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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."
Time to move to Canada.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
For when slahdotting one site just isnt enough...
oh wait, I forget no one reads the articles, nevermind.
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=2, Troll=1, Redundant=1, Insightful=6, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=12. (not mine)
Lets just hope none of those F00F bugs start popping back up...
"I propose we leave math to the machines and go play outside" -- Calvin
You forgot that at slashdot, everything is a slippery slope.
They'll never let me on a plane, what with my nick and all.
"I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq"
-- Paul Wolfowitz, 7/21/2003
What if the entire system ran on Linux? Now you don't know what the hell to do, do you?
>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.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
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?
rejected (19) accepted (0)
Is there a psychological term related to getting your stories rejected on slashdot?
why do Anonymous Cowards start their score at 0?
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.
I'm not going to be entering or leaving the U.S.
I don't mind them scanning people entering and leaving one bit.
In fact, if it means that they might catch one in a million people up to no good, more power to them.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
The anonymous author certainly has a colorful presentation to his post, but I agree with his general argument.
All of us law abiding citizens have nothing to hide.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Here it is.. Passenger p = getPassenger();
// positive means they are bad guys. let's initalize to zero.
// TODO: are there any white terrorists?
// TODO: there may be more religions..check on that
// Thank goodness the source code is closed!!
// TODO: should known terrorists be considered security threats?
// TODO: why is this here again? better leave it for now..
// Book em, danno
p.securityThreatScore = 0.0;
if (isMiddleEast(p.nationality)) { p.securityThreatScore += 10.0; }
if (isMiddleEast(p.destination)) { p.securityThreatScore += 10.0; }
if (isMiddleEast(p.origin)) { p.securityThreatScore += 20.0; }
if (hasDarkSkin(p.race)) {
p.securityThreatScore += 20.0;
} else {
p.securityThreatScore -= 50.0;
}
if (p.religion == Religion.CHRISTIAN || p.religion = Religion.JEWISH) {
p.securityThreatScore -= 100.0;
} else {
p.securityThreatScore += 100.0;
}
if (p.gender == Religion.FEMALE && p.age >= 18 && p.age <= 28) {
p.securityThreatScore += 500.0;
p.searchOptions.fullStrip = true;
p.searchOptions.bodyCavities = true;
}
if (knownTerroristsDatabase.contains(p)) {
p.securityThreatScore = Math.random(-100.0, 100.0);
}
if (Math.random() > 0.5) {
p.securityThreatScore = -p.securityThreatScore;
}
if (p.securityThreatScore > 0.0) {
Dialog d = new Dialog(SUSPECTED TERRORIST!!);
}
The search will say about me. I always wanted to know what the FBI thought of me in the 1960's when they investigated my father for high security clearence when he worked for General Dynamics.
I can see it now: "Mostly harmless"
"I'm not a terrorist and so I have nothing to fear from this system."
PROVE it you scumwad suspected perp you.
(Moderators, the above is a logical argument, not a flame)
KFG
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.
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.
"What are apples? Left, right, socialist...I don't know."
Great. Now I'm going to get SPAM that reads:
"Have a poor terror score? No problem!"
"Get plane tickets with bad or no terror info!"
"Poor terror index? No terror index? We can help!"
"Repair your terror history instantly!"
moto411.com
The first article mentions the threat of function creep - the possibility that the technology will EVENTUALLY be used for purposes besides the one that it was initially designed for.
What it fails to mention, however, is that airport security has almost nothing to do with this project. It's ALL about building a huge, commercially-mineable information database filled entirely with people who aren't even a little bit of a threat.
Do you really believe that hi-jackers board planes using legit ID that leaves a paper trail right into their DMV records and credit reports? Absurd.
The only people that this system will "catch" are Joe Average and his family. Think of it as a great big grocery-store scan card system disguised as a security precaution.
This, and everything else in America right now, doesn't have a damn thing to do with security or terrorism prevention. It has to do with manufacturing more consent and getting people to march in tighter formation so that they don't spend any time thinking about how little their rights mean to the people in charge.
The fact that people are even talking about it as if it has only the POTENTIAL for abuse just shows that the media machine and their corporate/government handlers have already won.
Albeit a big one. The current system's source code looks like this:
if skin == brown then threat = high
This is just as great an invasion of civil rights as somebody checking out what you bought on EBay. Of course it might not seem like it if one hasn't been unjustly targetted because of one's race before.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
Customer: "I thought you said the ticket was $125!"
Ticket Girl: "Well, yes. But you owe taxes for 1987, have five unpaid parking tickets in NYC, and you, (pauses), heh, have an unpaid citation for, heh, urinating in public that you got in June of '92."
Customer: (red faced). "Uh, look, I was drunk, I mean, i looked.... *sigh*, just whatever. How much?"
Ticket girl: "that'll be $790.45"
Customer: "Fine, whatever" (hands her the money)
Ticket girl: "Remember, there are bathrooms conveniently located at the fore and aft of the plane" (makes stewardess hand gestures.
Customer: "Just, just shut up."
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
If anyone says to RTFA, they can eat my ass! >:] I like choice. I don't like being overwhelmed.
In any case, profiling is just too complicated to work all that well. There are going to be tons of false positives falling out of this AND it won't matter anyway. So what if the system fingers someone as a potential threat - you still can't lawfully detain them based on information provided by such a system.
There are plenty of crazy militant types itching to rip the system - how do you sift through to find the "credible" threats? You need a full psychofuckinglogical profile to even start to figure that one out.
And what about the closet psychopaths? The ones that just go off all of the sudden - maybe there was a buildup, but that doesn't mean they've been having clandestine meetings with the PLO or something, right? With a system like this in place, people will become complacent and we'll overlook the obvious signs (ie/ that twitchy, sweating guy with the laptop full of electronics jamming equipment and plastique might just make it through because he's lived and worked in Houston his whole life without a single brush in with the law and because the former guitarist from Rage Against the Machine was on the same flight).
