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Fewer Than 1% Arrested From TSA's "Behavior Detection"
An anonymous reader writes "Fewer than 1% of airline passengers singled out at airports using the much vaunted 'suspicious behavior detection' techniques are arrested, Transportation Security Administration figures show. The TSA program, launched in early 2006, looks for terrorists using a controversial surveillance method based on behavior detection and has led to more than 160,000 people in airports receiving scrutiny, such as a pat-down search or a brief interview. It has resulted in only 1,266 arrests, often on charges of carrying drugs or fake IDs, the TSA said. The TSA has not publicly said whether it has caught a terrorist through the program." In related news, the odds of sanity coming to the TSA plummeted today when Schneier said he's not interested in the top job there.
Not all flying things are ducks.
If you were convinced that you were morally right and upholding 'God's Law' would you really act suspiciously? Those who act suspicious know what they are doing is wrong.
Terrorism is a different animal all together from faking IDs and drug carrying.
TSA considers praying towards mecca 'suspicious behaviour'
If you read TFA you'll see how onerous the vetting process has become for *any* potential appointee (or any Federal employee for that matter). It's no wonder Schneier isn't interested. However, I see this as a positive thing. Since the vetting process is getting even more microscopic in examining applicants there soon won't be ANYBODY in the country who will be able to pass muster. The end result will be a natural shrinking of the Federal government due to a lack of "qualified" (read "sterile") applicants. Us Libertarians may win by default!
How does that figure compare to random searches? Without that figure for comparison it's completely pointless saying "OMGZ TSA FAIL" because nobody ever claimed that everyone stopped would be arrested. If it gets higher arrests than random searches what's the problem?
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
You're right! We should extend this outside of airports, so that any jumped up minimum wage gomer with a tin badge can stop anyone they like, declare Facecrime, and use that as probable cause for an invasive search up to and including internal! I'm sure that the 99% of innocents who get Probed would also agree that the payoff is worth it, whatever the cost!
Let's start with you, shall we?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The TSA has not publicly said whether it has caught a terrorist through the program
Of course not - That would presume the TSA (and DHS in general) actually has the goal of stopping terrorists.
Don't make the mistake of taking their name and stated goals literally. The DHS exists solely for the purpose of keeping the US populace in fear, making us easier to control and more tolerant of increasingly draconian laws relating to "security". For proof, you need look no further than how well FEMA (once an actually useful agency) has handled various disasters since they got sucked into the DHS... Or for that matter, the TSA's record at catching weapons carried by various reporters.
The second amendment grows increasingly relevant to our society every day... And not for protection from dark-skinned foreigners, but the real "terrorists" running our country and our world.
150k+ more people were wrongly harassed for those 1.2k arrests. Doesn't sound so good when you look at all the numebers involved.
What's getting to me is that the OP/TFA/Overlord thinks that 1% is too low and that perhaps a greater percentage of airline passengers need to be arrested. This only shows that not everyone at an airport is a terrorist and that we can be more trusting of others we are traveling with.
There, it got me.
Always proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
Arrested != convicted. Oooh - someone smuggling drugs. Big national security risk there.
If this were a medical test, it would have been tossed out well before implementation based on both the false positive rate and the admission of questionable sensitivity.
You don't know how well a detector works unless you know how many cases it failed to detect a true positive (what's called a false negative in the biz). Let's say if you searched everyone in line you'd arrest 0.2% of them for some suspected crime. In that case, the 1200 in 600k means your detector is worthless. It works no better than a random sample.
Most of us want to catch people doing illegal things. Fewer and fewer of us want to prevent a police state that asks people for their papers at every turn, and performs strip searches because they smiled at the camera a little funny.
It may not be very effective, but it's way more politically correct than their old arrest strategy, "if he's brown, take him down"
1.2K arrest for 160K control.
How many would have been arrested if 160K person had been randomly controlled instead of using that technology ?
Also how many of those person with fake id would have been catched later-on at passport control ?
Police Officer are already very good at behavior detection. Can this system be replaced by simply adding more cops in critical area ?
I'm betting if the police just randomly grabed people off the street and subjected them to everything up to cavity searches more than 1% would be found to be carrying drugs,knives longer than the legal length, fake ID's or be found to be violating some other pisant little law.
Hell if a police officers followed any random person for a single day as they went about their blameless buisness there's close to a 100% chancethat person could be caught commiting enough "crimes" to put them away for life.
It boils down to the fact that if a law enforcement official doesn't like your face he can find some ancient law you've been violating and put you away.
160.000 people were frisked and only 1.266 were found posses something they shouldn't*. That's a hit ratio of fewer than 1%.
According to Wikipedia, by the beginning of 2008, more than 1 in 100 Americans were incarcerated, so that's more than 1% "hit ratio" if you simply searched every American for illegal drugs, fake IDs or similar. Still a decent tradeoff?
*I don't see how a person carrying pot can bring down a plane, but apprently it's already possible with nail scissors, so who knows.
I still don't understand why drugs are illegal? Regulated yes, like alcohol, but why illegal? If I want to kill myself with cocaine that's MY business and none of yours. My body; my choice. (Same argument used to justify abortion.)
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
How many people that get pulled out of the metal detector line actually get arrested? Its the same basic idea as this system, see a sensor reading that potentially represents something harmful, pull them out of line, check to see what's going on, keep going.
"Most of us want to catch people doing illegal things."
I can almost garantee that you commit many jailable offences each and every day without even knowing. There are so many catch-all rules, stupid laws and laws which forbid things they're not intended to forbid.
Not sure why people have problems being searched at airports. I mean... you have nothing to hide, right? So just go through the process, stop your whining and moaning and move on.
well said - you're exactly right, this is nothing more than another excuse to let the "control freaks" run wild in they're own little pathetic control domain.
It does nothing for the security of the people and everything for destruction of common sense!
Makes me sick as hell - we see this everyday!!
I really kinda hope I'll wake up one day and they'll be some kind of test to never let these kinda of people be in a position of power - I think that is the ultimate solution to the so called "terrorist problem", shame the current system which had no say in, still lets them get into power :P
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to the lazy.
Is this what your father used to do?
She made the willows dance
I still don't understand why drugs are illegal? Regulated yes, like alcohol, but why illegal? If I want to kill myself with cocaine that's MY business and none of yours. My body; my choice. (Same argument used to justify abortion.)
Because you're too stupid to make your own decisions. Your comment re abortion confirms it.
lets all judge an entire religion or group based on it's worst examples.
So:
Looking at the Christians:
All catholics are pedophiles who's homes should be searched for child porn.
All catholics believe that young women who get pregnant outside of wedlock should be confined to church run institutions, beaten and abused.
All Christians like to burn witches.
Looking at Atheists:
They're all massively arrogant jackasses like Dawkins.
Looking at Americans:
They all talk with a thick southern accent, spit all the time and distill whiskey out in the swamp.
Muslims:
What you said.
