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Flying Faster Without ID
jjh37997 writes "A Homeland Security's privacy advisory committee member finds that flying without a photo ID is actually faster than traveling with proper identification. According to Wired the committee member, Jim Harper, accepted a bet from civil liberties rabble-rouser John Gilmore to test whether he could actually fly without showing identification. He found that traveling without ID allowed him to bypass the long security lines at San Francisco's International Airport, and get in faster than if he had provided his driver's license."
Good thing he's white.
You mean all the ranting and raving about this "needing ID to fly" has been meaningless?
:)
Well, I say welcome... it's been meaningless to me for a while.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
...I know people like to think that it's now so much more secure; but if you don't "look like a terrorist" (which usually means of middle eastern origin) you can get through pretty quick. I went from England to holland and never had to show anything but the colour of my passport (which is bugandy - the English colour) and the fact that I am white and middle class. That was all they cared about. I know a lot of people won't like that the world sometimes works like this (I don't), and I'm expecting people won't want to hear it either...
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
Is saving 5 minutes in line REALLY worth the full cavity search????
... you woudln't save any time. Honestly, putting your items through the X-ray machine and stepping through the magnetic scanner is quicker than the near-body-cavity search they gave him. If everyone opted to do it just to save from showing ID's (whether an ideological move or a time-saving one) then the time-savers would be going back to the X-ray lines ...
The problem is not in getting through the TSA checkpoint it is getting your boarding pass from the airline.
He just proved you can get through the TSA checkpoint with a valid boarding pass without an ID.
If you do not have ID and try to checkin for your flight at the airline desk you will get what John Gilmore got in the article - a refusal from the airline to give you your ticket.
If you're travelling with kids, then yes.
From the article: There Harper was directed into the belly of a General Electric EntryScan puffer machine that shot bits of air at his suit in order to see if he had been handling explosives.
TSA employees wearing baby blue surgical gloves then swiped his Sidekick and his laptop for traces of explosives and searched through his carry-on, while a supervisor took his ticket, conferred with other employees and made a phone call.
I wonder how many people it would take to DOS that procedure?
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
How does proving that I'm me make anybody any safer?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I've done a variant of this with customs as well. When you come back into the U.S. you must clear customs. This involves standing a HUGE line, usually for an hour or so. There are only 4 or 5 stations open at LAX normally. The trick is to bring a small plant back with you. When you get to customs you tell the guy you have a plant and aren't sure if it's allowed. They send you over to another guy who only handles these sorts of things and has no one in his line.. He looks up your plant and searches you bags. If the plant is allowed in(never happens) you keep it and walk right out. If the plant isn't allowed he takes it and you walk right out. Total time maybe 5 minutes. Works every time.
There was a reporter watching and taking notes as he was searched by the TSA. I wonder how he would have fared if he were alone?
Apparently if I fly naked I'll save enough time to get there before I leave.
Try buying a new ticket after having your ID and ticket stolen. Try getting on a plane as a scruffy but white late twenty something with a one way ticket and no ID. Let's just call the process "Hours and hours of non-consensual fun," and leave it at that.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I'm a mid-20's white male and I get pulled over for "random inspections" more often than "random" ...
My name is on the No Fly list. I wont be trying this. I show ID and I still get put in that same line he went through.
And I don't think it would be 30 minutes. The press would find some reason to discount the person and their reasons, and we'd be on to the next news story about some celebrity's kids.
My mom says I'm cool.
The most disgusting part of this story is that it's posted most appropriately under "Politics".
--
make install -not war
Last year, he tried to board an airplane... without showing an ID, and without submitting to a secondary search.
He was carrying only his boarding pass and a copy of the U.S. Constitution. Cheeky fucker!
He spent several days in jail, and got some really scary letters from the FBI (hi guys!).
Scanned copies of the letters, photos of the event, and his own musing are posted here.
Now, I don't agree with Russell's focus on "civil disobediance" -- I prefer to focus on political change (ie, getting good people elected into office, passing good laws, repealing bad ones, etc). In addition, I think this particular act of Civil Disobedience was poorly chosen -- he was trying to make the point that it should be the airlines, not the government, that sets the rules for any particular flight.
But still, ya gotta admire the sheer cojones of standing up to the FBI, and doing it with a sense of humor (see the letters he wrote back to the Feds, they're hilarious!)
Russ is just one of the hundreds of pro-Liberty activists out here in New Hampshire, one more member of the Free State Project
Part of the Second American Revolution!
Back before 9/11, I flew into London from Denmark, and was leaving the country the next day for the states. Hadn't bought much so customs wouldn't be a problem. But, they have a "red line", and a "green line" - red for "I have something to declare (and pay tax on)". The red line was empty aside from a few people watching and profiling those walking through. The green line was forever long, and I was tired. So, off I went, up the red line, right to the counter. "Well, I have this sweater that I bought in Norway for (number) Norwegian Kronur, which works out to about (number) Pounds. I'm leaving for the US tomorrow, not sure if I need to pay something on this or not?"
I pretty much already knew the answer (no as long as you're not planning to sell it here), but by going up through the shorter line and having a plausible reason for doing so, I was able to save an hour. So yeah, you can get some time savings doing this sort of thing. Not sure I'd go for the body cavity search route to save waiting in the ID line, though. I guess that depends on if it's a business trip, or a recreational one.
