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Don't Fly During Ramadan

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Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#771

Post by jedberg »

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…

My bag set off the explosion detector and I had to have an "enhanced" pat down in private. They agent later admitted to me that the machine I was tested on gives false positives about 50% of the time.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#772

Post by ctdonath »

ars wrote: post #533
ctdonath wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they're playing psychological games. Repeated pointless activity tends to make people crack fast.

You still didn't answer the question of why. Why make this person crack.

Uh... The person has already exhibited enough suspicious behavior and circumstantial evidence to get frisked & questioned in a back room and their ticket cancelled. Indications are this is the kind of person being looked for, and if is, at this point is trying very hard to not reveal any further evidence of ill intent. Time to crack the egg and see if it's rotten.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#773

Post by spc476 »

spc476 wrote: post #729
jrockway wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I no longer fly since the TSA started. I have also looked into taking the train, once from Ft. Lauderdale (where I live, close enough) to Las Vegas (where some friends of mine live). To say the results were amusing is an understatement. First, it was easily three times the cost of a round-trip ticket. Okay, I'm willing to pay. Second, we're talking about four or five days worth of travel, which, again, might be okay,…

And before anyone asks, taking the bus. I just did a quick search for a bus trip from Ft. Lauderdale to Las Vegas. It was $430 one way, taking two days. Better than the train, but three times the price of an airplane. (http://www.rome2rio.com/s/Fort-Lauderdale/Las-Vegas)

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#774

Post by shabble »

shanselman wrote: post #457

I'm a random American white guy with an insulin pump. I (my pump) set off the explosives detector once. They took me into a back room, closed the door, patted me down twice, took all my bags apart and swabbed EVERY single item (like 60+ things) and ran them through the detector. After none of them set it off, the guy say "That was weird, go ahead" and I left. Given my anecdote and the OP's anecdote the racial and rel…

slightly tangential, but I wonder how they would/could treat sterile medical equipment (insulin vials, syringes, epi-pens, etc).

It's not something that's exactly conducive to hasty disassembly and swab analysis.

I suppose the paranoid approach would be to confiscate it on any suspicion, and require you to purchase/be credited with 'certified' replacements post-security, although I'm sure there are exotic things that would be tricky to get everywhere.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#775

Post by shabble »

ranman wrote: post #201

My plan: 1. Dress in ethnically ambiguous clothing. 2. Coat myself in insecticide before heading to the airport. 3. Look shifty. 4. Refuse the millimeter wave machine. 5. Get Detained. 6. Take off ethnically ambiguous clothes. 7. Scream: "I'm a white male... what now bitches!"

1. Find harmless/odourless/cheap chemical with some nitro groups or otherwise molecular shifty character.

2. Refill electronic air-freshener dispenser with said liquid.

3. Deploy dispenser in pre-security airport coffee shop or other likely congregation spot.

4. Purchase high-backed leather chair & fluffy white cat; Cackle maniacally.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#776

Post by dsuth »

foobarbazqux wrote: post #686
belorn wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the US is nowhere near being an authoritarian police state, at what point will US become a authoritarian police state? When they have kill lists without any trial, jury or judge? When they keep prisoners in jail indefinitely without a trial? When they torture prisoners? When state officials lie to the public? When state officials lie to public representatives? When the secret police interfere with lawyers communic…

All of those criteria, plus I think an extra criterion that they have to happen to so many people that it reaches some kind of tipping point where there's a mass consensus that things are authoritarian. Just to be clear, I'm not excusing the abuses you've listed.

The problem is, by the time it affects enough of the general public, it's already to late. It's the classic "First they came for..." problem.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#777

Post by candeira »

einhverfr wrote: post #740
will_ wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The racist overtones are also scary.

Actually I found two things very scary. 1. The ignorance on the part of the police and agents was stunning. Conflating Hindu and Muslim? 2. The explosive alarms.... Evidently they are set to detect some very common household chemicals. Based on the story I am assuming the culprit in this case was household ammonia. It isn't clear to me that the agents would have any idea as to what could trigger a false positive eith…

About the "ignorance" on the part of the FBI guy, I wouldn't believe anything an interrogating officer tells me. Playing dumb is one of the oldest tricks in the book: "So, tell me about the religion you claim to profess and about which I know nothing so you can bullshit me, really".

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#778

Post by chiph »

rfnslyr wrote: post #685
chiph wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were a consultant today, I'd look into buying an RV. No more dirty hotel rooms or questionable restaurant food. And a much lower chance of a TSA encounter.

"Yeah can you give me about two weeks? I'm going to take my RV." -1 client. How bout no.

Three possible replies to this.

#1. I have a MiFi device, so I can get started with the preliminaries as my spouse drives. And of course, once I arrive I'll be on-site with your team.

#2. Because I provide my own living arrangements, my expenses will be much lower. I'll charge you diesel from my current location instead of a round-trip business-class airline ticket, and the RV park is $300 a month, vs. $150 a night at a hotel. Since I tow my car, you won't be paying for a rental. And you won't be billed for bi-weekly weekend trips home, as I bring my home with me.

#3. (fudge it a bit...) I can be there as soon as I finish wrapping things up with my current client. Probably on the 9th.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#779

Post by einhverfr »

AUmrysh wrote: post #407
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…

One time I brought peanut butter in my luggage. It looks like plastic explosive on the scanner so they have to open it and test it. Our teacher actually advocated that we bring it and those 36 packs of AA batteries because they look like plastic explosives and bullets, respectively. He really liked to mess with the TSA. This was post 9-11, I don't know how we didn't all get arrested.

Hmmm Peanut butter doesn't even seem like a liquid, aerosol, or gel, though the TSA would probably put it in that category these days.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#780

Post by lukifer »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #57
drivingmenuts wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, I lack the faith that such re-examination of our country will happen anytime soon. The inmates are in charge of the asylum and replacing them is going to take decades.

The only way the people take this country back is to start a third party. A REAL third party, somewhere between the moderate liberals and the libertarians. Without any outside competition, it's just recycling the same type of candidates, with the same policies and with the same disregard for basic civil liberties.

For that to work, we need a new voting system, such as Instant Run-Off, or Approval Voting. Luckily, that can be implemented on a per-state basis, as every state determines its own voting procedures.
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