bomb detector. The questions about race/religion weren't profiling, because they weren't used to select him for additional scrutiny. They are part of a psychological battery designed to evaluate him without a harsh interrogation. These sorts of batteries were pioneered by the Israelis and are very ef…

An FBI agent in the article:

"You’ll have to understand, when a person of your… background walks into here, traveling alone, and sets off our alarms, people start to get a bit nervous. I’m sure you’ve been following what’s been going on in the news recently. You’ve got people from five different branches of government all in here - we don’t do this just for fun."

That's profiling.

Edit to add: in other words "The questions about race/religion weren't profiling, because they weren't used to select him for additional scrutiny" is false. They even admitted to subjecting him to additional security because of his "background".

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#412

Post by mikeash »

pessimizer wrote: post #304
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.

I haven't flown since shortly after you had to take off your shoes to get through security, taking Amtrak instead, and I've only ever even seen two people searched by TSA. You barely even see them, and if you do, they're usually sitting around looking bored. I suspect that they only bother to do the random searches if they've gotten some specific alert or warning. Many, many trips between Chicago and SF, Portland, an…

They're rare... for now. The trend is solidly up, though.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#413

Post by 83457 »

eternalsunshine wrote: post #243

...and what does this have to do with Ramadan?

My guess is... Ramadan is a holy month for Muslims. Many terrorists are muslim. Terrorism increases around Ramadan. He is brown, many Muslims are brown, TSA on high alert for Muslims. He is setting off an explosives residue detector. Many terrorists use explosives.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#414

Post by sfall »

kareemm wrote: post #327
enraged_camel wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Anyway, I look at this like the lottery, but in reverse. Sometimes you lose the reverse lottery and a day of your life gets fucked up. But ultimately, life moves on and you have an interesting story. You can say that the government is an oppressive regime that is out to get you for your political views, or you can say you rolled the dice and lost. The view you have expressed here demonstrates that you have literall…

The explosives detection machinery doesn't care what you look like or believe. I don't know about you, but I want the TSA / FBI / NYPD to look into it so that they're sufficiently convinced the individual is not a threat.

the problem is that as a Caucasian male even if i were to test positive for the same chemical and didn't realize the source I highly doubt I would have been detained for more than an hour or two

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#415

Post by justin66 »

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.

I was searched with one around the year 2000, IIRC, at the San Francisco airport. I think it was pretty experimental.

edit: there might have been a similar setup at Orly in France in 1997, come to think of it. The striking thing there was the soldiers with rifles (just 3 of them, but walking around) and the way they searched one of my grandmother's bags when the x-ray showed something that looked like a grenade. (it was glass in a weird shape) They were friendly and had a sense of humor about it, and it didn't slow us down, which all made a big difference.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#416

Post by icambron »

mark-r wrote: post #377
kareemm wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The explosives detection machinery doesn't care what you look like or believe. I don't know about you, but I want the TSA / FBI / NYPD to look into it so that they're sufficiently convinced the individual is not a threat.

Once they've determined he isn't carrying actual explosives he shouldn't be considered a threat anymore. The detection machine might single you out for additional searching, but once the search is complete you should be free to go.

This. The craziness of "he set of the detection machine but it's clearly a false-positive, but now that he's on our radar let's grill him in case he just happens to be a terrorist" should be obvious to anyone.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#417

Post by john_b »

jrockway wrote: post #190
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 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…

> "You can argue about the techniques; religious questions, not giving him water, but it's all a well-documented psychological game that they're trying to play. If they make the suspect mad, the suspect is more likely to start yelling hysterically without thinking, saving the taxpayer the cost of a long trial. It's worth a try, right? (I think the correct answer to any question is, "my lawyer will answer that. get me my lawyer.")"

This is about the techniques. As another commenter pointed out, details matter. "Securing our airports" is all well and good until you start "securing" them via forced detentions absent any charges, denying basic physical needs, "patdowns" that would qualify as sexual assault if someone not wearing a uniform did it, and so on. The whole point is that if you don't consider the details and only focus on the goals, then you only consider the benefits and not the costs. Judging from the public statements by officers of the TSA and DHS, this is exactly how they seem to think about these practices.

> "Let me ask you this: say you want to check for guns and explosives before people get on an airplane. How do you do it?"

They already had checked for guns and explosives. Both his bags were scanned and his body was repeatedly "inspected" as well. The statements made by the officers indicated they were well aware that false alarms due to various common chemicals are routine. Yet they decided to assume he was a terrorist carrying explosives because he was a brown person who hadn't eaten traveling during Ramadan, not because of any concrete evidence on his person or possessions.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#418

Post by blhack »

chimeracoder wrote: post #253
htsh wrote: post #48

To 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.

I know, my surname is incredibly distinctive. 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.

You don't have to say your name, for obvious reasons, but would you mind giving an example of an Indian name, and how all of that information is encoded in it? That's REALLY fascinating to me.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#419

Post by omegaham »

ganeumann wrote: post #290
solistice wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, if you have a "secret button" used by hundrets of TSA officials, with at least some borderline irresponsible, how long do you think it takes for those news to leak out? Two weeks? The only way to keep a secret for long periods is that few know about it.

Well, we had thousands of people violating the 4th Amendment willy-nilly looking at our email and phone data and it's taken years for that to credibly leak out. Bucking authority like that is not only unusual, it's downright rare. Don't count on it. Not that I believe that there's a secret button.

However, keep in mind that the NSA doesn't employ that many people. Furthermore, these people mostly work in the same area, have been vetted repeatedly, and are watched. The TSA, on the other hand, works everywhere, has many more people, and do not have the same scrutiny applied to their employees.

Interestingly enough, most classified information doesn't get leaked the same way that Snowden leaked his documents. It's mostly due to carelessness. The best example of this is deployment schedules. One of my coworkers was scheduled to go on a Marine Expeditionary Unit (ship that goes around the Pacific just in case something happens). The date of departure was classified. Someone told his wife, who told all of her friends on Facebook. Oops.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#420

Post by curiousDog »

rayiner wrote: post #348

I was reading that whole story waiting for a punchline. He repeatedly set off the explosives sniffer while trying to go through airport security, and speculates that someone searched his place while he was away. And? I'd imagine that repeatedly setting off a bomb detector would be probable cause for a warrant to search his place. I'm not sure what the "is" is here, other than it's a major hassle caused by a screening…

Really? Are you serious? Even if he set off those detectors, which are evidently broken, doesn't he have to be treated with minimal courtesy as a human? They could've even just started off with listing some household items that could set it off. Does a broken machine warrant psychological warfare techniques? And if you're even able to justify that, where do these techniques stop? Should he have also been waterboarded and forced to drink crude oil, you know just to see if he'll break? All this despite being 'American'. The pain and mental anguish one goes through when this happens will only be apparent once it happens to you.
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