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Don't Fly During Ramadan

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Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#221

Post by gwright »

ck2 wrote: post #66
dictum wrote: post #54

This is a manifestation of the US institutionalized xenophobia. Good manners and taste should keep me from using this submission as another soapbox against how the US views foreigners, but when you see foreigners as enemies, a citizen who looks or acts vaguely "foreign"— I can't offer a precise definition of what "looking foreign" entails, but it's a combination of being a part of a small demographic group, and being…

It echos of rounding up everyone who is Japanese and throwing them into concentration camps. It's amazing how many people don't know we had concentration camps in the USA in recent history. We are just a hop skip and jump away from that again, all it would take is another major nightmare.

I think you mean 'internment' or 'relocation' camps. The rational for the camps was to relocate people of Japanese heritage away from the coasts or other military 'exclusion zones'.

There are plenty of reasons to criticize this policy but calling the camps 'concentration camps' is factually wrong and only serves to obfuscate the rationale (right or wrong) for the camps.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#222

Post by [deleted] »

steven777400 wrote: post #137
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…

My bags have set off the explosives detector before, twice. (In both cases, due a heart medication that apparently triggers false positives). I was not taken into a back room or interrogated for hours. They searched me and my bags in more detail, asked some questions, and concluded it must have been a false positive. The experience took about 15 minutes each time. This was a few years back, but I don't recall if it w…

[deleted]

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#223

Post by mindcrime »

jrockway wrote: post #190
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 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…

I don't think this is that oppressive.

Yeah, well, it didn't happen to you, did it?

He went through security and set off an explosives detector. The cops showed up and asked some questions. Then he left.

"We gave him free room and board for 17 years, then laid him on a comfortable bed and gave him some medicine to make him fall asleep for a while".

vs.

"We kept him caged in a tiny, windowless cell and gave him just enough stale bread and dirty water to keep him alive for 17 years, then we executed him."

Details matter, dude.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#224

Post by pslam »

pinaceae wrote: post #56

Contrarian perspective: He fits a certain profile. Triggered a bunch of attributes (address move, chemicals on him, etc.). The 9/11 attackers walked through the scanners with knifes. The Boston bombers were flagged, but still traveled freely. After both attacks people were laughing at the stupidity of the enforcement agencies, uselessness of the TSA, etc. Here, the process worked. His account is subjective, everyone…

"Here, the process worked."

In what way is falsely detaining an innocent person the process working?

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#226

Post by mason240 »

chimeracoder wrote: post #110
sethbannon wrote: post #97

How often does this happen and not get blogged about? If you want to help stop this from happening again, I suggest donating to the ACLU: https://www.aclu.org/donate/join-renew-give

This post was unbelievably painful to write. I didn't want to relive the experience - I wanted to forget about it, but a friend of mine convinced me that I needed to let people know that these things happen, for that exact reason. That's why I wrote it.

There is an episode of Crossing Jordan I saw recently that is similar to what you experienced.

What triggered the government to hold the guy in the show was that he actually traveled to India for a week, you were merely trying to fly across the country.

Thanks for sharing your experience, nothing will ever change unless enough of these stories come out.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#227

Post by JackFr »

ck2 wrote: post #133
JackFr wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you an American? I'm curious, because in my experience the American interment of Japanese is fairly well known among Americans and Japanese, and not well known by everyone else.

Internment is a revisionist word to make it sound less harsh. They were concentration camps.

"the American encampment in a higher ethnic concentration of Japanese" doesn't roll off the tongue quite as easily.

I'm not sure what the distinction is you're trying to make. That calling them 'interment camps' is somehow better than 'concentration camps'? Both words refer to holding a designated group of people, perceived to be a threat against their will without evidence or trial.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#228

Post by solistice »

foobarbazqux wrote: post #159
codezero wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would we do without HN's built in spell-checking auto-commenters :)

Apparently this sophisticated new AI still fails the Turing Test... for now.

I actually tried turing testing chatbots a while ago (chatterbot, jabberwacky, etc.) to see if they've improved. No, they don't pass even remotely, and they all get very offended when you suggest they've failed (Chatterbot quote "Are you insulting me?"). Chatbots have a terrible temper.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#229

Post by spartango »

ck2 wrote: post #133
JackFr wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you an American? I'm curious, because in my experience the American interment of Japanese is fairly well known among Americans and Japanese, and not well known by everyone else.

Internment is a revisionist word to make it sound less harsh. They were concentration camps.

Fortunately, there is a good historical and photographic record, and it's actually presented to students of US history in school.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#230

Post by dotBen »

manojlds wrote: post #143
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…

Don't forget that his house was potentially searched.

and possibly bugged. I wouldn't live there without a complete sweep, and probably not even after that.
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