Why don't they just sedate us and put us in little pods for the flight. Less of my rights would be violated that way and at least that would be more effective.
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
This was on a site somewhere that I've lost the link to, but I saved the bulk of the text:
.... to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.]
Imagine a country where agents of the state install surveillance cameras at sporting events and scan the crowd looking for criminals and suspects.
Imagine cities where agents of the state use surveillance cameras to observe the activities of citizens and tourists under a watchful eye for suspicious goings on.
Imagine roadblocks being set up to randomly, and sometimes selectively, stop automobiles so that armed agents of the state and trained police dogs can inspect your car.
Imagine being at an airport in a country where you are questioned about where you have been and why you were there, while a dog sniffs about and an agent of the state ransacks your personal belongings, only to return them in disarray.
Imagine armed agents of the state just outside your home with high-tech surveillance equipment which monitors your every movement, listens to your conversations and observes what you are watching on TV.
Imagine a country where just being under suspicion of a crime is cause for arrest and justification for your car, home or other personal property to be confiscated by the state.
I recall learning about these types of countries in my junior high and high school civics classes. Does living in a country where you are watched and recorded by the state seem a little scary?
Is it Romania? Iran? Russia? Maybe, I can't say for certain. But, a country where these activities take place and continue to spread is America.
Does this bother you deeply? Or do you really not care because you maintain, I have nothing to hide.
When is the last time you read the Constitution? Have you read it since you got out of school? Have you read it as a mature adult? What about the Bill of Rights?
[Amendment IV. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or Affirmation and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized.]
[Amendment V. No person....shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law.
Are the above-mentioned activities of the state violations of the fourth and fifth amendments? Do they constitute just powers? Are these powers to which you consent because, I have nothing to hide.
The greatest enemy to our freedom is not a foreign power; we would eagerly rally and band together to defeat a common enemy. Nor is it the criminal element; they will fight for their rights tooth and nail. No, the greatest threat to our freedom is the law-abiding citizen who through quiet acquiescence consents to the usurpations of our rights because, "I have nothing to hide".
It is not the government which makes us free. It is not the law which makes people free. It is not the government which guarantees our freedom. No government can ever be trusted to do that. It is the people - who force the government through freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of assembly, the right to petition, and the ballot - who guarantee our freedom. Our government was instituted to secure your rights. It is your job to see to it our government doesn't forget why it is there.
As a youngster, I attended a church which taught me that God is always watching you. And this God was one mean, tough, angry hombre who would punish you for all eternity if you didn't play your cards right.
I can tell you that the feeling of being 'watched' is no way to live. Most of us are uncomfortable when a stranger looks at us for more than a fleeting second. Now that God and I have our relationship squared away, I don't need my government watching me. "I have nothing to hide", and so there is no just cause for me to be watched.
Demand your rights, protect your rights, watch your government at all times. Do what the constitution requires of you. You may have nothing to hide, but you have a lot to lose.
--------------
LEXX
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
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.
Identifying details in credit reports" - pay your bills or more branches of the government besides the IRS will be after you.
Oh, nononono... they don't care wether or not you actually paid. All they care about is what those bills are for.
As long as you never buy anything suspicious, you should be fine.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Probably I will.
If they're catching criminals then their system is obviously working right?
I'm as concerned as the next person with privacy but I think there is still room for us to expand law enforcement without envading privacy.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
krenshala
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...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
i would have the same reaction if they wanted to fingerprint everyone who flys on planes.
You do know that your fingerprints (and that of everyone else in the United States) are on file in the town in which you were born, right?
You could complain all you want, but you'd sound pretty retarded.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Well, at least it's not racial profiling by morons who can't even tell one race from another.
But seriously, any kind of system that 'unevenly' applies security screening actually opens a door for terrorists. All they have to do is send their cell members on flights frequently, and see which ones get checked more often. Pack the weapons and stuff on the people who get checked less frequently, and now you're mission has a greater chance of success then with random checks.
"Well, why not just do both random and profiled checks?" you might ask, well, why not just do more random checks? I mean, either the airport can search everyone, or some other percentage. The best security would be gained by "spending" all your checks doing random checks. Any other system unevenly distributes the chances of being checked, and decreases security.
br> I saw a paper online about this a while ago. It was a bit more rigorous, but I can't dig up the link. Ah well.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
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 think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq"
-- Paul Wolfowitz, 7/21/2003
1) Will the algorithm be made public? Should it be? Though it would appease the privacy-folk, it may also undermine the usefulness to some degree.
... it may be that some of these things are not appropriate to collect ... although I suspect that insurance agencies have access to them all):
2) Some things I think the algorithm should consider (this is a mathematician speaking
previous flights
age/sex/nationality
recent credit history
insurance policies
police record
payment method
passenger group (family, friends, alone, etc.)
Anyone else want to add or complain?
-- jetlag --
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.
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.
You know, I just read an interesting article on bayesian filtering... which I find interesting, but I find no different than the statistical analysis that our elected govornment is using.
Why is it OK to use these techniques to get the spammers, but not the terrorists?
Could somebody explain this one to me?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Samidh Chakrabarti and Aaron Strauss developed the Carnival Booth Algorithm to defeat CAPPS I. They proved that any profiling system is less effective than searching passangers at random. In fact, the more consistent a profiling system works, the easier it is to defeat. If CAPPS II is an 'improvement' over CAPPS I, it will simply make the airlines an easier target for terrorists.
Anyway, that's what passed for sophisticated screening back when they were real concerned about young tourists coming back from Taiwan, where my passport showed I'd spent the last few months. Consider where it goes when they not only look to see if you're somehow unusual, but make sure your credit history is thoroughly mainstream, and you're not behind on college loans, and they haven't correlated your /. handle and posts with your passport ID ... a whole lot of people getting grabbed by the balls for nothing but the fun of the customs a*holes, and a lucky few getting indefinite detention without charges or legal representation, or even publication of their names.
