Passenger Profiling: CAPPS II

gabec writes "'Initial rollout of what may eventually become the world's largest silicon repository of personal data could be less than 90 days away....The Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System II (CAPPS II) is designed to scan multiple public and private databases for information on individuals traveling into and out of the United States. The system will feed the results to an analysis application that mathematically ranks travelers' potential as security threats.' It will happen by the end of the year, if nothing is done to stop it: And here are some articles on this."

Comments

I've said it before, and i'll say it again....

[Cyno01]

Time to move to Canada.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot that at slashdot, everything is a slippery slope.

Re:And?

[shepd]

>If people are coming into my country, I sure as hell want to know that they aren't going to be a danger to anyone.

Me too. That's why this system is a complete waste of money.

Fingerprints and Slashdot's reaction

[tyrani]

I wonder what the reaction of Slashdot would be if fingerprinting was a new technology?

I can only imagine the uproar of privacy concerns and issues relating to the technology behind it.

I'm not one to give up my privacy, but as crimes have become drastically more violent and their impact greater on society because of the media, isn't it time to update the system?

Re:Fingerprints and Slashdot's reaction

[Glytch]

Crimes haven't become more violent. Our news coverage is simply more extensive and public than at any other point in history.

Re:Fingerprints and Slashdot's reaction

[Psx29]

I'm not one to give up my privacy, but as crimes have become drastically more violent and their impact greater on society because of the media, isn't it time to update the system?

The only thing this system should be checking is if someone has a criminal record and list the offenses (and no I am not referring to parking tickets and the like). Any other way of "ranking" someone is the same as any other kind of illegal profiling

Re:Fingerprints and Slashdot's reaction

[JimBobJoe]

Let's run this through Bruce Schneier's two basic questions concerning security systems (as noted in the Atlantic Monthly article recently.)

1. What problem does it solve?

Identifying people is not a goal. Nothing is achieved by figuring out someone's true name (though psychologically speaking humans seem to think that finding identity is somehow useful. Most of the time it isn't.)

Identity does not imply motive. What type of criminals tend to have criminal backgrounds? Well, small time criminals, and your serial rapists/killers/et cetera. The pre-determined criminals usually will have no record (whether it's because they haven't done anything, or because they have escaped justice.)

The proposed system is designed to take individuals who have "community standing", ferret them out and mark them as low security passengers. (An interesting example of this already in use--if you don't have a photo ID, some airlines will take a combination of different documents, one of which can be a motor vehicle insurance card--which is a great proof of "community standing" or in other words "an identity well used." A photo driver's license does not imply that the identity is "in use." Either way, what does it solve? I will maintain nothing.)

2. What happens when the system fails?

It's hard to say...what was it achieving in the first place? But it seems like the biggest problem is that "community standing" will manifest itself as low-security passengers, and people will be waived through when more of these individuals should go through the higher security checks.

I don't know if this system really has much of a failure, since it doesn't seem to achieve all that much in the first place. That's what bothers me so much--it's an expensive farce that violates civil liberties.

Schneier says that only two new security measures make any difference whatsoever--reinforced cockpit doors, and passengers who are now willing to fight back.

If anonymous people are just as trustworthy

[anthony_dipierro]

why do Anonymous Cowards start their score at 0?

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

unfortunately, this data miner will have next to nothing to do with people entering the country. it can only mine data on individuals for whom data is available, that is, citizens and residents flying within and out of the country.

ah well, i can't afford to fly anytime soon anyway. maybe by the time i make some money, this idiocy will have been stopped. if not, i'll have to travel by car inside the u.s., and catch any international flights from canadian airports - because my privacy *is* worth the price difference.

Does this not scare anyone else?

[areguan]

It seems that anymore, every other story is on /. is about how America is developing some new way of spying on its own citizens. Does this not scare anyone else but me? I'm paranoid as it is already, but reading all this stuff makes me that much more paranoid.

the usual stuff

[g4dget]

Firms (operating airports) should be made totally subject to competitive pressures to perform and should be held fully accountable for any breaches in the civil-liberty rights of passengers.

As if private entities in the US are ever held responsible for violating people's privacy rights. The US government out-sources such violations to companies, after all.

The system will feed the results to an analysis application that mathematically ranks travelers' potential as security threats.

It may do so "mathematically", but that doesn't mean "reliably": garbage-in, garbage-out. In this case, the few dozen terrorists we have had do things with planes over the last few years simply aren't enough to establish reliable criteria for who is a security risk.