How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well, certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
If you kill someone in a drunken rage or kill someone drunk driving is that the barmans fault or your own since you chose to drink?
It's your fault no matter what you're on.
The drugs are not killing your victim, you are and it's your fault if you chose to take the drugs.
So no, this is an entirely invalid point.
In a similar vein, one of Antioch's Finest, using the latest in citizen profiling technology, (Dirty Hippie on a bicycle) was able to interdict me whilst I was smuggling a doobie down towards the river. Kinda makes you proud to be an American, eh?
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
This is just another case of statistics being used to try to manipulate the story. Saying that this detection method only managed about a 1% arrest rate is meaningless unless we also know what the arrest rate was with previous / other methods. If other methods were only achieving 0.1% then this is fantastic improvement.
On a more personal note though I think any technique that can only manage a 1% success rate probably needs scrapping. There are obviously far to many false positives for the system to be trusted and of course you can't count the number of false negatives. The fact that it was specifically brought into catch terrorists and it would seem it hasn't succeeded speaks even worse of it (I imagine if they had caught a terrorist they would be shouting it from the roof tops).
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
According to who exactly?
The summary used a lot of words to say it doesn't work. Not that they'll stop using it unless they are made to. Honestly, all this 'using a Buick to swat a fly nonsense has to end sometime.
The thing is, if you know your entering a country that starts off on the assumption your probably a terrorist, that doesn't make people relax.
Personally I find airports immensely stressful, seriously so, to the point that I take the train if at all possible. Flying is bearable, but all that waiting around in the airport buying overpriced coffee and getting 'approved as terror free' is a deeply unpleasant experience.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
99% of people flag by detector, innocent, harassed.
That's what the title should read.
Hell if a police officers followed any random person for a single day as they went about their blameless buisness there's close to a 100% chance that person could be caught commiting enough "crimes" to put them away for life
Away for life? Sheesh! Where do you live and remind me to never go there.
Most of the witch burning were carried out by civil courts not religious ones. In spain, paradoxically, inquisition acted to prevent witch burning (well most of the time).
So you think performing questionable searches of 160 000 people at the airport is perfectly fine? And arresting people for infractions not related to the search based on the results? I hope not many people share your views. That kind of reasoning ends up with some very depressing scenarios very fast.
If you'd pulled over 160 000 cars and searched them on the highway on "suspicions of terrorism" you'd probably get 1200 arrests for various minor infractions as well. Or if you searched 160 000 houses, or random people on the street....
With a accuracy of less than 1% for any crime it obviously doesn't work. It can't be that much better than a random search.
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see at the turn of the century, 19th turning into the 20th that is, all this stuff was legal. then some uptight women got really upset that their husbands came home drunk/doped up every night so we got these laws pushed though congress and even an amendment to the constitution! since then the war on our personal freedoms (well maybe even a bit before) has been widening in scope. remember to thank your (great)grand mother!
oversimplified but close enough for government work
Picking out 160.000 people at random, or based on a border guard's hunch would likely have gotten as many hits.
Sounds like a waste of money to me.
McCarthyism resulted in less than 1% of the citizens of Hollywood being blacklisted from the movie industry (on hearsay and specious evidence). So that was OK, then?
Numbers don't matter. Justice matters. What ever happened to "probable cause?"
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
I'd bet if you picked 100 people up you would get more than 2 arrests.
With other methods id bet I'd be willing to bet that this is pritty bad by average stats.
Picking out 160.000 people at random, or based on a border guard's hunch would likely have gotten as many hits.
Sounds like a waste of money to me.
Sounds like a serious threat to civil liberties to me. The money involved is of little interest.
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The fact that less than 1% of the people caught were doing something illegal would make sense if we can assume that the vast majority of the people flying are not criminals.
Let say that the detector was accurate 90% of the time, and 5% of the people who passed through the airport were doing something illegal. If one million people came through that airport, we could assume that:
1,000,000 people
50,000 criminals
- 45,000 detected
- 5,000 not detected
950,000 innocent people
-855,000 not flagged
- 95,000 falsely accused
140,000 people accused
- 67.8% are innocent
- 32.1% are guilty
Granted this is just a hypothetical situation, not based on actual statistics, but the example shows how that even a reasonably accurate system can look unreliable when searching for a needle in a haystack.
Of course issues of fairness and privacy are something else entirely is another issue entirely.
a police state that asks people for their papers at every turn, and performs strip searches because they smiled at the camera
And rakes in billions to the corrupt business of government where the power elite make their fortunes.
Don't think for a second it isn't about the money.
Have you actually READ the Koran? In the case of Muslims, it's the NON-violent ones that are in the extremist minority...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8167533318153586646&hl=en
Why nobody in america should ever talk to the police. ever.No matter how innocent.
You can be a criminal for possesion of a lobster, opeing a packet of cigarettes without fully destroying the tax seal and for any number of lesser known laws.
Nobody in america is truely innocent. Everyone has broken the law at some point and almost everyone breaks the law many times a day without ever knowing.
Yeah, that was basically my thought exactly.
At any time, there is likely to be 1% of the population walking around with drugs or fake ID on them. To me that seems like the program did nothing, which is not surprising since the TSA really does nothing beneficial.
By sharing it with the pilot.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
*I don't see how a person carrying pot can bring down a plane, but apprently it's already possible with nail scissors, so who knows.
Apparently it can also be done with 31oz of water or toothpaste. They really need to build sturdier airplanes.
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. So we have 1200 people committing victimless crimes, and in order to catch them, I have to get "randomly selected" at LAX for a pat down and full luggage search. They even bitch when I forgot to take a freaking comb out of my back pocket. Bullshit. So someone has a fake ID or a bit of heroine, who gives a flying fuck?
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
What according to who exactly? It might help if you actually quoted the section you're referring to.
Have you actually READ the bible? there's sections in there about how smashing babies heads in with rocks is doing gods work and that slavery is perfectly ok.
I'm sure that the 99% of innocents who get Probed would also agree that the payoff is worth it, whatever the cost!
It isn't 1% of all airport travelers being arrested, it's a 1% arrest rate for those airport travelers detained for suspicious behavior (unless I read the summary incorrectly). Thus your 99% probing rate is erroneous because they aren't stopping every traveler who passes through security--only those who demonstrate "suspicious behavior". Yes, it is a slippery slope, no disagreement here. However, I agree with the parent on this...those 99% that were detained for suspicious behavior but not arrested are probably such a small sample of the overall number of passengers that it has practically no affect on the rest of us and the small amount of petty crime discovered through this process is probably worth the hassle. I don't think this is unreasonable tradeoff.
Let's start with you, shall we?
I'm not gonna fall for your bait either and respond with the "I have nothing to hide" comment because that'll just spin off into the usual slashdot pseudo-intellectual battle-of-my-logical-fallacy-is-better-than-your-strawman! love fest.
For the actual quote:
"Blessed is the one who grabs your little children and smashes them against a rock."
