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Passenger Risk Database to be Implemented in U.S.
bluephile writes "CNN is running an article on the The Transport Security Administration's (TSA) renewed efforts to implement the CAPPS II color-coded passenger risk-assessment program, despite outcries by numerous privacy activism groups at the program's collection and redistribution of personal information. The TSA has made several claims that the system respects passengers' privacy, but their track record isn't impressive. Congress suspended the program last year in order to investigate its privacy implications. One MIT paper suggests that CAPPS II could make flying MORE dangerous, rather than less."
Airplanes can't be hijacked anymore after 9/11. People now realize that it's not a matter of demanding your comrade be released from prison, but instead a matter of taking control of the world's biggest bomb. Nobody is going to yield to a terrorist carrying anything short of an automatic firearm.
If this system does not implement some method of appealing a classification expece to hear about a massive wave of lawsuits.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
The solution to stopping terrorism on flights is two-fold. One, everyone travels naked, without carrying thing on the plane. Two, luggage goes on a second plane operated by robots.
Color Coded, eh? Now I can sleep easier at night, knowing I am protectected by a color coded system. I wonder if this will be about as useless as our fabled Homeland Security "Orange Alerts"?
be put on the list.
;)
If they didn't hate America they wouldn't be on the list.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
Well they'll only get me for one flight...As i move to Canada...
"In wine there is wisdom. In beer there is strength. In water there is bacteria." --Old German Proverb
Thank god for DVD players in cars now... That will make those 3 day trips cross country with the family much quieter.
--
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What good are civil liberties when you're dead?
Or as I prefer to see it, what good is life without civil liberties?
Impressingly, there seem to be no existing terrorists flying business class, because there are extremely relaxed checks, if at all.
This may be obvious, but this is yet one more reason that re-affirms my pre-9/11 decision to not fly anymore unless I'm absolutely forced into it, and I'm very inventive about finding justification for other means (such as driving).
I've had it with the airline industry and their rather poor attempt at feel-good security (which isn't security at all). I have no intention of becoming part of the grand experiment of how an agency or company can screw up and compromise my financial records and my privacy even more. I simply will not be their guinea pig.
The more complex they make these systems, the more points of failure they add.
I'm lucky in that I'm at a job that doesn't require me to fly, and anywhere I need to reach in North America, I can do so with my car. Properly planned without a panic-timeframe schedule, such trips can actually be enjoyable, in and of themselves.
Click here to do something about this.
If you have a bad credit score, be prepared for a full body cavity search.
> This is not an invasion of privacy
Yeah, right.
First They Came for the Jews
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
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If the idea is to test whether CAPPS II can accurately determine the risk level of a potential flyer, I don't see how they can accomplish this with data from old passengers. Don't they also need data on how much each of those passengers ended up BEING a RISK?
I don't know how you'd even begin to come up with such data. But if you can't figure out how much of a risk each passenger actually was, how can you see whether this correlates with the risk score CAPPS spits out? As far as I can see, this massive breach of passenger confidentiality will do nothing to test the efficacy of CAPPS.
(As far as I know, no terrorist acts have been committed on JetBlue, so all passengers who have flown on JetBlue should have been given the "Green" CAPPS rating. Hence once they feed this passenger data through CAPPS, it better spit out low risk for everybody. Otherwise, this profiling obviously isn't working.)
Credit reports? Yes, I'll admit it, I got my car payment in the mail late last February. Is that really a sign that I'm part of an Al-Qaeda hijacking conspiracy?
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I have no credit history because I have little income and can't get a credit card.
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I pay cash because I can get a discount
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I buy a one way ticket because I wont be returning until I have earned enough money to afford a return journey
Will I be barred from travel? I think I might. At the very least I'm likely to be detained for further questioning.Why not get the real ultimate power?
Hurray! Once again, let's make this country safer by scaring the piss outta everyone in it! First they brought us convenient color codes to tell us just how much we should be crapping in our pants on any given day but now we can even pick our friends based on their red orange or blue status! Don't worry, the government treats everyone equally.
And what will the mantra be this time? "Be suspicious of the red-banded cohorts... but don't change your plans." Just like the "Terrorism Alert Level"; be nice and scared enough to fall into line but please, not so much that you question the ability, necessity, or morality of "the man." After all, questioning the government is unpatriotic.