This proove the old adage that the world is not driven by reality but by the perception of reality.
I would argue that no one in their right minds would try to highjack an airplane again. In the past highjacking was a political statement. Usually the highjackers would fly the plane to a neutral airport and make demands. Often this would include the release of fellow members of their organization who were incarcerated. If you were an unlucky passenger, you would be an unfortuante pawn in a global chess-game. (Obviously there were exceptions.)
After the terrorist attacks on 11 Sept. 2001, no passenger will sit still and let a highjacker take over an airplane. Highjacking is now synonomous with suicide attacks. In my opinion, the real danger to airline travel comes not from highjackers but from explosives being placed on the airplane, e.g. Pan Am flight 103.
But the perception in the US is that flying needs to be protected, so the result is the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Others have pointed out that if you are not white, have any kind of middle eastern origins, and you try to fly without an ID, you're pretty much screwed. And because the TSA has near absolute authority about whether or not you fly, they can deny you boarding simply because they feel like it.
The result of all this is that flying, IMO, is not significantly safer than before. We are concentrating our resources on "fighting the last battle." Making sure passengers have proper Identification doesn't make flying any safer. One could point out that some of the highjackers on 11 Sept. 2001 had valid IDs, after all they entered the country legally. As a society we should concentrate our efforts on preventing bombings or other bomb like devices. The "shoe bomber" Richard Reid in late 2001 probably represents a greater threat, yet checking to make sure he has proper identification isn't going to help.
I would argue that the checks they do at airports to check for explosives are worthwhile. But making sure you have an ID with you are not.
But white people did not fly planes into the WTC and Pentagon. You can be sure that if they had, the ACLU wouldn't be standing up for the white people getting profiled at airports.
Of course, this doesn't mean their aren't white terrorists. Clearly, they exist and could strike at anytime.
Many people have made the comment that he had no problem because he was white. Although playing the race card is pretty ignorant, I see no mention of the race of the TSA workers that let this guy through so easily. For the white conspiracy to work, every TSA employee had to have been white.
I'll tell ya, my wife works for the government and most of our friends do as well. I grew up around government workers. Most of them hate the government, especially when the GOP is in control. The government would never get away with most of the conspiracies attributed to them. Yes, they routinely make bad "official" descisions, but they are rarely carried out in any effective manner. Most government workers have the "union" attitude. They go to work and do their job however they feel like, because it's impossible to get fired. If some TSA supervisor told a bunch of grumpy TSA peons to go profile certain types of people, I wouldn't count on them giving two squirts. If any of them thought there was some systemic conspiracy going on, they'd be on the phone to the media in a flash.
I know people want the government to be the bigbadevilsuper-entity, but it really isn't. When you see inside, it's amazing that we survive as a country at all. It would be amusing if it weren't so disturbing.
So what: a well-dressed polite white man gets through a shorter (yet more thorough) security line because of a lack of ID. First, the airlines have to account for people not having IDs. Wallets get stolen, IDs are lost or forgotten, in other words, shit happens. Second, this lack of ID is a rare occurence so of course the line will be shorter, and even if the actual screening takes 3-4 times as long than the "normal" screening you will get through faster.
Incidentally, a little politeness can go a long way when dealing with government workers, especially in places like an airport or the DMV. Just think: these people deal with complaining a**holes all day for crappy pay, you might actually make their day a little brighter by being polite, or, God forbid, almost friendly. The time for civil disobedience in not after waiting 2 hours in the DMV line.
"In fact, today, I'm the safest guy on the plane.", great I am worried about the guy who slides thru the system like you and gets what he needs after the security check point.
I couldn't find his response letters. Just a bunch of media links and is fine letters.
Two recent TSA experiences: 1) Going from Wash DC Reagan to Ft Laud. Have a Swiss Army Knife (the classic, little tiny one with scissors, file blade and tweezers) on my keyring. Did not realize I had carried it on the plane out of Reagan until I was going through security at Ft Laud and they caught the knife on x-ray and made me either surrender it or exit security, check it in my bag which I was going to carry on, and go back through. 2) Like a dumbass let my driver's license expire (still have FL license, live in DC with no car) 3 days before needing to fly, again out of Reagan. My passport was also expired, so that left me with no current gov't issued photo IDs. At the security line, the lady checking boarding passes and IDs caught that my license was expired, wrote NO ID on my pass, sent me to another line, put me through a puffer machine, x-ray, and then I got the bag search with the little swatches they stick in the machine to check for explosives. I thought I was going to have to talk my way through, but nope. I had my Social Security card and birth certificate with me and they weren't even interested.
Is this intended as a favorable or pejorative description of John Gilmore?
If John Gilmore is a rabble-rouser, then in my opinion the USA needs more rabble-rousers. If we had 100 million of them, the politicians would never have dared take away all our rights.
Getting past the initial security line without an ID may be an issue though.
If there's going to be security, I'm not going to do extra work for anyone. That's what they're paid for.
