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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?"
There's two seperate questions here:
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:
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:
There's already a dark cloud gathering. The question is how dark can it get?
Simon.
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.
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.
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?!?!
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
My point is, I expect it. But random? Yeah, right.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
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.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
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?
My website
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.
this is the most important sig ever! In your face 446154!
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!
It's a girl!
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.
No sig
That's odd. Where's a naked guy going to hide explosives?
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.
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...
Ubuntu Music Project: OSS for music tech geeks
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.
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.)
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.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
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?
That's odd. Where's a naked guy going to hide explosives?
Do you really want to know that?
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
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.
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!
Now THAT would be an awesome addition to the Slashdot moderation system!
I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
It can, however, be a valid cultural tag. A very, very simplistic one & not a guarantee, but...
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?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
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.
>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?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
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.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
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
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
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?
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
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.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Airport security is to make rich white people feel better more than actually accomplish anything. Although things have changed recently, here's his bit:
9 5305999109
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-91328834
"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.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
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.
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.
---------
No matter how thin you slice it, its still baloney.
I got randomly selected 5 times in one trip.
- >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.
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
Shadus
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.
Hero Hog AKA: Speedy, Dr. Speed 01000111011001010110010101101011
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.
Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect
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.
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.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
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!
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
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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...
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).
like a man without arms, you can't hang......
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.
--Not to be worried, Pitr fix.
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....
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.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
>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
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
"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?
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.
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.
Task Mangler
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.
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
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.
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board -- Mark Twain Look for http://Thebar.steelbeachca