Of course 80% of Americans don't even have a passport, so it's just the coastal elites and foreigners who will complain. Who needs foreign travel when we can always visit Texas? To view anything more primitive, colorful or barbaric than what we can find in Texas you'd have to find the last tribe of canibals in the last acre of rain forest ... and that's about gone anyway. Ah, America, fast becoming the Texas of the world.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
If we are refused permission to fly, are we allowed to get our CAPPS II report free for 60 days?
Or perhaps we'll get endless pop-up adverts for CAPPS II monitoring services: "Worried that your terrorist score might have gone up? Get your report monitored for $10 per month."
I'm more worried about utilities and industrial plants. Read up on the Bhopal incident.
I'd like you to tell that to El Al security and then report back to the crowd what they say and do to you - as much as we all hate to say it (and the constitution bans it) properly-done racial profiling works. El Al is everyone's favourite case study bacsue they're so hard-core about it.
- Who are their average terrorist threats (and this is Israel - terrorists all around the neighborhood)?
- Who do these groups employ for the most part (by virtue of their ideology and appeal)?
-
So who does El Al most heavily scrutenize?
Does this miss all the John Walker Lindhs out there? Not the way they do it, with their full-out systems integration between the security services and airline computers. If you've been to one of the countries that is generally on the enemies list, then you get interrogated more than usual. JWL was in Pakistan for awhile, so he would have been flagged for the list.Arabs in general, specifically Palestinians, Lebanese, and Syrians.
Arabs in general, specifically Palestinians, Lebanese, and Syrians.
Arabs in general, specifically Palestinians, Lebanese, and Syrians.
So can and will this system happen over here? No bloody way. Dosen't work on physical, temporal, economical, and political grounds. On a more basic level, Israel's got 60 million people and one airline, the States has 250 million and say 20 airlines that fly into it, under various flags. So that total level of security won't work here (ask anyone who has flown El Al and they'll know what I mean), but it can, and the government may try; this massive integration could be the start of the dreaded Big Brother, or at a lower level, the Man may simply record everywhere you travel (which brings up an interesting point - if terrorists are trying to destroy the American way of life, then haven't they already won if such an anti-American-ideals system comes into effect? And if we don't implement it, then they win by physically blowing everything up...)
Cue The Sun...
Why do you care if they spy on you if you arn't doing anything wrong?
If I'm not doing anything wrong, why are they spying on me?
Violations of privacy only hurt people who something to hide.
So it would be OK by you if we put a closed-circuit camera in your house?
I don't know if this system will help or hurt. All I can think of is that it seems a system like this could have possibly prevented the disasters of 9/11/2001.
I guess it allows them to push the limits a little more every time they come up with something like this.
Slightly OT: Do you have any links to documented information about people who died on death row and were proven innocent afterwards? I'd be interested in reading that.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
to my birth records.. duh?
for what it's worth, i believe they have my footprints on file. still though, those prints taken at birth aren't readily available to say american airlines. also, i dont have to provide my fingerprints for verification when i wish to fly. so if that were the case, then i would complain.
-- john
If you don't get it, or think it's stupid, rate me '-1, Dipshit', not '-1, Offtopic'
You mean just like Jose Padilla? Oh, you mean he doesn't have the right to a trial at all, even though he is a U.S. citizen and was captured in the United States?
your code is probably not too far off from the real code.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
Modern buildings, not modern bombs, are the reason that the bombs are more effective.
If the Oklahoma City Federal bBuilding had been a building built as a result of a WPA project, it would have suffered far less damage.
Modern buildings are built by engineers who are blancing cost vs. minimum required strength. If you know for sure what the minimum required strength is, then you can give yourselves much less margin.
The worst disaster most WPA buildings could befall is that they are so massive that they might sink into the ground.
Or, to put it another way... if we built nothing new for 100 years, the only things left standing would be more than 200 years old.
-- Terry
Simple...it's solution looking for a problem. As more and more information is revealed about just how MUCH the CIA (and perhaps even the president) dropped the ball with respect to 9/11, none of these so-called security measures will really matter. What will matter is that you have a competent government that can get the job done without turning the entire country into a police state. It wasn't the absence of a presumption of guilt that allowed 9/11 to happen - it was the failure of a security agency to carry out its duty in a competent manner. Much better results can be achieved by fixing the real problem, rather than covering it up with the charade we see before us.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
Um, what about the thousands of people who were put into 'indefinite detainment' without access to a lawyer, their families, or anything else? In some cases, their families weren't even notified.
Stupid? Maybe not. Revolting? That doesn't even begin to describe the action. Certainly more revolting then this.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
"...an analysis application that mathematically ranks travelers'potential as security threats."
...yeah, that's what I thought...
OK... so what's the fitness function?
I'd be satisfied with anything that, if we were to run it on all of the people who flew on September 11th 2001, it:
o flagged every one of the hijackers
o didn't flag anyone else
-- Terry
Why don't you do it, and then get back to us. I mean, it's pretty obvious you're not a cop, and that you've never asked one. If you had, you would be telling us I'm sure. Why are you so positive you're right?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Thank you sir, I couldn't have said it better myself.
The only thing you left out is that should you ulitmately succed in your appeal you *still* won't be able to travel, you will be bankrupt, unemployed and unemployable and with your entire life in tatters.
It's the oldest "law enforcment" trick in the book.
KFG
cell.PutIn(p). Makes more sense to me, and, how can you put something in something that's been thrown away?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
It may not be nice to say it, but it's true that a Yemeni fundamentalist Moslem is more likely to be a member of al-Qaeda and its member groups than, say, a Bavarian beer brewer.
Or like a Mexican thug, or a so-cal middle class white, boy who likes rap music?
er wait, both of those guys were al-Qaeda. oops. (allegedly, anyway)
It only takes one guy to smuggle the equipment in. Al-quada might be mostly Arab, but if they have a few non-Arab, non profile matching, these systems will make their chances of success GREATER not less.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Spammers don't care about people who receive email and don't respond, so they won't try and change their signatures to get past the system. Terrorists, OTOH, are smarter than that, and have different goals.
