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Don't Fly During Ramadan

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Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#621

Post by zaroth »

jlgreco wrote: post #588
laureny wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is not a "lottery" when the TSA and their goons are profiling people based on race In this story, they were profiling based on the fact that the person set off explosive detectors. Repeatedly. The fact that he was later questioned by tactless people making veiled racial hints doesn't change the fact that he wasn't racially profiled. A Caucasian would have been detained just the same.

> "set off explosive detectors. Repeatedly." If I walk back and forth through a metal detector with a belt buckle multiple times, do I become increasingly suspicious each time it beeps?

It's nothing at all like going through a metal detector with your belt on. Metal detectors check your present state, trace analysis checks your PAST state.

False positives are possible, I've had it happen to me. When "the machine beeped", I got a thorough pat-down and re-swabbed, and the next time "the machine did not beep" and I was on my way.

It's my understanding that TSA agents will not allow someone to pass who is consistently setting off the explosives alarm. What would be the purpose of checking for trace explosives residue if the agents simply disregard it when it triggers?

Of all the 'sigint' they collect on each passenger, I would bet a "repeated trace analysis fail" ranks up there with carrying box cutters as one of the more alarming indicators an agent has to deal with.

It sounds like the agents did everything they could to try to get a green light from trace analysis. Failing that, the passenger is obviously red flagged and it's "all systems go" to determine if they are really a threat. I can't imagine how else they would handle it.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#622

Post by chimeracoder »

mherdeg wrote: post #571

I asked JetBlue about this (via Twitter…) and they said ( https://twitter.com/JetBlue/status/370659852546109441 ) ""@mherdeg The govt agencies can speak for themselves. We stand by our crewmember's decision, and regret the inconvenience this caused."" Interesting.

In another tweet, they claim that the responsibility lies with the government agencies who screened me: https://twitter.com/chimeracoder/status/370663486470103040

(which seems to contradict your tweet: https://twitter.com/cgervasi/status/370675125244284928)

If that's the case, I'm not sure why the person who denied me boarding was the JetBlue agent, not a TSA agent.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#623

Post by lem72 »

Karunamon wrote: post #544
anigbrowl wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an investigator says during an investigation isn't testimonial. There isn't even any obligation that it be truthful; it's OK for investigators to lie in the hope that it'll lead the suspect to incriminate themselves. Simple example: Cop tells Joe Blow that they have a witness to the crime, and Joe Blow may as well confess. Joe Blow makes a full confession. Turns out there was no witness. Perfectly legit; what Jo…

>What an investigator says during an investigation isn't testimonial. There isn't even any obligation that it be truthful; it's OK for investigators to lie in the hope that it'll lead the suspect to incriminate themselves. Who cares if it's legal testimony? It's still racial profiling, which is still uncool for any reason.

Exactly. TO quote the dude, You're not wrong, you're just an asshole

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#624

Post by tobiasu »

jlgreco wrote: post #595
tobiasu wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Concentration camp (KZ) sounds about right. The term for places like Dachau and Auschwitz is Vernichtungslager (extermination camp). A concentration camp is not set up for industrial mass-murder of its prisoners.

In modern English the distinction is not consistently made. Sometimes you see extermination camps and concentration camps talked about, but other times you see both talked about just as 'concentration camps'.

I certainly agree. Concentration camp is an umbrella term, both in German and English. However, if we're talking about the exact type of camps, it makes sense use the proper words and inform readers of the distinction. It's only fair to the victims to use appropriate language and not play down the severity of their situation.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#625

Post by corresation »

zem wrote: post #522
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…

why do people insist on using the phrase "repeatedly set off the explosive detector"? if there is a substance on his person or bags that made the detector register a false positive, it is naturally going to register that same false positive every time it is run over said substance. the repetition means nothing.