I was flying out of San Diego, and had a laptop crammed in my suitcase amongst other things. There was a sign that said "please take your laptop out of your luggage," and I've never flown with a laptop so I had no prior knowledge of this rule. A bunch of people were digging through their luggage, right in line, or off to the side.
I found that to be a hassle since I packed shitty and had dirty underwear/socks stuck in odd places. So I left my laptop inside. I was called off to the side, and sat there while someone else unpacked my suitcase, swiped for bomb residue, and repacked it nicely. Sure, he thought I was a complete idiot, but I was early for my flight anyway.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
... from looking for people trying to kill other people, to escort him through expedited security. Let's change the law NOW to require i.d. for freaks like this unwilling to take the threat of terrorism seriously and realize that there are trade-offs. Just try buying something with a check of, sometimes, a credit card without i.d.; just try getting a job without i.d. (albeit at the cost of illegal aliens being a major source of identity theft, a second-order result since anyone here legally has proper i.d.).
I can't imagine this working all that well when there's a major line in the "NO ID" section.
In all fairness, I forgot to renew my license till I needed to travel to Mexico, and as it turns out my state now mails out photo IDs and give you a temporary laser printed copy. The "only" issue I had with this was the security checkpoint at SFO.
Guard - "How did you copy this" the secuirty check station guard asked
Me- "It's not a copy"
Guard - "I can't let you through, this is expired"
Me - "No, it's not expired, I just renewed it"
Guard - "This looks like a photo copy"
Me - "If you take the time to read it it says temporary. California does the same thing if you renew out of state. You staple the paper renewal to the expired plastic. If you have questions, call this number below".
Now, to be fair, I do understand how a laser printed license does look suspicious. But spending time in cali I also know your average liquor store has on hand a book of respective licenses, what they should look like, and even pictures of ones that fall apart easily (Washington). This leads me to believe at least in California liquor is more secure than airports.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
I think his responses were posted on the NHFree forum thread... I'm going a bit by memory, this was last year, and we've done a hell of a lot of anti-ID activities since then ;)
Part of the Second American Revolution!
There's a guy out there (can't find the link just now) who has a website selling the Bill of Rights printed on steel cards. He recommends flying with them, and as he says "hilarity ensues".
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I tried this out last year for an international flight from Vancouver to LA. I wouldn't recomend it.
As a bit of background, my license had just expired and I was in the process of getting a new one. I checked the law ahead of time and discovered that for a Canadian citizen to travel to and from America via land, sea or air the only identification that you *need* is a birth certificate. Picture ID is strongly encouraged. A Passport is an even better idea.
I got stopped at just about every possible interval on the trip - checking my bags, passing through security, getting through customs, getting on the plane, getting back through customs when I landed - by people that apparently had no understanding of the law.
Every single person insisted that I could not travel without a Driver's license. Flashing the yellow sheet of paper that passes as a temp license in BC didn't get me very far. I even had to ask the customs official to ask their manager to look up the information. Neither one of them knew what was going on.
It is possible to do these trips without proper identification, but it's such a pain in the neck it's not really worth it.
You have your birth certificate in your wallet???
To prevent moderations they have done on the thread from being reversed when they post a reply.
Endless fun at the TSA checkout line!
Part of the Second American Revolution!
So, if I'm a terrorist
I get massive sympathy from her because I always get searched and "harrassed" by the "authorities".
Once we're in the air, I have access to her carry-on.
Any "profile" you setup can be defeated.
All this talk of swiping the luggage and such has me thinking. What if I go to the range that morning and the machine picks up trace amounts of gunpowder? What happens then?
He was arrested when he jumped out of the box at his mother's house after the delivery guy dropped him off - and the delivery guy SPOTTED him getting OUT of the box!
Feel safer now, folks?
Lee Darrow, Chicago
Odd... When I flew to SF a couple of years ago (but still after 9/11) from Chicago (Midway), it took about 2 minutes to get through security. On the return flight it took about 10 (due to my wife brushing the metal detector, thus setting it off). Are there really people who wait hours to go through security because I've never seen it.
This isn't about "terrorism".
This is about demonizing a group so that the rest of society can "unify" to "defeat" the "bad guys".
And as for the "more harm than good", you just have to read the papers.
What do you think the puffer and the swiping the laptop are? They are the modern day body-cavity.
I think if he had "olive skin" he would have gone through a bit easier because so many people would have been worried about offending him.
Basically all it comes down to is having a pleasant demeanor, no matter what color skin or quality of clothes you have. I once flew with my drivers licence expired (accident, expired while I was away) and they still let me through.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm a type 1 diabetic and a couple weeks ago I flew from Philly - Jacksonville.. I took my syringes, vials of insulin, tubing for my insulin pump, lancets, and my laptop in my cary-on.. and guess what gave me the most problems, the laptop.
ever consider slowing down? thats really fast.
If everyone else is going 100MPH then you doing 100MPH is not fast or slow, its the safest thing for traffic.