Psalm 137:9
In abortion is not your body.
Ask the unborn child if he/she wants to be born, and THEN decide.
His/Her body, his/her choice.
As a matter of fact, I do have something to hide. Most people would not be happy about a complete stranger going through their underwear drawer at home, why should I feel comfortable with a complete stranger going through my underwear at an airport where everyone can see? It's embarrassing and humiliating to pat someone down in public and search through their belongings when they have done nothing wrong.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
No he used to give the money directly to me (seeing as how I was lazy as a kid). This did not make the neighbors happy, but you know this is what happens when you move into a mafia-controlled neighborhood. (shrug)
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
I believe their reasoning (detaching my own personal opinion) is that drugs impair people. Imagine a lot more coked up people driving on our roads and highways and walking around neighborhoods. Unlike alcohol, some drugs cannot be used in moderation - some instantly and completely get people wasted and make them dangerous to society.
I will bend like a reed in the wind.
Except a fair percentage of those arrested are not doing anything wrong. Remember in the U.S.A. guilt is established by a jury of your peers not by a rent-a-cop with a junior high education.
Unfortunately, it's subscription only, but this month's Make magazine has an article by a MIT student caught up in TSA's grasp:
http://makezine.com/16/simpson/
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
AGAIN:
It's his body and his choice. I'd tell him that in my house we follow my rules, but once he gets his own house he can do whatever the hell he wants (except DUI as it's illegal). That's what freedom means. As Democratic Party founder Thomas Jefferson said, "No man has a right to harm another. And that's all that the government should restrain him."
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
every drug addict will rob people and would not hesitate to kill if a living person stands between him and his drug.
Source please? Or at least a little objective evidence? If I found my child becoming addicted to drugs, I would put them through rehab. If my kid didn't understand the dangers and the need to be careful, I would feel like I have failed as a parent. It's my job, and my job only, to make sure my kids feel loved, accepted, and encouraged enough that they feel like they have better things to do with their life.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
I fail to see how my shooting cocaine while watching Heroes harms anybody. Certainly less harmful than an abortion (which kills a human fetus). So bug off. My actions while sitting in my TV chair do not harm your body, your property, or your rights. It is NONE of your business.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
"you have nothing to hide, right"
That idea is an extremely slippery slope, that is all too often used to extend ever more control over people. For example, one of the fundamental principles of law, is someone is innocent, until proven guilty. But by applying the idea, "you have nothing to hide", it means anyone suspected (in this case, by automated profiling) of being a criminal, now needs to prove they are innocent. It means if you are a false positive, then you will be stopped from what you are doing and interrogated and even your house and belongings can be searched, until you can prove you are innocent. While all this is happening, you will also have no privacy at all and your freedom is removed from you while you prove you are innocent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocent_until_proven_guilty
So over time, as they add ever more automated profiling, they get ever more ways to get more people caught up as false positives. That's ever more people, being deprived of freedom, until they can prove their innocence.
The route to a totalitarian society, is via people using the idea of, "you have nothing to hide". Yet ironically, all too often, its the minority of people who have power in (ever more) totalitarian style societies, that are able to cause the greatest injustices to their powerless minions. They cause their harm through multiple means. Some are self-righteously ignorant of the harm they cause. Others deliberately seek to exploit their position of power, for their own gain.
The real danger is this minority of people (in ever country) who seek to dominate and control others. This applies to people who seek political or business power over people and ironically terrorists also seek to dominate and control others, into their twisted points of view, for their groups gain. In the case of the terrorists the gain they seek is for their own side, (even if their lower foot soldiers don't gain) as they see it as a battle for their point of view. In the case of political or business power, the gain is directly for them.
The majority of us who don't seek power over others, are simply caught up in an endless power struggle, throughout history between different minority groups, who do seek power and so seek to get others on their side, to boost their own power and to overthrow the other power seeking groups.
Therefore, "you have nothing to hide", is wrong. Everyone has something to hind from some of these groups, who seek power. Because some of the groups will use anything they learn to gain power over people and the more extreme they push towards a totalitarian controlled society, the more they can exploit, stop, search, detain or interrogate, you and your family. That's not the kind of world I want to live in. Plus once these laws are passed, they can be used by any new party getting into power later on. Imagine what power some more extreme groups would do, if they gained access to this kind of power in the future.
For example, in the UK, http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00065/cartoon291008_65504a.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqui_Smith "As the UK Home Secretary, she has been noted for advocating strongly authoritarian policies."
"Authoritarian", in her case, as in extremely arrogant, self-righteous, self-serving, power seeking, contempt for the views of others. She is a great example of how power corrupts and she is dragging the whole UK into her own total police state hell.
For example, in the UK, even some companies can legally break into peoples homes.
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/consumer/bills/article.html?in_article_id=427634&in_page_id=510
That
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
Then again, there is quite a difference. Allow me to some major 'on average this is true' kind of thinking, I'm sure there are exceptions but then again, we don't need to add drugs/alcohol to find "exceptions" either...
Mentally spoken :
Drunk : you could be all over the place, from silly docile to murderous angry
High : you could be all over the place, from silly docile to murderous angry
Physically spoken :
Drunk : you're somewhere between : less focused to comatose.
High : you're somewhere between : highly focused to comatose.
Although I'll agree, large parts will overlap, there is quite a big area on the 'drugs-part' only that would make doing something like committing murder much more likely to "succeed".
Personally, looking at it from a 'whatcouldpossiblygowrong'-point of view I doubt regulating drugs would be such a great idea; in fact, making alcohol illegal would make much more sense. But, history has shown that this doesn't come without it's own dangers (think Al-Capone), so in that respect I would be quite interested to see what would happen if we flooded the markets with legal versions of every party-drug. It would dry up AL LOT of the vested criminal networks existing today (heck, even 'the war on terror' would benefit)... but I'd have a hard time sleeping when my kids are out 'partying'.
If there is one thing to be learned on slashdot, it has to be sarcasm.
This is why I drive everywhere. I'm sick of the airport hassles.
What REALLY pissed me off is when I was driving through Texas and some idiot Immigration officials made me stop & search my car. I refused. Did I cross an international border? No. Do they have a search warrant? No. Then they are conducting an illegal search according to the Supreme Law of the Land. They have no reason to be making me pop my trunk and rifling through my playboys..... er, clothing.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
They are still probing 99% innocent people. Arguing that the 160 000 people being probed is a too small fraction of the total passenger base for it to matter is just silly. The criteria for being probed are obviously not good enough to pick up anything with any reasonable chance of success.
And I find the whole "let's use the terrorist scare to invade peoples privacy" and arrest them for minor crimes to be totally acceptable. If the system had a 1% successrate for picking up terrorists, it might be worthwhile, but I find it absolutely incredible that seemingly intelligent people (you read slashdot) justify that amounts to illegal searches because it discovers some petty criminals. The exact same argument could be used for ANY search.
