Live data from Hacker News

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

boardingarea.com

61–70 of 228 posts

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

#61

> 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?

A suicide bomber with nothing to lose.

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

#62
Who cares? I thought his blog post was written as a realistic fiction short story (he had way too many exact quotes and precise descriptions for it to be believed as some accurate retelling). Can we just appreciate it on a literary level? He's a great writer.

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

#63
As a testament to maybe how we've come already I find myself believing Mr. Mukerjee story and that the TSA, PA, and various officials are just covering their collective aXXes.

I'm not known to be a conspiracy terrorist, and I do not believe there is one here. Just a bunch officers doing their (IMHO) misguided and useless jobs.

As a rational person I am not afraid of terrorist - the chances to be victim of an attack are minuscule compared to the risk of dying in car accident. I am afraid of getting into gear of law enforcement - for example by not simply behaving right in the eyes of the BDO, as in this story.

Lastly what is this "limbo" state the article refers to? Either I am being detained or I am free to go. There is nothing in between, if you are not allowed to leave you're not "free to go" and thus you're being detained.

Edit: Spelling.

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

#64
post #44
post #3

> Mr. Mukerjee appears to have been flagged by the Behaviour Detection Officer (BDO) while in line for what appeared to be unusual behaviours. Well I'm sold. Serves you right for looking suspicious in front of the Looking-suspicious Detection Officer!

Every time people complain about the TSA and are asked how they should do security people say they should evaluate the person - look for signs of nervousness and things like that. And now they do and you complain anyway. So - what's your preferred method of screening people?

Not sure why you're getting down voted--I remember seeing at least 2 articles go by in the last few years about the Israeli airport security.

Both times it was portrayed as super amazing (low hassle plus high security) precisely because they used behavioral detection techniques.

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

#65
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…

The police force is holding you against your will for the purpose of determining if you are guilty of a crime. But no, you're not being detained.

If there is one line that discredits this entire article, that is it. I mean, why not just call it what it is? He was being detained, and given that there was some evidence (explosive readings) against him, then there was some probable cause to do so. I'm not saying the TSA is justified in that regard... only that the article is completely disingenuous by implying that he wasn't held against his will at the hands of law enforcement.

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

#66

In January of 2010, I was coming back from the Middle East and landed in JFK airport after a 20 hour flight. This was weeks after the underwear bombing incident and I was expecting heightened security. I went through the cotton swab test which came out to be positive and was detained for an hour at the airport. I complied with the TSA for any searches they wanted to do on me (I was tired and was frankly a little alar…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

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

#67

This is gripping reading for me, because "Mr. Mukerjee" is someone I know by first name, indeed nickname, even though I have never met him. (He was my son's roommate for most of the last year, and was the crucial connection for my son getting his job in New York City.) I appreciate seeing someone else's perspective on the incident that has appalled all my Facebook friends who have seen Mr. Mukerjee's own account http…

> Asserting my rights is not something the system makes easy to do, EVEN FOR A LAWYER, once the situational triggers of law-enforcement occur Since it's apparently impossible to prevent the abuse of our rights, it seems the simplest remedy is easy-to-claim compensation after the fact, right out of the department's budget. Unjustly detained for 3 hours? That's a payment of say $500 (professional hourly rate plus extra…

> Replacement value of laptop plus several hundred dollars for setting it up

+ lost opportunity + swap out all existing passwords + missed deadlines => $5,000 +/- $500

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

#68

In January of 2010, I was coming back from the Middle East and landed in JFK airport after a 20 hour flight. This was weeks after the underwear bombing incident and I was expecting heightened security. I went through the cotton swab test which came out to be positive and was detained for an hour at the airport. I complied with the TSA for any searches they wanted to do on me (I was tired and was frankly a little alar…

With respect, I think you're accepting an unreasonably low standard of conduct on behalf of the TSA. Why should you just accept "random" searches because of dark skin or arabic sounding name? (Even if 90% of terrorists are arabs, which isn't true, but even if it were, that still means that only 0.0001% of arabs are terrorists, which makes the whole racial profiling strategy not only bad morals, but also but operations). More importantly, what would happen if you asserted your rights, even to the smallest degree? What if you asked for an explanation of procedures before they're being performed, would the agents then qualify you as "aggressive"? What if you refused some procedures and asked to leave? What if you asked to call your lawyer?

I also have an arabic-sounding last name (though I'm white as a snowflake, and ironically jewish), and I also have to go through "random" searches on occasion (I had four incidents like this in the airport in Israel). Yes, the agents are polite to me, but I don't do very much to assert my rights, mostly because I feel like it would be picking the wrong battle. However, I don't have the confidence that they'd remain polite and professional if I did assert my rights, and many, many people have the same trepidations when they go through border security.

When a U.S. citizen has to feel trepidation upon entering his country when he's done absolutely nothing wrong, there's something very wrong with our system. (At the very least, I'd expect them to post procedures for public scrutiny and allow going through the regular court system when something goes wrong; as of now the whole thing of "being in limbo" just seems completely backwards)

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

#69
> I know many people want to believe in TSA and national security conspiracies. The idea of a government collective creating a single story to keep one person down is intriguing. People will believe what they want,

The fact that they need to build a straw man argument basically dismissing all those who might disagree as conspiracy nuts (a well known PR tactic) should make one scared and worried. This is a pretty good PR technique used by those that know what they are doing.

> Fish, is globe hopping professional photographer, airline emerging media consultant working with large global airlines and founder of The Travel Strategist.

"airline emerging media consultant" does it mean airlines are basically paying him to PR on their behalf? What does that soup of words even mean.

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

#70
I filed a FOIA request, as the author suggested:

https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/tsa...

Given that involves a lot of personal information, I also asked for more general information sans personal details:

https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/sec...

I'd be surprised if either are fulfilled with any actual information.

Post reply on HN