You Have Been 'Randomly' Selected?

dpbsmith asks: "One thing I've noticed is that the people who are told by the TSA that they have been 'randomly' selected for baggage inspection have a tendency not to believe it. I know one couple whose wife has been 'randomly' selected four times, while the husband never has been. The wife believes that it is because each of those times, she was traveling by herself, without checked baggage, (whereas she has never been inspected when traveling with her husband with checked baggage). In 'Uncommon Carriers', John McPhee accompanied a truck driver to write about the experience, and bought a trucker's cap to blend in. He says 'I would pay for my freedom at the Seattle-Tacoma airport when, with a one-way ticket bought the previous day, I would arrive to check in my baggage.' His baggage was 'randomly' selected for inspection, and later he was 'once again "randomly selected" for a shoes-off, belt-rolled, head-to-toe frisk.' So, what about it? Is the TSA simply flat-out lying when they tell you that you have been 'randomly selected?'" The better question to ask is: "Are random searches effective in keeping everyone safe?"

Comments

Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Ckwop]

The better question to ask is: "Are random searches effective in keeping everyone safe?"

There's two seperate questions here:

• Are random searches effective, full stop?
• Are random searches better than profile-driven searches?

If 'enough' random searches are done then I expect they would be effective. Clearly, it is unresonable to search everybody so it's a trade-off between cost, time and hastle. The exact number of searches you conduct will depend precisely on how you way up these trade-offs. It will also depend on how much training your provide to the people conducting the searches.

I believe that profile-driven searches are flawed. The flaw is that the attacker can always avoid the profile you're trying to detect. For example, if I profile for young Muslim men with turbans the attacker can simply pick disaffected white middle-class women. Sure, such people are hard to come by but it is fool-hardy to suggest that they do not exist.

Profiling by race and religion flies in the face of everything we've struggled to achieve in the last century. I think it was Martin Luther King who said:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Those words transcend race, religion and colour. We should not judge because a man reads the Koran any more than we should judge because he is Black. Muslims are not terrorists. To quote another great mind, master Yoda:

Fear is the path of the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.

There's already a dark cloud gathering. The question is how dark can it get?

Simon.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[CrazyJim1]

National Lampoon's Vacation. This is 1983 bear with me. When the owner came in to Wally World hearing about terrorists, he asked,"Are they Arabs?"

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Tet]

if I profile for young Muslim men with turbans

Minor nitpick: the vast majority of turban wearers are Sikh, not Muslim.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Darth Maul]

> Muslims are not terrorists.

Ahh, but so far all the terrorists have been Muslim. So are you saying there should be *zero* connection made in screening? Isn't to just ignore religion and race just a way of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting "I can't hear you!" to the reality of those who want us (Americans) all dead? Sorry to rain on your parade, but there is a segment of the world population that wants to murder you and your family. That small segment happens to be Muslim.

If the Muslims who are *not* terrorists would take some action to get rid of the bad apples in their own bowl, then perhaps we wouldn't have this problem. But so far I really haven't seen any wide Muslim condemnation of the acts of the terrorists. Until that happens, then sorry if I make connections based on HISTORY. Stop ignoring reality because it doesn't fit with your politically-correct fantasy world.

Sorry to rant, but ignorance like you've spouted really frustrates me. Welcome to the real world.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[m0rph3us0]

The problem is that even if we assume that a terrorist has no other distinguishing features from a normal person and that searching them always yields them getting caught that even if you random sample 50% of people. 50% of terrorists still get through.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[twiggy]

It is not random. It is determined by a number of factors, a huge one of which is flying standby and/or one way.

Other factors include travel / purchasing habits etc...

At at least 2 airlines I've flown, you will see them write one "S" on your ticket for each flag you set off, which increases your likelihood of being "randomly" selected. The whole random thing is a complete misnomer. You're being profiled - not necessarily racially, but you're definitely being profiled.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[AuMatar]

All terrorists have been muslims? So the Unabomber was Muslim? Timmothy McVeigh is Muslim? THe IRA are all Muslim? Those right wing christian orgs who blow up abortion sites are muslims in disguise? The Shining Path is Muslim?

Welcome to the real real world- muslim terrorists are a small portion of all terrorists. By targetting muslims you actually reduce our security in two ways. First, you'll completely miss the non-muslim terrorists. Secondly, you give them an easy way to sneak through- hire or trick someone who isn't muslim (or does not look muslim) to do the work for them. So not only are you a bigot, you're actively comprimising the safety of the country.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[MindStalker]

There have been plenty of animal rights terror attacks by non arabs. Both are terrorist, don't assume just because one is religious in nature that it is nessesarily a different beast.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[YrWrstNtmr]

Ahh, but so far all the terrorists have been Muslim.

Not all. Recently, by far most have. But not all.
Tm McVeigh. Red Army Faction in the 70's. Japanese dudes with the Sarin. Eric Rudolph. The Olympic bomber.

I'd put it at about 100-1. But not all.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

Ahh, but so far all the terrorists have been Muslim.

Timothy Mcveigh, Eric Rrudolph, the Unibomber, misc abortion clinic bombers and abortion doctor killer, etc, etc, etc. Look over the last 10-20 years (even since 9/11) and only a very small percentage of terrorist acts have been by muslims!

And you complain about ignorance frustrating you?!?!?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[cozziewozzie]

Ahh, but so far all the terrorists have been Muslim.

ETA. IRA. Ulster Unionists. Tamil Tigers. Aum Shinrikyo. RAF. Clinic bombers. Unabomber. Hate groups like Nazis attacking immigrants in some parts of Europe. KKK. FARC. Jewish Defense League.

That's just off the top of my head.

I think that you have a reality distortion field. It's common among racist idiots.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Hangin10]

And for the articulate rant above, I thank you.
Expand that to include the ni... *cough* black guy that stole my bike.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

I believe that profile-driven searches are flawed. The flaw is that the attacker can always avoid the profile you're trying to detect. For example, if I profile for young Muslim men with turbans the attacker can simply pick disaffected white middle-class women.

"Profiling" - for security reasons - is generally not performed on anything close to the level of simplicity most people criticising it think it is.

"Profiling" - performed properly - helps by directing scarce resources where they are most likely to produce a positive result.

Suggesting that a young single woman flying out of Sweden with a round-the-world ticket is equally as likely to hijack/destroy the plane as a group of young single "middle eastern" men with one-way tickets flyng out of Saudi Arabia, is letting your idealistic bleeding-heart-leftist-stupidity get in the way of common sense.

Not to mention, *everyone* "profiles", every day, all the time. It's impossible (not to mention stupid) not to. Some people just can't admit to it.

Those words transcend race, religion and colour. We should not judge because a man reads the Koran any more than we should judge because he is Black. Muslims are not terrorists.

Selecting *solely* because of skin colour I can certainly agree with, because it is both a) out of a person's control and b) utterly irrelevant to how a person behaves.

However, the same cannot be said of religion.

How a person behaves is strongly influenced by their culture. Unfortunately, in many parts of the world, intolerant and short-sighted religious beliefs are a significant contributor to culture.

Skin colour (more accurately, ethnicity) is not. However, there are many areas in the world where ethnicity and culture are strongly correlated. To ignore this - or, even worse, actively deny it - is folly.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[spiffyman]

(Note: In the time between my loading and clicking to reply here, you've gotten modded Flamebait, but you have a legitimate and common point of view, so I'll engage.)

Ahh, but so far all the terrorists have been Muslim.

Ah, so this and this don't count?

I hear what you're saying, which - assuming good faith and a lack of racism - appears to be something about the balance between the need for security and the practical benefits derived from identifying the ethnic/cultural makeup of the latest group of crazies. But to simply claim that we "wouldn't have this problem" if it weren't for this group of people is preposterous. In 1996, if we were to profile as seriously as people are suggesting today, half the /. readership would be pulled aside for frisking. The last 20 years or so have shown us a number of people, born and raised in the heartland, who are just off-the-rocker enough to tell us what they think in violent ways.

Open societies are going to have these problems. It sucks, but unless you're willing to live in a locked down society, we have to find a way to stop it that doesn't involve discrimination against every subculture that has a few overzealous members. (Yes, a few. I remind you that Islam has somewhere between 900M and 1.5B members today, and the people who commit atrocities in its name represent a small segment.)

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Lars T.]

There is one more question

• Has the effectiveness of random searches been compromised by having an arbitrary number of them replaced by profile-driven searches?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[sfjoe]

Ahh, but so far all the terrorists have been Muslim.

While everyone else piles on this bigoted response, I'd like to point out how widespread this person's misconception is. Probably the most damaging thing done by Bush and the Republicans is to play to this sort of bigotry and, in doing so, make us much less secure. Rational procedures are difficult to implement when frightened people are being goaded into acting from prejudice. A random search at airport security would be much preferable to a profile that can be easily gamed and outwitted.
But it's always a good policy to call a bigot a bigot.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Skreems]

What's even more ridiculous is, of all the Muslim terrorists, not all have been Arab. There have been at least a couple white kids from Kansas or Britain or whatever in among the ones with brown skin. And since profiling is based on skin color rather than religious affiliation, it's even MORE worthless.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Deflatamouse!]

The grandparent is right though. Muslims that wear turbans are pretty suspicious. :)

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[PackerX]

You're all missing the point. He's not saying that all terrorists have been Muslim. He's saying that all terrorists involved in this current 'War on Terror' have been.

These airport checks are not intended to filter out abortion clinic bombers, the lunatic Tim McVeighs and Ted Kaczynskis of the world. They were instituted as a direct result of 9/11 and the threats of further attacks from Al Queda and affiliated groups who want to attack the US. Tim McVeigh has nothing to do with that.

I'm not saying racial profiling is necessarily the way to go. I have a problem with it, just as you do. But at the same time, you still need to profile. Serial killers are traditionally profiled as middle-aged white males. It's a profile based upon previous cases and psychological assessments. How is this different? Yes, you still want to investigate the 20-something Asian guy if you have reason to do so, but you still initially focus on the people who fit the profile.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[WebCrapper]

My father-in-law gets nailed everytime he flies. I've been standing next to him with a laptop, earphones in, etc and he got nailed. Some pastey, white haired guy with glasses, over me. I still don't get it. Its even funnier when he talks about the times he's pulled into an office to talk about why he has an industrial packet scanner and other "security" type tools when he gets on the airplane. They're "far too advanced for his age..."

On a side note, my wife is in the military and we have to go through "random" security screenings for our cars. Somehow my Saturn gets nailed 10 to 1 over my wife's car every month. There are times when I just want to run the damn guards over.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[soft_guy]

No, but neither were they called terrorists. The term wasn't much in use before 9/11.

That's bullshit. The term terrorist was in wide use before 9/11. I remember it being used in the 1980s - for example to describe the suicide truck bombing of American Marines stationed in Beruit. I also remember it being used to describe the Unabomber and the Oklahoma City bombing.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[fiddlesticks]

'No, but neither were they called terrorists. The term wasn't much in use before 9/11. Before that such people were quite properly called "criminals".'

Oh good grief. The term 'Terrorism' 'wasn't much in use before 9/11.' ? the Unabomber wasn't called a terrorist?

'observe that the IRA and Britain are also in a religious conflict'

What on earth are you talking about? The IRA wasn't fighting the British (and vice versa) because they did or didn't share views on religion - they disagreed about who should rule the North of Ireland. Lots of British governmental forces were/ are Catholics, atheists, etc, and lots of the IRA were secular/ atheists.

'The IRA is not concerned with the US, are not that large in numbers, and don't do nearly as much damage as the muslims do in the middle east. To me it simply looks like you can't count.'

And to me it looks like you're a total buffoon. There are still more British troops in the North of Ireland than there are in Iraq, the 50 or so British citizens killed on the London Tube last year is dwarfed by the amount of deaths caused in/ by the North of Ireland/ the Brits/ whoever you call it

And why does the fact that the IRA care/ not care about the US make them any more or less terrorist? And what about ETA, the RAF, etc etc.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[soft_guy]

only a very small percentage of terrorist acts have been by muslims

Actually, about half of the worldn't terrorism since 1990 has been muslim terrorsim. You can easily check this on Wikipedia. That is well out of proportion to the world population of muslims. That isn't to say all terrorists are muslims. That isn't to say that all muslims are terrorists. However, there is a strong link between the two.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

There was a Science Friday program where a former screener for El Al airlines use behavioral profiling because it works better for them than any other kind of profiling. I suggest you go over to NPR's site and listen to their "Behavior Profiling" segment, dated August 18.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

No, but neither were they called terrorists. The term wasn't much in use before 9/11.

You serious? Anyway, here are some starting points for you.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

Worldwide, I'd have to give you that. I was just refering to attacks in the US since the discussion is about the TSA

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Animal rights activist are more religious than arab terrorists.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Assmasher]

I wasn't aware that the Tamil Tigers had attacked the United States, or the IRA, or Aum Shinrikyo, Nazis, et cetera. The homegrown groups you list haven't ever been linked to air travel disasters as far as I know either.

You should slow down on calling him a racist, the person is problem just careless in their thinking and wording.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[RsG]

It goes way back before the 1980s - it's a French word dating back to 1795. The term terrorist, or words of equivalent meaning in other languages, have been applied to dozens of groups and thousands of individuals, mostly in the 20th century. The GP simply doesn't know what he's talking about if he says that the word was not in widespread use pre-9/11.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[portmapper]

> However, the same cannot be said of religion.

Indeed, Christians have a very long history of atrocities, conquest, genocide, repression,
and the list goes on. Even the US President talked about a crusade after the 9/11 atrocity.

> How a person behaves is strongly influenced by their culture. Unfortunately, in many parts of
> the world, intolerant and short-sighted religious beliefs are a significant contributor to
> culture.

Indeed! Many would include USA.

This profiling reminds me more of racism than anything.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[pnambic]

Ahh, but so far all the terrorists have been Muslim.

Oh, sure. How about Timothy McVeigh (a vaguely right-wing "survivalist"), Eric Robert Rudolph (an adherent of the "Christian Identity" movement), Yigal Amir (an ultra-orthodox jew), the ELF, the pre-1988 PLO (left-wing pan-arabists), the IRA (catholics), the ULF (protestants), the ETA (Basque socialist separationists), the PKK (Kurdish Marxist-Leninist separationists), the RAF (German communists), the Brigate Rosse (Italian communists), ... the list goes on and on. Terrorism didn't begin on 9/11, and islamic extremism is but one of many belief systems people seem to be willing to kill and die for, and not the first such belief system that opposes "western civilisation" or the US in particular.

But so far I really haven't seen any wide Muslim condemnation of the acts of the terrorists. Until that happens, then sorry if I make connections based on HISTORY.

Try this collection of statements for a start. Finding this took me all of 10 seconds on google. Just because you don't hear about this on Fox doesn't mean it's not out there.

Do some research before you make such sweeping generalizations in public. And, before making connections based on history, read up on it.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Assmasher]

*probably (sorry, looooong weekend.)

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[cozziewozzie]

The vast majority of all terrorist acts (over 80%) are domestic in nature. This is another thing you don't learn if your only source of information is Ann Coulter on FOX, like the poster I was replying to.

Those who spout statements like "all terrorists are Muslim" deserve to get ridiculed by everyone with an elementary school education.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

And why does the fact that the IRA care/ not care about the US make them any more or less terrorist?

Because when you are funding them they are more correctly known as "freedom fighters" ;-)

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

First, you'll completely miss the non-muslim terrorists. Secondly, you give them an easy way to sneak through- hire or trick someone who isn't muslim (or does not look muslim) to do the work for them

This message brought to you by the Dept. of Redundancy Department.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[zm]

> a young single woman flying out of Sweden
well, it was an Irish woman out of London, but search for Anne Murphy.
not that she wanted to blow up the plane, she was just (unknowingly) a bomb carrier.
zm

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[laughingcoyote]

Suggesting that a young single woman flying out of Sweden with a round-the-world ticket is equally as likely to hijack/destroy the plane as a group of young single "middle eastern" men with one-way tickets flyng out of Saudi Arabia, is letting your idealistic bleeding-heart-leftist-stupidity get in the way of common sense.

Absolutely not-it is simply suggesting that if such a profile is used, any wannabe terrorist will find a young person to fly out of Sweden and make sure to purchase round-trip tickets in an attempt to duck the "profile." And probably succeed. Suggesting that such people do not exist and such a plot would not be possible is the true folly.

As to idealistic-leftist-etc., I know many people (including several in law enforcement) from MANY backgrounds who agree profiling is ineffective and dangerous, and who don't have the slightest bit of the beliefs you listed. Surely you can make your point without name-calling or presuming about your opponents.

Not to mention, *everyone* "profiles", every day, all the time. It's impossible (not to mention stupid) not to. Some people just can't admit to it.

I'll freely admit to it! However, most people (including me) profile on objective and non-bigoted criteria. Are you a stranger, an acquaintance, a friend, or a family member? Do you look friendly and approachable or hostile and antisocial? Did I see you interact with someone and if so what did you do?

Also, "everyone" is not a government agent, which changes the rules 100%. I am -personally- allowed to hate black people, or women, or those with red hair, and refuse entirely to associate with or speak to them. (Note: I don't -support- this behavior in any way, I'm just noting it is allowed!) However, if I work at the DMV, and one of those people walks up to my desk, I -must- give them a driver's license if they meet the criteria for one. Working as an agent of the government goes by different rules then I might do things in my everyday life.

However, any profile we use will by definition be able to figure out and subvert (are 90% of the searches against Arab-looking guys? Find someone white! Or black! Are 90% of the searches against males? Find a woman!). Therefore, statistically and psychologically, the safest way is to make sure EVERYONE knows they have a chance of getting a search, be they Grandma or Mohammed in the turban.

How a person behaves is strongly influenced by their culture. Unfortunately, in many parts of the world, intolerant and short-sighted religious beliefs are a significant contributor to culture.

Skin colour (more accurately, ethnicity) is not. However, there are many areas in the world where ethnicity and culture are strongly correlated. To ignore this - or, even worse, actively deny it - is folly.

Ah, you're RIGHT! You mean like white Baptists from Mississippi! We must bar them at once from boarding an airplane!

Wait, did that just sound silly? I bet it did! Why? Because it's a hideously bigoted statement, but it's bigoted against those who are more like the picture of "us" (bit different flavor of Christianity, same skin color). Now, myself, I generally have found most religions to be shortsighted and ignorant, hence my atheism. Yet that is my personal decision, and I've nothing against those who chose otherwise.

But if you do want to ban those religions with a history of violence from their members, you'd deal a pretty severe blow to air travel within the US. After all, most who travel are self-identified "Christians", it's going to be a hell of a time to search all of them. And a history of violence? I mean, look at those people, from the Crusades, to the Inquisition, to their modern-day terrorist acts like abortion clinic bombings! This is obviously a religion whose believers hate peace and believe terrorism is alright! We can't let a single one of these people on a plane without a search, who KNOWS what such a dangerous lunatic might do?

Sounds a bit sillier when you -know- the religion in question and -know- the acts committed are the work of an extremist few, not the believers at large, doesn't it? Yet the exact same is true of Islam.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[nomadic]

How small? So far you have given us the Unabomber and Timothy McVeigh. The IRA is not concerned with the US, are not that large in numbers, and don't do nearly as much damage as the muslims do in the middle east. To me it simply looks like you can't count.

What about the Klan, neo-Nazis, anti-Castro Cubans, generic white supremacists, synagogue arsonists, abortion clinic bombers, paranoid militias?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Planesdragon]

Muslims are not terrorists.

But terrorists are muslims. It's simple folly to not concentrate our resources on muslims -- watching mosques, hiring arabic translators, et al.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[kraut]

> Suggesting that a young single woman flying out of Sweden with a round-the-world ticket is equally as likely to hijack/destroy the plane as a group of young single "middle eastern" men with one-way tickets flyng out of Saudi Arabia, is letting your idealistic bleeding-heart-leftist-stupidity get in the way of common sense.

It is, until your adversaries figure this out, at which point finding a young swedish radical blonde convert and buying her a round the world ticket with a credit card becomes incredibly easy.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[TubeSteak]

At at least 2 airlines I've flown, you will see them write one "S" on your ticket for each flag you set off, which increases your likelihood of being "randomly" selected.

Farking A.

Last time I flew, I got 4 S's on my ticket, as did the rest of my family.

I asked the TSA employee if the SSSS was why we were getting the special treatment and he said "the airline determines who gets marked for extra treatment"

I just didn't realize that each extra "S" meant "+ 1 we think you're a terrorist"

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Grym]

Well, okay, fine... But how many types of terrorist groups have publicly declared war upon the United States and its interests? How many types have struck within the past decade? And how many of those--most importantly--have historically targeted airlines? The answer, of course, is that there is only one type: muslim extremists.

Given the above, why doesn't it make sense for U.S. airlines to use criteria that selects for those who are most likely to attack them? That isn't racism or bigotry--it's common sense.

Does that mean that we should only target muslims or people of middle eastern descent? Clearly not, but I do think that a bit of perspective is important. Otherwise we'd be too busy randomly detaining harmless people like Teddy Kennedy (who it literally took act of Congress to get off the Terrorist watch list) to miss the real threats.

-Grym

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Opie812]

Indeed, Christians have a very long history of atrocities, conquest, genocide, repression, and the list goes on.

Inconsequiential to anything going on today. I'd suggest "Christians" have learned their lessons over time. Sure, there's probably been bad stuff perperated by "christians" in the name of Christianity in the 20th century but I think it's rare.

The followers of Islam, on the other hand, have learned nothing about the progression of society over time. In fact, their stated goal is to return to their glory days of the 12th and 13th century.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Kithraya]

That's just off the top of my head. I think that you have a reality distortion field. It's common among racist idiots.

What a shame. You started off with a very informed argument that might actually have swayed someone's opinion. Then you took it to a childish, personal level with "idiots" and lost any credibility you had gained.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Suggesting that a young single woman flying out of Sweden with a round-the-world ticket is equally as likely to hijack/destroy the plane as a group of young single "middle eastern" men with one-way tickets flyng out of Saudi Arabia, is letting your idealistic bleeding-heart-leftist-stupidity get in the way of common sense.

That is just ignorance speaking.

Given two years it is possible to convert a dark-skinned, black-haired muslim man into a "young single woman flying out of sweden."

Convert dark-skin into white - benoquin is a permanent and highly effective permanent skin bleacher.
Convert black irises into blue eyes - blue contact lenses
Convert black hair into blonde - peroxide - "blonde in a bottle"
Convert man into woman - a thin man can easily pass for a woman with make-up, depillatory, strategic duct taping and a pair of $100 silicone bra fillers (no surgery needed for any of that).
Fake-ID - steal one from a christian woman with a strong physical resemblence, hell you don't even have to steal it, just "steal her identity" and make a duplicate ID.

Buying a round-trip ticket versus one-way is trivial.
As is flying out of Sweden rather than Saudi Arabia.
Anything you can come up with to base your profiling on can be used to work the system. All it takes is to figure out what the profiling rules are. Then all you are left with a big false sense of security.

Plus, by profiling you make it very easy for certain people to "opt out" - like politicians and other members of government and law enforcement while the rest of the poor shlubs have to suffer through it. It's extremely important that these people not become even more sheltered from the realities of normal life (and the effects of the their own policy decisions) than they already are.

Not to mention, *everyone* "profiles", every day, all the time. It's impossible (not to mention stupid) not to.

They do it as a heuristic that saves time as a trade off for reduced accuracy. But most rational people don't make life-or-death decisions based on profiling.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[TubeSteak]

While Darth Maul may have been trolling, it's equally likely that he didn't give a shiat about terrorism until [certain event here] at which point he woke up and said "who should I be afraid of?"

The gov't responded "be afraid of Islamofascists"

OTOH, there are less ignorant people like cozziewozzie, who either:
A. Payed attention to the news while they were growing up
B. Know something about history
C. Know something about Political Science / Geo-Politics
D. All of the above.

Unfortunately, the average highschool level education might, but probably won't, provide a bare-bones context for the things going on in the world today.

Taking the mandatory history/social science class (or two) in college isn't going to help much either. That same brand of ignorance also tends not to be terribly well informed about all the blood the U.S.A. has on it's hands from the Cold War.

I guess the biggest problem is that basic background information isn't something you can instill in a lot of people after they've already formed their opinions, because this 'new' information is going to get filtered through the tinted lenses of their current brand of ignorance.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Erectile Dysfunction]

I'm guessing you didn't pay attention to the news prior to 9/11/2001. Or at least that's the only information I was able to obtain from the content of your post.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

Indeed, Christians have a very long history of atrocities, conquest, genocide, repression, and the list goes on.

No argument from me there. Of course, when we look at data a little more relevant to modern society, Christians, on average, are not a particularly major threat.

Indeed! Many would include USA.

Myself included.

(Hint: I'm not American.)

This profiling reminds me more of racism than anything.

There is a vast gulf of difference between isolating certain people because of the colour of their skin, and isolating certain people because of their culture. No mattter how much "the world is a simple black and white picture" people like to argue otherwise.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Opie812]

The IRA wasn't fighting the British (and vice versa) because they did or didn't share views on religion - they disagreed about who should rule the North of Ireland. Lots of British governmental forces were/ are Catholics, atheists, etc, and lots of the IRA were secular/ atheists.

You clearly don't know your history.

The clash between the IRA and the British was clearly divided along Catholic and Protestant lines. In fact, if you knew a person's religion you could be reasonably sure of their political leanings. Now, because a person was Catholic you couldn't assume they supported the IRA because many people don't support violence as a means to an end. However, it would also be safe to assume they don't support the British in the north. This is especially true of Catholics in the north. The same holds true for protestants in the north. Many do not support the radical paramilitary groups like the UDF (and the others). I would also suggest they do however, support the British presence.

Don't be so naive to think the "troubles" were entirely political. It was, in large part, because of religion that the politics of Ireland have been so volitile in the last 100 years.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

SuperSpecialSecretScreening.

Every time I flew alone I got it. If I flew with my wife, no problem

Went from a full beard to a goatee, no problems. Oh did I mention that I have a semi-permanent tan from working outside?

With all the BS going on, and the rate hikes, If I can drive there in less than 12 hours, I'll go. More than 20 hours, and I probably won't go. In between is a case-by-case basis.

So how long will it be before anyone driving more than X miles per year gets continuous surveillance "in case" they might be smuggling something?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, you're RIGHT! You mean like white Baptists from Mississippi! We must bar them at once from boarding an airplane!

And just how many people of this description have taken down aircraft? Didn't think so, you left wing pussy.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[kraut]

> > So the Unabomber was Muslim? Timmothy McVeigh is Muslim?

> No, but neither were they called terrorists. The term wasn't much in use before 9/11. Before that such people were quite properly called "criminals".
I'm not disputing that they are criminals, but if you think they weren't called terrorists, you're not reading the same news everyone else is reading.

> > THe IRA are all Muslim?
> First, the IRA is mainly concerned with Britain, and it would indeed be worthwhile to profile for IRA there. They don't care much about attacking the US, so profiling for them here would not be useful.
Of course the IRA doesn't generally attack the US - that's where they get (or at least used to) most of their funding. They might be stupid, but they're not fools.
Secondly, this is a website with a fairly international audience, and since us foreigners seem to be bear a lot of the fallout of US foreign policy it would be polite to at least consider the global ramifications. Once in a while.

> Second, observe that the IRA and Britain are also in a religious conflict. See a pattern here?
The northern irish conflict has as much to do with religion as Santa Claus does.

>> muslim terrorists are a small portion of all terrorists.
> How small? So far you have given us the Unabomber and Timothy McVeigh.
To help out my unlearned colleague, in no particular order:
* Tamil Tigers
* Various communist groups in india
* The Red Army Faction in Germany (before your time, but fairly serious back then)
* Similar communist groups all over Europe
* The contras in Nicaragua (yeah, we could argue about that one, but in my book, if you go and machine gun a bus full of nuns you're a terrorist)
* La Resistance in France (fits all the textbook definitions)
* Ditto for umpteen other countries during the second world war.
* The ANC in Apartheid South Africa (again, fits all the textbook definitions of terrorist, no matter what you think of their aims)
* The AWB in South Africa (sort of the ANCs opposite number)
* Anti-Abortionists in the US (those that shoot people and firebomb clinics, at least)
* Animal Rights nutters worldwide (see /. passim)
That's off the top of my head. I'm not going to do your research for you for free.

> IRA is not concerned with the US,
Al-Quaeida wasn't concerned with the rest of the west - they just wanted to attack the US. And you know what, we still cared, and we still supported you, and in fact we still do, even when you're clearly nuts. You just piss me off: I'm not American. 9/11 was still one of the worst days of my life.
So it's good to know that the people we bend over backwards to support don't give a flying fuck about us.

Perhaps the civilised part of the US should segregate from the rednecks?

> are not that large in numbers,
See above.

> and don't do nearly as much damage as the muslims do in the middle east.
Go and do the sums.

Cynical hint: A towerblock in London costs a LOT more than family houses in Iraq. Or even a towerblock in Beirut [disclaimer:I haven't checked property prices in Beirut, but let's say it's an educated guess. Almost everything costs more in London than almost anywhere else in the world :) ]
Less cynical hint: I'd count a life at the same value regardless of location.

> To me it simply looks like you can't count.
To me it looks like you can't read. Or care.

> The IRA is not concerned with the US, are not that large in numbers, and don't do nearly as much damage as the muslims do in the middle east. To me it simply looks like you can't count.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[darkmeridian]

Dude. Three names: Timothy McVeigh, Theodore Kaczynski, and Richard Reed. Three terrorists who would not set off your criteria. More than just bleeding heart liberalism here, just common sense. Islam is a religion, not a race or ethnicity. You start looking for brown Muslims, and they'll start sending white ones. (Remember the white guy in the Al Qaeda video released around Election Day, 2004?) If we're going to bother to make a secure system, we might as well go through the trouble of making it work for real.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[dbIII]

For example, if I profile for young Muslim men with turbans

For an example as to why profiles are not going to do the job: at least one of the Sept 11 hijackers was known to frequently drink alcohol in public and go clubbing - even his father had no idea that he was interested in anything that would fit what we would expect a terrorist to believe in - paticularly an extremist fundamentalist group.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

It is, until your adversaries figure this out, at which point finding a young swedish radical blonde convert and buying her a round the world ticket with a credit card becomes incredibly easy.

Even then, you'd still have more success ignoring such a demographic, because statistics says it would be so uncommon.

If one Swedish girl takes down a plane, but ten such incidents are stopped by targeting Muslim youths, you still come out ahead. Harsh, but true.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[bluelip]

>> Profiling by race and religion flies in the face of everything we've struggled to achieve in the last century. I think it was Martin Luther King who said:

>> I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

First, who cares what MLK said? His best contribution was a federal holiday.

Second, it's called 'profiling' because the suspects fit a given 'profile'. How many folks fitting the profile of "red-blooded-NRA-card-carrying-love-this-country-o r-leave-patriots" have been blowing up planes? You can't search everyone, so make each search count.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[kraut]

> I wasn't aware that the Tamil Tigers had attacked the United States, or the IRA, or Aum Shinrikyo, Nazis, et cetera. The homegrown groups you list haven't ever been linked to air travel disasters as far as I know either.

> You should slow down on calling him a racist, the person is problem just careless in their thinking and wording.
I could call you racist just for your obvious assumption that the U.S. is all that matters. Or stupid, or ignorant. But I agree, careless is a much nicer word.

> The homegrown groups you list haven't ever been linked to air travel disasters as far as I know either.
Aye, but you don't need to blow up airliners to cause carnage. Timothy McVeigh ring any bells?

>You should slow down on calling him a racist, the person is problem just careless in their thinking and wording.
So if i carelsslessly call you nigger/whitey/chink/fuckwit/idiot/imbecile/raghead /... that's okay then?

IMHO, when people talk 'carelessly' you see what they really think. In vino veritas, as the romans said.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[plover]

profiling is based on skin color

-1, Wrong.

You're thinking of "racial profiling", which is indeed based on your race. But "profiling" does not necessarily imply race, only that certain non-random criteria have been met.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[kraut]

Last time I checked, public libraries in the US didn't require any special privileges for membership. And the internet still allows reasonably free access to sites other than fox.

Clearly you'll find it more difficult to be well informed if your family has trouble finding their one book among the TV remotes than if you're parents read the NYT, Der Spiegel, Le Figaro and Pravda to you over the breakfast table (in the original, of course). But there really isn't a good excuse for ignorance left anymore. *

* Okay, stupidity is an excuse. Just not a good one.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel so much safer because the TSA strip-searches non-Muslim tourists. Clearly there's a need to humiliate some blonde guy named Anderson because he might be Muslim. But how else can you stop the gang-related crime that exists in so many cities and has killed more people in total than 9/11? Oh - it doesn't? Ooops. I have to get my priorities straight: the real goal is to do what it takes to protect more buildings from airplanes, while destroying the earth through global warming. It all makes sense, unless you look at why North Dakota has more strategic targets to protect than New York City, at least if you look at the funding basis for budget pork.

We ought to hand out compensation to tourists at airports. Maybe a t-shirt that says: "I Was Strip-Searched In Chicago and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt". And another t-shirt that says "Revenge is a dish best served cold: vote in November. --- Khan"

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Keebler71]

Why is it that anytime anyone ever suggests a security measure... be it profiling, baggage screening, copy-protection, DRM, electronic surveillance, whatever... invariably some idiot jumps up and says "but look that can be defeated too!" as if that argument makes the whole venture worthless? Of course people can change appearances, DRM can be cracked, RFID passports can be manipulated, fingerprints machines spoofed and wireless communications can be made more secure. Nothing can be made perfectly secure. The whole point is that *someone* is at least *trying* to make it marginally more secure. It's like swiss cheese,... add enough layers and hopefully the wholes will not line up. Every "counter-measure" requires an action. That complicates the perpertator's plan. For each of these counter-measures, there is an increased probability of detection. Dye your skin... it takes time... and you have to go outside eventually. How many of the people you come in contact with on a semi-regular basis will notice? Altering a passport for instance might involve contacts with shady characters - they could be busted for a non-related case and rat you out. The list goes on and on.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

well, it was an Irish woman out of London, but search for Anne Murphy. not that she wanted to blow up the plane, she was just (unknowingly) a bomb carrier.

Because, *obviously*, the same criteria should be used to identify potential threats everywhere, no matter what the situation. Never should the actual nuances of the potential perpetrators, victims and methodologies be taken into account.

</SARCASM>

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[bigpat]

I remember it being used in the 1980s - for example to describe the suicide truck bombing of American Marines stationed in Beruit

Yes, and it was used incorrectly from the start to describe any actions by the enemy, and the enemy themselves, rather than simply (and correctly) the tactic. The bombing of the marines, as much as it sucked, was an attack on a military target. The attack on the world trade center (the first time and the second) were terrorist attacks because it is a civilian target. The attack on the pentagon is borderline, since it was a military target, but since it used a civilian airliner overall I would say it is terrorism.

Any time civilians are purposefully targeted with the use of violence for political effect it is terrorism. The identity of the doer does not decide whether it is terrorism or not.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

So the Unabomber was Muslim? Timmothy McVeigh is Muslim? THe IRA are all Muslim? Those right wing christian orgs who blow up abortion sites are muslims in disguise? The Shining Path is Muslim?


You fail it.

We're talking about profiling AT AIRPORTS for terrorists who want to BLOW UP PLANES! None of the above apply.

9/11? All arab/muslim.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[finkployd]

Incorrect.

Random selection is the absolute, rock bottom, worst you can do to make everyone safe. It is truly the mark of an organization that understands little to nothing about security, but exists entirely to make people feel they are safe. I speak of course of the TSA.

Profiling is the best way to go, but not race profiling, behavioral profiling. Check out the people who act suspicious, go with gut instincts, and if something "seems" wrong about someone, it probably is and they should be checked out. Unfortunately we don't do this, we "randomly" search old ladies, businessmen, mothers with 3 screaming kids, and everyone else because we CANNOT profile. Like the word "discrimination", profiling has come to mean "evil" in the minds of people who don't know any better. Here we see you equating "profiling" with skin color when it does not have to have anything to do with that. You are right about one thing though, having a rigid criteria (like skin color, number of carryon bags, hairstyle, etc) and then publishing that criteria is about the dumbest thing you can do short of making everyone dump their potentially dangerous liquids into a big vat in a public area. There is no perfect algorithm or profile to catch every potential bad guy, it just does not work that way. It is a human problem is deserves a human response. There is still something to be said about letting people act on their instincts and look for suspicious behavior. Not perfect, but it is the best we can do (and certainly better than random).

Finkployd

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

Absolutely not-it is simply suggesting that if such a profile is used, any wannabe terrorist will find a young person to fly out of Sweden and make sure to purchase round-trip tickets in an attempt to duck the "profile." And probably succeed.

Except young Swedish women aren't exactly queuing up to commit suicide via exploding aeroplane, just in case you haven't noticed.

Suggesting that such people do not exist and such a plot would not be possible is the true folly.

Fortunately, I am making no such suggestion. What I *am* doing, is pointing out that such a plot is _vastly_ less likely to eventuate than the aforementioned one involving a group of disaffected Muslim youths.

As to idealistic-leftist-etc., I know many people (including several in law enforcement) from MANY backgrounds who agree profiling is ineffective and dangerous, and who don't have the slightest bit of the beliefs you listed. Surely you can make your point without name-calling or presuming about your opponents.

I'm afraid I can't come up with any other description for people who think everyone is equally likely to be a religiously fanatical suicide bomber than "stupid".

I'd be more than willing to bet there's *at least* as many "experts" out there who think profiling (done properly) would be affective, as there is who would disagree.

I'll freely admit to it! However, most people (including me) profile on objective and non-bigoted criteria.

Which is precisely what proponents of profiling are suggesting should be done.

When history and statistics currently show that terrorists are overwhelmingly young muslim males, then focusing more attention on young muslim males is neither subjective, nor bigoted, it's mathematics.

Also, "everyone" is not a government agent, which changes the rules 100%. I am -personally- allowed to hate black people, or women, or those with red hair, and refuse entirely to associate with or speak to them. (Note: I don't -support- this behavior in any way, I'm just noting it is allowed!) However, if I work at the DMV, and one of those people walks up to my desk, I -must- give them a driver's license if they meet the criteria for one.

Because handing over a drivers license and letting someone onto a plane are such similar situations...

Your criticism is based on a flawed assumption - that focusing on certain cultural and religious beliefs is done without justification, and is inherently subjective and bigoted.

However, any profile we use will by definition be able to figure out and subvert (are 90% of the searches against Arab-looking guys? Find someone white! Or black! Are 90% of the searches against males? Find a woman!).

Your circumvention techniques assume that suitably different people can simply be drop-in replacements. Again, I'll point out that this assumption is false.

Therefore, statistically and psychologically, the safest way is to make sure EVERYONE knows they have a chance of getting a search, be they Grandma or Mohammed in the turban.

What statistics are you using to support your argument that Grandma is equally as likely to be a suicide bomber as Mohammed *right now* ?

What psychology are you using to support your argument that people prepared to commit suicide by explosion will be deterred from doing so by the possibility of being discovered before they actually board the plane ?

Ah, you're RIGHT! You mean like white Baptists from Mississippi! We must bar them at once from boarding an airplane!

How many white baptists from Mississippi have blown up aeroplanes lately ? How many of them are calling for - or at least condoning - the destruction of the western world ?

Wait, did that just sound silly? I bet it did! Why? Because it's a hideously bigoted statement, but it's bigoted against those who are more like the picture of "us" (bit different flavor of Christianity, same skin color).

No, it's stupid because it

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[finkployd]

No, but neither were they called terrorists. The term wasn't much in use before 9/11. Before that such people were quite properly called "criminals".

What planet did you live on? Everyone called them terrorists, the term was use quite often before 9/11 (granted 9/11 rocketed the term into the "communist" of our time). And yes, they were criminals, but they committed acts of terror, making them terrorists. By definition, a terrorist is anyone who commits acts in order to scare or "terrorize" people. Their ultimate goal, religion, methods, etc. are all irrelevant.

Finkployd

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Assmasher]

The problem is that the person wrote "but so far all the terrorists have been Muslim" and they quite clearly did not intend that condemnation to apply to every terrorist act in the recorded history of civilization.

It was quite obvious what the poster intended despite the lazy rhetorical action.

You are being very much a literalist, so, in turn if I apply this to what you wrote "Those who spout statements like 'all terrorists are Muslim' deserve to be ridiculoed" then I would have to accuse you of being either incorrect or intentionally falsifying what the other poster wrote (which is, of course ridiculous, you're only being a TINY bit careless about what the other person actually wrote.) I know this, and I understand exactly what you're saying, I just wanted to point out that jumping to calling people racist idiots when they've likely just been a little lazy in qualifying their statement is a rash.

BTW, I hope Ann Coulter gets a botched botox job and acquires gout. ;)

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[finkployd]

RACIAL profiling is based on skin color. Behavioral profiling is the way to go. It is actually effective, and politically correct to boot (imagine that). Profiling is a real word that has real meanings and wanting to tie to race for political reasons does not change that. Now if you exuse me, I have to run some profiling tests on some Java code (can't have those Arab classes in my program)

Finkployd

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[HappyEngineer]

ETA. IRA. Ulster Unionists. Tamil Tigers. Aum Shinrikyo. RAF. Clinic bombers. Unabomber. Hate groups like Nazis attacking immigrants in some parts of Europe. KKK. FARC. Jewish Defense League.

How many of those have attacked planes? I'm not sure, but I don't recall anyone in that list attacking planes. My impression has been that although there are lots of terrorists around the world, the muslim terrorists disproportionally target passenger planes more than any other form of terrorist.

If that's true, then profiling for all types of terrorists doesn't make sense. Airport security should profile for those types of people who are most likely to attack planes.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Assmasher]

Uh, why could you call me a racist? Are you confusing racism with ethnocentrism? I'm not ethnocentric in any case, but the US is not a 'race' by any stretch of the imagination.

You could call me stupid because I have an 'obvious assumption that the US is all that matters'? Uh, the original poster was referring to attackers of the United States in regards to the greater restrictions on commercial airline travel specifically in the case of the United States...?

As for Timothy McVeigh, if you think the airline restrictions are in any way tied to that idiot's actions, then they sure waited a long time to enact them...

As for calling me "nigger/whitey/chink/fuckwit/idiot/imbecile/raghea d /... that's okay then?" the poster that was first called racist appeared to say that all of the terrists had been muslims. Quite obviously he/she was referring to the airline disasters unless you somehow think the poster was claiming that every terrorist through recorded history was muslim (in which case anyone reading this would think that you were the one lacking sense...)?

They didn't say all muslims were terrorists, they said all of the terrorists [so far] had been muslims.

I certainly think they should have made their post clearer because their statement obviously led to a bunch of people over-reacting like yourself.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[TiredOfCrap]

It sure as hell isn't random, but it cuts a couple of ways. I am a 60 year old Englishman, and I frequently do international yacht deliveries. I usually travel with a crew mate who is a 60 year old American.

Naturally, many of our flights are one way, so that obviously raises a flag. Often, we also only pack hand baggage. However, in about ten instances, my partner gets waved through, but I get the whole treatment. That's just because I'm not American.

As soon as we get to Central America, however, the tables are turned - he gets the business, and even has to pay $10.00 for a visa, while I walk straight through and don't need a visa.

In Europe, we both get equal treatment, no hassle at all.

Yes, it isn't random, and yes, it IS profiling.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[AuMatar]

Nope- all of the above apply. ALl of the above are terrorists and all of the above have blown things up. It just so happens the last group to blow up an airplane happened to be Muslim in nature. It doesn't mean none of the other groups won't blow up a plane in the future (many nlon-muslim groups have hijacked planes), or that the future Muslim attacks will involve planes. In fact they most likely won't- the entire TSA initiative in the Maginot line of our time.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

The vast majority of all terrorist acts (over 80%) are domestic in nature. This is another thing you don't learn if your only source of information is Ann Coulter on FOX, like the poster I was replying to.

And all except for the Oklahoma City bombing combined don't add up to 200 people, which would be the number of one plane hijacked on September 11th.

You can try and be PC all you want, but the fact is that a vast majority of current terrorism somehow involves Muslims. Maybe there's something in their religion which drives them to it.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Moofie]

"Unfortunately, in many parts of the world, intolerant and short-sighted religious beliefs are a significant contributor to culture."

Couldn't agree more. Everybody in the Religious Right needs to be carefully screened before getting on an airplane.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[GrumpySimon]

More to point, any half-intelligent terrorist is going to do all they can to NOT look like a damn terrorist. In fact, the people who look like terrorists (or some Fox news info-graphic boogyman of a terrorist ), are probably the least likely to have a bomb made of hair gel in their shoe soles.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Scrameustache]

Profiling by race and religion flies in the face of everything we've struggled to achieve in the last century. I think it was Martin Luther King who said:

        I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

So, by race, maybe, but by religion... that falls under the content of their character.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Psykosys]

How many folks fitting the profile of "red-blooded-NRA-card-carrying-love-this-country-o r-leave-patriots" have been blowing up planes?

You're right, technically. But if we're talking about planes and buildings, which tend to have a lot more people in them, you might want to remember who perpetrated the Oklahoma City bombing. And that other members of similar extremist militia movements certainly fit the "NRA-card-carrying patriot" profile.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[bigpat]

The clash between the IRA and the British was clearly divided along Catholic and Protestant lines.

Yes, sure I doubt the poster didn't know that this was how the conflict was identified. But he probably had a good point, which was that being Catholic or Protestant in the context of this conflict had very little to do with religious practice, but mere membership in the group. I'd even go so far to hazzard a guess that many of the so called Catholics and Protestants didn't give a shit about the practice of their religion, except as it related to their identity.

It just happens that being protestant in Northern Ireland probably means that your family has held a historic allegiance to the English Crown, while being Catholic meant that you and your ancestors were either from Ireland before the Enlgish rule or did not convert under English rule.

As with many cases labeled as religious conflicts, it is just a convenient way of distinguishing between the sides but the two sides probably have other differences which are actually at the root of the conflict.

In the case of Northern Ireland it was clearly that two sides held (and still hold) two opposing political views about allegiance and rule by the United Kingdom versus Ireland.

Don't be so naive to think the "troubles" were entirely political.

I'm not sure what you think political means, but yes the "troubles" were very much political. Actual religious differences were very much meaningless except as a way of identifying the other side. Granted without membership in a common religious group it would have been much harder to discriminate the other side in the absense of clear indentifiers.

But in the case of Al Qaeda, it really does seem that we are dealing with a movement that is religious and other differences such as being arab are secondary, at least to Bin Laden and some of his followers. Yes Al Qaeda might have grown out of a Pan Arab nationalism that was thwarted by American, British and Israeli actions over the last 40 years, but it has become more than that do to the vision of Bin Laden for a greater muslim empire which includes all the followers of Al qaeda's vision of Islam. The goal of Al Qaeda really does seek more than self determination for an ethnic group, but the worldwide spread of a Taliban like way of life.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[laughingcoyote]

I apologize, it seemed as though you were interested in a discussion on the issue and knew a few things. If I'd known you were more interested in namecalling I'd not have wasted your time.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Fred_A]

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

You must be new here...

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

The whole point is that *someone* is at least *trying* to make it marginally more secure. It's like swiss cheese,... add enough layers and hopefully the wholes will not line up

This idiot's point is the profiling is counter-productive. It has enormous costs and negligible benefit.

If you can't understand the concept that security measures are not free - they all have costs and we have limited resources to spend on them - then you are the bigger idiot.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Jeremi]

Naturally, many of our flights are one way, so that obviously raises a flag.

Now that I really don't understand. Who are they trying to catch, the really thick terrorists who will spend several years of their lives and invent diabolical explosive devices, etc, and then risk it all to save $400 on airfare? Surely any terrorist worth his 72 virgins can figure out that it's better to buy a round-trip ticket even if you're not planning to use the second part...

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Damek]

I recall a lot of fear & stories about airplane hijackings throughout my growing-up life, throughout the 80's and 90's - and I know there's a Monty Python sketch about hijacking. I would definitely call plane hijacking a form of terrorism, and it's been done by many groups.

It just so happens that Islamic terrorists have, amongst their many other non-airplane-related attempts, had two very high-profile (aimed at the U.S.) airplane-related attacks.

So naturally people who aren't paying attention think "oh, those Muslims, they like to use planes!" Sure, forget all the other people who have messed with air traffic such that hijacking was a common cultural topic going back to the '60s. Forget that Al-qaida has gone after boats, buildings, etc. and not just airplanes. Forget that in 9/11 the planes were just a convenient way to go after buildings.

Fine with me. As long as people who remember the facts are the ones who make the decisions. Unfortunately...

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

Dude. Three names: Timothy McVeigh, Theodore Kaczynski, and Richard Reed. Three terrorists who would not set off your criteria.

At no point did I ever suggest my criteria to be exhaustive, nor such a process to be infallible.

You'll never get all of them. No sane person would argue otherwise. The objective is to get *most* of them.

More than just bleeding heart liberalism here, just common sense. Islam is a religion, not a race or ethnicity.

I'm sure you think you've made a point here, but I have no idea what it is...

You start looking for brown Muslims, and they'll start sending white ones. (Remember the white guy in the Al Qaeda video released around Election Day, 2004?)

Assuming they can find enough "white ones" to keep sending them. Last I checked, radicalised Islamic converts from the west were still pretty thin on the ground. Those willing to commit suicide, even rarer.

If we're going to bother to make a secure system, we might as well go through the trouble of making it work for real.

No-one will ever make a usable system 100% secure.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Those words transcend race, religion and colour. We should not judge because a man reads the Koran any more than we should judge because he is Black. Muslims are not terrorists.
And yet most terrorists lately are Muslims. Hmmm....

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[ZombieWomble]

Don't be so naive to think the "troubles" were entirely political. It was, in large part, because of religion that the politics of Ireland have been so volitile in the last 100 years.

I know it's fashionable for Religion to be the scapegoat for everything these days, but this is grossly misleading.

If anything, it is more correct to say that it is because of Anglo-Irish politics that the religious relationship has been so strained. Your comparison that, in general Catholic is synonymous with republicanism and Protestant with unionism is generally true, but this is another case of correlation not implying causality.

In reality, the reason for this correlation can readily be seen if you consider the history of the two religions: If your family is a member of the Church of Ireland, it basically means that they were most likely A) Plantation settlers, selected by the British govt because of loyalty or B) Native Irish who converted to demonstrate their allegiance to the British crown. Conversely, if you're a catholic Irish, it means your family chose not to convert to Protestantism as an overt show of defiance to the British.

Claiming that 'religion' was the cause of strife would imply that there was some aspect of the two religions which was a cause for conflict - in reality, the only 'religious' issue was acknowledging the monarch of Britain as the head of your religion, which comes right back to the political issue.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[walrus2517]

Ahh, but so far all the terrorists have been Muslim.

Replace terrorists with airline hijackers and Muslim with Middle Eastern and this statement would be better. I believe this is what the poster probably meant. As this article relates to searches in regards to airlines, in particular airlines in the United States, and history has shown us that hijackers in the United States fit a certain age group and ethnicity, I do not feel it is unreasonable to search more of the individuals fitting that description than say, women aged 50-70.

In regards to the religion of the individuals, it is their motivation, but you cannot racially profile by a religion. And terrorists is far too broad a term to delineate into any particular racial stereotype.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

Given two years it is possible to convert a dark-skinned, black-haired muslim man into a "young single woman flying out of sweden."

Which would explain why there's so many young Swedish women (or people pretending to be) committing terrorist acts, right ? I mean, 9/11 was what - 5 years ago ? Iraq was invaded when ? Over 3 years ago ? Surely we should be seeing some of the results of these "two year" conversions by now ?

Anything you can come up with to base your profiling on can be used to work the system. All it takes is to figure out what the profiling rules are. Then all you are left with a big false sense of security.

Sorry, but circumventing the system is nowhere near as easy as you would like to pretend it is.

Plus, by profiling you make it very easy for certain people to "opt out" - like politicians and other members of government and law enforcement while the rest of the poor shlubs have to suffer through it. It's extremely important that these people not become even more sheltered from the realities of normal life (and the effects of the their own policy decisions) than they already are.

Way, *way* too late for that to be relevant.

They do it as a heuristic that saves time as a trade off for reduced accuracy.

Exactly. Which is precisely what has to be done when what you're doing involved millions of people and tight schedules.

But most rational people don't make life-or-death decisions based on profiling.

Sure they do. One example: deciding how to get home late at night.

You do, however, make the very good point that profiling is just using heuristics. Maybe if it was called 'Heuristic selection', fewer people would get their knickers in a twist about it.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[SD_92104]

Didn't know that there is a varying number of "S" - I've only seen (on my boarding passes) the "SSSS" (which seems to stand for Super Special Strip Search) - if it would denote the number of flags I set off, shouldn't I have it on each leg of my flight (or at least the first leg each way) and not always the same number of "S"?

The nice ticketing agent here actually told me the first time I got a "SSSS" ticket that "you've got the lucky ticket" so the surprise was rather small at the security checkpoint (the TSA guy didn't think that it was too funny though). Being nice to the guy and talking to him during the inspection also seemed to have the effect that he wanted it to be over with more quickly - the check wasn't all that thorough... Even worse when I got the special treatment at LAX (as I missed my connecting flight after arriving from the UK since the immigration people didn't know how to read their own paperwork...) - the TSA people were bored out of there minds and forgot to actually look at my bags (which is only slightly better than the security guy sleeping in front of the Xray machine at the security checkpoint)

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Dare nMc]

You made the best argument for why profiling is necessary

The flaw is that the attacker can always avoid the profile you're trying to detect. For example, if I profile for young Muslim men with turbans the attacker can simply pick disaffected white middle-class women. Sure, such people are hard to come by but it is fool-hardy to suggest that they do not exist.

the goal is to make it as difficult for the bad guy, with as small of impact and effort as possible. You just pointed out the profiling does that, it is more difficult for al queda to come by a american they trust, which means it is much more practical to at least do some profiling, to increase their difficulty. It doesn't mean you don't look at white americans. well unless thats what you want them to recruit, so that it is easier for us to infiltrate with a spy, because thats what we have best access to...

Profiling by race and religion flies in the face of everything we've struggled to achieve in the last century.

I saw no mention of profiling on race or religion in the story, was that your fabrication?
And profiling to what extent? You sure are wasting your time setting up a coffee shop in a all mormon neighborhood, if you want to be succesfull you better do some research, and that sure does include religion, which often defines what people are allowed to do. When a majority of Musilims do not denounce the delibert profiling of so called muslim clerics, in attacking white americans, they do open themselves up to some extra scrutiny.
I agree the government needs to be very carefull in where profiling is allowed, and to what degree. ex: Profiling Jewish people as suspects for using drugs because the president isn't jewish would be wrong. Profling middle easteren Muslims on planes, because middle east muslims are trying to blow up planes, and have in the past, just makes sense to me.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[bluelip]

Oh my, how could I miss the fact they were pro-American NRA memebers!?!?!

Oh wait, they weren't. The ideals of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were neither that of a jingoist or NRA member.

Next issue w/ profiling?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[mOdQuArK!]

You seem to be completely ignoring the basic points of the messages that you are responding to.

If an intelligent attacker can figure out the criteria that you are using for profiling, then they will _deliberately_ look for an agent who will bypass that profile. The only part that statistics will play in this scenario is how long it takes for them to find a matching recruit or unknowing patsy.

Profiling is useful _only_ when the potential targets you are attempting to profile to don't or can't change their behavior in response.

Since they can and do change their behavior, encouraging the use of profiling simply makes you _think_ you're being efficient about your searching, when you're really opening up a hole in your security for an intelligent attacker to exploit (since your searching resources are being concentrated based on your profile).

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Mononoke]

But terrorists are muslims.

I never realized that Timothy McVeigh, Ted Kazinski, and Eric Rudolph were Muslim.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[BJH]

No, but neither were they called terrorists. The term wasn't much in use before 9/11.

I realise that you're about ten years old and thus probably don't remember much before 2001, but yes, us old fogeys have been using the term "terrorist" for quite a long time.

If you want something to really fuck up your worldview, search for "Japanese Red Army" - a group composed entirely of Japanese who shot up an Israeli airport and killed a bunch of people, hijacked aircraft all over the place, and had training in Palestinian and Libyan camps, but would have never been caught by your ridiculous profiling.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[sgt_doom]

Of course, there is no real security. One need simply observe that people and their checked-on luggage are not matched together and rechecked on connecting flights, plus the luggage itself is not thoroughly inspected. There are far too many flaws to list -- this is simply window-dressing for the American populace to prep them for upcoming elections.

Hopefully, the dummies, rummies and feebs have evolved and will not vote for that psychopathic moron in the White House.....but I have my very strong doubts......and let's not even get onto the subject of port security, but then, the Carlyle Group now owns the RFID technology for container shipping, so it's really a moot point.....

[Attention Coincidence Nuts: Richard Armitage, on site for the fall of Saigon, on site for the fall of Iran to the Ayatollahs, on site for the fall of Kuwait to Iraq, on site for 9/11/01, now on site for the outing of Ms. Valerie Plame and Brewster Jennings cover firm....just a bunch of coincidences.]

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

I apologize, it seemed as though you were interested in a discussion on the issue and knew a few things.

I am.

If I'd known you were more interested in namecalling I'd not have wasted your time.

I calls it how I sees it. If someone makes a stupid suggestion, I see no reason why I shouldn't call it stupid.

Likewise, when someone spouts ridiculously over the top and irrelevant hyperbole instead of trying to enter into a rational, balanced and reasonable discussion, I'll call them an idiot.

In the future, if you want a "discussion on the issue", I suggest you don't start with the kind of post you did.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the headlights (the saturn's)

I have worked gate security for the military, and often some of the guards will be jerks about people turning their headlights off while waiting in line for ID.

Saturn's DRL's point up, making the lights seem a lot brighter than other cars, so cars like this get pegged becasue the gaurds was annoyed.

I know this sounds ridiculous, but it's real world experience. The parking brake shuts off the drls, try using it when being ID'd.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Karthikkito]

save $400 on airfare

Making up for the $400 they lost by not switching to GEICO?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

I could call you racist just for your obvious assumption that the U.S. is all that matters. Or stupid, or ignorant. But I agree, careless is a much nicer word.
Aye, but you don't need to blow up airliners to cause carnage. Timothy McVeigh ring any bells?

Considering that the discussion in question was regarding air travel security in the US, not roller coaster security in Ireland, not food safety in Argentina and not pop music videos in Japan, it seems perfectly reasonable to focus both on air transportation security as well as the United States.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Jeremi]

Inconsequiential to anything going on today. I'd suggest "Christians" have learned their lessons over time.

I'd be more inclined to believe that if our "Christian" president wasn't in the middle of invading and occupying a middle-eastern country.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

It can be explained by the model:

search ~ sex*breast_size

The interaction effect here is not difficult to explain.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Fnkmaster]

While the groups you reference could all legitimately be described as supporting some limited form of terrorist attacks, most of them do not have a stated goal of mass murder of millions of people, they simply use violence to support a domestic poltiical agenda. Certainly this description applies to the ETA, IRA, Ulster Unionists, Tamil Tigers, FARC, clinic bombers and JDL. Even the neo-Nazi groups in Europe and the KKK may talk about race wars and the like but most of their violence, actual or planned, is on a very small, local scale. And the Unabomber was just a crazy man who thought he could get through to the world with some sort of message by sending around mail bombs - I don't think including a lone psychopath in this list is very informative.

Aum Shinrikyo is closer to the mark - a crazed religious doomsday cult that may have goals of committing mass murder. I don't know enough about the organization to comment intelligently, but this is the only one on your list that seems at all comparable to radical Islamist terrorist organizations that talk about obtaining weapons to kill millions of infidels, and tell us that we must convert or die. To the best of my knowledge, Aum Shinrikyo only targetted domestic attacks against their own country, Japan.

So, I fail to see your point. In the cases you reference where there is a clearly differentiable ethnic group associated with the terror organization, in the relevant countries, I would expect plane passengers of the relevant ethnic backgrounds to undergo extra scrutiny. This is common sense, not racism. Since here in the US, the people that want to blow up our planes seem to be primarily Muslim, when we can pick somebody out as likely Muslim, it makes sense to give them extra scrutiny.

If you want to call this "profiling", be my guest. I call it facing statistical realities.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Jeremi]

Check out the people who act suspicious, go with gut instincts, and if something "seems" wrong about someone, it probably is and they should be checked out.

I'd agree with this, if the 'behavioral profilers' have been trained in what to look for. If they are the $8/hour high-school dropouts that our airport security system is currently based on, OTOH, then their 'gut instincts' will probably be along the lines of 'brown skin == suspicious', and we'll be back to racial profiling and all its deficiencies.

I'd say the real problem isn't that we don't want security, it's that nobody is willing to pay for it.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

To help out my unlearned colleague, in no particular order:

You forgot Poland!

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe in this country, but not throughout the world. The muslims are ahead by a mile.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Moofie]

"invariably some idiot jumps up and says "but look that can be defeated too!" as if that argument makes the whole venture worthless?"

Because, IN ADDITION to depriving me of my right to privacy, it won't work.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Jeremi]

Actually, about half of the worldn't terrorism since 1990 has been muslim terrorsim. You can easily check this on Wikipedia.

Hm, according to Wikipedia half the world's terrorism since 1990 has been due to rogue elephants, enraged about their overpopulation problem....

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

"No, but neither were they called terrorists. The term wasn't much in use before 9/11. Before that such people were quite properly called "criminals"."
Very true, it was not in much use before 9/11.....in the USA
There is an old saying one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter

The Taliban were/are terrorists as far as the russians were concerned, to the US they were freedom fighters fighting communists (funny how that turned out no?)

The IRA were/are terrorists as far as the British were concerned (and to many Irish) but to the americans the they were "people fighting to reunify their county and remove the english yoke from thier necks", worthy of fund raisers in Washington/New York and meeting high ranking US politicians (it's well known that the IRA would never have gone on long as it did not been as sucessfull without funding from US citizens and it was only once that dried up were they willing to start talking peace)

Funny how the american attitudes changed when their started be on the receiving end no?

"How small?"
Very small, lets see, IRA(Christian), UVF (Christian),ETA(Secular), Army of God(Christian), Ku Klux Klan(Christian/racial),Aum Supreme Truth(who the hell knows), Tamil Tigers (Ethnic),Army for the Liberation of Rwanda(Ethnic),ALF(Animal welfare),Shining Path(Maoist) and thats only the ones off the top of my head

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[kraut]

Some people who are not anonymous cowards, or those blessed few American's that get a chance to see the outside world, might actually see the relevance of looking outside the US when it comes to discussing air travel and terrorism.

Ever heard of the middle east? Transatlantic air travel? Both have been in the news once or twice recently, and just might have some bearing on the topic.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Fred_A]

Ah, you're RIGHT! You mean like white Baptists from Mississippi! We must bar them at once from boarding an airplane!

Wait, did that just sound silly?

Huh ? No, not at all. Actually if someone could pass a law to that effect, I could finally take a local flight in the US (as a European) without having my neighbour starting some weird religious conversation (like, for some reason, they always seem to do) and then looking at me funny because I'm not interested in whatever religion they're into (or any other for that matter).

I'd *love* it if *any* religious person from the southern half of the US would be barred from planes. It would mean that 50% of my flights would be that much quieter (then maybe I could petition on the net to get the northern half of the US religious folks to take trains, or cars, or mules or whatever).

Reminds me of the time when I was looking at a map in my rental car in some remote town in the SW US wondering where I could have lunch and some nice guy came along asking if I was lost. So I asked for directions to the nearest restaurant (which apparently didn't exist, it was that kind of town) and without missing a beat he went into his "well, have a nice trip, we'll meet again in heaven, I hope you're a christian" routine. While I don't know how familiar this sounds to a Us person (although as a visitor, I've had this kind of thing happen to me on several occasions), but to someone from Europe he definitely sounded like an escapee from the local asylum (and no, I'm not exaggerating in the least, this kind of thing is just absolutely unheard of on this side of the pond... here this guy would have been committed, really).

So just remember that while the US people think they have a "western" (or "first world" or whatever the current gimmick for world partition is) view on religion, to quite a bit of the rest of the "western" world, the US is the "Saudi Arabia" of christianism. Except it's got more loonies and less beheadings. And more nukes. And a president that insists on talking to his invisible friend before making a decision (sorry if you're a religious person, I tried picking a "least offensive" image).

FWIW I'm writing this from France where religion is completely separated from public life by law and in the public mind. Any public figure that publicized its religious views would immediately be murdered by the press (this has happened a few times in the past years). However private faith is ok (even if you're into politics although most of them are terribly discreet about it). Granted, France is a bit extreme in this way (historical reasons that wouldn't fit here, mostly because I'm lazy, and so are you)). Still, even states that are traditionally very religious such as Italy or Spain would be terribly shocked by the kind of display that is common in the US. (ok, there is Poland, but they're a bit weird -this is just so I wouldn't be accused of forgetting them)

Anyway this is all probably out of the scope of this discussion, I just felt that since the thread was drifting on the subject of religion, it was potentially useful to dampen the US "christian" position with what was going on in the rest of the world. Which is *very* different. So this is for the sake of our friends from across the pond who haven't had the chance (or can't afford to) visit yet.

And if you think my English sucks, feel free to reply in French. So there ;)

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[lysergic.acid]

How many times have muslims terrorists attacked the U.S. compared to non-muslim terrorists before the War on Terrorism was declared?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[emmaussmith]

The museum I work for currently has a traveling exhibit called The Enemy Within: Terror in America from 1776 to today. It illustrates that terrorism has existed the entire time the US has (and before) by showing that the KKK, the Red Scare, the Germans during WWI, the Oklahoma City bombing, several militiamen examples, the Weather Underground, and even the British who burned the White House.

I believe that as people see it, they realize that it's not just a few incidents, but terrorism has always been around, but that we (as a country) have always prevailed.

The exhibit was designed by the International Spy Museum, Washington, DC.
http://www.exploris.org/exhibits/enemywithin/index .aspx

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[pbhj]

>>>
Convert dark-skin into white - benoquin is a permanent and highly effective permanent skin bleacher.
Convert black irises into blue eyes - blue contact lenses
Convert black hair into blonde - peroxide - "blonde in a bottle"
Convert man into woman - a thin man can easily pass for a woman with make-up, depillatory, strategic duct taping and a pair of $100 silicone bra fillers (no surgery needed for any of that).
Fake-ID - steal one from a christian woman with a strong physical resemblence, hell you don't even have to steal it, just "steal her identity" and make a duplicate ID.

Buying a round-trip ticket versus one-way is trivial.
As is flying out of Sweden rather than Saudi Arabia.
Anything you can come up with to base your profiling on can be used to work the system. All it takes is to figure out what the profiling rules are. Then all you are left with a big false sense of security.
<<<

Yeah, yeah. It's possible. IIRC however it's consider an afront to God for a man to dress in womans clothing, whether the end would justify the means in terms of shari'ah? I'm not sure.

The thing about profiling is that you are working the percentages. Yes it's possible that the Inuit grandma with arthritis is a muslim extremist with a surgically implanted bomb - but checking everyone is not a realistic possibility if you want to run an airline. So we rule out extreme cases and look for the more probable cases: like the trembling 20-something muslim and his two young friends from Finnsbury clutching Korans, carrying backpacks and muttering under their breath. Yes that's a naive hyperbolic example, but you'd want to check them wouldn't you? Or would you just let them pass and check that Australian Aboriginal grandma's knitting??

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

"if such a profile is used, any wannabe terrorist will find a young person to fly out of Sweden and make sure to purchase round-trip tickets in an attempt to duck the "profile."

I don't buy that. At the very least, there is generally a benefit to raising the difficulty of terrorism. For example, I'd rather it took a highly funded, highly trained, tightly regimented group to take down a plane than any random idiot who can buy an AK-47. If it was easy to use young white poeple with ipods to blow up planes, all the 9/11 highjackers would have been listening to Something Corporate. Apparently using Saudis is easier, so if we can prevent that then good.

Moreover, profiling (for instance) muslims for 'random' searches _is_ a smart idea if both 1) you intend to find important things (weapons apparently) in these searches, and 2) muslims are more likely to be carrying said weapons.

To avoid the obvious bigotry, and being modded to death by people that rightfully dislike it, let me give a less racially charged example. Consider if you were in a room with 100 people, and you were told that one of them had a gold coin in his pocket, and the rest have silver coins. You need to find the gold coin. 90 of the people in the room are wearing green shirts, and the other 10 are wearing blue shirts. Then you are told that a blue shirter is 10 times as likely to be carrying the gold coin as a green shirter. If you are trying to be as efficient as possible, are you really not going to search the blues first?

If blue shirts are turbans then the equation doesn't change. The real question is, are muslims more likely to be terrorists?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Jeremi]

Given the above, why doesn't it make sense for U.S. airlines to use criteria that selects for those who are most likely to attack them?

It does, if you assume that past behavior is the sole predictor of future behavior. The problem is that there's no guarantee that future anti-US-aircraft terrorism will also be carried out by Muslims -- in fact, if you go with a Muslim-oriented profiling system, you end up creating a very inviting target for non-Muslim terrorist groups (existing or yet-to-be-created), who know that they will be able to walk right through "security".

To give a computer analogy: if you are adding security to a web site, do you just put in security software that detects last year's virus and stops it, or do you design the site to make it as difficult as possible for any type of virus (present or future) to get through? If you're smart, you'll do the latter, otherwise you'll end up continuously getting sucker-punched from places you didn't expect.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Any time civilians are purposefully targeted with the use of violence for political effect it is terrorism.

Your definition is close but it need not be a civillian target to be terrorism. The word terrorism was in fact more accurately used in the 70's, 80's and 90's than it is currently thrown around. We don't really know if Al Quaida's attacks are for politically motivated means to change governments, my understanding is that "jihad" is more of a religeous war in that they are doing their holy duty by attacking non-believers. The IRA, PLO - absolutely.

Some real definitions:
- The unlawful use or threat of violence esp. against the state or the public as a politically motivated means of attack or coercion
- The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[5kyh16h91]

Dear Lord, for the last time, we're not talking about historical terrorists here. We're talking about the best way to deal with the CURRENT upspring in terrorism, and in this situation we're specifically talking about terrorists that hijack airplanes and either blow them up or use them as missiles. How many of the terrorist groups you cited have performed any of those acts? How many of them are liable to in the future? The IRA just demilitarized last year, so I'm sorry but I can't think of any other centers of terrorism at the moment other than that which stems from conflicts in the Middle East. Yes, it's possible to evade a strict profile if you can manage to seduce someone to your cause who does not fit the profile, but no one is suggesting that profiling is the be-all-and-end-all to security. I would love to hear that our security guards were actually being trained to think on their feet, rather than acting like automatons all the time...fat chance getting something like that done on a reasonable budget though.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fair enough. Similarly, its also important to discuss Teen Pregnancy, the depleting Ozone layer, as well as the late Steve Irwin.

Oh wait... the article was ttitled "You have been 'Randomly' Selected"...

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[finkployd]

Absolutely, I suppose I should have put a disclaimer that the rent-a-cops we have running security checkpoints now are not really qualified to do this (which is probably why they have strict, detailed, and ultimately unhelpful instructions to follow to the letter)

Finkployd

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[trickyt83]

In my experience, responses referring to the argument being responded to as "ridiculous", "over the top", or "irrelevant hyperbole", are highly correlated with the intended response: "I label your view stupid and idiotic, and desire to make no effort to understand it, despite it being potentially rational. I am incapable of seeing past your style of writing and choose instead to attack your style of writing in a personal way while simultaneously leaving all objective points you attempted to make unaddressed." Also from experience, intended responses similar to the above I choose to categorize as "irrational", "unbalanced", and "unreasonable" discussion. This does not mean I can not discuss such responses on important issues, it simply means that I might choose to devote my time to other areas of my life that may yield productive results more rapidly.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems to be an appropriate analysis of this potentially useful discussion, as similarly pointed out by the other guy's comment on unknowingly wasting your time.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[kraut]

> Uh, why could you call me a racist? Are you confusing racism with ethnocentrism? I'm not ethnocentric in any case, but the US is not a 'race' by any stretch of the imagination.
1. I'm not calling you a racist. The point I was making was that you were defending someone who clearly had racist attitudes on the grounds that he was being careless in their "thinking or wording". IMHO, people who are "careless in their thinking or wording" and make racist comments are, usually, just that: racist. People who aren't racist don't make racist statements even when they're "careless".
2. I'm well aware of the distinction, and wouldn't argue that the US is a race in any way.
Believe it or not, this problem exists outside of the US, too. What's the appropriate word, then? Geocentric? Statecentric? If only I had a classical education ;)

> You could call me stupid because I have an 'obvious assumption that the US is all that matters'? Uh, the original poster was referring to attackers of the United States in regards to the greater restrictions on commercial airline travel specifically in the case of the United States...?
Air travel, restrictions on it, and terrorism affecting it, are international issues. Restricting a discussion of terrorism to the US alone is simply absurd.

> As for Timothy McVeigh, if you think the airline restrictions are in any way tied to that idiot's actions, then they sure waited a long time to enact them...
I don't, anymore than I think banning liquids is sensible or effective. But one of the preceeding poster

>As for calling me ....
GP>Ahh, but so far all the terrorists have been Muslim.
P>I think that you have a reality distortion field. It's common among racist idiots.
You> You should slow down on calling him a racist, the person is problem just careless in their thinking and wording.
So I can call you what I like as long as I'm careless about it?
IMNSHO, people that make racist statements when careless simply manage to hide their feelings when careful.

> They didn't say all muslims were terrorists, they said all of the terrorists [so far] had been muslims.
Yes, but even the latter statement is patently untrue, unless you take a ridiculously myopic view of the subject.

> I certainly think they should have made their post clearer because their statement obviously led to a bunch of people over-reacting like yourself.
Them, the OP, you, me - it's an emotional topic and we'd probably all benefit from trying to be clearer.

No hard feelings, I don't think we were really trying to get at each other.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

You seem to be completely ignoring the basic points of the messages that you are responding to.

You seem to be ignoring the honkin' great big IFs that they rely on to make them meaningful.

If an intelligent attacker can figure out the criteria that you are using for profiling, then they will _deliberately_ look for an agent who will bypass that profile.

And there they are. Firstly, that the criteria can be reliably and completely detected and, secondly, that a suitable candidate can be found to evade them.

(And this is still talking solely about relatively obvious profiling criteria like ethnicity, religion and prior travelling habits - we haven't even started talking about behavioural profiling yet.)

Also, on rereading the post I was replying to, it seems I also missed an opportunity to point out how ridiculous the idea of "finding a young swedish radical blonde convert and buying her a round the world ticket with a credit card becomes incredibly easy" is - without even going into all the other profiling criteria that could potentially flag her.

The only part that statistics will play in this scenario is how long it takes for them to find a matching recruit or unknowing patsy.

No, statistics gives you certain criteria that prior terrorist attacks and suspects have met. Your (flawed, to say the least) assumption is that every single subsequent terrorist will meet none of these criteria and, hence, those prior occurrences should be ignored.

Profiling is useful _only_ when the potential targets you are attempting to profile to don't or can't change their behavior in response.

Yes. I have never suggested otherwise. In case you haven't noticed, suicide bombers - and potential suicide bombers - that aren't young, disaffected Muslim males usually of "middle-eastern appearance", aren't exactly common.

Since they can and do change their behavior [...]

Another bad assumption that you are making is that the profiling criteria will never change to match.

[...] encouraging the use of profiling simply makes you _think_ you're being efficient about your searching, when you're really opening up a hole in your security for an intelligent attacker to exploit (since your searching resources are being concentrated based on your profile).

Only if profiling is your one and only line of defense. Something I have also never suggested.

What is it with you people and using incredibly bad assumptions to support blinkered arguments ? Why does every shred of thought, rationality and intelligence fly out the window as soon as the suggestion is made that maybe - just maybe - not everyone is the same ?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[kraut]

> Oh wait... the article was ttitled "You have been 'Randomly' Selected"...
One of the downside of anonymity is that makes it difficult to get a passport. So you'll never get to experience international travel, and perhaps realise that
a) the world outside exists
b) it has planes in it
c) there's 'random selection' happening in other countries
d) non-US citizens do exist, even on slashdot, and occasionally do travel to the US, are affected by these policies too, and may have some input.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[ppanon]

How many white baptists from Mississippi have blown up aeroplanes lately ? How many of them are calling for - or at least condoning - the destruction of the western world

Most of them voted for Bush 43. Close enough.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[mrsbrisby]

the goal is to make it as difficult for the bad guy, with as small of impact and effort as possible. You just pointed out the profiling does that, it is more difficult for al queda to come by a american they trust, which means it is much more practical to at least do some profiling, to increase their difficulty. It doesn't mean you don't look at white americans. well unless thats what you want them to recruit, so that it is easier for us to infiltrate with a spy, because thats what we have best access to..

No, the goal is to make it as uncomfortable as possible to innocent people so that hapless citizens will believe that these measures are making it just as uncomfortable to the "bad guys".

Maybe, if it caught 99 bad guys for every 1 innocent guy it made uncomfortable, I might feel differently, but right now, it's making 99 innocent guys feel uncomfortable, and there's no evidence whatsoever that it's making even _one_ bad guy nervous, let alone catching any terrorists.

Profling middle easteren Muslims on planes, because middle east muslims are trying to blow up planes, and have in the past, just makes sense to me.