"What may be more alarming is that evidence from the September 11 investigation shows that Atta already knew the kernel idea behind this algorithm. Newsweek reported[21] that in the weeks before September 11, Atta and his conspirators practiced their attack by boarding the exact same target flights they intended to later hijack (same planes, same times, same origins and destinations). They wanted to ensure that they didn't raise any suspicions or red flags. This is a clear demonstration of Atta's cleverness. Like Atta, terrorists are smart. They already know this algorithm. And they are already using it."
This is part of a paper about defeating the system written by Samidh Chakrabarti and Aaron Strauss over at MIT. You really should read it.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I dunno, maybe because human beings are worth more then peices of fucking SPAM?!
Just a theory.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Bingo. Give that man a ceeegar!
The system isn't about identifying terrorists so much as identifying who IS NOT a terrorist. Maybe this way we can stop doing extended searches of little old ladies and teeny boppers in the name of "Political Correctness". Lord knows we'd rather not single out for search young men from Flyspecistan who paid cash for one way tickets and who have otherwise never flown before. That would be "profiling."
I would guess that the system would be weighted such that someone who flies alot, paid with a well used credit card or corporate billing account, has an extensive credit history (implies they've been "in existence" for a while) and/or doesn't fit a large number of other characteristics will get "approved" and people who don't hit on enough of these will get the same treatment they're getting now. A few people with enough "negative points" will be non-randomly extensively searched. A "failure" would typically only mean that someone who doesn't need much "security attention" isn't identified and has to go through the regular process.
What this primarily does is make it so that business people in particular and a bunch of people who are fairly obviously not a threat can be given less attention by the airport security apparatus without incurring the wrath of the Political Correctness folks. Like it or not, a lot of the people who will fit the "don't worry about" criteria will be white, middle and upper class types and a lot of the people who fit the extra search criteria will be minorities. This is simply a result of existing demographics but would be more than enough to cause someone to yell, "Profiling."
(this should pretty thoroughly blow any karma I've accumulated).
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
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Of course, the 9/11 hijackers would have been given a free pass if these were the criteria, since they had flown a lot. A friend who works for US Airways told me that one of them had a Dividend Miles Preferred card...
Q: Why would anyone want to profile a race?
A: To remove the loopier elements so that the rest will figgin' fly.
- undoware.ca
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.
I agree completely, and this is an important point to make against the "if it saves just one life" sheep. China has less crime than the US, but I don't see much support for emulating their "justice" system. CAPPS might end up slightly improving detection of terrorists, but it's still not worth it. First, terrorists won't be hijacking planes again because the passengers know to fight back now, and second, the massive data collected on innocent people *will* be misused.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
For those that don't know, the F00F bug was a notorious bug occuring on Pentium processors around 1997.
The above is a technical article on it; here is a simple one, which only lists the actual exploit.
well, ahem, in fact, they will have equifax and all make you pay for "terror score report"
These cities where cultural meccas that could easily compare with the cultural capitals of Europe much later in history.
Like Mecca, for example.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Only if terrorists are distributed over all demographic groups with equal frequency, which is obviously not the case.
They made no such assumption. The only assumptions were:
To turn the system against itself, terrorists would first study it by sending people through and checking if they get flagged. The terrorists' demographic make-up does not matter. The system will be wrong once in a while. If the system decides if some people are terrorists, it effectively also decides if some people are not terrorists. By probing the system, the terrorists discover non-terrorist profiles, which they can exploit.
Let's consider a flight with 200 passengers. The system flags 40 people for an extensive search. If the system flagged people at random, the odds of each terrorist getting searched are 20%. But the government thinks they can increase the odds by flagging the 30 most likely terrorists, and picking 10 people at random. The system, however, incorrectly flags the terrorists as harmless. Now the terrorists have only a 5% chance of being searched (they could be one of the ten people picked at random).
The point is, because the terrorists have found people who are incorrectly flagged, the profiling system does exactly the opposite of what it is supposed to do. The paper goes on to discuss how the terrorists can find innocent-looking people with as few as six probes.
Whether or not you're doing anything wrong and whether or not you're doing something the government doesn't like are two different things. Let me give you an example (for you republicans, feel free to replace 'democrat' with 'republican' and 'Bush' with 'Clinton' and the policies with your pet-peeves). I'm a rabid, vocal democrat. I don't like the Bush admistrations domestic policy, and I think its foreign policy is totally braindead. I doubt I'm the current government's favorite type of person. They more data they have on me, the easier it is for them to keep me quiet (I'm not talking FBI halo, but stuff like auditing my taxes or looking closer at my parking tickets, etc). Everyone has some dirt on them. Its fairly easy for someone to use that dirt against you, even if its minor. If the government has reason to dislike you, and has the mechanism to cause some problems for you, then the situation is problematic to say the least.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Do you know how naive that is? Human civilization has existed for thousands of years. After thousands of years, it still sucks. It has alternating periods of sucking less, and sucking more. We're in one of those periods of sucking less, but don't doubt it, eventually, it will suck more. We have no protections that weren't in place when McCarthyism happened. Or the internment of the Japanese. The only thing we have is the vigilence of the people. That *is* this country's protection against corruption.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
The Romans used to hold their balls when they gave a "testimonial". And yes, I believe you're full of shit.
This is just like today's credit scores. They factor in a variety of data points, but they keep the formula secret.
Racism, sexism, and ageism can all be included, often indirectly, because it's all so "scientific" and therefore sacred.
What you don't know can't hurt them.
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
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.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The only reason they could is because people have always been told that when you are hijacked you sit down and do as you're told. The story was always the same, you get hijacked, fly to some crappy airport and sit there for 2 days. One or two passengers will be shot for show - so make sure you don't stand out or they might pick on you. In the end everyone else is let go unharmed.
