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Don't Fly During Ramadan

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Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#471

Post by orblivion »

corresation wrote: post #72

It is a terrible ordeal, but for all of the other factors brought up the critical factor is that he set off an explosion detector (and clearly it doesn't get false positives often given the response they showed). Everything else (about Ramadan, being Hindi, the color of one's skin, etc) may be nothing more than decorations, and no one here knows what would happen if John Smith Anglosaxon set off the same detector in…

I opted out of the Millimeter waves in Manchester NH airport (BTW, coolest TSA agents I ever met. One of them even said he wouldn't ever go through a backscatter machine himself.). They detected some nitrates or nitrites, I forget which (or what those exactly mean). But that's a potential sign of explosives apparently. It's probably because I had been by a camp fire that morning. If you go camping, or shooting, you should consider cleaning your clothes before going through airport security.

This was a flight to return home, so I didn't ask to leave the airport, but they did give me the option of going through the porno-scanner or staying grounded. I understand that the TSA at least claims that the scanner doesn't actually involve showing anybody an image beyond a diagram (not that I'm shy anyway), and it's nowhere near as risky as the backscatter, so I went for it this one time and I was on my way.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#472

Post by niuzeta »

throwaway9848 wrote: post #443
niuzeta wrote: post #55

I'm boycotting Jet Blue.

What is the superior airline that you will be transferring your business to? Let us all know :P

Seeing where the airline operates and since I'm not in US, I won't have a chance to boycott the airline. However, if I ever get a chance to travel to/out of US(which is bound to happen), Jet Blue will not be my airline of choice.

If my friends happen to have to use an airline, I will let them know what I've heard of the airline, and suggest them to find an alternative. That's pretty much it. It's not much, but I won't forget the name Jet Blue.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#473

Post by lightcatcher »

sneak wrote: post #212

Do not talk to the police. Do not talk to the police. Do not talk to the police. http://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc Police includes any federal agents, border patrol, CBP, et c. Do not talk to the police. You cannot talk your way out of being arrested or explain your way on to a flight. They record everything and even an accidental misstatement is a felony. You gave them address history, work configurations, business associ…

Umm, you definitely can explain your way on to a flight.

When a TSA agent asks if they can search your bag, saying "yes" has always lead to me catching my flight, and I'm pretty sure saying "Let me talk to my lawyer" would lead to me missing my flight. Also when they asked if there was any reason you might have set off the bomb detectors, answering with a valid reason can definitely lead to you catching your flight.

However, as soon as its clear you're going to miss your flight, I would agree its the time to stop talking.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#474

Post by mindcrime »

rayiner wrote: post #361
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…

Setting off an explosives detector isn't reasonable suspicion?

That's hard to say. How accurate is the detector? How susceptible to false-positives is it? Does it even detect anything at all? Do we really know that the "bomb detector" isn't just another ADE-651?[1][2]

[1]: http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/01/world/europe/fake-bomb-detecto...

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADE_651

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#475

Post by waqf »

twoodfin wrote: post #370
waqf wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...…

I think that Wikipedia article is far too sanguine about the likelihood that NPVIC would pass Constitutional muster. First, it's not likely that the wording of Article II truly grants state legislatures unlimited discretion in the selection of electors. A state law that required electors to be men or Methodists would surely be unconstitutional today. And as a result, there's almost certainly an equal protection argum…

Interesting comments, thanks. In fact this article seems to speak to NPVIC and the compacts clause: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/jlsp/pdf/Summer2009/02Pincus.42.4...

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#476

Post by jellicle »

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…

> say you want to check for guns and explosives before people get on an airplane. How do you do it?

Like this: you check them for guns and explosives. Finding none, you let them on the plane. Total elapsed time: 5 minutes.

It's really not that hard.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#477

Post by omegant »

rquantz wrote: post #309
ctdonath wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This sounds terrible. Police make me very nervous. I avoid them if possible, especially making eye contact. How would I show up in Israel's interview?

It´s just the security girl that checks your ticket before you go with your bags through the bag cleareance (that happens before you check in). If you don´t know what´s happening you don´t notice it. In fact Ben Gurion airport has one of the fastest and least unpleasent security screening I´ve seen, while being at the same time maybe the most secure. Security people is very pleasent, even when they stop you for questioning, they do it fast and in a polite way. They are proffesionals that have to deal with daily and real threats. The most unpleasent airport security is the TSA and then the British, and it depends largely on the guy you meet at the filter. After the 9/11 the german airport security were very strict for a couple of years, now they seem to be back to normal, stricter rules but not offensive searches and that.

Edit: I stand corrected the British security is mostly Heathrow. I flew from Edimburgh this April and the security was mostly the same as the rest of europe. Also I have improved the wording a bit.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#478

Post by cenhyperion »

eshvk wrote: post #35
lukeqsee wrote: post #7

Most striking and appalling is the lack of common sense and basic empathy throughout this whole ordeal. For example, he asked multiple times for water , a basic necessity for life, and was denied multiple times. That can't be rationalized in anyway—what did they expect, him to drown someone? His requests as to the nature of his detention were denied. His rights to privacy were utterly ignored. And it goes on… We need…

The most popular argument against the TSA that I have heard? They spend too much of their time searching the "wrong people". You know the kind that wouldn't "hurt a fly"? Weasel phrases that in essence mean that the TSA should do what Israel does. Racial profiling. Not that they don't do enough of it. At least on paper, they try to mess up that by searching white grandmas from the midwest and little blonde girls. Of…

You're honestly advocating more racial profiling and propelling us towards the state of racism, hatred, and paranoia of Israel? Really?

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#479

Post by guard-of-terra »

jnbiche wrote: post #387
guard-of-terra wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Turkmenistan is something special, I've heard of that.

I'm not saying anything about "democratic path". That I am saying is about nobody caring about anything (probably with an exception of taking bribes) in most of ex-USSR countries.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#480

Post by nerfhammer »

jrockway wrote: post #199
decktech wrote: post #157

Earlier 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.

Wouldn't it be Amtrak Police in Penn Station? You don't normally see NYPD in there
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