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For all of those pointing out the statistical inefficiencies, you are correct. But we're not talking about sampling UNIX file permissions, we're talking about drugs and fake IDs. Drugs are often linked to money and violence. Fake IDs can help you commit all sorts of other neat crimes. I don't think we need to argue that breaking the law isn't breaking the law. There's another post out on the InnerTubez to argue about drug legalization. I have a hard time believing that every false positive that got extra scrutiny was assaulted in the manner in which some have described below, but arguing that is a waste of both of our time. You're going to point to a bunch of articles tagged 'securitytheater' and scream loudly until I stop talking. If you've ever been stopped at the airport for extra screening, you know it's annoying. It's happened to me twice. Once was my fault, because I was getting snippy with a baggage checker. Totally my fault. Either way, the TSA isn't an evil empire focused solely on cold latex penetration. They're just doing their jobs like everyone else. It just so happens that their job is often the cause of pain and frustration for the average traveller. A necessary evil, if evil at all. In short, you're right. In hindsight, statistically, there's probably some fine tuning to be done here, and it may not be a viable technology. And to go one step further, having these cameras at every stoplight will get creepy and bad really fast. These were a fun experiment, and in the end, are most likely not going to catch the worst of the worst. I think I was just really surprised at the raw number of people who were caught trying to smuggle illegal goods despite all of the 'securitytheater.' Takes a pretty big pair to try and get drugs by the guy that can visually identify how many ounces of shampoo you have in your bag.
Unlike alcohol, some drugs cannot be used in moderation
And what about those that can? Especially those that are non-addictive such as LSD?
some instantly and completely get people wasted and make them dangerous to society
There are VERY few drugs that fall in to this category... even very dangerous and hard drugs that are commonly used by criminal types such as Crystal Meth (which I really do NOT think should be legal at all) do NOT make people dangerous to society immediately upon use. I've used it once - didn't like it and don't plan on doing it again, but the point is that I did not go out and do anything bad to anyone just because I was wasted on the stuff. In fact, all I did was sit on my friends couch and go a bit mental for a while. There were several other people there that also used it (and were frequent users of it unlike myself) and they also didn't go out and do anything bad to anyone. While they're not model citizens, they're really not harming anyone other than themselves.
As I said, I don't think crystal meth should be legal because it's just TOO dangerous (the risk is very hard to assess beforehand for most people, and the dangers are too great), but the vast majority of drugs are much less dangerous than that, and fall along the same sorts of lines as alcohol or lesser.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
Guess where the text is missing the letters UN
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It's illegal because many drug users think it's ok to get behind a wheel, or party a little too hard and get into a meth rage fight... or something. Not to mention the health care burden drug users put on society.
So, following your logic, if you'd sign away your US citizenship so that we (meaning US public institutions) don't have to take care of your dumb ass, then by all means... PLEASE overdose on cocaine! You'll save the rest of us the hassle of dealing with your stupidity.
I think you're looking at it backwards here... you're right that it's 1% of those that get detained that are arrested, which is a vanishingly small number of the overall (in fact, you even make the case that the 99% is a small sample of the overall number), but that's actually not the point.
Think of it this way: out of 100 people that ARE detained, 99 of them are completely innocent and have been needlessly inconvenienced... that's the problem, and it IS an unreasonable tradeoff.
Also, of the 1% arrested, they've not commented on whether any were for the intended purpose of this programme (stopping "terrorists") and the things they HAVE said they've stopped people for are things that probably at least 1% of the population are guilty of anyway (minor drug offences, fake IDs, etc), making this no different than just targetting anyone and everyone.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
Well, yes and no ...
How many would have been searched without the system ? Using the same budget (TSA system + current number of guards) on trained guards only, and more importantly : how many of those would then have to be arrested ? I think that's a much more interesting figure... more than 1200 or less ?
If there is one thing to be learned on slashdot, it has to be sarcasm.
I don't know about you, but I've never had a good encounter with police. I don't have a criminal record of any sort, but they have never been helpful when I was the "victim", but they have certainly been forceful when I was the "cash cow".
Too many laws, too many cops. A large police force needs a lot of money to fund the operation, so they fire up a zillion little bylaws to nickel and dime everyone in town. They're not actually reducing the crime level, they're just maximizing the number of "taxable" crimes.
For example, in my city there is no such thing as "just jaywalking", there is "jaywalking, reckless endangerment, and failure to obey a crossing signal". What shouldn't even be a crime in 99% of cases becomes a $500 trio of bullshit, of which half is funneled into "administrative fees".
You know, in comparison the TSA doesn't sound so bad. I don't get nervous and hostile around those guys, unlike city police, because I know the TSA, despite being annoying and pointless, will not find anything against me. A cop will go out of their way to dig up dirt.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
When was this, like 1969?
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
How many of the people that should have been arrested were not? For all I know using this system makes things LESS safer, because now more people pass that would have been arrested otherwise.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
It's not even a slippery slope. It's an outright lie. Just because something isn't illegal, doesn't mean that we don't want to hide it.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
Only if you believe that those people:
(a) Should be caught and punished.
(b) Should be found by the TSA, when the TSA's mandate is only related to keeping mass transit safe.
Have there been any terrorist attacks? No. So they couldn't have stopped actual terrorists "in the act", because there haven't been any.
To judge whether 1% is actually decent, we'd need to know what percentage of *all travelers* are guilty of the offenses they're arresting the 1% for. If the number for all travelers is, say, 0.001%, then 1% is fairly significant.
How did this compare with the random searches? If it was better? How much better? Tim S
With the exception of ultra-rich celebrities every drug addict will rob people and would not hesitate to kill if a living person stands between him and his drug.
Can you provide any other source than your arse for that claim?
"I have downloaded hundreds and hundreds of records, why would I care if somebody downloads ours?" Robin Pecknold
This is a clear case of a psudo-police force being allowed to act outside the normal rules of engagement. The "probable cause" used by the TSA to initiate in-depth searches would usually never hold up if police used the same. I assume that you can refuse such searches, but you are never informed of that right, and the high profile and official appearance of the TSA makes it appear that this is not an option. Certainly if someone who had a dime bag knew this was an option, they would refuse, go ditched the weed, and come back through. So we have arrests being made that could have never been made elsewhere because no reputable court would ever allow the evidence. If I'm cranky and give a police officer a little lip, they do not then have the authority to search me.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
This is why we have DUI - to catch people using alcohol or drugs when they shouldn't be. Besides there are plenty of legal drugs that impair function, like when my dentist gave my vicadin. Why isn't vicadin illegal?
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
You should all move to Montana. The police here will only pull you over when driving with a broken tail light on your car. The rest of the time, you're allowed to live your life they way you want... so long as you don't hurt anyone. You all must be living in fear because of what you do.