It might be safer if everyone were to slow down but you can't control everyones behaviour, so it's best go to with the general flow of traffic - and if you aren't comfortable with that find a side road.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The only reasons the handful of nonID passengers are able to do that is because they are HANDFUL.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I recently travelled to Hawaii on vacation (from San Diego). Flying domestically out of Maui's airport, my ID was checked:
- curb-side when to-be-checked baggage is scanned for agricultural goods
- during check-in
- when lining up for the security check (plus ticket)
- when reaching the metal detector (plus ticket)
- when reaching a second security check (agricultural goods, plus ticket)
- when boarding the plane (ofcourse, plus ticket)
When I asked the woman at the metal detector why were there so many checks, she said they all check for different things. I was confused as to what else they'd be looking at other than "does the name look the same as on the ticket, and does the person look the same as in the photo."
Maybe one looks for "Saddam Hussein" and one looks for "Osama Bin Laden."
Perhaps its the fact that since 9/11 happened almost five years ago, people are already starting to forget. They are getting relaxed in security. Maybe they think that with all this new awareness it can't happen again, though they may be the ones letting someone through.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
About 2 years ago I flew without my ID coming out of Philadelphia, they first looked at me as if I were crazy but finally gave me my boarding pass. I had to go through about a half hour of security checking complete with explosive checks, and substance searching, and I'm convinced that security guard was feeling me up... Now everytime (about 4 total so far) I fly out Philadelphia I get stopped even though I have my drivers license and passport. The point is yeah you can do it, but they're definetly keeping an eye on you.
"Don't be so humble - you are not that great." - Golda Meir
If you dont have insurance/money for a medical procedure or want instate tution at an out of state college, just claim that you are undocumented.
Feel safer now, folks?
All this "security" is just showmanship to make the sheep feel safe anyway. Like yeah, Mr. Terrorist is going to have a badly faked ID, and yeah, Mr. Terrorist is going to make the mistake of buying his ticket as Abdul Mohammed bin-Laden but his photo ID will say Richard Smith, and the photograph will actually be of his dog.
How many terrorists have we arrested because of the security, so far? Compare it to the amount of people searched? Oh yeah, there was that nutcase with the shoe bomb, but he made it past security anyway...
Oh and you KNOW you can kill someone with a spoon, right? Or with the plastic knife most airlines are using? (The ones that actually still give out food that is). The SMARTEST thing they can do is have a strong door on the cockpit and keep it shut, and do some simple basic screening with machines to detect metal and explosives. Anything else will just generate false positives. Eventually someone determined enough to blow a plane up in the air will be able to get past ANY security, but that's not as attention-getting as a hijacking.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Its going to the extremes. I live in India, and in the past few years airline security has always been tight because terrorism is very very old over here. So what was the security. No ID bullshit. You walk into a metal detecter. If it beeps you are frisked. They ask you to remove keys, wallet, cell phone and keep them separately. Simple 1 min process which happened parallely to your bag in the X-Ray. Heck if you are carrying a camera bag you could give it to them and tell please check it by hand as you dont want your films getting spoiled. Simple and effective. Infact so effective that inspite of the very real threat of terrorism(bomb blasts on streets etc., are common in some parts of the country), there was one hijacking after 1990, and that too from Nepal(A neighbouring country). So nothing wrong with the security measures over here. Now lets contrast that with the US. Before 9/11 you could walk upto the plane to see people off as if they are boarding a bus! And after that they make you remove your shoes and what not. If they really want to learn how to secure airports and prevent hijackings, visit Israel, India or any country which has borne the brunt of terrorism for so long.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
... it is usually a winning strategy to Defect occasionally. But, as usual, if *everybody* defected, then the not only does the strategy fail, but *everbody* suffers a much worse outcome.
So I suspect that if everyone traveled without ID, today's TSA airport processes would fail big time.
I've flown without showing my id out of San Jose and Dallas GHWB. Both times, I walked through the metal detector, and the TSA guy said, "Can I see your id?" I truthfully replied, "It's in the x-ray machine." Both times the TSA guy said, "Okay, You'll have to get it and show it to me," and both times the guy promptly forgot about me.
Now if only I could fly without taking off my damn shoes. (A worthless feel-good security measure if there ever was one. Fuck you Richard Reid. Fuck you to hell.)
All the more reason to expel them from our merrie nation.
the lady checking boarding passes and IDs caught that my license was expired, wrote NO ID on my pass, sent me to another line
Yes because if your document expires, you suddenly stop being you.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Well, to be fair, this was years ago. 1998, actually. And no, they didn't really give me a body cavity search or anything, but it was a huge hassle. Actually, my story has nothing to do with this one, really. It's kinda what you would expect to happen if trying to buy a ticket and fly without an ID, even pre 9/11. It's Friday. I've had too much coffee. My office has no air conditioning. I thought posting something like that would be amusing. I'm sorry. :(
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
In England the amount of the fine is directly proportional to your income, by law. Imagine being Bill Gates, getting a $30,000 speeding ticket, then watching the next guy in line get a $200 ticket.
We'll all be stuck in lines now that people have been notified to leave their ID at home. So now there'll be the standard line for those schmucks with ID, and the line for those without ID.
Look in the mirror once in a while... Most of the hot spots on the globe were once ruled by the British. The borders of just about every country in the Middle East were determined by the Brits. India-Pakistan ring a bell? What you pikers did to the Irish for a thousand years is the definition of terrorism. What they did to you was a slap on the wrist.
