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Don't Fly During Ramadan

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Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#631

Post by eliasmacpherson »

jrockway wrote: post #578
jessaustin wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

news.ycombinator.com/leaders may prove enlightening. [EDIT: he really did make this argument, but it seems to have disappeared.] What happened? Did you have a stroke? Are you actually jrockway's brother-in-law, "borrowing" his handle?

I don't understand why everyone is so outraged that I don't think the US is a police state. "Airport security is horrible", so I say to take the train. Have you ever taken the train? The security is not that bad. But instead, I get downvoted to -4 and people accuse me of having a stroke. All I can say is that the hysteria is at an amazingly-high level. I am not sure why I even read TSA-related articles anymore.

Take the bus? Drive? as a suggestion to avoid the TSA is not valid, I am not sure whether you are aware of this, by the way train travel is covered too:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/02/29/the-tsa-is-c...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_Intermodal_Prevention_...

(EDIT: I misquoted you from memory)

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#632

Post by vikas5678 »

I've been through special security checks, inspections, etc. Last year I was carrying something my parents sent me, TSA asked me to take it out, and ran chemical tests on it. I said do whatever you want with it, and was nice to them. They in turn were nice to me, and allowed me to carry it on the plane, while I was ready to throw it away if they didn't want it on the plane. Maybe its just me, but this guy just had the wrong attitude through the initial part of the process. I feel sorry for what happened to him later.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#633

Post by Amadou »

jrockway wrote: post #616
amirmc wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when the TSA is at all bus stations and gates access to roads? Do you walk? Logic like this means you essentially hide from the problem until there's nowhere left. What happens then?

Doesn't this mean we shouldn't have any laws, because one day the laws could be used to imprison everyone and use their internal organs to produce email spam? The point is, I think we still have travel alternatives and legal protections from abuse. The federal government only has the authority to affect travel between states, not within a single state. If the TSA starts interfering with movement in a single state (li…

If the TSA starts interfering with movement in a single state (like on the NYC subway system), we'll see pushback from the state and local governments.

Nope, in fact NYC welcomed the Terrorists' Surrogate Army invasion of the subway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Juvdi2TdeXY

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#634

Post by anu_gupta »

jessaustin wrote: post #562
anu_gupta wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely hope you get hellbanned for this. If the HN moderators apply the same standards to you as they do to everyone else you should be.

What, because of the cursing? [EDIT: which has now been edited out; too bad, I always appreciate a sincere " Fuck you! "] Let's not be censorious. I can think of some hellbanned who didn't obviously deserve it, but most of the ones I've seen did obviously deserve it. Are you seriously going to argue that jrockway is as bad as the guy who posts all his personal revelations from the Lord? [EDIT: I'm talking about the r…

The fact that he's on the leaderboard means precisely nothing except to indicate he's on the leaderboard.

Plenty of other people have been banned for saying "Fuck you" on here, and it's interesting that jrockway silently edited his comment to remove his swearing at someone else on here, as well as removing his invitation to check that he's a huge karma accumulator - which he seems to think actually means something.

Anyway, I"m not a mod, just someone who's a bit tired of one set of people being treated differently.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#636

Post by zaroth »

darklajid wrote: post #558
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…

That's weird. You're turning the argument on its head. YOU started supporting the process and said something like Don't people who're manufacturing explosives in secret.. Well, based on what evidence? The machine that detects chemicals here? It seems that this supports my claim, you think that machine is 'working' and somewhat reliable. Without having provided any kind of proof or source, by the way. The article, the…

> If that is a known issue and this machine can beep if a) you've built a bomb, b) you've moved your plants from inside the house to your garden, then you should reevaluate the idea of this particular test in the first place.

It's more complicated than that. Anecdotal evidence suggests the trace analysis machine has a very low false positive rate. The fact that agents are trained to re-run the test repeatedly also suggests the machine has a very low false negative rate.

Given a sufficiently low false positive and false negative rate, the right answer may be, if it repeatedly triggers on a passenger, to question that passenger further.

Of course, with increasing reliability of the test comes increasingly severe questioning when the test repeatedly fails. In theory you want the level of the response to be commensurate with the reliability of the test. A perfect test convicts you as soon as you fail it. An imperfect test such as this requires humans to actually follow-up and investigate the failure.

The tactics, ethics, and legality of the how that investigation proceeds... I think that's another matter entirely, from whether we should be employing trace analysis in airports in the first place.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#637

Post by jervisfm »

jonahx wrote: post #463
rquantz wrote: post #298

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. This is a vast mischaracterization of what happened. 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 con…

> He was detained without arrest, based on minimal suspicions. Yes, he should have shut the hell up and not answered questions. Minimal suspicions? A young male flying alone who refuses the scanner and sets of the explosives detector? Yes, he absolutely should have been cooperative and answered their questions after that. I always refuse the scanner, but I don't complain afterward that I have to answer questions and…

> I always refuse the scanner

Would you mind to share your reasoning as to why you elect to forgo this option ? It would appear to me having a machine scan you is less intrusive than a full body search by a human agent.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#638

Post by JeffL »

rsingel wrote: post #237

Do not try to talk your way out of anything. And you do NOT have to and should not answer any questions from law enforcement or the TSA. Ask repeatedly: Am I being detained? Am I free to go? Cops can ask for ID (which you do have to provide, sadly) and can briefly frisk you to look for weapons -- if they have reasonable suspicion to believe a crime has or is about to happen. One other thing of note and what makes thi…

But if you don't answer their questions, what's the chance that you end up on the no fly list?

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#639

Post by [deleted] »

Amadou wrote: post #633
jrockway wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't this mean we shouldn't have any laws, because one day the laws could be used to imprison everyone and use their internal organs to produce email spam? The point is, I think we still have travel alternatives and legal protections from abuse. The federal government only has the authority to affect travel between states, not within a single state. If the TSA starts interfering with movement in a single state (li…

If the TSA starts interfering with movement in a single state (like on the NYC subway system), we'll see pushback from the state and local governments. Nope, in fact NYC welcomed the Terrorists' Surrogate Army invasion of the subway. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Juvdi2TdeXY

[deleted]

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#640

Post by [deleted] »

jonahx wrote: post #463
rquantz wrote: post #298

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. This is a vast mischaracterization of what happened. 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 con…

> He was detained without arrest, based on minimal suspicions. Yes, he should have shut the hell up and not answered questions. Minimal suspicions? A young male flying alone who refuses the scanner and sets of the explosives detector? Yes, he absolutely should have been cooperative and answered their questions after that. I always refuse the scanner, but I don't complain afterward that I have to answer questions and…

[deleted]
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