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
slavery is perfectly ok
Only from neighboring nations. The US was clearly in the wrong for using African slaves. Only Mexican and Canadian slaves are ok for the US under God's law.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
The TSA is there to make people feel safe. We all know much of what they do is theater and not actually making people safer, but that doesn't change the fact that more people fly when they feel safer. That's a benefit. A lame one, but there's no denying it's a benefit for the airlines and some other interests. It's it a benefit to society at whole? I say "No" and I think you'd agree, but it's still wrong to say they do nothing beneficial.
Well, if you stick a bomb in your underwear drawer at home, it's not likely to blow me up. If we get on the same plane together and you've packed one in your bag, it will. What's so "embarrassing and humiliating" about being patted down...especially if EVERYONE is being patted down? For most /. readers, it's the most action they're likely to get.
Let's fix your typos to reflect reality...
"It's illegal because many alcohol users think it's ok to get behind a wheel, or party a little too hard and get into an drunken brawl... or something. Not to mention the health care burden alcohol users put on society...."
Alcohol and stupidity in general are just as dangerous, and are far more likely to kill or maim not only yourself but other people as well. So should we ban all alcohol use for your reasoning? Since we can't outlaw blatant stupidity, that is. And since a few people, no matter their drug or intoxication of choice, can't be trusted to do the right thing and be safe? By that logic, what else can we outlaw? Why, everything! Religion, guns, money, thinking, breathing, living....
Although I'll agree, large parts will overlap, there is quite a big area on the 'drugs-part' only that would make doing something like committing murder much more likely to "succeed".
kind of like having a weapon does? what's next, we outlaw blunt objects?
I'd have a hard time sleeping when my kids are out 'partying'.
not to burst your bubble, or rob you of your sleep, but when i was underage it was MUCH easier to get illegal drugs than it was alcohol. the black market doesn't check your id.
the united states is a nation of laws; badly written and randomly enforced -- frank zappa
Hell if a police officers followed any random person for a single day as they went about their blameless buisness there's close to a 100% chancethat person could be caught commiting enough "crimes" to put them away for life.
Umm...I mean...I can see maybe being caught for things like speeding or jaywalking or something. But, dang. If, in a single day, you commit crimes to "put you away for life," what the hell do you do for a day job?
(Dramatic much?)
Really? I'm a drug addict. I'm addicted to caffeine. If I don't drink any coffee for two days then I get incredibly painful headaches that make me not want to do anything other than shut my eyes for about a day. And yet, somehow, I've never felt the need or desire to rob or kill anyone between me and a coffee pot.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Simplistically, this psalm expresses grief and revenge by those who had been captured by the Babylonians.
(And "blessed" means "happy", not "God condones this and will bless you")
Looking into it more, though, I learned of a larger historical context (Taken from here):
"It is important to remember that the curses of Psalm 137 are not originally the psalmistâ(TM)s curses. They are the Lordâ(TM)s curses which the psalmist has made his own. The destruction of Edom was the fulfillment of prophecy, particularly the prophecy of Obadiah. In Isaiah 13:16, which was written about 200 years before Babylonâ(TM)s fall, the destruction of Babylon was prophesied in almost the exact terms used in Psalm 137. The destruction of the children who were too young to be transported into slavery was a common practice in ancient warfare. Since this cruelty was apparently practiced by the Babylonians during their campaigns of conquest against Israel, Babylon would receive from its Persian and Median conquerors the same treatment which it had inflicted on Israel (Jeremiah 50:29; 51:56). "
Of course it is a threat to civil liberties. But since the US citizens seem to think this sort of thing is acceptable, who am I to butt in as a foreigner. I'm just glad I don't currently live in the US.
I still don't understand why drugs are illegal? Regulated yes, like alcohol, but why illegal? If I want to kill myself with cocaine that's MY business and none of yours. My body; my choice. (Same argument used to justify abortion.)
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Actually a bomb in my underwear drawer could cause horrible devastation if it is big enough and in a high-rise apartment complex. But police would need some probably cause to search for it besides looking too confident, or looking very distressed.
It is embarrassing and humiliating because I am being suspected of some crime that I have not committed. I can understand the need in cases where there is some probable cause (under the rules that police are required to follow), but it's unjustifiable to suspect me for being stressed out after a job interview or forgetting to take my cellphone off when going through the check point. While it is not the intention, the end result is other people looking at you thinking that surely you must have done something really stupid to get yourself in that situation. THAT is embarrassing and humiliating. If you can tell me that you would not be embarrassed if a cop stopped you on the street because you looked stressed and gave you a pat down, then I will call you a fool. Why is the TSA given less restrictions than police?
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
Are you serious? You want to lump illegal drugs into the same category as a pocket knife whose blade is 1/2" too long? Give me a break; no-one is advocating arresting folks for the "pisant (sic) little laws", like oral sex being illegal on Tuesdays in Omaha. As for fake IDs, there's a major difference between your average citizen with a fake ID so they can drink, and a terrorist with a fake ID to cover the fact that they're known to have been involved in urban warfare. It's time everyone realizes that the Police et al are here to protect you; yes there ARE crooked cops, but there's crooked sysadmins, lawyers, CEOs, and pizza delivery boys, too. Grow up, and lose the adolescent "the Man is out to get me!" thought processes, what say?
Last night I played a blank tape at full volume. The mime next door went nuts.
"It's not even a slippery slope. It's an outright lie. Just because something isn't illegal, doesn't mean that we don't want to hide it."
;) ... joking aside, unfortunately there are people who do believe the political PR smoke screen, "if you are innocent, you've got nothing to hide". They fail to see its a lie used to cover up the power seekers goal, of bring in ever more controls, to gain more power.
Could you obfuscate that with some more negatives please
It is however a slippery slope, as it can (and is) used in varying degrees and over time. But the bias is always in one direction, which is towards their need to seek ever more power. Its their overall goal.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
This is why we need the cabin to be separated from the rest of the plane. I mean I was all for the idea that it couldn't be hijacked prior to that, but this? This is a far more convincing argument.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=346
"It's okay to care about privacy, even if you're not a criminal. Because maybe you just aren't a criminal yet"
"The cup is in turn designed for holding hot or cold liquids, and has an open rim and closed base." --US Patent #5425497
I was making a point that Wikipedia isn't the best source to refer too...
Have you actually READ the bible? there's sections in there about how smashing babies heads in with rocks is doing gods work and that slavery is perfectly ok
For the actual quote: "Blessed is the one who grabs your little children and smashes them against a rock." Psalm 137:9
See, that is the EXACT reason why people who don't understand what they're reading shouldn't repeat it. Here's one of the major keys to the Bible: Read it IN CONTEXT! The context for what you're quoting is this:
The Israelites had just been captured by the Babylons; they had just seen their people slaughtered, their cities destroyed, and then the Babylonians asked them to sing and dance for their captors entertainment!
The WHOLE quote from Psalm 137, verses 8 & 9:
O daughter of Babylon, who are to be destroyed, Happy the one who repays you as you have served us!
