How airline reservations are used to target illegal searches • Hacker News Board

Re: How airline reservations are used to target illegal searches

#151

Post by einhverfr » Sun, Sep 22, 2013, 1:38 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #144

einhverfr wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is worth noting two things about the Alien and Sedition Acts. 1. A lot of the Founders really didn't like them. Both Madison and Jefferson spoke out against the laws and argued they were unconstitutional for various reasons. 2. They were allowed to expire around the same time Marbury v. Madison was decided so it isn't clear what the early court thought of the laws.

I agree that Alien & Sedition is a cheap shot (as would be "Lincoln suspended habeas"). It would be interesting for someone to dredge of examples of targeted surveillance and arrest policy from the time of the founders; I bet there's good stuff. You can find metadata surveillance policy in the mid-1800s!

There are a couple of questions.

The first is whether the Verizon warrant would have been considered ok to the founders. The answer is an easy "no." We have there essentially a general warrant, something they were quite familiar with and which they put in prohibitions regarding in the 4th Amendment. There is no serious question that the founders would be deeply concerned over the existence of such a warrant and nearly entirely opposed to such.

However the harder question would be whether the Founders would have found the surveillance authorized by the warrant to be problematic even without a warrant or what they would have thought of the warrant. That's the big question and I don't have an answer there. I do think that the programs would almost certainly have been extremely controversialin part at least due to the existence of secret courts and wide-ranging warrants.

Re: How airline reservations are used to target illegal searches

#152

Post by arvinjoar » Sun, Sep 22, 2013, 5:07 PM UTC

gwright wrote: post #24

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 tend to think that the notion of borders and jurisdictions were much more important and understood in the past than today. Easy air travel and mass communication of all forms has blurred our sense of national/jurisdictional borders, but they certainly still exist. Crossing an international border is something significant, you are leaving behind one social contract and entering into a different one.

It seems some of us have indeed left the old myth of the social contract behind us, just like we've abandoned the myth of the divine right of kings. Certainly easy air travel and mass communication has changed us, but I'd like to think it's our nation states who are not keeping up with the change.

Re: How airline reservations are used to target illegal searches

#153

Post by gwright » Sun, Sep 22, 2013, 6:54 PM UTC

arvinjoar wrote: post #152

gwright wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to think that the notion of borders and jurisdictions were much more important and understood in the past than today. Easy air travel and mass communication of all forms has blurred our sense of national/jurisdictional borders, but they certainly still exist. Crossing an international border is something significant, you are leaving behind one social contract and entering into a different one.

It seems some of us have indeed left the old myth of the social contract behind us, just like we've abandoned the myth of the divine right of kings. Certainly easy air travel and mass communication has changed us, but I'd like to think it's our nation states who are not keeping up with the change.

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying.

Are you making an anarchical argument in which the entire notion of governmental authority and/or social contracts is discarded?

Or are you saying that nation-states are inappropriate sources of authority in preference for some sort of trans-national/global authority?

Regardless of what you want, the fact is that we still have nation states and their associated social contracts and a unilateral effort by an indvidual to disregard or violate those norms isn't without consequences.

There are certainly arguments to be made that some of those social contracts are perverse and one-sided in nature (e.g. North Korea as an extreme example).

What are the flaws in the typical 'Western' social contract that you would see fixed? what is your fix?

Re: How airline reservations are used to target illegal searches

#154

Post by scott_karana » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 3:33 AM UTC

homeomorphic wrote: post #145

scott_karana wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most (all?) Canadian airports do not use neutron scanners, and have a traditional security layout. There is a lot less hassle.

I doubt that any airport anywhere uses neutron scanners (whatever those may be).

You're right of course, I'm not sure what I was thinking when I typed that.

I of course mean the (typically backscatter x-ray) full body scanners.

Re: How airline reservations are used to target illegal searches

#155

Post by scott_karana » Fri, Sep 27, 2013, 11:31 PM UTC

homeomorphic wrote: post #145

scott_karana wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most (all?) Canadian airports do not use neutron scanners, and have a traditional security layout. There is a lot less hassle.

I doubt that any airport anywhere uses neutron scanners (whatever those may be).

For what it's worth, even though I cited the wrong tech (see my other reply), gamma ray ("neutron") scanners are pretty cool tech, and worth knowing about :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_scanning#Gamma-ray_radiog...