That's the problem. You think hurting innocent people is okay so long as it stands a chance of hurting guilty people.

That's not what America is about. America is about preserving freedoms at all costs. Anti-americans like yourself are why the rest of the world hates America.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, clearly you're the only author of 'fair and balanced' posts in this thread.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[TheDreadSlashdotterD]

One needs power to protect ideals.

Face it, Liberty, Justice, and Freedom are just a pretty words used in propaganda. They no longer effectively exist. Stop bothering to ask how dark the cloud can get when it has begun to blot out the sun.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Which would explain why there's so many young Swedish women (or people pretending to be) committing terrorist acts, right ? I mean, 9/11 was what - 5 years ago ? Iraq was invaded when ? Over 3 years ago ? Surely we should be seeing some of the results of these "two year" conversions by now ?

And just how many "young single "middle eastern" men with one-way tickets flyng out of Saudi Arabia" or from anywhere else for that matter have been taking down planes since 9/11? What, none? How many have been correctly arrested because they were profiled? What, none? How many have been arrested because they were incorrectly profiled? More than a few. Seems to me that the evidence is against your position.

Sorry, but circumventing the system is nowhere near as easy as you would like to pretend it is.

Sorry, but proof by assertion is just proof by bullshiting. I laid out just how easy it is to circumvent, you are just waving your hands.

Way, *way* too late for that to be relevant.

Hardly. We still get the occasional news story about some high and mighty politician having to be subjected to the same bullshit the hoi polloi has to suffer.

One example: deciding how to get home late at night.

And by that reasoning, deciding to eat a PB&J sandwich or not is a life or death decision. I'm sorry, but you've really gone past the edge of credible with that.

Exactly. Which is precisely what has to be done when what you're doing involved millions of people and tight schedules.

So, if accuracy is not important, what is the point?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[ezratrumpet]

Follow the money. Behaviorial profiling is more expensive than other types of profiling (e.g. race, gender, nationality, traveling alone vs. traveling in pairs vs. traveling in groups, and many more).

Behavioral analysts cost much more than classificationists.

Follow the money.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[pbhj]

Well put.

I never understood how people on either side could be described as protestant or catholic in the Christian sense, at least ... I don't suppose many of them have asked "what would Jesus do?" and decided he'd throw a petrol bomb at the police or murder a fellow human or throw stones at schoolchildren. If they have they're madder than I thought.

The Nicene Creed states "we believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church" I wonder if they recite that in Irish churches.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Cableless]

> No, but neither were they called terrorists. The term wasn't much in use before 9/11. Before that such people were quite properly called "criminals".

FYI: the word "terrorist" was in general use by the late 1790s. Here is a rather long list of anti-American terrorist incidents that goes back to 1812. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anti-American _terrorist_incidents

I'm really sick of this "before 9/11" blah blah blah never happened garbage. Short term memory loss caused by media saturation? Don't they teach anything in History these days?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you think my English sucks, feel free to reply in French. So there ;)

Off topic, but I'd say your English is better than that of most Anglophones here.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Yeah, yeah. It's possible. IIRC however it's consider an afront to God for a man to dress in womans clothing, whether the end would justify the means in terms of shari'ah? I'm not sure.

I don't think you know what sharia is. It isn't in the quran. If you think you can just set up the system so that they have to break some imaginary religious rule in order to do harm, you haven't been paying attention.

So we rule out extreme cases and look for the more probable cases: like the trembling 20-something muslim and his two young friends from Finnsbury clutching Korans, carrying backpacks and muttering under their breath. Yes that's a naive hyperbolic example, but you'd want to check them wouldn't you? Or would you just let them pass and check that Australian Aboriginal grandma's knitting??

How about we check neither of them because, considering how many false negatives we've had since 9/11 -- 1, and that guy was half-white/half-jamaican and would have passed the 'profile' anyway, chances are neither are a problem.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

In my experience, responses referring to the argument being responded to as "ridiculous", "over the top", or "irrelevant hyperbole", [...]

And just to refresh, let's remind ourselves what some of those "arguments" were:

Ah, you're RIGHT! You mean like white Baptists from Mississippi! We must bar them at once from boarding an airplane!

[...]

But if you do want to ban those religions with a history of violence from their members, you'd deal a pretty severe blow to air travel within the US. After all, most who travel are self-identified "Christians", it's going to be a hell of a time to search all of them. And a history of violence? I mean, look at those people, from the Crusades, to the Inquisition, to their modern-day terrorist acts like abortion clinic bombings! This is obviously a religion whose believers hate peace and believe terrorism is alright! We can't let a single one of these people on a plane without a search, who KNOWS what such a dangerous lunatic might do?

[...] are highly correlated with the intended response: "I label your view stupid and idiotic, and desire to make no effort to understand it, despite it being potentially rational.

I label the arguments above stupid and idiotic because they *are*. The tiny part of it that was a reasonable idea was addressed both previously and in the direct response.

If someone has a rational point, then they should be able to make it *with a rational argument*. The "take it to a ridiculous extreme example" should be used as a last resort, not a first attack.

I am incapable of seeing past your style of writing and choose instead to attack your style of writing in a personal way while simultaneously leaving all objective points you attempted to make unaddressed."

I am far from incapable of seeing past the "style of writing". I simply don't shy away from giving it the label it deserves.

I have to wonder, do you seriously think the post I responded to put forth its arguments in a reasonable, balanced and appropriate fashion ?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems to be an appropriate analysis of this potentially useful discussion, as similarly pointed out by the other guy's comment on unknowingly wasting your time.

Consider yourself corrected.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Pig Hogger]

I am a 60 year old Englishman, and I frequently do international yacht deliveries. I usually travel with a crew mate who is a 60 year old American.

Interesting. I've been doing the same, but delivering railcars to the US instead (which I rode while they were delivered on freight trains).

In all cases, I stayed aboard the train, sometimes in the cars, sometimes in the locomotive and was never bothered as the train passed through the border into the US.

And many times when travelling on passenger trains into the US, I never was asked anything when I was hanging around with the train crew...

I suppose this could change the day a train will be hijacked and flown in a building... :) :) :)

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to be the single most idiotic person I have read comments from this entire month.

Hopefully it is a temporary condition you have: such as being young and stupid, or high, or recovering from a concussion, etc.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[megaditto]

First of all, let me say I agree completely with your general attitude. We should not let women drive. We should not let poor people get free education. Two separate drinking fountains just means shorter lines for everybody.

Now, your problem is that you try to use facts in your arguement; that never works (since the facts have a liberal bias).

When history and statistics currently show that terrorists are overwhelmingly young muslim males, then focusing more attention on young muslim males is neither subjective, nor bigoted, it's mathematics.

That's a losing argument since you will find that most terrorists are actually white Irish Christian males (re: N.Ireland).
In America, grand total in terror bombings is still held by the Unabomber et al., not by the Muslimes.

So since the reality cannot help you win arguements like this, you should attack personality of those opposing you, like this:

Liberals are weak on security.
Liberals are 'Cut and Run' gay flagburning Mexican hippies.
Support our troops.

It that does not work, fall back on Why do you hate America so much!!!!!111!!!!1!!!

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

Because, IN ADDITION to depriving me of my right to privacy, it won't work.

How does it deprive your of your "right to privacy" ?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[10101001 10101001]

Absolutely not-it is simply suggesting that if such a profile is used, any wannabe terrorist will find a young person to fly out of Sweden and make sure to purchase round-trip tickets in an attempt to duck the "profile." And probably succeed.

Except young Swedish women aren't exactly queuing up to commit suicide via exploding aeroplane, just in case you haven't noticed.

Number of people in Sweden: approx. 9 million
Number of females in Sweden: approx. 4.5 million
Number of people it takes to hijack four planes and smash them into buildings: 20-40
Percentage of Swedish women that'd have to be homicidal enough for a Swedish woman terrorist plane plot to work: approx. 0.0089% the female population of Sweden

Now, filter a bit for things like a woman who is in their 20s and you'll increase the percentage a lot. Never the less, I'd imagine there's many Swedish women who fit the profile. The only two major factors that Arabs have over Swedes is that there's more Arabs than Swedes and countries like the US are directly occupying Arab countries. Of course, the whole Pirate Bay story isn't exactly a resounding story of Swedish independence. But then, I digress.

Remember: if one assumes that at least one person on the passenger list is a terrorist, then the passenger list is statistically not a good representative sample of the population. So making broad generalizations about the populace and using it as a basis for profiling the passenger list doesn't make sense.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[pbhj]

Sharia, no probably not - as I understand it, it derives from Koranic injunction, early post-koranic scriptures and modern priestly interpretation (much like Rabbinic law) and is a system intended to encompass not just judicial areas but the whole gamut of life, basically a blueprint for an Islamic state.

I don't know if crossdressing is haram or hadith or what, I just know that I've heard an Imam say that it's not allowed under Shari'ah.

So, back to the thread, all I was saying was I wondered if fundamentalists would wear womens clothing even if in doing so they could fulfill their muslim calling.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[AmberBlackCat]

I think the profiling creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. I mean if you only check Black people for criminal activity then you're only going to catch Black criminals. Then the majority of the recorded criminal activity will be by Black people, which is what is used to justify the racial profile. Bullshit. The terrorism issues takes it a step further because anybody of any race can commit the crime and it will still be attributed to a Muslim person or group. So they don't even have to catch one of them doing something.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[justinlee37]

Play nice, now.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

And just how many "young single "middle eastern" men with one-way tickets flyng out of Saudi Arabia" or from anywhere else for that matter have been taking down planes since 9/11? What, none? How many have been correctly arrested because they were profiled? What, none? How many have been arrested because they were incorrectly profiled? More than a few. Seems to me that the evidence is against your position.

Presumably this is your example of "proof by assertion" ?

Sorry, but proof by assertion is just proof by bullshiting. I laid out just how easy it is to circumvent, you are just waving your hands.

The example you "laid out" is in no way, shape, or form "easy". Plus, it only manages to circumvent a few possible criteria that I happened to think of off the top of my head - not all that I could think of, and certainly not all that someone whose job it was, could think of.

Hardly. We still get the occasional news story about some high and mighty politician having to be subjected to the same bullshit the hoi polloi has to suffer.

And the fact that it's considered news should show you how far out of touch they are - and have been for some time - for any attempts to drag them back into the real world to be meaningful.

And by that reasoning, deciding to eat a PB&J sandwich or not is a life or death decision. I'm sorry, but you've really gone past the edge of credible with that.

So you wouldn't consider the decision whether or not to walk through a high crime neighbourhood with a history of violent and fatal robberies or not to be a "life and death decision" ?

So, if accuracy is not important, what is the point?

No-one said accuracy wasn't important. They said accuracy could be traded off for speed. Being 90% accurate is still better than being 10% accurate.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[ravenshrike]

The profile is not arabs wearing turbans, it's young clean-shaven slightly affluent arab men. Get your profiles straight. And I always found Yoda to be a self-rightous asshole, where had they instead taught tolerance and control of ones emotions, instead of supression and repression, the whole fiasco might not have come to pass.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[radish]

Last I checked, radicalised Islamic converts from the west were still pretty thin on the ground. Those willing to commit suicide, even rarer.

It's a well known phenomenon that recent converts to a belief or religon are often amongst it's most fierce advocates. For example, people who recently gave up smoking often will be more vocal in it's condemnation than those who never smoked in the first place. Likewise, those who convert to Islam from non-muslim backgrounds are actually surprisingly likely to be in the extreme minorities who would take part in such acts.

That, and of course the fact that muslims are not the only terrorists in the world (Tim McVeigh was Christian, so are the IRA, UDF, etc) and the idea of targetting certain ethnicities is bad. It doesn't make finding the bomber any more likely and it gives the planners a way of lowering the likleyhood of detection. If you know that a white person is even 10% less likely to be stopped you just use a white person and the odds are in your favour.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[ScuzzMonkey]

The problem with profiling isn't so much that it is discriminatory, but that using it introduces patterns into the system which are then easy to play to and beat. It may seem like common sense, but really it's just another weakness in the security system.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I don't know if crossdressing is haram or hadith or what

Lol, halal. Hadith is like sharia but even less binding.

I was saying was I wondered if fundamentalists would wear womens clothing even if in doing so they could fulfill their muslim calling.

Since they think killing innocents is A-OK, then clearly they are free to pick and chose what parts of their religion they are required to obey.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Iron Condor]

Perhaps the civilised part of the US should segregate from the rednecks?

Don't think that we haven't been talking about it.

But then what? Would you rather have Texas as your embarrassing retarded cousin or as a heavily-armed retarded enemy next door?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're being punished for bad taste, basically. Saturns are ugly. Yes, every model.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[ptbarnett]

At at least 2 airlines I've flown, you will see them write one "S" on your ticket for each flag you set off, which increases your likelihood of being "randomly" selected. The whole random thing is a complete misnomer.

Or it may be printed on there when the boarding pass is generated.

The notation is why TSA wants to see your boarding pass just as you walk through the metal detector: so they can divert you for additional screening.

One time, I stood in line with a couple of other people who were "randomly selected", back when they did a final screening at the gate. We compared boarding passes, and all had the additional marking. So, we started asking each other: what did you do to deserve this?

For me, it was a one-way ticket. My travel agent used to do this when we could save a bunch of money with trips that included a Saturday night stay. I would make a one-way flight on one airline, then a round trip on another airline each weekend to return home until the consulting engagement was finished. It's commonly called "inside-out" booking in the travel industry.

For another, it was an expired driver's license. And a third was someone who somehow missed his planned flight and paid cash for this flight at the last minute.

I subsequently had the same experience on a later flight, booked at the last minute on an airline I had never flown before. When I got pulled aside, I got the little speech about being randomly selected. I told the TSA guy that I flew on a regular basis, and I knew exactly what had caused me to be selected. He smiled and said: "Our definition of random is a little different than other people's".

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[uolamer]

I also recieved 'SSSS' on every ticket from canada to texas. the flight was delayed in canada and at every stop i had to get a new ticket, they said it was due to me getting the ticket within a few hours of the flight departing.

but it might have been the US Customs freaking out about me carring a hard drive and not the whole computer... and the 6 bottles of absinthe they decided i couldnt bring back.. lol

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Kanasta]

"Profiling" - performed properly has been proven MATHEMATICALLY to be less effective than a purely random search.

MATHEMATICALLY

no 'suggesting' , 'likely', or 'maybes'. This was on ./ last year.

An attacker sends a group of people to test the profiles. Say 5 flights each, with a one-way ticket bought the previous day with cash.
Ones subject to a random test are out. Ones NEVER tested are candidates for the real thing.

Now unless it becomes arrestible just for MATCHING the profile, nobody can stop these probes of the profiling.

So you have a guy/gal who's not on the profile.

Now when he/she attacks, instead of say 10 officers doing random tests, you have say 8 officers doing random tests cuz the other 2 are doing profiling, which oh how convenient we know we don't match.

So an attacker is LESS likely to be found with your 'common sense' profiling. So yeah, you say, why not have 10 officers doing random tests and 2 EXTRA doing profiling? Then you'll have 10 vs 12 searches, ie your EXTRA resources are better off NOT profiling.

common sense is when people have no way to prove what they're saying. If we relied on common sense, the earth would still be flat.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Khashishi]

Most vigilante animal rights activists won't go as far as killing people though. They might commit arson or property damage, but how often do they kill people?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[laughingcoyote]

The real question is, are muslims more likely to be terrorists?

Actually the answer is no too.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

Now, filter a bit for things like a woman who is in their 20s and you'll increase the percentage a lot. Never the less, I'd imagine there's many Swedish women who fit the profile.

And I wouldn't disagree.

I'd argue, however, that relative to the number of young Muslim males who would be prepared to blow themselves up, the number is tiny. Which is the point.

The only two major factors that Arabs have over Swedes is that there's more Arabs than Swedes and countries like the US are directly occupying Arab countries.

You don't think things like religious beliefs, cultural beliefs, social standards, media influence, governmental policies, economics, etc are "major factors" ?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Criceratops]

How many white baptists from Mississippi have blown up aeroplanes lately ? How many of them are calling for - or at least condoning - the destruction of the western world

Mississippi, Texas.

Western world, Middle-eastern world.

To-may-to, to-mah-to.

I have heard LOTS of idiot (insert Christian fundamentalist sect - or the Mormons - here) groups and figures call for destruction, division, hatred, and idiocy.

That Robertson jagoff calling Chavez "worse than Hitler".

Dubya claiming to be "in communication with God" and then bombing civilians. AND being a baldfaced liar.

Who Would Jesus Bomb? Anyone ACTUALLY claiming to follow the teachings of the New Testament who also supports Bush should instantly explode in a burst of hypocrisy.

I used to believe in all that. And still sort of do. I was raised nondenominational Christian, and yes, fundamentalist. Until I grew in reasoning enough to understand that 99% of the people claiming to be "servants of God" were really ignoring the HEART OF THE MESSAGE.

Jesus was a Radical Leftist -- the Pharisees were the equivalent of Fundamentalists of Jesus' day, and they DID NOT GET ALONG. I wonder how many Jesus-like figures died during the 60's, beat up by rednecks. Most "upstanding churches" would NOT let that field-wandering, long-haired, lower-class-associating hippie into THEIR churches. So I bet he returns the favor.

I am no longer going to any churches. But frankly, that seems to be the last place to look for God these days. Otherwise they'd be a little more active in applying Universal Love and Brotherhood through feeding/clothing/housing the world's poor, fighting corruption in government, opposing unjust and dangerous wars, etc., instead of just singing, building more church buildings, and feeling self-righteous.

The unexamined life . . . is called the American Christian life.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[anagama]

my understanding is that "jihad" is more of a religeous war in that they are doing their holy duty by attacking non-believers

Religion is politics for the weak minded.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[fingusernames]

You know, I have taken a lot of flights inside the US, north, south, east and west, and I have never once had anybody strike up a conversation about religion. You must just be lucky -- or maybe you dress like a priest. The strangest conversation I ever had was on my flight back from Sydney, with some freak who flew all the way to Australia to meet some guy she'd "met" online, who turned out to, surprise, be a freak too. Hour after hour after hour after hour...

As for Poland, I was recently there for a couple weeks, and I never experienced anyone discuss religion. The closest we got to anything religious was visiting the graveyard containing some of my wife's relatives, plus some ancient churches/cathedrals. Religion there was no more overt than here in Chicago, and infinitely less than in many southern states.

Larry

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Iron Condor]

There's two seperate questions here:
* Are random searches effective, full stop?

There's a much more apropos question that comes even before that one: are searches effective. Any searches?

The answer is: No, of course not. If we had had 100% full-body cavity strip-searches of every single passenger on 9/11/2001, NOTHING WOULD HAVE CHANGED. Not one of these smokescreens the TSA has been putting up would have made one iota of difference. Not one of the smokescreens the FBI or the White House have been throwing up would have changed a thing. If someone wanted to replicate 9/11/01 tomorrow, they could do so. There's no mechanism in place to prevent any one of the events of that day from happening again.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

If by whiskey fallacy.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[ArcherB]

All terrorists have been muslims? So the Unabomber was Muslim? Timmothy McVeigh is Muslim? THe IRA are all Muslim? Those right wing christian orgs who blow up abortion sites are muslims in disguise? The Shining Path is Muslim?
Timothy McVeigh and the Unabomber were hardly part of any kind of organization, nor were they able to find a whole lot of people who had the same goals. So, while I will agree that they were terrorists and more or less white people, they since they did not share a common goal, they are separate entities.

The IRA agreed to lay down their weapons years ago. And as a right wing Christian myself, I abhor those that blow up abortion clinics or try to kill abortion doctors. So much so that I would gladly throw my body in the path of a bullet to protect a doctor or a clinic. And yes, I'm pro-life. These people do not represent Christianity and have been so chastised by Christians that they quit (ever hear of Muslims doing that? Me neither)... when was the last time you heard of an abortion clinic blowing up? Then again, it's really a bad comparison anyway. How many people have died total from all abortion clinic bombings vs how many died in any single one of the terror attacks I'm listing next?

Now, consider that all of the 9-11 hijackers were muslim. All of the bombers on 7-11 were muslim. The bus bombers in Britain were Muslim. The Kobar towers, the Cole, Beslan in Russia (fucking school kids for Christ's sake!), embassies in in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania were all done by 100% Muslims. So, while I will agree that not all of the terrorists are Muslim, I think it is close enough to 100%, to say that all terrorists are Muslim! I mean, at some point, you have to go ahead and round up to 100%

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Arivia]

You're right, because this never happened.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Criceratops]

FWIW I'm writing this from France where religion is completely separated from public life by law and in the public mind. Any public figure that publicized its religious views would immediately be murdered by the press (this has happened a few times in the past years). However private faith is ok (even if you're into politics although most of them are terribly discreet about it). Granted, France is a bit extreme in this way (historical reasons that wouldn't fit here, mostly because I'm lazy, and so are you)). Still, even states that are traditionally very religious such as Italy or Spain would be terribly shocked by the kind of display that is common in the US. (ok, there is Poland, but they're a bit weird -this is just so I wouldn't be accused of forgetting them)

-----

I totally agree with your statements...

But I can totally explain Poland. Once the Iron Curtain fell, all kinds of fundamentalist sects went COMPLETELY APEDUNG sending missionaries over there to make sure the Godless Communists learned the Good News!

Apparently, the Good News is taking hold pretty well over in the Soviet bloc. My parents' church is sending peeps to the Ukraine all the time. That might explain why the US's blend of annoying insane proselytizing is being exported to the former Warsaw Pact nations. Hooray!

(P.S. the Hooray! was sarcasm for those not employing their Acme Military-Grade Sarcasm Detector.)

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Three guys is all you can come up with? Give up. There are probably three thousand names to prove you wrong.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[darkmeridian]

>> More than just bleeding heart liberalism here, just common sense. Islam is a religion, not a race or ethnicity.

> I'm sure you think you've made a point here, but I have no idea what it is...

The point, which everyone else got except for you, is that since Islam is a religion targeting "the Muslims" on the basis of skin color is really, really stupid.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[squidguy]

Sorry...Richard Reid was flagged by airline personnel (American Airlines) in Paris, as being suspicious. Unfortunately, the French police declined to search him or take additional action despite numerous requests from the airline to do so. Profiling worked, sort of.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your argument is flawed. A one-way ticket is known to increase the risk you will be searched. You imply that terrorists are smart, so they wouldn't buy one way tickets. But then there is no need to search people with one way tickets, since no terrorist would buy one. Same argument for Arab men travelling alone. They would "know" they were going to get caught, so the only ones travelling must be ok. It may be "true folly" but statistics are statistics. Religious fanatics who have blown up U.S. airplanes created the stereotype. A smart terrorist would avoid the stereotype, but they aren't all smart. Kind of like looking for DUI's - the easy pickings will be near the local bar when it closes, since that's what created them. You don't ignore them just because they're obvious. That doesn't mean there won't be other drunk people not coming from the bar, but they're harder to find and require different methods used in parallel, such as random searches.

If you understand conditional probability that provides another way to think about profiling. It _should_ not be simple and based only on race, which is a made up thing with no real meaning other than to racists. I have no knowledge if profiling is done or if it is being done properly, but it could be done properly and would improve security with a fixed amount of money on the table.

I'm trying to be serious here, I keep backspacing over smart ass remarks. There are a lot of people using this whole situation to their advantage, which generally means to get and keep power or money. People on both sides - political, religious, business. Those poor bastards who blow themselves up are pawns in a game they lose in a horrible way. The people who are killed... unlucky isn't a strong enough adjective I guess. I hope they believed in the right God(s) and get to go to heaven for having their lives ripped away.

And statistics tells me the odds of it happening to me are basically zero. So the terrorists lose, at least on me. What's there to be afraid of? Almost one million people died of heart disease in 2001 in the United States. That's the equivalent of 9/11 three times every day. And that's just one (admittedly the leading) cause of death.

As an atheist, you know this life is all you get. So I'm sure you want to make it as long as possible. Take good care of yourself and don't drive like a maniac (I think that's death cause #2). Keep after the goverment though. Despite what I put above, the current US govt basically sucks, especially in this area. I don't think they are representing the people, they are representing themselves.

Anyway, thanks for making me think.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

"Profiling" - performed properly has been proven MATHEMATICALLY to be less effective than a purely random search.

Link, please. I can't make a comment about something I haven't evaluated.

Now when he/she attacks, instead of say 10 officers doing random tests, you have say 8 officers doing random tests cuz the other 2 are doing profiling, which oh how convenient we know we don't match.

You're making the same wrong assumptions everyone else who has replied has - that profiling criteria are easy to deduce and simple to evade.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

The example you "laid out" is in no way, shape, or form "easy". Plus, it only manages to circumvent a few possible criteria that I happened to think of off the top of my head - not all that I could think of, and certainly not all that someone whose job it was, could think of.

It is plenty easy compared to the planning involved in 9/11 and others like oplan bojinka - the hardest part is just sitting around waiting for the bleaching to take effect, and you don't even have to do the entire body, just the visible parts.

Meanwhile you've avoided justifying your position that it isn't so easy to use a profiling system against itself. Just what part of "find out the rules, and then avoid the rules" is so complicated? If you thinking finding out the rules is the hard part, then consider the phrase "test run."

So you wouldn't consider the decision whether or not to walk through a high crime neighbourhood with a history of violent and fatal robberies or not to be a "life and death decision" ?

Just as "life or death" as deciding to eat a PB&J sandwich if you are allergic to peanuts. Your comparison misses one essential point - high-crime neighborhood means high-crime rates and the consquences of a false positive are negligible, neither are characteristics of profiling.

Racial and cultural profiling is all about focusing on characteristics that millions of harmless people also share - the very same people you want helping you, not getting mad at you for being singled out AND you also open up loopholes. With random searches there are no loopholes and you don't give the people you most want on your side reason to distrust you.

No-one said accuracy wasn't important. They said accuracy could be traded off for speed. Being 90% accurate is still better than being 10% accurate.

Based on a swag of 1 muslim male per 200 passengers (total muslim population in the usa being approximately 1-2%, 2x-3x higher in europe) and the number of actual terrorists apprehended in any context the numbers are more like 0.0000001 vs 0.0000000005 - a whole 200x better, but still so small as to be lost in the noise AND now you've got well-defined loopholes that can be used against the system.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[fingusernames]

And the Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich; and the disco bombing in Italy (was it?); and the Achille Lauro hijacking; and the Lockerbie bombing; and ...

Speaking of those events, while cleaning up I just recently found my copy of Time from the bombing of Tripoli (and our "accidental" bombing of the French embassy).

Larry

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Maxo-Texas]

Of course, this wiki page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_org anisations
implies differently in answer to his question of which is more likely.

There are terrorists in all faiths, including atheist, and pro plant/animal.
However, there are just a huge number of islamic terrorists right now. And a lot of non-terrorists who are not condeming the bad guys much yet.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Skin colour (more accurately, ethnicity) is not. However, there are many areas in the world where ethnicity and culture are strongly correlated. To ignore this - or, even worse, actively deny it - is folly.

"How to Embarass your country by shooting a Brazillian and lying about what happened until realizing that your country is full of videocameras that caught what really happened 101" taught by the esteemed Dr. Smithy.

Skin only comes in a range of colors, and surprise surprise, God ran out and had to start over again from the beginning.

My issue with profiling is this: In a world with this "profiling" would the guy in Oklahoma City who tried to carry a pipebomb in his carryon have been caught if he didn't match the "profile du jour"? If not, would he have been caught if we were at Terror Level FatWhiteHick? If so, then why aren't we doing to everyone what we only do to the "profiled"?

In case you haven't noticed, more Americans kill each other every year than all the other countries combined. You might want to think about that when you're deciding who to check for guns and knives.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[trickyt83]

I have to wonder, do you seriously think the post I responded to put forth its arguments in a reasonable, balanced and appropriate fashion ? No, rather unreasonable for all the points you mentioned. However, setting the unreasonable portions aside, I do find some logic to the argument. I disagree with one of your statements: If someone has a rational point, then they should be able to make it *with a rational argument*. To me, the problem lies in the definition of rationality. Every human being has their own personal definition of rationality. As it turns out, many societies hold common definitions of rationality. However, that does not require that all individuals of a given community agree on all aspects of rationality. Some Americans believe in Christianity, some believe in Islam. In the current Iranian nuclear crisis, the Iranian president insists that Iran must be treated fairly before it treats the rest of the world fairly. America insists that Iran must act fairly while simultaneously being subjected to threats of economical and "under consideration" threats of invasion. The only way I see out of such a delimma is for one party to yield insistence of the other party's "fairness." Most Westerners will agree that Iran should yield first. Most Islamic fundamentalists will agree that America should yield first. Bombs will continue to explode until someone yields. Surely there is a way of "yielding" while simultaneously protecting one's own interests? In this case, I suspect the definition of "protection" or "national interests" is likely to change before any "yielding" happens. Back to the realm of rational argument making: verbal bombs will continue to explode until one party "yields" by either finding inaccuracies in someone's objective arguments while not responding to stylistic bombs, or the discussion is aborted with no progress (as in this case). One universal truth I follow: There is no objective "always right" perspective. However, when some poor soul who is incapable of making arguments that respect *my* definition of rationality argues with me, the lease I can do is correct the error of his ways not by faulting him, but rather by faulting myself for not defining my sense of rationality more explicitly. I stand corrected.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Moofie]

" Airport security should profile for those types of people who are most likely to attack planes."

Tell me what that profile looks like.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[slocan]

If 'enough' random searches are done then I expect they would be effective. Clearly, it is unresonable to search everybody so it's a trade-off between cost, time and hastle. The exact number of searches you conduct will depend precisely on how you way up these trade-offs. It will also depend on how much training your provide to the people conducting the searches.

If it is a matter of weighing costs and results, it can be efficient, but not effective, necessarily. Efficient being: doing the most possible with the less possible, in a way that acceptable results can be obtained with chances or error that are acceptable too.

Effectiveness would be having the exact desired result. That could only be possible by screening everybody, regardless of perceived profiles and effectiveness (for these imply random errors).

Therefore random screening can only be (statistically) efficient, because, for a sample selected for screening there will always be a chance of error (presumably controlled). The fact is, one can never know when that 5% or 1% error or the "outliers" (data or results not accounted for in a statistical model) will show up.

A conundrum it is. Certainty is always evasive (being temporary. Actually it never is permanent)... if one relies only on rational and human means.

On such matters I would recommend reading a text by Alasdair MacIntyre, actually a chapter of his book "After Virtue". The chpater's title is "The Character of Generalisations in Social Science and their Lack of Predictive Power". Very well written and extremely well thought out.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[AuMatar]

Timothy McVeigh and the Unabomber were hardly part of any kind of organization, nor were they able to find a whole lot of people who had the same goals. So, while I will agree that they were terrorists and more or less white people, they since they did not share a common goal, they are separate entities.

McVeigh was part of an organization- he had accomplices, remember? You overestimate the usefullness of an organization at any rate- McVeigh is responsible for the 2nd biggest attack in the US in terms of lives and property destroyed. The unabomber was responsible for more US attacks than any other man or organization, definitely more than any group of Muslims. QUite frankly these lone gunmen types are a lot more dangerous. If the other type even exists- for all the talk by the government about AlQueda, they have never had another successful attack. Other than a few scattered people afterwards using the name for publicity purposes, we have no proof they even exist. More likely than not, every member of Al-Queada died in the crash.

The IRA agreed to lay down their weapons years ago.

And some did and some didn't. ANd the Sinn Feinn andother similar groups never have.

These people do not represent Christianity and have been so chastised by Christians that they quit (ever hear of Muslims doing that? Me neither)

Yes, I do. Every time something happens you hear a shitload of Imams coming out and derying it. Try listening to something other than Fox News.

when was the last time you heard of an abortion clinic blowing up?

A few years ago. An abortion doctor was killed abotu 6 months ago. Death threats to them are an almost daily occurence.

o, while I will agree that not all of the terrorists are Muslim, I think it is close enough to 100%, to say that all terrorists are Muslim! I mean, at some point, you have to go ahead and round up to 100%

You're looking at a tiny percentage of all terrorist acts, and claiming that nearly all are done by Muslim. Thats whats known as "cooking the data". THe fact is there are a shitload of non-Muslim groups that are quite frankly far more dangerous. Of the 10 greatest terrorist attacks on US soil, 9 were *not* done by Muslims. Your assertions are wrong.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

The point, which everyone else got except for you, is that since Islam is a religion targeting "the Muslims" on the basis of skin color is really, really stupid.

Well, that explains why I didn't get it, since I made no such suggestion.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[fingusernames]

I am -personally- allowed to hate black people, or women, or those with red hair, and refuse entirely to associate with or speak to them. (Note: I don't -support- this behavior in any way, I'm just noting it is allowed!)

OMG! Because, like, for a second there, I was thinking you were, like, some KKK guy or something. Whew!

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

...then their 'gut instincts' will probably be along the lines of 'brown skin == suspicious'...

and then, not knowing C or languages similar in syntax, they will become hopelessly confused by the "=="

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound like you've done this before.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[elakazal]

Huh? The IRA was perceived as terrorists by the vast majority of Americans. Only a small subset of Irish Americans viewed them as anything but.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Fred_A]

As for Poland, I was recently there for a couple weeks, and I never experienced anyone discuss religion.

Oh they don't especially discuss it... however they're the only European state that considered adding religion to the science classes (the evolution thing) and the only state where you just can't do anything if you aren't a christian (kind of like not being communist in the USSR). They're also the ones who lobbied the most to add some religion (guess which) in the late attempt to create a constitution in Europe (well there was Poland, the Vatican, and feeble motions by a couple others to the effect that "yeah, whatever" against a deluge of "WTF has religion got to do with this"). At least their disturbing "Radio Maryja" seems to be past its prime.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear lord! What about the guy in Oklahoma City who tried to take a pipe bomb onboard a plane?

The fact is, sitting down and saying "ok, we only have $x to pay for saving peoples lives, so we're going to do it by wearing blinders and harassing only a very specific set of people because we can't afford to do it for real" is ridiculous. There's got to be better things to spend the money on than this?

Personally, I think we should cancel the TSA and tell the airlines "ok, you're responsibile for your own safety. Do it however you want, but if you get a plane blown out of the sky we're not bailing you out." There is a reason why El Al has had exactly one successful hijacking in its entire history, and its not because the palestinians weren't trying. Nor is it because the Israeli government tells them how to run their show. Yes, it probably means that they will be screening children and grannies, which is probably a good thing based on past history (people trying to get handguns through in a teddy bear?) as well as the accusation made of one couple in Britain who were planning on taking their newborn kid to his death, just so that they could sneak explosives aboard in their baby bottle. Funny that, current TSA regs is bottle=banned, baby+bottle=ok ... guess they just can't keep up with what the Bad People are planning these days.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[honkycat]

They don't actually have to know the criteria to evade them. Did you read the paper a year or two back that showed that targetted searches were provably less secure than random? Basically, all they need to do is send potential agents on "innocent" flights that are not the part of any plot. By tracking who is searched how often, they can build a model of the odds that a particular agent is on a watch list. Then, they an select the least likely to be scrutinized and improve the odds of success. True random searches are the only way to avoid this because there is no strategy for the terrorists that can improve their success rate.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[geminidomino]

Religion is politics for the weak minded.

Then what's that make politics?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[honkycat]

Chakrabarti and Strauss's Term Paper on the subject.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[elakazal]

So basically what you're saying is if you select a bunch of terrorist acts by Muslims, it turns out that they were all done by Muslims! Shocker! It's amazing how the numbers just work out the way you want when you selectively ignore data.

Try telling a Peruvian that all terrorists are Muslim. The Shining Path killed nearly ten times as many people as al-Qaeda.

And I get so sick of the right wing in this country complaining that Muslims don't condemn terrorism. If you don't hear it, then you're not listening for it. Every mainstream Muslim organization has vehemently condemned all of the acts of terrorism you have mentioned above. Al-Qaeda even succeeded in alienating a good portion of the Taliban because of its terrorist acts, which is saying something. These acts are committed by a tiny, tiny radical splinter of the Islamic community...just like the Army of God types are in the Christian community.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

You sound like you've done this before.

I know a few cross-dressers and I know a person who was originally very brown and has now completely depigmented through the use of benoquin (to hide the cosmetic effects of a medical condition). The guy is even muslim, but I have not been able to convince him to go peroxide blond, he's a little sensative about the whole appearance thing and there is no chance of him ever putting on a dress.

So yeah, I sort of have done this before, at least I have personally witnessed just how easy it is to do.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not random. It is determined by a number of factors, a huge one of which is flying standby and/or one way.

You can have randomness that has a non-uniform distribution influenced by a number of factors. As long as there are chances other than 100% and 0%, it's still random.

Of course here there's a case to be made that a uniform distribution is what you want. If the distribution is non-uniform for any reason (be it deliberate profiling or flaws in the randomness), all a terrorist has to do is figure out how to be in the group with smaller chances of screening.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

It is plenty easy compared to the planning involved in 9/11 and others like oplan bojinka - the hardest part is just sitting around waiting for the bleaching to take effect, and you don't even have to do the entire body, just the visible parts.

You seem to have forgotten the part where the person needs to change their behaviour so they don't look like a foreign man pretending to be a swedish woman.

You're also (still) ignoring the part where you're only circumventing a few of potentially dozens of criteria.

And even *that* is assuming your skin-bleaching, etc process produces a result that looks natural.

Meanwhile you've avoided justifying your position that it isn't so easy to use a profiling system against itself. Just what part of "find out the rules, and then avoid the rules" is so complicated?

Indeed. I mean, just what's so hard about interstellar colonisation ? It's simply a matter of finding habitable planets and dropping a few thousand people on them...

If you thinking finding out the rules is the hard part, then consider the phrase "test run."

Indeed, let's consider it. You need to find a statistically significant number of "volunteers" to test the system, all of whom must be essentially identical in all potential criteria - physical attributes and mannerisms (covering everything from way they dress through to how much they sweat when they're lying), flying history, check-in time, method of payment, etc, etc. Then you have to start varying attributes - only one at a time, however - over a statistically significant period of time, to determine what the profiling criteria might be. But you also have to account for randomness, where a search may have been performed not because of any flag being raised, but because the security guard at the time was just having a bad day. At the end of this process (which could itself potentially introduce a feedback loop - for example, by resulting in an "abnormal" amount of flying for that particular type of person) you presumably have a team of people who will only be vulnerable to random searches, as they will not trigger any flags. You then need to carefully balance how many you send - enough to completely the mission, but not so many as to risk one being picked up in a random search and thus blowing the whole operation.

This whole thing, also, hinges on the two *massive* assumptions that a) you can actually assemble a large enough team of people that don't trigger any flags and b) that profiling criteria are both completely static and completely objective.

So, no, it's not just a matter of "find out the rules, and then avoid the rules". Proper profiling systems don't just use simplistic and individual criteria like "brown skin" or "one way ticket". They glue together a whole range of criteria both objective (major physical attributes, payment method, flight type) and subjective (behavioural cues, "gut feeling").

Racial and cultural profiling is all about focusing on characteristics that millions of harmless people also share [...]

Actually its about focusing on the characteristics that the bad guys share. Since the vast majority of people are very similar, however, they're also going to share attributes with the general population.

With random searches there are no loopholes and you don't give the people you most want on your side reason to distrust you.

But you end up wasting equal amounts of resources on targets that do not represent equal levels of threat. It's like saying if you walk into your house being robbed by two men, one of whom is unarmed and one of whom has a pistol, that you should consider each to be of equal threat to your person, when this is almost always going to be the wrong thing to do.

Based on a swag of 1 muslim male per 200 passengers (total muslim population in the usa being approximately 1-2%, 2x-3x higher in europe) and the number of actual terrorists apprehended in any context the numbers are more like 0

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Thangodin]

Don't be so certain that there is no difference in the possibility of terrorism between Muslims and Christians. Christian martyrs go to their death peacefully--that's where we get the psychological concept of the martyr complex: someone who suffers silently while feeling smugly superior. Muslim martyrs die fighting the infidel, and this is not an extremist position, it's right in the Koran and the Haddith, stated over and over and over again. Most people of any religion would not act on this, because people don't like to die, but there is no question that Islam encourages its followers to lay down their lives killing unbelievers, and does not distinguish between civilians and soldiers as targets.

The percentage of the population in the Muslim world who consider suicide bombers martyrs worthy of emulation runs into the double digits in some countries. In England an analysis of the Muslim population and the attitudes amongst them indicates that there are roughly 3000 potential candidates for terrorism--and this is in a Western country with a small Muslim minority. And yes, these attitudes do exist; take a look at this. Violent extremism amongst Muslims is sufficient to intimidate most of the moderates into silence. Those who do speak out against Islamic extremism keep an emergency police phone number on speed dial, because they get death threats, lots of them. You can be fairly confident that criticising Christianity will not get you killed. You can also be fairly certain that if you openly criticize Islam in a way that gets you noticed, you will have to sit down with the police and discuss some fairly advanced security measures, as the likes of Salman Rushdie, Hirsi Ali, Irshad Manji, and Theo Van Gogh (too late) have discovered.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

I had 4S's on my ticket the last time I flew out of the US. At SFO they had a Superman booth where they checked me for traces of chemical weapons, then they checked my carry-on luggage (including laptop and cell phone) manually for chemicals. After all this, I still (ACCIDENTALLY) left a pocket knife in my laptop bag. The 'S'uper 'S'pecial 'S'ervice and 'S'ecurity in fact allowed me to take it on to the plane, so even if they are profiling, they need to train their security a lot better. If I was able to get on-board with a knife, I wonder what some one with no special treatment can get away with. The best security is hidden security where we are not awaer of it. When you are aware of security measures, it's easy to find ways to work around them.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[ArcherB]

The Shining Path killed nearly ten times as many people as al-Qaeda.
Not here they haven't.

And I get so sick of the right wing in this country complaining that Muslims don't condemn terrorism. If you don't hear it, then you're not listening for it.
Oh, I've been listening for it. Lipservice does little to stop radical Muslims. Where are the protests? Where are the marches? Where are the Muslim celebrations when a "big fish" is caught or killed? Those I have not seen. I have seen are Muslims handing out candy in celebration of the 9-11 attacks where 3000 innocent civilians died. I have yet to see a million muslim march on Mecca or anywhere else calling for the end of attacks on civilians in the name of Islam. Instead I see terrorism celebrated.

These acts are committed by a tiny, tiny radical splinter of the Islamic community...just like the Army of God types are in the Christian community.
I keep hearing that terrorists acts are committed by a small fraction of the Islamic community, and I agree. Unfortunately, the larger fraction of the Islamic community sits by silently and does virtually nothing but complain about how they are being mistreated (see CAIR).
I agree with you that "The Army of God" are a bunch of shitheads, but comparing Muslim terrorists to them would only be valid of The Army of God attacked random civilians by the thousands. While I will never support their actions, and feel they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law (and then some), at least their attacks are limited to abortion clinics, not the populace in general.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

Chakrabarti and Strauss's Term Paper on the subject.

I haven't read the whole thing, however, based on a brief skim its conclusions are not relevant to this discussion because the paper is a critique of the *current* profiling system (or, at least, whatever system was current in 1999), a system that relies solely on criteria that can be determined at the ticketing desk. It also points out several flaws in that profiling system which could be rectified (for example, making it easy for the passenger to determine they had been flagged).

Added to that, it also assumes that *only* profiled searches will be used, whereas a properly run system would use both profiled and random searches.

The paper also seems to give disproportional weighting to "non traditional" terrorists. Three exceptions is not a reliable pool of data.

There is a distinction here that needs to be made between a properly run profiling system and a badly run profiling system. The "El Al" standard they talk about is better example of the latter. The paper certainly appears to be a valid critique of the CAPS system in place at the time, but I would be extremely cautious about extending its conclusions any further than that.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[NMerriam]

Suggesting that a young single woman flying out of Sweden with a round-the-world ticket is equally as likely to hijack/destroy the plane as a group of young single "middle eastern" men with one-way tickets flyng out of Saudi Arabia, is letting your idealistic bleeding-heart-leftist-stupidity get in the way of common sense.

No, you're letting your own shortsightedness miss the lessons of history. Terrorists don't have to win any sort of statistical battle, so it doesn't matter who is most likely or least likely to be a terrorist, it only matters who IS a terrorist. And terrorists have shown historically that they will find and use specifically those people who can circumvent the profiling methods you think are so useful.

They don't have to find a million white Swedish pregnant women to join their cult, they only have to find one. It doesn't matter if there were a million young arab men willing to do the mission and only one white girl -- she's the one who will be successful. Just look at the IRA, they made a game out of circumventing attempts at profiling and were quite successful at it. Similar examples can be found in Iraq, Vietnam, WWII, etc, etc.

Be sure to keep your nightlight on, the world is a scary place.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

It's a well known phenomenon that recent converts to a belief or religon are often amongst it's most fierce advocates. For example, people who recently gave up smoking often will be more vocal in it's condemnation than those who never smoked in the first place. Likewise, those who convert to Islam from non-muslim backgrounds are actually surprisingly likely to be in the extreme minorities who would take part in such acts.

Certainly. But my argument is that there relatively few of them, not that they don't exist.

That, and of course the fact that muslims are not the only terrorists in the world (Tim McVeigh was Christian, so are the IRA, UDF, etc) [...]

The context of this discussion is - as far as I know - people trying to blow up aeroplanes in the US. Muslim extremists are, *by far* the most likely candidates for such an act.

[...] and the idea of targetting certain ethnicities is bad.

When there is a strong correlation between between ethnicity and other important factors, why ?

It doesn't make finding the bomber any more likely and it gives the planners a way of lowering the likleyhood of detection.

This conclusion is far from certain. You need evidence to support it or, at the very least, a reasoned argument that can be addressed.

If you know that a white person is even 10% less likely to be stopped you just use a white person and the odds are in your favour.

Why do people like you continue to work under the assumption that a "white person" can just be "dropped in" with the snap of some fingers ? What evidence is bringing you to the conclusion that some "white person" (your term, not mine) is equally as likely to be a suicide bomber ?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

The flaw is that the attacker can always avoid the profile you're trying to detect.

Worse than that, they only need to be able to test the profiling. Assuming we aren't going to start arresting people for merely flying, a would-be terrorist can dry-run his flight any number of times - identical but for leaving the bad stuff at home - and see if he raises any flags. A dozen of his friends can do the same thing, and whoever is noted to be "least profiled" gets the honor of doing the real thing. This is why most pros, along with academics who have run the models, believe random searches are much more effective than any sort of profiling. Any pattern can be detected.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[PrinceOfStorms]

Absolutely not-it is simply suggesting that if such a profile is used, any wannabe terrorist will find a young person to fly out of Sweden and make sure to purchase round-trip tickets in an attempt to duck the "profile." And probably succeed. Suggesting that such people do not exist and such a plot would not be possible is the true folly.

The point is not that such people cannot be terrorists, but that they are less likely to be terrorists. If you have limited resources, you need to decide how best to spend them. There are, I suspect, rather fewer young women from Sweden who would be willing to die for a cause than people from some other groups. If the next attack is based around a young woman from Sweden with a high status career, a husband, and three children, then the value of profiling will be seen as less and the system will eventually correct itself. Basically, profiling is like Bayesian spam filtering; it doesn't always work (with both false positives and negatives) and it needs to adapt over time. But it does provide some information about the likelihood of someone being a terrorist and we would be foolish not to use it if our goal is to prevent potential terrorists from doing certain things. Now if our goal is to control social attitudes, that might change things.

I'll freely admit to it! However, most people (including me) profile on objective and non-bigoted criteria.

So you would react in exactly the same way if a middle-aged black man with visible tatoos and wearing torn clothing was walking toward you in a dark alley as you would if it was a well-dressed, white girl aged around twenty with a cross around her neck? Heck, let's make her a nun just to be even more extreme. If you can honestly say that you would react exactly the same in both cases then congratulations, you're not (as far as I can tell) a bigot.

Now, myself, I generally have found most religions to be shortsighted and ignorant, hence my atheism.

This is an aside, but what has atheism got to do with how religions behave? Atheism is the disbelief in a deity. Either you believe in a deity or you don't.

Yet that is my personal decision, and I've nothing against those who chose otherwise.

This is a pet peeve of mine, so nothing personal in addressing this statement in your post; I could have done the same with plenty of others. So you don't actually believe that you're correct? I really don't buy this "this is my choice and I fully respect people who choose otherwise" thing. If you believe in something (religion, pacificism, vegetarianism, veganism, whatever), then either you believe that this holds only for you or you believe that other people are simply wrong (and how can you respect people for being wrong?). You can't be "open-minded" and believe that your beliefs are correct without qualifying your belief in a ridiculous way (e.g., "men in their thirties with a family history of heart disease should avoid eating meat if their name starts with an A and contains two vowels").

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[1u3hr]

Who are they trying to catch, the really thick terrorists

All terrorists aren't masterminds. First WTC bombing, 1993.

On February 23, Salameh went to a Ryder rental agency to rent the van to carry the bomb. On the morning of February 26, the conspirators gathered at a local Shell gas station where they topped up the tank--one last explosive touch--before driving to Manhattan. Shortly after noon, the bomb went off... Salameh looks to have been deliberately left behind by Yousef, not provided with money he needed for a plane ticket. ... Needing more money for an adult fare, he tried to get his van deposit back by telling the rental agency that the van had been stolen. With either desperate or inane persistence, he returned three times before he was finally arrested on March 4.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Its always *SSSS* for extra screening. The original post was wrong, you will never get *S* *SS* *SSS*.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[NMerriam]

What is it with you people and using incredibly bad assumptions to support blinkered arguments ? Why does every shred of thought, rationality and intelligence fly out the window as soon as the suggestion is made that maybe - just maybe - not everyone is the same ?

Because you're the only person talking about "everyone being the same", in some misguided belief that successful terrorists are statistics rather than rational individuals carrying out a plan.

Profiling people based on behaviors and patterns that are indicators of terrorist activity is useful, because successful terrorists have to engage in preparation that can be detected. Profiling people based on religion, color, ethnicity, national origin, sex, etc, is not useful, because those things (or at least the evidence of those things) can all be picked and chosen specifically to defeat the profile, which ultimately hurts security due to people believing it is effective when it is not.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[ArcherB]

McVeigh was part of an organization- he had accomplices, remember?
McVeigh had an accomplice... one as I recall. Hardly an organization.

McVeigh is responsible for the 2nd biggest attack in the US in terms of lives and property destroyed.
No, Japan is 2nd with Pearl Harbor. The British hold the next several slots with attacks during the war of 1812. McVeigh is further down the list. Of course, that's just attacks on US soil. He falls much further when you include civilians all over the world.

Yes, I do. Every time something happens you hear a shitload of Imams coming out and derying it. Try listening to something other than Fox News.
I do, and all I hear is crickets. I do remember Muslims handing out candy on 9-11. I have yet to see the Million Muslim March on Mecca denouncing terrorism.

A few years ago. An abortion doctor was killed abotu 6 months ago.
So if we have on abortion doctor killed every six months, in 1500 years, assuming that there are no more Muslim terrorist attacks by then, I'll put abortion doctor killers in the same league as Al Qaeda.

You're looking at a tiny percentage of all terrorist acts, and claiming that nearly all are done by Muslim. Thats whats known as "cooking the data".
All I've cooked is dinner. Here are some of the attacks by Muslims from 2001 to 2003 from The State Dept. Be sure to read the whole list and tell me that Muslims make up a tiny percentage of terrorist attacks.

Airliner Hijacking in Istanbul, March 15, 2001: Three Chechens hijacked a Russian airliner during a flight from Istanbul to Moscow and forced it to fly to Medina, Saudi Arabia. The plane carried 162 passengers and a crew of 12. After a 22-hour siege during which more than 40 passengers were released, Saudi security forces stormed the plane, killing a hijacker, a passenger, and a flight attendant.

Bus Stop Bombing, April 22, 2001: A member of HAMAS detonated a bomb he was carrying near a bus stop in Kfar Siva, Israel, killing one person and injuring 60.

Philippines Hostage Incident, May 27, 2001: Muslim Abu Sayyaf guerrillas seized 13 tourists and 3 staff members at a resort on Palawan Island and took their captives to Basilan Island. The captives included three U.S. citizens: Guellermo Sobero and missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham. Philippine troops fought a series of battles with the guerrillas between June 1 and June 3 during which 9 hostages escaped and two were found dead. The guerrillas took additional hostages when they seized the hospital in the town of Lamitan. On June 12, Abu Sayyaf spokesman Abu Sabaya claimed that Sobero had been killed and beheaded; his body was found in October. The Burnhams remained in captivity until June 2002.

Tel-Aviv Nightclub Bombing, June 1, 2001: HAMAS claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing of a popular Israeli nightclub that caused over 140 casualties.

HAMAS Restaurant Bombing, August 9, 2001: A HAMAS-planted bomb detonated in a Jerusalem pizza restaurant, killing 15 people and wounding more than 90. The Israeli response included occupation of Orient House, the Palestine Liberation Organization's political headquarters in East Jerusalem.

Suicide Bombing in Israel, September 9, 2001: The first suicide bombing carried out by an Israeli Arab killed 3 persons in Nahariya. HAMAS claimed responsibility.

Death of "the Lion of the Panjshir", September 9, 2001: Two suicide bombers fatally wounded Ahmed Shah Massoud, a leader of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, which had opposed both the Soviet occupation and the post-Soviet Taliban government. The bombers posed as journalists and were apparently linked to al-Qaida. The Northern Alliance did not confirm Massoud's death until September 15.

Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Homeland, September 11, 2001: Two hijacked airliners crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Soon thereafter, the Pentagon was struck by

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[LordLucless]

Ah, you're RIGHT! You mean like white Baptists from Mississippi! We must bar them at once from boarding an airplane!

Wait, did that just sound silly? I bet it did! Why? Because it's a hideously bigoted statement, but it's bigoted against those who are more like the picture of "us"

No, it sounded stupid because no white Baptists from Mississippi have been flying aeroplanes into buildings lately. If you were going to restrict, say, the distribution of addresses of local abortion clinics, then maybe you'd have a good reason to profile for white Mississipian Christians rather than young male Muslims.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Any time civilians are purposefully targeted with the use of violence for political effect it is terrorism. The identity of the doer does not decide whether it is terrorism or not.

Which makes the US responsible for the largest ever terrorist attack in human history - the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

Because you're the only person talking about "everyone being the same", in some misguided belief that successful terrorists are statistics rather than rational individuals carrying out a plan.

False.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[NMerriam]

True.

No, wait...damn, is this multiple choice or essay?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anarke_Incarnate]

Well Hello, Mr Cheney. I was wondering when you would arrive :)

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[LordLucless]

I'm with you on the IRA and abortion-bombers (haven't heard of the Shining Path), but I don't think you can class Timothy McVeigh or the Unabomber as terrorists. Of course, it depends on your definition of terrorist. To my understanding, "terrorist" means some person or some group trying to achieve political ends through inspiring terror, which usually included unexpected, unprovoked attacks against civilians.

The Unabomber and Timothy McVeigh weren't terrorists, anymore than, say, the Columbine boys. They were mass-murderers, they were psycho, but, as far as I know, none of them had a political agenda they were trying to push - like, say, the removal of the US presence in the Middle East, outlawing of abortion or Irish independance from England.

That is different from how you seem to use the word; you seem to be going on the definition of "killed a lot of innocent people". Both are bad, but they are both different. The difference is important, because it gives you ways of getting into the mind of the perpetrators, and helping you guess what they plan to do and how they plan to do it. Stopping a crazy whackjob is hard, because they're unpredictable. A terrorist organisation whose stated purpose is US withdrawal from the Middle East is easier to predict, however, if not easier to stop. You can assume they're going to target US citizens (or allies). If they are geographically based, then you can assume most members will have been to that geographical region recently. You can tell that certain actions (more troops moving into Iraq, say) are likely to result in increased terrorist activity.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[WaltFrench]

I'd think most Slashdotters have to be very careful in parsing the meanings in the documentation that describes their work tools. And many of us have more than a smidge of mathematical training. Why don't I see evidence of those skills here?

For starters, a uniform random search stragegy -- every person, at checkin, has a x% chance of getting the 10-minute full scan -- is universally understood as a wasteful, hopelessly impractical way to catch potential bad guys. Because x% would probably be something like 0.5%. Somebody with something to hide would (more or less rightly) figure his chances of being caught were as good as nil.

So chuck the simplistic sense of random. Nobody believes it, or wants you to.

Incorporating other attributes into the mix doesn't make it non-random. For example, one-way ticket buyers might get a one-in-five chance of a full check. That'd still be random. (Or pseudo-random, the common kind of "random" number generators in PC's.) The stock market is (nearly) random in that sense. On a given day, the S&P 500 will gain by a percentage that looks a lot like if God drew a random number from a normal (0 , 1%) distribution. Anybody who knows the real, non-random formula in advance is invited to contact me.

Quasi-randomness has been my experience. For a while, my occasional one-way flights (usually, a dog-leg flight on a different airline than my origin/return flights) were pretty likely to trigger the search. It's been a while now, but it still happens.

Push enough buttons -- one-way ticket, bought the day before, paid in cash, not a frequent flyer, soundex match against names on the No-fly list -- and you could get pretty close to 100%, and still have a "random" "excuse me."

Even if it were entirely deterministic, you'd want people to be told it's random. First, it leaves ambiguity about the formula for prospective baddies to worry about. Second, you don't want people going ballistic because some TSA type says, "excuse me, I don't like something about your ticket." Travel is stressful enough as it is without people raging about America having morphed into a Gulag.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[ArcherB]

ETA. IRA. Ulster Unionists. Tamil Tigers. Aum Shinrikyo. RAF. Clinic bombers. Unabomber. Hate groups like Nazis attacking immigrants in some parts of Europe. KKK. FARC. Jewish Defense League.

That's just off the top of my head.

That's just off the top of my head.

Granted, if you go back 30 years, about half of the attacks are by Muslims. So if Islam did not exist, there would have been half the terrorist attacks. Muslims should be so proud! However, that number chages drastically when you look at the past 5 years. Muslims make up the VAST majority of attacks while most of the other groups you mentioned have fallen silent by comparison.
Here are the attacks by Muslims from March of 2001 to Dec 2003 from here:

Airliner Hijacking in Istanbul, March 15, 2001: Three Chechens hijacked a Russian airliner during a flight from Istanbul to Moscow and forced it to fly to Medina, Saudi Arabia. The plane carried 162 passengers and a crew of 12. After a 22-hour siege during which more than 40 passengers were released, Saudi security forces stormed the plane, killing a hijacker, a passenger, and a flight attendant.

Bus Stop Bombing, April 22, 2001: A member of HAMAS detonated a bomb he was carrying near a bus stop in Kfar Siva, Israel, killing one person and injuring 60.

Philippines Hostage Incident, May 27, 2001: Muslim Abu Sayyaf guerrillas seized 13 tourists and 3 staff members at a resort on Palawan Island and took their captives to Basilan Island. The captives included three U.S. citizens: Guellermo Sobero and missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham. Philippine troops fought a series of battles with the guerrillas between June 1 and June 3 during which 9 hostages escaped and two were found dead. The guerrillas took additional hostages when they seized the hospital in the town of Lamitan. On June 12, Abu Sayyaf spokesman Abu Sabaya claimed that Sobero had been killed and beheaded; his body was found in October. The Burnhams remained in captivity until June 2002.

Tel-Aviv Nightclub Bombing, June 1, 2001: HAMAS claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing of a popular Israeli nightclub that caused over 140 casualties.

HAMAS Restaurant Bombing, August 9, 2001: A HAMAS-planted bomb detonated in a Jerusalem pizza restaurant, killing 15 people and wounding more than 90. The Israeli response included occupation of Orient House, the Palestine Liberation Organization's political headquarters in East Jerusalem.

Suicide Bombing in Israel, September 9, 2001: The first suicide bombing carried out by an Israeli Arab killed 3 persons in Nahariya. HAMAS claimed responsibility.

Death of "the Lion of the Panjshir", September 9, 2001: Two suicide bombers fatally wounded Ahmed Shah Massoud, a leader of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, which had opposed both the Soviet occupation and the post-Soviet Taliban government. The bombers posed as journalists and were apparently linked to al-Qaida. The Northern Alliance did not confirm Massoud's death until September 15.

Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Homeland, September 11, 2001: Two hijacked airliners crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Soon thereafter, the Pentagon was struck by a third hijacked plane. A fourth hijacked plane, suspected to be bound for a high-profile target in Washington, crashed into a field in southern Pennsylvania. The attacks killed 3,025 U.S. citizens and other nationals. President Bush and Cabinet officials indicated that Usama Bin Laden was the prime suspect and that they considered the United States in a state of war with international terrorism. In the aftermath of the attacks, the United States formed the Global Coalition Against Terrorism.

Attack on the Jammu and Kashmir Legislature, October 1, 2001: After a suicide car bomber forced the gate of the state legislature in Srinagar, two gunmen entered the building and held off police for seven hours before being killed. Forty persons died in the incident. Jaish-e-Muhammad claimed responsibility.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

You're also (still) ignoring the part where you're only circumventing a few of potentially dozens of criteria.

No, YOU moved past that point when you said your example was only a quickly made up hypothetical one.

And even *that* is assuming your skin-bleaching, etc process produces a result that looks natural.

It is completely indistinguishable from very fair caucasian skin - if anything it is too perfect, the result is near flawless skin that many women would kill for for since all of the pigmentation imperfections are removed. Looks a little weird on a guy, but very nice on a woman, or a female impersonator. Not that it matters since you are the one who said that it was only something you made up without much thought.

But you end up wasting equal amounts of resources on targets that do not represent equal levels of threat. It's like saying if you walk into your house being robbed by two men, one of whom is unarmed and one of whom has a pistol, that you should consider each to be of equal threat to your person, when this is almost always going to be the wrong thing to do.

Again the presumption that the characteristics that matter can be profiled. This line of thinking seems to run through all of your examples and most of your presumptions. It is NOTHING like chosing between the guy with the gun and the guy without a gun or the high-crime area vs the low crime area, etc, etc. On one hand you argue that "profiling" uses all kinds of subtle, hard to guess criteria but everytime you either list a possible criteria or make up an example, its all about blatant obvious stuff.

It is not magic. There is only so much information readily available. If you want to use non-readily available information then you get to go back and answer your own question about invasion of privacy.

The problem is that all of the stuff that "stupid, idealistic, bleeding-heart-leftists" object to when profiling is discussed - the kind of stuff you listed in your hypothetical example about young, single, middle-eastern men from saudi - are all characteristics that don't matter. They are easily circumvented, and have such high rates of false positives, that they produce results that are less effective than completely random choices.

If there is something I'm missing here, please list just two such profileable attributes that really are both meaningful and non-obvious.

This whole thing, also, hinges on the two *massive* assumptions that a) you can actually assemble a large enough team of people that don't trigger any flags and b) that profiling criteria are both completely static and completely objective

Objectivity has nothing to do with it. Testability is all that matters and when you introduce randomness into the system, that only supports my point that random is more effective than targeting statisticly meaningless characteristics.

Furthermore, a formal and comprehensive proof is not a requirement - there are heuristics that can rapidly narrow the search space - like reading web sites where travelers post their experiences in discussions like this one. You don't have to find out what it takes to get stopped, all you have to do is find out what it takes to not get stopped.

You continue to assume that the "loopholes" in a properly designed and run profiling system will be unchanging, objective, easy to identify and trivial to circumvent. These assumptions are questionable, to say the least.

Based on all the information available to me - including the whole "S" on the ticket method being used in the USA, it is a very reasonable assumption to make. You talk about this stuff like it is magic, and you haven't shown one feasible criteria that isn't also easily inferred and then circumvented. If you can't explain it, why do you believe in it so strongly?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anarke_Incarnate]

Some here still care. People like to believe the bed-time stories they are told (many are made up). I don't claim to have the answers to the problem. I just think that more people need to stop worrying about their shiny new car, or their plasma screen TV and worry about their fellow humans.

This means be a good neighbor. Watch out for each other, while at the same time, minding your own business (as long as nobody is getting hurt). Learn to protect yourself and those you care about. And, if you feel that you can do so and be RESPONSIBLE about it, get a gun, learn to use it and pray that you never have to.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[identity0]

Besides, what if you find out your holy leader was wrong, and you get your 72 virgins in-flight? Hells yeah, I'm bringin' them back to my Jihad Crib, if you know what I mean.

I'd be pissed if I only had a one-way ticket then...

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[ArcherB]

The vast majority of all terrorist acts (over 80%) are domestic in nature. This is another thing you don't learn if your only source of information is Ann Coulter on FOX, like the poster I was replying to.

Those who spout statements like "all terrorists are Muslim" deserve to get ridiculed by everyone with an elementary school education.

OK, but I think it's safe to say that the VAST MAJORITY of terrorist attacks in the past five years have been committed by Muslims. You are free to go here and see for yourself. (and that source is neither Ann Coulter nor Fox News since you seem to have a bias against both)

So, before you put your elementary school education to good use, you should do a little research.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[ArcherB]

You can try and be PC all you want, but the fact is that a vast majority of current terrorism somehow involves Muslims. Maybe there's something in their religion which drives them to it.

It's in the Koran.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[elakazal]

Oh, so you have to kill Americans to count as terrorists? Those silly Peruvians.

One could make the same the same claim about "lip service" about most of the "right to life" movement. They may say they don't support bombings and killing doctors, but I don't see them out protesting it. Where were the wild pro-life celebrations in the street when Eric Rudolph was captured? Come on.

There were large protests against al-Qaeda and in support of the U.S. throughout the muslim world and among the American Muslim community after 9/11. Persistent demonization of Muslims by the American right and the invasion of an Islamic country by the U.S. have dampened that enthusiasm, but the vast majority are still more pro-U.S. than pro al-Qaeda.

Have you ever even had a conversation with an actual Muslim? The Muslims I know routinely complain of the damage al-Qaeda has done to the perception of their faith, though many do it privately among friends, rather than in a public setting, because frankly being vocally Muslim in this country, regardless of the sentiment expressed, isn't that smart at the moment.

As for the Army of God, Eric Rudolph attacked random civilians in the general populace in the Olympic Park bombing.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[AuMatar]

No, Japan is 2nd with Pearl Harbor. The British hold the next several slots with attacks during the war of 1812. McVeigh is further down the list. Of course, that's just attacks on US soil. He falls much further when you include civilians all over the world.

Well, if you want to count military operations- the vast majority of terrorists are white, in an organization called "The United States Armed Forces" with thousands of deaths, tens of thousands of injuries and hundreds of rapes over the past few years. Not counting various kidnappings and tortures.

Oh, I forgot, you're a right wing racist blowhard. Its ok when we do these things. My appologies.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[radish]

Certainly. But my argument is that there relatively few of them, not that they don't exist.
Compared to the number of Muslims in the world a vanishingly small number of them are potential terrorists, yet they seem worthy of our attention, don't they?

The context of this discussion is - as far as I know - people trying to blow up aeroplanes in the US. Muslim extremists are, *by far* the most likely candidates for such an act.
Actually, I'm interested in such attacks anywhere (not being a USian myself). But regardless, on what evidence do you base this supposition? Certainly not past history - I can't think of any incident of a Muslim blowing up a plane in the US (or even attempting to do so, other than Richard Reid). Looking at who has actually blown things up in the US recently (Oklahoma, Atlanta, Unabomber, etc) I don't see "being Muslim" as a very obvious indicator. Remember, the 9/11 plane hikackings were just that - hijackings - not bombs.

This conclusion is far from certain. You need evidence to support it or, at the very least, a reasoned argument that can be addressed.

I really have to explain this? It's so elementary (although take a look at someone like Bruce Schnier for a much better written argument). Take 100 people, give one of them a bomb. Conduct random 1 in 10 searches - you have a 10% chance of searching the bomber (of course, a less than 10% chance of actually finding the device, but I digress). Now, let's suppose half are white and half are non-white. We'll assume (for whatever reason) that the non-whites are more likely to be bombers and skew the searches to towards them, say 7 to 3. Now, if the bomb is being carried by a non-white we have a greater chance (7/50=14%) chance of finding it. But if it's being carried by a white person we have a substantially smaller chance (3/50=6%) of finding it. As the mastermind, I don't need to find a "substantial number" of white people willing to carry bombs (or even who I can secretly plant bombs on, or threaten/blackmail or whatever) - I only need to find 1, and my chances of escaping detection are very much higher. Remember - past attacks have shown a great deal of imagination and a great deal of careful planning. To assume that a planner wouldn't think of this and be able to put it into action would be very naive.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing that intelligence lead targetting of resources is a bad thing, far from it - it's the only effective way of dealing with the enourmous number of people and risks. I'm arguing that assuming white people (or any other arbitrary category like young or old or married or single) pose a greater or lesser risk is foolish. Think about it - how many times have bombs actually been found by security screening? Compare that to how many times plots have been uncovered and thwarted by the traditional covert security services and police using conventional techniques like infiltration and comms interception.

Why do people like you continue to work under the assumption that a "white person" can just be "dropped in" with the snap of some fingers ? What evidence is bringing you to the conclusion that some "white person" (your term, not mine) is equally as likely to be a suicide bomber ?
Ahh the old "people like me" line. Please don't generalise, it's offensive and makes you look kinda dumb.

But again, I digress. I assume that a white person can be "dropped in" because I don't see why it would be so difficult. There's nothing (that I can see) which would make a white Muslim any less likely to be a bomber than a non-white one. Sure there are less white Muslims, but there are enough to form a pool to draw candidates from. And, as I mentioned, don't neglect the possibility that the bomber may be unknowing or unwilling.

And as one last point, before I leave, consider this. Richard Reid is British, has a non-Muslim name, is of non-middle eastern extraction (he's part white, part Jamaican) and is exactly the kind of person you'd actually want to search (be

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[AuMatar]

To my understanding, "terrorist" means some person or some group trying to achieve political ends through inspiring terror, which usually included unexpected, unprovoked attacks against civilians.

I'd agree with this definition. And under it, both McVeigh and the Unibomber qualify. The Unibomber, while undoubtedly nuts, had a political philosophy he was working for- he even published a manifesto. McVeigh had several political reasons: revenge for the deaths of the Branch Davidians, and the deaths of the Weavers at Ruby Ridge, and fear of a federal police state. Actually not very different from Middle East terrorist groups, who frequently stage attacks as revenge for other groups.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[ArcherB]

While I agree with much of what you say, I take issue with this statement:
Dubya claiming to be "in communication with God" and then bombing civilians.

Can you tell me where Bush, or any other US President since Nixon intentionally bombed civilians?

I didn't think so.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[jambarama]

I think if we are going to do extra searches, we may as well make them as likely to turn up something, as possible. That means, no random searches (or only semi-random searches). There is little reason to believe 90 year old grannies are going to blow up planes, if they make it through the first security checkpoint, no random checks on them. The same goes for certain other groups of people (if you are afraid of terrorists getting grannies to do thier work for them, you could rotate the "out" profiles).

But profiling isn't fair. It isn't just to Arabs to check them for no reason other than race. So here is what I propose we do. Charge each passenger an extra dollar. Do profiling in our searches, or semi-random searches. Take the extra dollar/passenger (anywhere between $50 for a small plane to $300 for large ones) and give it to those we inconvenience. "I'm sorry for inconveniencing you Mr. Terry Rist, but here is $100 for compensation."

Then not only are those who were profiled not as mad (and perhaps happier), but other passengers will be happy too because - no one's time was wasted by interrogating granny, and those more likely to attack a plane have been checked twice. Everyone is safer, and freqently profiled people (such as myself) are compensated for their troubles.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Moofie]

When a TSA employee tells me I only have "one more chance" to get through the metal detector, and then I have to pull my pants down and spread-eagle in front of a bunch of my fellow travelers, my rights have been violated.

I was wearing jeans and a button-down shirt. No belt. Nothing metal. I was, of course, barefoot, because I agreed to the "optional" shoe X-ray. (that was suggested by a very large TSA guard standing in front of me.)

Just because you're into that sort of thing doesn't mean the rest of us are.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Keebler71]

Which right is that again? Please consult your copy of the Constitution and get back to me.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[honkycat]

This is certainly a complex subject which is difficult for an armchair observer to understand completely. Plus, it's extremely difficult to evaluate the success rates given the rarity of events. However, I'm often skeptical that the efforts put in place justify their costs, both in terms of dollars and morale. Your points are well-founded (and I have not read in great detail, either). However, a couple things to consider.

First, I think it's a dubious proposition that you can do much to prevent agents from measuring their susceptibility to additional scrutiny. Unless you can perform extra searches unbeknownst to the searchee, it's going to be difficult to battle the strategy of simply going "dark" (to prevent contact with other agents setting off a new profiling flag), traveling repeatedly over some period of time, determining whether one is being searched more than average, and then using this to determine whether one is a good candidate for carrying out a mission.

Second, unless you're sure the profiled searches are better than random, you're better off putting all your efforts into performing as many random searches as possible. Without more knowledge of the efficacy and costs of "modern" profiling, it's really hard to judge this.

Anyway, my biggest problem with all this is that it's essentially impossible to measure the actual effectiveness of any of these measures. Terrorist events are so rare that you can't just divide hits by total attempts and come up with a percentage. Add to this that most of the details of the measures are (often by necessity) kept confidential, it's very difficult to watchdog the system for abuse. Given the less-than-stellar record of governments (not just US) actually respecting the rights of citizens when not under strict scrutiny, I tend to have very little patience for the "Trust us" mantra that seems to be so common.

I guess this doesn't really affect the mathematical question of random versus profiled scrutiny. However, it's hard to separate these questions -- without information about the profiling, it's hard to reach an independent conclusion as to whether the costs of profiling are justified.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[sammy baby]

Yeah, yeah. It's possible. IIRC however it's consider an afront to God for a man to dress in womans clothing, whether the end would justify the means in terms of shari'ah? I'm not sure.

Strip clubs are considered a no-no too, but several of the 9/11 hijackers attended one prior to their mission.

Not that I'm defending profiling. Just sayin'.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Corbets]

On a side note, my wife is in the military and we have to go through "random" security screenings for our cars. Somehow my Saturn gets nailed 10 to 1 over my wife's car every month. There are times when I just want to run the damn guards over.

Based on that last comment, it would seem like they're searching the right person then. no? :)

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Moofie]

Pop quiz, hotshot. Which amendment is this?

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[tzadic]

And you just know that originally it was only going to be SS for Special Screening, and then somebody pointed out the obvious...

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

No, YOU moved past that point when you said your example was only a quickly made up hypothetical one.

My example was only ever a quickly made up hypothetical one and never even suggested as representative of a comprehensive, full profiling system. I would have thought that was blatantly fucking obvious to anyone with sufficient intelligence to compile a posting to Slashdot, mainly because of its incredibly simplistic and stereotypical nature, but clearly I've underestimated the bounds of human stupidity yet again.

It is completely indistinguishable from very fair caucasian skin - if anything it is too perfect, the result is near flawless skin that many women would kill for for since all of the pigmentation imperfections are removed. Looks a little weird on a guy, but very nice on a woman, or a female impersonator.

Right. So it doesn't look especially natural at all, is what you're saying. As I suspected it wouldn't.

Not that it matters since you are the one who said that it was only something you made up without much thought.

No, it doesn't matter because your "simple plan" is an "only in the movies" idea. Something makes me think you saw "White Chicks" a few too many times.

Again the presumption that the characteristics that matter can be profiled.

So long as the bad guys continue to exhibit certain common characteristics, *they can be*.

This line of thinking seems to run through all of your examples and most of your presumptions. It is NOTHING like chosing between the guy with the gun and the guy without a gun or the high-crime area vs the low crime area, etc, etc. On one hand you argue that "profiling" uses all kinds of subtle, hard to guess criteria but everytime you either list a possible criteria or make up an example, its all about blatant obvious stuff.

Probably because my examples are not meant to be comprehensive.

The problem is that all of the stuff that "stupid, idealistic, bleeding-heart-leftists" object to when profiling is discussed - the kind of stuff you listed in your hypothetical example about young, single, middle-eastern men from saudi - are all characteristics that don't matter. They are easily circumvented, and have such high rates of false positives, that they produce results that are less effective than completely random choices.

They're only circumventable if you have a suitably large pool of people who don't match them at your disposal.

If there is something I'm missing here, please list just two such profileable attributes that really are both meaningful and non-obvious.

It is my understanding that suitably well trained behavioral analysts can identify people who are acting "unnaturally", based on both passive observation and active questioning.

Just because some criteria are "obvious", doesn't mean they should be ignored. Not leaving your car keys behind the sun blind is an "obvious" way to avoid having your car stolen, but don't think a thief won't look there on the off chance you did.

Objectivity has nothing to do with it. Testability is all that matters and when you introduce randomness into the system, that only supports my point that random is more effective than targeting statisticly meaningless characteristics.

I was referring to the way criteria would change over time. However, a well designed security system would certainly use random as well as targeted flagging.

Furthermore, a formal and comprehensive proof is not a requirement - there are heuristics that can rapidly narrow the search space - like reading web sites where travelers post their experiences in discussions like this one. You don't have to find out what it takes to get stopped, all you have to do is find out what it takes to not get stopped.