Happy the one who takes and dashes Your little ones against the rock!
The Israelites are simply saying "Babylon, just WAIT until you get yours! We're going to do to you EXACTLY what you did to us!"
Uh-oh! That kind of pokes holes into your sweeping generalization that the Bible is an evil, strange book;however will you deal with the shift in paradigm?
Last night I played a blank tape at full volume. The mime next door went nuts.
With the exception of ultra-rich celebrities every drug addict will rob people and would not hesitate to kill if a living person stands between him and his drug.
I can't tell if you're trolling or you've been watching too many propaganda films, but I'd wager you've not actually been around hard-drug users much.
"The cup is in turn designed for holding hot or cold liquids, and has an open rim and closed base." --US Patent #5425497
In the case of a drug addict morality and fear of punishment don't play any role if he wants a dose.
And this is different than an alcoholic how exactly? Cheap and legal drugs (like alcohol) mean addicts don't have to commit crimes to get them. They can beg for change like the bums do. $5 should be enough to get anyone high/drunk on their drug of choice. The crime argument is an argument FOR legalisation, not against it. You may as well argue that the black market funds terrorism, then advocate that we keep the black market around, It makes no sense.
Ask the unborn child if he/she wants to be born, and THEN decide.
Say something if you don't want to be aborted. Nothing? OK, you're the boss.
Could you obfuscate that with some more negatives please
My apologies. Please allow me to clarify.
It's not even a non-tractioned slope. It's not an outright truth. Just because something is not non-legal does not mean that we don't want to not keep it in full view.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
Most people would not be happy about a complete stranger going through their underwear drawer at home
And the rest of us actually like it. Why are you judging my life choice like that?
It's because people who do drugs all too often affect innocent bystanders as well. If drug users, by and large, really did keep to themselves then you might have a point. Unfortunately, this isn't the case. Drug users commit other crimes to feed their drug habit (legal or not), and sometimes children are also victims.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
. Imagine a lot more coked up people driving on our roads and highways and walking around neighborhoods.
Who are these people that obey drug laws, but ignore impaired driving laws? You'd think if the law is keeping them from doing drugs currently, that the law would prevent them from driving were the drugs legal.
Glad to see that link get a bit more use, even though I hope to never need the information at the other end of it.
The best part is when it boils down to you telling the truth and the police interviewing someone who is mistaken. Normally it would be a 1:1 ratio of guilt versus innocence, except that the police can then take the stand and testify that you lied to them only using the mistaken person as proof that you lied.
Sure, perhaps a great lawyer will have half a dozen defences ready for such a circumstance, but the world doesn't lack for average and below average lawyers.
I really miss great lectures. They were few and far between at the University, and now that I'm long out of school, there have been none.
Pizza boys don't have the legal power to throw me in a cell.
If you're an american, no matter what state you can be jailed for carrying a lobster. If you view the video above about why you should never ever ever ever speak to the police he talks about how people have in fact been put in jail over that law.
I'm guessing that at some point you've had a fake ID- and so that's not a serious crime, others would say that it's very serious indeed because you're making it harder to spot the real terrorists or some shit.
People don't abuse vicodin. Wait they do. But it's not widespread. Wait, it's more widespread than illegal drug use. Damn, I guess we need to ban it.
And this problem is only going to get worse with time, as more and more stupid laws are added to the books. Passing a dumb law is relatively easy, all you need is one extraordinary event ('preferably' involving a child) to make it into the mainstream media and you can pass a law against some aspect involved in that event. Getting useless or stupid laws repealed afterward is much harder.
Personally I think every new law should come under review every 5 years to a) judge its effectiveness in reducing whatever it is it was meant to reduce, b) re-assess its applicability in light of new developments (whether that be technological, court rulings, false positives etc) and c) gauge public opinion about whether this law is still necessary. It's a lot to ask for sure, but then again passing a new law is a big deal, or at least it should be.
Without some kind of review process like this the law books will just get thicker and thicker, until it becomes impossible to live a normal life without breaking some law every day. I'd argue we've already reached that point.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
perfectly true but remember next time you hear some reference to some horrible command in the koran- there's probably just as much background as there is for this. The fact that this is in the bible doesn't make every christian evil even if a few nutters smash kids heads in based on it.
If the plane was brought down, the NO ONE would be high anymore.
And it looks like the point flew right over your head.
I don't think the bible is inherently evil, it's silly but no more evil than any other religious book.
When you next hear about a passage in the koran commanding something crazy just remember, it probably has just as much context behind it as that quote from the bible.
Actually, the Supreme Court has ruled that the police AREN'T here to protect you. They're here to mop up after.
set your threshold lower, I think you think I was replying to a different post.
Right, good luck driving to or from Australia.
Well, if you stick a bomb in your underwear drawer at home, it's not likely to blow me up.
What if it's in an apartment? It could hurt people in the next unit. In fact filling an apartment with explosives is a tactic terrorists have used before. Clearly we have to have random suspicionless searches of every apartment and any house close enough to the neighbour's house for a bomb to cause damage.
This is talking about the false positive rate. Shouldn't we be more concerned with the false negative rate?
If you would look at the article, wikipedia states the bureau of justice statistics as the source for that number. 2,299,116 people currently incarcerated in local, state, and federal corrections facilities as of June 30, 2007 (most recent data they list), which is ~0.75% of the population.
They also source from a report from Pew (it's note #8) stating that the incarceration rate is now above 1%.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Police are not here to protect you, nor do they have to. See Warren v DC, or a whole slue (sp?) of cases from the supreme court. The police are there to enforce laws after the fact, and that is their ONLY duty.
That's what the Erotic Services section on Craigslist is for.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
problem: your kids can get drugs while out partying very very easily anyway.
Only differencs is that with the illegal trade the drugs they get could be 50% rat poision, cut with ground glass or any number of other things.
What I find more interesting is the speculation that these searches would have been more effective if performed randomly. Not only would you still likely catch the same amount of petty crimes, but you rob the actual terrorist of the ability to circumvent the system by acting natural.
If the terrorist knows he can avoid the search with practice, plastic surgery, or a name change, he will be more likely to do so.
"The cup is in turn designed for holding hot or cold liquids, and has an open rim and closed base." --US Patent #5425497
Meth is sort of a special case. The evidence that there is real organic brain damage from repeated use is very strong, and (in this case) doesn't seem distorted by political pressure on the researchers. Doing something which you know will very likely destroy your ability to regulate your own behavior rationally is putting other people at risk. Being a 'typical' Meth user is like being an advanced alcoholic who already has a history of blackouts and DTs, or being one of those rare acidheads who really can't tell the difference between what's going on in his head under the influence of LSD and what's external reality. Choosing to do meth is like both choosing to drink and choosing to drive, or choosing to use a psychotropic when your doctor has already diagnosed borderline schizophrenia and put you on meds.