Oh those poor morons in middle America. Thank goodness we on the coasts are all so smart as to never be fooled by crap from the government. We are all so wise. Gotta run now, time to head to the store and I need to sit in 2 hours of traffic on the way there and think about how lucky and smart I am to not live in middle America. I don't mind sitting in traffic though, just think of how much interest is accumulating on my portion of the Social Security trust fund while I am sitting there...Cha .. ching..
--- Liberty in our Lifetime
You don't think that the TSA employee was intimidated into being kinder by the fact that there was a guy taking notes 5 feet away behind some plexiglass? By observing a thing, we also inherently change that thing. The test was completely invalidated by the presence of the reporter.
From the combination of the two stories, it sounds to me that if you fly without ID, you'd best fly without ego as well.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
And how is someone practicing Islam a reason to deny them entry through a security gate? Praying salah is unbelieveably required for every Muslim (in fact, I think it's right behind the declaration of faith). I can see not letting the guy through because he is on a watch list (which I think are bullshit anyway, but that's a different discussion), but what's wrong with prayer? Would you have said that a Christian praying is a security risk?
You might want to find some more information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salat
In soviet russia, You ask not what country do for you, but what you do for country!
Oh wait...
"Yeah, I was hanging out with the guys last night and one of them bet us none of us would travel without a licence. So I took his bet."
"Uh-huh. You're flying without a licence- you mailed your licence home- because of a bet?"
"Well, I didn't really mail it home- its with that reporter, there. But, yeah, he double-dog-dared us, so I had to do it."
"A bet? A bet?"
"Sure, a bet, a wager, a gamble, playing the odds. Didn't want to look like a wuss. Had to do it."
I'd like to see how that explanation would fly. Because what I'm reading is that if you don't have your ID and you act apologetic and contrite- Sorry, sir, my wallet was stolen- then they accept the explanation. In that case the IDless traveller isn't trying to bother the TSA, but was simply hit by bad circumstances.
But willfully challenging the TSA- making it obvious you have a choice about your IDless travel- that's what the bet should have been about. Can you act as if you are equal to the TSA (let alone act as if the TSA works for you) and not a meek requester of permission to travel, and still get onto an airplane?
Absolutely! A full body-cavity search is about as close to sex as most /.'ers will ever get :P
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
SSIA...
Arabs are a minority on our airplanes, not a 9:1 majority.
As an aside, you don't need to swipe your credit card at those e-ticket touchscreen kiosks.
Just touch the correct button & give the machine a bit, it'll kick over to the next screen without asking for your credit card. Punch in your confirmation # and you're good to go.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The test rate on screeners was 70 percent before 9/11 and remains 70 even after adding all the new standard proceedures. So what exactly is the benefit of standing around on a dirty, often wet floor in my socks?
About as fast as 2 passes through the metal detector (pass 1: beeeeeep... remove belt... pass 2: OK). The last time I went through Frankfurt travelling internationally everybody's laptop got the swab for explosives. Took about 30 mins to get through the line.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Right. Keep thinking those happy thoughts. 100mph is too fast for conditions on roads in the US, particularly in traffic.
Actually I agree that 100MPH in mixed traffic is probably too fast (though if they are all modern cars with good tires and braking systems...)
However, drive out in Utah or Wyoming or Kansas some time. 100 MPH can be perfectly safe during the day if traffic is very sparse, because you have the visibility and thus lead time to safley drive that speed.
That is why in some states like Colorado, traffic accident rates fell after the speed limit was increased to 75 MPH because it brough the people trying to obey the law closer to the people driving at reasonable speeds for road and traffic conditions. It is a difference in speed that causes accidents, not generally absolute speed itself.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
> but I remember the war ending
What do you mean? We've always been at war with Eurasia. Oh, by the way did you hear? Choco rations are up! Double plus good, eh?
=====
We are not at fucking WAR, unless by war you mean "I, as president, would like to have emergency powers until the end of time of when ever I declare that this 'war' against an invisible enemy has come to an end".
on topic, while harper was able to fly, it is rather telling that the other members of the panel were too afraid to try and even harper didn't have the guts to actually go to the airport without his I.D.
"He was arrested when he jumped out of the box at his mother's house after the delivery guy dropped him off - and the delivery guy SPOTTED him getting OUT of the box!"
So in court it's really just the delivery guy's word against the suspect? Since the feds had no evidence, I can't see how this would have led to a conviction. It's not a crime to jump out of a box at your mother's house. How he got into the box would have been pure speculation on the part of the delivery guy. In other words, if he had made the whole thing up, what would be different about the case?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Government can probably spend money on things like military, law enforcement, and highway development more efficiently. It can probably make things like parks and due process (via courts) more equally available. To imply that anytime the government spends money is worse than the government not spending that money is just silly.
That's not to say there arn't plenty of things the government spends money on that are entirely inefficient. Tax breaks (not collecting money is the same as not spending it) to particular industries are wasteful. Subsidies are wasteful. Certain research expendatures are at best questionable. Government-run healthcare is almost certainily wasteful (but healthcare may be a place where government subsidy is appropriate, as it may take government intervention to force people to properly provide for their own healthcare.)
paintball
for the purpose of identification.