What will actually happen is that police make wild guesses on what seems reasonable to them. Once programmed into the computer, stereotyping, racial profiling, and discrimination become "mathematical", and at that point, you effectively lose your right to complain or sue. "Sorry that every check-in takes 8 hours, but the computer insists YOU are a security risk; it's not our fault--WE aren't prejudiced." Overall, this system will result in lots and lots of false interrogations and arrests, and the real terrorists will likely not fit the profile anyway. Eventually, some people will just have to give up flying altogether.

Sigh.

[Skoshi]

I'm having a hard time deciding if this is the stupidest thing the government has done since September 11 or just the most revolting. For one thing, does the idea that they plan not only to monitor airlines but also "to extend its use to screen truckers, railroad conductors, subway workers and others whose transportation jobs involve the public trust" scare anyone else? Where will the line be drawn? Will there be anywhere in the public or private sectors where people will be able to live outside of a fishbowl?

The system is supposed to "analyze passengers' travel reservations, housing information, family ties, identifying details in credit reports and other personal data to determine if they're 'rooted in the community' -- or have an unusual history that indicates a potential threat." What is this really supposed to mean? "Anylyze passengers' travel reservations", so everyone beware...set all your travel plans ahead of time and don't vary from them or you could be showing odd behavior that indicates you are a terrorist. "Housing information" - let's not let anyone who doesn't have a permanent address or who lives in an area known to have other suspicious characters in it travel. "Family ties", well, we all know everyone who has a family member who disagrees with the government or who is tied to anti-American activity must be evil, so let's arrest them. "Identifying details in credit reports" - pay your bills or more branches of the government besides the IRS will be after you.

And the real kicker..."determine if they're 'rooted in the community' -- or have an unusual history that indicates a potential threat." So, if you didn't grow up in the same place your family has lived in for the last six or seven generations you must be a terrorist.

Yea, I think I've figured it out...our government has completely lost its mind. If we wanted to stop terrorism at its roots, why weren't more steps taken after the Oklahoma City bombing (and please note how young, white, Christian men weren't placed under scrutiny by our government as young Muslim and Arab men have been since September 11)? Why didn't the government take more precautions after they were placed on high alerts after threats were made the summer before September 11?

Don't get me wrong, I'm proud to be an American. I'm an Army brat who was raised across the US and the Middle East and loves her country. But taking away the rights that makes this country great and alienating the citizens who make it so wonderful is not the way to go about saving it.

Re:Sigh.

[elmegil]

Young, white, Christian men weren't scrutinized in the same way that young Muslims and Arab men are for a very sensible reason. It's a simple fact that the Arab culture is in opposition to Western culture and values. It simply makes statistical sense to keep an eye on those who are most likely to come from the country we're at war with.

You obviously weren't paying attention to the myriad scare stories about the White Aryan Resistance and the myriad militia groups in remote places during the 80's & 90's. There is a significant and demonstrably violent subculture of young white "Christian" men, among them Tim McVeigh, who are as real and present a threat as your nebulously defined "arab culture". They just aren't half as easy to target and isolate because they look like so many of us.

Re:Sigh.

[Wateshay]

Well, first off, the Oklahoma City bombing wasn't perpetrated by a "young white Christian man", since McVeigh was an atheist. The sad truth is that there's probably a lot more profiling that goes on as a result of Okalahoma City than you think. We just don't hear about it because the news media is more inclined to disagree with the views of people like Timothy McVeigh, and therefore doesn't care as much if their rights are trampled on. I don't have any evidence, but I'd bet good money that we'd both be shocked if we knew how much surveillance our government does on people who choose to live away from "civilization" for one reason or another.

I agree with you completely in your conclusions, though. This kind of profiling is just plain wrong, and shouldn't be used to invade the privacy of anyone in this country, be they Muslim, Christian, Atheist, Caucasian, Arab, or Martian.

Re:Sigh.