There's less such evidence against E (not none, but much less), and no reliable medical evidence against weed. I could make some good medical arguments that weed seems to encourage not maturing at the normal rate in adolescents, but none what-so-ever that it makes normal adults, or even adolescents, dangerous to others.
Who is John Cabal?
150k+ more people were wrongly harassed for those 1.2k arrests
Oh, so 150,000 people were harrassed - that's a small price to pay to catch over 1000 potential terrorists!
What the hell are you, some kind of communist? I bet you'd rather be living in Stalinist Russia, comrade. Personally, I like to live in a free country!
problem: your solution gets very very heavy over time.
How about this: 1 year after a law comes in it has to be reviewed, then 2 years after that, then 4 years after that, then 8 years after that etc etc etc.
a law which has stood for 100 years without being repealed or edited is probably pretty solid.
A law which was passed in the heat of the moment is probably useless.
this has the advantage that even with a lot of laws the weight of re-testing them gets less over time.
The airport is not a pseudo-public place. It IS a public place. It's mandated that the government be able to enforce TSA on them. After all, they can't demand that you put TSA agents in your home (isn't that against the constitution?) because it is a private place. Yet, the public DO get in. Neighbours, the TV repair man, police, etc.
And your car is not a private place either, nor is it a public place, so it would fall under "pseudo-public" too, if that made any bloody difference.
How many were convicted? That's the more interesting number.
Unless of course you're assuming that anyone arrested *must* be guilty of something, and that Due Process is a worthless barrier to effective law enforcement.
Nah, he'd just fly really slow with the windows down.
Oh, I see your point.
"The cup is in turn designed for holding hot or cold liquids, and has an open rim and closed base." --US Patent #5425497
Is that what you're saying?
He hasn't taken office yet. Just wait.
If the government told you your children were enemies of the state, you would kill them no questions?
Remember:
All americans are not indiginous.
Koresh was an American.
So was the Unabomber
And other US terrorists, who were enemies of the state.
The UK bombers were UK residents, proving that being born in a country doesn't mean you cannot be an enemy.
You don't know what your kids get up to 100% of the time, so they could be being subverted into muslim faith and told not to tell you because you would kill any asian muslims and may kill white ones too.
So, you don't know they AREN'T enemies of the state, the fact of them being born in the country doesn't make it impossible and the US government know vastly more about the situation than you because they have special agents looking into these things.
And they tell you your children are enemies of the state.
Do you kill them?
Were you bringing it to Chris Farley's van?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
hopefully the 1% that were arrested were higher on their suspicion meter, and they can just change the threshold for who gets chosen.
but, they could just as well have it target more people >_>
Man, I wish they were doing something so useful with Buick.
--- Do you believe in the day?
But it is petty crime (at least mostly), that's being discovered. The whole technology was deployed as part of going after terrorists, the people who control the technology have special dispensations to act in various ways because the crime we hoped to stop is so serious, we the taxpayers put lots of money into efforts such as this because it's for the defense of the entire nation, and so on.
That's why this is a failure. It's like we spent putting a man on the moon money on a project, and the astronauts actually only got to Burbank, or we did a Manhattan Project to win, not World War 2, but the Battle for the Falklands. They accomplished a goal, but not the goal they said was worth all that effort, not the goal we were promised. Instead of the government admitting the damned rocket blew up on the pad, they brag "We developed a successful launch escape tower!".
Who is John Cabal?
120000 were suspected, 1200 arrested, 118800 were FALSE POSITIVE and released. It could evry well be that a random pick get a better results, depending on how many in total were looked at and "not suspected".
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I understand the general disdain for the "Security Theater", but this isn't that argument. EVERYONE has to go through airport security, even before 9/11, but that's not the issue. Everyone gets "probed" in your definition. What I'm saying is that the only a small number of people are extra-probed, and of that small number of suspiciously behaving people, 1% are arrested. That means FAR LESS than 1% of everyone going through security is even affected by this. If it finds a few petty criminals, so what. I didn't have to do anything above-and-beyond the usual security circus in that process, so I don't really care. The usual "security circus" is a problem, but not related to this issue.
Grabbing people off the streets is a whole different situation. People off the streets do not, in their present condition, have the ability to direct an airplane into a building. You'd have to be in an airplane to do that.
Think of it this way: out of 100 people that ARE detained, 99 of them are completely innocent and have been needlessly inconvenienced... that's the problem, and it IS an unreasonable tradeoff.
I read the previous comment that of all travelers, 99% are needlessly inconenienced, when in reality, only 99% of the small number people pulled aside for suspicious behavior are. Yes, 99% of those people are inconvenienced, but they are such a small number overall that it is almost not relevant. Now you could argue that we are all inconvenienced just by showing up at the airport...no argument here. Bottom line is that it's not really a big deal since it hardly affects anyone, and even if it did affect you (slim chances) the worst that happens is you are slightly inconvenienced. As others ahve already argued, this seems to be a fair tradeoff. I personally don't care about petty criminals, but society's rules aren't determined by me :-(
I don't believe in "minor" drug offenses in public. Keep your drugs in your living room, if you must. If you are stupid enough to try and get drugs through an airport, then you deserve to be in that 1% that gets arrested.
I have argue this for some time. If you want to prove to someone that our laws are already impossible for average citizens to know, just have them talk about what is legal and illegal in front of lawyers. They will quickly be told that not only do they not know what they are talking about, but they will also be told that the words used in laws have different definition than the same words used by the general population.
I don't see how a person carrying pot can bring down a plane..
By sharing it with the pilot.
With the quantity they arrest for in the US there wouldn't be enough to get yourself high let alone yourself and the pilot.
Better make sure your pocket lint doesn't have any suspicious flakes in it before flying because that gives them the right to search your ass for more.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
You raise a good point about lack of evidence not being evidence, but it's not relevant to the point GP raised at all.
How many terrorists intending to carry out an attack were caught by the system? We don't know. Let's assume the worst and say zero.
How many terrorists intending to carry out an attack weren't caught by the system? Zero, unless there's really a large number of terrorists chickening out.
So under this situation there is absolutely no way to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. There's just not enough data on terrorist attack attempts. Sure we have a lot of data on how many false positives the system can generate now, but there's no way to know what benefit we're getting for that cost.
THAT was what the GP meant by a lack of attacks, and that's what you missed thoroughly.
Ding, ding, ding. There's no rhyme or reason why some drugs are allowed, because many of those drugs (like vicodin) are more dangerous than the supposed illegal drugs.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
>>>>>Right, good luck driving to or from Australia.
Wow that was really witty. Not. Of course I'm not going to drive to Australia. I fly when I have to fly, but prefer to drive if my destination is only 20 hours away.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
No my reply was aimed at you. There's simply no justification to ban my usage of cocaine or meth or marijuana when I'm just sitting & watching tv.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
> slue(sp?)
slew
Next time you're standing in line at your neighborhood Security Theatre, look carefully at all of the signs. Among those describing the protean potential dangers of tiny things with points and overlarge liquids you will see something to the effect of "Passage beyond this point gives us permission to search you".