The current system defaults to "not getting stopped". Therefore, the only reliable way to circumvent it would be to determine what it takes to get stopped - otherwise you could never be

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[LordLucless]

But what did they want done? Terrorism is sort of like a hostage situation: meet my demands, or I'll continue my activities. Withdraw your troops, or we'll keep attacking the US. Close abortion clinics, or we'll keep bombing. Get out of Ireland, or we'll kill you. The goal is political, the actual killing a means to an end. In the case of the Unabomber, he made no demands initially - he just sent out the bombs. He demanded his manifesto be published (according to Wikipedia) in 1995, 17 years after he started bombing. It seems fairly clear that destruction was his goal (which is supported by his manifesto), not just a means to an end. The same for McVeigh. He wanted revenge; his objective was to kill people, he didn't have a political goal that he was using the threat of violence to achieve, he was killing because he wanted people dead.

Terrorists can be negotiated with, and caved-in to. It may be a bad idea, but it can be done. If the US pulled out all resources from the Middle East, I'd expect groups attacks from groups like al-Quaeda to be reduced; they've achieved their goal. Likewise, the English pulling out from Ireland would likely have reduced attacks from the IRS. But what can you do stop someone who just wants to kill people?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[ArcherB]

Well, if you want to count military operations- the vast majority of terrorists are white, in an organization called "The United States Armed Forces" with thousands of deaths, tens of thousands of injuries and hundreds of rapes over the past few years. Not counting various kidnappings and tortures.

Oh, I forgot, you're a right wing racist blowhard. Its ok when we do these things. My appologies.

Yes, of course... America is evil. It does not matter that the US military has not targeted civilians since Vietnam. It doesn't matter that the US military prosecutes those found to be even slightly abusive to civilians or terrorists, because people like you lie through your teeth when you claim things like "hundreds of rapes". If you say it enough times, it must be true. Also, I think my black, hispanic and asian friends I know from my years serving in the US military may take offence to being called "white". Why don't you go find a SGT Castillo or SPC Glover and call them "white rapists" and see how they respond.

Oh, I forgot, you are a left wing communist nut-job who calls a white guy with a hispanic wife and daughter a "racist blowhard". Evidently to you, all who disagree with your point of view must be racists, biggots, baby-killers or whatever the bad word of the day is. You can say stuff like that to me because I'll shake it off because I know you are borderline retarted. However, I wouldn't call my baby's daddy a racist because her mother or her aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents will not be so forgiving.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[C10H14N2]

I ALWAYS get the extra-special treatment. I'm DEFINITELY being profiled. Why? I often fly on one-way tickets, to multiple destinations, with multiple-class itineraries (first one way, coach the other) and I've got travel to about twenty countries on my ICE file, which is a bit high by American standards. Last time I walked through US Customs after an extended period outside the country, the official said, with extra inflection, "what DO you do for a living?" Yes, they're profiling...but it's not on "he's a darkie." It's "this person is, as they say, 'of interest.'" I'm sure there's a bit of randomness built in, but for those that get hit all the time, you're most likely being flagged by CAPS (5-10% are, btw.), not the airport staff. If you get the scarlet letter at the ticket counter, you can be all but guaranteed that is the case. Of course, you'll never know if or why...

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[KDR_11k]

Also, separating Texas would mean Bush is no longer born in the US and as such not eligible for presidency...

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

ETA. IRA. Ulster Unionists. Tamil Tigers. Aum Shinrikyo. RAF. Clinic bombers. Unabomber. Hate groups like Nazis attacking immigrants in some parts of Europe. KKK. FARC. Jewish Defense League.

Exactly, don't underestimate the terrorist potential of the Royal Air Force ...

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

First, I think it's a dubious proposition that you can do much to prevent agents from measuring their susceptibility to additional scrutiny.

Ensuring there are also random searches in addition to targeted ones and putting significant effort into making sure a target never knows whether or not he is being searched due to triggering a flag condition, would help immensely. For example, searches should be carried out in a "blind" fashion, with the searcher *not* being the person who selected the searchee.

Unless you can perform extra searches unbeknownst to the searchee, it's going to be difficult to battle the strategy of simply going "dark" (to prevent contact with other agents setting off a new profiling flag), traveling repeatedly over some period of time, determining whether one is being searched more than average, and then using this to determine whether one is a good candidate for carrying out a mission.

Certainly, given sufficient time, the criteria could eventually be determined and possible steps taken to circumvent them. However, it may well be that in the process of researching these criteria, they begin to become interlinked. For example, the "tester" might need to fly the system ten times before they start to get an idea of what types of clothes, baggage, payment methods, etc are considering "normal". But if they were to be averaging, say, a flight every week doing this, then suddenly didn't fly for three months (while preparing for an attack) they might find on their attack run that their absence from the system has resulted in them triggering a different flag condition.

Anyway, my biggest problem with all this is that it's essentially impossible to measure the actual effectiveness of any of these measures. Terrorist events are so rare that you can't just divide hits by total attempts and come up with a percentage. Add to this that most of the details of the measures are (often by necessity) kept confidential, it's very difficult to watchdog the system for abuse.

Note that with a suitable system in place, opportunity for abuse by individuals should be relatively rare. Going back to my previous example, if the "selector" and the "searcher" are different people (ideally unknown to each other), then that removes one motivation the "selector" might have to only select certain types of people. Another way might be having the "random" checks triggered by a computer, rather than a person.

I can agree it's very difficult to assess the true effectiveness of such a system because of the relative rarity of terrorist events. However, it seems silly to me to waste resources on individuals that we can - to a large degree objectively - say have a very low probability of being a bad guy.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Tesko]

"The best thing the Muslim community as a whole - but especially its leaders - could do is unequivocally condemn terrorism committed in the name of Islam and take steps to both prevent and punish it. But it doesn't appear to be doing that. "


Now, I don't know about the good ol US of A, but here in Canada, whenever I've read articles in the local papers concerning Islamic extremists, there has ALWAYS been a note of how the local Islamic/Muslim/etc. organizations/religious groups have condemned those persons actions.

So, perhaps the Muslim community IS condemning it, and you're either not looking for such examples, or not looking in the right places.

Now, as far as preventing it, they can do no more than condemn in written and spoken word. As far as punishing it, what could they realistically do? Say there's a scenario where a member of a local Muslim community in "Any-Town, North America" blows themselves up in a military recruiting office, purportedly to "punish" those who occupy their Holy Land and murder their people (as they would claim). How could the Muslim community punish such an individual when said invididual is already dead at their own hands? Their family? Who's to say their family should be held responsible for the actions and beliefs of a family member? In truth, their is no way to "punish it".

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[DeadboltX]

This is false, the SSSS stands for "secondary screening something something"
You will either see all 4 S's or no S's at all, it is not a point system where you get 1 S per flag.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

full profiling system. I would have thought that was blatantly fucking obvious to anyone with sufficient intelligence to compile a posting to Slashdot,

I was waiting for that. You've shown that you have painted yourself into a corner.

Right. So it doesn't look especially natural at all, is what you're saying. As I suspected it wouldn't.

Lol. I've seen it myself, you haven't. More corner painting.

It is my understanding that suitably well trained behavioral analysts can identify people who are acting "unnaturally", based on both passive observation and active questioning.

You do realize that you have strayed completely from the "stupid, idealistic, bleeding-heart-leftists" profiling system that you initially proposed, right?

I believe the Israelis have an excellent system that uses numerous procedures, scenarios and cues to screen passengers (and baggage) and allocate certain travellers more "attention" by security than others.

Allow me to quote from the paper you just read -- El Al's security system works from the assumption that every passenger is a threat

That is no longer about, "directing scarce resources where they are most likely to produce a positive result." El Al gives EVERYONE massive amounts of attention -- As El Al's president, David Hermesh, stated, "If you're a passenger on El Al, most likely you will be observed from the minute that you left your car or you have been dropped off."

Holding up El Al as an example anything even remotely feasible for the majority of the world, especially given the comparitively miniscule risk, is just silly.

Do not use the example of a plainly broken implementation to insist a theory is unworkable. It's just lazy thinking.

Its the only example we've got, plus common sense. Your theory has morphed from racial and cultural profiling to behavioural analysis under dissection, although you still appear to have faith in some sort of massive system that is itself either information starved or big brother incarnate.

I'll agree that some level of behavioural analysis has potential, although I can even think of simple ways to mess with that (e.g. $300 round of botox shots to the face kills visible evidence of anxiety, another $300's worth of shots to the sweat glands stops perspiration, and another $300 will prevent migranes in case the terrorist is subject to them too). If I can come up with that in about 2 minutes, I am sure somebody spending years on the effort can do much better.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, in many parts of the world, intolerant and short-sighted religious beliefs are a significant contributor to culture.

Al, Mi, Mo, Fl, Ga, Tn, ...

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[quintesse]

Those definitions would make all freedom fighters in history terrorists, in fact it would make the entire US a terrorist state for the unlawful uprising against England, France etc.

Declaring war might make it "lawful" but that would mean the US attack on Irak is a terrorist act as well (they can't seem to agree anyway if that is a "police action" or a full-blown "war") because it sure as hell is political and pretty coercive.

I tend to agree with the GP that anytime you're willingly and knowingly attacking civilians you are committing an act of terrorism. So yes, that would include the WW2 bombings of German cities and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And it is good that people ask themselves at times if all of that was necessary.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

Pop quiz, hotshot. Which amendment is this?

I'm pretty sure that amendment doesn't apply to your dealing with private companies.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[benplaut]

Religion in the goverment, that's what it makes!

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

Compared to the number of Muslims in the world a vanishingly small number of them are potential terrorists, yet they seem worthy of our attention, don't they?

You're moving the goalposts.

Remember, the 9/11 plane hikackings were just that - hijackings - not bombs.

I think making that distinction in this discussion is specious, to say the least. Although perhaps I should have said "cause damage with planes" to avoid allowing the semantic fallback. My bad, I suppose.

I really have to explain this?

You need to come up with an explanation which actually use *complex* and *combined* criteria to bias the search and allow for the additional random searches, rather than simplistic and individual criteria.

No proper profiling system is going to use just the skin colour, or just the flight destinations. It's going to look at everything from how the ticket was booked, to a passengers flight history compared to the average, to the type of bags they're using, to how they act when questioned at a security point. Most importantly, it needs to do so without the passenger ever knowing they're being "scored".

Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing that intelligence lead targetting of resources is a bad thing, far from it - it's the only effective way of dealing with the enourmous number of people and risks. I'm arguing that assuming white people (or any other arbitrary category like young or old or married or single) pose a greater or lesser risk is foolish.

You just contradicted yourself. First you say that targeting based on criteria gleaned from intelligence is a good thing, then you're saying that selecting based on specific criteria is a bad thing. Which is it ?

Think about it - how many times have bombs actually been found by security screening? Compare that to how many times plots have been uncovered and thwarted by the traditional covert security services and police using conventional techniques like infiltration and comms interception.

Oh, I agree completely. I think the chances of discovering a bomb as part of the security checkpoint are slim at best. But I also think if there wasn't any security checking at all, the number of bombs (or just other weapons) getting carried onto planes would be *dramatically* higher.

Security checkpoints mean that getting a bomb past them requires planning and preparation. Planning and preparation take time, during which - hopefully - the people responsible can be located and caught using the resources you mention.

Ahh the old "people like me" line. Please don't generalise, it's offensive and makes you look kinda dumb.

I'm generalising because pretty much every single reply to my posting has said basically the same thing - "but they could just get some white guy to waltz right through the security check", as if there's a queue of white guys a mile long just itching to get onto a plane and blow it up.

But again, I digress. I assume that a white person can be "dropped in" because I don't see why it would be so difficult. There's nothing (that I can see) which would make a white Muslim any less likely to be a bomber than a non-white one. Sure there are less white Muslims, but there are enough to form a pool to draw candidates from.

Really ? The number of "white" suicide bombers - or even candidates - seems to be pretty small. There are certainly a reasonable number of white Muslims out there, but not many of them seem very keen to go out with a bang.

Despite what certain parts of the media would have us believe, suicide bombers are a distinct minority in the Muslim world. My point here is that when you take a demographic that is already relatively tiny (white Muslims) and then lay another relatively tiny one on top of it (suicide bombers) you end up with a very, very small group of people.

And, as I mentioned, don't neglect the possibility that the bomber may be unknowing or unwilling.

I think this is much les

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

and have been so chastised by Christians that they quit (ever hear of Muslims doing that? Me neither)...

I have heard far, far, FAR more muslims denounce islamic terrorism than christians denounce christian terrorism. That said, I haven't heard much of either. People denouncing something is boring, so it doesn't exactly make the news.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Brandybuck]

You're completely missing the point. Unless you are going to select EVERYONE, you going to have to limit who you scrutinize. One way is to randomly select some people. The other way is to "profile". Since profiling is more likely to select the bad guy than random sampling, profiling makes sense. (Actually, a combination of both is best).

The trick is to know the profile. It's usually NOT based on appearance, but on behavior and other factors. Could terrorists be using disguises? Of course they are! Duh! You can argue all you want that profiling won't catch the masterminds, and I'll agree with you. But not all terrorists are masterminds. Not all are brilliant. If it catches any terrorists at all, it will be a success. Talk to the police about profiling. When they have a good profile, it works.

Plus, by profiling you make it very easy for certain people to "opt out"

The point of profiling is not to spread the misery! Don't be flipping stupid! The point is to effectively target your limited resources! If more ordinary travelers gets targeted than senators, it's because terrorists are more likely to pose as ordinary travelers than as senators.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[lanzz]

ah, but it would be much more inconspicious, if you actually DO use the second part, and make your hit then :)

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

I was waiting for that. You've shown that you have painted yourself into a corner.

How so ? Because I (foolishly, in hindsight) make an assumption that the people in the discussion are actually interested in the discussion, rather than debating-team style point scoring ?

Lol. I've seen it myself, you haven't. More corner painting.

You just described - even admitted yourself - that it would not look completely normal, but rather "too perfect". I certainly know that anyone I saw who had completely flawless and pale skin, without even a freckle, would stand out.

You do realize that you have strayed completely from the "stupid, idealistic, bleeding-heart-leftists" profiling system that you initially proposed, right?

No, I have not. *You* are the one who has continually made the assumption that whenever I refer to a "profiling system" I am referring to the (apparently utterly broken by design - I've never experienced it so I can't say based on first hand experience) system currently implemented by US airlines, or something else worthlessly simplistic based on skin colour and religion.

Allow me to quote from the paper you just read -- El Al's security system works from the assumption that every passenger is a threat

Allow me to quote from the same paper:

Upon entering the airport, a passenger is asked a series of specific questions including "Who paid for your ticket?" "What is the purpose of your travels?" and "When did you book the flight?" The questions are specifically designed to evoke an observable reaction. As passengers answer the questions, the officer carefully scrutinizes tone of voice, body language, and quickness of response. If the answers are unsatisfactory, a different officer will ask the ticket holder a different set of questions.

That is no longer about, "directing scarce resources where they are most likely to produce a positive result." El Al gives EVERYONE massive amounts of attention -- As El Al's president, David Hermesh, stated, "If you're a passenger on El Al, most likely you will be observed from the minute that you left your car or you have been dropped off."

But, clearly - as described in the paper - some passengers are given more attention than others, based on criteria. Ie: they are profiled.

Holding up El Al as an example anything even remotely feasible for the majority of the world, especially given the comparitively miniscule risk, is just silly.

Likewise, implying we should simply ignore all their experiences is stupid.

Your theory has morphed from racial and cultural profiling to behavioural analysis under dissection, although you still appear to have faith in some sort of massive system that is itself either information starved or big brother incarnate.

My theory was *never* based solely on racial and cultural profiling. It certainly considered them as part of the entire process, but never proposed them as the only, or even deciding, factors. Just becuase I didn't write a ten page essay describing every nuance of a properly run airline security system in my first post, doesn't mean I hadn't considered the "clever" ways you came up with to circumvent it.

I'll agree that some level of behavioural analysis has potential, although I can even think of simple ways to mess with that (e.g. $300 round of botox shots to the face kills visible evidence of anxiety, another $300's worth of shots to the sweat glands stops perspiration, and another $300 will prevent migranes in case the terrorist is subject to them too). If I can come up with that in about 2 minutes, I am sure somebody spending years on the effort can do much better.

The position you appear to be advocating, is that since every single workable security procedure that can be envisaged, can also be subverted, then we shouldn't make any attempts at airline security at all. This does not appear to me to be a reasonable solution.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Brandybuck]

You went through the detector multiple times, each time having the opportunity to remove all metal from your person. While you say you didn't have any metal, from the perspective of the other guy, you're acting very suspicious.

No shoes, no belt, just jeans and shirt? And the detector keeps beeping? Sounds probable to me that you have metal on you! Time to pull out the wand and find out where it is! Duh! If he is not supposed to pay attention to the buzzing of the metal detector, then what the fsck is he supposed to do? Is our airport security now supposed to be based on the honor system? Tell everyone they can't bring knives and guns onboard, and cross our fingers hoping they don't?

p.s. I've never seen anyone pantsed in front of other travellers before. It reportedly happened a few times immediately after 9/11, but I haven't seen it in all of my flying. I say you're making this up.

p.p.s. Taking the shoes off isn't "optional". It's required if they tell you to.

p.p.p.s. If you don't like this, don't fly. Talk to your representatives and senators. Run for office. But by all means don't fly.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[YomikoReadman]

[blockquote]On a side note, my wife is in the military and we have to go through "random" security screenings for our cars. Somehow my Saturn gets nailed 10 to 1 over my wife's car every month. There are times when I just want to run the damn guards over.[/blockquote]

I can't really say much of anything regarding the 'randomness' of airline searches aside from the fact that I've never been searched to that extent. I am, however, qualified to comment on the randomness of gate searches on military installations. I'm AD enlisted, USAF, and outside of my regular position as a computer programmer(3C0X2) I'm a SF augmentee. Gate searches are random, however the methodology is based on certain procedures, which I'm not at liberty to disclose. I can, however, assure you that stopping a vehicle for a RAM search isn't based on any criteria of race, religion, creed or even the type of vehicle you're driving.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[ClamIAm]

really thick terrorists

I think with these guys, they'd be thinking more about how unfair it is that they have to buy 2 seats.

Um, yeah. So, 144 virgins? ...

OK I'll stop.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[VirusEqualsVeryYes]

Keeping track of all of one's promises, profused beliefs, and excuses is not for the weak-minded.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[identity0]

Everyone is getting worked up about the race or religion comments, so no one seems to be noticing the basic truth: the selective weapons screening is useles, period.

First, let's remember that they don't really screen 'terrorists', they screen for weapons and explosives. They also assume that the terrorist is the one who will bring the weapon through security. This is wrong.

Think about it: after passing the screening process, everyone goes to the departures lounge, where there are no attempts to prevent people on different flights from co-mingling.

That means that hijackers from a group likely to be singled out (like young, Arab males) can have an accomplice who is unlikely to be singled out (such as an elderly Swedish female) smuggle the weapons through the checkpoint, give the weapons to the hijackers, and get on a totally different flight from the hijackers. That last part removes the need for the accomplice to be willing to give his/her life for the cause, which increases the pool of potential accomplices.

Once you realize that the accomplice (your "single Swedish woman", perhaps a devoted communist wishing to hurt the capitalist system) doesn't even have to be a Muslim jihadist, let alone be willing to die, then you realize that there is no point in basing the screening over whether you fit a suspicious profile or not.

This is a fundamental problem with the design of airports and airport security. Because the departures area is designed to allow access to all the departure gates, it's like a computer system with no access controls. While they might check a person's ID at the gate, any item that passes through the security screen can get on any of the flights.

When you factor in the connecting flights that originate from overseas, it's like having a computer system that mounts drives over the network and gives full permissions to outside executables. I've never heard of an airport that checks the carry-on baggage of people passing through on connecting flights, so your security is only as good as the least effective security screen in the chain of connecting flights. In your example, the "young Swedish woman" could be going on a world tour to go through a third-world airport where you can get weapons or bombs through security, then keep it in carry-on through to the airport where you meet the terrorists. It might sound complicated, but for guys who are willing to go to flight school or build an explosives lab, such an action would be rather cheap and effective.

The selective screening is worthless. If you're going to screen for weapons you have to screen everyone, otherwise you're just wasting scarce resources, not utilizing them.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[geminidomino]

Nor is it politics! What's this "keeping track" you speak of?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

You just described - even admitted yourself - that it would not look completely normal, but rather "too perfect". I certainly know that anyone I saw who had completely flawless and pale skin, without even a freckle, would stand out.

A woman with model quality skin is far from being a prime terrorist candidate. Perfect skin is easily concealed with light make-up.

But, clearly - as described in the paper - some passengers are given more attention than others, based on criteria. Ie: they are profiled.

That level of profiling, as fully distinct from the "stupid, idealistic, bleeding-heart-leftists" system that you proposed, is not feasible with the kind of limited resources available. El Al has essentially unlimited resources to spend on security. Do not continue to confuse their situation with the world at large.

Likewise, implying we should simply ignore all their experiences is stupid.

Unlikewise, implying that their experience has anything relevant to say about your particular "stupid, idealistic, bleeding-heart-leftists" system is stupid.

My theory was *never* based solely on racial and cultural profiling. It certainly considered them as part of the entire process, but never proposed them as the only, or even deciding, factors. Just becuase I didn't write a ten page essay describing every nuance of a properly run airline security system in my first post,

Well, excuse me for going by what you write and not having ESP.

My position has been clearly stated, and regularly illustrated, from the start - you pick characteristics that can be altered by the people you are trying to identify and they will alter those characteristics - thus costing you resources and reducing your security. You just keep jumping from characteristic to characteristic and seem to hope that by combining them into a "system" that somehow they won't be figured out.

The position you appear to be advocating, is that since every single workable security procedure that can be envisaged, can also be subverted, then we shouldn't make any attempts at airline security at all.

All I have "advocated" is that counting on things the enemy can change is bad tactics. If I were to "advocate" a solution to the problem, I would pick things that the enemy can not change, or in changing them he neutralizes the threat himself. For example, better automated screening systems - the harder it is to take a weapon on board, the less likely a person is going to do so - regardless of race, religion, family life or anything else directly under the enemy's control.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Wes Janson]

And this is why the "security theatre" is a joke.

Have we seen any sign that there is anyone out there with a level of sophistication high enough to think up original ideas like that, and then implement them?

If the risk is so great, then how come the terrorists haven't succeeded again, if they're so numerous, dedicated, and well-equipped?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

harmless people like Teddy Kennedy

Of course, for those of us that lived through The Troubles, Irish Americans who supported Sinn Fein/IRA were quite a large part of the problem. One of life's rich ironies is that the Irish American community that provided a lot of the brave firefighters and policemen who died on 9/11 was also the most enthusiastic funder of `they boys back home' with their taste for blowing up twelve year olds outside McDonalds. Gerry Adams, convicted murderer, never had too much trouble getting an invitation to the White House, and NorAid were always welcome in Boston and New York bars.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

To quote another great mind, master Yoda:
Fear is the path of the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.

hmm... I think it was a great man but not the Star Wars scriptwriters who said that. Isn't it a quote from the Dhammapada (the sayings of Siddhartha Gautama - Bhudda)?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Talk to the police about profiling. When they have a good profile, it works.

That is the same logical fallacy that the government uses to justify the phone-tapping and tracing.

The difference is that the police have a KNOWN bad guy, a specific individual which they have already identified as having committed a crime and all the ancilliary evidence that goes with it. By "profiling" him they are matching known facts about him with a list of likely characteristics. The terrorists are UNKNOWN, all you have is a list of characteristics and by "profiling" you are trying to associate those characteristics with somebody you have no other knowledge of, who may not even exist.

It's the difference between saying the serial-killer on the lose is probably a white, middle-aged, loner and all white, middle-aged loners are probably serial killers.

If it catches any terrorists at all, it will be a success.

If it saves just one child's life then no matter the cost, it was worth it, right?

The point of profiling is not to spread the misery! Don't be flipping stupid!

It is a highly beneficial side-effect of random profiling.

The point is to effectively target your limited resources! If more ordinary travelers gets targeted than senators, it's because terrorists are more likely to pose as ordinary travelers than as senators.

You make the assumption that ratios matter but magnitudes do not. The number of senators likely to commit terrorism in person is effectively zero. But the number of ordinary travelers who are likely to commit terrorism in person may be 10,000 times greater, but 10,000 * 0 is still zero. You make no measurable improvement to your odds of catching that one in 100,000,000 terrorist if you let the senators opt out - but now you get terrorists thinking about ways to impersonate, or otherwise make use of a senator for long enough to get on the plane (like if the senator gets waived through, what are the chances his staff will get waived too, how hard is to get on staff, or switch carry-on lugage with one of the staff?` - you've created more risk, not less).

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Arancaytar]

Can't tell if you were being funny, but RAF in this case refers to the Red Army Fraction, a terrorist group in Germany during the Cold War.

A security guard at our school (in Germany, where we're more used to the latter meaning) introduced himself as having served in the Royal Air Force. We had a few "omg commie terrorist" laughs.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[igb]

Except young Swedish women aren't exactly queuing up to commit suicide via exploding aeroplane, just in case you haven't noticed.

Anne Murphy wasn't queuing up to commit suicide via exploding aeroplane, but would have absent El Al security having been on the ball. Look it up.

In the case of the current allegations in Britain, at least one of the alleged bombers is a white convert, the son of a Tory party agent in High Wycombe (Tory == Republican of the less strident kind, agent == ward heeler or something). Richard Reid may have been a convert, but he didn't match the ethnic profile, nor did at least one of the 7/7 bombers. As in so many other regards, converts are often the most fervent. I didn't try this line of questioning at a Q&A with Richard Thompson recently...

ian

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

When history and statistics currently show that terrorists are overwhelmingly young muslim males, then focusing more attention on young muslim males is neither subjective, nor bigoted, it's mathematics.

erm...no...

The IRA spent 20 years blowing things up, there are considerably more of them than 9/11 bombers or London Tube bombers, and they have performed more terrorist actions than the entire Muslim population on the planet.

So if we were to use a non-bigoted profiling system based on analysis of previous terrorist attacks, we should actually be looking for anyone Irish or of Irish descent, who would be likely to support the reunification of Ireland and the removal of British troops from Belfast. At last count, that set of beliefs include the majority of the US population.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Hyler]

At at least 2 airlines I've flown, you will see them write one "S" on your ticket for each flag you set off, which increases your likelihood of being "randomly" selected.

Wow. I got four S'es on my ticket for a return flight from US to Europe. Staff at the first security/ticket check line I passed pointed out "But you've got four S'es on your ticket. You should go to Line 19." as if I should know this. They do this all day, they work there, but for me this is/was the first time I made a round trip to the US. So I start looking around, somewhat bewildered, for this legendary Line 19 but apparently not quick enough. "Do? You? Speak? ENGLISH?!", he asked me. Had I reacted a little faster I might have made a sarcastic remark with seldom used multisyllabic words from Webster's Dictionary but bit my tongue since I spotted the line.

The extra security check was nothing much, just swiping items from my carry-on with some white pads put in a sensor of some sort, no interview or "Please bend over. This won't hurt. Much."

I think whis was random, since it was a return flight after a ten days stay, tickets bought four months in advance, lone white male with all papers in order, not deviating from the travel plan.

However, this was my first time in the US. Maybe next time, when I'm "already in the system", it will go smoother.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[big_gibbon]

I absolutely agree that the intersection between "white Muslims" and "willing suicide bombers" is small. However your argument seems to be based on assuming that the population of actual suicide bombers will be evenly distributed amongst the population of willing suicide bombers. What other people are arguing is that precisely *because* of the perceived criteria for search, the population of actual suicide bombers will be skewed toward the population of white Muslims.

Your only argument against this assertion seems to be that there isn't a "queue of white guys a mile long just itching to get onto a plane and blow it up". The point is that there doesn't need to be. All you need is one or two, and it's already been shown that these people can be found. Therefore any profiling based on external appearance is flawed.

P

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Dr Damage I]

So, when hunting a serial killer, profiles should be avoided?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Sam the Nemesis]

Any time civilians are purposefully targeted with the use of violence for political effect it is terrorism. The identity of the doer does not decide whether it is terrorism or not.

For example, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Given two years it is possible to convert a dark-skinned, black-haired muslim man into a "young single woman flying out of sweden."

It's possible, certainly, but it's an additional effort. If you bias your searches just slightly from complete randomness to picking on people of the same age/ethnicity/whatever as the most likely bad guys, you make it more likely that they'll be picked up if they go undisguised, without making the advantage of changing their appearance worth the effort involved. (Not just effort - risk, too. It's not that hard to steal someone's identity, but there's still a risk of getting caught - and an even larger risk if you're already being watched.)

Nonetheless, my biggest problem with these 'random' searches (which I seem to fall afoul of frequently, with my young age, masculine gender and one-way tickets) is that we are being lied to. Call me old-fashioned if you will, but I believe that if someone in authority lies to us, we should nail their hide to the wall and find someone honest to replace them.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[RockDoctor]

Clearly, it is unresonable to search everybody so it's a trade-off between cost, time and hastle.

Sorry, where did that "Clearly" come from? It's not clear to me. But then again I've been baggage-searched and frisked on approximately 94% of the flights that I've taken over the last 20-something years, and I utterly deplore the last few years of declining security standards. (My sample is on the order of 400 flights, with around 25 without full searches.)
I've always thought that people should be subjected to normal search procedures - empty all your baggage onto the counter for searching before it's checked in ; empty all your pockets (including emptying the contents out of your wallet) before going through the metal detector to be frisked ; re-fill your pockets then sit through the 20-minute-long flight safety video ("No talking or reading allowed. YOU THERE - you're not paying attention! Re-start the video and delay the flight!") before you don your 1-piece flight suit (shoes go over the suit's feet), and finally go out to your flight.
That would rapidly solve the congestion problems of airports.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Any time civilians are purposefully targeted with the use of violence for political effect it is terrorism.

Why are civilians such an illegitimate target? If a democratic nation bombs my country, why is it so wrong to regard as legitimate targets the voters who ultimately sanctioned it? Bombing the hick jingoing for war is more wrong than shooting the marine who doesn't even really know where Iraq is?

The sad fact is, in the age of democracy, civilians are not only regarded as legitimate targets, they are the primary one. And to be frank, though we might not like to admit it, there is some logic to this. Democractic nations do not go to war without substantial public support. When refugees say that Americans wants to bomb them all, they aren't altogether wide of the mark.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[WebCrapper]

Sorry, but we're working with rent-a-cops. They, unfortunately, bend the rules. They will tell you that they search every 5 to 7 cars, but that isn't the case.

On one post, I'll get searched almost every day while others I work with never get searched. These guards know my name, I get searched so often. On another post, I barely get searched, but a guy I work with started getting searched every day after he got into an argument with one of the rent-a-cops. I understand a little harassment, but every day for a month is a bit much. It finally got bad enough for the guy to complain to the MP's about the issue.

As for my car, I know the DRL's annoy the hell out of some of the guards. Its pretty funny when I roll in at 0430 and turn my lights off as I'm getting up to them (making sure they see I'm turning my lights down) and them still comment about my lights - so I turn the regular lights on and its "oh...sorry" then I hit the high-beams, which are Xenon's. Then its "Ok, OK, we believe you!"

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

note to self: write extra S's on ticket for business trip

"Sorry boss, it took a while to get through the airport and I missed my flight back from the convention in Florida/Hawaii/anywhere else"

my S's will stand for Single, Stranded, and Slap-happy on expense-account Screwdrivers

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

My phenotype is that of a southern Italy / west Greece inhabitant. I have been "randomly selected" ever since 2001, in every single plane I've been (more than 20 already). Always traveling alone to the US, for business, dressed mostly in sport clothes, and I can outstare a cat. I know, eye contact may increase the "chances" in the "randomness". I laugh at the face of the security agents and I tell each of them that their profiling won't work. And too many false positives is only breeding hate and anger. And now my attitude further fosters their picking-me-up chances. I will become gay eventually from so many body searches by tall, handsome strong men.

Just a note: Tunisia and Kosovo are full of tall, blonde, green- or blue-eyed muslims. Study history or go there or both. Profiling is a joke and an annoyance for the unfortunates.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

"However, the same cannot be said of religion"

So how do you tell somebodies religion by looking at them?

Hooked nose maybe? their hat? Their surname?

Really, what sort of dumb-arsed prejudices do you have that you think you can spot a terrorist's
religion? And would you stupid ideas have worked to pick up terrorists like Timothy McFee? IRA members etc?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Toby_Tyke]

All terrorists have been muslims? So the Unabomber was Muslim? Timmothy McVeigh is Muslim? THe IRA are all Muslim? Those right wing christian orgs who blow up abortion sites are muslims in disguise? The Shining Path is Muslim?

I believe he was referring to all he terrorists post 911. But even your own examples prove the guys point. The IRA were all Irish, so if you believed they were plotting to blow up a plane, it would make sense to focus on searching Irish people. Those right wing Christians are all, if you'll forgive me for stating the obvious, christians, so if you believed they were plotting to blow up a plane, it would make sense to focus on searching christians. THe shining path were all maoists, so if you believed they were plotting to blow up a plane, it would make sense to focus on searching maoists.

Can you see a pattern emerging?

There are problems with this approach, certainly, not least of which is that the terrorists may try to choose someone from outside the profile to commit the attack, but to claim there are no valid reasons to use profiling is just plain wrong. It's all about playing the odds. If a quarter of a million people pass through an airport daily, and assuming you aren't going to search them all, then you really are just hoping to get lucky. Anything that cuts those odds in your favour is a good thing. If the terrorists you are presently worried about come from a particular group of people, then I don't see what's wrong with focussing on that group.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[prefect42]

Muslim with turbans? You've got some weird cross-religion dressers there.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[oliverthered]

If 'enough' random searches are done then I expect they would be effective.
It only takes one person to get through and I doubt the searches are going to put 'terrorists' off. So random searches are not effective.

For example, if I profile for young Muslim men with turbans the attacker can simply pick disaffected white middle-class women. Sure, such people are hard to come by but it is fool-hardy to suggest that they do not exist.

So exactly how many attacks / attempted attacks have been by young Muslim men/women and how many have been by disaffected white middle-class women? Try 100% and none, you'd have thought the terrorists would have recruited disaffected white middle-class women by now if they could have done.

Disclamer, I'm not racest in any way and partly support the goals of the terrorists (though not the targetiting of civilians), I still think profiling is the way to go to stop civilian deaths.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Second, observe that the IRA and Britain are also in a religious conflict

lol! I haven't read anything that so totally mis-represents what 'The Troubles' were all about for a good while now.

The IRA (or Irish Republican Army, if you will) were in favour of a united Ireland. Not a Roman Catholic one. For various historical reasons it transpired that the majority of republicans were Roman Catholic and the majority of Loyalists were some variant of Protestant.

However, that is not why the IRA engaged in a 25-odd year bout of terrorist activity. Hell, look at the Omagh bombings, they didn't give a rats-ass what religion the people they killed were.

Likewise, the loyalist paramilitaries aren't in it because of religion. When the IRA declared a cease-fire about 7 years back all the loyalists factions started fighting each other.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[YomikoReadman]

Hmm.. If that's the case, then I'd highly recommend taking some notes over a few weeks of this, things like names, gates, etc. If you're seeing a pattern in who's doing it, contact the law desk(AF) or MP Desk(Army/Navy) and report that you feel that some of the guards are hasseling you. The contract for rent-a-cops as gate guards are DoD standardized, even though not all branches/bases take advantage of it being out there. More than likely you won't see those individuals a whole lot after that. I myself have seen several cases of rentacops getting canned for what you're talking about, so in most cases concerns like those are addressed in a satisfactory manner.

As an aside to all this, I personally can't stand civilian guards on my gates. I know it's rough on the cops, but I just prefer knowing that there's organic military folks on duty out there.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[domc]

Why would a strong-minded person need to do this if he was following the truth. Only a weak-minded person would need to follow a religion, which is only an approximation of the truth.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Bake]

How and why exactly should dealing with private companies working for government agencies be any different than dealing with the government agency directly?

Using a different analogy, the mobster ordering the hit is just as, if not more, guilty than the hitman doing the job.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Archtech]

'No, but neither were they called terrorists. The term wasn't much in use before 9/11. Before that such people were quite properly called "criminals"'.

That turns out not to be the case. The word "terrorist" has a long pedigree, and its core meaning is a distinctive and useful one: namely, someone who stages violent attacks in order to create terror. As long as I can remember (back to the early 1960s) the news has regularly mentioned terrorists and terrorism. Americans may have been lucky enough to escape much of it, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

The subjective nature of the word is also important. I have read accounts of German soldiers' WW2 experiences, in which - without the slightest irony or self-consciousness - they routinely describe the French and other national resistance movements as terrorists. From their point of view, that was quite justified. France had declared war on Germany, not the other way round, so when it was defeated in war the Germans were entitled to expect that French people would accept the outcome and submit to having been conquered. Before you impulsively exclaim that no self-respecting free people should ever submit themselves to foreign conquest just because they lost the formal war and their government was toppled, recall that this is exactly the situation in Iraq at present.

At the bottom of all these arguments about whether someone is a terrorist or a freedom fighter, we usually arrive at the irreducible gut feeling that "we are right, and they are wrong". Fine, but it's hard to erect a legal framework on the basis of such special pleading.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Archtech]

"Surely any terrorist worth his 72 virgins can figure out that it's better to buy a round-trip ticket even if you're not planning to use the second part..."

Precisely. Yet we get this nonsense from the very same authorities who tell us it is necessary to check every little transaction for "money-laundering", and crow about their success in "cutting off the terrorists' funds". I cannot see how 9/11 could have cost more than a few average people could easily save in a year or two - so why on earth are they looking for massive funds transfers?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Criceratops]

While I agree with much of what you say, I take issue with this statement: Dubya claiming to be "in communication with God" and then bombing civilians. Can you tell me where Bush, or any other US President since Nixon intentionally bombed civilians? I didn't think so.

... WOW. OMG Mister, you got me!! I guess there are no civilians in various villages (and um... Baghdad?) which we have missiled and cluster-bombed and submunitioned and minigunned.

And wow, I sure had time to come up with a counterexample there, I guess I couldn't respond by the time you were done typing that.

You must be one of the folks in that new edition of Who's Who In Trolling The Internet 2006 (Republican Idiot Edition).

HERE is the skinny. ANY TIME WE BOMB A CITY, CIVILIANS DIE. Bomb a city, bomb a village, bomb a factory, usually *innocent people* die.

That is the only truth. Sorry.

And before you go saying "Well then what about all those innocents in the Twin Towers," I am not defending killing innocents. Any fool knows that two wrongs don't make a right (unless they're using it as justification for an economic war of conquest).

God, this is why I want to move to Canada. It's not just that the less than 30% of American people are supporting evil due to stupidity. It's that they are stubbornly stupid, unwilling to evolve and reason like civilized folk, no matter how many times they've been fooled, lied to, and they just take it, smile, and DEFEND the people who are screwing the entire world over.

I am sure I will take some flak here for "ranting" or "pushing a political opinion," but I don't have to be a Democrat or liberal to hate, revile, and decry every piece of foolishness that the neoconservatives have perpetrated -- because there IS no other word for it.

More of us need to stand up, say "Screw civility and political correctness and what the neighbors might think," and speak the truth that most of us can see with our functional hearts and minds.

There is right and wrong, and face it... The Neoconservatives are WRONG. As wrong as Nazis, and give them enough power and they have the potential to be many times worse than the aforementioned National Socialist Party.

You can stand there ALL DAY and argue the devil's advocate. But tell me, by what moral codes are the following RIGHT?

• Breaking the law by disenfranchising thousands of citizens by denying them their rights to vote.
  
• Creating fabricated stories about other candidates.
  
• Baldfaced lying about our intelligence in order to push for a war.
  
• Invading and bombing soveriegn nations strictly to seize oil reserves.
  

Hmm, lying, cheating, and killing. Great leader you're supporting there... Name one moral code (besides anti-codes such as Satanism or nihilism or amorality) in which these are "good" or "right" actions.

Well, keep on supporting these treacherous murderous robber barons if you want, you are the one who has to live with the fallout. Unfortunately, so do the rest of us. But I can sleep secure in knowing that they are the actions of my enemy, and I did nothing to aid them or their sick regime.

It's funny, how there are legal cases against almost every character connected to the administration -- maybe they are not only morally bankrupt, but ... LIABLE!

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[RubberBaron]

That's why airport security will use Game Theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory. Throw in some Operational Research and you have shifting profiling and random selections based on the result. Test the results in different airports (with controls) at different times and now it's really difficult to discern any pattern (provided security act on results first).

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[DataCannibal]

Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden, to say nothing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki all fall under you definition of terrorism, then

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

I just didn't realize that each extra "S" meant "+ 1 we think you're a terrorist"

TubeSteak (669689) (Score:5, Terrorist)

Mod points:

Attire -- +2

Attitude -- +1

Shifty eyes -- +2

Total -- +5

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[hazzey]

It isn't the amount of S's that means anything. It is either all four or nothing. It stands for something like "Specially Selected Secondary Screening" or the like. And it is based on two things. One is a random component which means that even frequent flyers (over a hundreds of thousands of miles a year) will get selected occationally. AND there is a profile based portion: one-way, no prior purchases, paid with cash, etc.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[akozakie]

What psychology are you using to support your argument that people prepared to commit suicide by explosion will be deterred from doing so by the possibility of being discovered before they actually board the plane ?

Simple. If you are willing to sacrifice your life for a goal, you don't want to waste it. If you are caught with your bomb, you either die killing few enemies, if you manage to set off the bomb (not so easy to do, if the bomb is suppsed to be hidden effecively), or you are arrested and the whole plan fails.

You are right, young Muslim males are definitely more likely to be potential terrorists, willing to die on a plane taking as many people as possible with them. However, does it mean they are that much more likely to actually be the attackers?

A terrorist attack on a plane is not easy, it's much more likely to be organized by a well prepared group of people, with a good plan. The whole group is risking their freedom and possibly lives, and the actual attackers know they will die - a risk of failure is a big problem for them. So, if you prepared such an attack, wouldn't you commit all possible resources to find an attacker who is more likely to pass the profiling and deal a successful strike?

In my opinion profiling doesn't matter. Without it, the most likely terrorists will simply attack, knowing there isn't much they can do to lower the risk. With it, the terrorists will more actively seek out candidates likely to pass the screening, making the profile less effective. Furthermore, the attacks will be better prepared, because you get more people who would be glad to do it themselves, helping those, who have a greater chance of success.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Convert dark-skin into white - benoquin is a permanent and highly effective permanent skin bleacher. Convert black irises into blue eyes - blue contact lenses Convert black hair into blonde - peroxide - "blonde in a bottle" Convert man into woman - a thin man can easily pass for a woman with make-up, depillatory, strategic duct taping and a pair of $100 silicone bra fillers (no surgery needed for any of that). Fake-ID - steal one from a christian woman with a strong physical resemblence, hell you don't even have to steal it, just "steal her identity" and make a duplicate ID.

But can you get rid of the smell?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[tehcyder]

No, but neither were they called terrorists. The term wasn't much in use before 9/11. Before that such people were quite properly called "criminals".

Only in America.

observe that the IRA and Britain are also in a religious conflict

Your ignorance is breathtaking.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[finkployd]

I agree, and it is amazing to me (well not really but it should be) that we as a country would rather spend money on the illusion of security than the real thing. I thought homeland security was paramount, so why wouldn't we pay for the best?

Finkployd

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah right. Have you ever been to Sweden? The women are so hot any guy trying to pass as one is never going to get away with it. Thats a man, man!

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone has a rational point, then they should be able to make it *with a rational argument*. The "take it to a ridiculous extreme example" should be used as a last resort, not a first attack.

Yo, dumb shit, reductio ad absurdum is now, and always has been, a perfectly valid means of refuting a looney argument -- like yours. Who the hell are you to decree an appropriate squence of arguments. If r.a.a is ever valid, it remains valid in first, middle or last position. In fact, leading with it to show how infantile your position is constitutes an excellent tactic to blow your arrogant ass clean out of the water.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

simple solution convert to islam, infidel duh! unless of course you are a jew... wait Abraham => Issac & Ishmael, oh they are half brothers, what we have here is a 4000 year old domestic distrubance that now affect billions of people world wide. sad,

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Builder]

The term wasn't much in use before 9/11

Really? Try Rhodesia, 1976.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[macTijn]

There's a nice story about the "SSSS" on a boarding pass: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38 8014

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Simon Garlick]

> The better question to ask is: "Are random searches effective in keeping everyone safe?"

The better question to ask is "Are random searches effective in making you feel scared?"

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to disappoint you, but I've travelled to over a dozen countries on four continents.

As for people from other countries being affected, if it really bothers them that they get selected for searches (which to be fair, should not be called "random"), then they are free to not travel to the US. In Brazil, they now fingerprint all US citizens coming in their country, and I would similarly say that US citizens have no right to complain about that either.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

The US government has killed more innocent human beings over the past century than all terrorists combined could ever dream of.

(Ahem, excuse me, I forgot that those killings were "accidental" and thus morally excusable. Yep, even the ones that were entirely predictable, like the ones that have a near 100% probability of happening today in Iraq or Afghanistan should the war/occupation continue. Oops, was I not supposed to mention that?)

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Ihlosi]

No, but neither were they called terrorists. The term wasn't much in use before 9/11.

1972. September. Munich. Olympic Games.

Ring a bell ?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[The_Mr_Flibble]

I like my bigoted response to this whenever anyone comes out with that drivel. All child molestors are white.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[SgtChaireBourne]

... in the 1980s - for example to describe the suicide truck bombing of American Marines stationed in Beruit.

And a similarity there is that the commanding officer had a heads up in advance of the type of attack, the targets, and approximate vehicle type. Instead of setting up obstacles between the main gate and the barracks, a clear drive-through path was left. Instead of increasing guard, the existing guards were ordered to unload their weapons, keeping ammunition in the belt pack.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[cozziewozzie]

The problem is that the person wrote "but so far all the terrorists have been Muslim" and they quite clearly did not intend that condemnation to apply to every terrorist act in the recorded history of civilization.
It was quite obvious what the poster intended despite the lazy rhetorical action.

What he wrote was similar to saying "all criminals are black", and then later explaining that you meant the criminals who attacked the pet shop in Harlem last night.

When you're using such loaded statements, like "so far, ALL the terrorists have been Muslim", then you are encouraging bigotry and ethnic hatred and there is a good reason why you should be careful with your words.

I personally think that "the person" said exactly what he/she wanted to say.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[PhotoGuy]

Not to mention, *everyone* "profiles", every day, all the time. It's impossible (not to mention stupid) not to. Some people just can't admit to it.

I think the psychological term for that is "generalization." Our brains are so bombarded (ulp, maybe a bad choice of words) with stimuli, that if we didn't make generalizations we would be overloaded and not be able to function. It's both a good thing ("that person has breasts, it's a potential mate!") and a bad thing ("that black person in the dew rag could rob me"). But it is necessary to help us cope with our limited resource (brain power). It's up to us, and society, to keep such generalizations from becoming bigotry/prejudice. (Prejudice, is pre-judging someone, based upon some generalization you have about them or a group to which they belong.)

Just as our brains don't have the capacity to deal with all the details of all the information we're presented with, and we use generalization to help us, airports and other security areas don't have the resources to check out everyone, so they use profiling (a form of generalizing) to help make the most of their resources.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[cozziewozzie]

There are countries outside the US, and they also suffer from domestic terrorism.

For example, the number of people who died in terrorist attacks in Iraq in the last month alone is far larger than the number of WTC victims.

The Tamil Tigers have recently been involved in killing a bus full of passengers, for example.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Dingbat1066]

Believe it or not, this problem exists outside of the US, too. What's the appropriate word, then? Geocentric? Statecentric? If only I had a classical education ;)

How about TSA-centric, given that most people were talking about the TSA in particular? (Unless the SSSS code is used by other countries, if so, pardon my ignorance)

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[JeanPaulBob]

While everyone else piles on this bigoted response, I'd like to point out how widespread this person's misconception is. Probably the most damaging thing done by Bush and the Republicans is to play to this sort of bigotry and, in doing so, make us much less secure.

If you'd criticized Bush for playing to the impression that 9/11 and Iraq were linked, I would be right there with you. But this one is new by me. When have Bush and the Republicans played to the idea that "so far all the terrorists have been Muslim"?

If they haven't, then aren't you yourself engaging in knee-jerk, unthoughtful stereotyping?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

yes. and that's justified as the mass bombing attacks on German cities were meant to terrorize the public in order to diminish public support for the regime. It actually caused the opposite. See Lebanon for a recent example.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Kombat]

The difference is that the police have a KNOWN bad guy, a specific individual which they have already identified as having committed a crime and all the ancilliary evidence that goes with it. By "profiling" him they are matching known facts about him with a list of likely characteristics. The terrorists are UNKNOWN, all you have is a list of characteristics and by "profiling" you are trying to associate those characteristics with somebody you have no other knowledge of, who may not even exist.

You misunderstand. We're not talking about the police hunting for a particular suspect. We're talking about the police applying "profiling" in exactly the same way as the airport screeners. We're talking about the police spending more time in neighborhoods with statistically higher crime rates than those with lower rates (profiling), paying closer attention to the 4 young minority males in a beat-up old car than the middle-aged family in the minivan. This is called "profiling," and the police do it.

You've said so many incredibly stupid things that I can't possibly address them all, but the one point I'd like to make to you is that it is not nearly as "easy" to disguise a middle eastern man as a convincing Swedish woman as you appear to believe it is. Security screeners are not idiots. They are trained to detect liars and disguises and accents and hidden items. That you seem to think it is "easy" (I still can't believe you used that word) to fool them into thinking a middle eastern man is a white woman is positively idiotic.

So what is your solution? To scrutinize absolutely everyone, ignoring that such a system would be insanely costly and cause huge delays? To use a completely random system that may allow obviously sketchy people to pass through with minimal examination, because the computer didn't happen to randomly select them?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[virg_mattes]

> Which makes the US responsible for the largest ever terrorist attack in human history - the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Um, if you're considering those two acts in this light, then you must also include other acts of war against civilians. In numbers and in impact, for example, the Holocaust far exceeds those two bombings. So does virtually everything that Stalin ever did. Also see Japan's history as regards China.

Next time log in, coward.

Virg

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Oligonicella]

"For example, if I profile for young Muslim men with turbans the attacker can simply pick disaffected white middle-class women."

Wow, what a reach. Especially when you must consider you want them to blow their friggin' selves up and it will take years to find some and then train them to the oblivion of their relatives. Besides, what makes you think they haven't been looking for them?

Also, drop the turbans and your profile will work better.

"We should not judge because a man reads the Koran any more than we should judge because he is Black. Muslims are not terrorists."

Really? Apparently you haven't been watching the news. Out of the literally hundreds of terrorists bombings around the world, please give me the percentage that weren't Muslim. I'm really sorry that moderate Muslims get painted with the brushstrokes of the "radicals", but perhaps a goodly chunk of that red paint is because of the derth of protest by said moderates as to the wrongness of their brethren. Find and weigh the writings of moderates against fanatics. Find the writings of moderates against fanatics.

"To quote another great mind, master Yoda:"

Holy shit, you think Yoda's real and wrote his own words?

"There's already a dark cloud gathering. The question is how dark can it get?"

Dark enough to dim the sun in downtown New York, in Madrid, in Bali, in Paris, in ......

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Kombat]

Three names: Timothy McVeigh, Theodore Kaczynski, and Richard Reed. Three terrorists who would not set off your criteria.

Actually, Richard Reid would have (he used aliases like Tariq Raja and Abdel Rahim and had a criminal record), and the other two didn't use airplanes. But that's not the point. No individual component is expected to achieve a 100% detection rate. But the combination of all the factors should accomplish an "acceptably high" prevention rate, without causing an "unacceptably high" inconvenience for the passengers.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Luscious868]

Every screening method is going to have flaws which is why you don't rely on any one method to get the job done. Profiling alone is ineffective for the seasons that you have sighted, but just because it isn't 100% effective doesn't mean that it should not be used in conjuction with other methods. It's important to note that you can profile on factors other than race or religion. Most of the attackers thus far have been males in their 20's and 30's that are not U.S. citizens. It would make sense to give people that fall into this category a little more scrutiy than you would give to an elderly couple who are US citizens. Behavioral profiling can and should also be used to single out individuals whose behavior might indicate that they are up to something.

Random searchs, watch lists, profiling, behavioral profiling or any other method taken by itself will never effective enough which is why you use all of these methods in conjuction with one another to cast the widest most cost effective net possilbe with the limited resources that we have to throw at the problem.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[virg_mattes]

> I believe that as people see it, they realize that it's not just a few incidents, but terrorism has always been around, but that we (as a country) have always prevailed.

Odd that they don't mention in the exhibit details about the acts of terrorism that helped get the nation started. The act that springs immediately to mind is the Boston Tea Party, although I'm sure it's not that hard to find other stuff to consider. The Sons of Liberty were responsible for quite a few such things, and yet the exhibit seems strangely silent on them.

Virg

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

ETA. IRA. Ulster Unionists. Tamil Tigers...

I'm an Ulster unionist and I object quite strongly to this.

I think you mean Loyalist terror organisations such as the UDA and the UVF.

Please be more careful in the future.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

How can one judge without complete understanding? How can one assume complete understanding? Some decide they understand enough and make up their own mind. Some follow those with more understanding. Others will throw up their hands and say, "I cannot say." There are still others that will say, "It doesn't matter." I suppose this last one is just an extension of the first, where the decision is indecision.

Was that vague answer enough to satisfy your pet peeve? Here are some other ways to look at the little peeve. One is to say that there is no correct way to live. This is probably not very popular. Another way to see it is that there are multiple correct paths. Just because someone decides to take one doesn't mean that others are incorrect or even less desirable. One only has so much time.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[thej1nx]

Why are civilians such an illegitimate target? And if a non-democratic country attacks you ? By your definition, voters did not vote for the dictator and hence you cannot bomb them. But the dictator is free to bomb your civilians, since your voters are the ones who sanctioned retaliatory action. I mean if *voting* was your criterion as opposed to attacking civilians being a straight no-no. Interesting situation. No?

Regardless, it is because making civilians legitimate targets, automatically condones 911 victims as legitimate targets too instead of it being recognized as a terrorist act. Is that your intention ? Clearly the same citizens voted for American's foreign policy of meddling in business of other countries ?

Or for that matter, it robs you of any possible security during wartime and otherwise. It okays kidnapping and even torturing of your citizens when they are off playing tourists. You can't go asking other countries to help save them, then. Fair targets.

Since most able men are drafted and hence in combat, civilians during wartime, usually consist of the infirm, the elderly, the women and the children. Now I am sure a person like you will derive great personal pleasure out bombing them, but some far more civilied folks believe that elderly, kids and women etc. are not really appropriate targets. Plus agreeing not to bomb civilians or hospital etc. of the enemy ensures that you can expect the same for *your* kids and parents and wives.

But ofcourse, this would make you very unhappy.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[BrGaribaldi]

I flew to Ireland and out of the ten possible security stops for the trip to Dublin and back I was pulled asside for nine. This includes having my bag searched, pulled out of the line to board the plane and being searched after getting off the plane. I'm an average caucasion male so I didn't know what type of profile I was setting off until I got my photos back from the trip and realized that the ball cap I was wearing the entire trip was from my Australien Rules Football Team...The Milwaukee Bombers.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

[i]... WOW. OMG Mister, you got me!! I guess there are no civilians in various villages (and um... Baghdad?) which we have missiled and cluster-bombed and submunitioned and minigunned.[/i]

There is a difference between bombing things that need to be bombed (terrorists), and bombing innocent civilians just for the heck of it. If you can't tell the difference then I feel sorry for you.

[i]HERE is the skinny. ANY TIME WE BOMB A CITY, CIVILIANS DIE. Bomb a city, bomb a village, bomb a factory, usually *innocent people* die. [/i]

Sure they do. So are you suggesting that if we find 100 terrorists with one civilian, we shouldn't bomb them because the civilian might die? Fatalities to hostages and human shields are morally and legally attributed to the people who put them in danger. That's why armies are supposed to where uniforms.

[i]And before you go saying "Well then what about all those innocents in the Twin Towers," I am not defending killing innocents.[/i]

No, you are only equating efforts to deal with enemies with killing innocents.

[i]...The Neoconservatives are WRONG. As wrong as Nazis, and give them enough power and they have the potential to be many times worse than the aforementioned National Socialist Party. [/i]

So the Neocons openly advocate the murder of millions of people? No, wait, that was Sadam and the other people you don't want us at war with.

Something to think about, during our war with the Nazis, we bombed cities, and not with precision weapons. Lots of them fell on innocent people. By your "ethics", we shouldn't have done this. Should we have let Adolph conquer the world?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Sazarac]

Atta and Alomari of the 9-11 hijackers only bought one-way tickets to LA (http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/new_questio ns_about.html/). To my ten minutes of Googling, it appears the other hijackers did as well (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/683026/pos ts/). So maybe it's not so crazy...

I remember flying standby a few years back, and everytime I left the SLC airport for a cig, I got the royal "special treatment". It was a real bummer when I found the smoking area inside the terminal several hours later...

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[dbialac]

A few years ago I watched as I was "randomly selected" for additional searching. But I noticed something -- the carrier had marked my ticket with a code that the security agent was referencing. I asked the security agent about it, and he confirmed that tickets were profiled due to the fact that I was flying alone, going one one way (from the standpoint of the airline since I took a different airline on the return trip), and had purchased my ticket only a short time prior to the actual flight. So the real answer, is yes you are profiled. They say randomly selected as it keeps you from getting upset about it. Oh and yes, co-incidentally I was randomly selected on the way back as well.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[bigpat]

Some real definitions:
- The unlawful use or threat of violence esp. against the state or the public as a politically motivated means of attack or coercion
- The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

I don't accept a definition that depends on whether they win. Or a definition that makes George Washington a terrorist.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

The S's actually mean "Secondary Security Survey". Each airline is different, some put an asterix in specific places on the boarding pass instead.

I fly a lot (more than one country a week). International flights I get searched 3 out of 5 flights. National flights it is more like 1 in 10 now.

I've asked why on many occassions - the answer I keep getting is:
1) If you pay by cash, not credit card
2) If you book a one way ticket, or fly in from one city and out to another
3) Someone else pays for it (i.e. the credit card is not in your name)
4) You book & pay last minute (e.g. the day before or stand by)

Other factors are your age, flying habits and general background.

I don't fit the profile for any of the above (except lots of travel) so I don't know why. I did get a passport stolen and deported from a few countries but funnily enough I have been searched less since then.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Muslims are not terrorists.

But virtually all terrorists are Muslim. Given that, who should we search? Will "profiling" find the terrorists?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[xantho]

Better late than never. SSSS stands for Super Secret Shithead Service.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Moofie]

"each time having the opportunity to remove all metal from your person."

Didn't have any.

"No shoes, no belt, just jeans and shirt? And the detector keeps beeping? Sounds probable to me that you have metal on you! "

Sounds probable to me that their detector is malfunctioning. The only metal on my person was the rivets on my jeans.

"Duh! If he is not supposed to pay attention to the buzzing of the metal detector, then what the fsck is he supposed to do?"

Get a metal detector that works.

"Tell everyone they can't bring knives and guns onboard, and cross our fingers hoping they don't?"

No, secure the door to the cockpit and let the passengers carry any reasonable objects they choose. (Reasonable objects means ones that don't explode.)

"Taking the shoes off isn't "optional". It's required if they tell you to."

Uh huh. Huge guy glaring down at me "recommends the optional shoe screening". Their words. Not mine.

"If you don't like this, don't fly. "

I got a better idea. Those of you who are really scared of terrorism, stay home. In your bathroom. Under the sink. The rest of us who can evaluate risk rationally will continue to go about our business freely.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Moofie]

So the TSA is a private company?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Skreems]

Sorry. I meant the profiling that's commonly done in airports these days, and that republican wingnuts like Ann Coulter keep saying we need "to keep us safe".

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

All TSA employees are employees of the federal government.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you actually know anything about "profiling?" What you describe is... well, it's just not it. Do some homework.

Dr. King dreamed of a world where his children would not be JUDGED by the color of their skin. Using forensic profiling techniques to identify candidates for searches is not judgment - it's intelligent selection. There will ALWAYS be those who slip through the cracks to avoid being searched, but I'd much rather have an "informed" method of selection than random selection.

Every one of us "profiles" a great number of things every day of our life - food, entertainment, transportation, and yes, even people - not because we're evil, racist monsters, but because it's natural and because it provides us with better results overall (than randomness).

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[spun]

Religion for the hard hearted?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

If 'enough' random searches are done then I expect they would be effective.

I think you're missing the human component to searches. If 100 searches provide X security then 200 searches will provide 2X security, right? Not usually. The more searches are done, the less attention searchers will pay for each given search. The more searches that are done, the more false positives will be detected, thus conditioning searchers to believe any given detection is a false positive.

Wide scale searching will never really work. There is just too much noise. Experts who have tested the system succeed nearly every time sneaking aboard firearms, explosives, etc. In order to prevent this the airlines will have to ban so many items that flying will hardly be worthwhile. Luckily, terrorist threats to planes are mostly a phantasm. The chances that they will blow up the plane you are on are tiny. They just don't have enough manpower fanatical enough and organized enough.

Profiling by race and religion flies in the face of everything we've struggled to achieve in the last century.

I'd go further and say profiling by race and religion contributes to the problem and creates terrorists. I know people who have been singled out for "special" treatment because of their country of origin or religion. It makes them angry. Discriminating against people justifiably makes them angry and fosters an "us versus them" mentality. The way to mitigate terrorism is to stop doing things to make others so angry that they are willing to die just for some payback. Stop bombing their villages and giving bombs to Israel which they then drop on some person's child.

I agree with most of your points. I think, however, that it is a poor bet to wager on the American public looking at real solutions and facing hard truths rather than hysterical, sensationalist news articles that allow those in power to frighten people into giving up their freedoms and betraying their principals. American society is weak and fearful. The empire is crumbling. It will get worse before it gets better.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[spun]

Real security is the last thing those in power really want. Put it this way, if you are in the bandage business, would you want to promote a product that reduces the chance of being wounded?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[operagost]

I believe that profile-driven searches are flawed. The flaw is that the attacker can always avoid the profile you're trying to detect. For example, if I profile for young Muslim men with turbans the attacker can simply pick disaffected white middle-class women.

You're attacking a straw-man, as profiling doesn't mean you have to use race, sex, or appearance as your sole parameters. Clearly, you didn't even read the article summary because it mentions a married woman of unspecified race (implying that she is NOT arabic) and a guy with an Scottish or Irish-sounding name wearing a "trucker's cap." Since none of the 9/11 hijackers was wearing any "Kenworth"-branded clothing or female, we can assume that the profiling is remaining relatively broad.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[chemindefer]

I got the s's a lot, until I joined all the frequent-flyer programs.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Simon said "Profiling by race and religion flies in the face of everything we've struggled to achieve in the last century."

Who is this "we" you talk about? Do you mean the Jews who are succeeding in destroying every white country on the planet by forcing mass immigration of non-whites on us?

Duh.
You'll have to try harder with your dumbass 'arguments' too. Of COURSE 'profiling' works better than randomly checking people. Why wouldn't it? You say that "the attacker can simply pick disaffected white middle-class women." Oh rly?

Idiot.
How does the "attacker" "simply" pick them?

The solution is simple: all muslims are sent home to whatever muslim country their parents/grandparents/ancestors came from. All non-whites are sent home similarly. All previously 100% WHITE countries are then made completely safe from muslim terrorists.

But we can't have that! That's too easy.

Tell me, oh wise one - do you believe in democracy, or dictatorship? Because, in case you hand't noticed, all white countries have been suffering under dictatorships for the past fifty years, which is the only reason they now have huge populations of non-whites who HATE OUR GUTS, which we have to work harder to pay taxes to support, even though we NEVER ASKED for them to come here.

Can you show me where I'm wrong? Can you name me all the 'enriched' areas in white countries that ANY white people are moving INTO?
The MAJORITY clearly don't want to be anywhere near non-whites if they can help it - so why should we have to suffer the misery they inflict on us?
Oh, and in case your tiny brain hadn't thought all of this through already (who'd have guessed?) - how many more people will there be in the third world in thirty years' time? Only a few BILLION, most of whom will live miserable, desperate lives, millions of whom will die in agony while they're only babies. Way to go oh 'caring' idiot. Invite in ten million a year to white countries, it's not going to do a thing to prevent the misery that's going to occur in the third world as these 'wonderful' people breed themselves towards disaster. But hey - at least old 'whitey' gets to have his life completely ruined too!

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[zetetikos]

I've lived in the Southern US most my life. You get asked if you are a "born again christian" pretty regularly in Georgia, South Carolina etc. My anwser is always "Nope, God got it right with me the first time". So far it's stopped every one of them without any idea how to continue.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[zetetikos]

There are white Babtists blowing up planned parenthood clinics with intent to kill people, including secondary bombs to get first responders.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you took it to a childish, personal level with "idiots" and lost any credibility you had gained.

Only with those too intellectually immature to distinguish style from substance and respond to the latter. To sit on your high horse attacking tone instead of dealing with substance is simply intellectually dishonest.

I will now shatter my perfectly marshalled argument by telling you that your cranium is full of pig shit.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Psykosys]

That's the point. You would miss that fact if you were profiling, and were ignoring anyone who claimed or outwardly presented themselves as a "patriot" or, perhaps, bore an NRA membership card (a dubious test of patriotism, even the stereotypical kind you seem to be talking about here). Because they don't go around burning flags all the time and you can't tell the intricacies of their ideology by looking at them, it'd be difficult to profile them using any simple technique.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[BJH]

Turbans???

What the hell have the Sikhs done to you lately?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Pootie Tang]

I agree. It's not so much Bush and the Republicans. Bush has relatively recently begun using "Islamofacists" and similar terms. For the first few years after 9/11 Bush generally went out of his way to point out that we're out to get "terrorists, not all muslims" and tried to avoid using "Islam" or "Muslim".

The problem is that many people simply can't handle nuanced information. They feel the need to simplify down to black and white at which point they (think they) can make a judgement.

If you accept that 9/11 = terrorism (oversimplification, a subset is not equality), and 9/11 hijackers = muslim (still not equal, only works in one direction), you can see how this becomes muslims = terrorists.

Really I see this 9/11 = terrorism belief at least as much as I see the muslim = terrorist belief. Saying the most damaging thing Bush has done is to play this up is ridiculous (yet moderated as +5 insightful).

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Citizen of Earth]

There are times when I just want to run the damn guards over.

So clearly they are targeting the right guy!

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Citizen of Earth]

Surely any terrorist worth his 72 virgins

I wonder what they do on the 73rd day of eternity.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[karrot]

I remember when I would "randomly" select want song I wanted on a CD player by using the shuffle button until I got the outcome I wanted.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[mr100percent]

And it was a slur that got Arab people mad. In 1983, could you make fun of blacks the same way? Jews? This film got mentioned in Jack Shaheen's book "Reel Bad Arabs" as one of the 900 movies that had an anti-Arab or anti-Muslim stereotype, although this was a minor one compared to the real stinkers (True Lies, Delta Force, Executive Decision, The Siege, etc.).

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[svyyn]

While reading your comment, I was wondering if you were French, and then read that you were. I am not surprised that you have met people in the US who want to talk to you about Christ.

I grew up in a conservative Christian church and remember hearing missionaries who had just returned from Europe. The missionaries were talking to a child audience (of which I was a part) and were emphasizing how sad it was that the French people didn't know Jesus. This was probably 15 years ago, but the view that all Europeans are atheists and therefore need to be saved is still pervasive. For a number of reasons (mostly because of your strong separation between religion and politics) this goes double for the French, and so it the likelihood of someone trying to 'save' you increases exponentially.

I just wanted to let you know that it's not so much that they're crazy, but believe they are trying to help you, albeit in a misled and somewhat offensive way.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

The term wasn't much in use before 9/11.

Not in "much" use? Lots of words aren't in "much" use, but that doesn't mean they weren't used. I just finished re-reading the book The Robots of Dawn, written by Asaac Asimov in 1949 (at least, according to its copyright notice); hadn't read it in 30 years. The word "terrorists" was in that book, and that book was written before I was born, and I'm a pentagenarian.

There's another word for you that isn't in "much" use, you dumb kid. What are you, a nonogenarian?

(MRC="torment")

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

My father-in-law gets nailed everytime he flies.

There's no accounting for the (alleged) government mind. Tweny years ago, I met a guy who's a British citizen. His mother is English and lived over there. He and his wife visited her occasionally. Every time, without exception, on returning, his wife (American) came in with no problem. Every time, with no exception, he was detained at customs for a half hour or more. Both were hippie types who made their living doing crafts to sell at fairs all over the country. His name was (really) John Smith.

Some time later, I made the acquaintance of a customs officer. The occasion was the pre-school-year-opening painting of the pool area at my son's high school. We were painting side by side. When I found out what his job was, I asked if he had any insight into John's plight -- was it the beard, the occupation, what? I was told the problem was the name -- John Smith -- too fake.

Fer Christ's sake, he was carrying a non-faked British passport. What the hell did these jerks think the British passport office was doing -- handing out some generic "John Smith" passports when they didn't have time to make up a proper one?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Rimbo]

Considering that Sikh are supposed to have a ceremonial dagger on their person at all times, it's still a good idea, no?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

You misunderstand. We're not talking about the police hunting for a particular suspect.

Ba-lo-ney. The original poster meant "profiling" as used by police in exactly the way I interpreted it. Your use has nothing to do with what police call "profiling." Because "paying closer attention to the 4 young minority males" gets them in trouble for racial profiling if they get caught at it. You claim I say stupid things, but you just hung yourself out to dry without that one.

You've said so many incredibly stupid things that I can't possibly address them all, but the one point I'd like to make to you is that it is not nearly as "easy" to disguise a middle eastern man as a convincing Swedish woman as you appear to believe it is.

Do you really think "she" has to be Swedish? Give me a break. Focus on the salient points - "profiling" is all about picking characteristics that you think correlate with the kind of people you are looking for. The problem is that once you start making rules to use as short cuts, those rules can be figured out and used against you.

Security screeners are not idiots.

Obviously you have not flown in the USA in the last 5 years. These people are close to making minimum wage, they have had cursory training and by no means are experts at anything.

To use a completely random system that may allow obviously sketchy people to pass through with minimal examination, because the computer didn't happen to randomly select them?

You may not get it intuitively, but a completely random system is more effective than one with rules that can be turned against itself. Its also a lot cheaper so you can do more people for the same number of dollars.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[syousef]

I was with you right up until you started quoting a fictional character from starwars. MLK was a much better choice. You should have stuck with that quote.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Kanasta]

You're making the same wrong assumptions everyone else who has replied has - that profiling criteria are easy to deduce and simple to evade.

But it is. You fly 10 times, and the chance that you're IN profile but NOT ever searched drops to near nil.
Fact is many people are checked not once, but EVERY single flight they board.

For profiling criteria NOT to be easy to deduce, every now and then the officers would have to NOT check a profiled person. Which defies common sense even more!

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Assmasher]

"What he wrote was similar to saying 'all criminals are black'" - Please don't take this the wrong way but I believe that *you wanted* to see it this way. In my opinion (and that's all it is) someone less eager to jump on posters for lapses in thought would have asked them to clarify this.

How is "so far, all the terrorists have been Muslim" encouraging bigotry if the poster meant those involved 9/11?

You're missing the point. You need to find out what they actually meant before going ballistic on them for what you *interpreted* their meaning to be.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

So the TSA is a private company?

Presumably not, then (not being American, I wouldn't know).

However, the airline is. No-one is forcing you to fly. If you don't want to get searched, don't fly.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Moofie]

"If you don't want to get searched, don't fly."

That's crap. There is no airliner operating in the US that is not required, by law, to search people. That law is a secret, and we don't get to read it. This is not acceptable.

The free market is not in play here. I can't just "not fly". That won't get the problem solved.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Darlantan]

So what DO you do for a living?

That much travel, I might have to get into your line of work. Sounds interesting.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

A woman with model quality skin is far from being a prime terrorist candidate. Perfect skin is easily concealed with light make-up.

Even on the arms and legs ?

My point here is that a "woman" who already doesn't quite "look right" (like the vast majority of cross-dressers) will generate more interest the more things about her that are "weird".

That level of profiling, as fully distinct from the "stupid, idealistic, bleeding-heart-leftists" system that you proposed, [...]

I proposed no system. I gave a throwaway example of two different types of travellers.

[...] is not feasible with the kind of limited resources available.

No, but *parts* of it are. Using properly trained staff to ask pointed questions at check-in, having a properly trained observer as part of the metal detector/security gateway, etc.

Well, excuse me for going by what you write and not having ESP.

I challenge you to quote any part of any of my posts even suggesting - let alone stating - my examples were to be considered representative of a "proper profiling system".

My position has been clearly stated, and regularly illustrated, from the start - you pick characteristics that can be altered by the people you are trying to identify and they will alter those characteristics - thus costing you resources and reducing your security. You just keep jumping from characteristic to characteristic and seem to hope that by combining them into a "system" that somehow they won't be figured out.

Your "position" is that profiling won't work, based on the obviously flawed system apparently currently being used in the US.

If I were to "advocate" a solution to the problem, I would pick things that the enemy can not change, or in changing them he neutralizes the threat himself. For example, better automated screening systems - the harder it is to take a weapon on board, the less likely a person is going to do so - regardless of race, religion, family life or anything else directly under the enemy's control.

Getting weapons onto flights is already quite difficult (or at least it is where I fly). Not to mention, a weapon on a plane isn't anywhere near as useful as it was before 9/11 - no plane full of passengers and crew is just going to let a bunch of people take their aircraft over again. The "get a few people with knives on board and take the plane over" plan is vastly less feasible than it used to be.

Most airline security is a placebo at best - even the new measures restricting liquids and gels are pretty much worthless, because if someone really wants to get some liquid explosives onto a plane, they'll just put them into a plastic cigar tube or film container and shove it up their arse. The benefit of it lies not in the probability of catching someone in the process of smuggling a bomb on board, but to force them to spend non-trivial amounts of time planning a mission, allowing regular intelligence and police forces to identify, locate and apprehend them beforehand.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

But it is. You fly 10 times, and the chance that you're IN profile but NOT ever searched drops to near nil.

Unless, of course, one of the criteria is "more than ten flights in 3 months", or something similar, and they get checked the eleventh time.

For profiling criteria NOT to be easy to deduce, every now and then the officers would have to NOT check a profiled person. Which defies common sense even more!

From what I can gather, the current "profiling" system used in US airports is utterly worthless (for starters, it's trivial for passengers to determine if they're being searched randomly or because they were flagged). Using it as an example of why profiling in general wouldn't work is, then, not a particularly strong argument.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[toddestan]

Actually, I'm pretty sure it means they think you're going to try to sneak some snakes onto the plane.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming they can find enough "white ones" to keep sending them. Last I checked, radicalised Islamic converts from the west were still pretty thin on the ground. Those willing to commit suicide, even rarer.

Two in the past three days have shown up on my TV news. You may return to beating off.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, wait, that was Sadam and the other people you don't want us at war with.

Source?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Even on the arms and legs?

For a guy who started cursing me out for being dense, you sure are the pot. It's called long-sleeves and slacks. As for looking not quite right, you don't know a thing about what you are talking about. You just haven't noticed the ones who are passable because they pass. You imply that you are in europe, go look for a tv show called "there's something about miriam" in the UK and the lawsuit it generated. Miriam's level of ability to pass was probably around the 75th percentile for that age range, and she did it in a bikini and made out with the guys.

No, but *parts* of it are. Using properly trained staff to ask pointed questions at check-in, having a properly trained observer as part of the metal detector/security gateway, etc.

No, those parts are NOT. They are EXPENSIVE. Just think about it for a second, enough people to professionally evaluate every single person getting on each plane, plus back-ups for when someone is questioned multiple times. Similarly properly, or rather effectively, trained observers of xray machines are also expensive because they burn out real quick.

In just the US alone there are about 1.8M passengers per day. The TSA currently employes over 50,000 screeners to handle that many passengers with just cursory, 4-5 second examinations of luggage. In order to include even just 30 second interrogations of every single passenger you are going to need at least the same number of people - but you are going to have to pay them more since they will be higher skilled. Right there you've probably more than doubled the entire budget of the TSA. That isn't anyone's definition of feasible.

I proposed no system. ...
I challenge you to quote any part of any of my posts even suggesting - let alone stating - my examples were to be considered representative of a "proper profiling system".

Maybe my constant quoting has gone over your head. Everytime I say "stupid, idealistic, bleeding-heart-leftists system" that's a slightly paraphrased quote from your first post. OBVIOUSLY if you know people would object to something then you know what they are objecting to. If, on the other hand, you think a proper profiling system would not cause such objections, then why did you bother making that statement in the first place?

Your "position" is that profiling won't work, based on the obviously flawed system apparently currently being used in the US.

Lol. I just said what my position was, but you know better, just like you know how freakish a depigmented woman looks, how unpassable most cross-dressers are, and how amazingly well your poorly defined, theoretical profiling system would work. You sure know a lot without any practical experience don't you? If only the real world were populated by your strawmen, then you could fix everything and make it perfect.

The benefit of it lies not in the probability of catching someone in the process of smuggling a bomb on board, but to force them to spend non-trivial amounts of time planning a mission, allowing regular intelligence and police forces to identify, locate and apprehend them beforehand.