With an expired ID and they refused to let me fly (Delta) without 2 other forms of ID one of them being federally issued, which I didn't have.
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
The sad truth is that in a situation where Arabs are a minority, and most terrorists are Arab (debate the truth of that if you like, but don't pretend the conclusion is invalid) you will statisitically have a better chance of finding terrorists if you search only Arabs. The reason we shouldn't do this, from a purely safety-oriented point-of-view is that we will guarantee that some terrorists do get through, we need a better way of searching. I don't think random checks are the best, but one possibility might be to determine what X percent of terrorists are Arab, and have X percent of your security watch them more, and have the rest watch everybody ELSE (i.e. the non-X percent of guards, etc. do not watch Arabs).
It would be great if your example were valid... but it doesn't hold up. "... you might argue that this does not reflect probabilities in the larger population, but... let me use this as an example, to make a mathematical pont." You aren't really making any point; your hypothetical sample is completely unrealistic. This is a real-world, not hypothetical, situation, and you must make arguments that are realistic. The chances of some 115 random people (in the US) including 100 Arabs is fatanstically low; generally speaking the chances that so many as 15 of them *are* Arab would be low. Similarly, you could easily go your entire life grabbing random groups of 15 non-Arabs without finding 2, let alone 5, terrorists in one group. So, while I agree with the point you are trying to make, I am worried that this is being held up as an 'insightful' argument on the topic.
It's a matter of percentages. I agree with essentially every post thus far that stated we shouldn't focus exclusively on Arabs, but your example is flawed, especially for US application.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Jim's a great guy. He came to New Hampshire to help us fight Real ID here.
3 976923577
He testified to help us pass an anti-RealID bill, which came within a hair of becoming law.
As I wrote in another post, see
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=830740502
for footage from a big protest against REAL ID here.
I had a long argument with NH Senator President Gatsas about the "id requirement" issue in flying and we (Jim and I) insisted he was wrong, that we could fly without any ID, if we were willing to submit to a secondary search. Kudos to Jim for proving us right!
(For those wondering what politics in New Hampshire is like... Yes, not only did I have an argument with the Senate President, but he called me back within 5 minutes of my sending him an email. We have that sort of an open and accessible legislature. Come and see it in action, there is nothing like it anywhere else. 400 State Representatives, 24 Senators, all paid a mere $100 a year, and little in the way of staff or offices.)
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
The self serve check-in asks you if you have an ID or not and I just say I don't. I get my boarding pass and I have to whip out the drivers license for the nice TSA person to match me against the name on the boarding pass at the checkpoint. I don't have so much of a problem with this because that person's going to forget me 15 seconds later.
Of course, this doesn't mean that I'm flying anonymously. I'm still in the reservation system and that data is probably shared with the gov like no tomorry. But it's one less step I need to take.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
www.qsopht.com ~q
Link to story?
The problem I have is that the cargo area is not pressurized (why you need to be very cognizant of bottles of stuff), so it could be very lethal to attempt such a stunt.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
He was never under oath. So what.
www.qsopht.com ~q
At least a proctologist is performing a valued service, is moving the world forward, and has a reason to be doing what he/she is doing. A rent-a-copy with a long finger and a nitrile glove is not moving the world forward and needs to question their self worth.
Off soapbox.
And you're not accounting for practical limits in the number of people searched closely, compared to those just waved through with a cursory look at the ID. If there are logistical reasons whereby only a certain percentage of a set of several tens of thousands of people could be searched, with only a minuscule chance of any one individual in that set of tens of thousands actually being a terrorist, the math becomes completely different if any one group of people who can be identified in advance (or profiled) has a significantly higher chance of being a terrorist than the average. Because if only two or three hundred or so out of 50,000 people can be examined closely, anything that helps you select the "correct" several hundred to focus on will help identify terrorists.
In other words, when you're fishing you cast your net where you think the fish are. You don't throw it in the toilet just because there's water in there too.
And profiling of terrorists has some second-order effects, too. You say if we profile Arabs, the terrorists will just recruit non-Arabs. True. They will. And when they do that and expand their pool of acceptable recruits, that makes their organizations that much easier to infiltrate. It's really hard to find someone born in the upper-middle class of Saudi Arabia that created most of the 9/11 terrorists who would be an acceptable double agent and could penetrate Al Qaeda. But if Al Qaeda is forced to recruit whites from Alabama, it's a lot easier to get in.
Does profiling raise civil liberty issues? Damn right it does. That doesn't invalidate the points I've made, though.
Government have given in many times and released prisoners. One such case was when the group "Black September" highjacked a plane after the 1972 Munich hostage crisis. Black September terrorists were the ones who were responsible for the 1972 Munich Olympics attacks/hostage crisis. I am short on all the details but some of the terrorists at Munich were captured so other members of Black September or an affiliated group highjacked an airplane and flew it to a neutral country. They demanded the release of their fellow jailed members who were released by the German government.
Wikipedia has more details.
Actually, in most airliners the cargo hold is pressurized and heated. Occasionally passengers will take their pets along on the flight, and in those cases the kennels (if they're too large to be a carry-on) get packed in with the rest of the luggage.