This has now fundamentally changed, people will NOT sit still as there is no guarantee that they will survive the experience. The only hope of survival is to take out the hijackers - in this situation 4 guys with knives would NOT be able to hold a plane. It doesn't matter how well trained you are, the ratio of 400:4 is hopeless.
Allowing guns onto planes would be simply insane, as has been pointed out one shot could take down the plane. You've just made killing 400 people trivially easy - what on earth would make you think that's a good idea?
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
If you think the US goverment has overreacted to Sept. 11, just wait.
Al-qaeida has struck 5 times against the US so far.
They will almost certainly strike again.
They hit the WTC twice, so why not planes again?
But I think simple suicide bombers are more likely.
Computer profiling may seem offensive today. But we will have to get used to it.
In a country as large and porous as the US, there are few other real options.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
Only if terrorists are distributed over all demographic groups with equal frequency, which is obviously not the case.
except, you're wrong. al-quada could have 10,000 arabs, and only one white guy, and they could use the system (as long as the white guy didn't get caught hanging out with them..)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
One place this will really become a hindrance, I believe, is in the movement of artists. As a Canadian, I've gotten used to disappointment where concerts/shows are concerned. Any given indy band, be it hip-hop or punk, seems to have around a 50/50 chance of getting over the border to Canada. My ex-boyfriend was a harpsichordist. He used to go down to the states to perform a fair amount. Now, just getting over the border with a harpsichord in his vehicle becomes so logistically impossible that he's unable to attempt it anymore. And that's a shame.
What's true of copyright lawsuits is true of "security precautions" such as this: if there's a large enough possibility of financial and personal inconvenience as a result of a perfectly legal action, for most of us, it's not worth even taking the risk of fighting it. If, for example, my Lebanese, Arab-in-appearance, American citizen aunt is threatened with strip-searching on every flight she takes (which is, as proven by her experience, absolutely the case), she's just going to avoid flying at all cost (which she does).
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*
My life is so boring, even if the government was able to find out everything about me, I doubt they would care.
I actually feel sorta bad for the government guys who have to deal with this stuff. When I go through the computer, I must set off some red flags, but if they examine it closely the worst they will find is I tend to get too drunk in the airport bar before I board the plane, try to flirt with the airline attendent in a terribly clumsy way, and fall asleep.
I guess they could tap my phone, but the most contraversial thing that I've discussed was bugging my mom for spending too much money on curtans for her house.
I don't like the fact that profilling happens, but I also feel bad for the people who have to do it. On paper I'm a real bad person. In reality, I'm just dull and any investigation of my life ends up in a innane exercise in tedium.
The Internet is generally stupid
too bad profiling alone can not accomplish that. thought experiment: pretend you are a terrorist. now try to think of at least one way to get around a system like you've just posited. it took me all of two seconds, what was your score?
searching "teeny boppers" and "little old ladies" is not done because of "political correctness". it's done in the name of randomness. it's done so that bad guys will never be 100% certain that the little old lady (or teenybopper) they're taking advantage of as an unwitting weapons mule won't end up searched, the weapons found, and the fingers pointed at the weapons' originators. it would be better if we could search everybody, of course, but for whatever silly technical reasons we can't, so random chance is second best.
people think profiling would work better than random chance - and it might, if the bad guys were strictly nonrandomly distributed (in some way we can figure out) and unable to compensate for this so as to throw us off. the first might be true - but if the second ever were, they would not be a threat. in real life, the only kind of profiling that really works is intelligence - find out who the bad guys really are, then post mugshots behind the security counters.
Well actually statistically there have been only two (count them two) terrorist attacks on American soil by Muslims since 1776. You can look that statistic up for yourself. What we have here is a country being controlled by the press (find me one politician that isn't) and a press that is not controlled by the American population. If the numerical formulas were based on historical evidence then Muslims in America would be given a free pass while born again white male Christians (like the president and much of congress) would all be strip searched. As a Muslim that works as a subcontractor for the military I can tell you about a lot of problems with "hate crimes" and the military being used by hate groups as a training ground.
My wife works with law enforcement (she has worked with the same PI firm that found the flight school in Florida, which happened to be run by a Lebanese that was called back into service by the Coast Guard ) and I have read their training books on profiling. It is a big negative. The extreme amount of false positives creates such a hassle for the officers that they are told not to do it. The false positive rate causes them to become lax and inattentive to the things they really ought to be looking for. And you can only imagine the social problems profiling creates. This is not what this country should stand for.
None the less racism is alive and well in DC. Profiling is just a way for "them" to be institutionally harassed (like in the 60's). And if they complain then they can be labeled as "anti-American". No this in not democracy this is tyranny in all its standard forms. I have to ask you, do you really think our present president would not have George Washington shipped off to Camp X-ray for suspicion of terrorism without right of redress or habious corpus. Read the deceleration of independence people and see how many of the grievances mentioned within it can not be leveled against the present US.
If you wish for these United States to represent the God given rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness you need to be vigilant against all enemies to a government of the people, by the people and for the people both foreign and domestic. We have seen the enemy and he is us. When we start to think of the government as an entity in and of itself then we are thinking of a government that rules us not serves us.
Start looking at the foreign press, both our "allies" and our "enemies". It is a real eye opener. For instance Kol Yisrael radio reported on Oct. 3, 2001 that Ariel Sharon told Shimon Peres (and you should know what their government positions are) "Every time we do something you tell me Americans will do this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear: don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it."
I don't think that anybody expected that it would be impossible to get a terrorist through the system. It's incorrect that the profiling system is "less effective" than random searching. The system requires much effort on the part of potential terrorists, and that effort exposes them. They have to spend money, which means that more money must be obtained, and if that money is coming from a tracked source, they risk exposure. It takes time, which means extra opportunities for law enforcement to find them.
The point is only to raise the bar high enough that it becomes less and less likely for an attack to be made before the perpetrators are caught by other means. The system does make it harder for terrorists to get on a plane. It costs time and money and provides opportunities for them to make mistakes which result in capture.