I am begining to think you are just making stuff up as you go along. Make the system complicated so they have to plot really hard and maybe the real police will get lucky and stumble on the plot. Can you cite even one security professional, not a politician, saying something even remotely similar?

The point of security is to prevent security breaches. Preventing breaches isn't about tricking the enemy into wasting time on elaborate plots, it's to actually thwart whatever plots he comes up with.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Shralper]

I guess we're suppposed to ignore the fact that 99% of all terrorists acts such as hijackings and bombings over the last 40 years have been committed by Muslims mostly of Arab origin. These films were simply reflecting reality. Unfortunately, the PC police have forced filmmakers to have to invent fictitious countries for today's movies, making them far less believeable. Maybe not all Muslims are terrorists, but nearly all terrorists have been Muslim. I miss the days when Marty McFly had to fight against Libyans!

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think whis was random, since it was a return flight after a ten days stay, tickets bought four months in advance, lone white male with all papers in order, not deviating from the travel plan.

Don't mean it's not some kind of profiling. Years back, it was common for cops to stop cars which were not speeding through the Arizona/Nevada deserts, especially at night. Pretty Kafkaesque -- If you were driving at a legal speed on those empty roads, you just _had_ to be doing something illegal. Obviously trying not to attract attention. Additional points for having fast food wrappers in evidence (wants to get there, but without getting stopped for speeding), being black, generally having a nice car, etc. Clear field marks of a drug runner, according to standard know-it-all (we're far smarter than any civilian) cop lore.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Brandybuck]

"The point of profiling is not to spread the misery! Don't be flipping stupid!"
It is a highly beneficial side-effect of random profiling.

Making people miserable is highly beneficial?!?

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Brandybuck]

Sounds probable to me that their detector is malfunctioning.Sounds probable to me that their detector is malfunctioning.

Did it give the same extreme aggravation to the person in front of you? Did it give the same extreme aggravation to the person behind you? No! Otherwise you would have said so, because that's a much more interesting and relevant anecdote! Something was different about *YOU*, and so you were given extra scrutiny.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Moofie]

You let me know what that something was, and I'll be sure to not have it anymore. The guys at security sure couldn't.

It's bullshit. It is security theater. It does not keep us safer. It needs to stop.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Making people miserable is highly beneficial?!?

Making certain people personally aware of the misery they cause others is highly beneficial.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[drsmithy]

For a guy who started cursing me out for being dense, [...]

Because you *were* being dense. That, or deliberately feigning ignorance.

[...] you sure are the pot. It's called long-sleeves and slacks. As for looking not quite right, you don't know a thing about what you are talking about.

I asked *you* what it would look like, precisely because I don't know. Your answer was "if anything, too perfect". People with "perfect" skin, are not common. They will stand out. That is the only point I am making.

You imply that you are in europe, [...]

I have implied nothing about my location except that I'm not an American.

[...] go look for a tv show called "there's something about miriam" in the UK and the lawsuit it generated. Miriam's level of ability to pass was probably around the 75th percentile for that age range, and she did it in a bikini and made out with the guys.

You'll pardon me if I'm not prepared to judge the effectiveness of a trained observer based on the events in a "reality TV" show.

No, those parts are NOT. They are EXPENSIVE. Just think about it for a second, enough people to professionally evaluate every single person getting on each plane, plus back-ups for when someone is questioned multiple times. Similarly properly, or rather effectively, trained observers of xray machines are also expensive because they burn out real quick.

So we shouldn't pursue better security methods because they're not free ?

In just the US alone there are about 1.8M passengers per day. The TSA currently employes over 50,000 screeners to handle that many passengers with just cursory, 4-5 second examinations of luggage. In order to include even just 30 second interrogations of every single passenger you are going to need at least the same number of people - but you are going to have to pay them more since they will be higher skilled. Right there you've probably more than doubled the entire budget of the TSA. That isn't anyone's definition of feasible.

Pretty much every time I fly, I get *at least* a 30 second chat with an airline employee at the check-in desk, including the standard questions about who packed my bag. I'm not talking about adding (many) more people to the existing processes, I'm talking about making them better with improvements to existing resources. That whole stepping through the metal detector, being "randomly" selected and subsequently searched could use some improvements, as well.

Near as I can tell, your attitude is that we shouldn't be making any attempts to improve the current systems at all (oh, apart from making it harder to get weapons on board, because apparently where you fly it's trivial to carry an arsenal into the plane) and if anything should be making them *less* effective by not paying any attention at all to passenger attributes.

Maybe my constant quoting has gone over your head. Everytime I say "stupid, idealistic, bleeding-heart-leftists system" that's a slightly paraphrased quote from your first post.

That phrase from my first post, which you continually misquote out of context, was not referring to any profiling system at all, it was referring to the attitudes of such people, which preclude them from admitting even the slightest possibility that maybe some people are more likely to be terrorists than others.

Which is pretty obvious, when you actually read what I wrote. But you were only interested in latching on to some suitable catchphrase and beating it to death.

OBVIOUSLY if you know people would object to something then you know what they are objecting to.

Indeed. They are objecting not to a specific implementation, but to a concept - and not on rational grounds, but idealistic ones.

If, on the other hand, you think a proper profiling system would not cause such objections, then why did you bother making that statement in the first place?

Any suggestion of "profiling" in any form

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[thej1nx]

Dude. You are the idiot.

The point is not to stop security.

Point is to illustrate that your house can never be secure. So maybe you should stop going out and beating up and bullying neighbours, meddling with their affairs, and then complain about them hating you and trying to beef up your security.

If you stop meddling in midle east and pissing off people, you would not *need* this much security. They simply wouldn't be *this* desperate to blow you up, then.

After all, they are not this desperate about blowing up Poland or Iceland, are they ?

Ofcourse, since you are daft, feel free to have that reality-warping shield around you. Meddling in affairs of other countries is your God given right, and you will keep doing so, and "they" *should* love you for it.

Dumbass!

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention, *everyone* "profiles", every day, all the time. It's impossible (not to mention stupid) not to. Some people just can't admit to it.

Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, O Great One. All my life I've been looking for the man who has all the answers. Now that I've found you, my quest is over. You goddamned fucker of warm pigshit.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Convert man into woman - a thin man can easily pass for a woman with make-up, depillatory, strategic duct taping and a pair of $100 silicone bra fillers (no surgery needed for any of that).

If you're going to blow yourself up in a few days, why bother with the taping? Why not just lop the thang off???

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[A1C Lickey]

I'm sorry, but I just have to comment on this. I'm active duty Air Force, and for a while I was working TDY with our Security Forces (our version of the MP's). When we did random vehicle searches they really were random. We were told every fifth vehicle, or every third, whatever, would be searched. And we followed that policy. Unless we were good friends with the person, or there was a reasonable cause for us to be suspicious. Before I worked with Security Forces I would get pulled over and "randomly searched" quite often, because I was causing reasonable suspicion.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[jimicus]

It does, if you assume that past behavior is the sole predictor of future behavior.

Not terribly helpful for profiling suicide bombers, then, as very few attack twice.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is unfortunate that it is nearly impossible to have a rational discussion on this topic, because idiots like you use ridiculously exaggerated arguments to try and prove a (valid) point.

And your invective does nothing to help your argument. No matter how many times you call others stupid, you still fail to refute their arguments. Using sophistry like adding in the word "recent" to the idea of terrorism is just a shallow way to exclude your favored whites like McVey and Kazynski from the brew. However, it still allows the inclusion of the Olympic bomber, the shoe bomber and the DC area snipers. None of your happy, little, bigoted, "rational" racial profiling would have caught a single one of these whities.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[10101001 10101001]

Never the less, I'd imagine there's many Swedish women who fit the profile.

And I wouldn't disagree.

I'd argue, however, that relative to the number of young Muslim males who would be prepared to blow themselves up, the number is tiny. Which is the point.

No, that's not the point. If the objective is to stop someone blowing up some target and it's impossible for Muslims to do it (assuming that you can actually identify Muslims somehow), then those who want it blwon up will find a non-Muslim to do it for them. At which point, it takes as many non-Muslims to carry out the actual attack as it would have taken Muslims. Ie, it'd take one non-Muslim. Ie, since you already acknowledge there exists as least *one* Swedish female that'd do it, we've completely failed at our objective.

The only real claims at this point that could be made that it's incredibly difficult for a Muslim to actually recruit a non-Muslim or to be able to find out that such a person would be willing to actually carry out such an attack. For the former, one has to recognize that most countries have Muslims, including Sweden, and even if Sweden were to ban Muslims from living in the country, there'd almost certain be some Muslims who would pretend to be non-Muslim* to enter the country and recruit people. And as for the latter, it's certainly a risky business to go all out, but there's ways to test the loyalty of someone without going so far as outting yourself from the start. So, it's not hard to imagine that someone would eventually be recruited.

You don't think things like religious beliefs, cultural beliefs, social standards, media influence, governmental policies, economics, etc are "major factors" ?

Name me a culture, religion, social standard, media influence, governmental politic, or economy that has stopped someone from committing violent acts. Ie, name me a place where there is no crime. I don't think there exists such a place. You may find some groups that have a lower tendency towards crime per capita, but there's very few places that the total crime is an order of magnitude different than another group. Hence, the major factor is that there are overall more Arabs so there will likely be more total Arabs who would commit crimes, especially such a crime as a terrorist attack.

*Obvious this really goes against my earlier point about having a perfect Muslim detector. Obviously, if they can detect Muslims on boarding a plane, they'd have a detector at customs as well. The only things I could suggest is that a person might sneak in, they might find a Swede overseas, or they could use a Christian/Jew/whatever from another country to carry out the task of recruiting. It isn't, after all, the case that all suicide bombers are Muslim.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[mr100percent]

You gotta be kidding me. The US State department lists South and Central America as the continent with the highest rate of terrorism, with the Middle East in third place. Have you forgotten the IRA? ETA? Tamil Tigers? FARC? The MRTA? Aum Shinrikyo? Japanese Red Army? Kach and Kahane Chai? National Liberation Army (ELN) of Columbia? Revolutionary Organization 17 November of Greece? Shining Path? Do I need to list more?

Christianity has nothing to do with these organizations, the same with Islam. Most are secular anyway, like the PKK. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a much more violent group than Arafat's Fateh, was led by Christian George Habash.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Live_in_Dayton]

How many of those organizations have targeted Americans in the past 5 years? none

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[ray-auch]

Since the statement questioned was "99% of all terrorists acts" (my empahasis) you can hardly expect the response to exclude the rest of the world and the American-friendly/funded terrorists who obviously aren't going to bite the hand that feeds...

Oh, and if you are in the US, while you're working on your "we never did that / don't do that anymore" response, would you mind attending to the little matter of the "anti-terrorist" extradition treaty which you won't ratify because apparently the UK might actually want to use it to extradite some terrorists (as opposed to bankers, which is what you use it for). Obviously, if you don't support / protect / harbour terrorists, there won't be anyone you need to protect from the "anti-terrorist" extradition treaty. Please think about it and get back to the rest of the world when you've decided which it is.

Oh, and also, if we were looking at American targets we'd be looking at

        Oaklahoma - not muslim, therefore must be 1% - 168.

That means that American victims of Mulsim terror must be _at least_ 99 * 168 = 16638.

Ok, so 3-4k on 9/11, a few hundred in embasy bombings and Beirut barracks, a couple of thousand soldiers fighting a war of occupation, and er... must be one hell of a lot of incidents I've missed. Perhaps you could fil me in on the other 9-10k.

Or maybe the 99% is just miles out, even if you only count American victims.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Shralper]

The original topic was about American films portraying terrorists as Muslims and/or Arab. So, naturally, I was speaking only about Americans being targeted, both here and abroad.

As far as my 99% statement, well, it looks like it might be slightly off, according to this website-- http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001454.html It's actually about 97% of all terrorist attacks against Americans in the last 40 years were committed by Muslims and/or Arabs. Note that I wasn't referring to actual deaths caused, but terrorist events (don't forget, though, that the 9/11 hijackers were hoping to kill at least 20,000 in one day, and easily could have). Since you like math, I encourage to add the attacks up. Be sure to count each 9/11 hijacking as a separate attacks.

Do the math, then face reality.

I, myself, however, think it's fair to also count every car bombing in Iraq that has targeted American soldiers as individual terrorist attacks as well. These cowardly attacks don't have achieve any true military objection and purposely kill hundreds of Iraqi non-combatants as well. Add these to the attacks to the list, and the number of terrorist attacks against Americans committed by Muslims/Arabs easily rises to more than 99%.

So actually, I stand by my original 99% statement. It's probably closer to 99.9%.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[ray-auch]

Do the math, then face reality.

I've done the math.

How about you use a half decent source and half decent math, then face reality.

Your little list only has about 50 incidents (if 911 is four hijackings), of which 14 alone are FALN ("police tied 13 other bombings to the group.").

So how you get to even 99% (on a list of 50 that would mean they have to be _all_ muslim / arab) is beyond me.

Take a half-decent source like tkb http://www.tkb.org/ and you might get somewhere (approx 30000 incidents, covering past 40 years).

Unfortunately they don't look to have an easy way of breaking out attacks against Americans (or by muslim / non).

So lets work it the other way round, take a few of the major known non-muslim groups who target Americans and look at the known events (American targets):

FALN: (120+ bombings)
FARC: 10+
November 17: 10+
Unabomber: 16
ELN: 5+

SO, we are looking at 150+, say 150.

[ Note that I've left out "The Aliens of America" incidents, since he now claims to have been AQ (back when Bin Laden was a small child) - but general consensus seems to be that he was just a nutter on a vengeance trip. ]

If that 150 is 1%, then you need to find 15,000 events by muslims / arabs attacking Americans.

Good luck doing that, TKB (as above) only has 12k total, (worldwide, all groups, all targets), that are by a known group (yep, that means 18k, ie. more than half, are unknown group). So you might be able to get some from there, but you'll still need to find a whole bunch of others.

Or maybe you could just realise you are plain wrong.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Fulcrum of Evil]

And it was a slur that got Arab people mad.

Well, there aren't that many non-arab terrorists these days, to the point where you probably know them by name.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[the_povinator]

At last, someone is being reasonable here. Of course it's necessarily to profile, and probably the #1 thing we should be profiling on is skin color, for a simple reason - it's very hard to fake. Almost all of the terrorists "look" Muslim, and they will have a hard time finding a large enough number of white converts to get on planes for them. On the other hand, they will find it very easy to get a return ticket, or check baggage, or defeat whichever other stupid system we put in place. We have to understand that the terrorists can easily discover the security policy we use, so we can only rely on things that are hard to fake. Religion is a hard thing to use because they can always deny being Muslim, but Muslim names could be used to give them the extra hassle of changing their names to non-Muslim names - which could then flag them for extra investigation. Dan

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[be-fan]

This is why people with ID's above 100k shouldn't be allowed to post on Slashdot.

Dozens of countries have very bad terrorist problems. Ours happens to be with Arabs, because of our extensive intervention in Arab areas over the last several decades. Until very recently, Britain's was Irish (because of their extensive intervention over the last several centuries), while Spain's was Basque. In Latin America the terrorist problem tends to be native, as the result of political conflicts in the turmoiled histories of Latin American countries. Then of course the terrorists in south-east and south Asia tend to be either Indian or Indonesian in ethnicity, and thus not Arab, though they are Muslim. Then of course we can't forget terrorists in China, which are often natives acting against the government, or nationalists from various regions within the country.

So why don't you go profile all of these various terrorist groups (which are all still operating, btw, even though you never hear about it in American media), and then get back to me about the "aren't that many non-arab terrorists" bullshit.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Sorry, I was being US centric. It's mostly arab terrorists that bother the US. Not that profiling helps any, but yeah, we don't get much Sinn Fein action over here.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[be-fan]

I understand the US-centricity, but what bugs me is that people fail to realize the greater nature of terrorism. Terrorism is just more than something Middle Easterners do to Americans. Its a method of warfare that's been around for a tremendously long time, and has exhibited itself in many different situations. Failing to understand that is failing to understand the basic threat that we as Americans face.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Profilling may not be as accurate but behaivoral pattern recognition has worked great in Israel for years. It is now being implemented in several airports in the States, such as Logan.

Re:Profiling is worse than random searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

You complete and utter fuckwit. The Unabomber was trying to effect political change by targeting innocent civilians. What retarded and nonsensical meaning of "terrorist" do you ascribe to, that you do not consider him a terrorist?

The IRA are in a religious conflict? Yeah...remember Cromwell and all that, I'm sure that's a big part of their propaganda, but just lately the IRA have devolved into a bunch of drug-dealing, bank-robbing common criminals hiding behind a "cause". And the only reason they don't attack the U.S. to further their "cause" is that A) a lot of their funding comes from U.S. sources, and B) they haven't the resources or ability. The IRA have been responsible for thousands of deaths, how is this not comparable to muslim terrorists, you cretin?
Your grand-parent says:

"If the Muslims who are *not* terrorists would take some action to get rid of the bad apples in their own bowl, then perhaps we wouldn't have this problem."

So then, we should blame the actions of all Catholic terrorists on Catholics the world over??

random, not uniform random

[Frogular]

It's simple really. The TSA has their risk model based on various factors such as race, ticket purchase habits, slow/fast day at the airport, etc. Each criteria that's met increases the chances of you getting 'randomly' selected. It's still technically random, just not uniformly random.

Re:random, not uniform random

[nacturation]

It's probably not all that difficult to figure out these various factors if you start collecting statistics. It's the old "one of these things is not like the other" game, but with multiple variables. Get enough people to participate in a website which asks you questions on whether or not you were profiled and you can fill out checkboxes according to who you are, what you were carrying, how you dressed: jeans & t-shirt or business suit, MP3 player, laptop, portable gaming system, ethnicity, hair color, etc. Get a few thousand participating and you can probably figure a good deal of their criteria. Then publish it for the world to see and maybe these totally not random searches will become random and more effective.

Also of note is Schneier on profiling.

Re:random, not uniform random

[Lorean]

Uh. I don't see what sort of random selection mechanism they are using here. From my experiences, they just have a worker standing at the lineup to the security checkpoint who decides whether or not you get searched.

Re:random, not uniform random

[MurphyZero]

No that would be random and less effective. Though honestly, it's pretty ineffective as is. A properly designed (say one that uses Bayesian statistics) would, given information about the traveler, would come up with a percentage that the individual is a terrorist. At that point, you could flag any over a certain level for inspection, but a better system would be to use a random number generator to determine whether to do the random inspection or not. Yes that could mean the person who scores '80%' could be let thru while the '0.1%' gets inspected. Doing such would begin to maximize the odds of actually succeeding in catching them, while remaining random. Now the biggest problem is that the actual history is rather sparse, so early on it would ineffectual unless the system was trained properly. Given that this would be under govt control, this is highly unlikely. Also, it would definitely key on Middle Eastern (primarily Saudi) Muslim males until more evidence/experience was found (once again, in control of govt, and probably suspect). As far as what you stated, yes you could then start to find out what makes you more likely to be profiled but does not guarantee you can avoid it. And eventually those things that are unimportant would mean less to the profiling.

Why do you keep asking?

[Chemisor]

An even better question to ask is why you bother asking. Everybody already knows that the TSA's purpose is not to keep you safe, but to intimidate and harrass you. Whatcha gonna do about it, freedom boy? Sue the government? Ha ha ha. Like that's ever going to happen. Like you have a snowball's chance in hell of winning.

Re:Why do you keep asking?

[sjwest]

Jeb Bush for President is what i say.

Re:Why do you keep asking?

[Anonymous Coward]

What does the TSA win by intimidating and harrassing you? Just curious.

Re:Why do you keep asking?

[evil agent]

Everybody already knows that the TSA's purpose is not to keep you safe, but to intimidate and harrass you.

That's stupid. Why is it their purpose to harass you? What do they stand to gain? The only thing they'll get from this is bad PR. And how does that help them?

I agree that the TSA cannot keep us safe because 100% safe air travel is impossible. So the next best thing is the perception of safety. If the public feels safe, then that's good enough.

Re:Why do you keep asking?

[rizzo420]

so do you feel safer by their actions? i certainly don't. and you know what? i feel more intimidated, harrassed, and inconvenienced than anything else. i know i'm no safer because when there's a will, there's a way.

Re:Why do you keep asking?

[mrzaph0d]

cause the more they harass "normal" people, the less the "normal" people will want to fly. soon the only ones left flying will be the terrorists (and weirdo hippies aiming to make trouble), then BAM! you've gottem!

Re:Why do you keep asking?

[srmalloy]

That's stupid. Why is it their purpose to harass you? What do they stand to gain? The only thing they'll get from this is bad PR. And how does that help them?

Because as long as the TSA continues to search John Q. Public "with significance", it perpetuates the perception that it's needed to deter terrorists; if there were to be no terrrorist incidents despite the TSA not stomping all over people's privacy, then people might get the impression that all of the other invasive measures that Shrub claims are "absolutely necessary" to prevent terrorism in our country are equally unnecessary; his agenda requires that he perpetuate the state of fear in order to allow him to continue to implement the policies that God has chosen him to carry out.

Re:Why do you keep asking?

[Mononoke]

The only thing they'll get from this is bad PR. And how does that help them?

Why do they care if they get bad PR? What we think has no impact on their jobs, their budgets, or their orders.

Re:Why do you keep asking?

[Moofie]

'That's stupid. Why is it their purpose to harass you? What do they stand to gain?"

Power. Your acquiesence to their searches. Airplanes today, your bedroom tomorrow. What, you think they're really concerned about terrorism?

Re:Why do you keep asking?

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand. I feel similar. However, assume they search 1/100 and their profiling system has a 50% higher chance to catch one. Would you then feel 1,5% more safe? No, because emotions don't work that way. But statistics do. We may or may not hear from terrorists who got caught the media doesn't always get all the news. So the best way to deal with this is convince yourself that its not personal, just let them do their work, and hope you're not being delayed. I flew only 2 times 1 time from EU to US 1 time from US to EU and they merely interviewed me shortly upon arrival in the US. Fine, whatever pleases you. I was delayed by 2 minutes, but I could not find my baggage (was not checked or ath afaik) which delayed me longer...

Re:Why do you keep asking?

[rizzo420]

the interview sounds like the standard customs interview. i live in the US and we would get that when we crossed the border into canada.

you hear about the terrorists they catch, because the government wants you to hear about it so you think their random searches work. in reality, when you don't hear anything, nothing has happened. they don't know someone's a terrorist unless they find evidence of bombs or whatever. but most terrorists will fly frequently as a normal passenger simply to observe and determine the best way to carry out their plans.

Random Distribution

[StikyPad]

Sometimes people get picked multiple times -- that's how random distribution works.

For example, I've been randomly selected as a finalist in the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes almost every year. What are the odds?!?!

Re:Random Distribution

[dshack]

Word, homes. One question worth asking, though: At what point does profiling become a liability for the screening team? I'm not giving malicious travelers much time before they realize their best plan is to use couples with checked baggage and round trip tickets, people who establish a commuting pattern, people with children, etc. It's certainly harder for predominantly arab terrorist organizations to find "harmless-looking" allies that fly under the security radar, but they only need one.

Re:Random Distribution

[FireMotion]

And on the other side, other people are never selected.

Damned, those one-armed bandits!

Random?

[eu_neke]

Probablility is unfair. Get over it.

Seriously though, I would assume that security would "randomly" select the people they think are most likely to cause trouble - this tends to be a fairly personal opinion, however.

Unprofiled

[Anonymous Coward]

I've only ever been randomly selected when travelling by myself.
I have never been randomly selected when I was travelling with my wife and two screaming children.

Perhaps they don't want to deal with my wife's reaction. This would be wise.
Perhaps they believe that I wouldn't want to blow up a plane with my own children on it. This would be foolhardy.

Re:Unprofiled

[Anonymous Coward]

I was "randomly" selected with my wife and two kids flying from Salt Lake to Long Beach and again on the way back. The TSA jerks were frisking my kids ages 3 and 6, I about lost it. This is such BS.

If it looks like facism and smells like facism it's probably facism.

Frisking little kids is retarded, my kids had already gone through the metal detector. I can't help bu t feel this has more to do with scaring us into supporting the military industrial machine than actual safety.

I think the question is:

[SB5]

Is profiling effective in keeping everyone safe?

"Random" searchs just means there will be an exact percentage of people that will get "randomly" searched. That would mean, if 10% of people were "randomly" searched, there would be 1 in 10 chance if you went through the security to getting searched.(Note: this is back of the napkin type style, without even a class in statistics or probability).

Would someone take that risk to getting "randomly" searched, especially if they knew the system was completely random. More than likely I would say yes, they are playing an odds game. Now the thing with "profiling" is will they do it even if they know certain passengers are profiled to get inspected. I think the answer will be a yes there too. Profiling might be the more inconvient method of selecting passengers for all passengers involved, but I bet its the more effective one. Random is just that, random, now random searches with profiled searches is going to the most effective.

Or at least I would imagine. I ain't no security person.

Re:I think the question is:

[Anonymous Coward]

How the hell is profiling more effective? We aren't dealing with morons. If they know that they're "profiling" middle-aged Muslum men, then they'll find another group of people to do the attack for them.

Profiling, especially for terrorist prevention, is moronic. Oh, and note that numberous terrorist attacks in in the U.S. have been done by middle-aged white guys, but they sure as hell don't get "profiled" (or, to be more percise, discriminated against.)

Re:I think the question is:

[kimvette]

"Profiling" is the most basic forsensic science concept. Ignoring it and using random selection out of fear of "offending" terrorist(er, "militant") groups is idiotic at best.

Yeah, I know, not all muslims are terrorists. But compare muslim immigrants and visitors to the vast majority of American citizens, born and raised in America, who are either athiest, Christian, or Jewish, who travel only domestically, and see how many hijackers (based on percentage) come from each cross-section. Now, based on the scientific evidence (statistics), is random selection more effective, or is profiling more effective?

Re:I think the question is:

[Anonymous Coward]

Pray, tell, where are these mythical statistics that show that "profiling" against Muslims makes all of us good white boys safer?

Re:I think the question is:

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

The problem with random searches is that a would-be-terrorist could defeat it rather simply. If the odds are 1 in 10 that you won't get contraband through, you can increase them by sending two people. The odds of them both getting searched become 1 in 100.

I should point out, though, that I'm also using 'back of the napkin' logic. As I wrote this post it occured to me that if you were trying to get explosives that only a random search would reveal through, and you were to send two people, then there's a 2/10 chance of getting caught. If one person's caught, they'll shut the airport down. My 1/100 suggestion doesn't stand on as solid of ground.

I've just woken up and this topic is making my head hurt. I don't really have an opinion on whether profiling or random searches are any more effective. They both have nasty cons. I think the main reason I felt compelled to reply is that I worked at a place where I was 'randomly' chosen twice within a month to take a drug test. I do believe it was random. (or at least that they weren't singling me out.) But it made me angry enough that I told my boss I would not submit to a third one until some time had gone by. (Fortunately the computer that 'randomly' chose people didn't test my threat.)

I didn't feel that random testing worked if it picked people repeatedly. I felt like it should work in such a way that eventually everybody would be tested. There is some sense in this. The reason they did the testing is that most of the employees either drove company trucks or operated heavy machinery. If randomly testing people failed to ever test some of them, then they'd risk an intoxicant related injury. Alternatively, they could only test high risk people. Unfortunately, this is not only insulting, but it also is hard to group people this way. Somebody could be a drug or alcohol user without showing outward signs of it. If you know you will be tested some time within the next 6 months, you're likely to be a lot more careful than if it's just a 1 in 20 chance every week that you'd actually get tested.

As I said, I don't have a particularly strong opinion either way as to the right approach to solving this problem. I think niether are designed to be effective and ideal. It's a very tough problem.

Re:I think the question is:

[CTachyon]

The big problem with profiling is that there's a simple exploit: the act of profiling leaks information about who is being profiled. If a group like Al-Qaeda, for instance, wants to commit an act of terrorism against the US, all they have to do is tell their potential attackers to fly on US planes a few times (with nothing incriminating on hand). If the system is 100% biased toward profiling, either all of them or none of them will be searched. If the system is a mix of profiling and random selection, then they can still figure out who's being profiled with as little as, say, 10 plane trips per attacker over the course of, say, a year or 2. If there aren't enough un-profiled attackers to carry out an attack, they can start picking more candidates, and this time they'll have some information that will let them guess the criteria.

OTOH, if the system is 100% biased in favor of random searches, the terrorist group can do nothing to reduce the risk of getting caught. While this might be acceptable when only one or two attackers per plane is involved in the plot, each additional member exponentially increases the odds of getting caught, to the point that 10% random searches cut the odds to about 60% that a 5-man team (with incriminating evidence on all 5 members) can sneak on board any one plane, and only 13.5% that something on the scale of 9/11 could be pulled off without any advance warning from attackers stopped in random searches. That's in contrast to 100% chance of sneaking on board in a pure profiling world, or a reduced chance in a mixed world (since resources must be diverted from random searches to conduct profiled searches). Profiling only catches stupid terrorists, not effective ones.

Re:I think the question is:

[Grym]

Profiling only catches stupid terrorists, not effective ones.

Nobody is arguing that terrorists practicing perfect tradecraft against a free and open society can be stopped. Not even 100% random searches are a guarantee against knowledgable and patient terrorists as you suggest. The reason why we aren't constantly attacked is because nobody is perfect and mistakes will most certainly be made. I mean look at Richard Reed, the infamous "shoe bomber." If the idiot had just went to the lavatory to try and light the fuse to his bomb, he probably would have been successful. It was this simple mistake that foiled his plans. The idea of a good security policy of limited resources should be to capitalize on these mistakes when they are made. This is, as I understand it, the rational behind the TSA's multi-faceted security policy.

But I'd like to go back to your example for a minute.

"If the system is 100% biased toward profiling, either all of them or none of them will be searched. If the system is a mix of profiling and random selection, then they can still figure out who's being profiled with as little as, say, 10 plane trips per attacker over the course of, say, a year or 2. If there aren't enough un-profiled attackers to carry out an attack, they can start picking more candidates, and this time they'll have some information that will let them guess the criteria."

It would be a mistake to focus solely on security at the airport itself as the only obstacle terrorists must navigate. In fact, that is probably the easiest part of the puzzle, even after September 11th. One of the things stacked against their favor is time. The longer it takes for an operation to go from the planning stage to execution, the more likely they are to get on the radar of police or intelligence services. What you view as a complete failure of profiling, is actually a great deterrent. If it takes over a year to get just a viable group of operatives together for a terrorist attack, you've just given law enforcement that much time to track them down using any number of methods.

Of course, in the real world, no rational security policy relies just on profiling. And much of the profiling criteria are contextual (i.e. demeanor, destination, length of the flight, etc.) and simply can't be avoided by simply changing personnel alone.

But for the sake of the argument, let's say you're right: a 100% profiling based security policy is ineffective. However, since nobody uses 100% profiling based policies, what does that prove? It certainly doesn't prove what you're suggesting: that using a mixture of profiling and randomly based searches is less effective than 100% random searches or that profiling doesn't have a place at all in a good security policy. Both of those are much harder claims to make.

-Grym

Re:I think the question is:

[Anonymous Coward]

If they know that they're "profiling" middle-aged Muslum men, then they'll find another group of people to do the attack for them.

Yeah- because there are soooooo many young, blonde, blue-eyed, non-muslim women out there that want to blow up planes.

Re:I think the question is:

[AuMatar]

Profiling is mathematically proven to be broken. Ignoring that fact and targeting the groups you think are higher risk is not only racist, it makes us less safe.

Re:I think the question is:

[sydb]

Sending two people with bombs doesn't increase your chance of success, it increases your chance of being caught. What do you think the security reaction is to finding one person with a bomb? It's not to remove that person and carry on as normal, it's to remove that person and tighten up security much more, cancel flights, etc. If you send through two people, you've doubled your chance of one person being caught.

Re:I think the question is:

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Sending two people with bombs doesn't increase your chance of success, it increases your chance of being caught. What do you think the security reaction is to finding one person with a bomb? It's not to remove that person and carry on as normal, it's to remove that person and tighten up security much more, cancel flights, etc. If you send through two people, you've doubled your chance of one person being caught.

Check this out:

As I wrote this post it occured to me that if you were trying to get explosives that only a random search would reveal through, and you were to send two people, then there's a 2/10 chance of getting caught. If one person's caught, they'll shut the airport down. My 1/100 suggestion doesn't stand on as solid of ground.

:P

Re:I think the question is:

[sydb]

Let that be a lesson to me to read the whole damn post for going off on one!

Re:I think the question is:

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Hehe. I really shouldn't be casting stones. :)

Have a good day!

I can identify

[The MAZZTer]

I was "randomly" selected three trips in a row at one airport. Whee! I think it's because I tend to carry electronics (with wires) in my carry on.

Re:I can identify

[SaDan]

I fly primarily for work related reasons, and usually at a moment's notice. So, I'm checking computer hardware (for repair), carrying on a laptop and junk, and don't have any clothing. I get selected for the full TSA treatment quite often.

Big deal.

Re:I can identify

[damiangerous]

...and don't have any clothing. I get selected for the full TSA treatment quite often.

That's odd. Where's a naked guy going to hide explosives?

Re:I can identify

[jZnat]

That's odd. Where's a naked guy going to hide explosives?

Do you really want to know that?

Re:I can identify

[SaDan]

Good point. Guess that's why there aren't many nudist terrorists.

Re:I can identify

[bobscealy]

That's odd. Where's a naked guy going to hide explosives?

Oh, the stick of dynamite, I, errr... fell on it in the shower... yeah..

Re:I can identify

[Anonymous Coward]

That's odd. Where's a naked guy going to hide explosives?

Do you really want to know that?

*Head assplodes*

Re:I can identify

[MirrororriM]

That's odd. Where's a naked guy going to hide explosives?

Do you really want to know that?

Never seen goatse!? He must be new here.

The check-in agents can get you selected too

[rpjs]

Last time we flew, back in May, we flew UK-US with BA, then took a side-trip to the Bahamas with Delta. When we checked in for the Bahamas flight, the check-in agent wanted to take my green visa waiver form from my passport. I explained that I'd asked the US immigration agent when we'd arrived and he'd said I could keep it on the trip to the Bahamas and use it for re-entry to the US. The check-in agent wasn't happy, but let me keep it. However, my boarding pass bore the dreaded SSSS marker and I duly got the full wanding, bag search etc. My wife did't get selected.

Funnily enough, on checking in at Nassau, my pass had the SSSS stamp too, but no-one batted an eyelid at it, and I didn't get any security checking different from that which my wife or anyone else around got.

Re:The check-in agents can get you selected too

[silver4]

Here is the $100 question.

If It is the SSSS on the boardimg pass that says you are to be searched,
And I (or any terrorist) can print out a boarding pass from my home computer,
Why couldn't I (or any terrorist), just remove the SSSS from the boarding pass I print out,
Thererby insuring that I (or a terrorist) will not be randomly searched.

Re:The check-in agents can get you selected too

[Anonymous Coward]

Or better yet, if you get the SSSS at home, either don't go to the airport and fly, or don't bring your terrorist stuff with you. Postpone the plans.

Though they do scan your boarding pass at the gate, and it does indicate to the employee if you were selected for screening. They're supposed to check that the pass has been marked by the TSA (or at least has the SSSS intact).

Re:The check-in agents can get you selected too

[Chriscypher]

...my boarding pass bore the dreaded SSSS marker...

Next time, why not change the S's to "8888". It will confuse the hell out of them.

The time I was randomly selected

[Kingfox]

Young white male professional, with long hair but otherwise fairly conventional.

The only time I was randomly selected it had been the first time I flew in a while, and it was a last minute flight for work without checking any luggage (just carrying clothing and three laptops). Got "randomly selected" going out, and coming back.

I've gone on over half a dozen round trip flights since then, and haven't been selected. I think it was the way the ticket was purchased (the day of) that caused me to get yanked that one time, and that I hadn't flown in a while to boot.

Re:The time I was randomly selected

[kimvette]

I get "randomly selected" when I bring my PocketPC and GPS with me. I never get marked for searches when I don't bring them. And yet, I have never left our nation's borders, I am an American citizen, a Christian, a conservative, and yet on one trip I was searched at the security point outside the terminal, at the gate right before the plane, and at the gate at the layover. What the fuck was up with that? That was when I decided I hate "duhbya" with all my heart, all my soul, and all my mind and to change my affiliation from Republican to Libertarian (which reminds me, I need to actually do that in the next couple of weeks). What the hell are they doing harassing an American citizen who makes the same damn domestic flights every few weeks? I no longer fly due to the harassment, and when I do have to start traveling again I'll either drive or take the train until I can afford to get my private flight certificate and my own goddamned airplane and bypass the whole fucking mess. I don't care if all I can afford is a crappy old Mooney or Piper, by bypassing the not-so-random selection I'll break even in time, and not only that, I'll actually get a decent view while I travel.

Re:The time I was randomly selected

[maetenloch]

You're making the fallacy of thinking of the president as the Great Oz who controls all aspects of the government down to the local level. Policy details like the searches you're encountering are usually determined somewhere deep in the bowels of the bureaucracy. The political pressures on the TSA (screening to catch the latest uncovered plot, being seen to do something versus annoying too many people, being accused of racism due to profiling) are pretty static. If Kerry had been elected in 2004, I doubt the TSA's policies would be any different.

Re:The time I was randomly selected

[nickos]

I know you mean well, but voting Libertarian is a wasted vote in a first-past-the-post 2 party system. Until the system is reformed along the lines of proportional representation, the best way to use your vote is to vote for the party you dislike least out of the big 2. If you hate Bush put your pride to one side for a moment and vote Democrat.

My experience...

[cozziewozzie]

I flew over to the US from Europe a few weeks ago. Six flights overall, three to California and three back.

I got "randomly" selected three times out of these six flights. In addition to this, my (checked-in) bag was "accidentally" delayed before being loaded onto the plane, and the flight attendant had to come and ensure that I was onboard before the "delayed" bag was brought onboard, just before landing (which was delayed due to my bag).

I'm mid-20s, with an Arab-sounding name, not married, travel a lot (including Eastern Europe), didn't carry a lot of baggage (I was only visiting for a couple of days).

Every time they told me they "randomly" selected me for inspection, I smiled and let them do their thing.

"Random" selection is profiling under a PC name. Of course they profile people. And of course they won't tell you that they do. Before travelling to the US, I was thinking about how suspicious I may appear and how many times they would search me, dig through my luggage and ask me questions. Surprise, surprise, they did it. Three times.

Re:My experience...

[G-funk]

Was it because you've an arab-sounding name? Or because you travel a lot, including eastern europe, and you're young enough that it's unlikely you're a CEO who needs to travel a lot?

Profiling doesn't always mean "picking on blacks and arabs".

Re:My experience...

[mrscorpio]

Does it matter WHY they're profiling? It's still unethical.

Re:My experience...

[kraut]

Three weekend trips UK to LAX, carry on luggage only [flying to LAX is unpleasant enough without waiting for delayed luggage if you can help it.]

Three random searches.

Next time I'll check in a bag of stuff I want to get rid off and save myself the random search.

Plus, can someone explain to me the point of looking for a terrorist when they get OFF the plane?

Re:My experience...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm mid-20s, with an Arab-sounding name...

Maybe you should encurage your fellow Arabs to leave the strap-on bomb vests at home more often. After all, such fasion in mostly Arab...

Re:My experience...

[drsmithy]

Plus, can someone explain to me the point of looking for a terrorist when they get OFF the plane?

Stunning as it might seem, they're not *only* looking for terrorists.

Good old fashioned illegal immigrants, drug smugglers, money launderers and criminals are still around.

Re:My experience...

[Jeremi]

and the flight attendant had to come and ensure that I was onboard before the
"delayed" bag was brought onboard, just before landing

Your bag was brought on board just before landing? Very suspicious, indeed! ;^)

"Random" selection is profiling under a PC name.

Well, just to play devil's advocate: The lottery is random, and your chances of winning it are miniscule, and yet somebody still wins it every week. Similarly, even in a true random profiling system, there will be some poor soul who "wins" three random-searches in a row, just from bad luck...

Re:My experience...

[Mistah Blue]

No it isn't. It's quite logical. You are looking for what's out of place. I wish they had the balls to admit, further, I wish they'd go with behavioral profiling (since you are more likely to trip up those who have figured out your pattern). I profile all the time (been lots of places when I was in the Army), it's how you stay alive.

Re:My experience...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what a TSA agent told me when I too was "randomly selected" on asking:
1) The random checks are determined by carriers and not by TSA, your boarding pass itself would show up a sign (generally in the form of certain characters being printed) that you need to be thoroughly "checked".
2) The rough guidelines for "random checks" include one way tickets, tickets booked only about a week before your flight, no check-in luggage etc.

Anon.

Re:My experience...

[Wordplay]

Well, my last plane trip, I "won" twice in a row, going and coming. And that was on a round-trip ticket. My last name is English/German, and I'm as white as white can be. But I also had no checked luggage (it was a short trip) and had a bunch of piercings at the time, including a facial one. Assuming the ticketing agent has any amount of discretion, I figure I set off her freak/nerd alarm.

By the by, things get interesting when your nipple piercings set off the metal-detecting wand. Apparently, it's unacceptable to lift your shirt in the airport terminal, so I ended up getting felt up by a 75yo TSA guy. This was -not- the highlight of my trip.

Re:My experience...

[The Cydonian]

Or because you travel a lot, including eastern europe, and you're young enough that it's unlikely you're a CEO who needs to travel a lot?

Seriously, what the FUCK is that supposed to mean? Just because you're in your mid-twenties, and aren't a CEO, you can't be expected to travel a lot?

Perhaps you have heard of this term called 'globalization' before, but trust me, a lot of us in our mid-twenties, and aren't CEO's, tend to travel a lot for pleasure. I, for one, make it a point to travel overseas at least thrice in a year, two of them for pleasure.

Re:My experience...

[Anonymous Coward]

Illegal immigrants usually don't come by airplane, they come by boat or over the land-border (in the case of US, Mexican border). You catch an illegal immigrant by catching them when they pass and then figuring their passport is a fraud or they have no Visa or VWP; not by searching through their baggage. Drug smuggling may indeed be useful, but I think they can scan through a bag as well. Money launderers you catch differently, they don't carry their money around in the air if you think such then you're naive.

Also, this TSA org was created in response to 9/11 so while you may be right I think in essence they 1) search for terrorists 2) intimidate people. Ofcourse, I don't give a rat whatever they do since I know I'm innocent. As long as I'm not raped or sth and as long as I don't miss my flight. So I make sure I'm there on time, and I'm fine. Airlines indeed do profile other things for marketing purposes, but I don't know the details on that.

Re:My experience...

[Anonymous Coward]

Was the highlight of your trip related to psychedelic drugs by any means?

Re:My experience...

[cozziewozzie]

Was it because you've an arab-sounding name? Or because you travel a lot, including eastern europe, and you're young enough that it's unlikely you're a CEO who needs to travel a lot?

It was almost certainly a combination of all those. In any case, it wasn't random.

Re:My experience...

[c0reboarder]

Hmm, I'm in my mid 20's, and flew to LA two weeks ago (4 flights in total 2 there, 2 back). I was "randomly selected" twice. I'm white as any programmer from European descent, from the US, and have a fully american first and last name... john smith is about the only thing more common. I'm also clean shaven, and travelling on business... Seemed random to me. I also watched a white man with a family get screened in front of me a few people... so for everyone saying you only get screened if you fly by yourself or with arabs i call bs. I'm sure there is some profiling, but there is also an element of randomness.

Re:My experience...

[G-funk]

Well good for you buddy. But lots of people != statisticaly signifigant amount. Most people don't travel overseas a lot. Not to mention that it's to be expected that the crowd here on /. is more widely travelled, of higher intelligence, and makes more money than the average person. It's a hangout for people in IT.

Re:My experience...

[The Cydonian]

The question is if a young traveller who isn't a CEO should be deemed suspicious just because he travels frequently. In my experience, that's a very very VERY wrong thing to presume; the fact is that international travel has become a lot more broad-based than before, everywhere in the world, more people are travelling more often to more places, and most of them on pleasure. Feel free to disagree with my assertion, but don't set international airline policy presuming that only the rich and famous travel frequently.

Not so random for me

[insecuritiez]

I have a large camouflage pattern duffel bag that I've been traveling with over the last two years. Every time I arrive at my destination I find one of those long TSA slips in my bag informing me that it was randomly selected for search. In over twelve trips with this bag, it has never NOT been 'randomly' selected. I don't care if my bag is searched, but it makes me wonder how realistic it is to expect a camouflage bag to more of a risk than some other bag.

Re:Not so random for me

[RobertLTux]

just for fun put in your bag a note and a tip note states "Thank you for ensuring my bag is not a threat to the aircraft network Please take the tip"

Re:Not so random for me

[soft_guy]

A lot of the people who try to comit these kinds of crimes are mentally deranged and into "para-military" type stuff. Now, in your rational mind you are thinking, "well if I was going to blow up a plane, I would just buy a very ordinary business traveler looking bag". But that is not how crazy people think. Some Timothy McVey wannabe is probably thinking how bad-ass his cammo looking bag is.

Re:Not so random for me

[IANAAC]

...I would just buy a very ordinary business traveler looking bag

I use an ordinary dark blue soft-sided suitcase and am randomly selected every time. In the last three years that I've traveled, whether inside or outside the country, my luggage has been searched every time.

The paranoid in me might suggest that there is some massive database(s) being cross-checked, as:

1. I purchase a lot of items (mostly books) from overseas off the internet.
2. I'm a translator, and the majority of my business is done with overseas clients, hence my phone useage is mostly international.

But that's the paranoid in me.

Re:Not so random for me

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care if my bag is searched, but it makes me wonder how realistic it is to expect a camouflage bag to more of a risk than some other bag.

So... If it stands out so much that kind of defeats the point of the camouflage, doesn't it?

Re:Not so random for me

[NotBorg]

That way you can be profiled for bribery. This significantly decreases your chance of being inspected. After all, in our government it's a perfectly normal thing. You'll be branded as a patriot in no time.

Re:Not so random for me

[Jeremi]

just for fun put in your bag a note and a tip note states "Thank you for ensuring my bag is not a threat to the aircraft network Please take the tip"

I'm not sure that would get the response you imagine.... airport security is famous for not getting the joke.

OTOH, when packing gear for shipment, my co-worker often does include notes to TSA instructing them on how it needs to be repacked... maybe they even read them, who knows?

Re:Not so random for me

[khallow]

My guess is that it's probably something to do with the internal structure of the bag or what you carry in it than any special suspicions about your character. Maybe you have stuff in there that looks like "IEDs" (Improvised Explosive Devices) on the X-ray machine that they usually use. Another possibility is that the bag or something in it is acting like a shield. They might have to always check by hand the hidden parts of the bag.

Re:Not so random for me

[Nocterro]

So you mean defeating luggage checks is as simple as sending a hundred camouflaged bags through and one bomb in plain colours? And maybe drugs in one of the camo bags to keep the scanners happy.

Re:Not so random for me

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure that would get the response you imagine.... airport security is famous for rampant pilfering.

(fixed that for you)

Re:Not so random for me

[insecuritiez]

The bag is made out of nylon, there aren't any hidden parts, and I only ever carry clothing and 1-3 magazines. Anything that isn't soft would puncture it. I don't think the decision to search it is being made after it is x-ray'd -- I think it is a visual inspection choice.

Not random

[maop]

I get randomly search every time I fly oneway. I got randomly picked for anthrax testing when I sported a full beard.

Definition of "random"

[200_success]

Technically, "random" does not necessarily mean uniformly distributed. There are many different ways to randomly pick a sample while not being fair. From my personal observation, I agree that there is some kind of profiling going on in the TSA's screening process.

Re:Definition of "random"

[FireMotion]

They randomly select people (so, not all) from a specific group (selection).
So they do randomly select people, but the group they randomly select from, isn't random.
Which is actually almost the case when randomly select *people*.

Re:Definition of "random"

[Anonymous Coward]

Random meaning "whatever personal profiling criteria the agent on duty feels appropriate at the time."

I've heard from both the security side and the passenger side that one of those "personal profiling criteria" is "hot chick".

Hell yeah, they're profiling!

[gettingbraver]

One of my friends (male) wears his hair longer than mine and is always "selected" for a random search when he flies. I bet if I fly (wearing jeans, a t-shirt, tennis shoes) I'd be "selected". And I wouldn't be if I was dressed up!

Re:Hell yeah, they're profiling!

[IANAAC]

And I wouldn't be if I was dressed up!

Please do! Put some pants on, instead of those swim trunks you think pass for shorts. And for god's sake, put on some real shoes. We're tired of looking at your nasty toenails hanging over those flip-flops.

Alas, that's a whole other can of worms.

Please note: The above was sarcastic, and in no way was meant to attack you personally.

Re:Hell yeah, they're profiling!

[aztracker1]

I've flown a handfull of times since 9/11, and all but one trip, I was "randomly" selected... single white male, in-country business trip.. checked luggage was a duffle bag. The one time I wasn't selected, I wore sweat pants and a t-shirt, and hadn't shaved that morning.. the others where I was, I was nicely dressed (pressed slacks, and a dress shirt, no tie). Doesn't always flow so straight forward.. also have seen a few instances where a 60+YO woman was selected... I think it's pretty much random, there may be some profiling in there mixed in.

On the flip side, I think the whole thing is pretty assinine.. get to have my chapstick confiscated while I wait in line for an hour or two.. while how many people travel with labtops? I mean, honestly, *IF* I were to commit an act of terrorism, I would try my best to look like a clean cut businessman, with one of those desktop replacement labtops, with the spare battery compartment holding something "special"... I say force everyone to *check-in* all electronics, and see how quickly people get pissed... No portable dvd players, cd's, ipods, etc... heh.. that would be the last straw for many...

I actually have to fly again in a few weeks, and am not looking forward to it.

Re:Hell yeah, they're profiling!

[gettingbraver]

LOL!!!

Put some pants on, instead of those swim trunks you think pass for shorts. And for god's sake, put on some real shoes. We're tired of looking at your nasty toenails hanging over those flip-flops.

Pretty good, but I'm not a Californian. (No offense intended to any Californians out there.)

Random my ass

[Captain Splendid]

Since 9/11, I have been 'ramdomly selected' pretty much every single time (upwards of 75% of the time at least by approximation). Which is fine. I'm scruffy, with facial hair. I'm born in country A, carry a passport from country B, and live in country C, none of which are the US.

My point is, I expect it. But random? Yeah, right.

Re:Random my ass

[Anonymous Coward]

On our last (ever?) holiday to the US we were 'randomly' selected for attention before every flight. Obviously, since we were travelling to and from Belfast on Irish passports we must be terrorists. We thought we were just giving them some tourist dollars.

Re:Random my ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Better yet, one of my friends who works for US Customs, had to fly down to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center near Atlanta, Georgia. He was accompanied by three, badge-carrying, Customs agents.

On the flight down, and the flight back, they were the only ones "randomly" searched by the TSA.

To hear the story about what happened when the TSA weenie told the Customs agent that he couldn't take his knife on board is hilarious. It seems that when the TSA weenie "tried" to take the knife, the three Customs agent reminded him of the consequences of assaulting a federal law enforcement officer. This is how Homeland Security treats it's own employees.

Re:Random my ass

[QuasiEvil]

Agreed - "random" is a batch of BS. I'll admit, I'm sometimes a little rough looking - a razor and I can be strangers for a couple weeks at a time. Usually it's jeans, t-shirt, and boots for flying attire if I'm not on business travel or interline standby. I tend to do a lot of one way tickets, and I don't tend to check a whole lot (particularly if traveling standby - the I usually ship my luggage home, since I never know what flight I'll actually get). I do, however, carry a large carry-on full of cameras, lenses, and electronic gear. Oh yeah, and I'm an airline employee with a ramp badge, and my employer has put me through a number of background checks. Still, every time, "Sir, you've been randomly selected..." Random, my ass. I don't look or act like the usual traveler, and you picked up on that. Just admit it.

Personally I'd rather drive anyway. There's nothing like a warm fall day, the open road, and a convertible to relax the nerves. I only fly when it's the only option left.

At least you're not my old roommate from college. He shares a name (a very common one) with a guy on one of the watch lists. He gets the *extra* special screening every time he sets foot in an airport.

Re:Random my ass

[gemtech]

"travelling one-way segments" was what they were targeting. period.

Re:Random my ass

[fuzzybunny]

This is absolutely true. I once nicely asked a TSA guy at SFO about why I'd been selected. His response was a very polite "I'm sorry sir, I can't tell you that." However, when I asked him whether it was because of the one-way ticket, he told me it was.

Kinda stupid, like the taking-off-shoes and other, more recent, dumber measures--won't really stop a smart attacker, but inconvenience everyone. At least the security screeners I've run across recently were all very polite and professional, far more so than the mooks I used to encounter right after 9/11.

Re:Random my ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah cuz... if you want to sneak something on a plane the best way to do it is go with the scruffy facial hair look. Yeah.

Re:Random my ass

[chihowa]

So why does a Customs agent on his way to training need to carry a knife on board? It's a good thing he intimidated the TSA into bending the rules for him, otherwise he'd have had to check the knife like everybody else.

Re:Random my ass

[Jon Luckey]

So to reiterate, random, my ass

No no no, you are missing a great opportunity!

James Randi has a standing offer to give 1 Million Dollars to anyone who can do stuff similar to what you claim. For instance if you always guess the next card drawn at random from a deck of cards, always pick the where the ball will land in roulette, or always call a coin heads or tales correctly.

Here you apparently have the power to always 'win' at something declared a random selection.

I say when life hands you a lemon, make lemonade.

Go get that million dollars! :)

Wha?!?

[benhocking]

Ahh, but so far all the terrorists have been Muslim.

Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, Eric Rudolph, Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, Ted Kaczynski: Do these names ring a bell to you? Also, there's the fact that you can't tell who's Muslim just by looking at them.

Sorry to rant, but ignorance like you've spouted really frustrates me. Welcome to the real world.

I hope you see the humor here, but I suspect that you do not.

Re:Wha?!?

[secolactico]

Also, there's the fact that you can't tell who's Muslim just by looking at them.

Agreed 100%. There are muslims of pretty much all ethnic groups. It'd be the simplest thing for them to hang up a cross on their neck and stuff a bible on their pockets. Racial profiling wouldn't do much good there.

It might be a fluke, but whenever I tried to board a plane with a 3 or 4 days beard, I was "randomly" selected for further inspection (including swabbing my luggage for drugs at the destination, go figure). Whenever I go clean shaven, I pass right thru. I havent' flown that much so, as I said, it might be a fluke.

Re:Wha?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

it might be a fluke.

It's not. Next time you fly, try doing it as a young 20something with big boobs and see how randomly selected you get.

Re:Wha?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

My mid-eastern aquaintances here at work all have the same experience. Wear a suit/tie and no TSA problems, otherwise "random selection search". I guess that means any terrorist should wear a suit and tie to just get thru the inspection process.....

Re:Wha?!?

[Chanc_Gorkon]

This is very true. A ex coworker of mine is Muslim, however she had blonde hair and is of German decent. Only way I knew this was she showed me her old license (she wears a burka but no veil on the face). She converted to Islam when her ex-husband was a dick. He supposedly was Christian.

Re:What's character anyway?

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

all the terrorists so far have been muslims

For the love of god! Are there actually people this fucking retarded!?!?!?! See poses just above yours for many counter examples!

It is exactly...

[Anonymous Coward]

this kind of bullshit that makes me never want to go to America to visit my family there. That and the damn fucking "quota" of suspects that get chosen on every fight for being "terrorist". America is fast becoming worse than "Red" Russia and China combined. Who wants to go to the land that was once free... Thanks Bush for setting us up the bomb...

Stop letting them treat you like a criminal

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want this crap to stop, you need to stop flying. Once the airlines start losing sheep, er customers, they will bribe, er contribute to the campaign of, Bush to change the rules and it will happen.

Re:Stop letting them treat you like a criminal

[mqduck]

If you want this crap to stop, you need to stop flying. Once the airlines start losing sheep, er customers, they will bribe, er contribute to the campaign of, Bush to change the rules and it will happen.

Damn straight! To quote my man Stephen Colbert, "Let the free market do what it does best: bring justice to the disenfranchised."

Seriously, Slashdot is the home of vote-with-your-pocketbook rhetoric.

Re:Stop letting them treat you like a criminal

[Anonymous Coward]

But it is already happening! There are many places in the US i'd like to visit as a tourist but i'd rather spend my money in other countries, where i can feel welcome.

Signed

a foreigner

Re:Stop letting them treat you like a criminal

[An Onerous Coward]

No, if fewer people are flying, that's de facto proof that evil terrists have frightened us away from air travel. Therefore, we'll need to open up a new front in the War on Terr in the form of massive bailouts of the airline industry.

But that's assuming that a noticeable number of people stop flying. Boycotts have always seemed pretty ineffective to me.

Re:Stop letting them treat you like a criminal

[mr100percent]

Hear hear! Look at how they allowed matches and lighters on planes, the smoking lobby is powerful...

i have been

[crankshot999]

Ive been randomly selected to win all kinds of electronics! in fact i have them in piles around me, all the ppl who tried to steal my comp after they got my adress.

Random, just not the same chance for everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't seen any TSA workers rolling 2D6 behind their security checkpoints as people wander past, but I believe it is random and based on some kind of risk model (whether you call it positive profiling to do be more likely to search people with no carry-ons or negative profiling to be less anxious to search one of a couple with checked baggage.)

When I travel on business it's with a group of 20 or 30-something mainly males usually all with checked luggage. Most likely one of us will be randomly selected for some extra attention -- it's never all of us.

Is it effective? Well I guess we want the bad guys to have every chance to make all the mistakes them can by thinking they have to go to extreme lengths to get materials for their bad acts on the plane rather than just turning up with a big ticking bomb, swiping their amex, choosing a seat and strolling on to the plane. The recent events after the UK arrests seem to suggest that we don't all want to be searched really, really hard -- so random seems to be the only compromise.

(Even if they're doing something clever behind the scenes, I'm happy that it's easier to tell people that it's "random" even if it's only very slightly random based on a very good model based on everything from personal and group details, dress, how we act in the queue etc.)

Of course

[mattboston]

they're not random. They are specifically targeted at people who meet certain criteria. They just tell you it's random so you don't think about it.

Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[Desolator144]

I don't remember who said this but some guy on the news said "If a one armed man robbed a bank, I don't think many police would be stopping to question guys with two arms." Being random and relying on luck to catch terrorists is just plain stupid. If there is a logical way to narrow it down in any way, they should do it.

Hmm let's see, there are hundreds of thousands of arabic muslims that hate us and have joined terrorists organizations and ummmm...well 1 white guy from the US that was just on that tape, plus Timothy McVey if you really consider that terrorism. So with a white, american businessman and an arabic, non-US citizen standing next to each other, it's a more fair, safe, and effective to just flip a coin and let that decide which one gets searched. If that's racism then I'm Bill Gates...and I'm not.

As for innocent Arabs that constantly get stopped at our airports I say, **** happens and they should just live with it.

If a guy matching my description robbed a store and ran towards an airport that I was in, I'd be disappointed if the police DIDN'T stop me and question me and I wouldn't start whine about them being racist against blond haired, 5'11" people or whatever. If a computer programmer in my town was suspected of stealing a computer, I wouldn't have a problem with them coming to question or search me just because I'm one too. If someone in any group that you belong to does something bad that makes people suspect you of something then it's not racism, it's life, deal with it.

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[soft_guy]

As for innocent Arabs that constantly get stopped at our airports I say, **** happens

Have you ever spoken to these so called "innocent" arabs. Pretty much all the ones I know seem really rational until the topic of Israel comes up and then they basically say they support the Jihadists. Hezbolla and other terrorist groups get most of their funding from these so-called "innocent" arabs. Frankly, I have no sympathy. If Muslim culture is so great, why aren't these people living in one of the many muslim countries in the world?

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[Desolator144]

hehehe that reminds me of my arab teacher in 9th grade that yelled at the class for being so white and racist for no reason and told the class that the CIA was spying on her every day. She got fired :-)

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't a case of 5'7 Middle Eastern gentlemen carrying nuclear warheads being targeted at "random". It's a case of Middle Eastern people in general being targeted for "fitting the description". If some white guy robbed a store and the police stopped you for fitting that description, you'd be crying racism, too.

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[Frogbert]

Have you ever spoken to these so called "innocent" Americans? Pretty much all the ones I know seem really rational until the topic of Terrorism comes up and then they basically say they support Torture, Random wars and stripping everyone of their rights. America gets most of their support from these so-called "innocent" Americans. Frankly, I have no sympathy. If American culture is so great, why aren't these people living in one of the many American countries in the world?

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[kraut]

> I don't remember who said this but some guy on the news said "If a one armed man robbed a bank, I don't think many police would be stopping to question guys with two arms."
I don't remember either, but he clearly wasn't very smart. Bad analogies don't make your argument any better. Think that analogy through for a minute, I'm sure you'll eventually figure it out.

> plus Timothy McVey if you really consider that terrorism.
No, blowing up a building and killing hundreds of people for a misguided political cause can't be terrorism if the perpetraror isn't muslim. Now gow and tell that the the relatives of the victims.

> So with a white, american businessman and an arabic, non-US citizen standing next to each other, it's a more fair, safe, and effective to just flip a coin and let that decide which one gets searched.
Actually, yes. I'd suggest you read Schneier sometime, it it's not too taxing. But in summary, if you narrowly define the threat, your defence is easy to work around.

> As for innocent Arabs that constantly get stopped at our airports I say, **** happens and they should just live with it.
I lobby my government to what the brazilians did and reciprocate on mandatory fingerprinting of US citizens. Just because shit happens and an unpleasantly large minority of them have such a f**king attitude problem. And, what's worse, they can support all kinds of shit, but can't even get themselves to spell it out: S H I T.

> If someone in any group that you belong to does something bad that makes people suspect you of something then it's not racism, it's life, deal with it.

So DWB should be a capital offence, should it?
Thanks God it's 2006, not 1966 anymore.

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[DudeTheMath]

While I was a grad student in Ann Arbor, one night walking home, I was stopped by police. It seems there was someone who was attacking women (I'm probably misremembering, it was 16 or 17 years ago), so they were stopping everyone who matched the description. Unfortunately, the description was "wearing a parka with the hood up," and it was about seven degrees F (did I mention this was in January?). Want to guess where I'd have been that night if I'd refused to show identification? Not at home, betcherass.

When the description is "arab-looking" (or whatever), you actually reinforce the view of Americans as bigoted. (I've seen the mention of "behavioral profiling"; maybe that is working for TSA.) But the point of random searches (presuming uniformity) is that as the number of terrorists trying to get through security increase, the chance of all getting through decreases exponentially; and once you find one, you start searching everybody, especially people on the same flight. You just can't game uniform random searches; you can only hope you're lucky.

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[shaneFalco]

What you said just goes to show this country is going to hell in a handbasket-

"Those who would sacrifice their liberties for a measure of security deserve neither"

~Ben Franklin

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[An Onerous Coward]

"If you really consider that terrorism." What the hell? Honestly, what definition of the term do you use, such that McVeigh doesn't qualify?

The analogy from the talking head also fails to make sense, because we're not looking for the nineteen guys who executed the September 11th hijackings. We already know what happened to them, and they're beyond the reach of our justice. What we're looking for are people who might be attempting to do something similar. A less superficial analogy would have your one-armed bank robber cracking his skull open on the sidewalk as he exited the bank, and having the bank respond by demanding all people with missing limbs undergo a background check before opening a checking account.

There are a dozen reasons why racial profiling is counterproductive. My primary objection is that it feeds the belief among many Muslims that the "War on Terror" is really a war on Islam, and as such it makes even moderate Muslims more inclined to be our enemies than our allies.

But even if we ignore that it may be creating new potential attackers, it's ineffective at thwarting a given attack. First, there is the fact that whatever profile you select, the attackers will be able to learn how not to match the profile, even if that requires skin lightener, fake IDs, and voice training. More likely, though, the attackers would look for someone who sympathized with the cause, but didn't fit the profile. Beyond that, a focus on skin color is going to distract from more useful indicators, like behavior. Given the choice between screening the scruffy Arab and the white businessman, I'd search the one who is shaking and sweating like the proverbial whore in Sunday School.

In the end, the best way to avoid another September 11 is not to seek out and destroy those who hate us, or to closely scrutinize every person who reminds us of someone who hated us in the past. We can't lock down the 'bad guys' to the point where the 'good guys' are completely safe, because there is no such clear distinction, and we're in danger of losing our freedom as we make the attempt. Consider that it won't be remotely possible to secure every conceivable vector of attack. If we lock down air travel, our buses are still vulnerable. If we stop everyone from buying explosives and their precursors, they can fall back on our abundant firearms. If we protect our stadiums, they can go after malls, hospitals, dams, etc. Targeted assassinations, random arson, destruction of fiber optic cables and power lines... and that's leaving out the scenarios where something manufactured abroad is snuck into the country.

No, our best defense is to reduce the number of people who passionately hate us, and are willing to act on their anger. Killing them doesn't work--not on the scale that any reasonable person is willing to contemplate--because even the people who hate us are still people, people with families and friends who will learn hate as they watch us butcher their loved ones.

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[Desolator144]

no, it's people like YOU that prove that. The we can't stop them everywhere so just leave everything as it is and give up and hope they don't nuke us mentallity is ridiculous. In general islamic arabs are the most likely by far to be terrorists and there's no two ways about it.

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[Desolator144]

Timothy McVey isn't a terrorist any more than those two bank robbers that shot like 70 people while wearing body armor or the columbine shooters. Stop watching the news and start using your brain; a terrorist isn't someone who commits a large scale crime, it's a person or group that try to achieve some sort of goal using fear. As for the rest of your BS, I won't even bother because you're too closed minded and illogical.

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[shaneFalco]

"Our federal union must endure" ~President Andrew Jackson, 1837 Actually- you picked the wrong person to spout your racist and hateful rhetoric at- I'm working on a PhD in Political Theory- I've done considerable work in terrorism. And I would argue al Quida is to Islam what the KKK is to Christianity. Terrorism, in its modern form first appeared in the late 19th century in Russia when the Tsar's carriage was bombed by radicals from the Black Earth Party. Terrorism has since shown its hateful face in every culture. A previous poster refered to FARC- a Columbian paramilitary organization which engages in far more terror than al Quida does. There is of course- the IRA- which I have studied, which had been active in Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom for nearly 3 decades before laying down their arms- after being approached as humans by a joint coalition of the British, Americans, and Irish. The list goes on- there are terrorist organizations in every civilization- we have the Ku Klux Klan, some would argue the Black Panthers as well, neo-Nazi's are terrorists, as was the Unabomber and Tim McVeigh, for Christ's sake his book was entitled 'American Terrorist.' Having studyed the rule of law and the fall of civilizations it is when security takes precedence over the rights of minorities that civilizations decline the most. The majority does not need protections guarenteed in the Constitution, it is the minorities that truly need them. Your words are hateful and despicable- but you have a right to spout your rhetoric. That is what makes America great. Would you argue that a mall security guard may stop a black simply because they might just so happen to be more prone to shoplifting 'no two ways about it'? Think about what you advocate for a second. I welcome you to talk to an Arabic person for a change. I interviewed one about emigrating to the United States shortly before 9-11. When I asked him about 9-11 he was litteraly in tears- he felt so bad for what he saw as a bastardization of his faith. Remember- the Crusades were fought because 'god ordered them' (disclaimer: I'm a Deist). Pick up the Quran- its very similar to the Bible in its condemnation of violence. You, my friend, are a racist toward Arabs. A terrorist can be anyone, it could be me, it could be you- treating a class of people as less than humans or citizens because of a particularly active terrorist organization would be to betray the principles that made America happen and merely feed fuel to the al-Quida fire.

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[Criceratops]

No, our best defense is to reduce the number of people who passionately hate us, and are willing to act on their anger. Killing them doesn't work--not on the scale that any reasonable person is willing to contemplate--because even the people who hate us are still people, people with families and friends who will learn hate as they watch us butcher their loved ones.

Interesting point. Let me extend this into a metaphor.

Let us pretend that cultures are like parents, and specific subsets/countries are like kids.

So one kid (Mark) comes over to the other kid's house (Chris) and decides to push over the nice LEGO tower that Chris has been using as his city's centerpiece for a while.

The parent then immediately starts beating Mark senseless, and sets Mark's parents' house on fire.

"... Wait a sec... that doesn't make any sense," you say. Mark obviously needs help. And indeed, Mark's parents are mostly poor (their rich uncle Sam-Albert and aunt Ulane don't count). So the best solution would be to get Mark (and his parents) help. Maybe alleviate their poverty, get them to counseling, etc. (not that this happens either in most personal cases, but that is beside my point.)

OK. So why do we destroy the infrastructure of a nation FILLED with NON-terrorists to stop terrorist? Every person who gets put out of their house or loses loved ones to our bombs becomes another potential (and likely!) new terrorist or terrorist supporter. And frankly, if some ruler of another country pulled some BS excuse to bomb the USA, and they killed ANYONE I cared about, I would fight them. So I understand.

As the Cuban guy in "Die Another Day" said, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."

The Revolutionary War Army in the Colonies? To the Brits of the eighteenth century, those brave patriots were *terrorists*.

Hey, do you know why Europe didn't turn into a seething mass of baby Hitlers after WWII? Oh yah, that's right, the Marshall Plan.

History is mostly written by idiots, unfortunately. That's why it's cyclical.

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[SRA8]

Probably because their countries have been destroyed by America or Israel.

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Pretty much all the ones I know seem really rational until the topic of Israel comes up Easy analogy. See how rational Jews are when the topic of the holocaust comes up. Get it? How can Muslims stay rational after seeing 1.6m Iraqi's die between 1991 and 2006? Then there are the kurds. Palestineans. Lebanon. List goes on. Frankly, the holocaust card can be used every single time, but Muslims should just "forget and move on" because clearly a Muslim life is worth nothing right?

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[maidix]

"The analogy from the talking head also fails to make sense, because we're not looking for the nineteen guys who executed the September 11th hijackings. We already know what happened to them, and they're beyond the reach of our justice..."

Actually, that may not be as true as you (and most Americans) think. This BBC article talks about the 4th "hijacker" who turned out to be alive and well. In fact, as many as 9 of the 19 hijackers are reported to be very much alive. None of the "hijackers" are listed in the official autopsies, nor the passenger manifests. This is one of many massive holes in the official story of 9/11. Most of the holes are of the JFK variety -- we're expected to believe the laws of physics were simply repealed, temporarily, to allow the events of the day to unfold as they did. Sadly, those who insist on the continuity of the laws of physics (in both cases) are labeled "conspiracy theorists."

According to the official story, some of the "hijackers" were identified by their paper passports, which flew out of the pockets of the hijackers, survived the explosive impact & blazing inferno, and landed completely intact on the streets of New York, where law enforcement officials could find them. Sometimes, they found the same passport multiple times. (Who writes this crap?)

Mull this quote over, by Robert Mueller, director of the FBI... "The hijackers also left no paper trail. In our investigation, we have not uncovered a single piece of paper either here in the U.S. or in the treasure trove of information that has turned up in Afghanistan and elsewhere that mentioned any aspect of the September 11th plot."

Doesn't anyone think it's a little strange that bin Laden denied culpability for such a large-scale, unprecedented attack? And then, all of the sudden, they air a grainy video tape of a stocky black man wearing a gold ring, tennis shoes, and a turban, and they say it's bin Laden, and suddenly we're at war?

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[James_Duncan8181]

Timothy McVeigh (no, not McVey) was someone who used violence against civilians in persuit of political aims. How is that not terrorism?

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Honestly, what definition of the term do you use, such that McVeigh doesn't qualify?"

Honestly? McVeigh targetted a government facility. My definition of terrorist is someone who targets civilians. For instance, a muslim fighter who suicide bombs a barracks is a guerilla fighter. A crazy white guy who blows up an abortion clinic is a terrorist. It may not agree with your definition, but it is consistant...

"A less superficial analogy would have your one-armed bank robber cracking his skull open on the sidewalk as he exited the bank, and having the bank respond by demanding all people with missing limbs undergo a background check before opening a checking account."

Except that EVERYONE gets a background check when opening up a checking account already.

"I'd search the one who is shaking and sweating like the proverbial whore in Sunday School."

And that right there is the gold nugget in your ore of wisdom.

I'm a boring old white guy who occasionally gets nabbed at the airport. 9 out of 10 times that I've been nabbed, it was because my shoes set off the detector (I hike, and my boots have a steel shank). The other times I get nabbed, it's because I'm pissed that I had to wait in line for so damn long. Profiling though it may be, pulling aside the pissed off guy is a pretty good idea.

Same as puling aside the drunk is a good idea. Same as pulling aside the guy who hasn't showered today (my father-in-law gets nabbed EVERY time on that rule :), the guy who is afraid of flying (and looks nervous), and the guy who is too friendly.

Keep in mind though, the object is not to protect the passengers. The object is to protect the plane. If the object was to protecct the passengers, the freakin' security line wouldn't have 3000 people in it waiting to be blown up while they wait. You need to realize that YOU are not important. The $100 million investment on the tarmac is the important bit.

Get pissed off about THAT if you're gonna be pissed.

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[wfberg]

Honestly? McVeigh targetted a government facility. My definition of terrorist is someone who targets civilians.

The people in that government building were non-combatants though. Moreover, it's clear he couldn't have singlehandedly wiped out the US Government. What else then could his aim be, but to terrorize; to scare people into not wanting to work for the US Government. He just got caught earlier in his campaign than the unabomber did.

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[mr100percent]

Yeah, riiight. Why should we care about hearts and minds? Just treat all Arabs and Muslims like criminals. It worked so well for black people, right? or when Israel did that to Lebanese people.

Are you TRYING to alienate Arabs and Muslims? In America they're very well integrated. Arabs and Muslims WORK with the police; recruiting up and turning in suspicious people in their community. (The Lackawanna Six were turned in by other Muslims in the community). If you're trying to replicate Europe's problem over here in America, just keep on with that idea, you'll get lucky...

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[mr100percent]

If a Christian or Jewish teacher did that, people would shrug and say she didn't take her Zoloft or has mental issues. When a Muslim or Arab does that, you blame the religion. Did we learn NOTHING from Nuremberg, Germany?

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[mr100percent]

Hear hear! You should have changed the last sentence to read: If America is so great, why don't other countries just give themselves to us?

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[mr100percent]

Actually, the US State department for years has listed South America as the highest incidence of terrorism; cartels, revolutionary groups, separatists, etc. Isn't it odd we don't blame Christianity, the dominant religion of the continent, for the violence, but somehow Islam gets blamed for similar violence? It's a double standard.

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[Desolator144]

You've got to be kidding...you need to watch more CNN. Islamic extremists (note the name) believe what they are doing will get them into heaven. Blowing themselves up to detroy enemies is a purely religious act to them. In South America what they're doing has nothing to do with their religion, which btw I seriously doubt terrorists there associate with.

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[Desolator144]

As I said in my other post, Islamic Extremists (note the name) do what they do purely for religious reasons. There are (fabricated) islamic teachings that say go blow yourself up to kill some israelis and you'll go to heaven. No other major religion has anything like that as far as I know so if someone of another religion commited a terrorist act then no, it wouldn't have ANYTHING to do with their religion you bigot.

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[Desolator144]

In case you haven't met any, people that aren't bigots treat people accordingly when they meet them in real life. If muslims here help turn in terrorists then the regular, everyday person would have a good image of those specific people. Keep in mind it's racist to say all arabic muslims are terrorists and equally as racist to say that none are. Racist = saying all people in a group are one way.

Re:Why be random when you can be EFFECTIVE?

[Anonymous Coward]

If we protect our stadiums, they can go after malls, hospitals, dams, etc. Targeted assassinations, random arson, destruction of fiber optic cables and power lines... and that's leaving out the scenarios where something manufactured abroad is snuck into the country.

Well, if we have to choose, let's go for targetted assassinations. Far less mess to clean up afterwards.

One-way tickets

[NickDngr]

Flying on a one-way ticket will always earn you and/or your luggage additional scrutiny.

Re:One-way tickets

[houghi]

Yeah, beacause the terrorists are stupid and cheap and if they want to blow up a plane, they don't want to waste their money on a ticket that will be never used.

What if they bomb the plane on their way back on an internal flight?

"Random" screening

[Anonymous Coward]

They're profiling passengers but saying that they "randomly" selected them to keep their profiling methods secret.

Try purchasing a one-way ticket the day of the flight and see what happens. They'll say it's a random check, but it's your lucky day becuse you'll get randomly selected 100% of the time.

Re:"Random" screening

[BobaFett]

Random and uncorrelated are different things. If they randomly select 50% of passengers who fly one way and 0.1% of passengers who fly round-trip, this is a random selection. It happens to be strongly correlated with some other property but it's just as random as the one where they flip a coin every time a passenger walks through.

Re:"Random" screening

[FLAGGR]

Incorrect. Randomness is a lack of correlation. Increase in correlation decrease in entropy.

Say we have 10 people. 1 person has a one way flight and is scruffy looking. To add weight to him we can count him as 5 people, so while the other 9 have a 1/14 chance of getting chosen he has a 5/14 chance. While we are still doing it randomly, the overall effect is we have lost randomness, and now terrorists know not to book one way flights the day of, and not to look like terrorists.

non-uniform "random" selection maybe bad

[smash]

...sure, for a while, profiling may help pick up bags more effectively, but what's to say that "the terrorists" aren't taking note of what gets picked up?