Oh crap... with that diatribe I just 'elevated' my status to orange. Mod me down damnit.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
If this system does not implement some method of appealing a classification expece to hear about a massive wave of lawsuits.
There is no appeal. Why should there be? The system is flawless, so anyone it flags must be a terrorist! Why let terrorists waste the time of honest, upstanding American citizens with an appeal that is certain to be denied? Are you suggesting the system might be flawed? That the Government might be wrong? Are you trying to undermine the all-important War on Terrorism? Is it possible that you are in league with the terrorists? Is it possible that you are a terrorist?
Fellow Americans, we must be endlessly vigilant! Terrorist could lurk anywhere! Your next-door neighbor might be one! How well do you really know them? Is it possible they might be hiding something? That they have some dark secret?
Don't hesitate! It is better to be safe than sorry! If you see someone acting suspicious, report them to the nearest federal agent as soon as possible!
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Seriously, I expect the lawyers at the ACLU are already preparing their case.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
And yet again I will stand there while the person behind the counter asks questions repeatedly and sees 14 things on his screen that he has to check.
"Have you been involved in an armed robbery in Des Moines?"
And all of this after the green form that asks you if you are a terrorist or drug smuggler.
I know this is a moan, but really what the hell information will they ACTUALLY use to colour code people ? I have a common name, there are people with that name who have done bad things, does this mean yet more delays for me?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
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What?! You said NO??
Well, give me liberty or give me death then!
This would not have stopped 9-11. Making me wait in security lines an extra hour at the airport would not have stopped 9-11. Making old ladies take their shoes off before boarding planes would not have stopped 9-11.
I know that my personal files are interesting, but I'd rather keep them private, thankyouverymuch.
The more power you give to mindless morons the less is left for normal people
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People will not be protected under this rediculous plan as it would appear this is nothing more than big brother being allowed to aggregate data on U.S. citizens and profile us.
Nowhere is it mentioned and nor is it possible that the 55 Million foreign visitors that enter the U.S. every year will be able to have a similar amount of data regarding their potential threat assesment be calculated as the U.S. Government doesn't have access to credit and criminal data about any of the 310 Million Europeans or the 1.2 Billion Chinese or any other nation.
So it would appear this measure is only intended to know who is traveling within the U.S. and how to make it more difficult for deadwood Americans to be pestered away from using valuable resources better used by others.
In other news, Al Queda agents and officials retired en masse today. Evidentally, the U.S. government is now doing a far better job of making Americans fearful and submissive than Al Queda could hope to do with the techniques they have. "We did a lot of damage and killed a lot of people," said one unnamed source. "But Americans responded only with defiance and belligerence. Within a couple of months, they'd gotten on with their lives. The DHS, on the other hand, can frighten the American people practically at will, just by announcing rumors or cancelling a plane flight. In this climate, we can't hope to compete."
Representatives of the Bush Administration called the mass retirement a possible ruse, and urged people to remember all the rumored attacks that might have been thwarted had Al Queda attempted any attack on U.S. soil since domestic security initiatives were put in place.
Until there's a better way, air passengers should ship their baggage ahead of time, on cargo planes. Once their baggage is received at their destination, they receive an email/voicemail receipt, or ship another on a priority cargo flight. Carryon is limited to stuff like books or magazines - AV entertainment is supplied by the airline, if at all. This plan minimizes not only the risk of weapons, but also the schlepping of crap through airports. Everything is simplified and made cheaper, as well as increasing the passenger capacity of planes.
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And hey, before you go nuts, I lived there and have very good friends there, but with the current government scenario, I no longer wish to participate in the smoke and mirror parade which is the American dream, in any respect, and thus I'm not going to the States again until it changes.
You'll see. The American flight industry will suffer from this, grandly...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
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Hate me!
Pretent that you are tasked with protecting American lives from Islamic terrorists on your own soil. How would YOU do it?
I'd start by not making the assumption that the terrorists would be Islamic.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
I must have missed the bit where we started rounding up and executing all the Jews.
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So what if I'm accidentally tagged as red/orange? How impossible would it be for me to clear up the mistake? Or can I do 20 years of community service to have my color lowered to yellow.
Bad, bad, BAD idea.
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The parent is modded as funny, but replace "terrorist" with "communist" in the above quotes and realize that ordinary, reasonably intelligent people really said and believed such things only 50 years ago.