[Badanov]

I love it when someone talks about something the government does to enhance security. It brings out all the slashdot crazies jerking off about how their rights are being violated. When you board a common carrier you can throw your expectations to privacy out the window. They were never there to begin with and the governmewnt is being just a little nosier than they have before. What I don't understand why is profiling considered wrong. Consider the 911 terrorist attacks on the United States. They were committed by and had the material assistance of young men between the ages of 20 and 35 of middle eastern descent. NO WOMEN; NO WHITE FOLKS; NO BLACK FOLKS; NO OLD GUYS; Yet, the low standard at airports is that everyone is subject to search even if there is suspicion, and that when that awful standard is not followed, we have the idiots of the world complaining about their rights. If there is a common thread amoungst criminals more likely to carry out suicide attacks, why is it so objectionable to focus on those people when the percentages of preventing an attack are improved by profiling? And by the same token why impair chance of preventing an attack by ignoring that liklihood? I really think that stories like this are only posted to bring out the crazy people who want to move to Canada, etc. Well, I would like for you to move to Canada, too. At least when your rights are swallowed up by a hostile culture in Canada which worships multiculturalism to the extent it would wreck all other considerations, I hope you will at least have some pleasant memories of what it was like to have rights.

Re:Sigh.

[Malcontent]

Let's consider some facts shall we?

There were numerous arabs on 9-11 that much is true what what about since then?

Richard Reid was a Jamaican living England. Shouldn't we also profile blacks? Remember there are also lots of black muslims in this country who have a some bones to pick with the US govt.

John Walker was a nice white boy but I guess we can't really profile white people.

Jose Padilla is a latino. Apparently there have succesful attempts at recruiting latinos (and presumably blacks) in jails by al quada. Perhaps we should also start profiling latinos too.

The fact remains that the US has a lot of enemies both external and internal. In the west there are militias of people who are preparing for an armed overthrow of the US govt, all over latin america there are hundreds of thousands of people who hate what America has done them and their countries, same goes for the slum districts of any big city.

the bottom line is that Al quada is a religous organization and not a racial one. They accept all races and colors as long as you are willing to convert to islam and take up arms. In fact they have consciously tried to recruit american and european citizens. Profiling by race will only give you a false sense of security. If you don't believe me ask yourself this question. If there was a turk, an arab and an israeli all dressed in blue jeans and a T-Shirt could you tell who was who? Of course not! In fact most americans probably would probably confuse hindus and latinos as arabs too.

Re:Sigh.

[be-fan]

It's a simple fact that the Arab culture is in opposition to Western culture and values.
>>>>>
Now, I consider myself a fairly easy going guy when it comes to things outside of operating systems, but this pisses me off. First, there is nothing "simple" about this situation. There are many different, weighted, positions along with a huge amount of information about cultural and political happenings over the past few hundred years. Making a blanket statement like the one above just reveals how completely ignorant you are. First of all, there is no "Arab" culture. There is a somewhat coherent concept called Western culture, because (among other reason) the intellectuals who developed it were in communication with (and thus influenced) each other. The situation was entirely different in the Middle East. At the time "Arab" culture developed, there was a large part of the population that belonged to nomadic tribes, with little contact between them. Additionally, this situation doesn't just involve Arab culture. Its not just Arab's who are targeted, but Muslims in general. There are hundreds of millions of Muslims who are not rooted in the Middle East, and those Muslims have vastly different cultulres. The Muslims on the Indian subcontinent have a basically Indian culture, along with a large amount of western culture (thanks to British rule) thrown in. The Muslims in Turkey and Southeastern Europe have, similarly, an Eastern-European culture. Besides, many of the people who travel are fairly well-off, and (because of the British school system) western culture has permeated that segment. That said, none of these cultures is in opposition to Western culture. Islam's cultural history is rooted in the wealthy, intellectual urban areas of the Muslim empires. These cities where cultural meccas that could easily compare with the cultural capitals of Europe much later in history. This cultural history is a whole lot different from the Islamic culture you see on CNN. The culture you see on T.V. is rooted in war-torn, poor desert regions. Basing your opinion of Islamic culture on that is like basing your opinion of Western culture on trailer communities or the inner city. For further enlightenment, take a look at the situation in Israel. You've got a bunch of Muslims committing terrorist actions against Israel. On the other hand, you've got Israel, whose police actions kill just as many Palestinian civilians, and who treats Arab residents of Israel as third class citizens. If you make everything black and white, the Palestinians are terrorists and the Israeli's are fascists. Extrapolate from there, you've got that Islam encourages terrorism/hate of America and that Judaism encourages fascism. What? Does that make any sense? No! Thus, the initial black and white assumption was wrong! Proof by contridiction! If you had any sense at all, you'd realize that this is an isolated situation, with violence caused by people in impovrished/war-torn conditions lashing out at a convenient (and not entirely blameless!) entity. Same thing with Afghanistan. Same thing with Chechnya. Same thing with Ireland. Same thing everywhere else terrorism occurs.