I.e., some guy on here posted about his camoflague bag getting searched every time. If i was a terrorist organisation and noticed that, I'd be damn sure to NOT use a camo-bag for my gear...

Any non-random method of selection can be beaten. By trying to make searches more effective, you may in fact be reducing their long-term usefulness.

Re:non-uniform "random" selection maybe bad

[izomiac]

That's interesting... By profiling you decrease the frequency of attempted attacks, but increase the probability of success. For example, say TSA agents profiled for Middle Eastern Islamic men. Terrorist groups would then try staging attacks with people that don't fit that description. But, since such people are more of a minority in terrorist groups there should be a far smaller pool of people that aren't going to be profiled and who are willing to die for the cause. So fewer terrorist attacks are attempted. But, for the ones that are attempted there is a greater chance of success. It would be interesting to figure out if profiling reduces the overall number of successful attacks... (I don't know and don't care to speculate.)

Randomly selected

[ggambett]

Back in june I took 4 flights, 2 within the US and 2 to/from the US, in the space of a week. I was randomly selected in only one of these, flying from Dulles to SeaTac - that time I had missed a connection flight and had a standby boarding pass, not sure if it had anything to do.

Anyway, after the metal detector I was informed that I had been selected for additional screening. I was briefly stopped in a funny looking box with a red sign, less than 30 secs later a guard took me to behind the metal detector lines. My hand luggage, shoes and jacket were carefully inspected, I was checked with a metal detector wand, and then I was on my way. The whole process must have taken about 5 minutes and didn't cause me a single inconvenience.

Even though I'm caucasian, I'm from south america, so I could cry "I was targeted because I come from a third world country". I didn't. I also didn't notice people looking at me like I was doing something wrong. Essentially, this was routine, no different than going through the metal detector itself or the brief questions by the immigrations officer. I guess you'll say "that's how it starts" or that it's a matter of principle, but what's the big deal with this?

Re:Randomly selected

[rufusdufus]

Well, you see, some people do not get an easy time of it. Last time my girlfriend (of mixed race) was selected, they detained her for and hour and a half and she missed her flight. I suspect they occasionally pick non-profiled people so they give appearance of fairness.

The only way to be completely safe

[f0rtytw0]

is to seperate everyone and lock them in a room and keep them sedated 24/7. As for your freedoms... well freedom isn't free and these are the sacrifices that must be made to keep everyone safe.

Re:The only way to be completely safe

[srmalloy]

As for your freedoms... well freedom isn't free and these are the sacrifices that must be made to keep everyone safe.

How much safer have you demonstrably been since the institution of the TSA and its screening programs? The British caught a couple of dozen would-be suicide bombers; how many millions of dollars have the US and Britain thrown into airline security, and how many identifiable terrorists were caught as a result of this increased security? The primary result I've seen from all of the increased security is that the American citizenry has been conditioned to accept that the government can sacrifice any of our liberties as long as it waves the flags of "national security and "the war on terror".

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin, Historical review of the constitution and government of Pennsylvania, from its origin; so far as regards the several points of controversy, which have, from time to time, arisen between the several governors of that province, and their several assemblies, 1759, p.289

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

-- Gustave Gilbert, an interview with Hermann Goering on the evening of 18 April 1946, published in Nuremberg Diaries.

Re:The only way to be completely safe

[MacDork]

well freedom isn't free and these are the sacrifices that must be made to keep everyone safe.

Freedom != safety.

Re:What's character anyway?

[kv9]

While it may be true that not all muslims are terrorists, all the terrorists so far have been muslims

sure they are timmy. contrary to popular (american) belief, tehhrarists have not been invented in september 2001.

Why is random supposed to be good ?

[mbone]

I fly at least weekly; it's not random. Although at least flying open jaw no longer is an automatic SSSS.

What it curious to me is that being "random" is supposed to make it OK. I don't get this. It's either good or bad; being random is irrelevant. I would rather they just say I match certain factors used in screening...

Re:Why is random supposed to be good ?

[profplump]

Being random is an important part of being legal -- back when the FAA started requiring security screenings at airports (1972?) SCOTUS ruled that such screenings must A) be limited in scope only to explosives and weapons, and B) must be applied uniformly. So admitting that you're selecting people (even by a non-protected category) calls the legality of the searches into question.

Doubt it

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt it for one reason: Some employee would have come forward by now.

VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[AriaStar]

You know, next time I fly, I'm going to make sure to pack items I know would embarass the hell out of the inspector should I be "randomly" inspected. Then I'd really look forward to them opening my bags up, and would be disappointed to not be selected. I'd just sweetly smile with a barely contained smirk and confidentally make some sort of smart-ass remark about joining the one-person mile-high club in the bathroom. ;-)

Oh, I look forward to embarassing any airline dummy who wants ot inspect my stuff!

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[ShaunC]

You know, next time I fly, I'm going to make sure to pack items I know would embarass the hell out of the inspector should I be "randomly" inspected.

To heck with packing them, why not just wear your vibrator (turned on) through the security checkpoint?

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[AriaStar]

LOL, you know, they make these vibrators for girls called the Venus penis (oh gods, I'm almost embarassed for knowing this). Look at the pic so I don't have to describe it.

It's be a lot more fun for them to open my bags and pull out sex toys in front of everyone. I would actually consider shelling out the dough for a life-sized John Holmes dong (see the John Holmes dong) because it would be so noticable.

Don't ask how I know about these things!

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't ask how I know about these things!

I've got to know.. how the heck do you know these things?

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[AriaStar]

I knew some anonymous coward would ask!

I'm a young woman with a very high libido who doesn't want to go out and find random people, so, um.... I've got quite the collection at this point. *blushes*

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[weeboo0104]

You're modded funny, but it happened to my fiance and I.

We were flying out of town and I didn't know my fiance packed a few hentai (hey, she likes foreign films with subtitles) movies. There was also an, ummmmmm... object in the bag as well.

My fiance was a little worried when the screener stopped our bag on the xray machine and proceeded to tell us to unpack the bag and show them what was in it. We unpacked everything and showed them what it was and they put the bag through the machine and searched it again. The thing that was the problem wasn't the hentai or device, it was the pair of nail clippers we packed.

I don't think the screeners are fazed by anything unless it's an iPod or a basic hygine product. Personally, I don't thing they would know the difference between the John Holmes dong and a WMD.

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[Hotrodder]

Damn dummy passangers.

I worked at a freaking tiny airport and saw sex toys a couple times a month doing searches, It's really no big deal. Hell I'd take my time dealing with jackass passangers like you.. Hope you came to the airport early.

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[AriaStar]

If I got to unpack it, I'd loudly proclaim what each item was and turn on anything that goes buzz. :D So you think they'd be fazed by a tampon more than my rabbit? Then they're weird people. It'd still be fun to do.

And being modded funny was my goal of the day. LOL, thanks!

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[AriaStar]

A couple per month? How about several in one bag? I'd have more fun with you than you'd have with me. I've always been the type to arrive about four hours early, back when an hour was suggested. You'd be one of those stick-up-the-ass handlers I'd enjoy!

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[Hotrodder]

Oh your soooooo mean. I guess I'd have to check out each and every one of them for explosives.

Dude really trust me... even 10 cases of dildos, lovedolls, penis pumps are not a big deal. Hell they even mentioned it in training. I had to freaking dig around in dirty underware and you think a few dildos would embarrass me?

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[foobarb]

Heh. If you really really want to get searched, try taking a hair blowdryer with you. It works every single time for me.

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[bronney]

I wouldn't use sex toys as siblings suggest he prolly seen them twice a month. However I find it really interesting when they searched my bags for no reason, really, I was only carrying underwears, toothbrush, the usual for a 4 day trip, wtf??

Anyway this summer I flew from Toronto to Seattle and without any checked baggages, I got stopped, checked, x-ray, and x-ray again. It was real funny cuz I just bought this new backpack and it's pretty complicated to open. The lady had trouble and it felt like a brain teaser to her lol. I was trying to help but didn't want to look alarming, and I wasn't sure if I could touch my bag while she works.

So she fiddles for a bit and finally got it opened. But it's cool watching it.

Instead of dildos, why don't we pack 12 bags into each, kinda like the russian dolls? With items sorted in each layer like sub-directories?

btw I always arrive early and I don't give a jackass if the officer take their time. Believe it or not, I arrive 5 hours earlier. I love doing nothing at the airport.

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[AriaStar]

Maybe not you, but someone else quite possibly. :)

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[AriaStar]

Me too! I LOVE airports! Don't know why, but I always have.

My bags were checked once because in the ex-ray, a small stack of books appaently appeared to be the right size and shape to he a kilo of cocaine. The searched my bag, then STILL swabbed it to make sure there was no drug residue.

I like the idea of nesting bags!

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[Anonymous Coward]

My collection is also large. When I fly I put vibrators and dildos in large plastic ziploc bags. That way they can see the item but do not have to touch it. I also remove all the batteries first. I always carry extra ziploc bags for dirty undergarments or new purchases.

I moved across country last week and was so paranoid about the movers touching or seeing my toys that I took them ALL on the flight with me. In my luggage, I had three shoeboxes of toys and assorted porn. I really feel bad for anyone who may have had to look through my luggage. I am probaly flagged as a freak and will never be able to fly again :)

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[AriaStar]

Yet I am the one openly admitting to knowing practically all there is to knpw about sex toys because my sex life is so pathetic. Wait, pathetic implies that I have one.

In the end, who really cares? As long as no one I know actually reads this anyway!

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[AriaStar]

The point is to cause embarassment. :)

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[o'reor]

Yet I am the one openly admitting to knowing practically all there is to knpw about sex toys because my sex life is so pathetic. Wait, pathetic implies that I have one.

Not to worry. This is Slashdot, and you certainly have company here.

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[James_Duncan8181]

Looking at the picture in your sig, I wouldn't think you'd find it difficult to attract men. Are you just shy?

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[bronney]

Well I am sick cuz I actually know why I love airports so much. It's because most if not all of the time when I am AT an airport, it usually means I am on vacation. My job doesn't require business travels.

So whenever I am at one, I feel happy and just a side note, there's only one Burger King in the whole Hong Kong; and it's inside the airport's restricted zone.

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[AriaStar]

For me, it matters not whether I'm dropping someone off, picking someone up, or going somewhere myself, I've just always loved planes. And, maybe, when I am at an airport, when I wonder where all the travellers are going or from where they are coming, I sometimes imagine myself going as well.

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[AriaStar]

LOL, way too true!

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[AriaStar]

Excrutiatingly shy. I get hit on a lot, but even when I am attracted to someone, am too afraid to make it known.

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[syousef]

I commend you on being one of it seems few these days who won't find randoms to satisfy an appetite. However I find your statement about being shy a little hard to believe given you're being so open in this forum. If you're only shy in person consider getting to know people for a little while by IM, text etc. but don't make them wait forever to meet you - guys tend to hate that.

In any case the odds are heavily stacked in your favour just by being the type of girl that reads /. Showing genuine interest in male dominated activities increases your odds no end (heck I bet more than 90% of /. readership is male). When you do hook up with someone a strong libido certainly shouldn't hurt your chances of keeping a relationship going.

Just to be crystal clear I'm well and truely taken and my interest in this post is most certainly not to hit on you. (We've lived together for almost 3 years now and are engaged with a date of Sept. 1st next year - 1st day of spring meaning we just had our -1 anniversary :-)) She's just had knee surgery though - if you haven't had many long term relationships keep in mind that being in a relationhip doesn't mean all your desires will suddenly be fulfilled all the time or your expectations might get in the way.

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[AriaStar]

Heh, it's one thing to converse in text, and quite another in the company of an actual person not hidden behind a monitor somewhere. I also hate to keep long-term conversation online and prefer to meet soon. I'm not any more afraid to meet up with someone at a coffee shop that I'd be of talking to someone at that coffee shop I never knew existed before.

I don't seem to find many single tech guys in this area who are even interested in relationships. Those who I have found seem to have no interests that don't involve technology, like movies, wine, hiking, etc..

As for relationships, they've tended to be pretty long. My first was over five years, my second just shy of three. My most recent is my shortest at about six months. My most recent is also the one I felt the most potential, and still do, odd as that may seem.

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[syousef]

Heh, it's one thing to converse in text, and quite another in the company of an actual person not hidden behind a monitor somewhere. I also hate to keep long-term conversation online and prefer to meet soon. I'm not any more afraid to meet up with someone at a coffee shop that I'd be of talking to someone at that coffee shop I never knew existed before.

Good attitude. Meeting sooner rather than later means you don't build up a false picture of who you're talking to. You become fond of an actual person instead of what you imagine them to be. I'd suggest arranging your first couple of meetings in public where there's no pressure to get romantic. That'll give you time to relax. One trick is to have something planned for straight after and let your partner know in advance of the "date". That way there's a set limit if it's awkward and he won't be expecting anything intimate to happen towards the end. You could make whatever you had planned something unimportant or easy to cancel at short notice (say meeting up with a friend). If you do want to continue the date it's very flattering if the other person's willing to change plans to spend time with you.

I don't seem to find many single tech guys in this area who are even interested in relationships. Those who I have found seem to have no interests that don't involve technology, like movies, wine, hiking, etc.

Well technically movies involve technology :-) So does hiking if you're doing it safely these days. Narrow interests aren't a good trait in a partner anyway. If a person won't try anything new to him that you're into, it's a good sign they're not suitable. If a person's focused on any single thing to the exclusion of all else, they'll make a lousy partner.

I can only use myself and those around me as proof there are techy guys out there with other intersts. My interests are very varied and though most are techy some are outdoors. I do stuff with my fiancee that she enjoys. What do I do for a living? I code and do support. I try not to bring much work home (though being on support that's not always possible). I work with other guys who have broad interests. There are techy guys out there with other interests so don't settle for someone less intelligent or interesting than you feel you deserve.

You should try male dominated intellectual/techy activities that attract less introverted and focused guys (so long as you have a genuine interest). Basically stay away from things that are purely competitive (chess clubs, computer gaming) or work-oriented. Remote control aircraft, recreational (as opposed to race) sailing, amateur astronomy...well I'm sure you can come up with your own list of interests that are traditionally male dominated. The few women that show up to these sorts of activities get a lot of attention and get a wide field to choose from. Unlike female dominated activities, there's no stigma attached to a female trying them. (I can just imagine the comments from friends and family if I took up knitting!)

As for relationships, they've tended to be pretty long. My first was over five years, my second just shy of three. My most recent is my shortest at about six months. My most recent is also the one I felt the most potential, and still do, odd as that may seem.

I don't know your circumstances well enough to comment on the specific case, but my personal experience is that once a relationship ends it's only painful costly (in more ways than one) to go back. That is of course your choice. You say you're young so you'll have to learn from your mistakes and do what you think is right at the time. Just try not to become bitter. You sound like you're doing better than I did when I was young anyway. It was 10 years between disasterous relationships for me.

I'm actually pleasantly suprised /. has behaved itself. I'd have thought a female posting on this subject could expect a lot of lewd email and to be hit on in a very unpleasant way. Unless I've missed some posts that hasn't happened to you.

Anyway good luck to you. I'm sure you'll make some geek that does have some social skills, a wide set of interests, and a high libido very happy some day.

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[WilliamSChips]

It's amusing posts like this that make me remember why I friended you.

Re:VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, and DILDOS...Oh my!!

[AriaStar]

*big grins*

Wouldn't the terrorists figure this out

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems clear that one-way tickets purchased shortly before a trip with no checked luggage are almost certain to be "randomly" searched. It seems like if a terrorist wanted to get through security all he would need to do is plan ahead, bring some luggage and spend the extra money for a two way ticket. This way the terrorist's "random" chance is below the average.

An even random distribution would do a better job of discouraging anyone from trying to sneak through security then one heavily weighted toward certain criteria.

TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[drDugan]

The whole mentality behind searching people to get on a airplane promotes false security. We can't even stop weapons in our prisons, and we will NEVER be able to stop deadly weapons on airplanes.

What we need to do is come to the realization that the ONLY way to make technically fragile public transit work is to promote an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us, instead of trying to prevent the few who do from being able to. "They" will always be able to, especially with increasingly cheap and effective technology.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[tcc3]

Then we'd better get used to the Koran or a pine box. Those are the only options that will satisfy our enemies.

Oh and if appeasment is your choice, youd better pick the right side. I hear the Sunnis and the Shiites get along none too well either.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[NotBorg]

[...] promote an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us

In short, try to please everyone. Sounds easy enough to me.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[spruce]

Your solution sounds nice, and is a long term goal to shoot for, but is far less realistic than keeping weapons off of planes. How many differenct illogical reasons have humans found to attack each other over the course of history?

World peace would be nice, but until we get there we need to be practicle about security (not that our current policies are.)

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[lysergic.acid]

...

So I guess all the other countries in the world that aren't being targeted by terrorists must all be muslim countries?

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Melfina]

"The whole mentality behind searching people to get on a airplane promotes false security. We can't even stop weapons in our prisons, and we will NEVER be able to stop deadly weapons on airplanes."

There's a slight diffrence between making a shank out of a tooth brush, and detonating liquid explosives in a shoe mid flight. Although both options could end up killing someone, it's much more difficult to sneak a bomb past 'trained' security personel.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[WhiplashII]

Can you name one country including the muslim ones that has not had a muslim attack in recent history?

That fact that you have to look pretty hard, even if you could find one, should be very telling...

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Harmonious Botch]

"What we need to do is come to the realization that the ONLY way to make technically fragile public transit work is to promote an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us...

This is - IMHO - means violent retribution against anyone involved, their friends, their families, their countries, their religious centers, etc. ( Remember the couple of sentences in The Usual Suspects about the history of Kaiser Soze? I don't recall exactly, but it was something like: "...he killed their friends, he killed their families, he killed people who owed them money..." )

After the 9/11 attacks, we only clobbered the Taliban. Since it was clearly an Islamic oriented attack, backed by numerous Muslims in a handful of countries, we should have nuked Medina ( the second most important Muslim city ), followed by an announcement that if something like that were to happen again, Mecca ( the most important city ) would be next.

For those of us who like to consider ourselves civilized, this may seem a bit shocking. But it works. The people who are part of that culture know this. The crowning example is Assad, the ruler of Syria, and the city of Hama.
Hama was the third largest city in Syria, and was the Syrian headquarters to a Islamist movement called the Muslim Brotherhood which sought to overthow Assad. In the 70's they killed several hundred people in car bomb attacks, and in 1980 tried to assasinate Assad. In 1982 Assad had finally had enough. He ordered the army to surround the city, and then to begin shelling it. Tanks, and poison gas were used also. After two weeks, the death toll was between 20 and 40,000 people.

That was 24 years ago, and the Brotherhood has not made another serious attempt to interfere with the government of Syria. Assad is still in charge.
He is not a good man, and I do not admire him, but I give him credit for one thing: he knows what works in his culture.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Isotopian]

"They" will always be able to, especially with increasingly cheap and effective technology.

Especially if "they" use cheap and effective technology like ceramic or glass knives. They don't have to be durable when there's noone to kill, just threaten. And if "they" happens a bunch of random white girls, they'll never even get searched.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

name one country ...that has not had a muslim attack in recent history

Switzerland.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[OECD]

There's a slight diffrence between making a shank out of a tooth brush, and detonating liquid explosives in a shoe mid flight. Although both options could end up killing someone, it's much more difficult to sneak a bomb past 'trained' security personel.

Well, as the recent ban on gels and liquids shows, it's actually not that difficult.

Having said that, I'm all for both random and profiled searches. Yes, the difficulty with profiling is that the profile can be evaded. That's why you do random ones as well. Having said that, how many non-muslims have tried to blow up a plane? Hell, if a bunch of Irish-Polish Roman Catholics were doing that I would fell less safe if I wasn't paid special attention to at the airport.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Mistah Blue]

Minor nitpick... The Assad you are talking about is dead. His nutjob son now runs the show.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

The anology still holds. Most prison weapons are made from material in athe prison, and frankly, there is more than enough material, opportunity and means to bring down planes without bringing anything new on board.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Blain]

The Assad you're talking about was Hafez al Assad, who is dead. His son, Bashar, now rules in Syria. And he's approximately as much of a jerk as his father was, but he is nicer looking.

And what Assad was able to do within his own country is not something that would work for the US to do to another country. Like the ripples leaving a pebble thrown into a pond, unintended consequences go beyond our capacity to predict, and a nuke ain't no pebble. Simplistic solutions only solve simple problems, and this isn't a remotely simple situation. Strong military response is an important part of the solution, but it simply won't be enough. These are folks who are used to being treated badly by people they consider brothers -- we don't have the stomach to treat them badly enough to really make them fear us, and the world wouldn't tolerate it if we tried. Identifying and killing the worst is a good step, but we can't find them and kill them quickly enough.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[barrkel]

My one - Ireland.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps. It is, however, not for lack of trying.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[ArcherB]

And if "they" happens a bunch of random white girls, they'll never even get searched.

LOL!!!
If a a bunch of random white girls try to hijack the plane I'm on with a plastic or ceramic knife... well, I've never hit a woman before, but in this case, I'd knock some random white girl's ass out!

I think the days of hijacking planes with hand-held weapons are over. They better blow it up right off or have about 150 screaming airline passengers ready to reinstate The Crusades!

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[drDugan]

"try to please everyone"

No - just avoid pissing people of the world off SO MUCH they are trying kill Americans. Big difference.

Interestingly, America would do a lot better if the leaders really did stop trying to please everyone and started to really LEAD. Most administrations literally read the polls of the popular opinion and direct policy and speaches to maximize their popular effect: trying to please the people.

If our leaders stood up and ACTUALLY LEAD WELL, the polls would take care of themselves, but that would take some grownups, and America is solely lacking those.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

This is - IMHO - means violent retribution against anyone involved, their friends, their families, their countries, their religious centers, etc

In Israel, they call this The Policy of Massive Retaliation. It's been in place since the 70s and is why there are roughly eight times as many dead Palestinians as there are dead Israelis. It's only been 30 years, but it doesn't seem to be working so well yet.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[ravenshrike]

Yep, worked for Aethelred.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[radish]

Excellent. So after the Oklahoma City bombing we should have nuked what, the Vatican? And sent special forces in to "cleanse" Pendleton, New York?

Or does he not count because he's a white Catholic who speaks English?

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[schon]

Can you name one country including the muslim ones that has not had a muslim attack in recent history?

Canada.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Maxo-Texas]

I'm sorry we exist and don't believe in Allah.

Because if we either convert to islam or cease to exist then they won't kill us.

Oh wait, islamic types kill each other over tiny differences- even taking each other out of hospitals and shooting us in the head.

I guess our option is to just cease to exist.

Could there be any other option? I'm thinking hard here...

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Raenex]

we should have nuked Medina ( the second most important Muslim city )

This is exactly the mentality terrorists adopt. Unethical extremes are not the solution.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[schon]

an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us...

This is - IMHO - means violent retribution against anyone involved, their friends, their families, their countries, their religious centers, etc.

Are you really that stupid?

How will that make them less likely to want to attack you? These are people who are willing to blow themselves up to prove a point. What on earth makes you think that unfounded retribution will make them hate you any less?

All you'll end up doing is making even more people who want to attack you.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[westlake]

the ONLY way to make technically fragile public transit work is to promote an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us,

The fundamental fact driving radical Islam is the 400 year decline of Islamic civilization in competition with the West. What Went Wrong?

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[drDugan]

You really ought to learn about Islam and get to know some Muslims. You can start by realizing that most of the propaganda you hear in America about Muslims is not true about the vast majority of the 1.3B people who follow the religion. There are radical fundamentalists in every religion, even Christians.

It might require you to leave TX though, even if just in ideology.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[letxa2000]

Interestingly, America would do a lot better if the leaders really did stop trying to please everyone and started to really LEAD. Most administrations literally read the polls of the popular opinion and direct policy and speaches to maximize their popular effect: trying to please the people.

That's what Clinton did. He was popular here and around the world, and we got attacked on 911 anyway. Bush, on the other hand, doesn't pay attention to opinion polls and, not surprisingly, he is hated. Whether his policies are good or bad over the long-term remain to be seen, but in the short-term there hasn't been another terrorist attack so far.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[rmallico]

please... Canada (and the ferries in BC) were on a watch list for months a few years back... this does not mean they were 'attacked' but it does mean they were being watched... no, i guess not, the attackers see Canada as a doormat to the US so why would they dare piss them off?

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

yes - and the Americans continue to step on their neck.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[murdocj]

And yet, amazingly enough, even though we know that there are lots of people willing to die to bring down aircraft, and even though you say that searches are completely ineffective, aircraft aren't falling from the sky daily.

The solution of making sure that there isn't a single person, anywhere on earth, that doesn't want to blow up an airplane seems a little... unrealistic.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Maxo-Texas]

Yes there are.

I'm not christian.

Christians are a hell of a lot safer for my existance than most muslim types.

I've both worked directly with "nice" muslims and done a lot of reading about them.

They are some of the most dangerous 1.3billion people in the history of the planet in my opinion as an atheist/agnostic.

The russians and chinese were at least sane.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Tomato Soup]

Why do you keep saying "muslim types"?

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[geminidomino]

What we need to do is come to the realization that the ONLY way to make technically fragile public transit work is to promote an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us, instead of trying to prevent the few who do from being able to. "They" will always be able to, especially with increasingly cheap and effective technology.

Bull.

Simple solution. Instead of handing out crappy headphones, hand out baseball bats and letters of permission. Then when anyone starts acting crazy, the rest of the passengers turn his ass into cherries jubilee in the aisle in record time.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[empaler]

Remember, the weapons smuggled into prisons are mostly used against other prisoners, thereby removing the jailor's main reason for stopping the weapons (their own safety). They usually don't care about the safety of the prisoners - especially if said prisoners are murderers, rapists, congressmen and child molesters.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[empaler]

Lessee. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Scotland*, Ireland*, Iceland, Finland, Germany, France, Portugal, Italy, Vatican State, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Belgium, Holland, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Romania... There's one or two I'm not completely sure about, but what the hell. That's just the European countries off the top of my head... *: Doesn't count if you count England, Scotland and Ireland as one.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[empaler]

Think about the numbers for a few seconds; if 1.3 bn people really were warmongering neighbour-killing idiots, how the hell did there come to be so many of them?
Consider for a moment Turkey; the major reason this moslem country is not a member of the EU is the type of disregard for human rights that is often seen around the world.

Besides, they didn't become 1.3 bn people overnight - but overnight, they became enemies? That doesn't make any sense. Instead, the US lost an enemy to point at and found a new one. That can happen overnight.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[spike2131]

Namibia
Nauru
Nepal
Netherlands Antilles
New Caledonia
New Zealand
Nicaragua
North Korea
Northern Mariana Islands
Norway

Those are just the N's...

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[DNS-and-BIND]

"We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you."
--Hussein Massawi, Hezbollah leader

The strategy you advocate, appeasement, does not work and has never worked.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[empaler]

Minor detail about comparison link; the Turks are a bit more heavy-handed, but to be fair, they've probably learned from either the US or Sovjet.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[maop]

It isn't a significant threat if normal weapons get on a plane since they can't get into the cockpit anyway. If a terrorist wanted to kill two or three people why would he need to get on a plane to do that?

The real threat is bombs making it onto planes. It would be good if no one in the world wanted to hurt us but we need to think *logically* about security as well.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Millenniumman]

Someone will always want to attack us whether it is because we follow a different religion, different customs, etc. The best we can do is make sure that they aren't able to. And it is certainly possible to stop most weapons from getting onto planes.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[1u3hr]

I'm sorry we exist and don't believe in Allah. Because if we either convert to islam or cease to exist then they won't kill us.

There are hundreds of non-Muslim countries in the world, and few of them suffer attacks by "Muslim terrorists". Some countries have separatists (Basques, Irish, etc), others are targetted because they're seen as butting in to other countries' affairs. Americans persist in saying "They hate us because we're free!" If you were free in California, Osama wouldn't give a shit. It's when you impose regime change on Middle Eastern countries (eg, Iran, 1953), support corrupt monarchies (Saudi Arabia), and of course Israel that you become a target. Whether any of these interventions is moral or sensible or sustainable (well, Iran didn't work out too well) is not in issue here, but you certainly must be ready to face the consequences of playing the Great Game. But losing perhaps one person to terrorism for every 1000 killed by your troops isn't a bad ratio, surely?

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[1u3hr]

After the 9/11 attacks, we only clobbered the Taliban. Since it was clearly an Islamic oriented attack, backed by numerous Muslims in a handful of countries, we should have nuked Medina

That would have worked real well. For a start, no more oil. And for the next 500 years, a never-ending stream of suicide bombers in your churches, shopping malls, subways, hospitals, schools...

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Weapons in jail? I've been to jail. It's like putting Mcgyuver in a junk yard with bars around it, so your analogy is poor, at best.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[bbhack]

please... Canada (and the ferries in BC) were on a watch list for months a few years back... this does not mean they were 'attacked' but it does mean they were being watched... no, i guess not, the attackers see Canada as a doormat to the US so why would they dare piss them off?

The reason is because soft targets are just so irresistable.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[memprime]

9/11/2001 was under BUSH's watch, not Clinton's.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[DeadChobi]

Would you email me? I've got a business proposition for you.

I would like to sell you a stone--but not just any stone, no--this stone is unique. Why, you ask?

It wards off tigers. Now before you dismiss me, take a look around you. Do you see any tigers? No? Then the stone must be working, for if it didn't clearly there would be tigers.

Do you see any terrorists? No? Then clearly Bush is working, for if he didn't then there would be tig--err, terrorists.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

It's obvious that you've never been to Pendleton or you would be all for "cleansing".

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[toddestan]

A certain segment actually wants an all out war between the west and Islam. Start attacking Muslim targets at random, and you would be playing right into their hands. They figure that with a billion or more pissed off Muslims on their side, that they would win (though I would guess that they wouldn't expect the US to bust out the nukes, which certainly changes the equation).

Sometimes wonder if the best solution to the terrorist attacks would be to just pick up the pieces and move on. At the worst, all the terrorists can do is blow something up every once and a while. On the scale of things, insignificant. The rest - all the living constant fear, taking away freedoms, the economic damage, collateral damage from trying to fix the world - we do it to ourselves.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[NotBorg]

No - just avoid pissing people of the world off SO MUCH they are trying kill Americans.

The "world?" Terrorists are not representative of the world.

A group that is not willing to kill us or aid to that effort is not a direct threat. So to eliminate the threat, we have to avoid pissing off those groups who are willing to kill us. Sounds easy enough, after all terrorists are known to have reasonable, rational, demands.

To be fair I believe that the current administration could do much better in the choice of words used to express their policy. It doesn't help anything that they have resorted to name calling. It has always bothered me to hear the words "axis of evil." As as to your comments on leadership, yes, rock on.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[246o1]

You are correct that bombs are the real threat. However, if you think about it, it's still not that big a threat. Since it seems clear that any hijackings to fly into buildings etc. are going to be thwarted in the future by passenger intervention (barring extraordinary circumstances, like only a very very small number of passengers), the actual threat of terrorism in flight was decreased severely by the attacks four years ago.

The attacks on the Pentagon and WTC were basically a one-time thing, and having seen them, the flying public will now prevent them from happening again. Bombs, suicidally downing single planes, etc. are still a threat, but the loss of life involved there is not on the order of tens of thousands, as people assume. While it's a threat that needs to be dealt with with reasonable measures, there's a point of diminishing returns in airport security measures. Obviously creating fewer people willing to sacrifice their lives in terrorist actions (probably achievable by backing down in our support of terrorist-tactics-wielding or dictatorial regimes like Saudi Arabia and others, for instance) in combination with reasonable security measures in airports etc. is ideal, but since the word "appeasement" has such political power, we are stuck in as mindless a rut here as our drug war.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Beer_Smurf]

Ok, look around the world.
As long as you have more than one religion there is a reason to attack.
Wait.. if you have only on religion, the minor groups still attack each other.
So this magic "make people not want to attack us" is just so much nonsense.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[ChronosWS]

So the two options being proposed here are to:

1) "Appease" them through negotiation
2) Annihilate them through force

Both options run into a problem called reality, which essentially dictates than neither by themselves can hope to accomplish their stated means. You can't appease them because they aren't interested in appeasement, and you can't kill them because you can't find them.

Instead, I think we should simply drop the matter, to the extend possible. Specifically, stop propping up Israel by *giving* them money, remove security restrictions on our own people and allow them to protect themselves (i.e. carry their own weapons, even on aircraft) and above all come to the realization that the world is NOT safe and CANNOT be made safe.

I bet for the 300 *BILLION* we have spent promoting "democracy" in Iraq and attempting to crush terrorists elsewhere we could have saved a lot more lives through various scientific research initiatives than will *ever* be saved by the most perfect military outcome possible. Hell, for that much money, we probably could have bought Iraq, the Taliban and Al Qaeda and saved ourselves a lot of time and trouble.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[LordEd]

the attackers see Canada as a doormat to the US

Now, before somebody blames Canada for letting terrorists into the US, please remember that it is your border guards who admit/deny people.

We also tend not to go around and meddle in other countries as a hobby.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Corbets]

Bullshit. Just let me carry my .45 onto the plane - that'll be far more effective than you going up and giving the terrorist a hug!

Well... ok... rapid depressurisation... at least let me bring a machete. :)

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Israel are one of the few countries ( perhaps the only? ) that openly endorse terrorism as an official state policy. Luckily for them they have the correct skin color such that they can get away with terrorism as long as they call it 'strikes on suspected militants', 'pre-emptive strikes', and my favourite, 'self-defense'.

Bombing and demolishing towns and cities ( and their inhabitants ) that have no connection to Hezbollah or their rocket launchers? Yep, thats terrorism, just as surely as what happened in Beslan, London and Madrid.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Melfina]

Very true. If you really wanted to I'm sure you could get a good spot near the emergency exit...

:x

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

bullshit. as a non american, I can tell you he was almost as disliked as bush. (not that my countries leadership is any better) anyway, I've not seen a leader worldwide (well ok, uk au us hehe) who actually has any goddamn common sense in a long time. They are all corrupted, all doing things which deserve a good slap upside the head, and all pretty much the same morons with different coloured clothes on

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[rmallico]

and its the Canadian ones who run for cover when some 'alert' comes through that an armed gunman is heading their way... just a month or so ago at the Peace Arch crossing they just left. Closed the gates and packed it in... caused all sorts of traffic problems... We can't force the Canucks or the Mexicans to screen better... it just puts them in closer proximity to our border with some of the 'lesser' monitoring going on north and south of us. As far as 'letting' them in... that is a farce... there are so many other ways to cross our borders than to focus just on the border guards... I have travelled my fair share in the last 22 years. Asia, South America, Europe and monthly (if not weekly) to Canada for business. The US guards are good for the most part.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Filmmaker Theo van Gogh was killed by a muslim in Holland because of his movie which was critical of the position of women in Islam.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Like the ripples leaving a pebble thrown into a pond, unintended consequences go beyond our capacity to predict, and a nuke ain't no pebble. Simplistic solutions only solve simple problems

Yes, ever since 1945, America has lived in fear of Japanese terrorism, a militaristic culture capable of grotesque cruelty that is bubbling under the surface in every Japanese institution. I'm off to Tokyo next week: I'm going to be sure to wear a flak jacket. I was in Frankfurt a few months ago, too: thanks to the bombing of 1945, the UK and the US are universally reviled, Nazi-ism is just a breath away and I went in permanent fear. The UK government is profiling travellers and arresting dangerous Germans everywhere.

What? I'm wrong? You mean that Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Tokyo Firestorm of March that year pushed Japan onto a whole new economic path? You mean that Berlin, Hamburg and Dresden showed the Germans that a war wasn't worth fighting, and Germany is now probably Europe's most secure democracy?

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Cutter7]

I disagree.

Securing commercial aircraft is one area where technology can actually deliver.
Scanning and sniffing for dangerous materials, coupled with the presence of armed marshals can make aircraft an impossible target for criminals.

The social problems associated with Profiling disapear when every person and every piece of luggage boarding a plane are scrutinized equally.

We live in a transitory period, I believe in a few years such scanning for dangerous materials will be effective and efficient.

Many scanning devices are being tested now, all that remains is the funding and the political will to perfect and implement them.

The planes aren't the problem... its the ports that worry me.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

For those of us who like to consider ourselves civilized, this may seem a bit shocking. But it works. The people who are part of that culture know this. The crowning example is Assad, the ruler of Syria, and the city of Hama.

Hama was the third largest city in Syria, and was the Syrian headquarters to a Islamist movement called the Muslim Brotherhood which sought to overthow Assad. In the 70's they killed several hundred people in car bomb attacks, and in 1980 tried to assasinate Assad. In 1982 Assad had finally had enough. He ordered the army to surround the city, and then to begin shelling it. Tanks, and poison gas were used also. After two weeks, the death toll was between 20 and 40,000 people.

That was 24 years ago, and the Brotherhood has not made another serious attempt to interfere with the government of Syria. Assad is still in charge.
He is not a good man, and I do not admire him, but I give him credit for one thing: he knows what works in his culture.

Have you ever heard what happened in Afghanistan? The soviets caused destruction far beyond that and did'nt "cut n' run" for a decade. After years of borderline genocide they were forced to pull out and the war quite possibly was the thing that finally made them lose the cold war. A far more comparable scenario than local goverments artying villages.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

That comparison is really inane. It has nothing to do with race or relgion. Faciest Muslims and Timothy McVay have very little in common other than what they did to make a point. I am so tired of the "look look, a white guy did it so therefore you can't blame Muslims" In the world I live it the vast majority of terrorist are Muslim. When the difference is so great between muslim terrorist and white terrorist then you can call the number of white terrorist insignificant. Where are the black terrorist, the Asian terrorist, the hispanic terrorists? OK, they exist, they are somewhere. But they aren't trying to rule the world. What terrorist group is terrorizing the world? Muslims! What about that white terrorist? Oh yeah, he is dead! It's not racism talking here, it's a fact of life. Today the biggest threat to all of us are Muslim Extremist.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[yndrd1984]

That was just a murder. You might be able to pull 'assasination' out of it because it was politically motivated, but if every wingnut with a gun count as a 'terrorist', then the word no longer has any real meaning.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Blain]

That would make sense if you'd never heard of Douglas MacArthur, I suppose, and want to pretend that the only things that had anything to do with those outcomes were the two nukes dropped on Japan and the firebombing of Dresden. Were it not for MacArthur's flatly brilliant handling of Japan after those bombs were dropped, Japan could have been a much worse nightmare than Iraq has turned out to be.

And Hitler was never convinced that the war wasn't worth fighting. He finally became convinced that the German people had failed him and didn't deserve to live. He gave the orders that all of the infrastructure that the Allies hadn't destroyed be destroyed, which would have darn near annihilated the German people.

Dropping two nukes on Japan was a very different act than nuking Medina would be. At the time, not only did nobody have nukes to respond with, nobody (much) had ever seen one go off. The Japanese culture at the time was far more monolithic than anything the Arab world has seen, with the Emperor worshipped as a God on Earth (Muslims would consider that blasphemy).

So did you really have something to say, or did you just want to show that you'd heard of the firebombings of Tokyo and Dresden, and the nukes at Hiroshima or Nagasaki?

Or was this just a slashdottism of:

1. Nuke a city.
2. ???
3. ???
4. Profit!!

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Ours]

Nonsense, leave them alone and maybe they'll be too busy solving their own problems then messing with the rest of the world.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

If they're going to do profiled searches though, they better come up with some better profiles.

Durring a strike I and and many of the other non-union workers for my company where flown around the country to replace striking workers. Since it wasn't known how long the strike would last, everyone got one way tickets. Everyone I talked to got "randomly" selected for a search. I didn't talk to anyone who wasn't.

What kind of dipshit terrorist wouldn't spend the extra cash for round trip??

Profiles like that actually make us less safe. There is a more or less fixed number of searches they can do before the lines start backing up and expenses and tempers rise. More trully "random" searches would have raised the odds of actually catching a terrorist (unless they really are stupid enough to buy a one way ticket, but then they'll most likely give themselves away by other means anyway).

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[dualmoo]

This is just war propaganda.

The real problem is not that Hussein Massawi wants to eliminate americans, it is that Hussein Massawi actually has followers. This could change really quickly with a change of american policy in the middle-east.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

You are stupid, stupid, stupid, and I hope future romantic interests and potential employers happen upon your post.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[ClamIAm]

The Republic of Ireland is an autonomous country, not part of the UK. Northern Ireland, however, is part of the UK.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[pilgrim23]

or, promote a armed citizenry. If the FAA took a rational aproach.. and instead of screening for weapons, certified ammunition as "airline safe". Say only allow "prefragmented rounds" like Glaser Safety Slugs(tm) for example. Then, like the terrs who tried a shoot-out one day in the 70s in a Tel Aviv restraunt and ended up nailed from 7 directions by common, ordinary and honest citizen, these modern criminals would stop this foolishness. as long as the atitude is "Sardines in a can" dependent on 1 'trustworthy" guy with a can opener...then we deserve what we get. Cattle stand in lines too ...

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Any particular reason why say Switzerland or Poland are not being as much targetted by Al Quaeda ? Oh Wait.They must have converted to Islam. Or was it that they all committed mass-suicide ? Idiot.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[igb]

And Hitler was never convinced that the war wasn't worth fighting. He finally became convinced that the German people had failed him and didn't deserve to live.

True, but not quite the point the AC was making, I suspect. The bombing campaign against Germany may not have altered Hitler's mind, but it certainly altered the German population's enthusiasm for military adventurism into Poland and the Alscace, which had been the narrative of German foreign policy since 1870. No one in France now seriously worries about Germany, and it's been a long time since that could be said. Yes, MacArthur in Japan (and, of course, the Marshall Plan in Europe) made a huge, huge difference as compared to the shambles after Versailles. But the basic iron fist / velvet glove policy --- destroy any and all capability to wage war, then treat the vanquished with grace and humility --- worked very well.

In passing, it's worth noting another lesson about mass destruction vs targetted bombing. In the case of Japan (and the source work here is `Japan's Longest Day', by the Pacific War Research Group, young Japanese historians writing in the early sixties) the first A-Bomb didn't affect the war cabinet's policy of war to the death, and after Nagasaki it took the Emperor's casting vote and the suppression of a well-resourced coup by senior officers to bring about a surrender. However, it's said by people who should know, and who were not in any way doves (R V Jones of British Air Intelligence and Donald Bennett of the Pathfinders, for example) that although area bombing was the only option in 1942 (because of the pauncity of navigation and target marking aids) by late 1944 the allies had Oboe, long-range bombers and air superiority and could probably have finished to war with attacks on oil refineries. Which would make for a different outcome in 1945: that year saw a huge proportion of the destruction of German cities.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[TheDugong]

"I'm sorry we exist and don't believe in Allah." Actually most USians do. Allah is God in arabic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allah), in case you do not know. "islamic types kill each other over tiny differences" So do christians, e.g. Northern Ireland, over even smaller differences.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Yo! dumbass!

911 happened under your admirable Mr. Bush's reign... not Clinton's. So what were you saying again ?

Do you seriously think Al Quaeda gives a shit who is in charge btw ? They have a cause against US's meddling in middle east. Not whether you are kowtowing to them or not.

Otherwise how come Poland or switzerland are not being targetted ?

Sheesh. Why are Republicans usually so thick and stupid ?

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

But Switzerland isn't FREE!

Oh wait...

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Andy Gardner]

So we invade/destabalise a large selection of third world countries, either through direct action (not really favoured as much anymore) or by proxy. Destroy the economy, depose democraticaly elected governments, murder millions. And when a few of their citizens become dissafected and launch terrorist acts back at us, your solution is to just wipe them all out?

At this point how do you differentiate yourself from Hitler?

This is - IMHO - means violent retribution against anyone involved, their friends, their families, their countries, their religious centers, etc.

Perhaps they feel the same way about us, don't forget we fucked the rest of the world over first.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Derwood5555]

You are absolutely correct in most respects.

The problem is the fundamental Islamists. However, they make up a sizeable portion of those 1.3B that follow the religion.

How many fundamental Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, et al have you heard of in the past 20 years that have suicide bombed a market, or any other suicide killing for that matter? Let alone hijacking 4 large airliners and flying them into heavily populated buildings to cause as much death as possible.

The difference between the actions of the fundamental Christians in the link you provided and fundamental Muslims, is that the Muslims have killed thousands over just the past few years. We won't even consider going back, say 40 years.

While Islam may be the "Religion of Peace", it has some serious house cleaning that needs to get done. They need to quell the radical elements, as Christianity did hundreds of years ago.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Andy Gardner]

The fundamental fact driving radical Islam is the 400 year decline of Islamic civilization in competition with the West. What Went Wrong?

I think the fundamental fact driving 'radical Islam' is the Islamic countries have seen what we've done to Latin America and Southeast Asia over the last 50 years and are scared shitless were going to do the same thing to them. Rightly so I'd say.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[really?]

1. .45 ... Use proper ammo for the job.
2. Depressurisation ... you are watching to many movies.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[thej1nx]

And keeping weapons off flights is realistic ?

So you are now checking for knives and guns.

How about biological germs ? or say Cyanide/Anthrax type powder ? Something that a terrorist packs in, say a wallet ?

I myself, can think of hundreds of weapons... and am not even a terrorist. Say a trick watch with a concealed sharp-edged sliding backplate. It won't be expensive to manufacture. And watches are just one of *many* daily-use metal objects, passengers are allowed to carry on flights. What then ? Ban all watches ? How about concealed tiny cyanide needles ? It can't be that expensive or difficult to carry 4-5 cyanide tipped tiny pins in a wallet. Prick and kill one or two passengers to intimidate the rest. How do you stop *that* then ? Your metal detectors can detect small pins now ? What if the same pin is concealed in the said watch ?

Which of above exactly is so hard for a terrorist group to manufacture/obtain ? A custom-made concealed cheap trick-weapon ? or cyanide ? or pins ?

Since I am not some genius, one can assume that the terrorists will be able to think of stuff like this as well. You just witnessed an attempt to use liquids as weapons after just a few years of the first attack. This time we just got lucky since we discovered the plot in advance. What happens when they try the same crap again the *next* time with a different approach ? What will "random/profiling checks" achieve, if the weapon in question cannot really be detected ?

Obviously to you and many other idiots, especially the ones in the white house, attempting the impossible is practical.

But stopping the quite *well-advertised* cause of terrorists attacks i.e. stop meddling in middle east is not practical.

Sheesh!

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Dr Damage I]

others are targetted because they're seen as butting in to other countries' affairs

Because the French are such massive buttinskis!

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Dr Damage I]

While Islam may be the "Religion of Peace"

Sure it is... Peace of the grave. Infidel corpses are plenty peaceful.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[thej1nx]

After the 9/11 attacks, we only clobbered the Taliban. Since it was clearly an Islamic oriented attack, backed by numerous Muslims in a handful of countries, we should have nuked Medina ( the second most important Muslim city ), followed by an announcement that if something like that were to happen again, Mecca ( the most important city ) would be next.

You are quite possibly retarded. How old exactly are you ?

These are the people willing to commit suicide to take revenge. Do you think they will worry about what you will do later if they attack you again ? Newsflash! They didn't give a *shit* about what you will do later, on September 11th. And *you* are the guys with the biggest pile of nukes! A fat lot of good it did to you back then.

So what next then after the medina ? go nuke all the handful of muslim-countries and commit a genocide ? Sure. Except that the "muslims" are not just located all in middle east. Or just in hostile countries. You have muslims living in Africa. And in USA. In UK.

Not to mention your biggest "ally against terror". Yep that other *muslim* country which is run by a dictator as well, the guy toppled the democratically elected government and decalred himself a "president" by force. That same country where Osama is supposedly hiding, as per the CIA etc. The same country where most terrorists are being trained. It is an ally. So you plan to go nuking allies next ? Or how about the other secular, democratic country next door to it ? The one which has the largest muslim populace in the world. Will you go nuking democracies too just because 20% of their population is muslim ?

UK has a lot of muslims too. Are you going to nuke London next ?

Geez. What an idiot!

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[nickos]

May I ask what country you come from? I ask that because Clinton is widely regarded as one of the most popular American presidents outside the US. Oh, and for the record, I'm not American either.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Dasaru]

[i]"...promote an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us..."[/i] I see... So what about the kid that gets beaten by their parents in the US? Or what about the people that go crazy and just want to kill in general? It's not just "terrorists" that we look for. It's the Airplane Security that we're worried about. And we [i]could[/i] find a way to stop deadly weapons on airplanes. (unless the employees and the security was corrupt). And maybe they'll find some high-tech airplane scanner that will scan the whole plane for weapons in the far future.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[jjustus]

Nuke Medina and Mecca? And this was modded "insightful"?
There are a lot of muslims reading Slashdot. Do you think that your comment will "promote an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us"?
Your comment alone will probably make quite a few people feel even more alienated and disgusted with Americans.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[morie]

Great added feature. I'm not really sure if listening to a baseball bat is comfy though...

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm.. Did you even bother to read his post?

Or, were the cock and balls in your mouth blocking your view of the rest of the screen?

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Sqwubbsy]

Wow, you're comparing Turkish concern for human rights with McCarthyism?
Are you fucking kidding me? Grow up.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no nice way to put this, so I'm not going to sugar coat it....

You ignorant fuck!

Perhaps you should visit the Middle East before you suggest that destroying a city of ~ 1 million people is an appropriate response to a terrorst attack that killed 3,000. Also, I wonder if you would be so eager to be bombing cities if instead of starting with the second most holy city in Islam (Medina), you started with the third (Jerusalem)... But that wouldn't be any good, because white people would die!... maybe even Christian white people!!

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[0mni]

I don't know I would say the Russians in power were sane, sure Stalin sounds cool and all but he was worse than a lot of very mad leaders out there. And as for Christians being safe, I'm just glad if my girlfriend ever need to seek the option of having an abortion we can do it easily in my country rather than risk being exploded or shot by an angry Christian. If you think all Muslims are terrorists than you can go on to say that all Christians will murder to stop an abortion or that all priests are pedophiles. Or as would probably get to you as an atheist that all atheists have no morals and are rapists, none of these things are true. All generalizations are wrong, even this one. The most dangerous thing for your existence is a heart attack, so I would suggest you stop claiming other people are dangerous and go jogging.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[MullerMn]

Yeah, what could possibly go wrong with that plan?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/5267884.stm

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, especially in Europe. He always sucked up to then. During the 8 years of the Clinton presidency, all Europeans had to do was order Billary to fix things and the US would, for free.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[D4MO]

> *: Doesn't count if you count England, Scotland and Ireland as one.

Don't count as one *country*.

You may count as one under the following contexts:

Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland, England = United Kingdom.
Wales, Scotland, England = Great Britain.
Ireland, Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland, England = British Isles.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, I hate him and I've never met him.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[D4MO]

Typical USofA attitude.. There are two countries on the planet, USA and the rest. See, that's what's getting you in trouble.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[ccmay]

There are hundreds of non-Muslim countries in the world, and few of them suffer attacks by "Muslim terrorists".

It's only for lack of opportunity. In almost every place in the world where Muslim countries border non-Muslim countries, there is strife and terror and bloodshed. This is a fact not open to argumentation.

I find it laughably naive when people say we'd be safe from Muslim terrorists if only we threw Israel to the wolves and pulled all of our troops out of the Middle East. We are dealing with maniacs who are still boiling mad about the re-conquest of Andalusia 500 years ago. There is no reasoning with such people.

If you were free in California, Osama wouldn't give a shit.

You are quite wrong. Osama and many other Muslim leaders have stated quite clearly that they intend to conquer the world and put non-Muslims to the sword. They will not stop attacking us until everyone in the world is a slave, a Muslim, or dead.

The Left is fond of comparing Osama to Emmanuel Goldstein, protraying him as a bogeyman set up by the CIA for the purposes of stirring up anti-Muslim, pro-war sentiment. However, this requires willful ignorance of what is being preached in mosques everywhere, day in and day out. There is no longer a moderate Islamic tradition worthy of the name. The Saudis have financed the Wahhabization of most of Islam.

We are heading for a dark and ugly time in world history. It seems clear to me that a hundred years from now, either Islam or Western civilization will have been exterminated.

-ccm

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Eunuchswear]

How many fundamental Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, et al have you heard of in the past 20 years that have suicide bombed a market, or any other suicide killing for that matter?

So, the LTTE don't exist in your parallel reality then?

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Yo! dumbass! ... Otherwise how come Poland or switzerland are not being targetted ?

Do the words "inside job" mean anything to you, cockwad?

Looks like they really pulled the wool over your eyes but then it wasn't too hard ;)

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[TFGeditor]

Amen to that--and I mean that sincerely enough to NOT post AC.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[1u3hr]

There are hundreds of non-Muslim countries in the world, and few of them suffer attacks by "Muslim terrorists".
It's only for lack of opportunity. In almost every place in the world where Muslim countries border non-Muslim countries, there is strife and terror and bloodshed. This is a fact not open to argumentation.

Perhaps. The US doesn't border any Muslim countries. Yet you are a target.

You are quite wrong. Osama and many other Muslim leaders have stated quite clearly that they intend to conquer the world

Yes, and so has Steve Ballmer. He's gotten further. Osama leads a few dozen or at most a few hundred people.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Eivind]

You are wrong about at least Denmark (clue: Muhammed-caricatures), Norway, Germany (infact they had coffer-bombs on railroads this very month (which luckily didn't explode due to being poorly made, nevertheless, a concerted attack by muslim radicals) and Poland.

That's just from my own personal knowledge. I'd bet you're wrong about most of the others too.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

so its our fault if we don't patrol 100% of your border? fair enough. Why don't we discuss the time a year ago when a man murdered his neighbors with a chainsaw, put the bloody chainsaw on the seat beside him, and crossed into America where he was detained for 3 hours and then released? http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/10/border.chainsaw/ index.html

You said something about an armed gunman, but your biggest worry about the guards shutting their post down is traffic problems? WTF mate! Running for cover? I know this isn't the first news article about it, but didn't Canadian CT's foil a group of 17 terrorists' plans? http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/?feed=TopNews&arti cle=UPI-1-20060604-07193700-bc-canada-raids.xml

Finally, please try to link to news if you're going to talk about events like that, it makes it easier on the rest of us :)

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[nospam007]

>>Why do you keep saying "muslim types"?

Pehaps he means that there are almost as many 'types' of Islam than 'christian types' in the US?

        * Ahl-e-Hadeeth
        * Ahmadi
        * Al-Ahbash
        * Alavi Bohra
        * Alawite
        * Alevi
        * Azraqi (religion)
        * Dawoodi Bohra
        * Druze
        * Haruriyya
        * Ibadi
        * Ismaili
        * Kharijites
        * Moorish Science Temple of America
        * Mustaali
        * Nation of Islam
        * Nizari
        * Qarmatians
        * Qur'an alone
        * Salafi
        * Satpanth
        * Shi'a Islam
        * Sufism
        * Sufri
        * Sulaimani Bohra
        * Sunni Islam
        * Twelvers
        * Wahdat-ul-Wujood
        * Wahhabism
        * Zaidiyyah
        * Zikri

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but it would solve the world population problem.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Itchy Rich]

The fundamental fact driving radical Islam is the 400 year decline of Islamic civilization in competition with the West.

If by "decline of Islamic civilization in competition with the West" you mean invasion of arab countries, toppling of diplomatically elected governments, installation of friendly dictators, supporting tyrants, etc. then you're absolutely correct. If you're just referring to economic competition then I suspect you're only reading literature that supports your existing world view.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[danbeck]

I'm sorry, but you are making an asshole generalization. Of the many millions of children that have been aborted so far here in America, how many abortion doctors have been killed and how many of the mothers have been killed? Few. In 1994 the number was 30 million to 7,700 acts of violence and disruption, one murder and one attempt. Mind you, that includes sit-ins and people attempting block mothers from being able to enter clinics. So you have a 2 in 30 million chance of being shot at by an "angry Christian".

Take your bigoted stereotypes elsewhere.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[theLOUDroom]

How will that make them less likely to want to attack you?

Well, a good start would have been: Not training and financing Osama Bin Laden, then abandoning him after the cold war.

We *created* this guy. We gave him the tools money and training to commit terrorist acts. Perhaps that wasn't such a good idea.
And perhaps we shouldn't have given Saddam Hussein the key to the city of Detroit?

What on earth makes you think that unfounded retribution will make them hate you any less?

It's easier for you to believe that everyone with a grudge against the US is crazy, but there are many people for whom the US is either directly or indirectly for the death of a family member. Either through the civilian casualties we aren't even bothering to count in Iraq, or more indirect means.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[xenobyte]

What we need to do is come to the realization that the ONLY way to make technically fragile public transit work is to promote an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us, instead of trying to prevent the few who do from being able to. "They" will always be able to, especially with increasingly cheap and effective technology.

Pleasing everybody requires unconditional sacrifices and the trouble with the (extremist) muslims are that they will only accept unconditional surrender to their point of view. They don't want a Palestine, they want Israel wiped from the face of the Earth and Palestine in its place. They don't want us to accept their way of life, they want us to conform to their way of life, no exceptions. As long as we insist on human rights, freedom of religion and so on, we're an abomination that needs to be eradicated. There is no way to please without giving up everything we cherish, and that is just not an option for the vast majority of the western world.

So the option of not annoying anyone enough for them to feel the need to attack us with terrorism is quite simply a non-option. We have to accept that in order for us to defend our basic principles someone out there is going to feel wronged and might resort to violence and terrorism. And sometimes terrorists attack without any other reason than their base philosophy - just think of Brigatto Rosso, Bader Meinhof, Rote Armé Fraktion etc. - they did their terrorism solely as a starting point for their so-called revolution.

We therefore have to plan for terror defense in any case. It is obvious and logical. The trouble comes from executing this defense in a manner that doesn't erode civil or human rights. Nobody has gotten that right yet.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[giorgosts]

The fundamental fact driving radical Islam is the 100 year occupation of their lands by western imperialist powers because they happen to sit upon the world's largest oil reserves.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[thedletterman]

I'm all for both types of screening as well. Oddly enough I've been selected for 'random' searches four of my last five flights, and three times I was in military uniform. Am I the only one that finds it strange that it would be necessary to perform extra searches on military or law enforcement before boarding a plane?

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[rmccann]

Though people were pissed at Denmark, I don't think anyone attacked it.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[thej1nx]

Sikhs have never hijacked planes and killed passengers?

And ever heard about ULFA and LTTE?

And those sarin gas subway attacks in Japan ?

What world are you from, Pal?

Talk about putting foot in mouth...

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[ElephanTS]

even though we know that there are lots of people willing to die to bring down aircraft, and even though you say that searches are completely ineffective, aircraft aren't falling from the sky daily.

In which case there must be a fault in your logic somewhere. Either

A) there aren't lots of people willing to die to bring down an aircraft, or

B) Searches are effective.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[thej1nx]

Japan and Germany didn't have nukes and could do little to retaliate.

Plus they were not organized terrorists organisations that could disappear at will and find popular support and funding from places all over the world.

Which is exactly why 911 has managed to scare you shitless, where Japan and Germany failed.

To boot, your major "ally" Pakistan is fanatically muslim, posseses nukes and has willingly shared the nuclear technology with Iran and various other muslim countries, not to mention North Korea. Try the nuke stunt today and see how many nukes get dropped over your major cities in retaliation. 911 will suddenly seem like picnic in comparision. All your military might won't be able to help you. It hardly helped in stopping 911 from happening, correct ?

These are the people who are fanatic and willing enough to *die* to just kill a few of you. They don't care what you do to them afterwards. Can you claim the same ?

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Garse Janacek]

The solution of making sure that there isn't a single person, anywhere on earth, that doesn't want to blow up an airplane seems a little... unrealistic.

Of course it's unrealistic. Most straw men are.

What the GP actually said was that we can't keep deadly weapons off planes, and that we should promote an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us. Not a world where there is not even a single person who wants to attack us, which would be impossible, but ideally at least one where there are drastically fewer such people than there are today. Since today the number of people who want to attack us is going up, we're kind of going in the wrong direction with this.

Now, I do think it's a little idealistic to suggest that the problem can be (essentially) solved that way, but it's certainly a reasonable criticism to say we should be putting a lot more weight on this aspect of things than we are now.

even though you say that searches are completely ineffective, aircraft aren't falling from the sky daily.

Another fallacy. There are many things preventing airplanes from falling from the sky daily, and "random" searches are only one, and certainly not the most important. It is entirely possible to argue that these searches are not an effective way of preventing terrorism -- the fact that no one has brought down a plane just lately does not refute it.

No matter what we do, people will always find ways to blow up airplanes. We can and should find ways to make sure it happens less often, but that doesn't mean we should do everything that might make it happen less often. My desire to fly has dropped more because of the absurd overreaction in security policies than the possibility of an attack.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[thej1nx]

And doesn't that sounds suspiciously like "revenge" talk to you ?

It can't have anything to do with your meddling in Afganistan during cold war era, or in middle east ?

So best way to stop people wanting revenge, according to your brilliant mind, is to piss them off more, so that uh... they want even more revenge ?

Dude. Appeasement doesn't has to mean you have to offer them all the Gold in Fort Knox. It simply means mind your own bloody business and stop meddling in middle east and other countries! Why is that so f**king hard for you guys to do ????

Minding your business certainly has worked for Poland or Switzerland and a hundred other countries. Al Quaeda isn't attacking them, is it ?

Why are you insistent on being this dense ? Or is that natural ?

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Mr2cents]

Belgium

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Shaper_pmp]

Whooo!

I dunno - sounds a bit pinko/commie/liberal/terrorist sympathiser to me.

Why do you hate America? Why do you want the terrorists to win? ;-p

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[phoenix321]

And would you mind to tell the Grand Jury for how long the accused Mr. Bush has been in office at that time?

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[KlomDark]

Very true - every time I see a train or a truck going by with one of those Intermodal Transport Modules, I wonder if that's "the one". You know they can't search all of them, just too many. About a million a day from China and rising. Although it will be somewhat funny if "the one" ends up detonating from one of the stack of them next to every walmart out there.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[phoenix321]

Can you tell us an approximate number on deaths caused by various Christian sects for the cause of their view of religion during the last one hundred years? Including suicides and mass-suicides, too, of course.

Would you mind to compare then these numbers with the approximate number of deaths caused by Muslim sects for the cause of their view of religion in the last, say, ten years?

What are the conclusions you'd draw from this comparison?

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[MightyYar]

They were occupied before the oil was relevant. Oil wasn't even discovered in Saudia Arabia until 1938. The two worlds have been in conflict for a lot longer than the automobile has been around. There are many reasons given, but the major factor is that adjacent groups of human beings tend to conflict with one another... it's in our nature. This is especially true when the cultures are so different that they cannot possibly co-exist, as is the case with fundamentalist Islam and liberal Western democracies. One or the other side has to eventually "win", or the conflict will just go on forever - there is not a "just let each other be" solution since a significant number of people on both sides have motivation to interact, be it through trade or immigration or cultural exchange.

Fundamentalist Islam is threatened by the encroachment of Western culture, and rightly so - it would destroy their way of life. Too bad that their mere existence threatens our culture, since letting each other be is not a realistic option.

Can Muslims, Jews, Christians, and "other" all get along? Sure, look at any large Western city. New York is a good example. But each of those cultures has had to reject the extremist elements in order for this to work.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[phoenix321]

Tamil people are Hindus, Sinhalese are mostly Buddhists. The Tamil Tigers use plenty of suicide bombing and they even killed Gandhi that way. But their conflict is not religiously motivated, it is the usual (if one can call it that) civil war. People of different cultures fight about independence, cultural identity, their own state or whatever.

The LTTE are among the most brutal and merciless terrorist groups of the world, they even murdered all other terrorist or separatist groups of their own people. They followed many ideas of Arafat's PLO in their structure.

But their bloodshed isn't backed by religion. They don't yell "Allahu Ackbar" or something in that vein before chopping people's head off.

And if you avoid Sri Lanke, you're probably one hundred percent safe from their terror. Now compare that to the Muslim Brotherhood in all its incarnations...

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[elrous0]

to promote an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us,

When you're the big kid on the block, someone is ALWAYS looking to punch you. The rich kid is ALWAYS hated by the poor kids, no matter how nice he tries to be. And the secularist is ALWAYS hated by the religious fanatic. So if you're hoping to "create an atmosphere" where no one wants to attack rich, powerful, secular Western countries; you're dreaming.

-Eric

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> Or, were the cock and balls in your mouth blocking your view of the rest of the screen?

Technically the torso would be blocking the view. Unless he were in a seated 69 position and the ass weren't too fat, which, being male, probably would not be the case.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[14CharUsername]

You are right, Peace is a long term solution, not a short term solution

But the current airport security paranoia is a joke. It doesn't provide any security, its only there so if something does go wrong the politicians can shrug and say "well we did everything we could."

Has their been any terrorist plot foiled by airport security? But there has been terrorist plots foiled. How? By good intelligence. By muslims doing the right thing and tipping off authorities.

Better intelligence = better security. And to get intelligence we need to engage the muslim community. Show them that we are not their enemies, the whackjob extremists are their enemies. We need to work with moderate muslims to prevent the extremists from doing crazy shit.

But intelligence gathering goes on behind the scenes and doesn't make people feel safer. Making people take off their shoes somehow does make the idiots out there feel safer. But I'd feel safer if we diverted money from airport security to finding the terrorists before they even get to the airport.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[nickname225]

The LD50 (the amount of a substance that reliably kills 50% of a test population) for Hydrogen cyanide is 3.7 mg/kg - so a bit on a needle won't kill or even make very sick a 50kg human. All it will do is annoy them

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[elrous0]

2. Depressurisation ... you are watching to many movies.

Actually, it would seem that YOU are watching too many movies. Modern aircraft are not seriously threatened by simple bullet holes (there is a great epsiode of "Mythbusters" that deals with this very subject).

I would, however, say the grandparent was wrong about allowing passengers to carry weapons on aircraft. First of all it would only stop hijackings if you could stop the terrorists from boarding armed themselves or to somehow ensure that enough normal passengers were also armed to stop them. And since VERY few people would walk around packing heat even if they were allowed to, this would require something akin to *issuing* guns to passengers as they boarded. And even if such an absurdity were allowed; it would almost certainly result in more deaths by accidents, drunken gunfights, and spur-of-the moment suicides than it would ever prevent.

-Eric

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Air Marshalls and the like use special low-velocity ammunition for a reason. Sure the plane isn't going to depressurise all that quickly even if a window or two is blown out and there are oxygen masks available, but compromising the airframe at high speed is never a good thing. More importantly in the close quarters of a plane you want your bullets not to pass through the Bad Guys and hit innocents.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

So you have a 2 in 30 million chance of being shot at by an "angry Christian".

And what exactly do you think your chances of being "blowed up" by an angry Muslim are? I betcha less than 2 in 30 million, assuming you actually live in the United States.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[schwinn8]

how many non-muslims have tried to blow up a plane? Well, if you define "blow up" as hijackings, in general, as this is a terrorist activity as well, then check out the list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_hijacking Ok, I know Wikis aren't the best source of accurate information, but this type of info should stand the test of legitimacy. 1958 - Cuban militants 1970 - Russian hijacking by "refuseniks" 1971 - DB Cooper (a white guy?) 1972 - Russian hijacker "Miloslav Hrabinec" 1974 - Jewish "Samuel Byck" 1977 - German Red Army Faction? 1979 - Two East Germans "Hans Detlef Alexander Tiede and Ingrid Ruske" Lest anyone think that only the early hijackers were non-Muslim, the more recent events include: 1995 - Two Iranians, who were possibly later identified as working for the Mossad, which is a Jewish organization 1996 - Ethiopians 1999 - Japanese Yuji Nishizawa 2000 - A jilted husband, Augusto Lacandula, presumable Filipino. This last one (and the Ethiopians) are pretty telling - the point is that not only terrorists are involved in hijackings and such. ANYONE can be a hijacker... not just a Muslim. Also note, speaking as a non-white who has often been "randomly selected"... many of these hijackers were also "white"...

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Those are ISOLATED incidents. Yes there have been non-Muslim terrorist groups (you forgot the IRA too). But none of those groups have even APPROACHED the consistency and ferocity that fundamentalist Islamic terrorists have shown over the past four decades. The rise of fundamentalist Islam has been the worst thing to happen to modern civilization and human rights in the last half-century (with the possible exception of increasing tribal fragmentalization in Africa).

The Muslim world needs to take a cue from the Western world and embrace secularism. For all the Jerry Falwells of the world crying about it, secularism has its upsides (like less people willing to blow up schoolchildren because their damn sky-god said so).

-Eric

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[random coward]

Can you name one country including the muslim ones that has not had a muslim attack in recent history?

Canada.

While technically true; It is misleading. The Canadians just foiled a plot to assassinate the Prime Minister of Canada. So while the attack didn't happen, it was attempted.

The truth is there aren't any countries that don't have attacks from Muslim terrorists. From China, Russia, United States, Great Britain, France, Sweden, The Phillipines, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, India, Pakastan; all of these have had attacks. If a country isn't being attacked its simply because they are lower on the list not off the list.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up.
- A different AC

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[LordEd]

As far as 'letting' them in... that is a farce... there are so many other ways to cross our borders than to focus just on the border guards...

Its your side of the border. Do with it as you wish, but we aren't responsible for allowing or denying access to your country.

Of interest, Canada will be getting armed guards starting in 2007

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[raju1kabir]

Or how about the other secular, democratic country next door to it ? The one which has the largest muslim populace in the world.

Second largest. Indonesia still has a few more. And it is also a secular democracy.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[tcc3]

Thats not what I said. Maybe I was a bit too general, but the point stands.

The problem with your point is that it implicitly promotes terroism as a valid statement or political tool.

"Got a problem with US foreign policy? Blow some shit up! Kill some civillians. Take some hostages."

I dont think the US always does everything perfectly, but the answer is not indescriminantly targeted violence. When that becomes an acceptable solution, then we all lose.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

"Christians are a hell of a lot safer for my existance than most muslim types."
Living in Texas I would say your existene is in vastly greater danger from Christians than from Muslims. Especially since you are an atheist type. Atheist types have a habit of turning up dead in Texas.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[rmallico]

i heard about the armed guards... the fact is that there IS no armed sentry/post/guard at their borders. i follow canadian events as closely as any 'non' canadian can. my in laws live in West Vancouver and my father in law started the Frasier Institute 30+ years ago.. I get my fill of Canadian talk during family get-togethers and to be honest it is refreshing to have questions asked from outside the scope of a normal 'american'... also refreshing to hear his stance on Canada and the fact they did not participate early on in the war... (Must be that he is pretty much a republican as to why we get along)

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Pope]

Am I the only one that finds it strange that it would be necessary to perform extra searches on military or law enforcement before boarding a plane?

Why would you? Someone in a uniform is just as corruptible as someone not. Clothes do not wholly speak to the character beneath them. Frankly, I'm glad they're not making exceptions.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Well actually El-Al airport security did discover a bomb in a passenger's luggage sometime in the late 80's I think it was.

That was the reason for the "did you pack this baggage yourself? are you carrying anything for another person?" questions we get today.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[giorgosts]

the story of the 7 sisters anyone? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_(oil_co mpanies) And what about the study which said that if anyone on earth cosumed as much power as the US per capita, the world's recources would only last for 3 months? So all you have to do is follow the money..

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[dajak]

In which case there must be a fault in your logic somewhere. Either

A) there aren't lots of people willing to die to bring down an aircraft, or

B) Searches are effective.

Given that about 10 per 100.000 population commit suicide every year in western countries, it is at the very least a safe bet that most muslims with a death wish apparently don't wish to bring down an aircraft.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

How many fundamental Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, et al have you heard of in the past 20 years that have suicide bombed a market, or any other suicide killing for that matter?

Well, suicide bombing tactics were popularized by the predominantly Hindu Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam. Granted, these are mainstream, and often secular Hindus. And originally the LTTE was a Marxist-Lenninist organization. But they sure aren't muslims. I think you'll find that Hindu, Buddhist and Christian sectarian violence tends towards large scale pogroms rather than bombings, with notable exceptions like Northern Ireland and Lebanon.

As a Jew, I don't understand what is qualitatively more horrific about suicide attacks. I don't think the crime perpetrated against my family in Poland were any more acceptable because the perpetrators didn't die in the process. Likewise I don't think destroying a Palestinian market from an attack helicopter is any better than walking into an Israeli one and blowing yourself up. Besides, what consititutes a suicide attack? Functionally, pretty much any Palesitinian attack on the IDF is suicidal. Hell, simply walking near the IDF is dangerous.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[spun]

The rich kid who tries to be nice is generally well liked. Especially by the poor kids he buys lunch. The secularist who respects the religious fanatic's right to practice his own religion is generally tolerated, as it means more opportunities to win converts. The people at the top of fanatical movements are genrally rational and in it for the power/money/control/pussy.

Conversely, the rich kid who picks on others is generally despised. The secularist who is fanatical about his secularism is not well liked by other fanatics. This is all so simple, but it contradicts the comfy, we're number one, we have the moral high ground position that Americans like to believe.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[JedaFlain]

Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm.
Lisa: That's specious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: Thank you, dear.
Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Oh, how does it work?
Lisa: It doesn't work.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: It's just a stupid rock.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around, do you?
Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[jellomizer]

Odd, I hear that is was only 1 per 10,000 we cant be both right.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Cecil]

Funny how drastically those numbers change when you change the timeframe. Why don't you go further back and look at the last 2000 years of Christian violence compared to the last 2000 years of Muslim violence. Do the crusades mean anything to you? Or the Roman legions? The Muslims have *no* monopoly on extremism or sectarian violence.

And if you think that violence perpetrated thousands of years ago is too old for them to still have any right to complain about it, then surely you would agree that Israel is not entitled to come back and lay claim to the supposed "holy land" because it was theirs 2000 years ago either?

The situation is a fuckton more complex than you think it is. The holy wars are still going on right under your nose.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[laughing rabbit]

I'm alot more worried about being one of the 16,000 plus victims of DUI in America. Probably a fair number of alcoholic Chri$tian drivers behind those statistics.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[MountainLogic]

As far as you go you are correct, but one of the the British interest in the middle east was oil for their warships. As diesel engines be came effective, around the turn of the century warships became much faster and thus a stretigic advantage. Oil was still is short supply in europe at the time. True demand was low for other than lubicants or heating uses, but the British empire was a global enterprise and they saw the long term need for vast quantities of cheap crude to supply their merchant and military fleets. Much the same with France, Germany, etc.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Austerity Empowers]

I don't think hatred of the west was quite so ingrained in their culture as it sometimes is in the middle east. Japan mostly had a problem with its aggressive military and their defeat was just acknowledged when entire cities were sent up in flames. Whether nukes were the right answer or not is debated there, I thought the results were at least beneficial to us, which is really all I care about. I'm not sure how good it was for Japan, I suspect they would be in the same spot now either way.

On the other hand, we can go in and destroy any middle east country we take an interest in. Even Iran would be wiped out in a month if we wanted it, without nukes. Everyone knows this, that's why tactics used against us are terrorist. You can't attack a terrorist, cut off his funding, deprive him of needed resources. You can't fight a military war against him period. Nuke his city and he'll firebomb a plane. Nuke his country and ten of his friends will bomb ten of your cities. It's not about leading a people, it's about pure wanton destruction. Terrorists are beholden to no one at all. The only way to stop them is to make them intolerable to their own people, not easily accomplished by blowing everything the fuck up, or sending in soldiers. What we want is to undermine their governments, but more significantly their religious leaders. How much faith was lost when that scandal about altar boys got out? What we lack is enough influence in the area to set that sort of activity in place, and perhaps enough understanding of their culture to ensure we're pushing the correct buttons.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Elbow Macaroni]

Wow, now wouldn't that be amazing!

Well if I had the choice to fly on a plane full of people with guns vs people who had been checked for bombs and guns randomly, then I would have to choose the latter. If everyone had a gun that just increases your chance that some idiot will fire their gun and inadvertently bring down the whole plane.

It's not surprising you're the only one who came up with that brilliant idea.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[operagost]

Has their been any terrorist plot foiled by airport security?

Well, an airport customs screener stopped Moussaoui (the 20th hijacker) when he attempted to sneak into the US. Obviously, it wasn't enough to foil the plot. Maybe it would have, had the CIA not totally disregarded the incident.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[MightyYar]

No question that oil has fueled Middle Eastern policy of all Western nations since WWI, but my original point was that the fighting between the Islamic world and Europe predated the internal combustion engine.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[MightyYar]

Yes, people did bad things to other people, causing today's problems. Got it. What's your solution then?

I don't really want to get into an environmental discussion, but if you substitute "Western Europe" for "US", I doubt that the world's resources last much longer. Even if Western Europeans consume half as much as Americans, that'd only be 6 months - still not a great outlook.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[toonworld]

So you're telling me that as an UNARMED border guard, you would stick it out knowing that there was an armed gunman heading directly to your location?

what would you do, use a straw and fire off some spitwads at him? Oh wait, we're Canadian so we'd say something like "Please stop, or I'll have to say please again"

Dude, get a clue! That's like asking an unarmed police officer to chase an armed gunman...

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[makomk]

Ever been to Northern Ireland?

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[DoctorFrog]

And would you mind to tell the Grand Jury for how long the accused Mr. Bush has been in office at that time?