If I were planing a suicide attack, I'd do it when I was really old. Not much life left in me... might as well fill the walker with semtex and fuck some shit up at 40000 feet! Eat that infidels!! :-P
Now that's a reason to post AC.
And you, madam, are very ugly. In the morning, I shall be sober.
My range in my PA180 is about 400 nm,
Dude, talk about light aircraft.
I wish I had mod points, you make more sense than most I've read on this subject. I absolutely refuse to fly unless there are compelling reasons to get to a destination quickly. I'm a bit more than a day's drive from most of my relatives, and the activities I participate in are reasonably close by train or car.
Plus, the idea that by confiscating anything that looks sharp will prevent the next hijacking is completely bizarre. Any reasonably intelligent human can make a weapon out of just about anything handy. Personally I feel safer if there are more people around me with potential weapons, that means more of us are likely to take down the next hijacker.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
I am betting that high-ranking members of the nazi gestapo were also afforded generous priority treatment when they had forgotten to bring their travelling papers. The phone call check performed in the story would likely confirm that this guy was a member of homeland security and since he had his ticket, that pretty much confirmed this fellow was the person he claimed to be.
The control for this experiment would be to send a person through that does not have an entry in homeland security's personnel database. A manual laborer who has never flown before would be a better test.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
It's crazy that they would let anyone on to a plane without showing their passport. What's wrong with you people?
that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friend. Some people started fighting it, not knowing what it was for, and they'll continue fighting it forever just because... this is the war that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friend...
Just because this guy was a member of the "Department of Homeland Security's privacy advisory committee" doesn't mean he got special privilages.
No!
That isn't the American way.
This applies to you,.. and you,.. and everybody. And you over there with brown skin, yes, even you too! We can all just walk through the security checkpoints without ID and say with conviction "I am the CEO of a large corporation, now step aside and let me through!." And of course the TSA guys will just step aside. I know because I just yell at them in the airport and they back down like cowards. If you don't believe me just try it the next time you fly.
Disclaimer. The above action was completed by a professional politicion on a pre-setup security course with advance notice and approval from the Secretary General of the Republican party.
DISCLAIMER
YMMV, but please be carefull when dealing with TSA. Please do not do
anything to draw attention to yourself and please do not say you saw it here on slashdot. If worse becomes worse, plead ignorance and act like the dumbest person that ever lived. This is the best advice from many previous totalitarian societies for dealing with a police state. Act as stupid as you can because if you acknowledge anything it will be used against you. Your best defense is to be the stupidest person on earth.
And here I was thinking that passports were necessary only for international travel, and that needing special papers for internal travel was something they used to do in Soviet Russia...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
He was dressed in worn out jeans & a wife beater...
What is "wife beater" attire and how/why did this term come about?
I'm assuming that the term comes from 'A Streetcar Named Desire', but why would a simple piece of clothing become associated with such a reprehensible act?
A buddy in college lost his license one night, so he grabbed his passport...the bouncer flat-out refused to let him in, "This isn't in my ID book and I can't scan it. I think it's fake and I'm keeping it." On my grandmother's grave, he tried to confiscate a freakin' Federal ID document. A quick chat with the manager got things straightened out, but still...ridiculous.
I used my Brookhaven Lab ID at the same bar a few years later and it went without a hitch, I guess they had better bouncers.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
and the activities I participate in are reasonably close by train or car.
Train ? Did you not hear about what happened in Madrid ? If there is one form of transport that is wide open to attack it is the rail service.
Something like 75% of US citizens haven't had a reason to get a passport. We can visit Canada and Mexico without one (at least through 2007), there's a lot to see at home (the US is almost as big as Europe all by itself), and getting to another continent and recovering from 6-12 hour jet lag both ways puts a big dent in a typical two-week vacation (not to mention the budget).
If TSA required passports for domestic flights, US carriers would probably go bankrupt before the State Dept. managed to issue them. The lead time is about six weeks, and that's without a sudden surge of people who otherwise wouldn't have needed them.
...there is no law to forbid MAKING cars that are able to go 100mph :-)
Of course, I find the whole idea that a truck bomb could do such extensive damage to a steel-reinforced concrete building all by itself patently absurd.
Apparently a brigadier general thought the same. From his report to congress:
Terrorists tend to be incompetent; it takes the work of intelligent overseers to make them effective. It seems that usually those organizers usually belong to rogue factions of various intelligence services.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Of course, if you're going to say something bad about a company you work for, you might want to post as AC. Theoretically, if what you say is truly insightful and intersting, someone will mod you up. When I have mod points, I browse at -1 just for this reason. Otherwise I browse at +1.
... are the ladies and dudes who wear sandals or flip-flops with no socks or stockings. When they make them take off their shoes and they walk barefoot across that floor through the metal detector that is absolutely gross.
:-(
Think of the thousands of people who have walked on the same spot, some with shoes on, some barefoot, and all of the bacteria and germs that are associated with that. God help them if anyone has a foot fungus.
blah!
Libertas in infinitum
I am libertarian in nature so I am against almost all of this nonsense.
However, since aircraft have been used in attacks, and there is a reasonable security risk, and most planes go into federal airspace (over 18k ft), the Fed has a bit of legitimacy actually searching people like this. Although I tend to oppose it on principle.
