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Did The TSA and JetBlue Deny Travel For Looking Muslim During Ramadan? No

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31–40 of 228 posts

Re: Did The TSA and JetBlue Deny Travel For Looking Muslim During Ramadan? No

#31

> However,multiple statements by TSA personnel reference Mr. Mukerjee repeatedly grabbing for his bag after he was told not to touch it. When someone is acting unusual, alarms for explosives and then starts grabbing for their bag against instruction by security personnel, security and law enforcement pays attention. Seriously? If my bag has my expensive laptop, iPad and other stuff in it I'm gonna be likely to grab f…

And who ever grabs an EXPLOSIVE bag in the first place?

Re: Did The TSA and JetBlue Deny Travel For Looking Muslim During Ramadan? No

#32
Flagged due to behavioral traits, seen to exhibit assertive behavior, ratted out by a robotic terrorist detector, etc. These are not good reasons to detain someone for an extended period and to deny them the ability to travel. These are the hallmarks of a society slipping into statism and subjugation.

Where is the presumption of innocence? Where is the protection of the liberties and rights of the individual? Where is the responsibility and accountability of the agents of government and the officers of the law?

Nowhere to be seen here.

These are not the sorts of trends and behaviors on behalf of the state we should be defending.

Re: Did The TSA and JetBlue Deny Travel For Looking Muslim During Ramadan? No

#33
If you cannot leave, are you not detained?

"This is absolutely correct, at this time he was in limbo, he was not being detained, but he could not leave. A person cannot simply leave the security area of any airport once they are on the airside but have not satisfactorily completed screening. Once a person has passed through security, but is not cleared to fly and then chooses to leave, such as Mr. Mukerjee, s/he must be escorted out of the secure area (and usually the terminal)."

Re: Did The TSA and JetBlue Deny Travel For Looking Muslim During Ramadan? No

#35
post #5

Why does "keeping in mind that false positives with ETD are not uncommon" sound unsettling to me?

The double-negative is bad style, but the fact is actually reassuring. It means that the typical TSA agent sees a ton of positive results each week and has never seen a valid result. In other words, the agent is not fussed at all by the positive test outcome; they just have to double check to clear you.

Re: Did The TSA and JetBlue Deny Travel For Looking Muslim During Ramadan? No

#36
The biggest problem with the story is the INSTITUTIONALIZED FEAR. From the account, you could tell just about every agent after the first was wondering who was wasting their time. That's why they kept going back to the test that failed (he didn't leave the room, so why would they get a different result... Institutional insanity)

Ts not enough for the agent to recognize his time was clearly wasted.. There it 0.0001% this guy might really be a terrorist because somebody else said so. They kept pouring resources into trying to prove him "wrong" rather than verifying a threat existed or not.

It's Kaffkaesque at its best... I'm scared of you because of my training, so it's your fault what you did to me that makes me scared. If it wasn't FOR REAL, it's so absurd to be a comedy skit.

Re: Did The TSA and JetBlue Deny Travel For Looking Muslim During Ramadan? No

#37
post #29

Airport security is frequently humiliating. I myself have been nearly reduced to tears just by customs agents when crossing the border on business. However, this man set off a bomb detector. He set of the machine that detects bombs, repeatedly. After that event, nothing Mr. Mukerjee reported is particularly surprising, and I would expect to have a similar experience if I set off the same detector. I don't believe his…

The problem here is that he was pre-selected by the Behaviour Detection Officer (BDO) while in line and then the TSA claimed he rang their bell for explosives.

We can't assume that government agents are on the up and up. Their word is open to question if they have no proof of their claims. Since they don't deny the story, I tend to lean to Mr. Mukerjee's perceptions as a more accurate account of the day.

Re: Did The TSA and JetBlue Deny Travel For Looking Muslim During Ramadan? No

#38
"I know many people want to believe in TSA and national security conspiracies."

No, I think most people just believe the TSA to be completely inept and operated without much oversight or coherence. Complaining about (repeated) bad treatment doesn't make it a conspiracy.

Re: Did The TSA and JetBlue Deny Travel For Looking Muslim During Ramadan? No

#40
post #33

If you cannot leave, are you not detained? "This is absolutely correct, at this time he was in limbo, he was not being detained, but he could not leave. A person cannot simply leave the security area of any airport once they are on the airside but have not satisfactorily completed screening. Once a person has passed through security, but is not cleared to fly and then chooses to leave, such as Mr. Mukerjee, s/he must…

This is complete bullshit. "Limbo" is not a thing. Either you are being detained, or you are free to leave.
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