Long enough to downgrade counterterrorism from a high-priority 'principals' function to a low-priority 'deputies' function, deny counterterrorism funding requests in favor of a (plainly unworkable) ballistic missile defense, terminate a program to monitor Al-Qaeda suspects in the US, and ignore both a July warning that al Qaeda planned to "use airliners as missiles" and an August report that bin Laden was "Determined to Strike in US" in a plot expected to "include the hijacking of an American airplane".

9/11 Commission report, it's a charming read.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[rmallico]

Where did I say that? I mentioned they were unarmed... PROVIDE THEM WITH THE MEANS TO PROTECT YOUR BORDER can it be spelled out any clearer?

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[toonworld]

in your post prior to it:

just a month or so ago at the Peace Arch crossing they just left. Closed the gates and packed it in...

You didn't mention anything about the border guards being unarmed until a later post which I had not read until now... my bad.

I agree that the border guards should be armed after being properly trained for it. It's just the way you wrote the first post, you ommited the fact that the guards were not armed and that's really why they left their post. If I were in their shoes, I would have done exactly the same thing. I don't care how much you pay me, what good is money when you're dead? At least give them a fighting chance!

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Another cretin who can't cope with reality, and hasn't thought this through.
What is a terrorist with a "sharp-edged sliding backplate" going to do? Intimidate 100 people enough to allow themselves to be flown into a building? The whole world has seen the attacks on 9/11. I don't think any terrorist would last very long unless they have a LOT of bullets, or a bomb strapped to them. A BIG bomb.

Cyanide tipped tiny pins? He kills one or two to 'intimidate' the rest? How does he watch all the passengers, in ALL directions, ALL the time? Where would he stand to do this, with only tiny pins? Hell - all they have to do is pick up their trays, drinks cart, and start throwing them at him en masse, then kick his head in.

You are talking shit. Your solution is to 'stop searching' people! Idiot!

We CAN do both, you know: stop fighting wars for ISRAEL (I see you missed out on that part, because you wouldn't want to upset your 'holohoax' friends), AND search all muslims before they get on planes, and leave all WHITE people alone.

But we can't have that, because even though REALITY clearly proves otherwise, millions and millions of times, we have to pretend that "we're all equal".

"Can't we all just get along?" Only an American idiot could have written what is probably the dumbest line in history.

CRETIN!!!

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Maxo-Texas]

No.
I get cut out of some social circles.
I get gentle pressure to convert.
I'm still treated civilly and christians don't go around killing non believers like they did during the spanish inquisition.

Yes- christians *were* insane murderers at one point- but the core of their teachings these days is love thy neighbor and they help a lot of people who don't believe like they do.

Most islamic types I've dealt with a) fail to get upset of muslim types killing non-muslims (and blame muslims killing muslims on the west) and b) do believe by hook or crook they are going to impose islam on the world and the islamic code of laws.

I think the problem is allowing home schooling in the US. If you do not get to humans while they are kids, then they can grow up to be monsters. This is a problem with christian home schooling as well. And some of the christian home schoolers raise some barely sane children as well.

The government has to propagandize young citizens into a basic secular society or the sharp knives are going to come out at some point.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Citizen of Earth]

We can't even stop weapons in our prisons, and we will NEVER be able to stop deadly weapons on airplanes.

We can't ever hope to stop street crime either, so we should just disband our police departments. I'm sure things would be just fine.

the ONLY way to make technically fragile public transit work is to promote an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us

Acting weakly and withdrawing after every attack is the surest way to guarantee future attacks. If the West were to completely withdraw from the Middle East tommorrow, the peace in our time would be very short-lived.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Maxo-Texas]

And everyone is so blind with PC that they won't confront the islamics on this issue.

ONLY islam can clean islam. If islam doesn't clean islam, then we are inevitably headed to a massive war with huge consequences.

The only way islam is going to clean islam is when we start putting pressure on the moderates to open their damn eyes, start reporting wackos who talk about killing non islamics (as HAPPENED in britain with the planes), and stop teaching the "silent jihad" crap to their kids, and stop teaching their kids that non-islamics are not really human.

WE get it. Even in my dark mood, I recognize that islamics are HUMANS that we COULD get a long with. The problem is that they are raising TOXIC children. What can you do with 7 year olds who are cheering in the streets because complete strangers from many countries are dead? (That's the point the palistenians lost me for life).

Islam is turning into a fascist death cult right before our eyes. We stop it now- or it is going to get bloody messy.

Does anyone doubt that there are large numbers of islamics who would not hesitate to use nukes?

We can all pretend to be nice but once a city goes up in flames, the gloves are going to come off.

How about we get a backbone and STOP THIS SHIT before it destroys everyone?

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Citizen of Earth]

Canada.

You mean that country where an attack by Islamic radicals of the same type as the London transit bomers was foiled recently?

Words that you will never hear at the UN Security Council: "What does Canada think of this?"

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Maxo-Texas]

They didn't know how to use nuclear bombs, gene engineer plagues, and kill several hundred people with one.

They were a *lot* less efficient back then.

Picture those insane christians-- but with nuclear weapons, sarin gass, bombs, and flu/ebola.

No one is saying that muslims have a monopoly on violence throughout history. Being human is the necessary qualification for being able to kill millions of other humans.

I am saying: NOW- TODAY- the muslim religion, combined with the money and technology that it has poses the greatest threat to human existance that we have ever faced. I do not think they can quite exterminate all life- but they have large numbers who are willing to do it, HUGE numbers who are willing to finance them (even a lot of american islamics funded dubious "charities" until we shut that down (and probably didn't really shut it down- just diverted it), and the kicker is- 90% of islamics seem to condone ANY act of violence by islamics.

SO you have 1% capable of killing men, women, children, old, islamic, jew, christian, hindu- anyliving thing that doesn't follow their version of islam, then you have 20 to 30% who actively support those 1% with funds, and then you have 60 to 70% who wouldn't turn them in and do not oppose them, and who allow toxic "kill non-human non-islamic" text books in their islamic schools.

These are people who would prefer young girls burn to death over being seen out of a burka. They are *insane*. Even the "reasonable" ones show hints of insanity if you know how to fish it out of them.

And then we have the basic tenet of the religion-- It is morally okay with god to lie if the other person is not an islamic.

That's why you could work with christians since at least the 1600's- they had a basic ethical code put in them as children that gave them some sympathy for non-christians. They have a basically "law abiding and be kind to strangers" meme even if they do belive in invisible pink elephants.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Flambergius]

Nations and civilizations play dirty. There has never before been, and I'm not really certain there is now, purely economic competition between significant nations or civilizations. It has always been a quest of dominance over the other, more complete the better. Sometimes even, more bloody the better. The niceties our age seems to require are a historic anomalism, a most welcome anomalism for sure, but nothing more than that - yet. You should not try to argue for the high moral ground to be ceded to some other civilization because of us being most successful bastards so far. They would have done the same if they had had the chance. Everybody should stop doing this shit to others, not because we are bad people or they are good people, but because it is shit and you shouldn't do shit to people. Anything else will not hold up, nothing else will not get us forward.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

... only because of the current mad anti-white immigration policy that's being inflicted (by strange coincidence) on ALL white countries.
If all the countries that were previously 99% white STAYED 99% white, with no muslims at all allowed, we wouldn't have a problem, would we?

But I forgot - in the La La Land that liberals inhabit, it's everybody ELSE's right to come to white people's countries and reap the benefits of our intelligence and hard work: one simple question for you, genius: why can't they make their OWN countries successful places, that they'd want to stay in?
What's the difference between, say, Somalia, and Japan? Could it, by any chance, be the PEOPLE? Or even, god forbid, the RACE of people who live in those countries?

Say it ain't so!

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[NateTech]

But it's not about killing them, it's about causing panic.

Get the sheeples scared, and keep them that way.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[pilgrim23]

actually, many have it. as I said: Cattle stand in lines too...

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[eldepeche]

I think about 6 million Irish would be pretty pissed off to hear you count it as part of the UK. It hasn't been for about 85 years.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[lysergic.acid]

How does setting a more sane foreign policy promote terrorism? This isn't something that one should do in response to terrorism, it's something that we should have been doing all along to be respectful of the rights of other human beings and naitons.

And what's the difference between a terrorist killing hundreds of people and an army doing the same? Is it somehow alright when an Israeli soldier fires on civilians because they have a uniform and "proper" military training? Sorry, but the official armed forces of the various nations of the world kill far more civilians than terrorists ever have or will. A daisy cutter doesn't discriminate between civilians and combatants either. Most mainstream media outlets reported 3000+ civilian casualties in just the first month of the War on Terror. Israeli gunships, missles, snipers, deathsquads, etc. have killed far more civilians than teenage Palestinian suicide bombers have claimed. Just because a military attack is carried out by a force other than a nation with a standing army we condemn it as terrorism, yet state-sponsored terrorism which kills far more civilians and is in fact what pushes desperate people to blow themselves up on buses is never blamed for its part in creating global conflicts.

Maybe if you took the time to actually look at the root of Islamic terrorism you'd see the obvious part that U.S./British foreign policy has played in creating a cultural environment that breeds anti-western attitutes in the Middle-East. Instead of thinking "people don't like us? kill more people! drop more bombs! invade more countries!" perhaps it would be simpler to look at what we've done that's pissed people off. Areas that spawn terrorists aren't populated with people with a genetic disposition to blow themselves up or embrace extremist/militant ideologies. Terrorism only occurs when people are pushed to extremes--it's a desperate measure that people resort to only when they have no conventional political/military recourse (ie. they have no official military to defend themselves with, the global community ignores their pleas, they can't establish a dialog with their oppressors, etc.). If you oppress any group of people long enough they will eventually embrace extremism.

Do you think Muslim terrorists were a problem before Western nations colonized the Middle-East and the establishment of Israel?

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[eldepeche]

The West could stop treating the less-developed parts of the world as a game board full of pieces to push around and draw lines on, supporting repressive governments when it serves the interests of the powerful, and move toward a rational trade system based on actual capitalism in order to allow economic prosperity.

Or, you know, genocide.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, 8 months into his watch. Remind me how long they were planning this?

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Darby]

I guess our option is to just cease to exist.

Could there be any other option? I'm thinking hard here...

How about we stop murdering innocent people in order to steal their shit.
How about we stop funding terrorists.
How about we stop assassinating democratically elected leaders in order to install brutal murderous thugs who are "friendly to US business interests".

See? There are plenty of options. All you have to do is pull your head out of your ass and look at the actual issues instead of pretending we're always good and right.

In other words, you'd need to stop being a subject and start being a citizen.
Probably too much work for you though given your obviously delusional world view.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[mr100percent]

"This is contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom. Let him tell us why we did not strike Sweden, for example." -- Osama Bin Laden

The terrorists don't want to force people to become Muslim or die. (The Quran forbids that; "Let there Be no compulsion in Religion" (2:256)) Bin Laden was pretty clear in his goals, if you read his speeches. He wants the US out of Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, and the US to stop backing Israel. Good ideas that are widely supported, awful methods to try and achieve those goals.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[mr100percent]

Muslims don't care if YOU are Muslim or not. Really, go drink alcohol and eat pork as much as you want, we don't care. Muslims don't believe in "Convert or die," there never was an islamic equivalent of the Spanish Inquisiton. The Quran forbids forcible conversion or threats to make people convert (Quran 2:256- "Let there be no compulsion in religion").

"Tiny differences"? You're kidding me. I prayed with Hanafis, Malikis, and Shiites in the same group even today, a few hours ago. Islam allows diversity, and if you're thinking of sectarian violence in Iraq, that's an unrelated political matter, the equivalent of Christian violence in Northern Ireland.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[mr100percent]

We got attacked on 9/11, according to Bin Laden, because we backed the Saudi dictatorship and had US troops near Mecca, and because we supported Israel and their war crimes. Zawahiri reportedly wanted to move 9/11 up to the Summer, because it would have demonstrated that it was in response to the Israeli massacre of Palestinians that summer (you don't remember?).

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[mr100percent]

Christians are SAFER? Who ships the majority of America's drugs from South America? Who has a fanatical "Lord's Resistance Army" in Africa that kidnaps children and amputates feet and/or legs? Who invaded Bosnia and started "ethnic cleansing" including the death of 8,000 in one day (Srebrenica massacre)? Who led a holocaust? Who started a war with a sovereign nation in the middle east? Who has a camp openly in violation of human rights laws and geneva conventions? Who tortured innocent Muslims in Abu Ghraib?

Look, not everyone in a religion is practicing, but if you're going to blame everyone's religion instead of the individuals, then don't have a double-standard here. Ugh.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[mr100percent]

You have a good point. Perhaps, despite being disliked by much of the world, most don't really want to kill us, although you've made it clear that they could do so easily.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[dwayneabailey]

I hate to break it to you, but the USA didn't start off as "99% white." It was stolen from 99% not white. Maybe the colonists should have stayed in England and fixed their own country.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Maxo-Texas]

Hmmm..

"Be a patriot: Murder a Republican."

Not that I vote for republicans, but I think you are so far extreme left that you can't see reality.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[why-is-it]

While technically true; It is misleading. The Canadians just foiled a plot to assassinate the Prime Minister of Canada. So while the attack didn't happen, it was attempted.

So we have been told anyways. Why not wait until after the trial and see whether any of the accused (who are presumed innocent until proven guilty) are convicted?

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Maxo-Texas]

No of course I don't have to convert-- I do have to pay extra taxes, have less rights than islamics, and I'm generally cut off from having a decent life-- I'd rather not be a dhimmi thanks just the same.

Of course as a non-believer, it would be more like:
http://www.atheistfoundation.org.au/islamwhitewash .htm

At least I'm not a woman.

And of course this is my likely fate under a "gentle" quran...
"Then when the Sacred Months (the 1st, 7th, 11th, and 12th months of the Islamic calendar) have passed, then kill the Mushrikoon (idolaters, polytheists, pagans, the disbelievers in the Oneness of God, etc) wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and lie in wait for them in each and every ambush. But if they repent [by rejecting Shirk (polytheism) and accept Islamic Monotheism] and perform As-Salaah (Iqaamat-as-Salaah), and give Zakaah, then leave their way free. Verily, Allaah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful". (Quran 9:5)

The Bible has a lot to say about bearing false witness: God is against it. False witnesses, the Bible says, will not go unpunished. For those who fear God, the warnings and admonitions about bearing false witness are serious--and they act as a check against the human tendency to lie and spread malicious gossip. That's why we take oaths.

The Quran has a helpful verse on this: "Truly Allah guides not one who transgresses and lies." Surah 40:28

However from here:
http://www.islamreview.com/articles/lyingprint.htm

However, unlike most religions, within Islam there are certain provisions under which lying is not simply tolerated, but actually encouraged. The book "The spirit of Islam," by the Muslim scholar, Afif A. Tabbarah was written to promote Islam. On page 247, Tabbarah stated: "Lying is not always bad, to be sure; there are times when telling a lie is more profitable and better for the general welfare, and for the settlement of conciliation among people, than telling the truth. To this effect, the Prophet says: 'He is not a false person who (through lies) settles conciliation among people, supports good or says what is good."

Provisions for lying in Islam

Most Muslims are familiar with the principles of Islam that will justify lying in situations where they sense the need to do so. Among these are:

* War is deception.
* The necessities justify the forbidden.
* If faced by two evils, choose the lesser of the two.
" Allah will not call you to account for what is futile in your oaths, but He will call you to account for your deliberate oaths: for expiation, feed ten indigent persons, on a scale of the average for the food of your families; or clothe them; or give a slave his freedom. If that is beyond your means, fast for three days. That is the expiation for the oaths ye have sworn. But keep to your oaths. Thus doth Allah make clear to you His signs, that ye may be grateful." Surah 5:89

"Allah will not call you to account for thoughtlessness (vain) in your oaths, but for the intention in your hearts; and He is Oft-forgiving, Most Forbearing." Surah 2:225

"Any one who, after accepting faith in Allah, utters Unbelief, except under compulsion, his heart remaining firm in Faith - but such as open their breast to Unbelief, on them is Wrath from Allah, and theirs will be a dreadful Penalty." Surah 16: 106

The noted Islamic commentator, Al-Tabary explained Surah 16:106 as a verse that had been revealed to Mohammed after he learned that Ammar Ibn Yasser was forced to deny his faith in Mohammed when kidnapped by the Banu Moghera tribe. Mohammed consoled Ammar by telling him, "If they turned, you turn." (Meaning: if they again capture you, you are allowed to deny me again.)

---

This is what makes isl

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Scotland is part of the UK. Ireland on the other hand is its own Republic, except for the six counties of Northern Ireland which are part of the UK. Anyone who considers the Republic of Ireland as part of England is just ignorant.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[0mni]

I don't beleive in that crap, I'm saying that it is stupid to make the generalizations.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Dread_ed]

"We also tend not to go around and meddle in other countries as a hobby."

Don't let this guy fool you, Canadians have staged attacks on every civilized nation in the world at one time or another in the last 16 months.

It's just that no one really notices the barrage of moose antlers and snowballs. The occasional bottle of Molson Golden or Labatt (empty of course) has caused a casualty or two, but most of those were livestock.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[mr100percent]

What an impressive amount of FUD you threw my way. You're wrong, plain and simple. Untangling this will take a few minutes, however, since your sources twisted the Quran to try and fit their ideas.

""Then when the Sacred Months have passed, then kill the Mushrikoon (idolaters, polytheists)...". (Quran 9:5)"

This verse is addressed to the Muslims of Medina under attack by the polytheist Meccans, and is referring to fighting them back. You're trying to take a 1400 year old battle and apply it to today in an incorrect manner. The Quran also forbids murder and says "if they make peace, you make peace." It also commands being fair to your neighbor, and that the closest in faith are Christians (5:82). The Quran also states that God commands peace as the default.

Next, lying is usually a tremendous sin in Islam. The only time you are permitted to lie is on the Battlefield as a trick or feint, or when someone asks you about your religion and you could be killed for saying you're a Muslim. Your source is incorrect (and amazingly biased), and is twisting the Prophet's (pbuh) quote, whose actual meaning was that lying is permissible in certain circumstances to preserve friendships or relationships (like telling your wife she doesn't look fat when she is)

Muslims are NOT silent when terrorism happens. Worldwide Muslim leaders condemn terrorism. Loudly. All the time. For example, my community mosque puts out condemnation emails every time something minor happens. Muslims condemn terrorism all the time, we're not to blame if CNN ignores these speeches that are given and reported in Muslim news sources.

I'm kinda tired of people accusing Muslims of being silent, when we're not. Let me give you a better example, the world thinks Americans are silent about Abu Ghraib. Where were the Americans protesting in the streets? The general feeling was disgust at the acts, but it wasn't reported and the world thinks Americans are as bad as Muslims.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

please tell me this was meant as a joke...

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[empaler]

I think I know more about the Danish situation seeing as I live here. There has not been a terrorist attack on Danish soil. There has been trade sanctions imposed on Danish products, there have even been demonstrations, but as far as I can tell, nobody has been killed by Islamic fundamentalists over the drawing. Nor our radically un-islamic way of life, not even because of our Viking raids of middle-eastern countries.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

This is - IMHO - means violent retribution against anyone involved, their friends, their families, their countries, their religious centers, etc. ( Remember the couple of sentences in The Usual Suspects about the history of Kaiser Soze? I don't recall exactly, but it was something like: "...he killed their friends, he killed their families, he killed people who owed them money..." )

you my friend, *are* the terrorist.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[jellomizer]

Yes. Other wise I would put more facts into it. Or just ignore it

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[ccmay]

Perhaps. The US doesn't border any Muslim countries. Yet you are a target.

Yes, but we have millions of Muslims within our borders. Pretty much the only non-Muslim countries that are not suffering Muslim attacks are those which do not countenance any significant immigration from Muslim nations: Japan, Iceland, much of South America, etc. If Japan were one-third Muslim, do you really think the Muslim Japanese would be living in peace with their neighbors? As far as I am aware, they would be the first large Muslim minority in any country to do so.

Yes, and so has Steve Ballmer. He's gotten further. Osama leads a few dozen or at most a few hundred people.

Only in the sense that he has any direct supervisory control over them, that is true. But his acolytes among the Salafist/Wahabbist infestation of Islam are doing the job he can't do in person. With Osama as their inspiration, there are hundreds of millions of men, women, and children who would be delighted to kill or die to advance the spread of Islam. Again, anyone who argues this point has done nothing but expose himself as a moron or an ideologue. These are not things about which there can be any shadow of a doubt. Moderate, peaceful Islam has been dead for decades, if it ever existed, except perhaps in a few non-Arab countries such as Turkey and Indonesia.

-ccm

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Darby]

Not that I vote for republicans, but I think you are so far extreme left that you can't see reality.


You are so out of touch with reality that you don't even know what "right" and "left" mean, obviously.

Murdering a traitor who is actively working to destroy your entire way of life and turn your nation into a police state is just plain common sense. It has nothing to do with left or right.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[murdocj]

A) there aren't lots of people willing to die to bring down an aircraft, or B) Searches are effective.

That's exactly my point. You might want to reread my post.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[thej1nx]

Dear coward,

Apparently mere box cutters were enough to intimidate hundreds of passengers. They did not throw trays at them. How easy is it to instantly kill a person with a box cutter ? But there you are! They all sat quietly like sheeps.

Yes, you are right though. Same approach won't work. Passengers would now *know* that they are going to die anyways, and some might be willing to rush into action. Although I wonder how many would be willing to risk their lives if the hijackers just lie to them and tell them that they just want ransom or something ? But nevermind that.

How about just starting a fire in the plane ? Not *that* hard. Can be done with normal everyday chemicals that won't even register during your security checks. Six-seven simultaneous fires erupting in a plane and five-six terrorists fighting off any attempts to put them out. YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RESOURCES TO CHECK FOR EVERY POSSIBLE ITEM! PERIOD!

Germ and chemical warfare. There were attempts to poison the water supply of new york before as I recall. How about just replacing food products on shelves in a store, with poisoned ones ? Or contaminated makeup products ? People do not *have* to die en masse. The purpose of terrorism is to instill terror. Fear. It is not about numbers exactly. Do recall how much terror the anthrax scare spread. Now imagine what it will do to your economy if people were unwilling to buy food or make up products etc. from market.

How will you stop a guy from entering and *putting* some identical looking stuff on a shelf, from his pocket ? Search all the customers who enter the shop ? And do it for every damned shop ?

To paraphrase you, "How do you watch all the people, in ALL directions, ALL the time?"

Check your passanger by all means. But do know that it will *not* stop the attacks. It will just ensure that the attacks take a new form. Something you and I have never thought of before. Just like almost absolutely *noone* imagined that terrorists will crash planes into buildings.

Why are you guys such complete idiots ? Sure. Increase your security. Hunt down Osama. But also change your behaviour which pisses off other countries. Osama is supposedly in Pakistan. Not in Iraq. Are you completely daft or stupid that you just can't stop meddling in other countries' affairs? Stop getting people pissed off at you. Less chance of them willing to commit suicide to blow you up! Works fine already for Poland and Holland, you know?

Dumbass!!!!

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[thej1nx]

Indeed. The rise of fundamentalist Islam is the worst thing to have happened to the world. I completely agree.

But this is what Islam is all about! Wishful thinking will not make things happen overnight. And even if you *want* to commit total genocide and nuke a few dozen countries off the face of the Earth, it will just be a delayed suicide on your part too. Some of them have nukes too, you know ? Not to mention, it will just force everyone else who hates you too(Russia, China, Korea etc. etc.) gang up together and nuke you, before you come after them next. Your president has unfortunately given legitimacy to pre-emptive strikes, you know?

I don't really much fancy your chances against China at least.

Here is an idea though. What do you think will help terrorists more to recruit people to commit suicide to blow you up?

A. "Blow them up because they are uh...minding their own business mostly ... but worship uh... a different God"

or....

B. "Blow them up because they have invaded our home, destroyed our people and culture, killed our children, women and brothers, and might/will rape our wives and daughters"

Which will get more people lining up to become terrorists ?

Depending on how you answer, is going to indicate your intelligence level. We have already seen though, what your President thinks to be the "correct" answer.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

diplomatically elected governments? You must mean democratically elected. Sorry. None of those in the MidEast have been toppled. If you're thinking of Iran, you need to hit the history books and do a lot more reading. The guy known as the Shah of Iran was in place since WWII and before that, his father ran the country. In fact, he was first installed by Britian and the Soviet Union since they felt he would be easier to influenced than his dad when the Allies were using Iran as a supply route for the Soviets. The dipshit most people yap about as being democratically elected was actually apointed by the Shah and the first thing the good Dr did when the Shah left was to dismantle their parliament. Very democratic indeed.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[drDugan]

I think it is BEAUTIFUL that all my friends on /. have worked together to get the phrase

"TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild"

posted over 100 times in a public forum.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[drDugan]

Thank you. Carrying the torch of sanity and balance can be tiring while also trying to lead a life and build a company. I love it when others pick it up where I left off and take it forward one more step (and in this case, even better than I did).

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[drDugan]

Can we put a soon to-be ex-president on the list too? Please???

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[thej1nx]

Interesting.

And what a clever way to disregard the fact that all that is being suggested is, that USA gets "lower on the list" by stop doing stuff that puts it on the "top of the list".

i.e. Stop meddling in middle-east. One thing which is apparently not an option for Idiots like you.

IIRC, Al Quaeda has not made any attacks on Holland or Poland.

Are you really that dense ?

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[drDugan]

for the beaten child or the crazies who want to kill - a great point.

These people are generally become very unhealthy and need help from society BEFORE they commit acts of violence.

We are all so busy with busi-ness that most people just tend to shit on those folks, and lo! they end up as street people and career criminals. Imagine that.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[geminidomino]

I don't know. What did that link have anything to do with my plan?

I didn't say "acts suspicious" I said "gets crazy." It's worked before.

So some jackoff going off on a guy sitting in his seat just because he's brown is acting "crazy" - splat. Someone decides to bumrush the cockpit? Crunch.

Simple solutions to simple problems.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Maxo-Texas]

It was more than disgust.

The soldiers in question should have been taken out and shot and so should their CIA backers.

They betrayed america in their actions. They betrayed everything we are taught as children about being the shining light on the hill.

As for the rest, I *can't* believe you. I've seen too much evidence that too many islamics think it is okay to lie to me because I'm not islamic. Everything you say is suspect. Everything you seem to sincerely say may be a very sincere lie.

I can't bloody take your word for anything because large numbers of islamics have established that their word isn't worth anything. They get upset about attacking on holy day- we stupidly respect that custom and then they attack us, and their own people on holy days. Excuse me, but WTF?

Worldwide muslim leaders openly condemning terrorists *isn't good enough*. Don't you get it? It is OKAY for them to lie to us since we are non-believers. Every time they say something like that and then we catch them saying something else in their own language or in the privacy of their mosques or we repeatedly catch them teaching their children this crap, it is just another nail in the coffin of EVER believing any damn thing they say.

When you caught the christian racists in this kind of crap, they were ashamed and embarassed and lost political power because they were caught being hypocrites.

And you can't just *say* you aren't going to lie. This has taken decades to build up to where it is. This is scores of incidents of lies piled on lies. You are going to have to be painfully truthful to a fault- and rip out the wahabi inspired text books and start repeatedly helping turn in anyone that hints that they want to kill non-islamics- and stop stoning women- and stop burning schoolgirls to death- and start forgiving and forgetting and stop killing. Not just for a year- but for at least a couple decades.

Am I perfect? No. Is the west perfect? No.
But pointing at our faults to distract people from your problems is not going keep working much longer because people are getting tired of all this crap and 13 year olds being blown into small bloody pieces and isreal giving up land and still getting attacked and the constant lying. Do I really give a crap about isreal- no. Did they kill our people on that ship- sure. Are they nice people- not any nicer than other average people.

I like living in a nice multi-cultural environment where the jew, the hindi, the muslim, and I can all work on a project together, discuss sports, and then go home and worship in our own chosen way. That takes toleration *built in* by a shared common public school system. It doesn't work with 13 year olds born and raised in this country saying they have no loyalty to it- their only loyalty is to islam and allah.

---

Just closing- your statements are reasonable. I *wish* I could believe them. Perhaps 10 years ago, I would have just done so and taken them at face value. It is terrible of me to stereotype a group of people based on a subset. But the subset is so big that it is becoming compelling. Islamics have cried wolf so many times, I'd probably be eaten by the wolf rather than check the gate again.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

It should tell one that one's geographical knowledge is sadly lacking.

Let's see... Ireland, Austria, Poland, Lavia, Lithuania, Estonia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, Finland, Portugal...

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[really?]

Actually, that's the point I was making. GP was worried about depressurisation, and I was trying to suggest it's not a thing to worry about. Guess I should have been clearer.

As for "everyone" being armed, I remember travelling through some places in Arizona where "open carry" was legal - this was about 17 years ago. They had had their last bank hold up so long before that no one could actually remember when it was. I guess it makes one think twice about holding up a bank, when one sees that half the customers are packing. I would venture to guess that the same would apply to air planes.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[ncc74656]

Can you name one country including the muslim ones that has not had a muslim attack in recent history?

Canada.

I remember hearing something about a plot among some Mohammedans to behead the Canadian prime minister a little while back. It was stopped before they could get too far, but don't make the mistake of thinking that they're not trying to kill or subjugate the "kufr" everywhere they can.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Eivind]

That may be true. However, that's not the same as saying Denmark ain't a target. Infact, I heard in the news just yesterday that 9 muslims had been arrested, and that the police confiscated bomb-parts from their apartments.

That doesn't sound very comforting to me. OK, so the police may -- this far -- have managed to prevent deaths. Still, it looks as if Denmark too is a target of muslim extremists.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[empaler]

I was unsure about the Republic, otherwise I'd listed it as Eire. ;-)

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Itchy Rich]

Nations and civilizations play dirty...

Agreed, but that doesn't negate the likelyhood of people being pissed off when it other nations play dirty in their territory. Some people argue that foriegn policy is not connected to terrorism, but I don't find those arguments convincing. Without Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and a long history of other arguably* self-interested interference I don't think we'd have the same problem we do now.

* That's the important word, because as long as extremist leaders can argue convincingly that the West is an oppressive force in the Middle East there will be some level of support for terrorists.

Everybody should stop doing this shit to others, not because we are bad people or they are good people, but because it is shit and you shouldn't do shit to people. Anything else will not hold up, nothing else will not get us forward.

Well said.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Itchy Rich]

Yes, I meant democratically. It was a long day.

As for the rest of the comment, I think it's overly dismissive. I don't think the ousting of Mossadegh (was he not chosen as Prime Minister by a vote of 79-12 by parliament on the 28th of April 1951 and only "assented to" by the Shah... similar to the royal assent system used by the UK?) and reinstallation of the Shah, was a particularly democracy-friendly act for the US and UK intelligence services to aid. I don't claim to know everything on the subject, but it's fairly clear that the West has a history of self-interested interference in the Middle East.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[spruce]

So to you it's easier to solve the clusterfuck that is the middle east than it is to stop people from getting weapons on planes? And not only that, you think we can achieve this task in a reasonable time frame?

Stopping weapons from getting on planes would be very hard, not impossible.

Getting rid of every reason any possible human being could have to perform a terrorist attack is impossible.

If you can't see that, then you my friend are the idiot.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[jax9999]

Were you strip searched? I know if I were in the positon of choosing who to strip search in the course of a day, the handsome young marine might just get picked over the smelly old guy

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Noxx]

Canada.

...they're not even a real country anyway.

A cynical South Park fan might interpret this as saying a country must go to war and show a distinguished list of friends and enemies to be considered "real" :)

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[ArsenneLupin]

Actually, France should not be on that list, they had lots of supermarket and public transport bombings by Muslims during the eighties and nineties: (La cinquième période : le terrorisme protéiforme.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[ray-auch]

LD50 for Ricin on the other hand is less than that for a whole person. A bit of that on a needle is a big problem.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Maxo-Texas]

This only works if you follow it through completely.

To follow it through completely would involve killing millions of people in scores of countries.

To follow it through completely would put us into a war to the death with china and russia both of whom still have the power to exterminate us if they are willing to die too.

It does work- and if we lose a city to a nuke, america (and other western countries) have shown we are just a thin line away from incredible barbarity. We would probably tell China and Russia to get the hell out of the way or start firing the nukes now because nothing would stop our insane anger at that point.

We won't be the first to fire but once wounded, we can be inhuman until the other side makes it completely clear that they really do completely surrender.

The problem being that as time goes on, it takes smaller and smaller groups of nutjobs to kill millions.

The cowboys get voted out next election- despite that, I'm pretty bleak about the future. Maybe I'll be lucky and die before it gets nasty.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Live_in_Dayton]

Somebody didn't get the memo. Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig were just "forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint" last week. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,210645,00.html

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Maxo-Texas]

The box cutters worked because for 40 years, hijackers took the planes, landed them and made demands. So the logical behavior was to wait it out and not provoke them.

At this point, a sub-machinegun wouldn't work. People are going to swarm you because they realize you are taking them for a horrible burning death anyway.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[thej1nx]

I already acknowledged that.

You are completely blindsided by the fact that ramming planes into buildings is not the *only* way terrorists can attack. It was this very sort of stupidity that made 911 succeed. Right. They successfully attacked you *once* via planes, so they will from now on, *always* attack you only via planes. Do you seriously believe that ????

They blew up trains in UK. How are you safe from that right now ? Imagine a terrorist, disguised as a pubk with purple hair and what not, to cover up his features, taking the subway during rush hour with explosives. Boom. ... or if you should check for explosives in the subways... how about buses ? or even disneyland ? ... almost any crowded place.

Or just like I said above, just think of maybe 50 terrorists planting poisoned, contaminated products/foods in random shops all over the country, on the same day. It is just as easy as walking in, bending down, quitely taking out stuff from your bag and leaving it on the shelf. Even if the security suspected anything, they would check him for *shoplifting*! Not whether he *added* some extra stuff.

Do tell me, how you plan to defend against that ?

Simple answer. You cannot. I an keep throwing these simple scenerions at you, and I would assume that the terrorists spend more time thinking up easy ways to kill you.

So probably not to meddle in the middle east, is your only real option... if you can bring yourself to do that.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[thej1nx]

Dude.

Have you ever considered the fact that you might just not have to "solve the clusterfuck" that is middle east ?

Walk away. Holland or Poland aren't losing sleep over "solving middle east's trouble for them". Why the fuck, are you ?

You are completely blindsided by the fact that ramming planes into buildings is not the *only* way terrorists can attack. It was this very sort of stupidity that made 911 succeed. Right. They successfully attacked you *once* via planes, so they will from now on, *always* attack you only via planes. Do you seriously believe that ????

They blew up trains in UK. How are you safe from that right now ? Imagine a terrorist, disguised as a pubk with purple hair and what not, to cover up his features, taking the subway during rush hour with explosives. Boom. ... or if you should check for explosives in the subways... how about buses ? or even disneyland ? ... almost any crowded place.

Or just like I said above, just think of maybe 50 terrorists planting poisoned, contaminated products/foods in random shops all over the country, on the same day. It is just as easy as walking in, bending down, quitely taking out stuff from your bag and leaving it on the shelf. Even if the security suspected anything, they would check him for *shoplifting*! Not whether he *added* some extra stuff.

Do tell me, how you plan to defend against that ?

Simple answer. You cannot. I an keep throwing these simple scenerions at you, and I would assume that the terrorists spend more time thinking up easy ways to kill you.

So probably not to meddle in the middle east, is your only real option... if you can bring yourself to do that.

But ofcourse, since we cannot make everyone be in complete love with us, let us go bomb them and piss them off. Yeah, that will work! You are the idiot.

dumbass.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[spruce]

Ok,

I should have been more clear on what I meant by "solve the clusterfuck". I didn't mean solve as in fix all the problems between all those countries - I don't think I'm nearly smart or informed enough to do that. I'm simply talking about altering the US relationship with those countries. It's an extremely complicated proposition - not as easy as your "walk away" makes it sound. Do I wish it were that way? No but that's the facts buddy! If it were such an easy solution, maybe one of our presidents in the last 25 years would have accomplished such a feat. None of them have been able to "walk away" from the Israel situation. Again, not that I'm saying there aren't logical arguments for "walking away" from Israel - it just isn't going to happen, so bitching and yelling about it is stupid.

I alrady said I didn't necesarily think current plans for security were the best, honestly I don't know much about them. All I know is that your solution is a to "solve the problem" is pie in the sky bullshit, considering "the problem" can and has been changed completely over the course of the last 25 years.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[mr100percent]

Well, that's awful and it's a clear sin, with no room for doubt. Forcible conversion is ruled a sin unanimously by the Muslim body of scholars. Islam is about sincerity, it's the name of one of the chapters of the Quran, forcible conversion is never sincere, obviously.

Fox News reporter eh? They're so biased to begin with, I wonder if the reporters concocted the story, but anyway, I'll take it at face value and say that whoever forced them was clearly NOT following Islam. Ask ANY shaykh or Mufti, the answer is the same, thats clearly unambiguously stated in the Quran directly as being haram (forbidden).

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty skimpy on details, they probably saw the guy holding a gun and decided to announce they wanted to become Muslim, without invitation.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[thej1nx]

I should have been clearer on the "walk away" part as well, then.

There is an alternate way of altering relationships with another country, which doesn't involves bombing them, trashing their infrastructure and imposing curfews in their cities.

It is called "diplomacy".

Lots of *other* countries practice it. Seems to work for them too... without needing to bomb others and pissing them off, I might add.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[permawired]

10-12 years ago planes were not falling from the sky on ANY kind of regular basis, and that was when I could take a 4" pocket knife onboard without anyone blinking an eye. Aircraft aren't falling from the sky daily because if they were there would be other systems put in place to prevent it, ones that would truly be effective. Terrorists don't have the desire to knock down planes daily. They just want to take them down in a manner to instill the most fear possible and cause the knee jerk reaction from the US government that makes air travel a pain in the ass, but only hinders terrorism to a small extent. IMHO there isn't really much of a way to secure a plane other than not allowing ANYONE to bring on any form of luggage and have the pilots 100% physically separated from the passengers. The problem with this is that no passenger would want to deal with the associated inconvenience of it, I know I wouldn't At least thats my humble opinion

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[wertarbyte]

Germany

No, we're out since two guys tried to blow up trains here.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[be-fan]

The "they want to kill or convert us" bullshit is wearing thin. A movement of this size cannot be sustained just through sheer religious zealotry. It would be historically unprecedented, and if there is one thing that is sure, is that there is nothing new under the Sun.

Your sort of attitude is one that does not lend itself to understanding the problem. If you can't understand the problem, you can't solve the problem. You're just like a medieval "doctor", whose only solution to an infection is cut off the offending appendage, and hope the infection doesn't spread elsewhere. Indeed, its an attitude that does not lend itself to solving the problem at all. The only recourse your thinking allows is "fight the terrorists", which isn't a solution. You can't possibly kill them all, so you've basically surrendered to a lifetime of perpetual war. Your proposition is a losing one.

The use of the word "appeasement" is also fairly entertaining. Americans tend to look at all events through the historical perspective of WWII, probably because its the one tiny bit of history they know. Well, there is a lot more history in existence, and that history gives us a lot of insight into our present problem, which, despite what the ignorant believe, is not one without historical precedent. Trying to actually solve the problem, instead of just fighting it out and hoping that the basic facts of nature change themselves, is not "appeasement". The problem here is that we're intervening in the affairs of the Middle East. We're propping up regimes that the people of the Middle East don't want there, and we're supporting a minority nation that is throughly antagonistic to all of its neighbors. We're basically fucking with the Middle East, and now we're pissed that they're fucking back. It makes no sense to be pissed --- its a law of nature. You fuck with somebody, they'll fuck you back. We're better of expecting gravity to change than expecting human nature to change. The solution is to stop fucking with the Middle East, and we should not avoid doing it just because that's what the terrorists want. Otherwise, we're like a man who keeps his hand on a hot stove, because someone insulted him for being stupid enough to touch the stove in the first place. The right course of action remains the right course of action, regardless of what your enemies believe.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Maxo-Texas]

LoL.

As if stopping "meddling" in the middle east would even begin to solve the problem. Not all islamics are middle eastern. Just wearing bikini's in the states are enough to piss them off. Just not believing "Allhu Akbar" is justification enough to do these things.

The occasional wackjob is not the problem. There are christian crazies, atheist crazies, and probably bhuddist and hindu crazies. The problem with islamics is that the *sane* ones by their own belief systems head large organizations with the resources to perform these acts and they really really do want to kill us.

As Khomeni said, "Those who advocate peace with Islam are fools of this century."

Small isolated wackos who would be turned in by members of their own religion just can't do much effectively. Sane people taught from birth that we are evil don't need poverty or "meddling" in their countries as a reason to kill us. They didn't have a chance- they were corrupted towards murder and death before their brains were finished developing.*

And anyway- the powers that be (corporations and near nobility multi-national rich) don't care that we get attacked anyway so meddling in your countries (and our countries) are not going to stop. Blowing us up kills a few of us but the corporations are immortal and soulless. The multi-national rich have allegience to no country or creed. In fact, it's probably in their interest to KEEP you stirred up since then we'll all buy weapons (from the military-industrial complex as foreseen by Dwight Eisenhower). Ask yourself- if most democrats, republicans and libertarians in america favor closing our southern border and the republicans *know* it will probably cost them many elections this fall- why are both parties ignoring this issue? Could it be because the wealthy and the corporations want cheap labor and they control both parties in power in the US?

*
http://www.textbookleague.org/121musm.htm
Sowing Seeds of Hatred
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1307263/p osts
The Palestinian schoolbooks: Planting seeds of the next war
http://www.teachkidspeace.org/doc3516.php
Teach Kids Peace - Saudi Education: Hatred of Christians & Jews
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2006/06/25/wsaudi25.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/06/25 /ixnews.html
Christians still 'swine' and Jews 'apes' in Saudi schools

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

ha ha ha you are so fucking leet d00d
would you come eat my a$$ pls

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Mr. Slippery]

...the Koran or a pine box. Those are the only options that will satisfy our enemies.

No. The original goal of Al-Qaeda was to drive foreign troops out of Saudi Arabia, not to kill or convert all Westerners. If we stopped fscking over the Middle East (both directly and by our unconditional support for Israel) and minded our own damn business like a respectable nation, very few people over there would get worked up enough to want to kill Americans.

Oh and if appeasment is your choice...

There is a large difference between "appeasement" and "ending a brutal and stupid foreign policy that inspires hatred from the people we keep screwing over in the interests of American and allied monied interests".

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

We also tend not to go around and meddle in other countries as a hobby.

OMFG, that is the lamest attempt at trolling I've seen in a long time. Dude, at least fucking try next time...

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Money for Nothin']

While there has been no attack, there was an attempted attack this year: an attempted beheading of high-level officials in Candian govn't.

Re:TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild

[waif69]

I guess it comes down to whether someone truly follows the footsteps of Muhammed if they don't, they probably are a moderate. Oh, I did read the Koran and am familiar with the life of Muhammed.

Overheard in a Canadian airport:

[LeDopore]

"Hi. I have to do a random security screen. Which of you three would like to be searched?"

That question was asked to me and my two travelling companions. We sent my wife's friend to get searched since she had the least baggage.

PS I'm Canadian, and I love it when I see Canadian officials interjecting a bit of common sense (i.e. that these random searched probably don't really help, so let's make them as painless as possible) into their work.

Re:Overheard in a Canadian airport:

[Anonymous Coward]

If you truly gave a damn about your privacy and human rights, you would have turned around and marched out of the airport, rather than subjecting your wife's friend to that sort of nonsense.

I refer to you the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, specifically these sections:

8. Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.
9. Everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned.

I do realize that the airport security may not be the federal government, and thus would not be bound by the Charter. But any respectable company or organization operating in Canada should stive to uphold the spirit of the Charter.

I would consider the situation involving your wife's friend to violate Section 8. It does not at all seem reasonable for the security officer to demand a search in such a manner, without any valid reason for doing so. Meeting some quota of "random searches" would not be a valid reason.

In addition, the officials' actions would conflict with Section 9. From your description of "sending" your friend off to get searched, it sounds as if she was what amounts to being detained, even if the duration was relatively short. As you make clear, the selection of her for such temporary detention was quite arbitrary.

If the official really had common sense, he or she would have raised a ruckus about such pointless and ineffective searches. Going along with it does not in any way solve the inherent problems such process exhibits.

Re:Overheard in a Canadian airport:

[fishbowl]

>I do realize that the airport security may not be the federal government

The TSA person frisking you is a Federal Agent, and is therefore acting as an arm of the Federal Government, and should be obligated to protect your Consitutional rights. This obligation extends all the way to an obligation that they protect your Constitutional rights with their own lives if neccessary.

It's more than looks...

[Bruitist]

It's gotta be more than looks as when I came back from Amsterdam, nothing happened. I was 18 at the time, have long hair, permanent stubble and usually dress fairly scruffy (especially coming back from a holiday). I was expecting to be mauled by sniffer dogs and have all my bags thoroughly searched, but no. Maybe it's the fact that I was travelling with my parents that convinced them I didn't have an assfull of illegal substances... Or maybe I just have an honest face...

Random is good

[jefu]

Random searches are probably the best way to do things - but they should indeed be random. Toss a twenty sided die for each passenger perhaps, or compute a hash of their ticket number XORed with the time and use that as a basis for deciding.

If profiling of any sort is used, then suppose the bad guys have a group of twenty people who are potential hijackers or bombers or the like. Then let each of them travel several times before their planned attack and see who is searched. The rest probably do not match the profile and can be used for the attack. Ideally, of course, the profiling will catch all of them, but given a big enough pool of bad guys this becomes less and less likely.

The random method is fair, effective (as there is no predictable way for the bad guys to avoid it) and probably as effective as any other method you might imagine.

Never underestimate the power of randomness!

Re:Random is good

[Spaceman40]

Toss a twenty sided die for each passenger perhaps

Guard: You have failed your Avoid Search roll.
Terrorist: (I hope my Sleight of Hand is high enough...)

I'm ex-TSA... read my previous comments

[erroneus]

As much as I'd like to confirm the presense of some formula I definitely cannot. I have screened people and baggage in every way. I will say that as far as baggage goes, have a look at your tags and the tags of those around you. You're likely to see a difference. Same goes for boarding passes... do a little comparison.

I don't pretend to know how the process works or what the criteria may be, but I can offer some advice:

1. Just go through with it... plan on it. It's about as annoying as a traffic jam.
2. The air carriers have more to do with the "selection" process than the TSA does. (I'm 90% certain of that) So take your bitches and complaints up with the airline... they just might put you on a white list somewhere if you threaten to give your money to another "almost bankrupt carrier." They can't afford to lose your business... none of them can.

To expound upon that, if "the people" want all this crap to get better, start complaining where the money moves, not with congress, not with the president and not with the TSA. (True, there's money there, but the influencial money starts with the air carriers.) If people start complaining enough and changing airlines, they'll listen.

Re:I'm ex-TSA... read my previous comments

[Captain Splendid]

2. The air carriers have more to do with the "selection" process than the TSA does. (I'm 90% certain of that) So take your bitches and complaints up with the airline...

Absolutely correct, they're the ones who mkae the notation on your boarding pass. Any airline employees care to comment?

Re:I'm ex-TSA... read my previous comments

[XB-70]

Thank you so much for setting the record straight. I have had 'SS' on my ticket every time I've flown Jet Blue, but not on any other airline. The thing that bothered me the most was the BS that flew back and forth between the TSA and the airline. It became clear that it was Jet Blue that caused me the hassle but TSA would not say how the process worked.

I now plan to persue a course of action to get them to

a) explain the process by which I was 'randomly' selected (EVERY TIME I'VE FLOWN WITH THEM)

b) clear up the record so that I no long have the hassle.

c) Buy shares and show up at the next shareholders' meeting to cause some shit.

Re:I'm ex-TSA... read my previous comments

[Anonymous Coward]

2. The air carriers have more to do with the "selection" process than the TSA does. (I'm 90% certain of that) So take your bitches and complaints up with the airline... they just might put you on a white list somewhere if you threaten to give your money to another "almost bankrupt carrier." They can't afford to lose your business... none of them can.

          Fuck it, I don't even fly. Between air delays and useless searches, it took me less time to drive from Harisburg, PA to Iowa than it took my parents to fly 8-).

Re:I'm ex-TSA... read my previous comments

[scrooks]

> they just might put you on a white list somewhere...

Oh, I'm sure they'll put you on a list, but I don't think it'll be the nice, bright white one.

Re:I'm ex-TSA... read my previous comments

[Anonymous Coward]

To expound upon that, if "the people" want all this crap to get better, start complaining where the money moves, not with congress, not with the president and not with the TSA.

That's why I take airlines as rarely as possible. I'm a young professional, with places to go and people to see. If riding around in airliners weren't so unpleasant, I'd probably take 3-4 trips per year.

The cost of the ticket isn't the biggest cost to me -- it's the days of fuming about having my personal space violated.

So, I'd rather spend 24 hours on the highway than 8 hours, driving, being searched, being herded, being searched some more, being hered some more, and finally getting to my destination without a car. I'm always shocked when I run into people who don't feel this way!

Tis the one-way ticket...

[(H)elix1]

The one way ticket done on short notice it a key flag, if it is with an airline you don't have a history with. I'll do ~5M miles a year (in the airport now, go figure), and about the only time I get tagged for 'special' security is when I end up picking up a one-way ticket on short notice on one of the airlines I don't have status on. Nothing random about it, that combo will get you a longer wait every time. That sounds like rule based profiles to me....

A game theory angle

[Skippy_kangaroo]

You can think about it in terms of game theory.

An important concept in game theory is the mixed strategy. That is where you randomise over certain choices because it is optimal to do so to prevent your pattern of play being anticipated and counteracted by your opponent. (Consider a game of matching pennies - you choose heads or tails and reveal it simultaneously to your opponent. If they match you win, if they don't your opponent winds. The optimal strategy is to randomly pick 50/50 heads and tails. Skillful players of games in general are ones that can a) randomise themselves properly, and b) exploit the fact that their opponents don't randomise properly)

Thus, in the case of 'random' searches it needs to be random to ensure that the searching strategy can't be circumvented. But that doesn't mean that the odds of every given person being selected need to be the same. For example, if it is much harder for terrorists to convince mothers with young children to become scuicide bombers that means that they are less likely to do so or, completely dispasionately, if they do there will be fewer terrorist attacks because they have fewer volunteers. This would still be better than the alternative. Importantly, for the discussion here it is provably optimal to do this.

Thus, an optimal screening strategy is random, but the probability of selection need not be uniform.

(And a statistics aside: even though the chance that someone who flies 4 times gets selected every time would seem to be 1/10000 - if they individual odds are 1/10 - given that over 10,000 people fly, you are almost guaranteed that someone will be selected 4 times in a row.)

Re:A game theory angle

[Archimboldo]

In principle a non-random strategy can be counteracted, but this assumes there are no constraints on person trying to counteract it.

In particular, a terrorist would presumeably have to recruit someone who doesn't fit the profile: say, someone who isn't Middle Eastern. I'm not saying that isn't doable. Mohammed can perhaps find some blond haired, blue eyed person from Minnesota who wants radical Islam for the world, or a grandmother from Omaha who is willing to blow up babies, but I think it would be a pretty limiting factor, which is worth something in itself.

Re:A game theory angle

[identity0]

I made a comment about this earlier, but you seem to be more interested in game theory, so...

Remember that after one passes the security checkpoint, everyone goes to the departures lounge. There, people on different flights co-mingle, and there is nothing to stop a person from exchanging bags or passing weapons to a person on a different flight. This means that you can use an accomplice who is not willing to die for the cause to pass weapons through the checkpoint, then pass it to the actual hijacker who has been throughly searched and found to not have a weapon. The accomplice then gets on a different flight from the hijacker, ensuring he does not die in the attack and even helping him escape the country if he needs to.

Basically, because all passengers who pass the security check are allowed to mix, the weapons check is only as good as the least through search given.

A mother with young children is very unlikely to become a suicide bomber, however it's not impossible to have one willing to help the cause of the terrorist - such as the one that was caught with the UK bombers recently. You could hide the weapons in the child's clothes, if it comes to that.

Re:A game theory angle

[Skippy_kangaroo]

On international flights to the US passengers pass through a second security check where their carry on luggage screened a second time and they are subsequently segregated from other travellers (at least from Australia). I believe it is a US requirement aimed at minimising the possibility you talk about. Domestic flights in the US obviously have different security arrangements.

Having travelled with children I can also say that there is nothing sacrosanct about babies to security screeners. We had to pass our baby daughter through the metal detector by holding her in our extended arms. You can't hide anything in children's clothes.

But, more abstractly, the same principles continue to apply. I would think that mothers with young children would still have a relatively high aversion to even being involved in terrorism so they would still be 'low risk' and optimally subject to a lower probability of search.

Re:A game theory angle

[Fulcrum of Evil]

It's actually pretty easy: Al Queda recruits normal people isolated from their social network. This means that if you're a white guy in Singapore starting a job with a local company (to pick an example I may fit in the future), you'll be somewhat isolated and therefore vulnerable to recruitment.

Mark parent -1 Troll

[kkiller]

> THe IRA are all Muslim?

First, the IRA is mainly concerned with Britain, and it would indeed be worthwhile to profile for IRA there. They don't care much about attacking the US, so profiling for them here would not be useful. Second, observe that the IRA and Britain are also in a religious conflict. See a pattern here?

You're either a troll, or ignorant. Anyone who thinks that the Troubles was a religious conflict is demonstrating a complete lack of knowledge of the area.

The IRA is not concerned with the US, are not that large in numbers, and don't do nearly as much damage as the muslims do in the middle east. To me it simply looks like you can't count.

What a stupid comment. A chat with Omagh bomb victims and relatives (Real IRA I know, but a splinter group of the IRA) and other atrocities conducted by Northern Irish terrorist groups would reveal that they did enough damage, thank-you-very-much.

Please read up on Irish Republicanism and the Troubles before continuing to comment on something you know nothing about.

Re:What's character anyway?

[gutnor]

There was an article on slashdot some time ago about this very problem.
The point of the article was that the new "preselection" process used effectively lower the overall security.
The idea was that, if there is a hidden rule that says what kind of profile are safe or unsafe, it is easy for a terrorist to try to fly a few times. If he is never selected, he knows that his profile is safe and therefore can carry a bomb more easily. That does not happen with completely random check.

Terrorists are not lemmings, they are able to adapt. In your case, the terrorist will simply look for somebody able to pass the screening process to make their dirty job. There are nuts everywhere, for example they can group with some other terrorist group that happen to also want to blow a plane ( for whatever reason ), they can buy some poor chap somewhere, ... after all they only need to find one white middle-class woman and they have guaranteed success.

I'm all for profiling

[Anonymous Coward]

Business suit- the terrorist stealth uniform-one checkmark. Wall Street Journal, another. Talking about transnational blood profits "stock" portfolio-full search, detained, hooded, renditioned to "someplace" and tortured without mercy until they confess.

The biggest terrorists in the world are the ones who profit from it. Been going on since the dark ages. Follow the money. War is a racket. Eisenhower on the day he got to retire warned you, explicitly, with no ambiguity who the terrorists were then, and who they would always be. You failed to heed that warning, so continue to put up with that shit at the airport, morons.

Don't bother searching

[Fred Nerk]

Random searching is useless, you'll always miss someone. The only way we'll truly be safe on planes is to not allow baggage at all, checked or carry-on. Also make sure that all the passengers can't wear their own clothes on board.

The day when everybody is required to change into an airline-provided red jumpsuit and burn their belongings before boarding is the day that I'll start flying again.

Anything less is lunacy.

Re:Don't bother searching

[Xaria]

I assume you were being sarcastic, but in case not ...

Of course you don't go to big shopping destinations, come within a mile of any government building, use ANY public transport, work in any organisation that in any way supplies the government.

Puh-LEASE.

Terrorism is not just aeroplanes. True terrorism is putting poison in the playground of "one of the schools in the city" and watching what happens as thousands of parents don't send their children to school. Yes, this has happened, but it was a joke not terrorism and was only rat poison. It didn't stop people being really really scared. Now THAT is terrorism.

Behavioral profiling is better than searches

[Registered Coward v2]

Behavioral profiling - i.e. looking for clues that someone is stressed and then questioning them to see how they respond.

This of course, requires training and to do it well an IQ above room temperature - you could probably train front line supervisors to be on guard and have them flag persons for further review - much as some countries already do.

Re:Behavioral profiling is better than searches

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, airports are stressful. I have to get up before dawn so I can go stand in line and wait to be searched, then sit in what's effectively a really crappy, loud, uncomfortable mall, all the while worrying about missing my flight for reasons ranging from long security lines to random airline bullshit. If I do miss my flight, which has happened because of the aforementioned random airline bullshit, then this is a cascading problem-- there are reservations and probably business meetings at the other end of that flight. Typically I'm hungry, because I've gotten up too early to eat at home and the food at the airport is garbage that I can't eat before getting on a plane for several hours. By the time I get to the security gates, I'm also frequently uncomfortable from heat and from carrying bags.

All of that, and I'm not even really worried about flying, or terrorists blowing up my plane, or being pegged as a terrorist because of my ethnicity or religion. I don't have kids. I'm not generally traveling into anything stressful.

In short, airports stress me clear to hell and gone, and other people probably have far more reason, and none of us are terrorists. I'd guess that your average suicide bomber is more relaxed than I am at an airport.

If someone has proven that behavioral profiling works under these kinds of conditions, that's great and I'd love to hear about it. I just have my doubts.

Re:Behavioral profiling is better than searches

[dangermouse]

[did not mean to post anonymously the first time]

On the other hand, airports are stressful. I have to get up before dawn so I can go stand in line and wait to be searched, then sit in what's effectively a really crappy, loud, uncomfortable mall, all the while worrying about missing my flight for reasons ranging from long security lines to random airline bullshit. If I do miss my flight, which has happened because of the aforementioned random airline bullshit, then this is a cascading problem-- there are reservations and probably business meetings at the other end of that flight. Typically I'm hungry, because I've gotten up too early to eat at home and the food at the airport is garbage that I can't eat before getting on a plane for several hours. By the time I get to the security gates, I'm also frequently uncomfortable from heat and from carrying bags.

All of that, and I'm not even really worried about flying, or terrorists blowing up my plane, or being pegged as a terrorist because of my ethnicity or religion. I don't have kids. I'm not generally traveling into anything stressful.

In short, airports stress me clear to hell and gone, and other people probably have far more reason, and none of us are terrorists. I'd guess that your average suicide bomber is more relaxed than I am at an airport.

If someone has proven that behavioral profiling works under these kinds of conditions, that's great and I'd love to hear about it. I just have my doubts.

Re:Behavioral profiling is better than searches

[Registered Coward v2]

In short, airports stress me clear to hell and gone, and other people probably have far more reason, and none of us are terrorists. I'd guess that your average suicide bomber is more relaxed than I am at an airport.

If someone has proven that behavioral profiling works under these kinds of conditions, that's great and I'd love to hear about it. I just have my doubts.

From my experience, people who have the normal airport stress exhibit a different set of behaviors than someone who us hiding something. They both look stressed, but respond differently to questions posed by a security officer - especially one who doesn't appear so. The key is learning what to use to identify stress and then how to question someone to determine if they warrant further scrutiny. It's not perfect, but it can be effective.

Not if terrorists come in groups

[Anonymous Coward]

If 5 terrorists board the same plane, then with the 50% random sample, 97% of the time at least one will get caught. Once the alarm is given, a full search of everyone will catch all 5.

Re:Not if terrorists come in groups

[farrellj]

That is not the only reason why to have random searches...

As the Guru of Security, Bruce Schneier, has pointed out, the biggest problem with profiling is that eventually, the bad guys will learn what the profile is you are looking for, and simply change their profile. Truly random searches *do* provide the best security if you are not searching everyone. Without a profile to avoid, bad guys will always have a chance of being singled out, and that will make them nervous...and if you have well trained security people, they will notice that person and single *them* out for extra checking. The threat of a search can be just as effective as the search itself!

I suggest people read Bruce's Blog, and/or subscribe to his security newsletter, Crypto-Gram:

http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram.html

ttyl
          Farrell

Re:Not if terrorists come in groups

[drsmithy]

Truly random searches *do* provide the best security if you are not searching everyone. Without a profile to avoid, bad guys will always have a chance of being singled out, and that will make them nervous...and if you have well trained security people, they will notice that person and single *them* out for extra checking. The threat of a search can be just as effective as the search itself!

So you're saying we should profile the nervous looking people ?

Re:Not if terrorists come in groups

[1u3hr]

So you're saying we should profile the nervous looking people ?

Basically, that's what Schneier says. You still randomly search, but you also have a few experienced security guys who just follow their instincts. (You do need to get guys smart enough not to just search all the swarthy young men.) The combination of randomness plus human skills should be the best, but this doesn't fit into the usual bureaucratic rule-driven model that is always one step behind current events.

Yes and I think it can be proven

[IHateAllofYou]

Im sure this is redundant somewhere down the line but I am pretty sure if you take the number of people that have been "randomly" searched and factor in the amount of times theyve flown I think it would be a good pointer towards how not random they really are. If I have no criminal record and I fly 9 times and I am searched 8 while You fly 134,564 (exageration) and are searched 2 then I would say either my luck is horrid and I look like an asshole or its just flat out not random. I would bet you could statistically work out profiling too (again probably redundant). But once we get both of these percents the question is, is it legal? I would say no not really but even more to the point how about the question, "Is anyone going to do anything about it?" More and more people complain about the state of things and few are ready to say anything or do anything. If they can get away with it, they will do it. To quote someone else (probably): Silence is Acceptance.

Yes!

[Orig_Club_Soda]

Random searches prevent any singular profile from going unnoticed. Keeps all would be terrorists guessing.

I have been searched once. I was travelling alone, one way. No checked baggage. I am a white male.

You know what's worse that profiling?

[Gemini_25_RB]

You, Opie. I am quite confident in saying that not all, or even a plurality, of Muslims are as ignorant and retrowishing as you proclaim them all to be. There are a fair number of wackos who are Muslim and back up their twisted ideas by perverting their religion, but that is not the perspective _anyone_ should have of an entire religious group. What is this, high school? ("The athletes get all the girls, get plastered all the time, and never do any work. They're all dumb.") I think it would be important for you to realize that backwards sects exist in almost every group of people.

An ex-girlfriend of mine...

[BandwidthHog]

Would get “randomly selected” every time she flew. Finally one of the TSA goons took pity on her and explained why: seems their software (CAPPS II perhaps?) would flag anybody with two consecutive ‘a’s in their name. Her last name is Saavedra, which is Cuban, not Arabic.

Re:An ex-girlfriend of mine...

[Anonymous Coward]

Like Cubans have a perfect track record with the airlines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_hijacking

Who says they're random?

[MorePower]

I am a very frequent flyer (2-3 trips per month). Whenever I purchace same-day, one-way tickets, I always get the SSSS printed my ticket. When I purchase round trip tickets with advance notice, I rarely get the SSSS. The TSA sometimes ignores the SSSS and just lets you though normally, I've never had them screen me without the SSSS.

Every time I do get the extra screening, the TSA always gives the same spiel: "You have been selected by your airline for additional screening...."

"Selected by your airline" not "randomly selected". No claims of randomness about it.

As a funny aside, a few weeks ago I was at my local airport (Ontario International [which is in California not Canada]) about to go through the metal detector. I standing at "the line" fumbling to get my bording pass back out since I know you have to hand it to the TSA agent as you go through. Before I got the ticket out, TSA agent waved me through and called me by name! I didn't know her, I wasn't wearing a name badge, my ticket with my name wasn't out yet, and Ontario California is not exactly a small town airport. Aparently I fly so much that some of the TSA agents recognize me!

"+ 1 we think you're a terrorist"

[Xenophon Fenderson,]

Now THAT would be an awesome addition to the Slashdot moderation system!

Re:"+ 1 we think you're a terrorist"

[Unnamed Chickenheart]

I concure. "+1 We think you're an terrorist" is needed ^_^

Re:"+ 1 we think you're a terrorist"

[Kjella]

"+ 1 we think you're a terrorist"

Now THAT would be an awesome addition to the Slashdot moderation system!

Slashdot - the one place where terrorists are modded UP!

Always been truly random to me

[Xaria]

When they have been doing full bag inspections, you can practically see them counting off. I am a young white woman in Australia, with a local accent. That didn't stop me from having to hand my baby over to my husband while they inspected my bag. The bigger bag in my husband's arms was completely ignored. I thought it was ridiculous, and by the expression on the inspector's face she felt silly, but she did her job and we got on with our flight.

It's sad that people are being profiled in the US. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of it was the prejudices of the inspection staff themselves. "check anyone that looks suspicious" in some minds will be "check anyone who looks Muslim". Sad, but true.

You ain't seen nothing yet until they do this....

[gd23ka]

You have been randomly selected to serve your country in a biological warfare experiment. Please roll up your sleeve.

Oh well, when duty calls :-)

Re:What's character anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's quite a knee-jerk reaction there. The West should be more concerned with Muslim terrorists. Yes, there's other groups but it's the Muslim ones which are targeting the West so it's more suitable to focus on the Muslim groups.

Machine profiling

[Coward Anonymous]

The "random" selection appears to be done by computer based on your travelling profile, e.g. how you bought the ticket, one way or round trip, age, sex, etc. The way to know if you are about to be checked is to look for a telltale 'S' on your ticket which is what the TSA drones at the checkpoints look for (you can probably game the system by pencilling in a fake 'S' to see what happens).
It is the worst kind of profiling - computers are being used to recognize patterns on mostly irrelevent information instead of security being based on the ultimate pattern recognition device - the well trained, well paid human screener.
What passes for security these days at airports is a joke that will end with a sad punch line.

Never Randomly Selected

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a white blond haired blue eyed typical american. I've never been randomly selected. Even when flying to and from south east asian countries.

Re: profile selections

[leonbrooks]

Selecting solely because of skin colour I can certainly agree with, because it is both a) out of a person's control and b) utterly irrelevant to how a person behaves.

It can, however, be a valid cultural tag. A very, very simplistic one & not a guarantee, but...

However, the same cannot be said of religion.

However, religion doesn't necessarily leave any detectable marks.

Telling the exact truth to an infidel (or machine) would need to be more important to the subject than their current mission & I know that some beliefs give suicide-missioneers serious indulgences on the job.

What would you do about a suicidal/homicidal Atheist? I was involved (many years ago) in a FIDO chat with Madalyn Murray O'Hair's grand-daughter Robin when she suddenly stopped posting. It turned out later that she'd been murdered (along with Madalyn) by David Roland Waters, an Atheist working for American Atheists as an office manager and typesetter. He evidently did it in order to be able to steal some gold coins. What if he'd wanted to blow up an airplane instead?

Don't look like you're on something

[Admiral Llama]

I've only been randomly selected once. It just happened to be the time that I was sick and was on a pissload of cold medicine. Basically I looked pretty bombed, and big shock I was "randomly" selected for a search.

MIT Paper: Carnival Booth - Defeating CAPS

[eyebits]

In 2002 Samidh Chakrabarti and Aaron Strauss at MIT wrote the paper "Carnival Booth: An Algorithm for Defeating the Computer-Assisted Passenger Screening System." The following quote from the paper's abstract relates to the current discussion:

In this paper, we show that since CAPS uses profiles to select passengers for increased scrutiny, it is actually less secure than systems that employ random searches. In particular, we present an algorithm called Carnival Booth that demonstrates how a terrorist cell can defeat the CAPS system.

The paper can be found at http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/6805/student-papers/sp ring02-papers/caps.htm

Re:MIT Paper: Carnival Booth - Defeating CAPS

[bluelan]

While the paper is interesting, there are too many variables unaccounted for by this paper's simple formulation of the problem.

First, increasing the time and money required to execute a plot increases the barrier to entry for terrorists, and reduces the efficiency of skilled terror attack planners. Increased barrier to entry, and decreased planning efficiency, implies a reduction in the number of attempted attacks. Second, in order to probe the CAPS system, the terrorist organization must involve more people than it would if the plot could be executed without probing. Plans that involve more people are more likely to be uncovered. Third, there is probably a correlation between the CAPS risk assessment and terrorist reliability. That is, terrorists with low CAPS risk may be more likely to get cold feet and expose the plot, or fail to execute. That is especially true if the plan requires more time to develop because the terrorist must perform CAPS probing.

So, even though the probability of an attack being successful once the attackers hit the security gate might go up a little, the authors did not correct for the reduction in the number of attacks due to the increased barrier to entry, the reduction in numbers of attacks due to increased communication risk, or the reduction in attacks due to lower commitment on the part of the attackers.

Consider two terrorists.

One was raised in a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. He's been indoctrinated with hatred all his life. So, he's completely comfortable with what he's going to do. He has no anxiety, no fear of death, and no remorse for the people whose lives he will take.

The second is a kid from the outskirts of San Francisco who was guided into a violent sect by some people he met recently.

Which is more likely to visibly freak out when executing the attack? Would administrative search work better for hard cases, or for the newbies? Which is more likely to feel remorse and back out after a year of planning?

Consider what would happen if you were employing random profiling, and the terrorists chose to send 80 people to perform a terrorist act. With random profiling of 8% of the people, 7 might be caught. That's 73 successful attacks. If you sent one a week, every week, chaos...

Now consider a CAPS system in terrorists self-eliminated 3/4ths of their own candidates because CAPS flags most of them as high risk. In addition, 5 of the remaining terrorists get cold feet because they have a family. So, you send 15 terrorists, all of which are successful

From the victim's perspective, I'd rather see 15 successful attacks than 73. So, I'd want the terrorists to try to game the system.

Re:MIT Paper: Carnival Booth - Defeating CAPS

[eyebits]

I agree with your analysis. You have thought through the issues well. The thing that I enjoyed about the paper, even with its flaws, is that there was an attempt to take a scientific/mathematical approach to an analysis of the issues rather than have the analysis (arguments) soley rely on emotion, personal experience, or gut feeling. Our politicians and decision makers often make their decisions and create policies using what "feels right" rather than basing it on something more substantial resulting from mathematical models or scientific analysis. Profiling feels effective, but is it effective? Alternatives can be created, modeled, analyzed and simulated. I'd prefer smart people using rational methods of analysis and peer review to help develop the procedures and policies that we all will live with over managers and policitians making decisions, based on apparent value, that have not withstood any real analysis or review.

kind of random..

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work at a major airline. Not at the ticket counter but I was there enough to figure out random means a profile. The profile has nothing to do with you the person. It appears to be a weighted average of what someone believes might seperate you from the average person. Last minute ticket, one way, no checked in baggage, do not fly often, paid with cash, part of a group that all did the same, many tickets for different people on one credit card, flying alone blah blah blah. I guess if they use such parameters that does qualify as a profiling but you the person are not being profiled, your habit or events that lead to your ticket purchase seemed to fit someones idea of what a terrorist might do as well.

Is this effective? I have no idea, some of those parameters might but they are easy to alter as well and a lot of those above are done by real every day Joes as well. That is why every day Joe gets those random checks as well. I doubt anyone outside the TSA really knows exactly what they look at to determine who might be a risk or how effective it really is.

Insurance companies profile as well. 16-24 year old male? You pay the highest rates regardless of your driving record. That age sets off a flag that you are of the highest percentage of unsafe drivers. Own a home or have a 4.0 GPA? You get lower rates then the person that does not own a home or is the sick in school. They have determined through profiling that home owners and kids that buckle down in school are more responsible and less likely to be involved in an accident.

Don't act so suprised that the TSA/NSA/FBI and what ever other 3 letter law enforment types think they can profile as well. Is this passenger profile thing worse then truely random? I have no idea. If you do not meet what ever criteria they are looking for, I guess you would have a less chance of being picked at random assuming they only pick a certain percentage of people overall. If they pick a certain percentage of truely random people AND pick people that meet a certain profile then profiling is not worse then random.

bad assumptions

[oohshiny]

First, a sample of two is not enough to determine this. Second, "random" is not the same as "equiprobable". Third, people are bad judges of what is random and what is not; it's hard even with statistical tests. Fourth, searches are explicitly not equiprobable: there are behaviors and backgrounds that greatly increase your probability of getting searched.

look at your ticket

[huxrules]

I fly one way all the time - and at the last second. If you do you get a special "SSSS" at the bottom of your ticket. You are going to get pulled over 50% of the time with the SSSS. Stupid thing is I always fly from a small local airport at least twice a month. You think the TSA guys would have remembered me by now.

Re:look at your ticket

[fishbowl]

>You think the TSA guys would have remembered me by now.

Oh come now. It's their first job. Possibly on the short list of jobs that were available after their rehab program.
You don't really expect them to be competent do you?

You know what's worse then Opie?

[blugu64]

Your grammar Gemini. Check your title.

a moot question

[Anonymous Coward]

The searches are mealy a deterrent - how many potential suicide bombers have actually been stopped at the gate, before they've got onto the plane?

What is it about one-way tickets?

[rpg25]

It sure seems to me that having a one-way ticket (or switching airlines in an itinerary) is a good way to bump your probability of being hassled.
Does the TSA think that Islamic fundamentalists have a taboo against leaving a return trip ticket unused after a suicide bombing, so they are compelled to buy a more expensive one way ticket? ;-)

Random searches are a sign of incompetence

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's all accept for a moment that the government is supposed to fulfill a parental role in the lives of citizens.

These security measures should be transparent without inconveniencing law-abiding passengers who have paid good money to fly to their various destinations for legitimate reasons. The reason why the DHS/TSA thugs are claiming this is random because if the searches weren't random the ACLU and their ilk will cry profiling or citizens will come to understand this amounts to the de facto suspension of habeas corpus .

The downside of transparency is that there will be allegations of passengers being spirited away by overly zealous and suspicious federal agents or back room torture sessions at the airport. The very lack of evidence that due process was followed will be the most damning evidence against the government which does not want to undermine its own ends. Draw a parallel with the UFO kooks.

Searches and draconian measures at airports could be construed as a sign that the government's investigative unit is not working. If the government truly believes that terrorists will be caught at the airport, mere moments before the plane takes off and an hour before the plot comes to fruition it makes me wonder "WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING BEFOREHAND, JACK BAUER!?!??!" The terrorists should've been caught when they went to Home Depot for their fertilizer.

At the very best these searches are simply a public relations ploy on the behalf of the current administration at the cost of the personal dignity of citizens. The administration knows that the odds of dying in a terror plot are greater than actually dying in a non-terrorist plane disaster. Go buy your lottery tickets, kids. At the very worst, Aunt Bea might be suspicious of the Persian man talking on his cellphone but he's not using English.

Random Screening?

[ethicalhaxormj]

Ok I have to totally disagree with TSA and the word "random"...I am one of the unfortunate who has found him or herself on a "watchlist". What does this mean? It means I cannot use the self serve kiosk systems and I have to go through the task ofreporting to a ticketing afent then being asked why I am traveling and for what purpose. Is it effective? NO! They only check me leaving on a roundtrip. I guess they are assuming either 1. im not the individual they are seeking or...2. I am only a threat leaving my city of origin. Either way its quite annoying. I have blogged about this on my site www.sting3r.com several times. ****THE "SSSS" DO MEAN YOUR GETTING THE PAT DOWN****! If you see them on the bottom right of your ticket count on being patted down and searched. I travel at least once a month and the TSA scares me to be honest. My friend and I slept in BWI airport to get the first plane out on a business trip and what transpired scared me. We got our tickets at the counter and headed for the security line. Being tired somehow we mixed up the tickets. I had his and he mine. I got all the way through security before I realized I had his ticket. The TSA agent looked at my ID and the ticket and did not even notice the names were totally different. TSA needs to be disbanned and the money taken and spent on GS employees who might really care about air travel safety!

Buy a one-way ticket or use cash

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll see how random it is.

I'm pretty sure there is correlation between not checking baggage and not being searched.

Patterns by discrimination; not racism.

[Tribbin]

I've never been in a fight...

Until I grew big and strong, in school I was the quiet guy that people liked but most forgot about.

Once I walked through the door into school (I was about 15 back then) and got kicked and punshed at by all Marokkan guy's in school (they always gathered at the door during lunchbreak). I didn't know a single one of them. My cloathes were neatral. They could have picked the next guy but I was unlucky. I clearly remember myself looking at them and knowing what they planned to do by 'profiling' them on bodylanguage and colour. But I refused to give in to my discrimination.

Since then I don't trust young Marokkan people in groups.

A month ago I was on vacation in Turkey. Around 1AM my girlfriend and me walked to a quiet place to take pictures of each other. There was a group of five Turkish guys wise-cracking. Because they got quiet after a few minutes I didn't trust them. I just felt that when we would walk away, they would follow us. As soon as I saw a taxi I started to walk and the guys indeed followed us.

I've been lucky many times because I totally give in to profiling now.

I totally agree with profiling at airports and such. As long as the profiles come from patterns (thus; discrimination) instead of racism.

It can't be profiling...

[Jaime2]

Whatever factors they are using don't seem to work. I fly about 10 times a year, I am white and my parents are both US citizens, on my fathers side they've been citizens for nearly 200 years, my maternal grandmother was Australian (British family line), I always buy from the airline's website, round trip, about two to three weeks in advance. Every ticket is Sunday evening to Friday evening. I get "SSSS" on my ticket about two thirds of the time. The best part is that they search me on both legs of each trip. That second search is a total waste of manpower. It is so consistent that if I were planning to do something evil on the plane, I wouldn't dream of carrying something to the security gates on the second leg because I know I'm going to get searched. For the first leg, I would call off my evil plans after I saw "SSSS" on my ticket.

