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Don't Fly During Ramadan

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Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#841

Post by kunil »

vikas5678 wrote: post #632

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 th…

If only everyone as submissive as you are! Perfect citizen that every police state needs

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#842

Post by pearjuice »

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.

By making those assumptions you are just as bad as them.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#843

Post by timv »

jlgreco wrote: post #734
mpyne wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the issue with the alarm is that most people don't repeatedly flag the same alarm. E.g. if a given test were to generate a false positive, you would expect that it wouldn't generate a false positive the next time if run on the same article, especially if the machine correctly doesn't alert on other innocuous articles. So in the normal situation someone sets of the chemical detector, once , gets pulled aside…

> E.g. if a given test were to generate a false positive, you would expect that it wouldn't generate a false positive the next time if run on the same article, especially if the machine correctly doesn't alert on other innocuous articles. Well yes, I would. Some false positives can be transient, others are not. If I just came from the shooting range I would not be surprised if I got a non-transient false-positive. No…

> Well, there are several reports from HN users in this thread that describe situations in which it could allegedly occur

Which makes the detectors useless as an interrogation tool.

If the alarm sounds, then check the person for explosives. That makes perfect sense, it's a useful tool for finding explosives on people.

But if you cannot find explosives on the person, what do you do then?

Any even slightly training terrorist is going to know what other products would produce the same detection result as the bomb they just built. So they'll pretend to think for a while, and then say "I work in a supermarket, and a customer dropped hand lotion on the floor this morning, and I had to wipe it up... can that set off your machine?"

It seems like there's a magic answer you can give that will let you go free, you just need to know the right thing to say. If the investigator likes you (i.e. thinks you're probably not a terrorist) they'll give you hints about what you should say. If they don't then you're on your own.

Someone who can give the right answer is either:

* Good at analysis, so they can make a good guess of what might be setting of the machine.

* Someone who's been through this before

* Someone who got a friendly hint from the investigator

* A not-so-dumb terrorist

Someone who can't give the answer is either:

* A normal person

* A dumb terrorist

Given the low prevalence of terrorists, that would be the least likely explanation in either scenario, so the whole line of questioning is pretty much useless, except as a way of applying pressure to someone who you've decided is worth applying pressure to. When that decision is based on some genuine piece of evidence, then it might be a legitimate law enforcement technique. When it's based on the gut-feel of the officers in question, it becomes a front for racial profiling.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#844

Post by nrivadeneira »

hyperbovine wrote: post #838
nrivadeneira wrote: post #808

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I see--so only the victims and families were emotionally traumatized by this incident? That does not even merit refutation.

Truthfully, I don't see why you'd be significantly more traumatized by this event than any other act of terrorism that happens across the globe unless you lost loved ones. To that end, I don't see why anyone else on this globe should have been any less affected, thus making the point that you happened to be an American at the same time that 9/11 occurred more or less moot.

If the pain is simply an empathy to the innocents who were harmed, I don't see why it should be unique to you as an American and worthy of pointing out and using as leverage. I'm not in a position to tell you or anyone else how they should feel...I just don't really understand the rationale.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#845

Post by honzzz »

angersock wrote: post #104
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'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…

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.

I grew up in a communist totalitarian regime and I am not amused at all. We live in different world now and even oppressive regimes do things differently but that does not mean they are less dangerous... I would say exactly the opposite. Some person claimed in this discussion that "the US continues to be one of the most free countries in the world in all respects" - I am not sure I personally believe that but my main point is that this does not matter at all even if it were true. There is huge inertia and a country might still seem relatively free even years after it passed the point of no return on the way to oppressive regime. When the situation is so severe that it is visible to everyone... it is already too late and the most likely scenario in that case is that the whole generations will be lost.

It is my impression that people from countries which in their modern history never experienced totalitarian/oppressive regime severely underestimate (or in most cases are totally blind to) warning signs.

For those who are interested please let me offer personal view of someone who does have an experience with totalitarian regime - you might think I am oversensitive but despite the fact that years ago I had spent few months in the US and I loved it and despite the fact that I believe there is nothing about me that could trigger their attention I would still be afraid to visit again and I decided to strictly avoid even flying over the USA.

P.S. The fact that the guy was even refused water just makes me sick.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#846

Post by ryderm »

chimeracoder wrote: post #807
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 saw the title earlier today and didn't read it, but then when it later had so many comments I figured it was important. I was pretty shocked when I recognized the picture and github username. I'm really glad that you did write it, and I'm glad that I could make it worthwhile for you :)

Safe travels,

Ryder

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#847

Post by beedogs »

anigbrowl wrote: post #334
mindcrime wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, the pertinent detail is the fact the man set of explosive detectors. I'd argue that the pertinent detail is that he wasn't actually carrying any explosives. The other details, far from suggesting oppressive state apparatus, suggested an assortment of rent-a-cops and airline staff that really weren't particularly well-prepared for the guy that couldn't account for the explosives and flagged other profili…

And because he turned out not to be carrying any explosives, he was let go. As above, what would you do if someone set off an explosives detector? Investigations should certainly be conducted politely and respectfully, but at the same time they need to be persistent enough to deal with the attempts of guilty parties to conceal the truth.

> Investigations should certainly be conducted politely and respectfully, but at the same time they need to be persistent enough to deal with the attempts of guilty parties to conceal the truth.

Do they really? How often do planes blow up because of a bomb a passenger brought on? Once a decade? Less than that? I'm frankly willing to live with those odds if it means I don't have to take my shoes off and submit to molestation every time I get on a flight.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#848

Post by eliasmacpherson »

hyperventilator wrote: post #648
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.

There has been a noted increase of posts containing "lol" and other indicators of decline. Edit: If you think posts with lol are a good thing please say why.

run a grep for el oh el on your post there before and after the edit.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#849

Post by thomasz »

yarou wrote: post #810
jrockway wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> "This is not the Holocaust." yet.

Get some perspective.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#850

Post by leke »

magikarp wrote: post #118

Everything about this story, right down to the questions, agents involved, luggage inspections and the man's apartment being broken into and searched, fits very well with my own experiences in 2012 with entering the United States. I'm a recent Lebanese immigrant to Canada, male, in my early twenties, and to top it off I work on encryption software. I imagine the only worse thing I could be is an Iranian nuclear scien…

I'm extremely curious to know what social event would bring the author of CryptoCat and David Petraeus together.
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