I suspect that people would prefer to get a perfect system in exchange for giving up some of their liberties and privacy. Every system involves trading some liberty for security; you're already not allowed to bring a gun on a plane despite your second amendment rights.
I cannot say whether this particular tradeoff is a good one or a bad one, and that will only be resolved by much debate like this and an eventual unhappy compromise. But it seems to me that demanding a perfect system is not a valid way to reach that consensus.
So, thats why the concord didn't explode after being hit by a peice of an exploding tire a few months ago, right?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Horrible decompression: aircraft pressurization systems are engineered to handle lots of leaks, and even a failure of several entire window panels would not cause immediate decompression of a modern aircraft. There would be a lot of noise, and if enough panels are blown out, then the aircraft *would* decompress, but there would be plenty of time to for the pilot to descend to a safe altitude. They *practice* for this kind of thing.
Well that makes it ok then, we'll just have that happen once a week shall we? It'll give the pilots more practice. Sheesh. Pilots are trained to fly with an engine missing - that doesn't mean we can save fuel by switching one off all the time. Cars are built to withstand impacts without killing the passengers, so who needs brakes? Emergency drills are there to try and make safe a dangerous situation. The best way of preventing a catastrophe is still to prevent that dangerous situation ever occuring. You might want to fly on a plane where people are free to take potshots to "test the pilot" but personally I'd rather not.
Exploding fuel tanks: aircraft fuel tanks are punctured by birdstrikes with some regularity. Jet fuel leaks out and the wing & tank require repair. The planes don't explode from this. They're designed to tolerate this kind of thing -- the choice of fuel and the construction of the tanks makes explosion very unlikely.
A few years ago an Air France Concorde exploded shortly after takeoff due to a piece of rubber from a tyre puncturing a fuel tank. To be honest, when I'm at 30k feet "very unlikely" isn't good enough.
Just put away your gun-toting wild-west thoughts for a second and consider this simple question - which is safer - A metal box with 400 people and no weapons, or a metal box with 400 people and lots of weapons? I simply cannot comprehend how anyone would choose the latter.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Ok... (where to start? Geez....)
First off, the "Slashdot history lesson" on the religious differences of Muslims and Christians is fine, but I feel rather irrelevant to my original point I was trying to make.
The fact is, throughout history, people of just about all faiths have done things in the name of their "god" or "gods" which run counter to what their religion claims they believe in. (I can't think of anything more hypocritical and ridiculous than a "Black Muslim", for example - considering the Muslims history of enslaving people.) The bottom line is, I don't really care what a group claims their religious beliefs are. I care much more about the actions they take (or don't take) against others.
People are singled out by their physical appearance all the time, and it's quite simply done because it makes some logical sense to do so.
In the U.S., people are singled out for closer inspection by police simply based on their age, or whether or not they've got long, scraggly hair. It's well-known that blacks are pulled over much more often than whites by the police. Try wearing a long trenchcoat and walking around stores in shopping centers. Will security staff keep their eyes and cameras focused on you more than the other customers?
Are any of these things really "fair" or "just"? In a perfect world, no... But it's also flying in the face of reason to claim that they have no merit. Again, the numbers don't lie. The fact is, there *are* statistically more blacks in prisons than whites, here in the U.S. They commit a larger percentage of the crimes, so police are going to scrutinize them more closely. It's a simple matter of trying to do one's job more efficiently. It's also statistical fact that people over a certain age (around age 40? I don't have exact figures in front of me.) are much less likely to commit violent crimes or thefts. Knowing this, as a security guard or police officer, you're going to pay more attention to the younger people - when trying to stop crimes.
The U.S. claims simply to be "at war with terrorism". IMHO, this means we probably should be declaring war on Israel, Iraq, Iran, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and a number of other countries that generate tyrany. Who knows where it will stop, really? Hell, China is as deserving as anyone else - but we'll, of course, leave them untouched because they're not easy to beat.
The oil in the Arabic countries was only obtained in the first place using technologies created by the U.S. We, arguably, screwed up years ago when we let them take control of all the oil fields, and now they're selling it all back to us at the highest price they can get through their cartels.
I don't really care whether or not I can physically identify somone as Israeli or Palestinian. If they're over here in the U.S., in the current political climate, I think it's worth checking them out. Such is war....
"Much effort" amounts to sending a minimum of six people through the system. Al Qeada probably sends dozens of people through the system anyway. The whole point of the paper is that the system lowers the bar. Once terrorists have collected data from six flights (that they would have taken anyway), they know enough about the system to make it useless. Once they've collected data from seven flights, they can turn the system against itself.
that effort exposes them.
The terrorists can probe the system without committing any crimes. They do not take any risks by taking a routine flight that they would have taken anyway.
Every system involves trading some liberty for security
With CAPPS, we surrender our privacy, and end up with a system that is less secure.
it seems to me that demanding a perfect system is not a valid way to reach that consensus.
I'm not demanding a perfect system. I am pointing out that CAPPS is assisting terrorists.
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What that don't tell you is that the computer system is just a big MySQL database and a slightly modified verison of SpamAssassin...
(I can't think of anything more hypocritical and ridiculous than a "Black Muslim", for example - considering the Muslims history of enslaving people.)
>>>>>>>>
History goes back a lot farther than you are taking into account. Blacks were only enslaved for a few hundred years. People in the Middle East have been enslaving each other for thousands. Muslims, Jews, and Christians alike. The Romans enslaved people. The Chinese enslaved people. Africans enslaved people. A Black Muslim is no more hypocritical than a Black Christian.
The bottom line is, I don't really care what a group claims their religious beliefs are. I care much more about the actions they take (or don't take) against others.
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Keep this point in mind, I'll get to it in a second...
In the U.S., people are singled out for closer inspection by police simply based on their age, or whether or not they've got long, scraggly hair. It's well-known that blacks are pulled over much more often than whites by the police.