Now, you've got me riled up. I like history, and I think you could use the lesson, so let's delve into the details of Islamic vs Western culture, while bearing in mind that both are amorphous enough to be impossible to pin down exactly. To start off, the religious distinction is fairly small (and please, people more enlightened then me in religious matters please chime in!) Once you seperate the traditions from the ideology of the religion, you get the following differences. Muslims believe Jesus was just another prophet, no the son of God. Christians, of course, believe otherwise. The both, however, believe that Jesus is the messiah (or savior, I think they're similar, correct me on this) but differ in the fact that Christians believe that he has already come, while Muslims believe he will come in the future. Overall, other aspects of the religions are similar. Both emphasize self-sacrifice (which is reflected in western culture in the idea of hard work) with Islam leaning a bit more towards ascetism. Both emphasize charity, both emphasize belief in one God (the exact same God, btw). Now, once you get outside the core beliefs, then things get strange. All that stuff about the virgins and heaven is akin to the gothic stuff in Christianity. These "details" arose in both religions during the cultural flourishes of their respective civilizations. In this respect, modern Christianity differs from medival christianity just as much as modern Christianity differs from modern Islam. Now, moving on to the women issue. Let me say for the record that my stance on this is that all you women-supressing people can go to hell, whether or not your christian or muslim. This, I must admit, is a point of contention that makes Islam look very bad in the press. Yes, Islam does tend to supress women. Of course, the Bible also says that slavery is okay, and women should be obedient to their husbands. The main thing that people don't realize is that it is characteristic of pre-industrial civilizations to supress women. The western world did it just as well as any other civilization up until a hundred years ago. The main problem is that Islamic countries as a whole tend to be pre-industrial, while Western countries are post-industrial. Again, ideology takes a front seat to economics. Lastly, this whole thing about Jihad. Yes, the Quran does say that people who fight against the enemies of Islam will go to heaven. This statement is *literal*. When Islam was "growing up" as a religion, its central community was vunerable to attacks from neighboring areas. As a result, it became important to fight to protect the community, and by extension the religion. In no way does that mean that the religion condones killing innocent people.

It simply makes statistical sense to keep an eye on those who are most likely to come from the country we're at war with.
>>>>>>>>>
There is no way to parse this sentence in a way that sheds favorable light upon your meaning. I'll assume that you don't think we're at war with a specific country, that you just made a typo. If you mean keeping tabs on people who come from parts of the world that harbor terrorists, that also doesn't make sense. Terrorists are all over the place, and given current incidents, your list of countries would be Afghanistan, France, and Latin America. If you mean keeping tabs on people of the same faith as those who bombed the WTC, then the sentence makes sense, but the concept doesn't. You're talking about the second largest religion in the world. You're not narrowing it down any, and Islam covers so many parts of the world you're not even getting geographical factors to help you.

If you tried preventing bombings by watching all young, white, Christian men - you'd be wasting a *lot* of time. We've got LOTS of them here in the
U.S. -- much more than we've got of Muslims.
>>>>>
No duh. That's why it doesn't make sense to look at race! White men commit far more crimes than Muslims (numerically). By looking at just Muslims, yes you narrow your search, but are you more likely to find criminals?

People screaming about "racial profiling" seem to be neglecting the numerical facts. Why focus on a single group at all, unless it's statistically beneficial to you? In this case, focusing on Arabs is.
>>>>>
Fool. Statistics is only useful for larger datasets. We've got three data points here (Oklahoma and the two attacks on the WTC). One was white, the other two were Arab. Thus, 33% of terrorists are white, and 66% are Arab. Exactly...

The "people screaming about racial profiling" are the people like me. I've personally been harrassed at the Canadian border by some self-important shithead who thought he had this big important job guarding the fucking US-Canadian border. Protecting Mother Canada from all a manner of evils exported from the US. Yes I'm Muslim. Yes I'm brown. But I've grown up here and understand America better than 90% of those people that claim to be patriotic. I vote, post on /. and watch Will & Grace. I'm about as much a terrorist threat as Jack. Racial profiling would be fine if I was the only one. But I'm not. Like I said, most travellers (even brown ones) tend to be just like me. Well-off, well-educated, entirely unthreatening. Targeting these people makes absolutely no sense. Its false comfort. You might catch the fundementalist muslim, but how about the irate IRA-man? Or a crazy Basque? Well, you say, those two groups haven't attacked us yet. Well hell. We've had one attack, so of course we know exactly what our enemy looks like! Are we just going to wait until one of those groups attacks us to screen for them? Great plan!

