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Don't Fly During Ramadan

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Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#751

Post by mbateman »

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…

Those tests get false positives all the time. I failed an explosives test once in Denver. The TSA agent guessed correctly that I had been rock climbing. Apparently this happens a lot, no idea why. They let me go after 5 seconds of chatting.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#752

Post by greedo »

mindslight wrote: post #731
greedo wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I agree with your first sentence, I find your second offensive with the use of "sheeple." It's a tired perjorative that makes you look like you belong on some tinfoil covered forum.

Eh, that's why I prefixed it with 'mythical'. There isn't one large group of clueless people that need to receive a message - it's that propaganda is so incessant that for every topic, it overloads a significant fraction of critical thinkers and tricks them into supporting that broken system because they crave simplicity. Also, I had a tinfoil covered basement once. It was pretty sweet.

Ah, my mistake.

I need to rewatch "Conspiracy Theory." I loved how his apartment was rigged.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#754

Post by icambron »

Tloewald wrote: post #585
mindcrime wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Britain for many years the main security measure at Heathrow was for security people to simply interview passengers on check in and ask them about their bags, where they were traveling, etc. -- the main purpose was to look for behavioral cues and not so much obtain answers to the questions. I believe this is one of the things TSA officers are supposed to receive training in. I took the earlier post as referring to…

> Not so much. Then you have a very low bar for terrorism.

Says the guy who thinks someone traveling alone and carrying bug spray residue and being Hindu should set off the TSA's terrorism alarm. Perhaps you could move that bar a scorch higher?

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#755

Post by lukifer »

will_ wrote: post #548
msrpotus wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the scariest parts of this is that it seems like surveillance (if not censorship) is much more targeted. If you aren't the NSA's focus or on a TSA watch list, you might not know anything is going on. But if you are unlucky enough to trigger something, you might be visited with unimaginable torment like @chimeracoder was.

The racist overtones are also scary.

It isn't a far leap to theorize that a good deal of oppression and aggression comes from an ancient, primal racism: the desire to remove competitive males and tribes from gene pools. Look at the mass number of black males incarcerated in the War on Drugs, and how eagerly we label any military-age males as "enemy combatants" in the War on Terror. You can even read this into Russia's paranoia that the West's "gay propaganda" is a plot to destabilize their collective male fertility.

To say that we're the only species to engage in murder and genocide is flat wrong: chimps will happily murder other chimps, even infants [1]. Maybe we're not as civilized as we think we are, and all the narratives and uniforms and laws are just theater to subsume and rationalize our animal savagery.

Nothing is ever simple, so I can't imagine this tells the whole story, but it's a big big factor, and it doesn't help anyone to ignore it.

[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/06/does-c...

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#756

Post by rdtsc »

Amadou wrote: post #643
jeremycole wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, IMHO it comes from this: What would be on the news if he was a terrorist and they find out that he actually set off the explosives detector before doing his deed? So basically their response is more about fear of embarrassment (to an extreme) than actual effectiveness.

It is also about a lack of accountability. There is no penalty for going to town on the guy - for them its just a more exciting day on the job - for him it's a humiliating loss of personal autonomy.

> for them its just a more exciting day on the job

Yes. Get into their mentality. The lower ranks are underpaid would be burger flippers and In-and-Out. The go through their boring day pushing prodding people. If they get to "interrogate" someone or humiliate him or show off their power just like a bully would in the cafeteria you betcha they'll take advantage of that.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#757

Post by po »

I took a look at the ID and calmly pointed out that it said “August 2013” in big letters on the ID, and that the numbers “8/10” meant “August 10th, 2013”, not “August, 2010”. I added, “See, even the expiration sticker says 2013 on it above the date”. He studied the ID again for a moment, then walked out of the room again, looking a little embarrassed.

ISO-8601 date format people!

http://xkcd.com/1179/

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#758

Post by jcc80 »

foobarbazqux wrote: post #686
belorn wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the US is nowhere near being an authoritarian police state, at what point will US become a authoritarian police state? When they have kill lists without any trial, jury or judge? When they keep prisoners in jail indefinitely without a trial? When they torture prisoners? When state officials lie to the public? When state officials lie to public representatives? When the secret police interfere with lawyers communic…

All of those criteria, plus I think an extra criterion that they have to happen to so many people that it reaches some kind of tipping point where there's a mass consensus that things are authoritarian. Just to be clear, I'm not excusing the abuses you've listed.

Exactly. Right now the "in your face" abuse is happening to a relatively small portion of people (privacy of millions being violated but they don't all feel it yet). Easy for everyone else to sit back in comfort and think it won't happen to them or the others somehow deserved it. When it happens to more people then an outrageous edge case can serve as the tipping point.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#759

Post by specialist »

krelian wrote: post #735
belorn wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the US is nowhere near being an authoritarian police state, at what point will US become a authoritarian police state? When they have kill lists without any trial, jury or judge? When they keep prisoners in jail indefinitely without a trial? When they torture prisoners? When state officials lie to the public? When state officials lie to public representatives? When the secret police interfere with lawyers communic…

When we can longer have this discussion, either because access to the means that make it possible has been barred from us or because the risk is too great.

When we can longer have this discussion

In the USA, it'll be when discussion becomes moot. The ruling elite need not prohibit free speech when no one is listening.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#760

Post by thetwiceler »

wpietri wrote: post #707
jervisfm wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I always refuse the scanner Would you mind to share your reasoning as to why you elect to forgo this option ? It would appear to me having a machine scan you is less intrusive than a full body search by a human agent.

Personally, I decline the scans because it's my one way of protesting the security theater and its enormous waste. It's the one thing I'm allowed to decline, so I decline it.

Here's a really good way to protest security theater (albeit very much at your expense): write SSSS [1] on your boarding pass, and see how you're treated! (Security officers can write SSSS on your boarding pass, so it doesn't need to be printed on the pass, so this will work...)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_Security_Screening_Se...

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