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Don't Fly During Ramadan

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Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#801

Post by lukifer »

jgalt212 wrote: post #200
jgalt212 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh, Hi Noam Chomsky.

I lose points every time I criticize Noam Chomsky. Who are the other sacred cows on HN that if you criticize you automatically lose Karma? I'll take a stab: Noam Chomsky Paul Graham Elon Musk Jeff Bezos

Maybe the people who criticize Noam Chomsky should actually listen to what he says first.

He condemns America more than other regimes who also abuse power because he considers it the moral responsibility of every citizen to correct their own nation's behavior first, taking the principle straight from the Bible: "Remove the speck from your own eye."

Condemn Chomsky's anarcho-socialist ideals if you like: he actually has those. But calling him an America-hater both misunderstands his views and demonstrates his point about nationalism trumping democracy.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#802

Post by InclinedPlane »

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…

Here we have a situation where someone is being detained and effectively punished (denied food and drink, for example, forced to miss their flight) without any benefit of the legal system. Preventing such things is the entire reason we have a criminal justice system. Within the legal system we have all of these procedures and rights and so forth that have been carefully honed over centuries to ensure that the system is fair and not abusive. Except here we have this bizarre little bubble that is effectively outside the criminal justice system for most intents and purposes which has about the effect one would imagine in such situations.

The detained here has no benefit of counsel, no ability to see the evidence put against them, no presumption of innocence, and so forth. And we can see within this one little example a microcosm of why all of those things are necessary and what happens when they are absent.

No matter how you cut it this individual was effectively punished, the fact that there are almost no safeguards to prevent such abuses of power today should be chilling to everyone.

"Setting off an explosion detector" is not the most important part of this. Imagine the detector as a human being instead (explosives detectors are just as fallible) making an accusation against someone. An accusation is not a conviction. Just because someone cries murder, or rape, or terrorist, even if it's a piece of equipment doing that, we shouldn't jump to conclusions and rip away every right and protection that people have in this country. Except it seems that we are doing just that and to some degree a lot of people are OK with it.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#803

Post by javert »

emiliobumachar wrote: post #667
javert wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I imagine the only worse thing I could be is an Iranian nuclear scientist. I would like to think such a person would have no problem coming, but just wouldn't be allowed to go back.

I would not. As bad as it is to refuse entry to a person based on uncorfirmed suspicion, refusing exit is a whole order of magnitude worse.

Oh, so you support genocide against Jews?

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#804

Post by catnaroek »

83457 wrote: post #413
eternalsunshine wrote: post #243

...and what does this have to do with Ramadan?

My guess is... Ramadan is a holy month for Muslims. Many terrorists are muslim. Terrorism increases around Ramadan. He is brown, many Muslims are brown, TSA on high alert for Muslims. He is setting off an explosives residue detector. Many terrorists use explosives.

That is some really weird logic. If I were a terrorist planning an attack, I would carry it out as soon as all the preparations are ready, not wait until some specific date or month or whatever.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#805

Post by nl »

laureny wrote: post #494
angersock wrote: post #104

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. The distressing thing is that we've been putting so much machinery into place, and gotten…

> 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. She's right, and like her, I have found it next to impossible to explain this to Americans who think the US is turning into a police state. People making this claim should spend a few hours reading on history and learn about the Gestapo or the Stasi. What's happening in the U…

I have very mixed feeling about this.

The Gestapo and the Stasi were evil because they were dedicated to preserving the power of a very small section of the population.

That hasn't happened in the US (yes, it is true that some sections of the population are victimised more than others but nevertheless the US is still a mostly functional democracy).

OTOH, it's not 1981 anymore - they don't need to physically follow people around. Additionally many things that are happening at the moment in the US are reminiscent of the very things that former-communist states were criticised for.

Some specific examples:

* There was outrage when the Berlin wall fell and people discovered that the Stasi had records on 1/3 or the East German population. Now the NSA probably has record on close to 100% of the US population.

* The US used to believe in the idea that everyone had to obey the law and especially the constitution. Now it is accepted doctrine that the President can evade this by using executive orders. That appears to mean that the president has complete, unchecked power and is almost completely above the rule of law.

* Eastern block countries were criticised for the fact that police could stop people and demand to see their papers.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#806

Post by nrivadeneira »

jlgreco wrote: post #650
nrivadeneira wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the very least it confirms suspicions that you do in fact have metal on you. By removing doubt, you do increase suspicion.

It doesn't confirm that the machine results were not a false positive, it only provides you with some assurance that the results were not transient: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6260688

So....in other words you are provided with more assurance of your suspicions. Thus increased suspicion.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#807

Post by chimeracoder »

ryderm wrote: post #787

Hey chimeracoder, I went to school with you and saw you at some ADI events and hackathons from time to time. Even if I dont know you more than in passing, hearing something like this about somebody I know hits much closer to home than hearing it on the news. There isn't much I can say that hasn't already been said here, and you probably won't read through these hundreds and hundreds of comments, but if you read this,…

Thank you thank you thank you thank you so much for writing this comment.

I had no idea that this blog post would blow up the way it has, reaching far more people than I ever thought. I originally wrote it with people like you in mind - people who know me personally, and otherwise would never have realized that someone they know personally was affected by our policies like this.

The post was really difficult to write - I didn't want to have to relive that experience again just to put it onto the page - but seeing a comment like this makes it worth it.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#808

Post by nrivadeneira »

hyperbovine wrote: post #649
nrivadeneira wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't think it was necessary to be in NYC at the time to have been deeply affected by 9/11, but no matter: I, the guy who wrote this article, and 310m other non-NYC Americans still have to live under the draconian post-9/11 regime, regardless of where we were on that day. Also, "casual observer"? Really?

I don't think going through more stringent checks when you fly qualify for "pain and horror". I mainly ask because you're using "the pain and horror" experienced by actual 9/11 victims and their families as leverage to add validity to your statement, and I don't really agree with it.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#809

Post by borplk »

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!"

8. Get shot at multiple times

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#810

Post by yarou »

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…

"This is not the Holocaust." yet. "This is not the end of the world." yet. I'm sure many Germans and Italians (or any society on the brink of autocratic rule) felt as you do now. But the end result is strikingly similar. Small erosion of liberties leads to escalation until it becomes the status quo of not having those liberties in the first place. Funny how this world works, labor is restricted yet capital can flow freely. Smith and Ricardo must be turning in their graves.
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