It's not far-fetched at all.
DNA just wants to be free...
I would say we are really a lot closer to Nazi Germany circa 1932-1937.
We need to fight with the next election. Get rid of the problems.
I'm willing to take the same terrorism risk on every plane flight that I took before 9/11. Let's roll back these draconian, orwellian, nazi-esque laws.
Write your senators, write your representatives, both federal and state! Let them know that we are not willing to "buy safety" at this price! It is not worth what we are giving up!
Jim
Ahhh...I love the Internet. You never have to worry about being the craziest person in the room.
We've been discussing the latest airport security measures on one of my technology mailing lists. The posts tend to be either about technical issues that need to be considered when constructing such a system or the program's implications on privacy. I think it's overly intrusive and I don't like the idea of our government aggregating all of that data on us, but one of the people on the list has taken it to the next level. She has developed a theory that the airport security measures are just one piece in a bigger scheme. According to her, the airport security system is actually a precurser to reinstating the draft. It's real purpose isn't to keep out terrorists but to prevent people of draft age from leaving the country once the legislation is passed. As soon as the draft goes into effect, all eligible citizens will be banned from international travel.
It's the queers. They're in it with the aliens. They're building landing strips for gay martians....
When violence rules the world outside / And the headlines make me want to cry / It's not the time to just keep quiet
What a great idea. Let's see if we miss anyone by going with your new security system, shall we?
Timothy McVeigh
Ted Kaczynski
Eric Harris
Dylan Klebold
George Metesky
David Berkowitz
Jeffrey Dahmer
Perhaps a planeload of these fine, upstanding citizens is your cup of tea. Personally, I'd rather have better detection systems and better trained airport security personnel.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
>>Per CNN: Under CAPPS II, TSA will obtain the passenger's full name, home address, home telephone number, birth date and some information about that passenger's itinerary.
Except for the flight itinerary, this kind of information isn't really private. Everything is already a matter of public record. Once something is public, why worry about privacy?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Did you read the MIT paper? It is very clear that CAPPs is or will be less secure than the same resource put into random searches. The problem is that terrorists can test their CAPPs profile by simply going on a flight. If they are not searched on a limited number of test flights then they have a lower change of being searched in the future than if purely random, non CAPPs "assisted", searches are done.
Firing a bullet from a handgun thru the side/window of an airplane at 25k-30k feet will not cause explosive decompression. You have to pretty much set off a bomb that will blow a sizeable hole in the plane. And even then, if you have your seatbelt fastened you aren't likely to be sucked out. A similar situation actually happened on a flight at that altitude, but it was due to metal-fatigue, not foul-play. The only death was a flight attendent standing in the section immediately under the roof when it came off.
Government inspected you...
and determined whether you were able to travel freely within your own country.
Not funny? No, it isn't.
You were moded as "Funny", I would've modded you as "Scary"... that is, if I had the points and there were a "Scary" mod.
Or better still:
It's better to die on your feet, than to live on your knees.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
The MIT student paper claiming CAPPS will reduce security assumes that random security checks will decrease. This is a major assumption, and I personally doubt whether this assumption is valid. Further, I believe that this program is a good idea.
You may want to take a look at the MIT paper referenced in the blurb: here.
It seems to be a pretty compelling argument that a CAPPS-like system would actually do more harm than good, nevermind the privacy issues.
Open and free discussion of the issues is what makes a democracy work!
So the KKK'esk guy arrested who was packing a biological weapon capable of making 9/11 look like a scratched knee, with apparent plans to use it near or in a Federal building (ala McVeigh) was not a terrorist? What about the anthrax mailings that disappeared off the news as soon as it became apparent that it was not the work of evil guys in turbans, but more likely white supremacists who "borrowed" the samples from the US government lab they where traced back to. Domestic terrorism is alive and well, but people are ignoring it because its more convient to have a single enemy, whose skin color, religion and society is different. On topic this won't do any good, in most ways it just helps Bin Ladin. As we saw in the first 9/11 commisions results, one intercepted transmission showed that they actually did a complete dry run to determine if they could sneak weapons through security and onto a plane. With this kind of permanent security designation, its just a matter of sending agents on normal flights and seeing which ones get stopped for searchs and which ones go on the plane. Then you send the green ones on your suicide mission.