I'm tired of weak-minded people. Those without the brain capacity to handle the idea that the world is complex. Those without the learning necessary to have valid opinions. Those without the mental strength to constantly look at their outlook on life and reevaluate it in light of the current situation. These are the people who champion racial profiling. These are the people who make knee-jerk reactions to events. These are the people that make the world suck, because these are the people that make up 90% of the population.

Terrorists can't hijack airplanes anymore.

[e_n_d_o]

Airplane hijackings used to end with everyone, or at least most people, surviving the event. In the last four hijackings, everyone died, and thousands more were killed on the ground. As a result of this, people who are on board an airliner that is being hijacked will attack the hijackers. Remember what happened to the terrorists aboard Flight 93 as well as that shoe-bomber idiot.

I certainly wish these facts were more often considered in our response to the events of September 11.

Re:Yes

[spoco2]

Just because they are catching criminals doesn't mean the system is working.

What about the people on death row that are innocent? There have been numbers of cases of people being found innocent just in the nick of time... or worse, after the execution.

Do you call that system 'working'?

What about if you were classed as a terrorist due to your heritage, your religion, and you went to school with someone who turned out to be a terrorist? (Maybe you never even knew them)

Is that a system that 'works'?

What about if, as someone from the article suggests, that these systems were privatised (That's damn scary)... then really, what is to stop these private companies 'delaying' a few members of some particular activist group that may be threatening their activities in some part of the world?

Who decides what ranks you highly as a terrorist?

Who decides who gets to see this conglomeration of information?

Who ensures that the information that is used in these rankings is accurate?

How long does your 'terror' ranking stick for? If you took part in some protest march, are you unable to fly anywhere for the next 5 years?

This all just sounds damn close to so many grim Sci Fi Movies... :(

Re:Why would anyone want to stop this?

[autopr0n]

Maybe I'm crazy but I care more about not getting killed in an airplane by terrorists than whether or not there is a big data base about me.

Well, good for you. I, on the other hand, am not. If the 9/11 hijackers tried to take control of a plane today, the rest of the passengers would take them down. (And, if they didn't the plane would be shot down. Not that it would do you any good, but still.)

The rest of this is just a power grab by the totalitarian element in our government.

I'd rather live in a place with occasional suicide bomber then in 1984land, personally.

I'm not a terrorist and so I have nothing to fear from this system.

Well, assuming that A) the system is infallible, and B) no one ever uses the data for 'bad things' either people with legit or illegitimate access.

For obvious reasons, those are not assumptions I'm going to make...

Bad News for Canadians

[Marijuana al-Shehi]

Former Olympic gold medalist Ross Rebagliati was denied entry to the United States when he attempted to travel to the 2002 Winter Olympics. He was eventually allowed entry later in the week, after getting an attorney involved. I think this dragnet will extend much farther, potentially denying entry to any Canadian every busted for smoking a joint, unless said Canadian can afford an attorney.

i've said it before...

[claude_juan]

if you dont have anything to hide, whats the big deal? privacy? i doubt your renting of that porn at the movie store is going to throw a flag. now if you happened to be incarcerated for say, porn with a 12 year old, then it serves you just fine by me.

in short, get over it. if your freaked, you probably did something wrong.

Making the lives of foreign students hard

[saihung]

I have a friend who is a graduate student from a Western European country. Every time he's flown to/from/within the US in the past year, he's been pulled out of line and searched. If he has a connection, they pull him out of line and search him again before boarding the plane. He's never been convicted of so much as jaywalking in his life, but he is guilty of having taken a vacation to Southeast Asia with his mother several years ago. If this is the quality of the risk-assessment we can expect, then excuse me for not feeling safer.

Re:While I don't agree with his presentation

[An Onerous Coward]

Really? Just how long do you expect that situation to continue?

I'm so sick of hearing this argument. If the government starts outlawing more and more activities "for our protection," are you positive that your personal life is so inoffensive in every possible way that you could allow anyone--regardless of their agenda--to go through it with a fine-toothed comb?

