71–80 of 88 posts
>"The department of Homeland Security initiated the ban in March. It came into effect covering all flights to U.S. destinations from 10 airports in the Middle East, including major travel hubs like Dubai, Abu Dabi and Dohar." So how would a ban at flights originating at these airports prevent someone from exploiting this on a flight with a layover in this airport i.e while the plane was in route to one of these 10 ai…
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The government has made pretty clear over the last few months that the reason for the ban was intelligence that jihadist groups had made progress towards developing a laptop bomb. It is pretty reasonable for them to withhold details in order to protect sources and intelligence-gathering techniques.
No they haven' made it pretty clear that "jihadist groups had made progress." Please provide a citation for that. The official TSA website states: "Evaluated intelligence indicates that terrorist groups continue to target commercial aviation and are aggressively pursuing innovative methods to undertake their attacks"[1] It says nothing about them making progress. Also that's a pretty nebulous statement. "Evaluated in…
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The analogy with food is flawed: the food does not deliberately cause cancer, and the would be announcement by the Surgeon General would not help the food to evade anti cancer treatments. Having said that, i am glad thst the ban is lifted.
Food was not the point. The point is government agencies withholding information that helps their people: 1) think critically 2 allows them to make informed and rational choices 3) quantify risk
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I don't get the aggressive tone here? I think the ban is stupid, but they actually have had significant intelligence that (a) they have stolen scanning equipment they are using in the development of explosives so they can avoid detection and (b) they have developed newer laptop bombs that are more dangerous and harder to detect. It took me literally 30 seconds on Google to find an article detailing it with links: htt…
I didn't think my tonality was in any way aggressive. It certainly wasn't meant to be. Yes I read that story on heavy.com back in May. And heavy.com is not part of the DHS, the TSA or any other US government agency. Also the story on heavy.com is reporting about an unnamed source who reported it to another publication(the Washington Post.) So in effect you have - someone saying that someone told someone else this. Th…
This is a rather disingenuous argument. You're making a big fuss about heavy.com linking to WaPo, but why not just disregard the heavy.com article and look at the WaPo article? Further, it's pretty standard for news reports concerning intelligence matters to originate from anonymous sources.
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I didn't think my tonality was in any way aggressive. It certainly wasn't meant to be. Yes I read that story on heavy.com back in May. And heavy.com is not part of the DHS, the TSA or any other US government agency. Also the story on heavy.com is reporting about an unnamed source who reported it to another publication(the Washington Post.) So in effect you have - someone saying that someone told someone else this. Th…
> Also the story on heavy.com is reporting about an unnamed source who reported it to another publication(the Washington Post.) So in effect you have - someone saying that someone told someone else this. That's hardly counts as a credible intelligence. That's what I would third-hand news. It's like the children's game of "Telephone." This is a rather disingenuous argument. You're making a big fuss about heavy.com lin…
>"The government has made pretty clear over the last few months that the reason for the ban was intelligence that jihadist groups had made progress towards developing a laptop bomb."
A Washington Post article citing an anonymous source is not the government making it "pretty clear." I'm not being disingenuous at all. The US Government making it pretty clear would be via a press briefing or some other such official statement.
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Yes that's the official "war on terror" party line you are parroting - "we can't tell you for your own good." Please provide one single example where communication and sharing of information with one's fellow citizens made them less safe.
Any time that when that information falls into the hands of attackers and enabled them to make more effective plans. I do not know if this is that case, but there is a class of information that when made public reduces safety. The problem is not with telling any one individual, you or I would probably do little with the information, but once "everyone" knows it potential attackers could use the information. If it wer…
You mean like announcing a laptop ban from flight originating in 10 predominantly Muslim countries? Do you think terrorists don't pay attention to the news?
>"I do not know if this is that case, but there is a class of information that when made public reduces safety."
Please provide an example of this.
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Yes that's the official "war on terror" party line you are parroting - "we can't tell you for your own good." Please provide one single example where communication and sharing of information with one's fellow citizens made them less safe.
"Loose Lips Sink Ships" In other words: this sort of logic is by no means unprecedented in American history, for the simple reason that gathering information from the general public of a nation is a basic and common element of espionage against that nation. Whether or not such espionage is actually useful is a different story, but especially in this day and age of ubiquitous near-instantaneous and effectively-permane…
Please way what the precedent is then if this is not unprecedented in American history.
>"... there's every reason to believe that there are "enemy spies" among the general population, and therefore that the less information the general population receives, the less information the enemy can gather (at least through that particular avenue"
That statement is absurd - "keep all the citizens in the dark just in case one of them is a terrorist!"
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Food was not the point. The point is government agencies withholding information that helps their people: 1) think critically 2 allows them to make informed and rational choices 3) quantify risk
Why do I as a private citizen need to know more detailed information about this? What can I possibly do as a private citizen with intelligence about terrorists planning to use laptop bombs on planes? My government has taken the action it deems appropriate to defend the country and its citizens, while still protecting the cover of the agent or asset that gave us the intelligence.
So you can make an informed opinion. In case you hadn't noticed there a lot of hysteria in the current administration.
>"What can I possibly do as a private citizen with intelligence about terrorists planning to use laptop bombs on planes?"
You can decide for yourself if you feel like it safe for you or your family to fly.
>"My government has taken the action it deems appropriate to defend the country and its citizens, while still protecting the cover of the agent or asset that gave us the intelligence."
Except that they didn't. Donald Trump exposed the source of the intelligence: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/world/middleeast/israel-t...
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Why do I as a private citizen need to know more detailed information about this? What can I possibly do as a private citizen with intelligence about terrorists planning to use laptop bombs on planes? My government has taken the action it deems appropriate to defend the country and its citizens, while still protecting the cover of the agent or asset that gave us the intelligence.
>"Why do I as a private citizen need to know more detailed information about this? So you can make an informed opinion. In case you hadn't noticed there a lot of hysteria in the current administration. >"What can I possibly do as a private citizen with intelligence about terrorists planning to use laptop bombs on planes?" You can decide for yourself if you feel like it safe for you or your family to fly. >"My governm…