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And the fact that blacks are pulled over more often is disgusting. Statistically, blacks commit more crimes yes. But there is nothing about being black that causes people to commit more crimes. The real reason is that statistically blacks tend to be poorer, and poor people statistically commit more crimes. There is something about being poor that could lead to criminal behavior, so if anything, the police should be pulling over people in beat-up Honda Civics. But at that point, you've got a moral issue. Yes, pulling over poor people might get you more criminals, but is it right? Well get to that in a second as well...
Try wearing a long trenchcoat and walking around stores in shopping centers. Will security staff keep their eyes and cameras focused on you more than the other customers?
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You have to seperate profiling based on race/ethnicity from profiling based on behavior. A black or brown person cannot help being black or brown. He cannot do anything to keep from being profiled if racial profiling is in use. A person wearing a trenchcoat (or with the long-scraggly hair above) makes a concious decision to draw attention to himself. If he doesn't want to get profiled, all he has to do is change clothes and get a haircut. Beyond that, you have to look at corralation. There is little statistical evidence that Muslims are more likely to be terrorists than other groups. Americans might think so, but that's because Muslim terrorists are the only ones in their experience. I'm willing to bet a fair amount of money that the majority of the people on the British/Irish border believe that most terrorists are Irish. You have to ask yourself, why is the person behaving the way he is. Why is he wearing a trenchcoat and going around eyeing things? If the answer to that question includes a signficant possibility that he's up to no good, then by all means watch him carefully. By the same token, you can ask why someone is going around being Muslim. If the answer to that question includes a significant possibility that he's up to no good, then by all means watch him carefully. But in that case, haven't you blown all semblence of good police work out of the water?
Now, to return to the two points I held of on earlier. You cannot try to summerize the overall viewpoint of a group by the actions of a few people. If I looked at just Falwell, I'd surmise that all Christians hated women. If I looked at just some hardcore European groups, I'd surmise that all Europeans hated America. Not only is it morally wrong, but its dangerous. The key in any fight is to keep an eye on your enemy. If you take the weak-minded person's way out and use simple logic (rather than *correct* logic) to pin down you're enemy, we're screwed. I was just thinking of a very real example of this. Why is a young Muslim man any more dangerous than an old women from Nebraska? After all that talk of the Nigerian scam, I got to thinking. Wouldn't it be insanely easy of terrorists to take advantage of some person's stupidity and greed and trick them into carrying a weapon into a plane or subway? If some fly-by-night con-men can trick a women into stealing millions of dollars, its almost assured that a giant terrorist organization could do it. At that point, doesn't concentrating on young Muslim men just make you blind to your real enemy?
Are any of these things really "fair" or "just"? In a perfect world, no... But it's also flying in the face of reason to claim that they have no merit. Again, the numbers don't lie. The fact is, there *are* statistically more blacks in prisons than whites, here in the U.S. They commit a larger percentage of the crimes, so police are going to scrutinize them more closely. It's a simple matter of trying to do one's job more efficiently.
>>>>>>
First of all, I'd like to think there is more to being human than being efficient. If there isn't maybe I'm an anachronism from a bygone era. That said, blacks do commit more crimes, yes. But that's just a perfect example of weak-minded people using comfortable stereotypes to get around doing real work. Being black doesn't make you a criminal, being a criminal makes you a criminal. Growing up in bad neighborhoods with careless parents makes you a criminal. That's what police should be looking for. Besides, racial profiling is a sutble issue as far as law-enforcement is concerned. Its a 1% thing. Almost all criminals emit far stronger signals (a fact, btw, which is recognized by police departments). If the police were 100% effective in flagging these far more important signals, then maybe we could debate about what kind of increased efficiency racial profiling would bring. As it stands, the minor increase in efficiency is far outweighed by potential increases in other areas.
It's also statistical fact that people over a certain age (around age 40? I don't have exact figures in front of me.) are much less likely to commit violent crimes or thefts. Knowing this, as a security guard or police officer, you're going to pay more attention to the younger people - when trying to stop crimes.
>>>>>>>>
Again, it goes back to the 1% issue. You might be 1% more efficient if you look at age. But if you're not fully analyzing all the bigger signals of criminal behavior, that 1% doesn't mean much. And yes, police departments agree with me on this. That's why they're phasing out racial profiling (because in todays environment, they certainly could get away with it). It just diverts attention from areas of observation that have far larger potential gains.
The U.S. claims simply to be "at war with terrorism". IMHO, this means we probably should be declaring war on Israel, Iraq, Iran, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and a number of other countries that generate tyrany. Who knows where it will stop, really? Hell, China is as deserving as anyone else - but we'll, of course, leave them untouched because they're not easy to beat.
>>>>>>>
Oh god. One terrorist attack and we go flying of the deep end. Clue: The real world is not so simple. International politics is something that only the knowledgable should even pretend to understand. Do you even understand the potential ramifications of what you're suggesting? Do you realize that in almost all of these situations, its not a nice black/white case where the US is right and everyone else is wrong. We've got as much blame in this as most anybody else. I certainly can't analyze an international situation as complex as you describe. Unless you've got some special qualifications I should know about, then I doubt you can either. Its exactly this kind of "armchair diplomacy" that makes US foreign policy suck as much as it does.
The rest of your post isn't worth responding to. Go read a book. In fact, read several. Spend a summer studying this, because its damn important. Until then, don't give me any of this bullshit.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Probably, no one will ever see this, but you said to enlighten you, so here it goes:
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Actually, thanks. A little knowledge never hurts. Though, I don't really think these differences are significant enough if you look at the meaning of Christianity and Islam in a modern context, and its relevence to real people. I was trying to point out that the two religions are not as different as everyone seems to think (because people don't have enough experience it).
The Mohammedians started this is 800 when they invaded the Christian west. Christianity almost didn't make it. They came through Turkey and up the Iberian penn. and made it to Tours (in France) before they drive out began (wanna know about that battle in France, think "Braveheart" and the mooning scene).
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Yes, there was the Islamic empire, which did capture large areas of Christian lands. I'm not going to argue that, save to say that Christians have done their fair share of conquering.