The best part is that I sometimes like it. In my home airport there is a seperate line for the special searches. That line goes through in two minutes while the general population takes 30 to 40 minutes. Many airports do the special search after waiting in the standard line, that kinda sucks. The worst is Washington National which searches you again if you change gates or eat dinner because of the layout of the airport.

Re: It can't be profiling...

[buc30]

When I travel with my wife and our two year old son, we get nailed almost every time. Been hit going both ways on at least 4 different trips. A couple of times they have even patted down our son.

Re: It can't be profiling...

[anagama]

That's to encourage you to leave the kid behind when flying. There's nothing like a long flight couped up with the sound of children.

NOT RANDOM!!

[Drok00]

when traveling by myself, 16-18 years old, unshaven, with unkempt hair, 5 trips a year, 4-8 "random" searches a year.. and still the searches diddnt search a pocket in my backpack, the same pocket each time was left unsearched, un-emptied, so not only are the searches uneffective, but not quite random.

One more step until Godwins law

[dbIII]

Pretty much all the ones I know seem really rational until the topic of Israel comes up

The subject of Israel gets people involved emotional on all sides. Since Israel is a colonial power newer than living memory and is still fighting the previous occupants than anyone that has some sort of connection to the area is going to be annoyed while the fighting is still going on. The rest of us are annoyed that we get accused of being anti-semetic if we criticise some right wing murderous bastard that just happens to be Jewish, or people who jump down our throats when we make the mistake of talking about settlements, the Geneva convention or pointing out that the PLO were not the only ones that had death squads. It's a grubby and nasty war that won't settle down until long after the people actually displaced are dead - and mistakes like the invasion that turned into a month long recruiting drive for Hizbolla partly paid by the US taxpayer (weapon gifts to Israel - but you neve have any say in how a weapon is used after you give it away) that also has to pay for some of the reconstruction won't help things. Hopefully the invasion won't help the idiots that organized it stay in govenment (most likely the prime reason for the two operations - show strength for the voters). The USA can reduce the hatred generated againt it in this situation very simply - first stop printing "MADE IN THE USA" in big letters in the fragments of ordanance that people are pulling out of the bodies of their dead children.

random my ass.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, I have been fairly active in the anti-war movement. I have been to a half-dozen or so rallies/protests, and was once arrested (and later released when the DA declined to even bother to try and find imaginary charges to file, but that's another story). My name, picture, and prints are all on file with the FBI. Now, whenever I fly, EACH and EVERY time that I do so, I am "randomly" searched. Sometimes more than once.

But hey, if you're against it, you're for the terrorists, right?

Re:You know what's worse thAn Opie?

[Gemini_25_RB]

Yours is pretty bad too. (Title, also)

Re:Appeasement = wrongheadedness gone wild

[ArcherB]

What we need to do is come to the realization that the ONLY way to make technically fragile public transit work is to promote an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us,

Like the Germans, French and Spanish did. That worked out really well for them, didn't it?

This whole "I'd like to teach the world to sing... in perfect harmony" mentality is the kind of thing that will get us killed.

Top secret FACT! Screening uses health history DB!

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a top secret FACT! Security Screening uses health history DB!

These databases were purchased from most of the US health insurance providers and HMOs and contain nothing in them except 3 things :

Name, Address at time of health care incident, and SSN (if held).

Thats it!

Thats CAPPS 2!

Nothing else.

If you have no health history, or a health history taht does not match your geographic history, you are selected for 'random' searches.

These databases were bought for hundreds of millions of dollars, and violate no ones rights because they are so stripped down.

I believe ChoicePoint is the 3rd party intermediary and hosts the DB records offshore for even more deniability.

I can't believe No ONE here ever spilled the beans on this matter.

It is a fact though. If you want to be a terrorist, you need to have a backdated health history with insurance.

This revelation is easy to prove... no US citizen lacking a health history evades 'random' selection for more security screening.

posted anon for obvious reasons.

Re: profile selections

[drsmithy]

It can, however, be a valid cultural tag. A very, very simplistic one & not a guarantee, but...

That was my point :).

Skin colours gives a correlative, not causative, relationship.

However, religion doesn't necessarily leave any detectable marks.

Most religions tend to have a noticable impact on people's behaviour (assuming they're suitably devout). Language, dress, what they eat, read, watch, etc.

What would you do about a suicidal/homicidal Atheist? I was involved (many years ago) in a FIDO chat with Madalyn Murray O'Hair's grand-daughter Robin when she suddenly stopped posting. It turned out later that she'd been murdered (along with Madalyn) by David Roland Waters, an Atheist working for American Atheists as an office manager and typesetter. He evidently did it in order to be able to steal some gold coins. What if he'd wanted to blow up an airplane instead?

No system will ever be infallible, and I would never suggest otherwise.

However, I will point out that your suggestion profiling is concentrating only on religious beliefs (and maybe skin colour) is flawed.

Defence

[Pooks]

I have had a little read through the comments here and it makes me laugh. Being based in the UK I don't know how the American screening system works but I do know several things. I worked in Security at an airport in the UK for a number of years. The DFT (Department for Transport) were primarily responsible for what checks were done at each airport. Certainly when I worked there the random searches were just that. Random. Nobody seems to have realised that it may be something in their bag that causes them to be checked often. If a Security Agent cannot identify an item on the X-Ray then that bag MUST be hand-searched. This is surely common-sense? More than likely it is a combination of items which cause the bag to be 'pulled' in the first place. If you are one of the unfortunate people that get your bag searched every time that you pass through a security screening then take a moment to think about what it is in the bag that they are so interested in. I am not saying that this applies to everybody. You will always get people who are just downright plain unlucky. However most of the time it is likely to be a combination of obscure objects or an odd-shaped bottle of perfume that causes the bag to be searched. There are many things that I could say to defend the Security staff and there are many things I could say to offend the same staff. At the end of the day just remember that those guys have to stand there all day on a crap wage taking shit from everybody. Think about how much you hate being stuck in an airport waiting on a delayed flight. Imagine what it is like to be stuck there every day.

Re:What's character anyway?

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

The West should be more concerned with Muslim terrorists.

Yes, yes. The fact that it seems many western /. readers don't even realize there are any other kinds of terrorits really leads me to believe that should be even MORE concerned and focused on them then they currently are. Seems muslim terrorists just aren't getting enough play now-a-days.

Only some are truly random

[Video_Wizard]

Most searches are triggered by specific criteria. A few are supposedly completely random. Originally, back in the 1990s, all searches were nonrandom. Reportedly airline and security personnel often treated the people who were flagged badly, assuming they must have done something bad to be flagged. Truly random searches were reportedly added at least in part so that airline and security personnel would not assume this. It also means that truly bad people can't be certain that they are being tracked or have been detected. Obviously, the system can be abused if people are improperly added to the watch lists that probably trigger some of the searches.

Of course they're not "random"

[Dr. Manhattan]

Travelling on business to Ireland for the third time in a year and half. Checking in at the Detroit airport, I ask them to make sure that my bags are checked through to my final destination, since I'll be making a stop. I'd had a very bad experience on my return trip six months prior and nearly missed my connecting flight home because of it.

The guy does so, then looks at me and offers to move me to a window seat. I say, "Sounds good" and hand back the boarding pass I've already received. Sure enough, the one I get back has a bunch of S's drawn on it. I get the VIP treatment at security, of course.

So, was that question really a big terrorist tipoff or something? Or did I just irritate the guy a bit and he decided to have some fun with me? And either way, am I supposed to feel safer?

Re:Of course they're not "random"

[Pinkybum]

It might have been as most frequent business travellers given the chance will not take a window seat because it is a major pain to keep getting up and down for the bathroom. Therefore your preference for a window seat might have indicated unusual behaviour for the normal business traveller.

Re:Of course they're not "random"

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Travelling on business to Ireland for the third time in a year and half.

The last time I flew out of Ireland I was very amused and happy about their complete lack of security. Flying out late, they had no one working security at all and no one was searched in any way. I could have had a rocket launcher with me. Countries with such a laid back atmosphere really demonstrate the stupidity of the US these days.

Re:Of course they're not "random"

[Dr. Manhattan]

It might have been as most frequent business travellers given the chance will not take a window seat because it is a major pain to keep getting up and down for the bathroom.

So good bladder control is a sign of incipient terrorism? I'd have thought the reverse...

The only time

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been selected was after I'd bought a ticket 2 days in advance. The ticket had an unusual letter code on it.

Tavel a lot in the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

I have taken around 400 - 500 flights in the last five years (outbound & return every week), mostly domestic USA flights. From personsal experience, the following will get you selected:

- Purchase of ticket near to date of travel (less than 1 or 2 business days). This is probably due to inefficiencies in the system that do not allow you to be "cleared" by the TSA.

- One way tickets. For cost purposes, it is cheaper to purchase a cheap outbound direct flight on one carrier and a separate return flight with connections with a different carrier. If they are different tickets, expect to be stopped.

- No ID. Yes, you can fly in the USA without ID... People lose / forget their ID, especially for 6 am flights.

- Odd method of payment. Cash or someone else's credit card (different last name, non-corporate) is a red flag.

- Same name on a watch list. This has not happened to me, but to a co-worker with a "terrorist sounding name" (his quote).

As far as I can tell, the following do NOT play a part in the selection process:

- Being from an "Allied" country. Canadian, British, French, German, Australian and Japanese passports & citizenship do not raise an eyebrow. I cannot speak for suspected terror watchlist nations - Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc...

- Acting rude / obnoxious or saying "bomb". Anyhing less than a serious verbal threat will likely get you a raised eyebrow. YMMV based on the security person.

- True random selection. No one on my team at work has ever been "randomly" selected outside the points above (some frequent flyers, some infrequent)

Re:Appeasement = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Jeremi]

This whole "I'd like to teach the world to sing... in perfect harmony" mentality is the kind of thing that will get us killed.

You're absolutely right, not protecting ourselves against known threats would be suicidal.

On the other hand, doing provocative, stupid things that are guaranteed to turn otherwise friendly or neutral people into our enemies is equally suicidal.

The whole "fuck what everybody thinks, we'll keep ourselves secure through military force alone" mentality is based on the assumption that we have the physical ability to do so. The hard truth, however, is that that simply isn't the case -- our military can barely keep the lid on Iraq, let alone any of the other 3-4 dozen countries where terrorism is a concern. Our only option is to enlist the aid of the rest of the world's governments and people in helping us stop terrorism. The good news is that that shouldn't be too difficult to do -- almost nobody likes terrorists. But to work with people (or governments), you have to treat them with respect -- in particular, you have to understand that it's a two-way street. Double-standards do not go unnoticed by the world's public.

Pointless

[rkcallaghan]

(Pseudo?-)Random searches will be pointless as long as the Admiral's Club is behind the security line serving steak.

~Rebecca

Wrong

[lewp]

The better question to ask is: "Are random searches effective in keeping everyone safe?"

No, in this case, that's not the better question to ask. I'm of the opinion that truly random screenings are stupid (78 yr old grandmas from Illinois and US congressmen aren't going to bomb our planes, people), and I'm sure Homeland Security feels the same way.

Still, if you're not doing truly random screenings, have the balls to say so and take the PR lump on the chin rather than lying to your own people even more than you already do.

Whether random screenings are more effective than profiling isn't a particularly interesting question. Since it only takes one or two flights to figure out the search procedures, a truly dangerous terrorist isn't likely to be caught by such a simple measure. On the other hand, any time our government lies to us is something we should be interested in, despite the fact it seems to be a daily occurence now.

you left out one

[Anonymous Coward]

the biggest false flag terrorist act committing agency in the world-the Mossad

Simple Solution

[Lord Apathy]

Don't let muslims fly. There problem solved. There are plenty of buses, trains, and boats going to places. If they must travel they can take one of those. There profiling problem solved.

Since an overwhelming majority of terrorist acts are caused by muslims keeping them out of the air makes perfect since. I read where one jewish airline is doing just this. The number of terrorist incidents are now at zero for them.

Re:Simple Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

(Feeds Troll)
So, you have a 'Magic Muslim Detector' do you?
You do realize that Muslims come from many different racial groups, and could shave off suspicious beards and not carry the Koran if they were attempting a terrorist act? Or are you proposing a compulsory world-wide identity card scheme with a religion marker? With a world government to enforce it? Even then, what about converts (who are often the most fanatical)? How would you propose to detect them?

Presumably what the Jewish airline does is bar all people who have an arab appearance. There are hundreds of millions of non-arab Muslims and hundreds of Millions of non-Muslim arabs.

random = you can't ask the reason why

[ivec]

If you were not selected at random, you could ask why, and maybe even have the right to know.
Saying the selection was random just cuts the discussion short.

Smart. Do you see a way to use this excuse in your personal life?

Re:Statistics 101

[Herby Sagues]

What are the odds that, on a group of a million travelers being randomly chosen for a check (say, checking one in a hundred), one of them is selected ten times in a row for a check? Basic statistics will tell you that the odds that someone is are close to 100%. So the fact that your father in law is one of those cases tells me very little, as it is expectable that someone will be in that situation in a large population (actually, lots of such cases are expected). The only way to actually determine if the checks are random is to conduct a scientific test, by chosing a large enough group of subjects and following them through security and analyzing if there are any statistically significant abnormalities. Not that I think that random searches are useful. I actually think they are useless, as they do not deter a large group of people willing to die for their cause. They can be caught as many times as you want, if one of them reaches the target, their objective (which is not killing 100 passengers but terrorizing millions) is accomplished. Despite being almost constantly searched probably due to my aspect, I'd rather go with racial profiling, as the reduction of necessary scans is so significant that even scanned people are inconvenienced less on average. Of course, this only works as long as the vast majority of potential attackers respond to a specific racial profile (so far, it's been the case) but once they start recruiting people that do not respond to that physical profile, it becomes useless.

Its really like George Carlin says....

[fiendy]

Airport security is to make rich white people feel better more than actually accomplish anything. Although things have changed recently, here's his bit:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-913288349 5305999109

My experiences

[Lorean]

My first name is of recognizeable middle-eastern decent. My last name is obviously not. I have traveled 3 times since 9/11. Once to Europe, once to Japan, and once to China. Each time I have been taken aside and given the special treatement at the security checkpoint. Once in London, once in California, and once in Detroit. In my most recent flight one of my luggage bags was checked, and then promptly sent to the wrong country.

Re:You ain't seen nothing yet until they do this..

[Fred_A]

You have been randomly selected to serve your country in a biological warfare experiment. Please roll up your sleeve.

s/Please roll up your sleeve./Please drop your pants and bend over./g;

Selected is selected random is random

[Hotrodder]

EX TSA here

If you buy a one way ticket, you were not randomly selected, If you buy your ticket at the last moment you were not randomly selected. If you did one of the many unknown "bad" things you were not randomly selected.

The airlines ticketing system is set up to flag certain actions, and prints out that line of SSSSSSS on your ticket and you get extra screening... nothing random about it.

Random screening happens when the screener at the walk through metal detector sees that one of the people running the hand held detectors are not searching anyone so whoever is next is sent that way. Or when the screener searching bags out of the X-Ray machine finishes a bag, they just grab the next bag out of the machine and search that.

So random in this case comes from just keeping the screeners busy.

I was "randomly selected" once

[atomicstrawberry]

I was on my way home from Adelaide and I was running late - plane was pretty much boarded - so naturally just as I'm grabbing my bag off the scanner and about to dash the last few yards to the gate when I get a hand on the shoulder and a "you've been randomly selected to be searched" or something. This is after I'd been farted around for several minutes because I had a bit of tinfoil in my pocket (leftover wrapping for something) and been divested of my shoes, watch, jacket and belt.

What amused me about this 'random' test was that the guy doing it asked for permission. I'm not sure if it's some kind of legal thing or something, but it's kind of a moot question, isn't it? If they select you for a 'random search' and then ask your permission to do so, then you're hardly going to say no. It's more of a 'can I search you here, or do you want to do it in the comfort of a holding cell?'

I was in such a rush after that that I ended up forgetting to grab my belt. Didn't even realise it until I got home. :(

Re:I was "randomly selected" once

[aaza]

Adelaide airport does do random testing, though. The security guard that stopped me had just finished with someone else, and asked the next person through the gate (me). He basically said "Excuse me, sir. I am performing a random [drug|explosive] search, and you have been selected." (I can't remember what it was for.) He then handed me a laminated sheet detailing what was to happen, and said that if I didn't agree to it, I was able to walk back out past the security area.

Very nice, very polite. Actually random. One cotton swab across my bag and about 30 seconds later, it was "Thank you very much, sir. Have a pleasant day."

I would totally stop Richard Reed

[pbhj]

Richard Reed, I thought the guy looked freaky.

But then I've been stopped before - young man, university educated, large plane, backpack ... makes sense to me. I now have a plaited beard (look, I like it OK!) and doubt I'd get on a flight now without a close look. I also get a middle eastern skin colour when I've had chance to vacation (turks think I'm turkish 'til I speak, I like that).

Random?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bald faced lie. I've been "randomly selected" several times, and strangely every time I and everyone else selected were flying with a one-way ticket.

Which makes perfect sense of course, since the terrorists on 9/11 all had round-trip.

Re:Statistics 101

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

I'm sure the odds are staggeringly against, but...

Out of the last 22 times I've flown, I've been tagged for some sort of additional searches, whether it was rubbing the little cotton pad on my carry-on bag to check for explosive residue or for the "hands against the wall and spread 'em" pat down routine.

One time on an overnight business trip to Charlottesville, Virginia I just had the one carry-on bag and no checked luggage. After passing through the metal detector a young female security person asked if she could go through my bag as she was unzipping it. I told her if she wanted to root around in my dirty underwear she was my guest. She didn't get the zipper all the way undone before I finished speaking and she turned around and zipped it right back up without looking inside and slid it back across the table to me.

Re:Not 'over' religion.

[russ1337]

I lived in Northern Ireland during my teenage years, and know plenty first hand about the 'troubles'. And the parent is right "Anyone who thinks that the Troubles was a religious conflict is demonstrating a complete lack of knowledge of the area

Absolutely correct. The problems are over territory, and the people 'just happen' to be of different religious backgrounds....

I'd like to see the TSA try to filter all the Catholics out of the line... or wind the clock back to the 80's to find all the 'commies'...

Re:Statistics 101

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

doh... that should have read "out of the last 22 times, I've been tagged 21 of those times"... too much blood in my caffiene system...

Mod Parent +1 Insightful

[The MAZZTer]

This is likely why I get picked out so often, as I tend to fly by myself when going home from college for the holidays. Oddly enough, it's usually at Logon Intl Airport (Boston) where I get picked out and not my return trip from Philly Intl Airport.

TSA told me why i was always searched..

[carn1fex]

Well one morning i was on a 6am flight and I hadnt had any coffee and I was 'randomly' searched for the billionth time. I kind of flipped out and asked the TSA people why the hell I was always searched. They calmly turned me around and showed me the back of the metal detector. Your response on the detector is zero to four indicated by 4 lights lighting up or not. When you walk through you will notice the guy/gal looking up above you at these lights. A big chunk of metal will get an obvious '4' and the thing will beep etc. But a 2 or 3 just means you have a bit more metal than usual and they will then ask you to step aside. Now heres the kicker, the response is higher based on how close you are to the detector so fat and tall people naturally set off a higher signature. Im 6'4 so they said I will always ring up a higher response, hence I get 'randomly' searched. Now i duck when i go through the detector and have not been pulled aside once since then. Hooray.

Re:TSA told me why i was always searched..

[JohhnyTHM]

I'm not sure that is all that sets them off. I'm 5'3 and skinny, but I always set off the walk thru and often the wand too, with no metal on me except the zip on my jeans. No implants, plates or pins in me. Maybe I should eat less vegetables.

Re:TSA told me why i was always searched..

[Dread_ed]

About a year ago I traveled to Miami. My comapny bought the tickets and was trying to save cash. The result is that my travel arrangements included layovers and zig-zags like you have never seen.

Because of the unholy layovers I was close to first in line just about every flight. At the last connection to Miami I realized that while I had not been first to get in line every time I was usually the first or second to board because the VERY first dude got searched every time.

This little observation paid off bigtime on the way back. On the second or third connection I noticed this guy who was traveling the same toute as I was. He seemed to be getting pissed that I was boarding before him and getting preferential seating. Apparently he thought he deserved better than everyone else. As he approached the line he was flirting with the borders of decency: pushing just hard enough to make people get out of the way but not hard enough to get himself decked.

This big lug was mean-mugging me from behind, all angry like. I was seated closer and had stepped in front of him for the first spot. I guess he felt like I cut him off.

Then I rememberd the search protocol.

I motioned for him to go ahead of me.

By the time that a-hole got his shoes and belt back on all the good seats were long gone. I sat there, relaxed and lounging in the bulkhead isle seat, crunching on my honey-roast peanuts, and watched that jerk shoehorn his fat ass into a middle seat at the back of the plane.

So, yeah, don't be first in line either.

"random selection"

[Shads]

I got randomly selected 5 times in one trip.

I'm almost 30, dark hair and eyes, a bit over weight, fairly non-descript, had a partial beard. They nailed me *every* plane to the cayman islands and all but the one from the cayman->boston on the way back (CAK->CLE->Boston->Caymans-|-Caymans->Boston->CLE- >CAK). My significant other who was traveling with me never got checked and of the people in line with me and who i saw, only one other person got checked on the flight from CLE. It's random my ass.

Re:"random selection"

[Shads]

Edit (since you can't edit posts (*grumble* this is the year 2006 slashdot, let people edit their damn posts.)):

I also have a medium olive skin tone, so i'm not real pasty pale or real dark. I'm mostly german with some english/irish mixed in genetically speaking.

Re:"random selection"

[Ksigpaul]

Did you have "SSSS" on the bottom corner of your ticket? I regularly fly with someone who is always checked when this symbol appears in the bottom corner of their boarding pass. Funny thing is she's never checked except when flying with me, but I never get the "SSSS". We usually fly AA.

Re:"random selection"

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's because you elected to go from CAK to CLE? I mean, come on, Akron to Cleveland??

Random, My shiny metal ass!

[herohog]

I get "randomly" selested for "special attention" EVERY time I have flown in the last 5 or so years. I'm a 6'1" large, bearded guy. I have also had a Federal Firearms Liscence and had Concealed Handgun Permits in several states. Coincident? I think not.

Re:Random, My shiny metal ass!

[rhaig]

Why bother to carry anything on as you're obviously checking luggage with your firearm in it. What? You're not taking your sidearm with you when you travel? So you only defend yourself when you travel by private vehicle?

All sacasm aside... If you have a CHL in several states, I assume you're taking your gun with you when you travel. Check all your bags. The random search of your bag with your book and reading glasses won't take long. If you're not taking youre gun with you when you travel, then just vote with the gun control lobby next election. If you don't exercise the rights you've taken the trouble to secure, what's the point?

Not to mention showing the CHL at the counter (not that you're required to) should avoid the profiling with a clueful gate agent. I always use my CHL as my form of ID, and I've never been randomly selected. (whether I'm flying with my weapon or not.)

Re:Random, My shiny metal ass!

[SydShamino]

Random, My shiny metal ass!

Maybe it's because your metal buttocks set off the detectors? ;)

Damn kids!

[Mark_in_Brazil]

No, but neither were they called terrorists. The term wasn't much in use before 9/11.

That's bullshit. The term terrorist was in wide use before 9/11. I remember it being used in the 1980s - for example to describe the suicide truck bombing of American Marines stationed in Beruit. I also remember it being used to describe the Unabomber and the Oklahoma City bombing.

As another poster has pointed out, the term is much older than the 1980s. The entry at dictionary.com says it's from 1785-95, to be compared to the French word terroriste. The Wikipedia entry on "Terrorism" (really, wouldn't you check that before writing that the term "terrorism" wasn't much in use before the 11th of September of 2001?) says the Jacobins probably used the name to describe themselves in the period around the French Revolution (consistent with the dates from the dictionary.com entry). It also says the term was used quite a bit in the 19th and 20th Centuries (citing examples), and that the US government has kept official terrorism statistics since 1968.
The term "terrorists" was very widely used to describe Black September, the Palestinian group responsible for the Munich Massacre, the name given to the kidnapping and murder of the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, and the term "terrorism" was used to describe what they did.
I was quite young at that time and honestly don't remember it, though I do have some memories from around that time and even a bit earlier. But I do recall the term "terrorist" being used a lot on the news in the 1970s. As a kid, I associated it with airplane hijacking, due to memories of stories on the news about planes hijacked by terrorists (that's what the news people called them) sitting on runways while negotiations went on about trading their hostages for whatever it was they were demanding.
The use of the terms "terrorism" and "terrorist" to keep the people of the USA in constant fear and control every aspect of their lives is relatively new, having basically started at the time mentioned in the grandparent post. It's the Cold War, with much more exaggeration of the enemy's capabilities (not an easy task, mind you, as the "Red Menace" was greatly exaggerated during the Cold War), and with a much less clearly-defined enemy, so the "war on terror" doesn't suffer from the same defect as the Cold War: a possible eventual loss of the enemy. Just to be clear, I'm not saying the Soviet Union was not a threat, but that the threat, both in terms of the size and capabilities of its nuclear weapons, and in terms of its ability to covertly control groups and policies inside the USA, were tremendously exaggerated.
But don't tell me the term "terrorists" wasn't used much before the September 11 attacks. And get the hell off my lawn!

Random

[digitalgimpus]

The TSA's definition of random is based on NJ State Police definition of random:

function rand(){
        if(skin == BLACK || skin == brown){
                return 1;
        }
        return 0;
}

Sorry to say it, but nobody can (or does) deny it.

sidenote: my captcha is "herpies"!

"Are random searches effective in keeping ..."

[east coast]

"Are random searches effective in keeping everyone safe?"

Actually, I think they are. Perhaps not against hardcore terrorists as much as the random kook who wants to cause problems on a plane. Kind of a copycat crime. I think the increased security keeps random idiots at a distance.

NO!

[multimediavt]

The better question to ask is: "Are targeted searches effective in keeping everyone safe?" And the answer to that is also, no. Why? Because somebody with a brain and criminal intentions figured out the system long before this guy McPhee would have. Let's hope that at least now they'll change something!

A bigger reason for why profiling is bad

[JimBobJoe]

It occurred to me the other day that profiling is deeply injurious to the security system we have set up. Why? We have identified a group of individuals who we suspect are more likely to be a threat to airline security. In order to mitigate this risk, it is proposed that those individuals go through more intense security checks.

Here's the paradox: the security system reveals itself to those who undergo it. The more you undergo security checks, and the more intensive they are, the better acquainted you become with the security system, how it works, its strength and weaknesses. Therefore, profiling paradoxically reveals the innards of airline security to exactly those people who we *don't* want to know how the airline security system works.

Random my ass

[Dan B.]

Random is such a joke.

I travelled through the USA on 6 flights in Jan - Mar 2002. I was randomly selected for special treatment 6/6 times. My bagage and boarding cards get the SSSS every time.
I travelled through the USA on 7 flights in Jul - Aug 2003. I was randomly selected for special treatment 7/7 times. This time was the funniest though. I was travelling with someone although on separate bookings, so I just gave him my carry-on as it was too much of a hassle for me to have it searched every time.

Both times were on round the world tickets, travelling one-way segments, single male, 25-28 years of age.

So to reiterate, random, my ass.

I flew without any luggage...

[mutoneon]

I flew without any luggage with a one-way ticket and was "randomly selected" each of the 4 checkpoints I passed through. When I bought my last set of tickets, the vendor admitted to me that the extended search is authorized right on the ticket itself. The searches were for metal. Are there no plastic projectiile weapons?

Flight changes

[captaint]

In April of 2005 I might an unusual flight change, by cancelling the return portion of my trip after arriving at my destination. For exactly one year after that point I was "randomly" chosen on every flight I took in the United States, including on the outbound end of international flights. I believe I took around 8 flights within that time period, and was security screened on each one. I became very familiar with the highlighted letters "SSSS", which would appear on my ticket to indicate that I was being screened. After a year though it stopped, and I haven't been randomly selected since.

Re:Appeasement = wrongheadedness gone wild

[drDugan]

How is this comment insightful? Please explain this more. I see this comment is driven by the fundamentalist, black -n- white mentality that drives most of the current insanity.

First, you are fear mongering: using single incidents and news reports to support statements about whole nations.

Second, you are ignoring that there is a wide and available gap between peace and appeasement.
Our options are not just "appease" or "war" - there is a huge middle ground. It used to be called "diplomacy".

When I say "an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us" - don't assume that only can occur because they love us - just that others don't hate us SO MUCH they are willing to die for their cause. Everyone living in peace and love would be great (but to get there we need to eliminate property entirely) - and we should shoot for that, but it's not feasible in the short term. There are lots of ways to get to the place where people don't want to attack you. It takes a LOT of fear and hate and misery to get a group of people who are so downtrodden and lost they resort to suicide bombing.

Yep

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a white guy from England. Through no fault of my own, I have an upper class English accent. I shuffle through the metal detectors like everyone else, not sweating or twitching but safe and happy in the knowledge that I'm not loaded with semtex today. Still, approx. 70% of the time I get pulled over, whether I'm travelling in a suit & tie or T-shirt and jeans.

A friend who is more or less constantly carrying enough pot to see him do jail-time and travels looking like he's been through several hedges backwards hasn't yet been bothered.

Overall, a non-uniform random distribution of checks just makes sense. The higher frequencies that certain profiles attract may partially be due to racism or bigotry, but there must be other attributes that attract a check and the random factor remains in place, whether it's apparent or not.

My bags get regularly searched

[GWBasic]

I often use a small metal box in my suitcase so that cookies and crafts don't get crushed. Two out of three times, the suitcase with the metal box was searched. (I typically put the box by the top so Big Brother doesn't have to dig far.)

In my experience, if I fly with anything that, when X-Rayed, looks suspisous, my luggage will be searched.

Don't be a moron

[Anonymous Coward]

"All terrorists have been muslims? So the Unabomber was Muslim? Timmothy McVeigh is Muslim? THe IRA are all Muslim? Those right wing christian orgs who blow up abortion sites are muslims in disguise? The Shining Path is Muslim?"

Name a non-middle eastern person who has blown up an airplane. Remember, we're talking about airplanes here.

In the words of Ben Stern: "I told you not to be so stupid, you moron"

Re:Don't be a moron

[elakazal]

In 1985 Air India flight 182 was blown up by Sikhs: Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri. They're Indians, not Middle-Easterners.

If you have to ask...

[entendre entendre]

...you don't want to know.

Everyone Profiles

[emil10001]

Sure, 'everyone profiles', that is until they get smart enough to realize that 9 times out of 10 they are completely off-base in their judgements. You can take a look at a person across the room and make up some set of assumptions about them based an the way they look, dress, and carry themselves, but try talking to them and you'll often feel foolish as you realize just how wrong you were.

And I agree with you that in many parts of the world intolerant and short-sighted religious beliefs contribute to the culture. Here in America, for example, the "Christian" culture has lead to many people being intolerant and short-sighted. We have many problems here with intolerance that are caused by the "Christian" community. For example, several of the times that I have been to church (Catholic, if you're wondering), I've heard a surmon about how the 'Gay's are going to burn in hell,' a sentiment that seems to have moved itself into the political arena where many members of the right have time and again tried to limit the rights of homosexuals, going so far as to try to write discrimination into the Constitution. Or others who have been influenced by the heavy propaganda in this country seem to believe that most Muslims are here to commit acts of terrorism. Gee, isn't that silly.

Perhaps it would be better to take a look at yourself and the culture that we live in before inditing others for theirs.

Re:Everyone Profiles

[drsmithy]

Sure, 'everyone profiles', that is until they get smart enough to realize that 9 times out of 10 they are completely off-base in their judgements. You can take a look at a person across the room and make up some set of assumptions about them based an the way they look, dress, and carry themselves, but try talking to them and you'll often feel foolish as you realize just how wrong you were.

So you're saying that 9/10 people you talk to, you are completely wrong about in every respect ?

I'm not going to try and say I've never made a bad assumption about someone - hell, even people I've known since they were children - but I can pretty confidently say my fuckup rate is a hell of a lot lower than 90% - and the more information I have about them, the lower it gets.

Everyone "profiles", all the time. They do it when they decide whether or not to walk down a dark alley with someone. They do it when they decide whether or not to believe something someone else says. They do it whenever they decide where to sit on the bus. "Profiling" based on statistical data and behavioural experts is a hell of a lot more objective and scientific than the processes the vast majority of people use every day to live their lives.

Perhaps it would be better to take a look at yourself and the culture that we live in before inditing others for theirs.

I have no problems at all with other cultures living however the hell they want. Personally, I'm mostly in favour of leaving the entire Middle East alone. The problems come when they don't want to leave us alone.

Random my ass.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an epidemiologist. Statistics are one of the primary tools of my trade.

I could go into clustering, types of randomization, etc, but I won't because calling the US airport screening procedures "random" really requires a stretch of the definition.

I know this because in the past year, I've flown 15+ times on domestic US and international flights. 9 out of the 9 times I've flown on short notice, one way tickets, I've been selected for "random" screening. 4 out of 4 times I've flown with no checked baggage, I've been selected. Same holds true for most of my colleagues.

The fact is that if you're a male (particularly young) flying alone under any number of specific circumstances, you're going to be selected for "random" screening.

The story of the ex-TSA guy notwithstanding, in retrospect, the one time I *definitely* would have screened me for suspicious behavior, I wasn't randomly screened. (Baseball cap, dark sunglasses, on the phone speaking in broken French and Arabic while in line, hastily packed checked bags full of refrigerated medical equipment in sealed styrofoam boxes that I requested they NOT open without notifying me first). I guess it was because those were round trip tickets bought a few weeks in advance. The funny part is that was on the day that the UK liquid bomb plot was discovered.

The *really* funny part is that all of those times I was screened, I was on Red Cross assignments and it said so right on the boarding passes.

Random? Not by a long shot.

Things Haven't Changed Much

[beadfulthings]

I flew an awful lot (60-80% of my work time spent out of the office) prior to 9/11. After 9/11, when that job went belly-up, I quit traveling for business and now fly only occasionally for recreation or family needs.

My pre-9/11 experience: Often flights would be delayed. When the rest of us were seated, three or four embarrassed-looking businessmen (and yes, they were always men) would board. Their carry-ons would sport vivid orange stickers. Their common bond would be that they were not-white. They might be Black (from Africa or here--who knows), Arab, Asian, Indian (from India) or from some other not-white ethnic group. They were the ones selected for the "random" luggage checks. Only once do I recall a white person being pulled aside. It was a woman. While she was nice-looking (clean, well-dressed, middle aged, not wild-eyed), her carry on bag was a mess. I recall a hair dryer and lots of electrical wires sticking out of the top. She, too, boarded late sporting the orange sticker.

Post 9/11 I had an experience of my own. Summoned to a distant city on an emergency basis, I needed to board a plane, go fetch an elderly relative, and drive the person back to my home. That meant a one-way ticket and no checked bag; I had only a knapsack with some overnight things. I'm a white woman. I was pulled quickly from the line, thoroughly patted down by a female attendant, and had my bag gone through very thoroughly. They also wanted to chat a bit about the reasons for my trip. I didn't get an orange sticker, and I didn't make the plane late.

To me, the "random searches" were a rather odious form of profiling based on the not-whiteness of the person's complexion. They may not have been called "profiling," but that's what they were. The pre-9/11 white woman had a carry-on that made everybody suspicious, and I can't blame the security folks for wanting a closer look. As for myself, I fit a pattern that obviously set off alarms--no return ticket, no checked bag. They probably check everybody who fits that pattern regardless of their ethnicity or gender. I didn't find it too objectionable.

There has to be a way to do this without profiling people on their looks.

Submitter doesn't know what 'random' means.

[drc500free]

When I roll two dice, 7 comes up more than any other number. Must not be random, huh?

So yeah...

[deezilmsu]

I was 'randomly selected' when traveling because I just happened to have an air cast on my leg fron a fall I had taken a couple of weeks prior. When I made my return trip, I didn't have said cast on, and didn't get selected. But I had to take my shoe off and put more wear and tear on my sprained ankle and be swiped with the bomb sniffing wand just because I was randomly selected. But coming back through with a limp didn't tip them off any.... Yeah. It's really random.

Family guy connection

[sjs132]

Funny... A Stewie flashback had him working at the airport when Johnny Quest's team was boarding a plane.. he cleared everyone except for Raja and said that he was "randomly selected" and Raja says: "You didn't even look at the screen!"

Funny shit.. Art immitating life and all...;)

Re:Appeasement = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Like the Germans, French and Spanish did. That worked out really well for them, didn't it?

Protip: when trying to make a point about appeasement, try to pick events where people were appeasing and then were attacked anyway, rather than cases where they were attacked and then chose to withdraw their forces from the middle east due to the attack.

In the meantime, when you're done killing all the Muslims to make sure that none of them can kill us, get to work on Republicans and NRA members like Timothy McVeigh, in case they try again. While you're at it, better gas some Christians too, just to be on the safe side.

When you're the only person left on the planet, you better kill yourself, just in case you attempt suicide.

Random != even distribution

[theonetruekeebler]

I think they do roll the dice every time, but the odds aren't absolutely flat across the entire pool of travellers. And I think what pushes the odds closer to one are profiles of behavior. Age and gender probably figure in as well.

Here's how to almost certainly get selected:

• Be male
• Be under 35
• Fly one way
• Take a flight to, from or over New York or D.C.
• Buy your ticket shortly before travel
• Use a relatively new credit card
• Have a third party buy the ticket
• Request a seat towards the front of the plane
• Check no bags
• Travel on a Tuesday or other "off" day
• Travel on a day or route that matches up with something Homeland Security knows but they aren't letting on

Undoubtedly there are counterexamples abound and there's some dude here who bought his ticket months in advance and still got searched. Also undoubtedly there are mechanisms which are not documented. Perhaps they know a lot of stuff about you that you forgot, or wish you could forget. Or never knew in the first place---like how every other Monday for two months last year you bought lunch for at this little diner down from your office, and the Mondays you weren't there a Known Operative was there having lunch for two. So now a profoundly complex piece of data mining software thinks maybe you and Mr. Operative were taking turns picking up the tab while you planned Activities. Now here you are, flying from Boston to Atlanta and not checking any bags...

And maybe enough of the checks are random-with-quotation-marks because TSA and airline staff are instructed to "trust their instincts" if anything "seems out of place," only it turns out the staff in question are still a teensy bit jumpy and to them, hell, what's more out of place than a Muslim looking dude at an airport?

Ah, well. Fuck flying.

Just ask the TSA people.

[snower1313]

A TSA man told me the following are common factors for getting SSSSs.

1. Paying for ticket with cash
2. Paying for ticket within about 2 weeks of flight (no time for background check I guess)
3. Having a one way ticket (most people don't fly to one place and stay forever)

AirTran and other carriers sometimes gives you two one way passes instead of one round trip ticket.

Easy fix: Just do an online boarding pass and remove the SSSSs using a copier and a mask to cover the SSSSs.

One way ticket

[tomz16]

I fly all of the time. The only time I've been "randomly selected" since 9/11 was the one occasion that I purchased a one way ticket. Everything I had with me was checked inside and out. Damn, you think that a terrorist bent on blowing himself up on plane will worry about paying for a two way ticket when the credit card bill finally arrives? I'm all for the illusion of security (to keep our brainwashed sheeple flying, and the airline industry in business). However if we're doing it anyway, at least have it make sense. Observations : #1 : One way tickets are not indicative of terrorists. Money is not an object, especially if they know it will draw attention. #2 : I've had nail clippers confiscated in Warsaw. NAIL CLIPPERS. If you try to take a plane with nail clippers, I've got a sky mall with your name on it. #3 : Banning lighters on planes is dumb. My 13 year old brother can list about a dozen other ways to quickly and efficiently make fire with other materials that you are ALLOWED to bring on a plane. Hell, give me a battery, a conductor and 15 seconds. Man has been doing fire for the past several thousand years. We're pretty good at it. Give me an hour, and I can put together an electronic ignition system out of things you are commonly allowed to have on a plane! #4 : Banning liquids is temporary, and even currently very limited in scope. What happens afterwards? Liquid explosives are impossible to detect at anywhere near the rates we need to screen people getting on planes! #5 : Has anyone considered the possibility that a suicidal terrorist could have any of a number of explosives implanted? The human component here is only searched for metal. Don't buy into the BS. Security is an illusion. Planes will always be at risk, and we are no safer today than we were pre 9/11. The best you can do for yourself is to learn a little about how statistics work. Stop wasting your money on the state lottery. Stop worrying about terrorism. Return to your regularly scheduled life, and accept the fact that you will probably die of heart failure.

Re:One way ticket

[Anonymous Coward]

What if the terrorist is stupid? You may catch 'em this way.

As for lighters, smokers usually wear them. Some are so desperate they'd smoke one somewhere. By confiscating them you deny these smokers the seduction. I'm a smoker, and while I wouldn't try to smoke even if I had a lighter because of the huge fine the fact I'm not able to be tempted does support my cause. I've only flew 2 times though and I used (legal) drugs to limit the nicotine withdrawal symptons.

Yes.

[JKConsult]

I recently flew back to Dallas/Ft. Worth from Austin (to visit my mom) for the third time in the last year (yes, it's easy to drive, but tickets are so cheap that it's a wash, and there's a free vehicle for me to use there.) On every one of the 6 legs of those trips, one of my suitcases has been searched. It's the same one every time, a gray hardshell American Tourister. On the trip back to Austin this last time, I thought (and commented) that for once, it hadn't been searched, because the TSA notice wasn't on top. However, once I started pulling out clothes, I noticed it in the middle of them.

I never get personally searched. Hell, on the way back, I forgot I had a lighter in my pocket, and I tossed it in the little tray with my keys, wallet, and cell phone. The guy doing the x-rays pulled it out, looked at me (a white guy in my mid-twenties wearing a 'Texas Business' tshirt) and said "You know you can't have this, right?", whereupon I responded "Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking." So it's not like they're profiling me as a passenger. But they've searched that bag (and only that bag; when I've flown with two checked bags, the other one never gets looked at) 6 times in a row. If they were searching 50% of bags on every flight (which they're obviously not), there would only be a 1.5% chance of that happening. It's not 'random'. It's something, but it ain't that.

No such animal

[gelfling]

Been randomly selected half dozen times. Fuck the TSA and I hope they all crash and burn.

I was 'randomly' selected 6 times on the same trip

[hacker]

I have the tickets to prove it, and this was 4 years ago.

Remember when they used to marker in 'S.S' on your ticket stubs to indicate an additional search? I had a flight going West with two stops (nice-n-cheap tickets though). That's 3 separate planes, with luggage checked straight through.

Let me go through this slowly:

1. I arrived at Airport 1 and checked my luggage to my final destination.
2. I was searched thoroughly before boarding, and again at the ticket gate.
3. I boarded the plane, and we arrived at the first stop. I deplaned, walked to my connecting flight's gate and waited.
4. Before boarding the second plane, I was searched again (bags, patted down, wanded with the metal detector wand).
5. I boarded that second plane and continued to work on the flight.
6. We landed at the second destination, and I walked to my second connection and waited. At this point, I had ticket stubs with 'S.S'. markered in on them for 2 separate flights (first plane, second plane), and I had already been searched 2 times.
7. Before boarding the third plane, they called out people with the 'S.S' on their ticket and said they had been randomly selected to be searched. Since I already had been 'randomly selected' TWO TIMES on this one trip, I thought this was a bit ridiculous. What "new" gear could I possibly have acquired since the last two flights? Plastic spoons? A magazine? Its not like I left the airport, put a bomb in my bag and walked back in without being detected.
8. SO I was searched again, the third time on this one way leg of the trip. I remember showing the security officer and several people in line my handful of ticket stubs from that trip with the red marker 'S.S.' on each one, and thinking how ridiculous this was.
9. I had the same results on the return leg, searched at every single stop, for a total of 6 "randomly selected" searches.

I call bullshit, this is not random. Its profiling, plain and simple.

I'm a white, caucasian male with short hair, travelling on official business with some computer gear and clothes. I travel ~50k miles a year, book my tickets in advance, and never fly first class or one-way. I don't pay cash, I don't look Muslim, and I don't carry anything that could be seen as 'dangerous' (well, except maybe my iPod I guess these days).

Why was I singled out so many times on this one flight? No idea. I've been singled out dozens of times before, before this and after, but never 6 times in the same trip... until then.

But now I choose alternate forms of transportation. Its just not worth it to fly anymore. Its slower, more stressful, impossible to work, and they limit what you can and can't bring with you. I'll just take the train or drive myself now, even if its 10 hours of driving.

No liquids and no jelly substances allowed on plan

[Loxety]

With the policy of no liquids and no jelly substances allowed on planes.. What I want to know is how do you xray for a water bottle? Chapstick?

Maybe next time I fly I'll brink my own smoke machine to help out the agenda of blowing smoke up peoples asses!

Face the facts

[wganz]

Middle Eastern men between the ages of 18 and 30 are the ones that hijack and kill.

Take the PC bullshit blue pill all you want, but if you look at who has killed whom over the past 25 years of this jihad; it is Middle Eastern men between the ages of 18 and 30. What good does it for a TSA agent to grope an 85 year old grandmother?? It satisfies your PC opinions but does absolutely zero to stop terrorism. Blather platitudes about equal rights all you want, but remember that they declared war on the West and have started killing us.

It is time to stop the stupidity. Until then, 'If the shoe fits, wear it.'

wganz

Re:Face the facts

[ghc71]

Richard Reid is white. Germaine Lindsay was Afro-caribbean. There has been a successful woman suicide bomber in Iraq, still unidentified, and some caught before they were able to detonate.

Focussing on such a profile invites one's enemy to similarly focus on recruiting candidates that do not fit it. Air transport defence must include a purely random element that searches the occasional Quaker grandmother, lest targetted identity theft be used to defeat the profile-based techniques. The Israelis suffered when Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade turned to women suicide bombers because they were not searched as closely as men. It is imperative that the US not relearn that lesson the hard way when it has been so dramatically illustrated for the DHS to see already.

SSSS Marker

[steed074]

The "SSSSs" totally mark you out for special treatment - I waited by the security screeners in a small regional airport one afternoon headed to Vegas and while waiting on my wife to get out of the bathroom, I had nothing better to do than question them. The TSA guys were friendly and told me straight out that the SSSS is the marker for searches and to expect it as my wife and I connected through various airports. The guy was absolutely right, I was searched (my ticket had the marker while my wifes didn't) at every stop but one.

Complex

[SuperKendall]

Given two years it is possible to convert a dark-skinned, black-haired muslim man into a "young single woman flying out of sweden."

Are you a hollywood screenwriter?

While it is possible, it also gives someone else two ywars to figure out something is up and involves a number of people, any one of whom may be an informant.

Not to mention that there are very few candidates that are going to pass a visual check no matter how tightly they tape up the nads.

Coming up with an incredibly complex nigh-unworkable plan is not a counterpoint that carries much weight.

Re:Complex

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

While it is possible, it also gives someone else two ywars to figure out something is up and involves a number of people, any one of whom may be an informant.

The profiling is all done in public. The plotting is done in private, just like all the other threats we are so worried about. That makes it pretty damn hard to catch the plotters -- and if caught it can all be eaily explained away with non-terrorism related explanations.

Not to mention that there are very few candidates that are going to pass a visual check no matter how tightly they tape up the nads.

Ok, I guess you haven't thought it through very well. The point is to AVOID being checked in the first place. If you are getting inspected, they are gonna find the bomb/boxcutter/whatever anyway, his dick is the least of his worries at that point.

Coming up with an incredibly complex nigh-unworkable plan is not a counterpoint that carries much weight.

Just what is so complex, never mind incredible and nigh-unworkable about this plan? Go back and look it over, the hardest part is waiting for the bleach to take effect, which involves sitting around at home and watching a lot of tv. Everything else is something that regular people are doing hundreds, if not thousands, of times each day for relatively small amounts of money to boot.

Non-Islamist terrorists...

[elakazal]

Um...okay, for starters:

The IRA, at least when it was active, numbered roughly 5,000 active members. That's at least five times the number of active members of al-Qaeda at the time of 9/11. That also ignores a half dozen or so smaller Irish terrorist groups like the Real IRA, the Continuity Army Council, and the Irish National Liberation Army, as well as Loyalist groups like the Loyalist Militia, the Orange Volunteers, and the LVF.

While we're on the Christian terrorists, one might also like to note the Ku Klux Klan, which although rarely referred to as such absolutely fits the profile of a terrorist organization. The Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda (10,000+ dead), the Freedomites of Canada, and the Army of God movement in the U.S. are all terrorist organizations composed of Christians.

There are also Jewish (Gush Emunim, Jewish Defense League), Hindu (Shiv Sena, RSS, etc.), and Sikh (about a zillion factions, responsible for as many as 100,000 deaths between them) religious terrorist organizations. Also Aum Shinrikyo in Japan, whatever the heck religion that was.

Add the nationalist groups like the Tamil Tigers, ETA, Kurdistan Workers Party, etc. and the Marxist/Communists such as the Shining Path in Peru, Japanese Red Army, etc.

The Shining Path alone numbered more than 10,000 at its peak and caused roughly 45,000 deaths, both of which are numbers which dwarf any Islamist group.

Islamic groups are currently those most focused on targeting air travel (in part because, when all is said and done, it's not the easiest or most effective form of terrorism) but that doesn't mean that any of these other organizations couldn't or wouldn't use these tactics.

A little disclaimer: I know some people are going to try to claim that some of these aren't terrorist organizations. All of these have been classified as terrorist at some point in the mainstream press, beyond that I won't try to defend the idea one way or the other. Who counts as a terrorist depends on your point of view. Some Muslims do not consider al Qaeda a terrorist organization. One person's Terrorist is another person's Freedom Fighter or Holy Warrior or Patriot.

  Some of these groups are defunct or much reduced in strength...but rest assured that for each of them there are a half dozen growing movements that though they haven't even acheived international visibility are chock-full of violent, scary people that would love to make a big splash and make a name for themselves and their organizations.

Only One

[SuperKendall]

Three names: Timothy McVeigh, Theodore Kaczynski, and Richard Reed.

Remember the context - Airplanes. Only one of them tried to blow up a plane. And he was too inept to succeed.

If you lower the candidate pool you are less likely to find someone intelligent enough to succeed is what invaribaly has to be a somewhat complec plan. The goal is rsk management, to reduce risk through practical means. Zero risk is impossible to achieve.

Very few groups of "terrorists" have as a goal the killing of large groups of random people only because they are westerners. Others have far more specific greivences.

Re:Only One

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the Unabomber tried to blow up a plane in 1979 by putting a bomb in the cargo hold. It was poorly made and started smoking, the pilot made an emergency landing and nobody was hurt (although some passengers were treated for smoke inhalation). In 1995 he also threatened to blow planes out of the air although he didn't follow through on that.

Chance to fail

[SuperKendall]

Who are they trying to catch, the really thick terrorists who will spend several years of their lives and invent diabolical explosive devices, etc, and then risk it all to save $400 on airfare?

Yet why skip such an obvious critera for examination? Plenty of criminal plans (not just terrorists) have been undone by acts far stupder than that. Remember that at heart many people are inherantly cheap and yes, will buy a one-way ticket to save a few bucks they could spend on beer before a truly one-way flight.

Re:Chance to fail

[Thomas Shaddack]

What's obvious on flying one-way? Why is so much meaning put into so little detail? Why is it so obviously wrong to not have clear travel plans, or being dispatched to a task with unknown time to finish or with unknown city to travel to for the next assignment (many service techs could speak up here)?

Re:Chance to fail

[LordWoody]

Actually I fly under those conditions (not sure when I am coming back). I just best guess my return time and rebook if necessary. A round-trip with a rebook is still cheaper than two last minute one-ways. I suspect that "service techs" (or at least the company paying for the flight) also know this.

Re:Chance to fail

[rbarreira]

Remember that at heart many people are inherantly cheap and yes, will buy a one-way ticket to save a few bucks they could spend on beer before a truly one-way flight.

Maybe they also postpone the destruction of the plane until the last possible moment in order to get the most flying out of their ticket? Heheh.

Unrealistic goals

[SuperKendall]

The whole mentality behind searching people to get on a airplane promotes false security. We can't even stop weapons in our prisons, and we will NEVER be able to stop deadly weapons on airplanes.

I see, the argument is "if we can't achieve 100% prevetion, why try at all".

The problem is in the real word I'd at least like them to screeon out the people wearing more that three sticks of dynamite with carry-on explosive vests.

Re:Unrealistic goals

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the argument seems to be "there are better solutions". Not that I totally agree with him. Short term what he said is impractical. Long term it seems ideal. The real problem is that not much is being done to do what the GP wants.

Hey, Arrest Me!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, I'm a teenage white trashy girl in Alabama. I killed my illegitamate child so my born-again mom wouldnt find out about my sin. Arrest me. Hi, I'm a Jewish man on Wall Street. Most of my money is from fradulent insider trading. Arrest me. Hi, I'm a WASP in Massachusetts. I've cheated on my taxes five years straight! Arrest me. Its all ridiculous. Youre all innocent until proven guilty by ethnicity. Whites, Christians and Jews better start learning this basic Constitutional lesson or soon enough, your rights will be gone too.

Not so random...

[uvajed_ekil]

I must agree with those who think the "random" selections are in fact something less than random. I don't fly a ton, but a few friends and I have noticed a possible trend. For instance, men under 35 travelling alone without checked baggage seem very likely (I don't have any stats, sorry) to be "randomly" selected for additional security screening. There have been times when I haven't even begun to reach the end of the line when I'm approached by security and asked to step aside. In our experience, none of the several of us have been selected when checking baggage or travelling with a woman. However, travelling alone without checking a bag means almost 100% chance of being picked, at least for us.

Personally, this is fine with me, as it is the exact type of profiling that SHOULD be done. I've also found that I tend to get through security quicker this way than having to wait in line. I'd prefer not to have my carry-on searched, but I have nothing to hide, and getting on an airplane with 100 or more other people with a bomb or other contraband is certainly not a right. If these searches ever really begin to bother me, I have an answer: I'll drive.

Re:Not so random...

[uvajed_ekil]

I forgot to mention that the friends I mention, and myself, are all white American citizens who speak English as a first language, and most of our travel is within the US. So the "profiling" we've seen seems to be based on age (35), sex (male), flying alone (vs. with a companion), and whether bags are checked. I've also flown one-way (and driven home) and been selected 100% of those times, though that is not something I've done much. This is all post-9/11.

probablility distribution

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, they don't say "you have been selected randomly with uniform distribution", do they?

It happens the world over

[Sledgy]

Before a moved to Australia I visited with my family for a holiday. Every airport we went through within Australia I would always be "randomly" selected for bomb screening while the rest of my family (sister and parents) where never stopped once, of course the person doing the selecting would stress that it was "random" and not profiling.

"Itunes Random"?

[Americano]

My guess is that the searches are "Itunes Random" -- people are selected semi-randomly (how else to explain the 75 year old midwestern ex-Marine town councillor who's strip searched and has their bags turned inside out? You know you've all heard a story along those lines...), but that the candidates are weighted using various criteria -- sort of like itunes, where tracks with a 5-star rating are slightly more likely to be played on random than tracks with lower ratings...

So, if you meet some "red flag" criteria, you get entered into the "random drawing" a few extra times, to increase your chances of winning. (Millions will enter, few will win!)

PC dopes

[Anonymous Coward]

Profiling is good, let's instead call it thinking.

The enemy can circumvent the known profile, well not really. They can recruit someone outside that profile, but it's going to be a lot tougher.

So if you wanted to be thorough you could search 100% of the people. If not that, you would search as many as you could in order of risk.

Face it, today that means middle eastern in appearance, possibly musilim, along with other factors such as behaviour, luggage and things like that.

To search an frail old white grandma is just silly, if you don't realize that you've got to be kidding yourself. In fact searching women is less likely to score a hit as searching men, even though there are women that could do this, it's just about odds.

And to those responding the answer is just to find out why "they don't like us, let's be friends", you have no idea what really drives all of this. It's simple corruption, brainwashing and blatant abuse of a religion as a tool. You've got fools blowing things up that think the jewish, christian and muslim gods aren't the same one!

Simple solution...

[rthille]

just continue to make flying more and more of a hassle. Sooner or later, the only people flying will be the pilots and people wanting to blow up the planes...

simple solution: get a frequent flyer number

[gemtech]

for whatever airline you are flying that day, even if you hardly ever fly with them. I take 1 or 2 day notice flights for business developement (we used to call them "sales calls"). Before I started signing up for fequent flyer accounts I would often get "special treatment".
I'm German decent, 49 years old, no facial hair, hair cut short, business casual attire. I think that it has a lot to do with the airlines and the TSA knowing more about you.

1984?

[Chip5150]

If the world were to invest in renewable energy resources, we wouldn't be dependent on the middle east supply of fossil fuel. If we were independent of the need for their energy, we could stonewall the region by isolationism and wait it out. Once the world is no longer dependent on their energy, or their supply runs dry, that whole region will once again become moot. It will be like Africa, which has nothing to offer the "civilized" world. At such time, a million human beings can or will perish in that region and the West wont even so much as lose a nights sleep. The development of renewable energy resources is the key to the long term security of our collective. It is also paired with the ecological security of our world environment. However, Big Oil is so deeply embedded into the economies and governments of the West. We will never be free of it until the last gallon of oil is pumped from the ground, we might as well get used to the plastic glove treatment at the airport, and the NSA snooping our email and tapping our phones... 1984 anyone?

Not random

[Anonymous Coward]

The first time I got the full TSA treatment, I was singled out for this treatment when I collected my boarding pass at the checkin counter. The person at the checkin counter marked my boarding pass in a manner such that a TSA person (before I got to the xray stuff) was able to single me out and put me in another queue.

My travel profile matched whatever it was they thought was suspicious enough to warrant it.

So, no, I doubt very much that the "random selection" is random at all.

My keychain selected me!

[Anonymous Coward]

I was 'randomly selected' about every other time I flew for a month in 2003 without any SSSS on my boarding pass. I didn't know why until a kind TSA agent (yes apparently there is at least one) told me she selected me because of my keychain.

WTF?

Apparently my Tiffany keychain that I had just been given, which has a thick solid silver block on it about 1/4" x 1/2" x 2" shows up really bright on the X ray machine when my carry on passes through it and makes them suspicious because it doesn't look like most other stuff they see.

So I started taking it out of my bag and running it through the tray with my cell phone so they knew what it was and I haven't been randomly selected in the 100 or so flights I've taken since then, other than a couple SSSS flights thanks to buying the ticket the day before. Sometimes they'll back up the belt to get a naked eye look at my keychain but not having it buried in my bag doesn't cause them to want to 'randomly' select me.

Illusion of Safety for the Peons

[HungWeiLo]

One time my luggage was rerouted to another city, but was found in time and it was available for me to pickup by the evening of the same day. When I went to pick it up, I went to the customer service counter at the luggage area, where 5 "gainfully-employed" uniformed individuals were sitting around yakkin away the day. I see that my luggage is sitting right outside the counter along with 20 other bags, presumably other lost and found bags. I told them that I saw my bag, and they said "OK, great. Go ahead and take it."

No questions were asked. No IDs were requested. I could have taken all 20 bags of luggage with me without any airline worker or security getting wise about it. This was literally just 30 feet away from the taxi dropoff of a large international airport of a large American city. How trivial it would be to place something dangerous without any scrutiny whatsoever.

Security, my ass.

In a word, no. Arguably the opposite.

[edward.virtually@pob]

"Are random searches effective in keeping everyone safe?"

Random searches wouldn't have stopped the 9/11 terrorists. They used box cutters to threaten lives, but if such searches had been in place they would have used dental floss garrotes or their bare hands for the same purpose. Several times people have successfully defeated the searches just to prove it could be done and do not prevent even untrained citizens from bringing contraband on planes.

Random searches are not effective in keeping us safe. What they are effective at is lulling the public into accepting routine violation of their constitutional rights under the guise of protection. Back in the 80s, during the cold war, the paranoid and abusive treatment of travelers by the USSR due to "national security" concerns was properly seen as proof of a fascist government and held up for scorn and ridicule. How sad it is that we have allowed the destruction of a few buildings and loss of 3030 lives to turn us into what we fought against. Something several wars with much higher losses both economic and human failed to do. Many free and democratic nations suffered repeated terrorist violence before 9/11 but did not allow it to warp their societies. In contrast we have sacrificed our rights as citizens and our values as a country in response to a single attack and promote such sacrifices of rights and values by our allies.

The random searches and other intrusive treatment of passengers has not resulted in the conviction of many (any?) terrorists, but it has endoctrinated millions to accepting treatment they would not have tolerated previously. In pursuit of physical safety, we have sacrified liberty. A libertarian might say that the undefined risk of pre-9/11 security was less objectionable than the daily violation of the rights of tens of millions of citizens that takes place under post-9/11 security. It is worth thinking about.

Searches are a bet against human ingenuity

[Anonymous Coward]

Searches are a static defense, this cannot possibly work. Every time I go through the airport, I invent another way to get some weapon/bomb or other onto the airplane.

The kind of profiling one does, or the amount of randomness used to select passengers for screening CAN NOT POSSIBLY HELP.

Thus, this whole discussion is idiocy.

Weapons got on airplanes before TSA, they go on getting on airplanes after TSA, and will continue to do so no matter what TSA does.

TSA's problem is a minor set of the bigger security issue: It isn't possible to protect a modern technologically-based infrastructre from terrorists. There are too many critical targets to protect. The idiocy that is "Homeland Security" doesn't help, of course, but nobody has managed to make gov effective yet (except in massive violation of civil rights, something they are good at and very prone to).

Thus, the only long-term strategy is to quit pissing people off.

Switzerland does NOT have a terrorism problem. The US doesn't need to have a terrorism problem, it is a direct and un-avoidable consequence of the massive injustices we perpetrate with our foreign policy.

Lew

"works"

[Gorimek]

I will never understand why some people thing 9/11 style attacks will create the exact opposite response in foreign countries than it did here. Killing one million muslims in Medina will radicalize muslim opinion and make them much more violence prone. Just as 9/11 radicalized US opinion. Threatening to exterminate Meccans will make people leave Mecca, not make them give up the fight.

If you're advocating genocide, that's different in that it does "work". If Al Queda kills every single American (300 million) of the US kills every single muslim (1200 million?), the conflict is over. But the remaining side will of course be universally hated by the rest of humanity. And rightly so.

Just that something "works" doesn't make it right. All sorts of hideous crimes work as a way to achieve various desrable goals.

Re:"works"

[icebike]

I will never understand why some people thing 9/11 style attacks will create the exact opposite response in foreign countries than it did here. Killing one million muslims in Medina will radicalize muslim opinion and make them much more violence prone. Just as 9/11 radicalized US opinion.

Such a short view of history. Such an ignorance of arab society.

You seem to forget how Swiftly and Finally two nukes setteled the war in the Pacific. You seem to overlook the fact that in spite of that, the Japaneese are Friends of the US and we are their friends in turn.

This single fact, and the fact of a peacefull Germany after a total beating can not be explained by your theory of nations.

You clearly do not understand either arabs or Mulsims. You think that this is going to blow over in a few years? As long as people with whimpy attitudes like yours prevail you can rest assured there will be more 9/11s, more Madrids, more Londons, more Balis.

Until the muslim world is made to realize that allowing their sons to become radical bombers means the death of the entire family, perhaps the entire village, we will continue to have bombers. Acting weak or meak won't stop this. Buying your wife a burka won't stop it either.

Until the muslim world gets control of their mullahs and prevents them spewing hate into the hearts of 10 year old boys they simply must be dealth with brutally. Any half measures are TOTALLY counter productive.

Until Islam is ready to take its place among the family of religions, I would much rather be feared than loved.

Re:"works"

[gullevek]

Yeah, great, compare wares fought 60 years ago to some radical terrorist groups. Thats why the Isreal attack on Lybanon worked so awesome and now all Hisbollah are so scared that they will give up.

You do not fight a war against a _whole_ country like against the German Reich or the Japanese Empire. You fight a loosing battle against some radical people who can disappear somewhere in some country anytime they want. It's more finding a needle in a haystack and getting rid of it.

There is no way to win against terrorism. Never, terrorism just appears in areas with strong wealth difference were people have nothing else to do, or areas with strong idealism difference where poeple in utter no other way try to force their will on others with terrorism.

Re:"works"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yo! stupid!

That was war! against other countries! The advantage of waging a war against Japan and germany was that they didn't get insurgents retaliating against you, after they got occupied. It is also easy to brainwash people of a particular limited region, over a few decades.

*Your* war is increasingly becoming a modern-day crusade against Islam the religion. Against muslims. And muslims are everywhere. There are muslims in UK. Will you go nuking UK then ? There are muslims in Pakistan.Go and nuke your "ally and friend". There are muslims in demoracies like India. So now the great protector of democracy and freedom(isn't that why you invade Iraq ? right ?) going to nuke democracies ? You are an idiot!

Re:"works"

[raju1kabir]

You seem to forget how Swiftly and Finally two nukes setteled the war in the Pacific.

It is senseless to compare the two situations.

Japan's surrender came from an emperor who saw the end of his empire and the destruction of his people. All the USA had to do was swing that one man around to that viewpoint and the job was done.

Fanatical muslim terrorists operate independently, with different levels of rationality and different primary grievances (Iraq, Palestine, the propping up of corrupt regimes like the house of Saud, and so on). No act of violence will persuade all of them that it is time to stop fighting; many will just go at it with renewed vigour.

Re:"works"

[Anonymous Coward]

Such a short view of history. Such an ignorance of arab society.

Uh-huh, sure. Can you even spell Caliphate?

You seem to forget how Swiftly and Finally two nukes setteled the war in the Pacific. You seem to overlook the fact that in spite of that, the Japaneese are Friends of the US and we are their friends in turn.

Have you forgotten the car wars of the 80s and the electronics wars of the 80s/90s? There are many Americans of the WWII generation convinced that Japan didn't actually surrender, they just chose to fight with economic weapons rather than military weapons.

The concept of "friend" and "foe" (us/them) doesn't really apply to nations.

Until Islam is ready to take its place among the family of religions, I would much rather be feared than loved.

Let me make this very clear:

• Christians fought WWI and WWII, killing millions of soldiers in Europe.
• Christians killed 6 million Jews and millions of others in the Holocaust.
• Christians waged a terrorist war in Ireland and the UK.
• Christians fought for control over Europe for a thousand years.
• Christians killed millions of Native Americans in direct war and tens of millions through deliberate biological warfare.
• Christians enslaved millions of Africans for hundreds of years and created a brutal racial caste system that remains today.
• Nuclear weapons have been deployed in battle in only two instances in the history of the world, both by a Christian nation against a non-Christian nation.
• Christians think the world will be ending soon via an apocalypse that starts in the Middle East and absolutely requires the presence of an Israeli state.

And you think that based on the historical record Islam is what we should be afraid of, that we need to become even more brutal in our treatment of others, and that they are crazy and irrational?

Re: One Way Segments

[Dan B.]

Of course! Now we know how to catch 'em!

And the 21 Sept. 11 Hijackers all used one-way tickets... Oh wait, they all used open ended return.

I'm sorry but your explaination does not hold water. Why would I get searched everytime, yet my travel bud never get searched? Same age, same sex, same itinerary, same tickets, same everything but passport names and numbers.

Re:You know what's worse thAn Opie?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Lol. Grammar flame karma.

It happens so often that there must be some sort of universal force at work.

Re: Mooks

[Dan B.]

And speaking of Mooks at the security desk how does this one grab you...

The captain of a Qantas 747 scheduled to leave LAX for SYD gets told he has to leave his multi-tool (Leatherman or whatever) behind as it "may allow him access to the flight deck".

His reply was along the lines of, while pointing at the captains stripes on his shoulder, a quite prominantly displayed ID card, and a pair of shiny brass wings on his shirt, "What the hell do you think these do!"

He got locked up for an hour after having 3 guns drawn on him.

And this was about a month ago.

Mooks indeed.

I was "randomly" selected after a booking mishap

[brainchill]

I had a minor altercation with a woman in booking. I purchased a ticket from United Airlines and showed up about 1.25 hours before my flight, waited in line to check in and when I got to the front after 20 minutes I was told that while I bought my ticket United that I had to check in with US Air. It seams that while my ticket was purchased from United they actually sold me a US Air flight!!! What a bunch of crap right? So I get on the bus and ride over to the US Air terminal and try to check in there. At the US Air terminal they said I only had 40 minutes before the flight and they CUT checkins at 45 minutes!@#$@!!!!! This meant I could not check in for the flight even though the plane was nearly an hour from leaving the ground. I begged and pleaded. I even offered to have someone UPS my luggage or have my luggage go on a later flight but with no luck. So I ask what I do now??? She sent me back over to the united terminal because I didn't have a US Air ticket!!!! In line for another 20 minutes I finally get to the United counter and explain my situation. The girl that was their tried to make me feel like an idiot for not knowing that I should be on a US Air flight to begin with (though again ... I bought my ticket directly from United and my ticket reciept said United!! After spending a half hour arguing with her and then asking for her supervisor they tried to get me to pay them another hundred dollars to switch tickets after it was their fault I missed my original flight. I talked them out of that and told t he supervisor that the original girl was very obnoxious and didn't even try to help me. Finally I got put on another flight. I head for security and get the super bomb sniffing shoes and belt off pat down extra search. I was very nice to the TSA rep and asked who exactly decides who get the Extra search? He told me that airline rep makes the decision when they book the ticket!!!! The bitch that didn't want to help me was responsible for my BCS super search.

Re my country.

[Anonymous Coward]

...New Zealand...

That's only because all our sheep are Muslim.

The easy fix

[J. T. MacLeod]

When I've been to Mexico and Peru (and I'm sure they do it in many other countries), each person in line had to press a button underneath a light, which would light up at random.

It gets hectic enough around those points that fixing it to light up for one person is VERY hard, so it's likely to be legit.

NOT having such a system just leaves it open for abuse.

Re:The easy fix

[Anonymous Coward]

NOT having such a system just leaves it open for abuse.

that's EXACTLY the point.

you must be new to the busheviks.

If someone wants to blow up a plane...

[StarkRG]

If someone wants to blow up a plane, they're going to. The only way of insuring that someone can't blow up, or take control of, a plane is to strip everyone down completely, give them hospital gowns to wear, not allow any carry on baggage, hold everyone in quarrantine for at least 24 hours to make sure they're not carrying anything inside their bodies followed by complete x-rays.

I'm not saying that they should do nothing, there should be truly random searches (computed by a random number generator seeded with something relatively random, like the difference between the scheduled departure time and actual departure time), x-rays of people, as well as baggage. If chemical testing can be done quickly (a few seconds, at most) that might be useful.

Get rid of all these stupid, idiotic rules like no pointy objects while pens, CDs and even glass is allowed, or no liquids or gels while powders and other things that could be mixed with water to create a bomb are allowed.

How easy would it be to create a gas bomb (ie. one that releases poisonous gas) by having a bottle of what looks like talcum powder, but is, in fact, two or more chemicals that, when mixed, release poisonous gas. In powder form they wouldn't interact, but add water and FOOM, instant fumes.

I'd be surprised if there weren't some way to create an actual explosive that would only require water to activate. (Maybe one set of chemicals to be the explosive, and another to be the heat generators).

In any case, the stupid rules are there to make it look like they're doing something, when, in fact, there's nothing they can do.

The way to stop terrorism is to not piss so many people off... Before Bush's time the US, while still big, powerful, and hated, was not universally hated, like it is now.

The whole reason 9/11 happened was because we were meddling in the Middle East. So, in response, what do we do? Yeah, that makes loads of sense... That'd be like trying to stop a headache by hitting your head with a brick...

Re:Statistics 101

[Anonymous Coward]

I can think of one reason your logic is flawed here. It's not a completely automated unresponsive system. Let's say I send 20 guys separately to blow up different planes. 2 of them get randomly searched. This doesnt mean the other 18 get through. As the first one is found the entire airport, if not the nation, goes on alert. If 2 are found you can bet on many many cancellations. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's a lot less likely than you imply.

'Random' searches

[BigMFC]

Hey,
The color of my skin is light brown. Just a couple weeks ago in a line of around forty others (none of whom were brown or black), I was the only person who was asked to step aside and informed that I had been 'randomly' selected for extra screening. I was then tapped down and felt up, my stuff gone through and I had to answer a bunch of questions.
The use of the word 'random' really makes me sick.

attitude of educated americans

[Anonymous Coward]

I am brown skinned, with a definitely non-white name. I get marked for special treatment pretty much all the time in the little airline I fly. Mind you, if this flight was commandeered by some terrorist and fle into a tower, the glass might not even break - thus small is the flight.

Anyway - I talked to an older white colleague with a PhD about this. Now, remember, I immigrated from a country which has been friendly to the US for a long long time, is a democracy, secular, etc. I have been a very law-abiding immigrant, whose biggest fault so far is a speeding ticket 7 years back, promptly paid, and paying the taxes in time, and in general pretty understnading in the matter of terrorists vs USA etc. You know what my white colleague told me about my complaint? something liek - well tough luck, if you dont like it, go the hell back. We didnt invite you here.'

That, gentlemen, as the attitude of soemone witha PHD. That's how this particular person treated a tax paying lawabiding, intelligent, contributing member of the society just because I am an immigrant. basically, no rights for an immigrant - we reserve the right to treat you in whatever way we like (we, I suppose, is people like this person), and if you have complaints, 'go the hell back'.

I suppose such an attitude is the attitude of the mainstream american?

Re:attitude of educated americans

[Anonymous Coward]

'well tough luck, if you dont like it, go the hell back. We didnt invite you here.' ... I suppose such an attitude is the attitude of the mainstream american?

It might be a common attitude of many Americans, but I assure you it isn't the attitude of all Americans. Please accept my apologies.

Re:attitude of educated americans

[Sassinak]

Speaking as someone who has been told that, it may not be the attitude of everyone (it most certainly is not), but its the attitude of enough people that you encounter on a day to day basis that it makes it painfully difficult to have a positive opinion of this country. When you are being viewed as a criminal for NO other reason that simply the colour of your skin (not the pattern of your speech, not your clothes, nothing else, but you happen to be darker than those around you) you have a very harsh and jaded view of the treatment you can expect from "officals" when it comes to "random" searches. (considering that I spend about 28 days out of 30 on an airplane, and I get randomly selected 28 times... If my luck were that good, I would be at a casino.

Yeah I can "partialy" confirm

[aepervius]

One way ticket no registered baggage paid in cash in a non-face to face sale is the best for the "chance" to get selected. Those are flagged red. At the opposite side of the spectrum you have frequent traveler paying with a credit card and in class highier or equal than C (business compartment). Those are green. But as I always said this is a freaking stooooopid system. Because this means as a terrorist, since this is readily public info, you simply hvae to behave, pay some business class ticket with a credit card over a period of time and be in a FT program. TADA ! less chance to be selected.

Granted that was the "plan" but I dunno if it was ever implemented that way. But even if it was not, I have no doubt the rule for selection are as brain dead and can be gamed : if you just know what rules are "in" and "out" for selection, just ask a lot of acomplice to be "selected" while at the same time looking yourself innocent. You swamp the selection process with dummy and you can pass through (since they meet their quota of selection TSA will probably then not search those ruled "out").

Re:Yeah I can "partialy" confirm

[Anonymous Coward]

One should wish that besides profiling they also do totally at random searches. At least, that is how I'd do it. Profiling can be figured out (Slashdot actually contributes to that w/this very thread!) but random searches are just that, random. Unless your profiling is more effective than truelly randomness and complex in a sense that its algorithm cannot be figured out, but I think that is only a matter of time. Unless your goal is not to catch terrorists, you want to make it seem as if you try to and just piss (certain) people off instead. Sorry to be so cynical...

Maybe 'Randomly Selected' is missleading

[dilvish_the_damned]

What we really meant to say is you 'Randomly look Suspucious'.
Have a nice flight.

I've alway wondered one thing

[hopopee]

Have they ever catched someone really dangerous with this? What's the ratio? 10M searches per lunatic?

Of course when you are talking about the US there are bound to be gun nuts trying to take their precious weapons in with them. ;)
Still, that doesn't mean that most of the gun nuts are trying to hijack the plane.

Re:Appeasement = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on Dugan, stop being such a polyanna. The terrorist we are talking about are the same ones who have been doing it for hundreds of years. Columbus sailed around this area to avoid the pirates. When will people understand that it isn't us they hate, it is our way of life. It has nothing to do with our world views or how we treat other people.

Today I heard a speech on the radio given by Adolf Hitler in regards to the lazy decadent Americans and their president. If you put Bush in place of Roosevelt this speech could have come right out of the Democratic headquarters or from someone here. All the same things, lied about getting us in the war, hasn't done anything for the people he represents, pushes his religous views through his political office, etc. It was amazing. The point is these people hate America and what it stands for. Am I talking about the terrorist? well, them and the left.