The problem with your argument is that the scope of the term "law-abiding" changes from day to day. One day, it's legal to drink alcohol. The next day, an amendment is passed outlawing the contents of your wine cellar. One day, your Colt 45 is just a cliched part of your Texan lifestyle, the next day it's an imprisonable offense. One day, your drug legalization post to USENET is a valued contribution to the national debate, the next day it's "incitement to terror or the encouragement of same." It doesn't matter if it's the ideas in your mind, the porn on your hard drive, the religion you practice, the technology you own, or the hobbies you pursue, I guarantee you that nobody is safe from having their freedoms encroached upon.

Even you, with your "go along, get along" attitude, may someday find that a law has been passed which you cannot follow in good conscience. Fight for your freedoms now. Don't wait until they've already arrested all your potential allies.

Re:I'm narrowminded but I'm honest...

[TKinias]

Quoth Mustang Matt:

In fact, if it means that they might catch one in a million people up to no good, more power to them.

Absolutely! While we're at it, why not change this silly ``innocent 'til proven guilty'' nonsense. It lets too many criminals walk free. If they're innocent, they should be able to prove it easily. You've nothing to fear if you don't commit crimes.

If it gets one more criminal behind bars, it's worth it, right?

</irony>

Re:hypocrisy run amok

[DavittJPotter]

Because it's *not* about catching terrorists. These systems are merely being introduced under the blanket of "stopping terrorism" so the government can have a little more control, and a little more influence on your life.

9/11 was a terrible day - but the days that are coming are worse. The victims of that day will roll in their graves when they see the vulgar abuses of power that are being committed in the name of "National Security."

Forgot the imporant part

[KarmaBitch]

// Book em, danno
if (p.securityThreatScore > 0.0) {

Dialog d = new Dialog(SUSPECTED TERRORIST!!);
p.Detain();
p.StripOfRights();

JailCell cell = new JailCell();
cell.LockRoom();
cell.ThrowAwayRoom( );

p.PutIn(cell);
}

Re:Basic problem

[just4now]

The objective of any terrorist group is to get the non-military portion of a country (like the US) concerned about their day-to-day life and force them to change it.

The 9/11 WTC thing has already achieved what these guys wanted: having everyone hyper-sensitive and (potentially) over-reacting to perceived *threats*.

On this one, I'm with Bush & co. - what's the point of being the remaining superpower if everyone knows you'll cave in at the sight of american blood?

Hopefully, the US keeps this to al-Quaida et. al. and does not further dominate how other democratic countries operate. I think this is what the other western countries are really worried about.

Re:I managed to get part of the source code...

[DarkHelmet]

// TODO: are there any white terrorists?

I realize that you're not being serious, but just for the record: The unabomber bombings and the Oklahoma City bombing was done by white people.

Damn, doesn't this country forget that most of the crime done in this country are actually done BY AMERICANS?

Even if you could stop all acts of terror here, are you going to stop all crime?

Oh, oops. I keep forgetting that terrorism isn't the real reason for these devices. Carry on.

Re:Wake up!

[Anonymous Coward]

On a serious note, he is being held as an enemy combatant, which means he is not entitled to the usual rights of the accussed. And it's legal too. Ho hum.

You might think it's legal. I don't. The only basis Bush has to claim it's legal is a Supreme Court ruling regarding eight Nazi sabatoures during WWII. In that particular case, the court pointed out two critical issues:

1. The United States had officially declared war on Germany.
2. The defendents took orders straight from the German high command. A fact which the defendents did not contest.

On the other hand, all U.S. citizens have the right to due process and the right to habeas corpus. Without those rights, there is no check or balance on the president's power to arrest. If the president points a finger at you, say good-bye to your loved ones, because you're never getting out of jail (doesn't matter if you're innocent, guilty, committed a misdemeanor or a felony).

No doubt, you probably think we are at war, and that all of our rights will be restored when this 'war' ends. Let me ask you, when will this so called war end? The simple fact is, there is absolutely no way to wipe out terrorism. Like any other crime, it will exist forever. The war on terrorism will continue to erode our rights just like the 30-year-old war on drugs continues to erode our rights. I know numerous people who have been effected by that (and no, they were not involved in drugs).

My only concern is why the same standard isn't being applied to every other suspected terrorist.

I suspect that you are a terrorist. You want to turn my nation into a dictatorship, so you post messages on slashdot asking people to disregard the fact that their rights (which are critical for a free nation) are disappearing. Once you've gotten all the milage you can out of the World Trace Center attack, you'll go off and commit another attack.