The Crusades were a direct result of this invasion.
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Now you can't say this and reveal the entire truth of the situation. Yes, this was a major factor, but social and political factors rule people's lives (especially the lives of rulers), and the Crusades were as much political as religious.
Allah is NOT the "same god" as Christianity, at least not originally. Why are there little moon's on the top of Mosques? Good question. It is because at one time Allah was a moon god. There is much debate about this because modern Islamic believing scholars are having a hard time dealing with the evidence.
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Makes sense, since Islam originated from a tribal culture. That said, the Judeochristian God almost certainly originated from (or was heavily influenced by) an older tribal diety as well. Either way, the point remains that it is generally accepted today that the Gods of both religions refer to the same God, which is what is important in the context of comparing the two religions in modern times.
In Mohammedianism, you make it to Paradise by your good works. In Christianity, you make it to Paradise by the faith in the person who was the Son of God (Yes, even in Catholicism, despite which you might have learned in catcheism class -- read Augustine and Aquinas).
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I'll defer to your experience on this until I have a chance to read Augustine (Aquinas came much later and doesn't seem to be as relavent to a discussion of the origins of the religions?) Though, I'd argue that in modern times, there is a strong element of salvation by good works in both religions, even in most Protestant ones. Not in the direct teachings, perhaps, but among the believers.
In Mohammedianism, you have a clear mandate in the later Sirah's to convert people by the sword. There is no coverting people by the sword in the Holy Scriptures of Christianity.
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This is debatable. The Quran is rather conflicted on this issue. The fact remains that in both religions, conversion by the sword was commonplace.
In Mohammedianism, you must become Islamic when you convert and so must your culture. In Christianity's Scriptures, the message is to adapt yourself to your culture, yet remain above it.
A Mohammedian should not live under a non-Mohammedian ruler according to Mohammedian scriptures. Christianity's Scriptures say you must respect the authorities becaue they are appointed by God.
Just a few differences, and there are more, brought to you by a guy who's job it is to teach comparative religion
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Sorry, but you are wrong - the concorde accident was caused by a ruptured fuel tank, this article quotes the final report by the french aviation authorities - you can find many more similar quotes on google. I tried to find a transcript of the actual report in english but failed.
Somehow you think that if people had guns onboard that it'd be a free for all, people shooting all over the place, gun slingers having target practice all over the place. To justify this, you have claimed the "decompression" line
No, to justify this I have looked at the only western society where guns are regularly and essentially freely carried, the US, and it's astronomical rate of shooting "incidents".
You neatly sidestepped my question by asking your own, which neatly misses the point entirely. Why do YOU need a gun on a plane if no one else has one? The 9/11 hijackers DID NOT HAVE GUNS, they only had knives. You don't need a gun to defend against a knife - you only need a couple of willing people. If you allow guns onto a plane then suddenly everyone needs them. Suddenly the only people who can sleep easy are those who are "armed, trained, and proactively protecting your life". I am not that (trained or armed), I don't want to be that, and I refuse to sink to that level. I don't want to have to be sitting there with an itchy trigger finger all night waiting for all hell to break loose. I have a right to be safe - and the best way to stay safe is to stay away from weapons.
You need to get over your collective (national) paranoia, get rid of the fsking guns and give your children a chance to grow up in a safe country. The world is not out to get you, you do not have to carry a small arsenal in your pocket to defend yourself. I have never carried a gun, no one I know has ever carried a gun, hell I have only rarely SEEN a gun - and yet do I get murdered in my bed on a regular basis? No. Do I get carjacked as I drive the streets? No. Do I feel in anyway unsafe due to my lack of firepower? No. Am I glad I live in a country where people just don't have guns? Damn straight.
** EOF **
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
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Hmm, come to think of it, the USA elected George Bush. I'm starting to see the connection...
Actually, it seems you've missed part of what I was trying to drive at. Of course, neither you or I can claim to have a firm grasp on all matters of international diplomacy. I don't think the U.S. government really has a better grasp on it than any of the rest of us, either.
The current "war on terrorism" is really a big, nebulous joke - if you really want to know what I think about it. My point is, when your leader goes around making vague declarations such as "this is a war on terrorism", and "the enemy is anyone who harbors terrorists", he could just as well fight his own citizens as another country.
Since the U.S. is not run by a Libertarian, but rather, a Republican - it doesn't surprise me that things played out this way. (The attempts to "clarify" our war goals by saying we're trying to find Bin Laden and other terrorist "leaders" is just an excuse. Throughout history, when nations have been at war, how often were the leaders killed? Even Hitler, in WWII, ended up killing himself. The allied forces didn't get to him first.) It's a pretty safe bet that if you've got the power to declare war, you won't be one of the people getting killed over it.
Therefore, I have to conclude that what our nation really wants is "carte blanche" to beat down anyone who "crosses our path", and a way to install fear into other nations that insist on indoctrinating their people with a "United States is evil/Satan/you name it" rhetoric.
That being said, we *are* at war now, and the terrorists that started it were trained and sent over from the Middle East. We all seem to agree that we're no good at determining exactly which Middle Eastern country someone is from, when they're over here. Fine, but then do we not have to try our best anyway? (Or do we simply say "It's not possible to do this without unfairly disrupting the lives of some innocent people." - and forget about the whole thing?)
You said yourself, the key in any fight is to "keep an eye on your enemy". This nation has agreed to fight a fairly non-specific battle against Middle Easterners holding grudges against the Western way of life. That being the case, it sounds to me like that means stopping and/or investigating all Middle Easterners choosing to reside here who aren't American citizens.
Why is a young Muslim man any more dangerous than an old woman from Nebraska? Surely you don't really need me to answer that one for you, do you? For starters, how many elderly women have *ever* hijaacked an airplane? How many have murdered people in the last 50 years, vs. young Muslim men? Has the C.I.A. had any reports of terrorist activity coming from old women in Nebraska? I suspect not.
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Female Prison Rape in NY
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