Our own people condem us for a Koran in the toilet (which didn't happen) and yet rationalize away the beheading of innocent people by the terrorist. What if we did everything they do, car bombs, public beheadings, mass murder against unknown civilian targets, hide in hospitals and churches for just a few, and they do what we do, whatever that is. Let's go with torture like ummm, putting the bible in the toilet, taking pictures of us naked, showing us naked women, lock us up for years without representation, make us eat food that is against our religion, TELL US WHAT TO DO! While I would not enjoy either of these two ways of being treated, I do have my prefferences. Yeah, no doubt they are the good guys and we are the bad guys.

Random?

[Brandybuck]

They're not random in the sense that they're using any sort of entropy device. Instead they've probably got a quota of so many "step outs" per hour, and grab a guy in line every five minutes or so.

The last time I got told to step out, I was obviously part of a group of three. We were all dressed business casual, with laptop bags, and roughly the same age. Why was I picked and not my two coworkers? It's obvious to me that I wasn't being "singled" out for special treatment. Another time my laptop got picked for the special chemical swab, but it was one of three iBook G4s going through the belt, and the TSA guy had to ask whose it was. You guys need to stop with the paranoia act, because they are NOT out to harass you.

At one airport I was able to observe TSA at work through a glass partition, over the course of an hour while waiting for my flight. The only guy I saw who they deliberately targetted was acting goofy. He would remove a couple of coins from his pocket, the wand would buzz, he would remove a few more coins, the wand would buzz again, he would remove his huge belt bucket, the wand would buzz again, he removed his keys, and the wand would buzz again. So they took him off to the room. He had all the appearances of being a stoner. They stopped him AGAIN when he tried to board the plane with a cup of coffee after being told not five minutes before by the attendant that he couldn't take it on the plane.

Randomly Selected Once

[hengist]

going through LAX in July on the way to Vancouver. Couldn't work out why I'd been selected (I know it's not random) until now:

See, my flight from NZ to LA was delayed by several hours. So, I got switched from an Air Canada flight to Vancouver to an Alaskan Airlines flight. This meant that I:

(a) received my ticket for that flight shortly before departure

(b) had no return ticket booked with that airline (because I was supposed to go LAX - Vancouver - LAX with Air Canada)

Since I was travelling alone, and am in the target age group, that must have tripped some alarms. On the way back, of course, I was on the flight I was supposed to be on, which was booked months in advance.

So, it seems that having a delayed flight can single you out as well. Which makes a mockery of the whole system, really. Too many false positives.

The TSA is bullshit to keep the proles content

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Fact: TSA Screening hasn't done jack shit in stopping airline terrorism.

Fact: GOOD POLICE WORK AND CUSTOMS INSPECTION have prevented a number of plots from going forward.

Fact: The TSA is pure, unadulterated FASCIST BULLSHIT PR NONSENSE for people to think the .gov is actually doing something about terror. It is also a way for the Bush Administration to jerk people around with their idiotic colour coded terror alert system.

WAKE UP SHEEPLE!

RS

Stratified Random Sampling

[Pemdas]

From personal observations, it seems unlikely that the random selection is uniform. I would guess they do what they call stratified random sampling, and what other people would call profiling.

I work for a university in the middle east. Once, when flying with 6 other people on one way tickets from the US to Qatar, every single one of us was "randomly" selected for extra security. When my parents, who live in the US, came out to visit, they were "randomly" selected for security. Upon returning to the states, they found that they were "randomly" selected for extra security checks on every flight they took for the next year or so. Me? I can recall one flight in the few years since I moved to the middle east in which I was not "randomly" selected for special security.

So I'm guessing that there is a random element to it, but if you meet certain criteria, your probability of selection is pretty close to 1...

TSA Does Not Randomly Select People

[adwb]

My fiancee works for TSA at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SeaTac). The "random selection" for additional screening is done at the airline baggage counter.

Unusual activity (such as tickets purchased the day of or day before travel, paid with cash, one-way) is monitored by the ticketing database applications parameters. The ticket is then printed with some marking on it (she asked me to not tell the Internets what that marking is). TSA visually inspects all tickets as you pass through the checkpoint and looks for these "additional screening" markers.

Have you noticed that TSA does not run tickets through any sort of scanning machine or punch numbers into a computer when you go through the checkpoint? That's because the airlines decide well before you were even handed your ticket wether or not you will get additional screening.

And yes, if you are an ass to the ticket agent her or she has the ability to manually flag your ticket. And this actually happens.

Some people may mistake random screening done at the checkpoint with "unpredictable screening" governed by TSA which actually is random. Every day screeners have some period of time where they are supposed to be randomly selecting people to screen. It's actually printed on their rotation sheet they are given at the begining of the work day. One screener might get all electronics for half an hour. During that period, until your time is up, your job as a screener is to search items which fit that description. One might get all pat-downs for half an hour.

If you get selected in this way it is the screener's discretion. And yes, if you are an ass at the checkpoint the screeners have the ability to pull you aside and go through your stuff.

Re:Statistics 101

[arth1]

Herby Sagues (925683) wrote:

What are the odds that, on a group of a million travelers being randomly chosen for a check (say, checking one in a hundred), one of them is selected ten times in a row for a check? Basic statistics will tell you that the odds that someone is are close to 100%.

Did you flunk basic statistics, or did you never encounter it in school?

The odds for any one out of a million people being singled out ten times in a row, when the odds of being singled out each time is 1:100, is 1000000*(1/100)^10, or 0.000000000001%

Think about it. Millions of people play roulette in Las Vegas every year, yet you don't see a run of ten straight roulette wins ever. And that's a 1:38 chance per roll, not a 1:100. (If it did happen, someone who started with a $1 bet and left their win on the table would end up with over 2.7 quadrillion dollars.)

(The odds for any given person being checked at all in your scenario is (1-(99/100)^10)*100 % or 9.56%)

--
*Art

Re:In a word, no. Arguably the opposite.

[asuffield]

The random searches and other intrusive treatment of passengers has not resulted in the conviction of many (any?) terrorists

It's had a lot of people arrested and some convicted, but none of them were terrorists. Usually they get convicted of something like "causing a public nuisance", for being drunk or annoyed at being treated like cattle.

visit FlyerTalk's security forum

[Palal]

Visit FlyerTalk's security forum here: http://flyertalk.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=222 and read many stories about TSA's incompetence.

funny you should mention the Germans ..

[Savage650]

You mean that Berlin, Hamburg and Dresden showed the Germans that a war wasn't worth fighting ..

Very bad example. The bombing war against the civilian population caused immense suffering but it did NOT stop the fighting (quite contrary). The war ended only after germany was completely occupied.

..and Germany is now probably Europe's most secure democracy

Apropos democracy: why do you think it is that the germans (both the populace and the politicians) are worried about the current US Government?

Could it be because the Germans actually remember history and their experience with

• living in totalitarian regimes
• an ideology of "they all want to destroy us, so we have to destroy them first"
• a Fuehrer/a Party who is above the law
• propaganda about the impending "Endsieg" while the situation deteriorates day by day
• a secret police that can arrest/detain/vanish everyone at will?
• a judical system rubberstamping the camps, the torture, the domestic spying, ..
• ..

Simple profiling works in the UK, honest...

[yanw]

In the UK our club door security use simple profiling.

If you wear shoes, you get in, no shoes, you don't get in.

It is simple enough for them to understand and there is never any trouble in British clubs. Ever.

Getting door security to implement complex profiling patterns leads to their confusion and violence towards customers.

Looks like the colonial types are still lagging behind the mother-land ;-)

TSA RANDOM SEARCHES AREN'T RANDOM

[bahamuut]

Period. My father works for a major carrier, and he's flat out told me and I have personally experienced, that if someone buys a one-way ticket, it raises a red flag. If you don't check any luggage, it raises a flag. If your name is a close match to the 'watch' list, it raises a red flag. Yes there might be some 'random' searches, but many of them are conducted as a result of a profile that was established soon after 9-11. This even applies to buddy pass riders, and family of airline employees. Since I've been profiled because of my race since second grade (told my parents I was a behavioral problem and should be in a Behavioral Handicapped class, even though I hardly spoke in class), stopped by police numerous times for no other reason than DWB (a special F-U goes out to the Claremont, CA police), and in general thought to be up to no good if I'm in the 'wrong' place at the 'wrong' time, all I can say to the rest of the population that thought that it was at one time exempt from being profiled for whatever reasons, welcome to reality(tm).

Re:TSA RANDOM SEARCHES AREN'T RANDOM

[gatzke]

The TSA random search formula could still be random, just biased by different things.

Normal person, 1 in 40 chance

One way ticket? 1 in 2 chance

No luggage? 1 in 2

No luggage and one way ticket? 9 in 10

They could still claim random selection, and you get the benefit of profiling! Nothing is 100%, but at least this way you are harrassing the people that have higher odds and you don't just pull people based on skin color (probably)

Better question?

[Pitr]

'The better question to ask is: "Are random searches effective in keeping everyone safe?" '

No, that's actually an off topic question, and beyond that, the small modicum of safety this *might* achieve is MUCH less important than the freedom and, quite frankly, the dignity this costs.

Has anyone noticed that "terrorists" have already won? They've substantially changed the quality of life in North America(and other parts of the world). They've got everyone looking over their shoulder. Etc. etc.

THIS IS WHAT TERRORISM IS TRYING TO ACHEIVE!

It's not about blowing up as much stuff as possible, that's George "Dubbya's" job. It's about terror. Scaring people. Well, looks like we're so scared we're treating our own citizens like dirt. I'd call that a win for them.

Incorrect and a little criminal

[Plutonite]

This worked when we bombed Hiroshima, when Saddam gassed the kurds..but it does not work everywhere. OF course, we are assuming here that killing scores of thousands of innocent people in another country can serve as acceptable means to get "peace" at home. The assumption is morbid, inhuman, and utterly wrong.

In many cases it doesn't work. The Muslim world would not stand by and look on with grief if we bombed a holy site in response to a few terrorists who represent no culture or religion. The Muslim world would go to war, the least of that being a depravation of energy(oil) to the west for the next 200 years or so. Russian nukes will be bought, smuggled into New York, and..?

Similarly, Lebanon did not succumb to Israel after 1800 civilians were killed, their homes and infrstructure bombed with laser-guided missiles. What they did is fight back, and they are more interested in that now than ever before.

You can only repress people with state-terror when the logic behind your attack is understandable (e.g a dictator asserting power) and they can live with it.

Yes you are profiled, and here's why

[demallien2]

As others have noted already in this thread, profile-based searches don't work, they are too easy to game. On the other hand, random searches don't work either - large terrorist organisations such as Al-Qaida could simply play the odds that at least some of their operatives would get through. 100% searches aren't economically viable. So, what to do? Bruce Scheier had some interesting stuff to say on this a few weeks backhttp://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0608.html. If you want to catch organised terrorists, the only answer is good counter-intelligence. All those searches and what not aren't designed to stop well-trained terrorists, they're aimed at nutcases that think they can strike a blow for their favourite cause. These people are susceptible to profiling, which is why you get profiled when when going through airports these days....

white people are to blame?

[fantomas]

Can you name one western country that hasn't had a white person attack in recent history? USA- Timothy McVeigh. UK - IRA and other groups been blowing up bombs there for years. Germany: Baader Meinhoff gang. Italy - the Red Brigades. Spain - Basque separatism...

yawn..... what's this telling me? you can't judge somebody by their colour, place or birth, accent, religion....

Re:white people are to blame?

[Anonymous Coward]

No member of the IRA would be willing to blow themselves up on a public plane.

There's a BIG difference between an enemy that will do anything to hurt you, and an enemy that will do anything to hurt you and try and get away with it - because they value their own life.

Re:white people are to blame?

[ixmo]

> Italy - the Red Brigades.

Don't forget the italian right-wing terror by P2 (Bologna main station bombing).

Hat

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently went to Ireland through Shannon International Airport, we stayed for about two weeks. When we arrived at the airport to get boarding passes for our flight back to the US, we had to go to the ticket counter and check baggage. Before we even got in line, I was selected to go behind a screen with a security officer and the guy looked through my carry-on baggage. He said I was selected and even told me why! HI distinctly remember him saying, "It's the hat". It was a white baseball cap kind-of hat with a black Nike logo on the front. Apparently people try to look natural or blend in by wearing hats...

Re:In a word, no. Arguably the opposite.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding, I don't do it to prove that they don't work. I do it because its fun, and its MY tax dollars being spent on that nonsense so I deserve to get some enjoyment out of it. I quit taking this color coded paranoia seriously at all after I got selected once and the TSA guy could barely speak english telling me I needed to be screened. I almost told him he should sit in the chair while I screened him.

My game is this. Lighters are banned, but matches are not. I can't figure that one out for the life of me since its way easier to make an fire bomb out of a book of matches than it is a lighter, but whatever. So, since they don't have a lighter replacement program where I get to take a lighter back out of the bucket at the other end, I want to keep the lighter I paid for. So unless they ask me specifically (I won't lie to them, kinda kills the game) for my lighter I take it through. I travel with steel toed boots, pants with metal up n down the sides, and they have NEVER found my lighter unless they specifically asked me if I had one. It is also rather entertaining to watch them get frustrated with their stupid wand because my nice comfy traveling pants have so much metal on em it makes it tough to get a decent read. Its great, beyond my entertainment, I am a hero in the airports that have smoking rooms. I pull out a lighter and all the smokers get that awestruck look and huddle around to use it.

As far as being random...not at all. I routinely get selected because of the way I dress...one of them social miscreants or something. Anytime I get the SSSS on my ticket and am too tired to play the game, I just show military ID and they scratch it off and I walk through unharrassed. The whole thing is a freaking joke and waste of my money. The whole thing won't stop until there is no more money to be made, but as long as its a nice funnel from government coffers into the various security firms it will never stop. (Before anyone gets hung up on things being part of HomeSec and not corporate, I ask who builds all the wands, detectors, xray machines, guns, uniforms, etc...lots of money to be had.

Missing The Point

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey,

It is so sad that all of you are so wildly missing the point. First off, anyone here who isn't Muslim or Muslim-looking who has been randomly selected, please stand up. I'm standing, White American Male. So, the TSA isn't ONLY searching Muslims. They search lots of people, all the time. For those of you who are saying "I got profiled, 3 of 6 times." or "I always get profiled." you should take a moment and think about statistics. More than 10 million people fly in the US every single day. You are one insignificant point of reference. You need to fly much more, or pay attention to what is happening to the passengers around you if you want to draw conclusions based upon this experience. Even if you fly 15 times a week, you only get to observe the few airports you visit...

Second, lets use a scary word... "profiling". the TSA "profiles" people. We all know what Racial Profiling is, and most people would agree that it is a bad thing. Behavioral profiling is a different beast, and is altogether a good idea. Behaviors aren't racial, nor are they beyond the control of the person behaving. If a passenger exhibits behavior that is suspicious, then bump them up on the list of people to be searched. That isn't a problem.

What constitutes suspicious? I don't know. One-Way tickets perhaps? I don't think that is a great flag to raise, but if you check the history, terrorists have had a habit of buying one way tickets. Based up on the assinine airline ticket pricing models, no one in their right mind buys a one way ticket except in very special cases. So, history says "One way tickets are rare." and "Terrorists are prone to use one way tickets." I have no problem if someone searches me based upon this decision. The one way ticket didn't garantee the search, but it did recommend it. So what is the problem?

Do terrorists buy one way tickets? I don't know, but that is the claim in the media. Do criminals typically repeat successful strategies. Yep, it is the legal whole basis of a "Modus Operandi". Do the people who plan to blow up planes actually blow up planes? No. They plan the attack and others carry it out. It isn't crazy to think that the planners (who survive the mission) use tactics similar to those that have succeeded in the past. Why not focus on the behaviors exhibited in the past?

Last, you have to look at the statistics. Since 9/11 is the hot button, we'll focus there. Of the 10 Million people who flew on that day, or planned to... 10 or so were terrorists carrying out a mission. Do you think a random search, or a weighted random search, or any other incomplete search strategy would have helped? No. Plain and simple. Odds are they would have gotten through.

The search does have a deterrent effect. All we can do is make it more difficult for terrorists to operate. Relying on security measures (the TSA in particular) isn't going to be a fail safe. If you watch the news in other parts of the world, you'll find the strategy that does work is community involvement.

Suicide bombers are a weekly occurence in places like Israel, but they are rarely hugely successful. If you watch the news carefully you will often find that the bombers are thwarted by civilians nearby who identified a threat and reacted to it. Israeli citizens live with the threat and they take personal responsibility for dealing with it. Add to the mix a high participation in their military, you have a large population of people who have received sufficient training to identify and handle threatening people.

There is no security fail-safe. Everyone needs to pay attention, and participate. Squabbling over statistics for this type of attack is like squabbling over strategies for picking lottery numbers. No plan is particularly better than another, though some appear more appealing. If we all use our own flawed "random" search algorithms to supplement the invasive searching done by the TSA, we'll cover just about everyone. Die hard bigots will target their "minoriti

Of course -

[Geminii]

If you're a near-bankrupt airline spending money you don't have on increased oil prices and 'security' measures which do nothing more than alienate your remaining customers, the terrorists have already won :)

dying for the cause

[fantomas]

"No member of the IRA would be willing to blow themselves up on a public plane."

I don't know anybody in the IRA so I can't comment. I remember Bobby Sands and other IRA (and INLA) hunger strikers starving themselves to death for their cause. The expression "to die for the cause" is frequently used by radical groups as a sign of commitment (you choose if you wish to call them freedom fighters/ terrorists/ martyrs/ oppressed etc).

I wonder if the broad exposure the present suicide bombers are getting will 'up the ante' for other radical groups and mean that in future years more of these groups will start using suicide tactics as a result. Clearly members of many of these groups are prepared to die for their cause, and perhaps it is not a great psychological leap to agree to die by suicide if the belief in the cause is strong enough.

Re:dying for the cause

[enharmonix]

I think the OP just meant other groups, IRA, McVeigh, etc., fit the traditional definition of terrorism, in that they use terror tactics to scare civilians/government by targeting govt/military targets. Civilians, however, are not the (intended) target of the violence. Islamic Fascists, OTOH, actually target civilians these days. Of course, there are probably many other reasons the IRA wouldn't do that (suicide is a sin, etc.).

It is effective

[gweihir]

Since all this "airport Security" basically is ineffective against competent attackers, the "random searches" are just part of the show and as such they are effective. However I strongly suspect these are not random at all and that they are called this just on order to squash protests. So, yes, I sthink the TSA is definitely lying. A well established practice by the US administration and gouvernment.

Side note: All those lying and true believing ''Christians'' are in for a real surprise should they be judged by the professed standards of their faith after death.

Re:Appeasement = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Barryke]

Our only option is to enlist the aid of the rest of the world's governments and people in helping us stop terrorism. The good news is that that shouldn't be too difficult to do -- almost nobody likes terrorists. But to work with people (or governments), you have to treat them with respect -- in particular, you have to understand that it's a two-way street. Double-standards do not go unnoticed by the world's public.

I think other countries have other things (protect their own country and agenda) to worry about.
Like that country on North-America that is waging war everywhere, just to give its own economy a boost.

Norway

[SgtChaireBourne]

Actually, Norway should not be on the list, it has had assasinations/terrorist attacks recently. The Mossad gunned down some random immigrant a few years ago. Wan't even the guy they were after, jut had the bad luck to be at the wrong place. IIRC it was the first terrorist incident in modern times on Norwegian soil.

Nor should Sweden be on the list. Sweden has had two political assasinations in as many decades. Going back further, there is quite a bit of uncertainty about how accidental the demise of Dag Hammarskjöld really was. So the total could be three in modern times. That doesn't count Russian mafia gunning people down in parking lots, which would bring the total much higher.

Denmark had the Banditos and the Hells Angels in all-out war, even breaking into prison to kill. Now they collaborate... That doesn't count the street fights between ethnic groups nor the daylight gang rapes etc. Nor does it count the random eastern european mule here and there who drops dead from radiation poisoning because of a hot cargo in his vehicle.

The point here is that those that count above are all tied, or supspected to be tied, to the West, and the US in particular.

Re:Norway

[Anonymous Coward]

None of those are terrorist attacks.

Union

[brunes69]

That was a soley union action.

The Canada Customs union has for years (and rightfully so) been petitioning the government to train and supply all customs officers with firewarms. Think about it, these guys are *guaring the borders to the nation* (even worse they're guarding the world's longest undefended border with one of the most gun-liberal nations in the first world!), and they are unarmed.

So, last year, the union justr said "fine - if you won't arm us, then we are telling all our members that if they feel threatened in any way then they should just walk off the job". And that's what they did, and that is what happened that day.

Frankly, I agree 100% with all their claims. I may not believe in the right of all citizens ot bear arms, but I damn well believe that the people in charge of the peace should be armed. And if I was in a makeshift tool booth with a carful of guys with automatic weapons bearing down on me, I am not going to stick around with my flashlight and billy club.

Re:Union

[rmallico]

i am not blaming the guards themselves but the folks above them making the laws and allocating funds for various things...

If it's brown ...

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's brown, it's down.

I get systematically checked

[s0l3d4d]

for a variety of reasons:
* I don't look 'typical' for what the passport says
* I don't or usually don't live in the country that has issued the passport
* The passport for the country is issued in another country than what the passport is for
* I am not American but the tickets I use are often paid with an American credit card. When the (return) flights from Europe to USA were paid with an American credit card, that is an instant check - even when paid by spouse.
* If I was traveling to more interesting continents than just Europe and North America, I bet I would meet the rubber glove .. plane foods makes me sick, so when flying intercontinental and not eating or drinking, that is usually depending on the country, a higher risk for search.

Re:Appeasement = wrongheadedness gone wild

[huge colin]

On the other hand, doing provocative, stupid things that are guaranteed to turn otherwise friendly or neutral people into our enemies is equally suicidal.

What sort of "provocative, stupid things" are you suggesting be avoided?

Anyone think of ASKING why they were selected?

[MikeyVB]

I once was travelling from Heathrow to Montreal, and was "ramdomly" searched at the terminal security at Heathrow, and also right before I boarded the flight. Finding myself frisked and told to empty my pockets twice to get on just one flight, I decided to ask the security guy that searched me the second time right before I boarded the flight as to why he selected me, and he gave a pretty believable answer:

1) I was wearing baggy clothing
2) I did not have any carry on bagage exept for a book (most poeple have a bag of some sort at least)
3) I was a male in my 20s
4) I constantly checked my cell phone (Which I did, to check the time since the flight was running late)

In effect, I travelled differently than the majority.

He was pretty friendly, and didn't hessitate to answer my question.

Why not ask instead of assume some stupid conspiericy? Then if you don't believe what they say, you can argue what the answer, not automatically assume the worse.

Of course they're lying...

[SwashbucklingCowboy]

Ain't nothing random about it. People are matching a certain profile and they're being searched as a result.

Nah.

[Ihlosi]

Typical USofA attitude.. There are two countries on the planet, USA and the rest. See, that's what's getting you in trouble.

What are you talking about ? Two countries ? Nonsense. Country doesn't have a plural, man.

Randomly Selected

[Anonymous Coward]

In an 18 month period I flew 12 times on business. I was a frequent flyer who always purchased round trip tickets. I was "randomly selected" for "cavity" searches 13 times on twelve flights. I changed my business model so that I do not have to fly. If these searches are random the sky is green.

Sure they can...

[maillemaker]

>The hard truth, however, is that that simply isn't the case -- our military can barely keep the lid on Iraq, let alone any of the other 3-4 dozen countries where terrorism is a concern.

Make no mistake: Our military is quite capable of dealing with Iraq, or just about any other nation on earth.

The problem lies in that no one has the stomach for really turning them loose to do just that, and thanks to the speed of modern news networks, no one can get away with Dresdens or Hiroshimas anymore.

Steve

Re:Sure they can...

[DoctorBit]

Make no mistake: Our military is quite capable of dealing with Iraq, or just about any other nation on earth.

The problem lies in that no one has the stomach for really turning them loose to do just that, and thanks to the speed of modern news networks, no one can get away with Dresdens or Hiroshimas anymore.

Let's see, why did America send its military to Iraq? Uhh... because of the WMD's there... oh wait... uhh... because of Iraq's participation in the 9-11 attack... no... uhh... oh, that's right - because Sadam Hussein was a tyrant who terrorized and brutalized his own people. Yeah, I forgot. And turning the American military loose in Iraq would accomplish what exactly?

Re:Sure they can...

[ciggieposeur]

The problem lies in that no one has the stomach for really turning them loose to do just that, and thanks to the speed of modern news networks, no one can get away with Dresdens or Hiroshimas anymore.

That's not a problem, that's a feature. "Turning them loose" to deal with Iraq would lead directly to the elimination of practically all life on Earth once the first nuclear weapon was used. I'd rather have us "lose" than throw 4.5 billion years of evolution down the drain.

Re:Sure they can...

[Flambergius]

Agreed on the firepower part, but ...

The problem lies in that no one has the stomach for really turning them loose to do just that

I wouldn't call that the problem. I'd say that is the general direction of where the solution lies.

Re:Sure they can...

[d34thm0nk3y]

Because killing a person's whole family, friends and neighbors won't at all lead to them becoming a terrorist.

Re:Sure they can...

[why-is-it]

The problem lies in that no one has the stomach for really turning them loose to do just that, and thanks to the speed of modern news networks, no one can get away with Dresdens or Hiroshimas anymore

Well, if you think not having the "guts" to commit war crimes" or crimes against humanity" is a problem, I fear that your own humanity may already be lost.

However, if you are capable of rational thought, you might consider whether committing additional atrocities is more likely to gain you enemies or allies? Machiavelli counselled the Price that it is better for rulers to be feared than it is to be loved, but rulers should avoid becoming the objects of hatred.

Current (and past) US foreign policy has lead to hatred, and you would propose pouring gasoline on a fire that is already burning?

Re:Sure they can...

[aug24]

"Our military is quite capable of dealing with Iraq, or just about any other nation on earth."

Apologies if your post wasn't meant to sound quite so gung-ho as it does, but...

You do realise that military action is part of the process for making new terrorists, don't you?

If you destroyed Iraq, then there would be an upsurge in terrorism volunteers in other countries. You'd have to move on to destroy Iran... then Syria, maybe Lebanon, sooner or later Egypt and Turkey, and by then I might be thinking the UK, France, Germany, Japan, Australia etc, would have a bit of a downer on the US.

Perhaps military action, which after all usually hurts far more civilians than terrorists, is not the answer? Perhaps it's part of the problem?

Justin.

Re:Sure they can...

[nigral]

Of course the US has the power to transform the whole Iraq teritory into some nice shiny glass with a small fraction of its nuclear bombs or can send super-trained marins with flame-throwers and huge machin-guns to kill every body in Iraq.

But I think what the grand-parent meant is not exactly this. It is more like: protecting the civilians, creating a new stable democratic government, etc...

Re:Sure they can...

[Suicyco]

Whatever tough guy. "Dealing with" an international dispute does not mean slagging millions of people. Our military is incapable of dealing with the situation in iraq because it is not a military problem. You do not invade a nation then nuke the place.

BTW, using your dumbass logic, China, Russia, France, GB and Isreal are all quite capable of "dealing with" america as well. Keep that in mind.

Remember this: Iraq never attacked the US. Iraq has not attacked a foreign nation since Kuwait. America is the aggressor. Americans are the invaders. There are no "terrorists" in Iraq, any more so then you would be a terrorist if chinese tanks were rolling down your street. America is the nazi germany of the 21st century. The rest of the world DOES get this point, even if you cannot. And we all know what the rest of the world did to germany.

Solution to "Random Searches"

[thorkyl]

Give everyone over the age of 16 a shogun as they board the plane.
No one will even bitch when the coffee is cold.

Re:Appeasement = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno ... not meddling in middle east, comes to mind.

But something tells me, that is an unthinkable and unacceptable option for you.

No more random than "random" IRS audits

[Anonymous Coward]

The TSA used to tell you you were selected for additional screening, not randomly selected. I used to get hit all the time in 2002 when I was on a one-way ticket.

However, it is very possible first they screen out those who fit a higher risk category (no checked luggage, one-way ticket, last minute purchase, etc.) and then from that pool, randomly select one or more individuals for further screening.

This is how I believe "random" IRS audits work. They separate returns with "flags" and then from that randomly pick some for audit. I have heard of way too many coincidences to suggest otherwise.

It's not random

[LordSkippy]

Back in late 2001 to early 2002 I was doing a lot of travelling. The company I worked for would send me out on short notice, so I could only book my flights on short notice and one-way (since I would never know if they'd send me somewhere else before returning home.) I started noticing I was always getting selected for the "random" checks. The first couple of times, I didn't think about it, with it being so soon after 9/11. However, after about my third flight, it starting getting really annoying. So, I started to keep track of the number of "random" security check points and the number of times I was stop.

There are actually quite of few places for these "random" security check points. Besides at the gate or at the baggage check-in counter, there is also a check when returning a rental car! So, keep in mind that I am including the car rental return in these checks.

Also, keep in mind that I am a white male with an "all American" name. So, I was not being "randomly" selected due to racial profiling.

I was "randomly" selected at 28 out of 32 security check points. 28 out of 32! If that's random, then I sure wish I had been playing the lotto!

The real reason was one-way flights on short notice. Which proves that there is some logic (although that logic may be flawed) behind the selections. Which, in turn, made their insistance that it was "random" exceptionally annoying. I was actually more annoyed at the term "random" than I was with being searched.

Not random, just stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

I travel 50 weeks a year on business, and the selection is definitely NOT random. Add to that the fact that there's a reason the TSA personnel are working in better jobs: they aren't capable of anything better than a TSA position. TSA & baggage inspection staff and are ignorant (in the true sense of the word) and have no ability to rationally apply rules and guidelines.

If the government was truely interested in actually creating an effective and cost minimal security program then a scientific process would be brought to bear, results published, and the public informed. Unfortunately, that will never happen: the airline security program appears to be rooted in a desire to impose a police state upon us, rather that a desire to make are travel safe.

Canada is expert in discrete international meddle

[Quietti]

We also tend not to go around and meddle in other countries as a hobby.

Don't be so sure.

It has been my unfortunate experience to find that Canadians, although they are quite welcome as people, are totally unwelcome as citizens of a country that routinely manages to piss off an increasing number of other countries. To make an analogy, if USA is the proverbial highschool bully, then Canada is his skinny sidekick who spits on you and kicks you in the shins while you are lying on the ground bleeding to death. In other words, on the diplomatic map, Canada is a hypocritical asshole.

For instance, as reported by consulates of a growing number of Central European countries, Canada still considers all former members of the Warsaw Pact as potentialy dangerous and thus refuses to enter into reciprocal visa exemption agreements that would give citizens of those countries the possibility to visit Canada visa-free for the traditional touristic 90 days per year.

There's also been far worse diplomatic incidents:

After World War II, a number of Baltic people fleeing the arrival of Soviet troops relocated to Canada. Among them, a majority of Estonians relocated to Ontario and they have been having a yearly folk festival to keep their culture alive, ever since. After Estonia regained independance from USSR, a delegation from the homeland was invited to attend the folk festival. We're talking about folk musicians and dancers, business people and representatives of the freshly elected first post-Soviet Estonian government. Immigration Canada denied the entry visa to absolutely everyone, except for president Lennart Meri. Not surprisingly, Estonian custom officers have been giving the Ben Laden treatment to Canadians visiting Tallinn ever since then.

I have heard similarly gruesome stories while visiting the Latvian and Polish consulates in Helsinki.

The Latvian consular staff acted in a visibly agressive way. When cautiously asked if anything was wrong, the consul herself came to the desk and hinted that I really ought to enquire with the Canadian government and learn for myself how things got that tense between the two countries.

Meanwhile, the Polish consular assistant conceded that I needed a visa to transit via Poland, but gleefully granted me one on the spot, throwing in plently of touristic brochures and asking me if I needed any advice for planning my trip. The Polish lady then candidly shared the reason why Canadians need a visa to visit Poland, while preparing my visa: Canada refuses to enter into a reciprocal visa exemption treaty with Poland, stating security concerns that created a diplomatic incident with the Polish government. This being said, the average Pole has nothing against Canadians per-se, which is why she was able to grant me a visa on the spot.

Since the enlargement of the European Union, several Central European countries stopped requiring a visa from Canadian citizens. However, harrassment at the border crossing continues, because Canada still won't budge and offer them the same courtesy of a touristic 90-day visa-free visit per year.

In Finland, Canada attempted to close its embassy several times, thinking that a single embassy in Stockholm ought to be enough to cover for the whole Scandinavian area. Canadian Finns threatened to withdraw their sizable investment in the Canadian forest industry, every time. Still, there are compelling evidences that Canadians living in Finland receive the Bin Laden treatment, whenever attempting to acquire and renew their Finnish residence permit. Google the name "Brett Young" for a taste of Finnish Immigration absurdities. This being said, it takes two to tango and I suspect that Canada repeatedly trying to close its embassy in Finland (assuming that it's the only diplomatic snafu they made in Finland) might have something to do with it.

Canada's presence in Afghanistan and in other former US colonies is also well-known.

Canada doesn't meddle in the affairs of foreign countries, you say? Think again.

Re: One Way Segments

[zettabyte]

Why would I get searched everytime, yet my travel bud never get searched?

Because you're clearly a terrorist. Crazy Aussie!

Oh, and what's up with that crocodile dude? Come on, as an Australian you have to answer for his behavior.

;-) Seriously, though, the whole thing is a waste of time. My boy (just past two at the time) was patted down earlier this year. It was humorous and completely asinine at the same time.

I think we'd all be better off if every seat-back contained a 6" switchblade. Then when 5 jihadists stand up to hijack, 100 pissed off westerners will stand up to get their chance at these yahoos.

Actually, it'll probably be a long while before we see another hijacking. We'll probably see bombings from now on...

Re: Mooks

[fuzzybunny]

Heh, if he was Australian, I can only assume his reply was a bit more colorful than that :-)

I talked my way onto a flight in Frankfurt with a Leatherman I'd accidentally left in my laptop bag once, by playing stupid American. I felt really bad about it, because the guys there were extremely nice (telling each other in German, "but I know these things, they're really expensive, we can't take it away from him!")

At the same time, at Sydney airport some poor German dude had his gold cigar clipper confiscated and thrown in the bin (you know these things, you stick the cigar in, no exposed blade, the worst you could do is threaten to cut off someone's pinkie) after a 30 minute argument with the idiot girl there.

Considering I once managed to get a switchblade onto a flight in my laptop bag after I'd forgotten it in there (pre-9/11) -- they make great tools for cutting tape with one hand when you need your other hand to balance heavy objects like, I dunno, Sun server racks. You can put it in your pocket and flick it open easily with one hand and they're a lot handier than carpet cutters--only to have it confiscated on arrival in the US for being illegal :-)

SSSS is _not_ random

[ymenager]

Actually getting SSSS flagged (SSSS is the indication on your ticket that you're in for a full search) is not random.

I was in US for a month, during which i was flying often, and getting SSSS flagged almost every time. I was talking with one of the security guards asking why that was happening, and he told the computers decide who gets SSSS based on a bunch of factors. For example, if you book your flight within 24 hours of the flight, it raises drastically your chances of being tagged, and i have a feeling if you use a foreign credit card, it also increases those chances (after i changed my CC address to an US address, i started getting flagged less)

Random? Not likely purely random.

[muonzoo]

They might be lying and they might not.

I am quite confident that they are not doing full-risks on a 100% random selection of people. I've been flying, on average, 100 flights per year for the last 4 years and I think I was randomly selected for search 2 years ago when I purchased a one-way same-day cross country ticket on a carrier I don't normally fly with. That said, I have done the exact same thing on a carrier that I fly with all the time and there was no extra security.

You figure it out, that's 1, possibly 2 searches in ~400 flight segments. If it is random, we aren't screening a large percentage of people, that's for sure.

Go ahead and kill yourself

[Dareth]

You said we need to, "promote an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us"

Go ahead and kill yourself. These people want you dead. When you and everyone else they hate are dead, they will stop attacking and no longer be terrorist.

People who will blow themselves up to kill a handful of other people are not going to be persuaded by a few kind words and a gesture of peace. It is easy to think that they are just like you and can be reasoned with. These are not pacifist. Zealotry on this level is like a disease. Do you talk nice to a rabid dog, or do you put it out of its misery?

We do need a better understanding of the people we are dealing with. But you can not make everyone happy all of the time. I like the idea of separation, but in this modern world where average ( by US standards ) people can travel around the world on a whim, this is not a solution either. There is not an easy solution to this type of problem.

A tale of two trips, and a list of five things.

[Demon-Xanth]

Back in 2002 I flew upto Seattle from Sacramento. There was a stop over in Salt Lake City. I flew standby, only carry on. I got "randomly" checked 4 times out of four, and I never left the terminal in Salt Lake City.

After this trip I learned of the five things that set off a "random" check.

#1: Traveling alone.
#2: No checked bags
#3: Traveling on short notice.
#4: Being male.
#5: Being arab.

I did 4 of the 5 things.

So the next time I flew, just recently to Charlotte through Atlanta. I flew with family, lots of notice, and very little carry on (MP3 player, DS, headphones). Guess what? Not a single random check. Even with an "increased state of security"

Re:Appeasement = wrongheadedness gone wild

[phoenix321]

"meddling in the middle east" as in "aiding Israel in survival against groups and countries that like to exterminate the Joos (again)"?

Or do you mean "ousting Saddam Hussein from power" (and soon "ensuring that no Islamic group gets the Bomb")? Terrible, terrible, right? Then what do you suggest the US did wrong before that Tuesday in September?

A message to dpbsmith [agmon]

[Anonymous Coward]

You are an idiot!
What the hell is TSA?
Does it hurt so much to tell us what's the initials?

I hate slashdot articles similar to those, so much!

Re:Canada is expert in discrete international medd

[Nethead]

Shit. Because of some stupid shit I did back in 1987 with a Commadore64 I can't legally enter VE7land. Not that this stops me much (I spent my honeymoon in Victoria) but it bugs me. It's been years since I've visited Canada and I miss it. I haven't tried since some Afghans messed-up NYC, etc. And if Camano Island wasn't there, I could see Canada from my deck.

I do get more hassle getting back into the US though... They have my number: 10780-074.

Re:Canada is expert in discrete international medd

[14CharUsername]

Wow so if you can't afford to keep an embassy in finland they treat your citizens like shit? I think we should immediately close that embassy and issue a travel advisory against canadians travelling there. Seems to me like those scandanvians are being the assholes in this case.

I haven't been randomly selected.

[Anonymous Coward]

I fly pretty regularly (2-3 times a month) and have NEVER been randomly selected, whether I fly within the country or outside of it, whether I have checked bags or not. The last two times though, my friend got the 3rd degree, and another time my girlfriend had her bags searched. Actually come to think of it, never in my life have I been singled out where myself/my bags were searched..

It's only too true...

[Solomon Grundy]

If I may paraphrase "The American President": "These are security measures that have no hope of providing security"...Jello Biafra, in his first album with the Melvins, "Never Breathe What You Can't See", also harps on this subject in the song "The Lighter Side of Global Terrorism"...

Other ways to protect mass transit

[dmatos]

All checked luggage is individually searched by trusted members of the president's family.
No carry-on luggage is allowed.
No clothing is allowed for passengers.
Passengers are to be sedated for the entire trip.
All passengers undergo full-body MRI scan prior to being loaded onto planes.
Pilots and co-pilots can only be fully trusted members of the president's family.
Only one commercial plane allowed in US airspace at any time, escorted at all times by three fighter jets.
All US cities covered by impact-resistant kevlar domes.
Every US resident, citizen, or tourist requires mandatory "compliance device" inserted into skull - a small explosive device that can be detonated the instant terrorist activities are detected.

That would probably be a good start.

Re:Statistics 101

[Anonymous Coward]

(The odds for any given person being checked at all in your scenario is (1-(99/100)^10)*100 % or 9.56%)

I am pretty sure those are the odds he was talking about, not your 0.000000000001% figure.

there is more to it than the closing of an embassy

[Quietti]

I'm still gathering data, but what I've seen so far clearly points in the direction of more serious actions by Canada towards Finland and other countries nearby. Then again, as I said, it takes two to tango, so oen can only suspect that Finland has done a few infuriating things towards Canada too.

Re:Appeasement = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you've already dropped the ball on that "ensuring that no Islamic group get the Bomb" thing. A group with it's capital in Islamabad already has a bunch of them.

Re:Appeasement = wrongheadedness gone wild

[phoenix321]

I admit, they have it. And when Musharraf drops out, we are in deep shit. But luckily he's still alive and kicking.

Most of you are missing the point...

[dapendragon]

The so called 'random' searches aren't that important to the 'war on terror'. The real, tangible, important effect of these searches, is to make sure John Q. Public feels that his government and the airlines are actually doing something to ensure their safety.

These searches are propaganda tools, not effective terrorism-prevention methods.

Caught by random selections in Canberra airport

[Centurix]

I was doing some work for the attorney generals department working on their handgun buyback project in 2003/04, which required me to visit gunsmiths and other people who work around firearms in general. It involved me visiting their workshops, gun shops, firing ranges etc with a laptop. Close contact with firearm making materials, especially fulminate of mercury, sitting around their workshops, shaking hands etc. Suffice to say I was randomly selected at Canberra airport on the way home and given the once over with the bomb stick.

It went off, not big red lights and stuff but a little flashing message. The person looked a little stunned at first and I was pulled over to an office. I showed them my AG passes and explained what I had been doing in Canberra that day. They seemed fairly sceptical until I gave them the name of a senior officer in the department of defence who could verify who I was, the questioning stopped and they let me go after a quick search of everything. It was a quick interlude in what was going to be a fairly un-eventful day. They were polite and cheerful, but certainly focused on their job.

Re:Canada is expert in discrete international medd

[LordEd]

I said "tends", not doesn't.

You're talking about immigration laws, i'm talking about bombing/enforcing your way of life on countries.

Canada is currently in Afghanistan because it could be proven that the Taliban attacked the US. Canada is NOT in Iraq because there was no real proof of WMD.

TSA Searches

[Jerrie]

Travellin alone, with 1-way tickets to/from Portland, OR and Oakland, CA on numerous occasions, I never made it passed the inspection line. I questioned this once, and was told the bar code on my boarding pass was used by TSA to "capture" those randomly selected personnel. There's nothing random about it. They simply target certain people and/or groups. Travelling along, 1-way, no baggage, in a wheelchair, shoes that tie, etc., pretty much qualifies you as a "random" target. Personnaly, I think they should just search everyone, every time, and eliminate carry-on luggage. But, I suspect that's just too simple.

JC

Random my Ass

[aoism]

4 years ago I was flying with my parents from Dallas to Las Vegas and when we got into the boarding area, I couldn't hear the announcements to board. The woman announcing was speaking really low, or the speakers were messed up. In any case, I went up to ask her what the problem was and if she could repeat what she just said. She got an attitude with me and told me to sit down so I got an attitude right back and told her I couldnt hear a thing she was saying and she needs to speak up. When it finally came time to board the plane, I was "Randomly Selected" for a boarding inspection. I was 22 at the time, and I looked like any 22 year old white college student. I was inconvenienced for 10 minutes because the boarding pass woman didn't like me. All of these rules are just to make people FEEL safer, but they aren't accomplishing anything.

Badges on my Bag

[SnailNobra]

Back in 2000 I used to keep a single badge on my bag, the Green Barret "We kill for peace" badge. I was randomly selected to be searched 4 times at the same airport by the same people working the gates. One of the incidents was less than 5 minutes apart.

Dealing and destroying are not synonymous

[jotaeleemeese]

Thus you should not use them interchangeably.

If you think that Russia and China would allow you to "deal" with the situation in the way you are implying, you have nno understanding of geopolitical issues.

Re:Dealing and destroying are not synonymous

[maillemaker]

>If you think that Russia and China would allow you to "deal" with the situation
>in the way you are implying, you have nno understanding of geopolitical issues.

I was not attempting to debate the geopolitical realities that may or may not come into play. The issue I was debating is whether the physical ability exists or not.

Steve

Yeah sure.

[jotaeleemeese]

That worked wonders in Vietnam.

The actual criteria for "Random Selection"

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite a few posters got the first one right, but there a couple of more they missed

- Buy a one way ticket
- Book less than 48 hours before departure time
- Pay with cash

Any of the two will grant you a special greeting at the security checkpoint.

Travelling with an expired ID is also a sure fire way to get a full frisking (the checkin agent manually makes you a selectee). For those that missed the intent of the parenthesis, lets just say that should you decide to be rude to the ticket agent, they might make your day a little more difficult.

True, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Timothy McVeigh and the Unabomber were terrorists. But they didn't blow up airplanes. How about someone name ONE non-Muslim airplane hijacker who blew up a plane. Hijackers who demand transportation - and don't blow up the plane - do not count.

Timothy McVeigh and the Unabomber were assholes, no doubt. But they didn't blow up airplanes - they blew up government buildings and officials. This is why crazy white people are checked with dogs at courthouses...

What makes character?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Those words transcend race, religion and colour. We should not judge because a man reads the Koran any more than we should judge because he is Black.

Shouldn't knowing that someone reads a book like the Koran/Bible give us insight into said person's character?

Unfortunately - as we see with a gossip-driven-church-going-grandma, that's not the case... and thus we do indeed have another example of profiling not working.

From the parent...

[maillemaker]

>And turning the American military loose in Iraq would accomplish what exactly?

I didn't advocate that course of action. Perhaps you missed the parent I was responding to. The parent post said:

>The whole "fuck what everybody thinks, we'll keep ourselves secure through military
>force alone" mentality is based on the assumption that we have the physical ability to do so.
>The hard truth, however, is that that simply isn't the case...

The issue I was disputing was that we lack the physical ability to secure ourselves through military force alone. I believe we certainly do have the physical ability to do so. We just choose not to use it.

Steve

My most recent flight...

[EvilGoodGuy]

My most recent flight was shortly after 9/11 happened. UI was flying Savannah, to Atlanta. Then Atlanta to Newport News. Before getting on the plane in Savannah, I was randomly selected. Before getting on the plane in Atlanta I was randomly selected. Before getting out of the Newport News I was stopped and searched. The worst was I was flying standbye with dress shoes that were too small and no shoe horn, so each time I had to take my shoes off it took another 10 minutes to get my shoes back off. Needless to say, I was pretty pissed off, and now avoid flying if at all possible.

You have no grasp of morality or mathematics.

[jotaeleemeese]

The terrorists are killing a few thousends at most.

You are advocating mass murder of millions, most of whom don't agree with the tactics of a tiny minority of extremists.

Any sane person can see that in a moral balance it is not advisable to persue what I can only refer to as your "final solution" (I am chosing these words very carefuly to fully imply how I regards your portrayed "solution").

You are pretending to understand the Muslim world like if it was continuum and indivisible.

The Muslim world is a diverse set of countries encompasing many culutres and practices, from the permissive Turkey, where you can find scantly dressed women in magazines and nobody pays a second thought to that, to conservative wahabis in Saudi Arabia.

If you claim to understand Muslims, that would mean that you know about many different cultures and countries, which, given your previous comments, I very much doubt you do.

Thankfully neofascists like you will not attain power anytime sson, you are far too transparent for the general populace to allow you to raise again.

Effective at What?

[mengel]

I think you have to consider what the Real Goal of these searches is -- it is not to make airplanes safer, it is to make passengers feel safer, so they will still fly in airplanes.

Once you realize this, then the practice of profiling makes perfect sense -- you pull aside the people that you think the other passengers are nervous about, and you search them. The other passengers see "dangerous looking" people being checked, and they feel safer. And you pull aside a few other random folks just to make it look sort-of fair.

And for folks who have the Unabomber look, or the fundamentalist Muslim look, or who generally wear any sort of non-standard clothing, you pull them aside for the full body-cavity search etc. This trains people to clean themselves up and not look dangerous when they fly, which makes the public feel safer.

And of course, there is the other mechanism; you announce it is random, and you look for people who look nervous, and check them. I had a math professor in college who used to do this; he had a deck of 3x5 cards with everyone's name on it, and he would make a great show of shuffling the deck and picking someone to put each homework question on the board. Of course, he actually picked whoever was squirming in their chair, or otherwise looking nervous, thus training folks to do their homework.

That comment is completely descontextualized

[jotaeleemeese]

Most likely he is referring to Israel in a context where they are invading or occupying a piece of land.

Under that context, no negotiation at all is not as extreme as you want to make it appear (would you negotiate with a foreign invader killing your people in your own country?)

I am not condoning this organization, since they clearly are preapered to kill innocent people using the most tenous of justifications, but descontextualization is a dirty trick in the arsenal of people that want to dehumanize a party which they don't agree with.

These guys are mad, but their madness is targetted to a party that is clearly playing a part in creating a greivance.

Re:Appeasement = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

For now, once some suicide bomber or disaffected army officer takes him out (I've lost count of how many attempts there have been on his life) you've got a situation that will make all the crazyness in the world today seem like the good 'ol days.

News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters

[gravitypulls]

The better question to ask is: "What does this have to do with News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters?"

Not Random At All

[SavoWood]

I can attest to the fact that these tests are not at all random. Having flown all over the world with differing situations, it's clear these searches are done based on specific circumstances.

A few years ago, my girlfriend's mother died. She flew home immediately. The ticket was purchased, and she flew the next day. It was a one way ticket. She got searched.

A few days later, I flew down to attend the funeral and help with clearing out the house. My ticket was purchased, and I flew the next day. My ticket was round trip, but I had only carry-on bags. I got searched. Had the search been any more thorough, they should have bought me dinner first. At least they could have bought me flowers.

Another incident, my girlfriend and I flew to Atlanta for a friend's wedding. The trip down was fine. No search at all. On the way back, we upgraded our tickets to first class. We got a screening, but no search. This was good as it put us in a faster line. I guess that one was for a good purpose. Some people were there who were actually being screened for a reason. We were whisked through. It was actually kind of nice since there were no probes. The only thing was we got wanded. Not a big deal, but it did seem excessive since the standing magnetometer unit didn't buzz on us.

I just flew out to CA last week. The flight arrangements were made by our corporate travel office. Everything was done several weeks in advance. There was no search. Last Christmas, I flew out to Vail with my girlfriend. The arrangements were made several weeks in advance. There was no search. For my birthday last year, my girlfriend took me to Las Vegas. The tickets were purchased several weeks in advance. There was no search.

I'm not the only person I know who has had similar findings. I've talked to many other people with the same experiences.

Random? Hardly!

You guys are really ignorant.

[jotaeleemeese]

You truly believe this tripe that the US is an innocent party targetted for no reason whatsoever.

Your country has been meddling in the affairs of Middle Eastern nations for the best part of the XXth century. That was bound to cause a lot of unkind people predisposed against anything smelling USian.

Wake up and smell the coffe guys, you are ignoring all the actions taken in your name and behalf and then appearing all surprised when somebody else takes murderous issue with you.

You are spending insane amounts of money in a military industry that needs to be used, otherwise your economy would collapse.

You, as a country, are engaged in a spiral of death and self destruction because are making of death a national industry.

If anything you are lucky that so far you have gotten off so lightly. Lets hope it continues to be the case, but I wish you guys stopped your simplistic approach to things and would start thinking about the reasons for the current climate of fear we are all experiencing.

Re:You guys are really ignorant.

[Anonymous Coward]

You left out funding the terrorists by overconsuming oil.

Or do they select themselves?

[TemporalBeing]

I've been randomly selected once or twice - and I believe it was random. That's me though.

However, a friend of mine who use to work as a screener for the TSA told me that TSA has a lot of rules that are not suppose to be told to the public. For example, it's optional to take your shoes off to go through the metal detectors, though they advise that you do; but if you do not, then you are "randomly" selected because their rule is that if you do not, then you must be screened. There's others too, though that is the only one which I am familiar with off-hand. (I have not tested it, though I do trust my source on it.)

So, the question really is - were they truly "randomly" selected? Or did they break one of these rules and select themselves by doing so?

Mossad

[Anonymous Coward]

The Mossad incident was most certainly a terrorist attack - against a civilian, to boot, and by a state-sponsored terrorist organ.

You've got to be kidding me

[cascadingstylesheet]

Convert dark-skin into white - benoquin is a permanent and highly effective permanent skin bleacher.
Convert black irises into blue eyes - blue contact lenses
Convert black hair into blonde - peroxide - "blonde in a bottle"
Convert man into woman - a thin man can easily pass for a woman with make-up, depillatory, strategic duct taping and a pair of $100 silicone bra fillers (no surgery needed for any of that).
Fake-ID - steal one from a christian woman with a strong physical resemblence, hell you don't even have to steal it, just "steal her identity" and make a duplicate ID.

Buying a round-trip ticket versus one-way is trivial.
As is flying out of Sweden rather than Saudi Arabia.
Anything you can come up with to base your profiling on can be used to work the system. All it takes is to figure out what the profiling rules are. Then all you are left with a big false sense of security.

Oh come on. No form of screening is perfect. It's "trivial" to overcome swipe card systems too, but guess what, people use 'em, and they aren't stupid to do so.

Yes, hoops can be jumped through, but security does in fact consist of requiring you to jump through more of them. Because in real life, people aren't supervillians who can effortlessley jump through endless hoops without ever tripping.

Re:You've got to be kidding me

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Oh come on. No form of screening is perfect. It's "trivial" to overcome swipe card systems too, but guess what, people use 'em, and they aren't stupid to do so.

Oh come on. You can't seriously be comparing airport security to a swipe-card system.

Because in real life, people aren't supervillians who can effortlessley jump through endless hoops without ever tripping.

Yeah, what kind of fool thinks a handful of men could chop down the world trade center with little more than the edge of their hands.

Two wrongs ....

[jotaeleemeese]

... etc.

My father travels and when he cuts his hair...

[Anonymous Coward]

he got *a lot* less "randomly" searched.
We have a little bit of indian (feather, not dot) so our skin is a little darker and we have black hair. He had long hair and would got searched on almost every trip. Now that he went bald he never gets searched anymore.

Random my ass.

Re:In a word, no. Arguably the opposite.

[Sassinak]

Bingo..

*Clap* *Clap*.

Words I have quite often said.. All this activity is to show people that something (anything) is being done, when in fact the actual ability to do something is extremely limited.

Re:simple solution: get a frequent flyer number

[Sassinak]

You actually believe that?

Not to call rank here, but currently, I'm elite/platinum on 6 airlines, gold of about 5 others, and silver on 2 more. And I believe in my previous post on this topic, I mentioned that as I spend about 28 days out of 30 on a airplane. and I get about 28 "random" searches.

Oh yes, having a frequent flyer number will most certainly NOT prevent this. (at least in my case).

I have joked many times that there are no frequent flyer terrorists. (show me a bomber with gold status, and I will shut up) But apparently, this little nugget of truth seems to escape the TSA.

I guess something must be working ...

[cascadingstylesheet]

...because they've been trying for five freakin' years to repeat 9/11, and they haven't been able to do it. And despite their (according to slashdot) supervillian powers, many have been caught.

But I suppose that just means they were never a threat, right? Like Y2K was just a hoax and we didn't need to rewrite a single line of code ...

Re:No liquids and no jelly substances allowed on p

[Sassinak]

Based on container size and shape, the likely hood said item would contain liquid of gel is high enough to warrent a frisk of the bag.

Having gone through the airport with some Citricel (no jokes please), and it getting pulled EVERY time (recently because of the no liquids/gel foolishness). Its a container about the size of a thermost. However, if you change the shape.. ie: square. It goes through.. go figure.

Secure, you bet.

Because it is a war crime.

[jotaeleemeese]

Civilians killed by civilized countries are usually unintended targets.

The Israeli guerrillas....

[jotaeleemeese]

.... that fought the British were described as terrorists (we are talking first half 20th century here).

They went to become respected statesmen...

How good of you guys!

[jotaeleemeese]

30 years without targetting civilians.

Now that is progress. I will let the families of the thousend of dead Iraquis know about your kindness.

Re:How good of you guys!

[ArcherB]

30 years without targetting civilians.

Now that is progress. I will let the families of the thousend of dead Iraquis know about your kindness.

I agree that the death of innocents sucks. However, these innocents were not the target, and that is the key. There is a difference between targeting a valid military target that is stationed in a civilian area and intentionally targeting a civilian target with no military value other than terror. A good example would be Iraq during the first gulf war. Iraq sent missiles into civilian areas with no intention of striking a military target, but to try cause as many civilian casualties as possible. Hamas did the same recently. This is different that striking at military target that is in a civilian area, such as when the enemy sets up shop next to an apartment complex or a school. Yes, civilians will probably die, and it is very unfortunate, but they were not the intended target. The only other option would be to not strike at targets where civies may be, at which point the enemy will simply perform all of their operations from civilian populated areas with complete immunity.

Again, the point I was making was that the US (and other civilized countries) does not target civiians, unlike her enemies which wants as many dead as possible.

Finally, you can save your apologies. The US has already sincerely apologized to the casualties' families, which is more than Iraq or Hamas will ever do.

If only I still had mod points!

[Spaceman40]

You, sir, get a gold star.

Exchange Students

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, let me tell you about random. I deal with exchange students and when 60 students arrived to US from Syria all of them were "randomly selected" for additional screening.

Re:Appeasement = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Not having our great and fearless leader tell the terrorists to "bring it on" would be a start.

Shining Path

[jotaeleemeese]

It was the more feared Communist Guerilla in the Western Hemisphere.

You should easily find references to them using any search engine.

You Have Been 'Randomly' Selected?

[badtony]

Fly naked - What have you got to hide?

Not remotely random, IMHO.

[Phreakiture]

On a round trip from Albany, NY to Tulsa, OK in 2002, I was "randomly" selected five times out of six opportunities (there were two layovers each way).

As for appearances, I was 31 at the time. I am a white male, a bit on the short side at 164cm (5'4"), slightly pudgy at 68kg (150 lb), and I have a short and moderately conservative haircut. I was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt going south, and windbreakers and a T-shirt going north. In short, I looked "average".

I do effect a slight Toronto accent, but that would not have been noticed by anyone prior to my selection, as I had not been speaking to anyone official up to that point. For that matter, I tend to pick up a bit of a twang when I visit my family in Tulsa (or when they visit me), so I'd probably stick out even less.

Between one out of three and one out of five passengers were selected at each airport, meaning that, at most, I should have been selected twice for it not to be a statistical anomoly. Three is pushing it. Five is a pretty damned serious outlier.

Now, I wish I knew, seriously, what it was that caused them to choose me. I suppose it is possible that a ticket clerk near the start of the process might have tagged me at check-in; who knows? I don't remember at this point in time whether or not they examined my boarding pass before "randomly" choosing me.

17 member cell / 3 ton bomb plots don't count?

[cold fjord]

Canada

Well.... technically it was still just a plot, not yet an attack, since the 17 were arrested by RCMP before they could carry it out.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Assistant Commissioner Mike McDonell:

The group was "planning to commit a series of terrorist attacks against solely Canadian targets in southern Ontario,"

"This group took steps to acquire three tons of ammonium nitrate and other components necessary to create explosive devices," he said.

"To put this in context, the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people took one ton of ammonium nitrate."

. ... "This group posed a real and serious threat," McDonell said. "It had the capacity and intent to carry out these attacks."

They just had it planned, and were buying the three tons of bomb making material to add to their radio controlled detonator, firearms, etc. And, of course, they had international links leading to at least 18 other arrests around the world at the same time.

The Canadians expect more incidents and actual attacks.

This happened only 3 months ago, and already people have forgotten?

Sure Way To Be Victim of Random Search

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't check your baggage and you are guaranteed to have the full "random" search done. Every time I fly I get flagged for a random search and I am a late 20s athletic caucasian male. When I check my baggage I don't get searched. It's as simple as that. The funny thing is if I was going to blow up a plane I don't think I would care if my luggage was in the baggage bay or in my overhead compartment. In fact, why bring any luggage at all.

In addition they may be invoking profiling. As bad as it may seem, profiling has a much higher rate of success than random searches.

Re:simple solution: get a frequent flyer number

[gemtech]

sorry about your luck. On my sample of one (me), it works for me. But that's not a very good experiment.

Yes, you are correct

[maillemaker]

>That's not a problem, that's a feature. "Turning them loose" to deal with Iraq would
>lead directly to the elimination of practically all life on Earth once the first nuclear
>weapon was used. I'd rather have us "lose" than throw 4.5 billion years of evolution down the drain.

You are correct - it was poor wording on my part. Indeed, it is this feature that gives me hope for humanity.

Really, Korea was probably one of the last wars the US was involved in without a non-propaganda-based media portrayal. Since Vietnam, warmaking has been under intense scrutiny, and people don't like what they see. Today, reporting on war is virtually instantaneous.

During the American Civil War and before, you could lose tens of thousands of people in a single day of fighting. Today such losses would never be tolerated by the home front - we get upset over a thousand over a few years.

Perhaps when faced with the instantaneous reality of war humanity in general can't stomach it. Unless it immobilizes us when war is actually required, maybe that is a good thing.

Steve

Re:Canada is expert in discrete international medd

[toonworld]

Proof is a term that should be used very loosely when referring to 9/11. There are a whole bunch of conspiracy theories out there some with very revealing facts. I would invite you to watch the Loose change video http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=78669294481 92753501&q=loose+change

I found it very odd that they found the one responsible for the attack in less than 48 hrs after the towers fell. Wouldn't investigations like this take weeks if not months?

Not random

[Hankenstein]

Just to add to the personal stories of non-randomness. I had a 1 way ticket to the U.A.E. purchased by the Emirates government, when I got there they would buy me a round trip ticket originating in Abu Dhabi which, for them, was much cheaper than a round trip originating in the U.S.

      Single male, traveling on a 1 way ticket, to a middle eastern country, purchased buy a foreign government. Perhaps I justified a profiled search but if it quacks like a duck, lets call it a duck.

An even better question...

[aminorex]

Do searches and other violations of human rights and dignity increase or decrease the conditioning of the population to tolerate conditions of inhumane degradation?

Better cross Denmark off that list!

[Ratface]

http://www.forbes.com/technology/feeds/ap/2006/09/ 05/ap2993239.html

9 terror suspects arrested today.

Re:Better cross Denmark off that list!

[empaler]

The way it is being reported in the Danish press is that the police have blown the case out of proportion; only two of the seven men were held by a judge at the first hearing.

BUT I'll keep an eye on it.

random != sampled from a uniform distribution

[Anonymous Coward]

You can randomly sample from a non-uniform distribution. This is basis of Monte Carlo simulation. Let's say started out with a uniform distribution for selection in one dimension, then you add another dimension and impose a non-uniform probability distribution (e.g. we shall sample 10x frequently those who travel with no checked luggage); then add another dimension for passport country (1x US, 10x Europe, 15x SE Asia, 20x middle East), another for time ticket was purchased, another for ticket purchase portal --- now fling a number for each traveller into the points of this N-dimensional space and pick a number between zero and one -- if the number is greater than the probability product of all the different risk factors then the subject is "randomly selected for search".

It Doesn't Matter

[Anonymous Coward]

but it makes me wonder how realistic it is to expect a camouflage bag to more of a risk than some other bag.

it doesn't matter. this whole "scene" is 9 parts cya (cover yo *ss) and security.

if someone carries on a camo bag and it blows... can you imagine the headlines?

if an arab blows a plain... can you imagine the headlines?

if grandma blows a plane, that's all good to the powers that be b/c they know they'll get a pass. after all, who da thunk it?

security isn't the proime goal here.freedom isn't the main goal here.

rather, bush's marketers want to make sure that any fallout from an attack can be "spun" to protect bush's image.

you think i'm too cynical? i might not be cynical enough!

But it does lead...

[maillemaker]

...to them being the last one. :)

J/K

Steve

Re: Terrorist Groups

[djSpinMonkey]

...FARC...

Come on, just because they rejected your "Boobies" submission doesn't make them terrorists.

Vehicle Searches

[Pchelka]

When I worked at NASA Goddard in Maryland, my car got searched at the gate a lot. I moved to Maryland from northern Minnesota, so my car has an engine block heater and an electrical cord hanging out near one of the headlights. Almost every single time I went up to the gate, the guard would make some comment about the cord, even if I didn't get searched. There was even one week where my car got searched every single day.

Apparently having an engine block heater and an electrical cord hanging out of the front of your car is suspicious. I thought about having the engine block heater taken out, but I was worried about the mechanics in Maryland not doing it properly since they probably didn't see a lot of engine block heaters. The plug end of the cord didn't completely go up inside the car, and I would have needed to take out the headlights to fix the cord so it wouldn't hang. I suppose it wouldn't have been that much trouble to do that, but I never got around to it.

I should have told the guards at NASA some wacky story about driving a special electric test vehicle that used a prototype engine for the next lunar rover, and having to plug in the car to recharge the battery. Some of the guards might have had an easier time believing that made-up excuse than the truth about why people in Minnesota need engine block heaters.

Re:Vehicle Searches

[WebCrapper]

I'm seriously considering a Carputer with a decent wifi antenna. I can't even imagine whats going to go through their minds when they see a directional antenna mounted up underneath the rear of the car (I always back into my spot at home) with wires coming out of it.

I'd do it just for the hell of it to see what happens the first time, but I'm almost afraid of the bill they'll hand me for shutting down the gate and calling the bomb squad. People that don't understand what it is can cause all kinds of problems.

targetting civilians

[fantomas]

"I think the OP just meant other groups, IRA, McVeigh, etc., fit the traditional definition of terrorism, in that they use terror tactics to scare civilians/government by targeting govt/military targets. Civilians, however, are not the (intended) target of the violence

Sorry, but I'd say you are wrong. (Terror/radical/choose your expression) groups have targetted civilians before (and I'd question your implicit suggestion that the children who died in the Oklahoma City bombing were legitimate targets). This is nothing new. Here are some examples. I'm sure there are other examples and other groups, these are just ones that came to hand quickly because I remembered them from the news.

The Arndale shopping centre, Manchester 1996
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/j une/15/newsid_2527000/2527009.stm
http://youtube.com/watch?v=K-aKcU7c4pc&mode=relate d&search=

Bishopgate bomb, 1993
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishopsgate

Docklands, London, 1996
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/f ebruary/10/newsid_2539000/2539265.stm

Omagh Bombing, 1998
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omagh_bombing

Your thoughts?

Re:targetting civilians

[enharmonix]

and I'd question your implicit suggestion that the children who died in the Oklahoma City bombing were legitimate targets

What the hell is wrong with you? Who said anything about any of these attacks being legitimate?

Re: One Way Segments

[Darlantan]

You...do know that "that crocodile dude" (assuming you mean Steve Irwin and not Crocodile Dundee) was killed by a stingray about a day ago, right?

Insensitive clod.

Random?

[ImEric12]

I love the reason I'm selected out at the airport. They don't even bother to call it random. My name, Eric Thompson, is too common. Clearly, this indicates I'm a terrorist. I get stopped before getting a boarding pass, patted down at security, and stopped again before I get on the plane. All of this while travelling with my mother and sister. Last time I flew, the security officials told me how to avoid this screening. Simply add my middle initial to my boarding pass. Because everyone knows, terrorist aliases don't use middle names. EVER.

They told me it was VIP status?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bought a ticket day before I flew to a funeral and got the wonderful front of the line for security check service with the added patt down and search of my belongings...

Re:Appeasement = wrongheadedness gone wild

[Anonymous Coward]

Only 3 of 5 stars for the half-hearted Troll.

You even used his NAME to try and get him to rise.

Random isn't always what you think

[slapout]

Look at the stats for how often Heads appear in a row when your flipping a coin. You'll probably be surprised.

Of *course* they're lying

[billstewart]

Sure, there's probably some random component to their process, like whether they decide they don't like your face or your attitude, but fundamentally the TSA has always been dishonest, and the policies have always been designed so that the person who's enforcing them on you can pretend that it's somebody else's responsibility, and to claim that things that are totally unConstitutional are either "random" or "have always been the policy" or are mandated in some policy that you're not allowed to see.

Random searches too lax in Australia?

[Katnap_Devikat]

Personally i travel once or twice a year, and for the past two years have been searched everytime i go through the damn security checkpoint. What scares me more is one time i had two kilos of sherbet in my carry on, and the guard doing the inspection didin't even bother looking at it, so if you want to sumuggle cocaine into australia, you just have to get past security in YOUR country.

Re:Appeasement = wrongheadedness gone wild

[ixmo]

> Then what do you suggest the US did wrong before that
> Tuesday in September?

Uh.. nothing of course:

* Training and supporting Usama Bin Laden in his guerilla against the Russians in Afghanistan
* Blocking all Pro-Palestine resolutions in the UN Security Council
* Supporting Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war (selling weapons)
* First supporting, then dropping Shi'ite and Kurdish groups during/after the Gulf War, allowing Saddam Hussein to prosecute and massacre Shi'ites

Want more?
Get a decent history text book.

Different Issue

[virg_mattes]

I didn't present my examples to justify the bombings, I presented them to invalidate his conclusion. I agree that nuclear attacks are horrific, but I refuted that they fit the definition of "largest ever terrorist attack in human history" as he presented it.

Virg

The problem of bullies

[Anonymous Coward]

"What we need to do is come to the realization that the ONLY way to make technically fragile public transit work is to promote an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us, instead of trying to prevent the few who do from being able to."

Sounds like we have a situation where we have an unsolveable problem. I'm not saying the US couldn't be better in it's foreign policy. But the truth is, even if the US had done many things differently over the past 30 years, there would always be someone who would attack us. Why? The bully problem. There are some people in this world who will bully other people, just because they can. If they think they can manipulate the US through terrorism or threats of terrorism, they will.

    Yes, I can hear it now, some people will say that the US is the bully. Maybe it is, I'm not here to discuss the perfection, or glaring lack thereof, of US policy. The US is, certainly, not the only bully in the world, and the parent proposes that we need to satisfy every single group of individual that might now or ever decide they want to engage in terrorism. This is an impossible suggestion.

    If the US needs to change its foreign policy, that is because the foreign policy is bad, not because it will give us safety from terrorists. We should strive to do what is right, because it is the right thing to do, not to try to buy temporary peace. You will never get peace by appeasement. Never. Although, you may have *fewer* people who want to attack you, there will always be someone.

I've been 'randomly' selected but

[maxrate]

I have - but same with one of the other guys I was travelling with. I was surpised that they randomly picked two of us (out of the whole plane). I was in a group of 4. I keep a light beard - i think that was it.

The search wasn't too bad, and the security guy was being really cool about it. Kinda embarrasing as you are pulled to the side of the line, in a booth (glass walls - what's the point?) and people see you going thru the bullshit. The good old dell laptop had it's ass inspected (x-ray/swab). If you have a real nice notebook, don't bring it on the plane. I would love to have stuff that looks questionable in my pocket just to see how they handle the situation (legit drugs that look shady, stuff like that). Probably more trouble than it's worth subjecting myself to.

Re: What I don't get

[Maxo-Texas]

Is why FEDEX or UPS doesn't set up an envelope station RIGHT there.

If an item is going to be confiscated, you fill out the envelope, drop the item in it and then drop that into a fedex pickup box.

Problem solved.

My own post-9/11 travel experiences....

[Ritchie70]

I was in Orange County, CA for work. Round-trip ticket had been purchased maybe a week in advance. I got done early and wanted to get home, so I got on an earlier flight. Boarding pass had a bunch of printed SSSS on it. I got patted down and my carry-on searched. (I didn't have any checked luggage.)

I flew from Chicago O'Hare to Fargo, ND November or December of last year with a couple coworkers. We all made our own travel reservations, but there's only so many flights from Chicago to Fargo, so we were all on the same plane. One of us got his bag thoroughly searched (on the trip back, I think) but it was full of electronics and gagetry and probably looked crazy on the X-Ray machine. The other one got there and found a package of utility knife blades in his coat pocket. They had passed thru security completely undetected.

I think he probably threw them away before the return trip, or put them in his checked bag - no sense tempting fate.

A couple of my post-9/11 travel experiences.

[Ritchie70]

I was in Orange County, CA for work. Round-trip ticket had been purchased maybe a week in advance. I got done early and wanted to get home, so I got on an earlier flight. Boarding pass had a bunch of printed SSSS on it. I got patted down and my carry-on searched. (I didn't have any checked luggage.)

I flew from Chicago O'Hare to Fargo, ND November or December of last year with a couple coworkers. We all made our own travel reservations, but there's only so many flights from Chicago to Fargo, so we were all on the same plane. One of us got his bag thoroughly searched (on the trip back, I think) but it was full of electronics and gagetry and probably looked crazy on the X-Ray machine. The other one got there and found a package of utility knife blades in his coat pocket. They had passed thru security completely undetected.

Re: One Way Segments

[zettabyte]

Way late on the answer here, but yes, I did know that. And yes, I was being insensitive.

The point was why the hell did that guy have, in my opinion, a death wish, while taking a wife and fathering a child? There's plenty of footage to be had of Sting Rays, Crocs, Vipers, and from reasonable distances. There's no reason to go crawling into a den of rattlers, other than for his own morbid reasons, despite his proclaimed reasons.

Besides, who was more insensitive, me making a bad joke or him flirting with death (and managing to land a date), while leaving a widow and child behind? I'm sure his kid will be very proud of his Daddy this Christmas. Irwin is the insensitive clod. I'm just bad with humor.

Re: One Way Segments

[zettabyte]

We Americans had a guy like Irwin. His name was Timothy Treadwell. He, too, was killed while filming himself (he was hanging out with Grizzly Bears). He got his girlfriend killed, too.

He was quasi-famous. Not like Irwin, though. Treadwell shot some amazing footage, but nothing worth his life, IMHO. Irwin's footage wasn't worth his life either.

this is a dead end

[Anonymous Coward]

hey guys as i was in transit into the stats i didn't comment at the time, but searches are not going to stop any thing they are just going to make them use more outlandish methords. You think the enemy lies without, no it lies with in your own goverment ! Stop them from killing inosents and just looking after there own intrests and they you may be free.

usa creates torroits !

Re:Statistics 101

[Herby Sagues]

Some issues with your numbers: The odds of a single person being subject to some kind of search on any single opportunity are not one in a hundred, they are, based on my observations (and I do international flights about twice a month, local flights even more often, over about twenty countries but half of it in the states, so I know what I'm saying), closer to one in five. Second, you forgot to multiply your number by the number of total events. So the odds that a single person is searched ten times in a row would be close to one in ten millions. There are approximately one billion plane passengers each year, so if you multiply the odds for each passenger by the number of passengers in a few years you would have thousands of them subject to apparent profiling but in reality being victims of math. I'm not saying there's no profiling. I'm saying there's no indication of profiling from the fact that a few subjects claim they've been searched more often than it would seem reasonable. PS: I passed my two statistic courses in the university with perfect scores, thank you.

Re:Statistics 101

[arth1]

Some issues with your numbers: The odds of a single person being subject to some kind of search on any single opportunity are not one in a hundred, they are, based on my observations (and I do international flights about twice a month, local flights even more often, over about twenty countries but half of it in the states, so I know what I'm saying), closer to one in five.

I commented on the maths, not the numbers which went into the maths, which weren't provided by me, but the GP. (Which incidentally is you. So you're basically complaining that I used the numbers you provided.)

Second, you forgot to multiply your number by the number of total events.

No, I didn't. That's the 10 in the formula.

To break it down (going with the GP's assumption of 1/100 chance for any one person to be picked out for a spot check on a flight):

N = number of people flying
R = chance of being picked out for a single flight
F = number of flights
N*R^N = chance of a person being picked out for all consecutive flights

Insert the values N=1000000, R=1/100 and F=10, and you get what I wrote:

1000000*(1/100)^10

If, as you now say, the risk is probably closer to 1/5 than 1/100, you're still wrong.
1000000*(1/5)^10 is about 0.1, which is far from your claim that "basic statistics will tell you that the odds [...] are close to 100%". What you originally wrote was a lie (presumably because you don't understand "basic statistics" yourself), and even after revising your numbers, it's nowhere near your claim. I hope someone with mod points reads this, and adjusts your karma accordingly.

Regards,
--
*Art

Brute Force

[Anonymous Coward]

If brute force isn't working, you're not using enough of it

what was the plane-to-WTC statistic?

[Imazalil]

The huge problem with statistics and profiling is that it only works for repeat offenders. The main reason that the 9/11 attack worked is that no one expected that (not getting into the fbi middle management ignoring warnings of this thing) to happen. Can it happen again, not likely, but we are just reacting to a new possibility. Chances are that the next attack won't involve planes flying into buildings but something completely different, say blowing up the alaska oil pipeline, poisoning water supplies, blowing up flood levies, mining school playing grounds, melting polar ice caps, you name it humans are very weak and breakable, there is no end to the way that we can be killed. There are a few things that we can do to safeguard ourselves, but overall we are f**cked until we know what the threat is and how to put measures in to prevent it.

On a different note: I hope the next terrorist plane attack involves an elderly white woman bludgeoning someone to death with her carry on luggage bag while her 2 year old child is biting the leg of the air marshall. Then no one is safe, and hopefully people will see how silly some of the regulations are. Nail clippers are not a terrorist tool!

Not For Lack Of Trying

[Anonymous Coward]

From the news three months ago:

Plot began in chat room

"Meddling" not a root cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides the fact that Canada is not immune from Islamist terrorism, the idea of this kind of attack being a response to a legitimate grievance of any kind or a root cause that can be mitigated by any kind of appeasement is easily refuted by looking at the terrorist attacks in Jordan or Islamic bloc sanctions against Denmark costing 134 million euros in five months.