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How airline reservations are used to target illegal searches

papersplease.org

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Re: How airline reservations are used to target illegal searches

#121

Post by victorf »

dragonwriter wrote: post #84
ISL wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often wonder what the founders would think of the modern interpretation of the fourth amendment at our borders. How would they have chosen to balance privacy against security in our age?

I think that many of the founders would probably be more upset by our reflexive resort to suppositions about what the founders would think in discussions of public policy than they would be upset (or supportive) of any particular policy that we find controversial.

They would be too appaled at general policy to worry about particulars for a while. "When we decided at least one congressman per 30,000 persons we were imagining, you know, one per 40,000. How can you possibly have a representative democracy like this? Wait, did you start a two-party system as well?"

Re: How airline reservations are used to target illegal searches

#123

Post by gcb0 »

glasz wrote: post #98
gcb0 wrote: post #94

The focus on that article is silly. Of course I want law officials to have real time information about travel and be able to catch a criminal before he flees. The issue should not be that, but that they use that to initiate illegal searches. The focus should be on illegal searches, period.

when was the last time a "criminal" was caught during flee-by-flight and the government was NOT involved in the first place?

This is my point.

This is like those dumb fox new things saying something trivial is a crime because it 'involved computers'.

They can already do that, but inefficiently by posting your pictures all over the place and having officers look for your face. AFTER they get a warrant or follow due process.

This is just a more efficient way of doing the above.

The focus should be on the lack of due process, not on the means being more efficient.

Re: How airline reservations are used to target illegal searches

#124

Post by brightsize »

bobf wrote: post #99
sbarre wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't insinuating anything. I said nothing more, or less, than what I said. Any insinuation or implication otherwise is of your own making, and is quite disingenuous I would add. I live in Canada, so I'm on the border with the US, and while I have certainly travelled worldwide (including to some less than democratic countries), I have overwhelmingly travelled to the US, both for business and personal. And over the…

For a perspective from the other side of the border (I'm from the US): I've been to Canada a few times as a tourist and on business over the past decade, never staying more than a few days. Every time, without exception, I've been on the receiving end of "aggressive", extended questioning, ranging from such oddities as "You're here for our free health care, aren't you? Admit it! Just tell us you don't have insurance!…

I currently live in eastern Washington state. Up until around 2003, I lived in Seattle. In 2003 and in prior years, entering Canada was as smooth as could be. The people at the Canadian border checkpoints were friendly and asked minimal questions. I always found my re-entry back into the U.S. to be a more rude, though not particularly arduous an ordeal as going the other way.

My most recent entry into .ca was quite the opposite. Bear in mind these are very rural crossing points, nothing like the I5 transit. The most recent Canadian agent was somewhat gruff and unpleasant, asking quite a few questions. Come to think of it, in a prior .ca entry, with a female friend from the UK, the Canadian agent seemed to be convinced that we were entering Canada for the purpose of getting married and asked us repeatedly whether we had such plans. After multiple denials, he went on to advise us not to do so anyway. What??? My crossings back into the U.S. from Canada very recently have been fairly painless compared to going the other way.

Re: How airline reservations are used to target illegal searches

#125

Post by __--__ »

bobf wrote: post #99
sbarre wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't insinuating anything. I said nothing more, or less, than what I said. Any insinuation or implication otherwise is of your own making, and is quite disingenuous I would add. I live in Canada, so I'm on the border with the US, and while I have certainly travelled worldwide (including to some less than democratic countries), I have overwhelmingly travelled to the US, both for business and personal. And over the…

For a perspective from the other side of the border (I'm from the US): I've been to Canada a few times as a tourist and on business over the past decade, never staying more than a few days. Every time, without exception, I've been on the receiving end of "aggressive", extended questioning, ranging from such oddities as "You're here for our free health care, aren't you? Admit it! Just tell us you don't have insurance!…

It depends on where you cross the border.

I've had nothing but good experiences crossing the border at the Thousand Islands Bridge or Massena, NY. Both ways, everybody was kind, friendly and patient. I hear nothing but horror stories about Niagara falls and the one time I flew into Vancouver was less than pleasant.

