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Don't Fly During Ramadan

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Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#651

Post by crusso »

mindslight wrote: post #9

Just reading this raised my hackles. The only thing I really feel like saying is "I'm sorry", as you'll never get any sympathy from this system's enablers.

Some of those enablers are posting in this very thread. Instead of feeling shocked and even somewhat embarrassed at the state of their nation, they denigrate the author's ordeal - minimizing his trauma, denying his mental recall, and ultimately blaming him for causing a TSA test to issue a false positive... all while ignoring the common courtesy that should have been afforded to the accused. Give the guy a drink of water. Treat him with respect. Get him on another flight. Notify him that you searched his apartment.

It's all sad and disgusting.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#652

Post by jlgreco »

tobiasu wrote: post #624
jlgreco wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, I agree. To be clear, I do prefer using the term "concentration camps" to refer to what the US did to the Japanese, but I understand that others object to that and find their objections fairly reasonable.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#653

Post by aspensmonster »

Tloewald wrote: post #206
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…

If you set off a gas chromatograph for nitroglycerine and then say you have heart tablets then you'll be fine. He obviously set off a specific trigger AND couldn't account for it (although they clearly tried to get him to). Back in the 70s or 80s a group of friends in Britain were sentenced for participating in a terrorist act because they set off an explosive test. They spent years in prison before it was determined…

So what you're saying is all I have to do is carry heart tablets and then I can pass nitroglycerine through security? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it's more complicated than that. But I can't help but feel that if someone really wanted explosives to get onto a plane then they wouldn't try walking it through passenger security. Or maybe they'd just say the magic words that indicate a false positive and walk straight through.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#654

Post by par »

Hindu guy here. I'm sure I'll be buried but the last time I opted out of a millimeter wave scan, I was also tested for explosives. I did set it off multiple times and was taken to the back room for a private screening. I was held in there, questioned for ten minutes, then I was on my way. I have not opted out since.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#655

Post by photorized »

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…

My luggage once set off explosive alarms at JFK. But my experience was completely different, and only lasted 5 or 10 minutes. They also told me what the chemical was, when I asked.

In his case, there was some profiling going on.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#656

Post by Doches »

will_ wrote: post #548
msrpotus wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the scariest parts of this is that it seems like surveillance (if not censorship) is much more targeted. If you aren't the NSA's focus or on a TSA watch list, you might not know anything is going on. But if you are unlucky enough to trigger something, you might be visited with unimaginable torment like @chimeracoder was.

The racist overtones are also scary.

Personally I find the racist overtones to be the least scary aspect of this story. I grew up in rural Texas; for police/government officials to conduct their work with a base level of racism is, while frustrating and sickening, pretty much to be expected. Kafka-esque detention, authoritarian abuse of power, and the hinted-at FBI search of the OP's apartment scare me a lot more.

Hell, casual racism is basically an (awful) American tradition. Unreasonable search and seizure most emphatically isn't.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#657

Post by Someone »

jrockway wrote: post #510
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop. Your comments here are glib, contemptuous and entirely unhelpful.

Just because I'm not hysterical about the TSA doesn't mean I can't comment here. When you travel by air, you are cramming yourself into a small metal tube with 300 other people. The other 299 people want everyone there to be checked for weapons, so the government does this. If you want to be able to travel without being screened, there are tons of options available to you. But the reality is, you have no right in the…

"But the reality is, you have no right in the US to travel"

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/, article 13.1: "Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state."

"and the government can set whatever standards they want for public spaces"

So, in your opinion, a government can decree that whites can't travel first class in planes, or that women must wear a burkha on the street?

For me, all that hyperbole makes it hard to see what value your arguments have.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#658

Post by u2328 »

meapix wrote: post #505

How did you remember all that stuff you wrote. The they said and you said. Either you recorded, you had a pen and paper. Or this article is full of lies.

It's obviously meant as an approximation.

Look, you can believe it or not, but that's just your opinion. Everybody gets to make up their mind for themselves.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#659

Post by wangarific »

timbuktwelve wrote: post #549
makerops wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw some random headline today, that said something along the lines of "The US is in that awkward position, where we can't fix things within the system anymore, and yet aren't far enough along to start hanging the bastards"

This is a fantastic quote...made me laugh and then sigh.

and then cry

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#660

Post by hollerith »

joering2 wrote: post #445
jwr wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've a friend who spent a good deal of time recently in Khazakhstan, and she was very amused by my attempts to express my fears of the United States becoming an authoritarian police state. She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about and all these other sorts of issues. And she is right — the US is nowhere near being an authoritarian police state. But it i…

> "She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about... " It is too expensive and inefficient to follow everyone personally. You can instead shoot a satellite in the space that each second takes high-definition infrared photos of Earth and can pinpoint/track/identify each person by their uniquely located veins/blood packets on their shoulders. See? Khazakhstan v.…

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