They actually recently tried this on mythbusters on discovery and proved just how hard it was to decompress the plane. Even with a gigantic bomb near the seat of their crash test dummy he wasn't sucked out... however he probably wasn't too healthy :) But firing a gun at the window right next to him did absolutely nothing.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
Sorry; this link was supposed to go under my comment "They Certainly are" -- evidence that journalists are being harrassed by the US military currently. That's what I get for not hitting preview.
Nothing new here, the police Already use a color coded system!
Other than McVeigh, how many terrorists who've given us trouble lately have not been Islamist headcases? Does it not make more sense for airport-security types, etc. to pay a bit more attention to Mohammed al-Bumfsckistan than to some random grandma from Des Moines?
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
You cannot appeal it. It is only a gauge of how likely it is that you are a terrorist. You can't prove that you arn't one, and even if you arn't, the colour only represents the CHANCE that you are, not whether or not you ACTUALLY are. If you get a red, that just means you probably are according to their metrics. You can't prove that wrong.
My dad, a Canadian citizin, is a high risk flyer. Whenever he tries to come back from a conference in Portland, he has a HELL of a time getting on the plane. The reason he is on their list of terrorists? My mom's sister in Toronto is married to a guy from Lebanon. So you see, to be ranked a danger, you need only be related to somebody who is related to somebody who is related to an Arab. (And belive me, they know) To make matters worse, the LAST time he tried to get on, his luggage set off the bomb detector. Apparently, the chemical sniffer said his external CD-RW was some form of platic explosives. I knew they could be fooled by cologne, aftershave, mouthwash, deoderant, and shampoo, but apparently they can also be fooled by "new electronics smell."
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
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I personally find it interesting how such vast wodges of resources are being allocated to the cause of increased security for commercial airliners, when there is another venue of attack of equally devastating potential. Any terrorist who is not an idiot would be wary of attempting to hijack a passenger-carrying airliner, for two very compelling reasons: 1) vastly increased security, and 2) drastically altered passenger psychology. Setting aside for a moment the multifarious (and often legitimate) debates concerning the effectiveness of many of these new security measures, it cannot be denied that scrutiny, at least, has increased dramatically. The other, equally important factor is the passengers; as mentioned previously herein by other esteemed /.ers, nobody is going to allow a plane to be hijacked without resistance. Indeed, we've seen already that it works; the fourth jet hijacked on 9/11 never found its target because the passengers decided to resist; it was a heroic move that cost them their lives but saved probably hundreds (and maybe thousands) more. I think the only reason any terrorist would ever try this method again is for the not-insignificant fear factor; as mentioned before in this discussion, it would be most embarrassing and frightening to have another incident of similar nature occur despite all efforts to the contrary.
The other method, to which I alluded previously, is, I think, oft overlooked. It is a simple fact that airplanes used for the transit solely of cargo are almost entirely unprotected. Nothing more than a chain-link fence stands between any ill-intentioned person and a very large, fully-fueled airplane. These planes have small crews, and to my knowledge, no effort has been made in the last two years to increase their security; no reinforced cabin doors, no additional security personnel, not even a taller fence! I have surveyed the condition of cargo planes at a major international airport, and have verified this personally. A capable and careful person would have little trouble compromising the security of one of these installations. Granted, there are difficulties involved with this approach not associated with a commercial airliner: for one, there is not a large flux of people to and from these planes, so any such activity would be immediately suspect if detected. However, I believe this is a serious threat, and should be addressed. I'm all for well-placed, well-intended, and above all, well-executed programs for increasing security; but the best screen door in the world won't keep the flies out if you leave the back window open.
Perhaps we won't see any improvements in this area until something happens to impel serious change. It seems to underscore the reactionary nature of what I will collectively refer to as our "security policy". Until something happens, nobody seems to care (that is to say, not enough people pay attention). Once something does occur, it is quickly met with panic, fear, and disorganization; blind fear is a terrible impetus for anything, and I do not think our current administration is above using such fear for their own political gain...
First off, I agree the system is wrong, morally.
However, this argument seems a bit spurious. The assumption being made is that there's some group of terrorists who will be flagged as safe for travel; it's only that set who, upon testing their CAPP in the method described, will find it low enough for them to get on board.
Let me rephrase that: in order to prove the system is insecure, the argument assumes that the system will not work (that it will assign some terrorists a low CAPP). In practice that may be true, but the logic strikes me as a bit circular.
