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Don't Fly During Ramadan

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Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#421

Post by greedo »

notahacker wrote: post #301
mindcrime wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is that oppressive. Yeah, well, it didn't happen to you, did it? He went through security and set off an explosives detector. The cops showed up and asked some questions. Then he left. "We gave him free room and board for 17 years, then laid him on a comfortable bed and gave him some medicine to make him fall asleep for a while". vs. "We kept him caged in a tiny, windowless cell and gave him just e…

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…

The idea that authoritarianism requires competent enforcers is false. The Gestapo, the NKVD, the Stasi, the SD were all full of losers who were the mall cops and malcontents of their day. What they did have in common were a lust for power.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#422

Post by mikeash »

koenigdavidmj wrote: post #382
pessimizer wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, Amtrak doesn't have that power, and I doubt the freight companies care what TSA does with Amtrak.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#425

Post by omegaham »

ctdonath wrote: post #291
jrockway wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Israel does a marvelous job of it by a brief interview of every passenger. It's a matter of how each person reacts to initial eye contact; with proper interrogation training, ill intent is obvious. The TSA technique does everything but what works. Gross wholesale violations of multiple Constitutional rights doesn't work.

The difference is that New York, in and of itself, has more airports than Israel. Israel also pays extremely handsomely for its security. We would have to massively increase the funding for the TSA to attract better people and give them more resources.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#426

Post by sheri »

Last week I flew into SFO from Paris. I was called out at the Paris airport with another person (of Muslim origin). The person at the counter started asking me a few questions, and then asked me if we're colleagues. I said we weren't, and that I don't know the guy. He let me go after that, but I was then flagged for security at every single checkpoint after that. I was pulled for a bag check after scanning my boarding pass. In SFO I was flagged for 'secondary screening' during immigration. The immigration officer took me in a room and basically asked me to give details on pretty much my entire life and activities for the past year. After I got out of there, I was then flagged at the customs, where the officer rummaged through all my bags. I'm terrified now that this will become a regular thing, and that was only because I was accidentally associated with a young Muslim male. I now understand what they must be going through pretty much every single time they fly.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#427

Post by JshWright »

67726e wrote: post #409
JshWright wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be extremely gutsy on the part of the TSA employee... I go through the pat-down dance at least once a month, and that test is always done while I'm standing there, and the pass/fail reports are quite obvious (big green/red boxes with text).

Is that dependent on the airport? I've flown as recently as two months ago, and I went through four pat-downs over the course of the trip. I never saw any green/red indicator when they tested the pat-down gloves. Regardles, I wouldn't exactly put it past the TSA to make up a positive hit. It's not like we haven't ever had a police officer claim someone committed a traffic violation on someone based on appearance and…

Perhaps.

In the past two months, I've had pat-downs in DCA, BWI, and PHI (my home airport, SYR, doesn't have scanners, so there's nothing to opt out of).

They all use machines similar to this one:

http://www.tsa.gov/sites/default/files/images/edt_closeup.jp...

I've never seen a failure myself (the green bar you see pops up after a few seconds), but according to a friend who has, a red bar pops up instead.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#428

Post by alexwright »

jlgreco wrote: post #273
pinaceae wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

at the end they let him go. he triggered alarms, they checked, determined him not a threat, let him go. false positive would be him charged with terrorism.

That is an absurd redefinition of failure that serves no purpose but to make the TSA look better. If he were charged you'd undoubtedly just redefine "false positive" to be falsely convicted , not 'merely' charged.

And if convicted it would move onto "at least he wasn't summarily executed, he can appeal"

"The system working" here in the UK unfortunately can mean serving only 16 years in prsion before a conviction is overturned: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Six

    Relevent bit is under the Trail section:
    "On 12 May 1975 the six men were charged with murder and conspiracy to cause explosions."
    "Forensic scientist Dr Frank Skuse used positive Griess test results to claim that Hill and Power had handled explosives"

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#429

Post by dgudkov »

Every time I visited the US I was subject to so called "secondary" checks that looked more like interrogation, so I understand the author's feeling very well. Last time I was denied entry at all. I'm just a regular remote IT contractor living in Canada who happened to have a passport of an Eastern European country. I don't want to come to the US anymore because of this humiliating experience of crossing the US border. I'd better focus on serving customers in Canada. Canada feels much more like a country for people .

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#430

Post by justin66 »

People have some funny ideas about the "explosive detector" machine. It can rightly be called an "explosive detector" in exactly the same sense that the TSA clown who takes everyone's regular-sized liquid containers and throws them away can be called an "explosive detector."

There might be an explosive there, but there almost always isn't, and the whole thing is for show.

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