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Air Marshals Place Innocents on Secret Watch List

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the just-wait-till-a-system-upgrade-mistake dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Denver Channel 7 News reports that federal air marshals are operating under a quota for reporting a minimum number of suspicious travelers which is resulting in innocent people being placed on a secret government watch list. From the article: 'These unknowing passengers who are doing nothing wrong are landing in a secret government document called a Surveillance Detection Report, or SDR.'"

4 of 571 comments (clear)

  1. News for nerds? by prisoner-of-enigma · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I fail to understand in the slightest why this has any relevance at all on a "news for nerds" website, except for the possible purpose of pushing a political agenda. Could /. be any more transparent in its bias? I didn't think so, but I continue to be proven wrong time and time again as this whole site slides further and further to the left every day.

    --
    In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
    1. Re:News for nerds? by prisoner-of-enigma · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Slashdot generally leans left, but this article is not evidence of that.

      The fact that this site is generally about technical issues and this hasn't even the slightest bit to do with it indicates to me that those approving articles want to stir up controversy over this non-issue. So a few innocent people get put on a bad guy list. The get questioned at the gate, the whole thing is over in 15 minutes and does not re-occur. This is a big deal...why?

      --
      In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
    2. Re:News for nerds? by prisoner-of-enigma · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      It's relevant because the nerds who pay attention to this site are interested in the topic. Look, there are already almost 200 comments talking about it.

      Yelling fire in a crowded theater is sure to stir folks up, too. Doesn't mean it's any more appropriate of a forum. /. is a geek site, supposedly peddling news on geek-related issues like software, hardware, and technology in general. This article has none of that, and isn't even remotely close. Ergo, it has no place here except to stir folks up...but to stir them up in a particular direction which is all but spelled out in the article. QED.

      If you want left-leaning political blog forums, go to DailyKos.

      --
      In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  2. Re:Ayn Rand was an optimist. by Fallingcow · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    Plus, Rand had big BIG problems ever getting to the point. Why-use-three-words-when-45-thousand-will-do type of thing.


    Or, why write an essay when I can write a novel by creating a few characters and one or two situations, then just copy those situations over and over again, keeping at least one character constant throughout, but changing nothing else about them except for a few of the names? Why, I can even go ahead and write that essay and stick it in somewhere around the end! I'll just have my main character read it! Wow, that's so much better than an essay; why, I'd have had to write a WHOLE BUNCH of essays with all kinds of DIFFERENT IDEAS to fill up the same space and sell it, but now I've got just ONE idea filling a whole damn book! And I didn't even need to worry about any of the traditional elements of a novel, like plot or characterization! BRILLIANT! I wonder why no-one's done this before?

    I think I'll call it The Fountainhead!

    Worst. Book. EVAR.