I think the better way of understanding this is to acknowledge that if the system is broken, this attack will allow terrorists to exploit that failure.
Moved from Southern California to Vancouver, B.C. last month. It's hard to put your finger on why, but it feels good enough to compensate for the lousy winter weather. Canada is not perfect by any means, but at least now I don't pay taxes to Bush or Arnold, neither of whom represented my friends and neighbors in any way, and my home country's army hasn't killed many people today. Right now, I feel more free. I hope it lasts.
I think you're rather missing the point.
In the 1950s, many people (non-communists) lived in fear of being "fingered" as communists or communist sympathizers and having their lives utterly destroyed as a result. Sometimes those fears were quite justified.
We're very fortunate that things never progressed as far as actually killing them preemptively.
I'm also not sure I understand how preemptively killing communists would constitute anything but murder and suffering.
Even if it could be justified, what about the (not inconsiderable) number of people erroneously identified as such?
Also, what about the risk of arousing pro-communist sympathies? Martyrdom always plays well for ideologues.
DNA just wants to be free...
I think we might share a different definition of "reasonably intelligent." Reasonably intelligent people don't go about participating in witch hunts. Idiots do, however. And from the looks of it, the United States won't be suffering a shortage of those anytime soon.
> Why? Most Muslims are not terrorists, but most terrorists are Muslims. Hmmmm....
All recent American presidents have been terrorists, using the American Governments own definition.
During 'code orange', the center I worked out stopped me _every time_ I entered, because I had a non-picture ("temporary") badge. Despite that said badge requires an accompanying photo id and just getting the 'temp' badge took all the paperwork and processing that goes into the photo ones, and is valid for 3 months at a time.
I became very familiar with the search procedure. I knew exactly when and how the search went. Being searched twice a day for 2 weeks will do that for you.
An _effective_ search strategy would have been, oh, give the guards new instructions daily like 'today, search all green cars' or 'today, check all plates beginning with '1'".
Those ('true randoms', i.e. avoiding selection bias by guards and avoiding profiling holes), a no-goodnik wouldn't be able to predict, and yet it also wouldn't hit any one person frequently that they'd be intimately familiar with (and thus able to easily circumvent) the security protocols.
So yeah, CAPS II is worse than being 'a hassle', it's a hassle that provides _worse_ security than you get without it.
A.
Why in the world would a terrorist attempt to get through security that was tight before 9/11 just to blow up an airplane? It would be much easier to get on a bus and do the same thing!
Reinforce the cockpit doors and move on. This discussion is ridiculous. The only reason "terrorists" would even attempt the Herculean feat of getting weapons on an airliner would be to hijack it. Take that ability away by not letting them through the cockpit door. End of fucking story.
This TSA tactic is not to provide safety, but rather a new avenue for gaining information on people, because it can. "You must fear them, we will protect you." Fear breeds consent. The power gained with a fear wracked populace is enormous, and many in power realize this, or are learning. This is just the latest "avenue" for gaining information on more people, nothing more.
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
For instance, these guys (use pointless as the user name and password) could have been a problem:
"Investigators found nearly 500,000 rounds of ammunition, 65 pipe bombs and briefcases that could be detonated by remote control.
Most distressing, they said, was the discovery of 800 grams of almost pure sodium cyanide -- material that can only be acquired legally for specific agricultural or military projects.
The sodium cyanide was found inside an ammunition canister, next to hydrochloric, nitric and acetic acids and formulas for making bombs. If acid were mixed with the sodium cyanide, an analysis showed, it would create a bomb powerful enough to kill everyone inside a 30,000-square-foot facility, investigators said."
And they were found almost entirely by accident.
Look, I'm not suggesting that Islamic terrorists aren't probably the biggest current threat. But don't be stupid.
I certainly wouldn't launch into an entire program of ridiculous new inspections and intrusive measures. The people that came up with this bunch of rules had something in mind far beyond protecting airline passengers and restoring confidence in the air transport system.
On September 11th, a group of determined men gained control of several American airliners and launched an unprecidented but predictable attack on a New York landmark thereby murdering thousands. What were the mistakes in the rules that allowed such a tragedy to occur?
I posit the following:
1. while guns, baseball bats, swords, and other obvious weapons were easily and efficiently prohibited from the airline passenger area; other less threatening objects such as swiss army knives or box cutters were not2. ever since the first aircraft was highjacked to Cuba in the early 1960s, it was the established policy of airline crews to fully cooperate of those that would attempt to take control of an airliner.
Now, as far as number one goes, this was not universally true. Back in 1995 when I was flying in and out of Brazil on American Airlines, there was an airline attendent stationed at the rope barrier in from of the check-in desk. Her job was to ask if you had anything like a pen knife or swiss army knife in your carry-on luggage.
If so, she would request that you transfer it to your check-in bag, otherwise they would later detect it and you would be detained. As a matter of fact I used to carry my swiss army knife in my carry-on bag at this time and on subsequent trips made sure that it was packed in my check-in luggage.
So, the technology and the knowledge of one of the rules necessary to prevent the 9/11 tragedy was not only in place but operative in a country served by an American carrier. I don't know for a fact, but I suspect, that that was an addendum to transport law added by the Brazilian government since I was never asked a similar question in any other country in South America nor Europe.
Another interesting anecdote; at Heathrow in London, the police would randomly ask the question about whether someone had given you something to take take on-board. This was years before it was the norm on domestic US trasport.
In any case, IMHO after 9/11 all that was required to protect the safety of airline passengers was to change rule number 2 as well! Job done.
No idiotic, million-dollar xray machines that misidentify fruit cakes as explosives. No draconian and intrusive background checks -- nada.
We would still be just as safe flying as we are today and it would be less of an annoying procedure.
That's just my opinion -- I may be wrong.
CAPPS II is unnecessary imho. However I don't think you can honestly say that the old system was working.
I do feel safer knowing that the TSA is responsible for airport security then say a private company hiring ex-cons and paying them $5.15 an hour. I have a friend who is an airport operations manager at a regional airport -- he can tell horror stories about the private companies they used in the pre-9/11 days. One time he claims he put a loaded gun into a shoebox with nothing else in it and it was missed by the 85 year old part-time lady hired by the private security company who was manning the x-ray machine. I've flown more then a dozen times since 9/11 and I've never had a problem with TSA. They have opened some of my bags on occasion (apparently the batteries in my digicam look like bullets ;) but they were always courteous and professional about it. I wouldn't expect the same from some Wal-Mart type employee making $6/hr. We don't need people with a "Sir, I only work here" mentality protecting our airlines.
I also think air-marshals are a good idea. One air-marshal on each flight with a lousy stinking pistol would have stopped 9/11 in it's tracks.
Secure cockpit doors are also a must. No matter what happens the pilots do not open that door -- they get the plane on the ground at all costs. With that in mind I am opposed to arming the pilots. They need to focus on one thing -- getting the plane on the ground -- nothing else matters. Once the plane is on the ground the terrorists are done.
I don't think we need intrusive background checks on everybody boarding a plane. What are the odds of another 9/11 type scenario? Are the passengers (not to mention the pilots and the air marshals) really going to submit now? Would you submit to one or two guys armed with Swiss army knifes or box cutters? I don't think it's happening in the post 9/11 world.
Just my two cents.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Also, today's Dilbert got a good one on this: http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/imag es/dilbert20024398640114.gif
More information about this flight and the metal fatigue situation can be found here.
ALOHA AIRLINES, FLIGHT 243, BOEING 737-200, N7371, NEAR MAUI, HAWAII, APRIL 28, 1988
99.999%? So, if Tim McVeigh is the 0.001%, that means there are 99,999 "foreign born" terrorists in the US. Oh, wait. Tim had a partner. And the KKK are a terrorist organisation. That makes it over twenty million terrorists in the US.
According to your crazy/racist logic, the US is already crawling with terrorists, so it's too late.
As for your "do not have the same rights" nonsense, they DO have the same rights. The constitution is extended to all people on US territory. Otherwise, how can the US be the "champion of human rights and freedom" and recognises that "all men are created equal" if it discriminates against people, purely on where they came from?? To me it smacks a bit hypocritical. Does that not ring any alarm bells in your head?
Narrowing down criminal activity to ethnic groups thought to contain higher threats is racist, pure and simple. It's degrading to those form the minority/group who aren't doing anything wrong.
"You have to accept false positives" - bullshit. You want to sacrifice liberty and freedom for that?? I'd rather die free from terrorism than live under the thumb. Otherwise, the terrorists have already won. What exactly are you defending?