What they DON'T have is the right to demand to see ID. Your ID has NOTHING to do with whether or not you are carrying dangerous items onboard the aircraft. This isn't Soviet Russia and "papers please" is not required to go from state to state. Airports should not become a de facto checkpoint.
All they need to do is ensure that you are not carrying anything dangerous or deadly onboard the aircraft. If your friend had been willing to be searched without showing ID the entire thing would've actually made point, and he would've been in the right.
Libertas in infinitum
That said, I'd just have to say this: after much thought, I've mostly come to the concluson that airline security in general is all about the appearance of doing something, and nothing about actual security because precious little can actually be done. For two years, I had a pocket Swiss knife that I always carried with me wherever I went. It so happened that I was able to pass this through seven airports (three international airports in India) in two continents without anyone asking anything. I finally got "caught" in this South East Asian hub, but even those guys there didn't really exonerate themselves; it was the fourth time I was passing through the airport!
More than mere navel gazing.
Hey buddy,
I have experience in this. Given that all crime is of a commercial nature, you became a criminal when you accepted and voluntarily signed that contract to appear at that Bakersfield court. If you don't know the premise of contract law from trust law, then you should know that you didn't have a judge in the courthouse because you voluntarily SIGNED a contract for your person to appear somewhere else to argue or pay. In court process, the judge simply weighs evidence as to two feuds in honor or dishonour. A judge can't plead on your behalf without causing joinder to one of the parties in the suit, but an appointed executive administrator could; don't build any "trust" to an administrator over a matter you don't trust them upon, and if any misplaced trust is erected then return their capacity as to a Judge by not giving them permission to plead on your behalf (attorney in black robe concealing BAR Association membership card).
The purpose in all this reasoning is to determine whether your indirect actions caused any damage(tort) or infringement of right of way to a neighboring motorist. Also to reason is where the Judge is incapacited and becomes an administrator as a trustee over your person. In terms of trust law, there is a grantor and a trustee and a beneficiary person to administer a property on your behalf. The trustee, as appointed by Deparment of Motor Vehicles, is conferred to that appointed administrator. Usually, a grantor would have hired a chaufer (trustee) to direct a motor vehicle in the transport of cargo and passengers for beneficiary. Whenever the trustee and beneficiary are indistinguishable, the trust is dissolved.
On the DMV website, is claimed that DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES was created about 1913 by the Vehicle Act. This layed the framework to define that a Vessell dedicated for commercial purposes shall be known as a "motor vehicle", and that all persons involved in the use of a "motor vehicle" for the transport of cargo and passengers for hire, is to be registered. The nature of locomotion of most vessels on land is not to be hired, so your recourse is in the truth. But, you appeared and the presumptions were made.
To not lay dormant your lawful duty of movement, simply make such reservation at the signature of the Driver License in the form of "John Quincy dba JOHN QUINCY DOE." This moves all accusations as to your interests in any cause of tort on someone else or there property, and not the resolve to a private/copyright/administrative code that makes it enabling cause by the strawman making an appearance (JOHN QUINCY DOE). Also of matter, is to be certain the given name (John Quincy) makes restrictive and special apropria persona appearance for the "John Quincy Doe" created by the birth certificate. John Quincy of the Doe family existed prior to the birth certificate, by assign of the town bishop to commerce under the state provost. Trusts in the triplette remeniscent of the First and Middle and Last name are not applicable to the county birth-certificate, and usually libeled by misapplication and inductance to the corporate STATE records. As evinced in the Law of Nations, by Vattel; in constructing a trust, do not be equaly bound body-politic with body-corporate.
And last, the magic words in saving your suite in light of the coerced mis-application of Code, are "for failure to state a claim for which relief can be granted." Many transmitting utilities apparent to the birth certificate, are known to just run their mouth like a broken record on their opinions as opposed to the law and due process.
Enjoy.
without prejudice
I wish I had mod points as I would mod you up!
Libertas in infinitum
I once flew with my drivers licence expired (accident, expired while I was away) and they still let me through.
This is at least sensible from a security perspective. If you were who your license says you were last week, you probably still are, no matter what the date field says. Being the TSA, though, this doesn't make any sense.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Nothing personal mind you, but based on previous data, your bloodline is causing most if not all the Islamic terrorism around the world in western countries.
The would-be hijackers who were attempting to fly a plane into the Library Tower in LA were of asian descent.
I think we should be paying more attention to oil tankers myself. Airplanes are relatively easy now. I don't know how you do anything remotely "right" when a full oil tanker veers off from its route to Newark and heads up the East River towards the UN. I dunno, maybe we have commando teams on helicopter standby for this eventuality.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Oh my God, you think that standing in the puffer machine for a minute and having someone check to see if your laptop is a bomb are anywhere comparable to having complete strangers remove your clothes and search inside you? Go get a reality check, dude.
No, I am saying that for domestic air travel the puffer has RELACED the invasive search you mentioned. I think for international searches they still sometimes do those, but mostly for people coming in (looking for drugs) and not for outbound passengers - why bother when the puffer will catch pretty much anything?
That is why it's the modern day body cavity, because it's the most complex and lengthy search done now. I do not mean to say it's more degrading.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley