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Don't Fly During Ramadan

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Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#811

Post by eslaught »

beedogs wrote: post #800
jrockway wrote: post #190

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. 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…

> 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 questions and they let him go. They also broke into his apartment while doing that, and detained him for the better part of a day with no real probable cause oth…

You know, as probably causes go, that really isn't that bad. Certainly, people have been stopped for less, and kept just as long or longer. If they made a mistake, it was that they didn't have an efficient procedure for figuring out whether the chemicals detected by the machine were actually explosives or not. Incompetence is bad, certainly, but not as bad as corruption.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#812

Post by fpgeek »

kintamanimatt wrote: post #537
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once they've determined he isn't carrying actual explosives he shouldn't be considered a threat anymore. // Because people who handle explosives and cover it up when questioned, and aren't involved in handling explosives in their day job, are completely to be trusted? Surely once they've determined he isn't carrying explosives they need to be sure as possible, if he claims not to have been around any explosives, th…

> It looks here like they checked his apartment to corroborate his statements. Checked? That's being charitable. You mean it's okay to break into someone's apartment without a warrant and steal shit? What happened to the rule of law? Having said that, we don't know who broke in or what happened.

Not that the whole story isn't appalling, but why would you assume the break-in was without a warrant?

"This guy set off explosive detectors at the airport. He claimed it was because of chemicals he used while moving. We'd like to check his story out by searching his place." Looks to me like that could convince a judge.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#813

Post by ballard »

As a critical issue: there needs to be a mobile app, which upon opening, immediately begins live recording of video and audio to a remote server/s and posts them on vimeo/YouTube/etc.

If this already happens to exist, I'm interested.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#814

Post by moocowduckquack »

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…

"the US continues to be one of the most free countries in the world in all respects."

If this is true, then why does it jail more people per capita than any other country by a long, long way?

Your population can't be simultaneously one of the most free and be the most incarcerated, as that makes no sense.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#815

Post by ballard »

yafujifide wrote: post #388
rechjr wrote: post #203

What do we do? For at least a decade, but more markedly so in the last eighteen months or so, I can't get on the Internet without seeing a story like this. Authorities of all sorts ignore any laws they feel like to provide the appearance of security against threats that usually don't exist in the first place. Revelations in technology that show absolutely nothing is secure unless you are manually rolling dice to cons…

Personally, I'm making plans to leave the US. Since few people will listen to me when I explain how bad things are, I do not believe effecting change is a reasonable course of action. Instead, I will try to internationalize my business and my life so that I can interact with pleasant people and escape tyranny.

Woz is leaving for Australia.

~ 1200 people gave up their US passports in 2012.

The USG is like a bad neighbor: not dealing with them is still going to affect you, even if you ignore them.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#816

Post by cefarix »

genericresponse wrote: post #107

Look at it from the TSA/Police/FBI perspective: Someone goes to the airport on the first day of Ramadan, refuses the scan, sets off the chemical detectors, then asks to leave. During further interview he indicates that he hasn't eaten yet that day, is travelling for religious purposes, has just moved and is travelling alone. This further investigation doesn't seem insane to me. In fact if there was a clear profile fo…

I'm a religious American Muslim who fasts every day of Ramadan every year. So, what you're saying is that if I am Muslim, it's Ramadan, I'm fasting, and I'm traveling for religious purposes - that's suspicious? What your religion or ethnicity is, or how religious you are, or what your specific religious practices are - none of these should even be a factor to consider in security to the TSA/police/FBI/etc. I find this view to be utterly disgusting.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#817

Post by JabavuAdams »

belorn wrote: post #677
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…

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 these are abuses of power, and should be opposed.

That said, I'm confident that there is no nation state on Earth that hasn't done these things. Please correct me if you can think of examples.

The difference now is that they are affecting mainstream, middle-class, "normal" Americans.

While it's good that people are angry about these abuses, it also seems incredibly naive. This is what states do. This is what they've always done. This is not particularly more authoritarian than they've been in the past.

There was no glorious past. There were no good old days.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#818

Post by moocowduckquack »

laureny wrote: post #509
michael_h wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Most fake bombs missed by screeners" http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/travel/news/2007-10-17-airpor... It's usatoday, I know, but the reporting seems straightforward. Missed loaded guns: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/loaded-gun-slips-past-tsa-scre... http://abcnews.go.com/US/tsa-lets-loaded-guns-past-security-...

> "Most fake bombs missed by screeners" Seems like the screening is working, then. > Missed loaded guns: This statistic is meaningless without the number of times where they caught loaded guns. And once we have these numbers, make a suggestion to improve that percentage.

Hey, would you like to buy this rock?

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#819

Post by pknerd »

rdtsc wrote: post #785
pearjuice wrote: post #162

So what does the Ramadan have to do with this? It could have happened any month.

It has. They suspected he was somehow Muslim because ... wait for it .. he has brown skin. They suspected he was a terrorist ... because they wrongly suspected he was Muslim ... because they think most terrorist are Muslim. They suspected he was going to blow up a plane as a "celebration" or somehow connected with Ramadan.

ditto

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#820

Post by JabavuAdams »

nohuck13 wrote: post #715
foobarbazqux wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thing about rule law is that it's not about critical mass. It's the edge cases that are important. It's easy to have justice the majority of the time. If the state can arbitrarily subvert the rules just because they think it's really really important, that's not rule of law. I know you're not arguing that it is, you're more talking about public opinion. I think you're probably right. But I wish that weren't the r…

Well, the obvious answer is that the rule of law is a fiction.

As you point out, even if it's true for most of us, most of the time, it's the edge cases (abuses) that matter most.

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