Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Don't Fly During Ramadan

varnull.adityamukerjee.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

741–750 of 986 posts

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#741

Post by jlgreco »

icambron wrote: post #727
mpyne wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the issue with the alarm is that most people don't repeatedly flag the same alarm. E.g. if a given test were to generate a false positive, you would expect that it wouldn't generate a false positive the next time if run on the same article, especially if the machine correctly doesn't alert on other innocuous articles. So in the normal situation someone sets of the chemical detector, once , gets pulled aside…

> if a given test were to generate a false positive, you would expect that it wouldn't generate a false positive the next time if run on the same article I don't think that's true. Remember that the test doesn't actually detect bombs. It detects certain chemicals. Now, sometimes it might just randomly report a false positive and then you'd expect it not to trigger the second time. But some of the chemicals it is buil…

> So that second failure mode is actually pretty common, and so even when that happens, it's normal to take the person into a side room, search them more throughly, talk to them for a few minutes, and send them on their way.

From what I am hearing from others, normally people barely even get that much special treatment after a non-transient false positive. Agents suggesting "Maybe it was 'Innocuous Product X'" so the passenger can say "Yup, that is probably it" seems to be common, but not the sort of treatment they are going to give to people that they have a bias against.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#742

Post by jrockway »

Someone wrote: post #657
jrockway wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because I'm not hysterical about the TSA doesn't mean I can't comment here. When you travel by air, you are cramming yourself into a small metal tube with 300 other people. The other 299 people want everyone there to be checked for weapons, so the government does this. If you want to be able to travel without being screened, there are tons of options available to you. But the reality is, you have no right in the…

"But the reality is, you have no right in the US to travel" http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ , article 13.1: "Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state." "and the government can set whatever standards they want for public spaces" So, in your opinion, a government can decree that whites can't travel first class in planes, or that women must wear a burkha on the st…

No offense, but you're the one misinterpreting what I wrote with hyperbole. Show me the line of the Constitution that lets you travel by air.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#743

Post by ceol »

laureny wrote: post #668
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like I'm saying this a lot lately on HN: Better than the worst is not good enough. Most especially, better than the fucking Nazis is not good enough. Tyranny does not happen overnight, and it's helped along by people like you who scoff and say "oh, it's not that bad really" until it's too late. "First they came for the Communists..."

> Tyranny does not happen overnight, and it's helped along by people like you who scoff and say "oh, it's not that bad really" until it's too late. I'm pointing out a logical mistake in someone's reasoning and now I'm helping tyranny? Don't you think you're taking this a tad too seriously?

> Don't you think you're taking this a tad too seriously?

Those words echo through my head every time I click open one of these threads on HN. It's like suddenly the rich white guy is getting oppressed, so we're obviously in a police state! Never mind for the years leading up to this point, the US was doing much worse shit; they just happened to be doing it to minorities.

And you can see it in this thread. Everyone concentrating on the fact he was detained, not the reasons, when the whole damn article is about how the US treats people who look like they're from certain countries like default terrorists.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#744

Post by bobsil1 »

dr_ wrote: post #465

Sad but lets not make the mistake of thinking this is limited to the United States. It's how most governments respond to what they feel, correctly or not, are security threats. I'm of indian origin as well and was traveling in India a few years ago. At the time, in response to the Mumbai attacks, the government had instituted a requirement for non Indian nationals to require permission to re enter the country should…

That sounds less like a security process and more like the Indian government's standard bumbling and red tape.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#745

Post by bobsil1 »

genericresponse wrote: post #107

Look at it from the TSA/Police/FBI perspective: Someone goes to the airport on the first day of Ramadan, refuses the scan, sets off the chemical detectors, then asks to leave. During further interview he indicates that he hasn't eaten yet that day, is travelling for religious purposes, has just moved and is travelling alone. This further investigation doesn't seem insane to me. In fact if there was a clear profile fo…

Many Muslims fast, not just fundies, and this person is not Muslim. This is worse than profiling, it's stupidity.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#746

Post by MPSimmons »

nerfhammer wrote: post #480
jrockway wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that was the NYPD. Unlike the TSA searches, you can refuse to comply with those.

Wouldn't it be Amtrak Police in Penn Station? You don't normally see NYPD in there

NYPD are the ones carrying around machine guns, I think.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#747

Post by coffeemug »

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.

I immigrated to the U.S., but I grew up here, it's my home, I love this country (perhaps even more than some people that were born here), and I consider myself an American.

So, from a fellow American, thank you for having the courage to set aside your emotions and write about this experience. People need to hear about these incidents. Your post won't change the political system, but it changed, ever so slightly, the consciousness of thousands of people that read it. It counts for something, and it's important!

Thank you.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#748

Post by jlgreco »

laureny wrote: post #502
icambron wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An FBI agent in the article: "You’ll have to understand, when a person of your… background walks into here, traveling alone, and sets off our alarms, people start to get a bit nervous. I’m sure you’ve been following what’s been going on in the news recently. You’ve got people from five different branches of government all in here - we don’t do this just for fun." That's profiling. Edit to add: in other words "The que…

> It's profiling. No, it's not. He was picked because he set off explosive detectors. Repeatedly. The racial opinions of the person asking the questions doesn't change the fact that this is not racial profiling.

A non-transient false-positive does not typically get you the sort of treatment that the author got. Usually you are out of there in minutes.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#749

Post by jevinskie »

msrpotus wrote: post #590
marvin wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would any other measure than a FISA warrant allow for a search of an apartment without notifying the owner and/or tenants?

I'm not a lawyer but I know if you rent an apartment, there are cases when your landlord can let the police into your apartment without a warrant.

Why even bother notifying the landlord? I would imagine they wouldn't have qualms about picking a lock.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#750

Post by outside1234 »

corresation wrote: post #550
justin66 wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course the same thing happens with explosion detectors, where initially it picked up many similar compounds, and eventually started getting much more discrete, and the probability that it actually caught something of significance went from "not really" to "might actually be something real". Unless you've got some hard data on false positives, I don't believe it for a minute. As far as I can tell the equipment's…

I don't have hard data (the actual details are often considered confidential), but for the marketing claims of the various makers who all trumpet greater selectivity and the rejection of false positives. Which makes sense, as security is a huge, incredibly competitive industry, and these people are all competing for the world's paranoia dollars. Because the TSA gained nothing wasting their time on this. There are the…

> What did the TSA, NYPD, FBI, and whoever else gain from this giant waste of time?

Employment, pensions, and control.

Post reply on HN