Most airports have layers of ETDs: Quick and "convenient", but slightly more prone to false-positives at screening, and then expensive, slower machines for secondary screening. In a similar way that a breathalyzer positive might yield a blood test.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#626

Post by philwelch »

bjourne wrote: post #552
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your line of thought is that you trust that machine to be somewhat reliable // And your problem is you assume the machine isn't reliable. So then if it's set off, you just say "ah well, it's probably a false reading". At that point you just obviated the purpose of the machine. Yes we don't learn whether it was the permethrin (? can't certainly recall the name) but the people who did the sweep of his apartment confi…

Our friend Bayes and his theorem can help us here. Suppose you have an HIV test which is 95% accurate in detecting if you are HIV positive or not. The HIV rate in the US is about 0.3%. If you subject a random American to this HIV test and the test result is positive, what is the probability that that person has HIV? I wont do the math, but the right answer is about 2%. Since the prevalence of HIV is so low it doesn't…

It turns out when you actually get tested for HIV, they do two tests. One has a high false positive rate but a low false negative rate. If that comes positive, they do a second test that's the other way around.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#627

Post by j2d3 »

The greatest damage done by 9/11 was not the actual destruction of the towers and the deaths of all those people, but the (sadly predictable) reaction of our government, particularly the Patriot Act, the creation of the TSA and the Dept. of Homeland Security, and the emboldening of the NSA, CIA, FBI, and the NYPD.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#628

Post by mistercow »

mapt wrote: post #436
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…

As much problem as I have with the TSA and this event... Offering hints as to how a person they do not trust would dissuade their suspicions is a way to guarantee that everyone dissuades their suspicions. It is an information-theoretically invalid way of pursuing an investigation of anything.

The line of questioning is almost entirely useless in the first place, and the way that they will interpret the evidence is likely the opposite of the way it should be interpreted.

Ordinary people know basically nothing about explosives, or what everyday compounds might be explosives. At best they might say "Oh, I did some gardening, so I handled some fertilizer", or "I was at a shooting range yesterday". They might remember a chemical they had read off the label of something they used recently, if it's common enough, so if you told them what you found, they could tell you where they saw it.

Terrorists, on the other hand, are likely to know all about common chemicals that can be used in explosives. If you tell them what you found, you aren't giving them any new information, and they can just tell you it came from whatever they got it from (and claim they were using it innocently).

So giving a satisfactory answer should actually be evidence of the person being a terrorist. Of course, if a TSA agent were smart enough to realize that, a smart terrorist might pick up on that, and say "I don't know, I used some bug spray this morning?"

Most terrorists don't actually seem to be smart, but in the case that you were evaluating the evidence correctly, you'd have to downgrade its strength on that basis (even more so once you factor in the non-terrorist chemistry geeks, who are probably orders of magnitude more common than terrorists, and less likely to consider that you might take a plausible answer as evidence against them).

In short "what have you handled recently that might have lead to you having explosive residue on you?" is a pointless question, whether you tell them what you found or not.

As a side note, it's overly simplistic to say that "giving hints" is invalid in general, because the definition of "giving hints" is vague. Should they just ask "Why did our screen flash red?" instead of telling you it was the explosive detector? Should they be even more vague and ask "Why are we interrogating you?" Getting useful information from someone requires that you communicate specifically. So if the line of inquiry were useful at all (and if it is even meaningful to reason about such a hypothetical), it would be more useful to ask about the specific substance.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#629

Post by nrivadeneira »

hyperbovine wrote: post #75
pinaceae wrote: post #56

Contrarian perspective: He fits a certain profile. Triggered a bunch of attributes (address move, chemicals on him, etc.). The 9/11 attackers walked through the scanners with knifes. The Boston bombers were flagged, but still traveled freely. After both attacks people were laughing at the stupidity of the enforcement agencies, uselessness of the TSA, etc. Here, the process worked. His account is subjective, everyone…

I'd rather live in a country where the process occasionally fails and we don't have to put up with / subject others to this shit. And yes, I am American and I experienced all the pain and horror of 9/11.

Did you really experience it (as in, you were in NYC at the time) or were you just a casual observer?

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#630

Post by graphene »

john_b wrote: post #398
gutnor wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By coincidence I was watching again the "Don't talk to the police" video on youtube. Seems to me that this guy had to talk a lot, answer a lot of questions, without any of the protection the 5th amendment is supposed to provide.

Even if you ignore the fact that the US government considers airports and a 100 mile border zone around the US to be a "constitution-free zone" [1] and assume that the TSA, FBI, NYPD, and Homeland Security officers would have respected his rights fully and treated him with courtesy, invoking the 5th guarantees that you will miss your flight, and the security apparatus at airports is well aware of this. So you can inv…

I'd suspect he was guaranteed to miss his flight the moment he "admitted" his trip had a religious dimension, after having set off the explosion detector. At that point, I suppose you may as well try to cut your losses, stop talking and get escorted out of the airport as soon as possible.
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