Just some more n=1 to stir the pot. :)

Re: How airline reservations are used to target illegal searches

#126

Post by bostik »

maratd wrote: post #17
carlob wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel is pretty bad in this department as well. I hear that visiting Israel with an Arabic last name, or, god forbid, trying to go visit Palestine from an Israeli airport will land you in all sorts of trouble. In fact I don't plan to visit Israel any time soon. I believe this is the sentiment of grandparent commenter, the fact that there might be other places where something like this happens is no excuse for a beac…

> I hear that visiting Israel with an Arabic last name, or, god forbid, trying to go visit Palestine from an Israeli airport will land you in all sorts of trouble. I hear that visiting Arab countries with a Jewish last name, or, god forbid, trying to go visit Israel from an Arabian airport will land you in all sorts of trouble. Any particular reason you're picking on one and not the other? A bit hypocritical, don't y…

This isn't even a new development. Back in the 70's and 80's my father had two passports, issued precisely to prevent being constantly detained and/or harassed when traveling.

His work took him to relatively long visits (anything up to 4 months, but usually just 2-3 weeks) to about half the countries in Arabian Peninsula and roughly 1/3 of the countries in Africa. (I've been told that I met the Namibian foreign minister when I was 3 and surprised him by apparently trying to sing their national anthem.) During that same time, my father also had to occasionally travel to US and, I believe, Israel. One of the passports was used when traveling in Arabic and (communist) African countries. The other was reserved for rest of the world.

I've been later informed that this practice was not as uncommon as I would have believed. People working "in the field" for industries that were involved in development aid projects did sometimes have multiple passports, for the very reason of making their constant travels easier.

Re: How airline reservations are used to target illegal searches

#128

Post by julian_t »

bobf wrote: post #99
sbarre wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't insinuating anything. I said nothing more, or less, than what I said. Any insinuation or implication otherwise is of your own making, and is quite disingenuous I would add. I live in Canada, so I'm on the border with the US, and while I have certainly travelled worldwide (including to some less than democratic countries), I have overwhelmingly travelled to the US, both for business and personal. And over the…

For a perspective from the other side of the border (I'm from the US): I've been to Canada a few times as a tourist and on business over the past decade, never staying more than a few days. Every time, without exception, I've been on the receiving end of "aggressive", extended questioning, ranging from such oddities as "You're here for our free health care, aren't you? Admit it! Just tell us you don't have insurance!…

I had the same experience... I visited Montreal last month for a business trip, first time in a couple of years, and had 40 minutes of rather hostile questioning on my way in.

It didn't make much sense to me, and I assumed that they'd picked a middle-aged, grey-haired, white guy so that they couldn't be accused of racial profiling... but from comments here it seems it is a lot more general.

Some of the questions didn't make a lot of sense (especially not at gone midnight), one or two were personally rather insulting, and they seemed to think that I was over here for employment rather than business meetings.

Getting into China the following week, on the other hand, was a model of efficienty and politeness...

Re: How airline reservations are used to target illegal searches

#129

Post by bloodorange »

carlob wrote: post #16
maratd wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Really? Fucking hell.. With every month that goes by, I am less and less inclined to travel to, or do business in, the US.. The insinuation being that the US is the only country doing this? I hate this sort of thing as much as the next guy, but let's not pretend the US is the only country engaging in this behavior. We can certainly expect better, but don't blind yourself to the obvious. Based on recent events, mayb…

Israel is pretty bad in this department as well. I hear that visiting Israel with an Arabic last name, or, god forbid, trying to go visit Palestine from an Israeli airport will land you in all sorts of trouble. In fact I don't plan to visit Israel any time soon. I believe this is the sentiment of grandparent commenter, the fact that there might be other places where something like this happens is no excuse for a beac…

"for a beacon of democracy such as the US."

I don't think that holds any longer.

Re: How airline reservations are used to target illegal searches

#130

Post by bloodorange »

jjjeffrey wrote: post #122
netcan wrote: post #20

This seems extreme but the reality is that foreigners and homosexuals are sketchy. This sort of policing is important.

What's so sketchy about them?

I suppose you haven't learnt about the ghastly things done by the likes of Alan Turing, Stephen Fry and Neil Patrick Harris.

(If you don't get the sarcasm there, please forgive me and the gentlemen mentioned above too...)

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