The rights and influence of citizens and aliens

[alienmole]

Don't get me wrong, I'm proud to be an American. I'm an Army brat who was raised across the US and the Middle East and loves her country. But taking away the rights that makes this country great and alienating the citizens who make it so wonderful is not the way to go about saving it.

It's not just citizens that get alienated - or, for that matter, who make it wonderful. There are plenty of aliens, both legal and illegal, living and working in the U.S., many of whom have the kind of backgrounds that are likely to throw up red flags in a system like this.

Alienating the aliens may actually be a worse strategy than many people are willing to acknowledge, in the long run. Aliens in this country tend to provide a lot of feedback to people in their home countries, and can influence attitudes around the world. If America thinks it is "hated" now, wait until policies like CAPPS II have been in effect for a few years.

This kind of thing isn't just limited to poor immigrants from third-world countries, either. As a sort of reverse example of what I'm talking about, look at America's almost irrationally strong pro-Israel policy. That is ultimately driven by a powerful Jewish constituency in the U.S. (Not trying to be anti-anything, someone please let me know if you think I'm wrong.)

The same sort of thing can happen in reverse. If the unambiguous and unvarying message coming from aliens in America is that it is a country where it sucks to be an alien, where its much-vaunted human rights are selectively applied to those who are "rooted in the community" etc., that is going to influence attitudes, and will be bad for America in the long run.

The Bush administration's policies have already led to some unusual international reactions. For example, Germany has recently taken the position that it will not help the U.S. in a war against Iraq, even if U.N. approval is obtained. The reason for this essentially seems to be unhappiness with U.S. unilateralism - not consulting its allies, including those in NATO, before embarking on a course which could create major international conflict.

The Germans have a point. If the U.S. decides that it doesn't need goodwill from anyone else in the world - including the aliens within its borders - it will soon find out that it only has 5% of the world's population, and that it can't simply invade everyone else.

Re:I managed to get part of the source code...

[gnovos]

You forgot:

if (hasFirstClassTicket(p.ticket) || isRichCEO(p.occupation)) {
ignoreAllSecurityThreat();
return;
}

This from personal expierence on a flight where my wife and I had to take a multiple connection flight (the seperate planes, we got searched three seperate times), and not *one* business or first class passenger was searched. It was *very* random.

Guns?

[autopr0n]

Let anyone who wants to carry a gun.

Sit in the right seat, shoot the gastank in the wing. say good by to 300 people.

Sure complain now...

[Zakabog]

It's really bothering me. 9/11 happens and everyone goes bezerk "How did these terrorists get weapons aboard a plane!" and "Why didn't anyone realize what these terrorists were up to!" Then now they actually try to "fix" the system and now everyone's shouting "Hey this is an invasion of privacy!" or "Well it'll do no good now!" Sure it is a stupid system, it will probably be cost ineffective, fail misserably, burn down, fall over, and sink into the swamp, but still it's better than nothing.

I flew to Puerto Rico in January, and I live in NYC, I flew From JFK to an airport in Aguadilla (or something like that.) My bag was searched, my shoes were examined, but the search was completely random. There was one person near the end of the x-ray machine picking up suspicious BAGS (remember, that's BAGS not PEOPLE). They didn't go out of their way and say "Young white male traveling with an old woman! Let's search him!" So it really bother's me to hear people complaining about how annoying airport security is. What bothered me about the search is that I had razors in my bag (for shaving, not on board the plane but I like to keep toiletries in my back pack.) What they actually examined the most were my juggling balls (I guess that makes sense, I'm sure through an x-ray machine it must look like small balls filled with gun powder.)

Anyway, if they stop 10,000,000 people, search them and just one of them is a terrorist deciding to hijack a plane or blow it up or whatever, and they stop that terrorist, won't it be worth it? You know if they don't you'll just complain "How did they not get this guy?!?! That airport security is so bad, why don't they do something about it!" Plus stuff like this help kill time at an airport, where there's a 90% chance that your flight will be delayed, you'll probably arrive an hour early and your row doesn't board till last (no matter where you're sitting unless it's in business class you lucky bastige!)

*patiently awaits the -1 troll moderations from the hypocrites who praise disney for releasing anime in the US when 5 minutes earlier they were bashing the MPAA for whatever new evil thing they did*