If you want to argue that this violates your fourth amendment rights go hire a (good) lawyer. But you do give explicit permission as soon as you walk past that door.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
One can take a plane down with nail scissors, or with some quantity of the right liquids. I just don't know how relevant is that, since one could take the same plane down with a belt, shirt, bare hands, any piece of the right metal, several compounds that could look as food (ops, have I just invented a new treat?), any right sized bar of metal or lots of other things.
Planes are fragile things, and if the motivation is only to put them down, one could way more easily change something on it while it is at land, it is not harder to pass personal screening as it is to pass passenger one.
Rethinking email
So, by this logic, if only 1:1,000,000 travelers are ACTUALLY a terrorist carrying a bomb,
I think you miss a few zeroes there. Hijackers are far more common than people trying to CARRY a bomb on board, afaik most bombs on planes were either placed there in advance, or through check-in luggage.
then we should stop all airport security whatsoever, since we have inconvenienced 999,999 travelers who are NOT terrorists.
Is that what you're saying?
1% of people found violating laws, primarily fake IDs or carrying drugs. From a supposedly non-random sample. That is really piss poor to say it positively. There are far better and more effective ways of preventing bad things happening in the skies.
Locks on the cockpit door, for example, so they can be opened from the cockpit side only.
This simple measure would have prevented the 11/9 attacks from happening. The worst those terrorists could have done is starting to stab the passengers: a pretty bad thing in itself. In a "normal" hijacking the hijacker can still give instructions to the pilot to fly to certain airports, which a pilot could safely do. But any instruction putting the aircraft itself in danger he could refuse. Better a few passengers killed than a plane flying into an office tower, killing all the passengers in the process.
Long story short: the TFA is adding nothing to improve safety. It is time to sit down, clear heads, and start thinking of what is really effective.
Then punish them for the crime committed (i.e. stealing). Don't punish the innocent users like myself who do nothing wrong except stay at home & watch tv.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
It is more likely that if you refuse the search, they won't let you go to the boarding gate. So you probably can refuse the search, but then you will miss your flight. You choose.
NOTE: USA-centric content.
The liquor lobby will not relinquish its monopoly on the sole legal nonprescription depressant.
There were a number of UN conventions on narcotics starting in the early 1960's. There were two reasons for this. First was organized crime. Second was the idea that substance abuse would lead to an unproductive populace. It is instant gratification chemically achieved instead of the delayed gratification involving blowing one's heart out chasing $CURRENCY more commonly known as hard work, the rat race, achievement, or graduation from mother's basement. A nation full of druggies bodes not well in paying its government's debts to lenders domestic and foreign.
As for the 'my body, my choice' argument, that ended when you received your social insurance reference number (Social Security Number in the USA). By having accepted the benefits (however coerced), you became government property. The rest is history. This is the argument posited by the patriot and militia movement in the USA.
Submission as evidence constitutes plaintiff and/or prosecutorial misconduct.
Because this program was supposed to find terrorists, not people with fake IDs or people trying to sneak a couple of ounces through security.
You are trying to redefine the actual goals of the program so you can paint it as a failure.
In reality, they are very happy arresting people for other things (like a few ounces of coke, or guns, or whatever) even if they are not terrorists.
I'd love to hear your alternate proposal for how to offer some security for airline travel that makes MORE sense than simply checking out people who exhibit a number of behavioral clues that something is up. To me it seems the smartest way to go because you avoid racial profiling. It also seems smarter than security checks with xrays where you can get all kinds of things past the screeners.
But then, as much as I'd like to get rid of the screeners I remember that defense in depth is the best approach. Sure a lot of that is security theatre, but behavioral profiling is much less so than many other things done.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Impairment is why DOING THINGS under the influence is illegal. For example, getting doped up on cough syrup and tylenol PM, both of which are totally legal, and driving around town will get you in serious trouble.
That makes perfect sense, I'm endangering other people.
But doing a line of coke and throwing beer bottles against the side of my house isn't endangering anyone but myself, yet will get me in at least as much trouble.
The action that should result in punishment is the one that endangers other people or infringes on their rights.
Drinking a bottle of Nyquil and doing a line of coke are equally infringing (which is to say not at all) and should be equally legal or illegal.
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Not necessarily. Most people look worried while walking through a security check
Behavioral profiling is way more than looking at someone to see if they appear "worried". It's using a lot of unconscious behaviors that show people are hiding something, not just that they are upset.
I guess we should drop it and instead just pull aside anyone wearing a turban? That sure sounds like a better plan...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
when I'm on holiday, I don't appreciate being fingerprinted and photographed by people with guns.
I'd expect it in Libya, but not a 'free' country. I recently went on holiday to new Zealand. On the stopover in the USA I got the fingerprint treatment, and made to feel like a prisoner, despite the fact I didn't even leave the single room in the airport for transit passengers whose plane is refuelling.
That stopover was a wonderful marketing opportunity for the USA to say "Come to the USA! Spend your tourist money here! Enjoy the USA!"
Instead, it felt like a prison visit.
When i got to NZ, they didn't fingerprint me or photograph me at all.
Based on this, I'll go on holiday to NZ again to relax, but not to the US. The US just lost my tourism cash. Nice work guys.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
In that case, the 1200 in 600k means your detector is worthless. It works no better than a random sample.
If you only look at the outcome then your point is valid.
However you ignore the human factor of the people being given extra scrutiny. The random sample subjects everyone equally to the same examination. Behavioral examination allows for a layered approach to examination, and furthermore always bypasses most frequent travelers that are just trying to go from one place to another.
It's also of course, better than racial profiling which is inherently stupid if you are actually trying to catch someone doing something you want to prevent.
Now if you could say with certainty that a random sample would yield significantly better arrest rates, then I might be more inclined to agree. That would seem to be to be the general security screening which is essentially random, although even there you have to ask if the behavioral profiling is done either before or after the screeners cherry-pick the easy targets.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
- Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"
"No my reply was aimed at you."
Wow, your reading comprehension is just epically bad. You can't even correctly understand the post where someone explains you misunderstood their post.
Well, if you stick a bomb in your underwear drawer at home, it's not likely to blow me up. If we get on the same plane together and you've packed one in your bag, it will.
What's so "embarrassing and humiliating" about being patted down...especially if EVERYONE is being patted down? For most /. readers, it's the most action they're likely to get.
Well, if you stick a bomb UP YOUR ASS at home, it's not likely to blow me up. If we get on the same plane together and you've packed one IN YOUR COLON, it will.
So by your logic, we should all submit to cavity searches... because everyone else is getting one too.
As for what's so embarrasing, how about this? Maybe I like to wear women's clothes. Maybe I like to wear pink underwear with hearts. Maybe I have leather chaps missing a crotch in my bag.
The fact of the matter is that I should be able to pack items that I own, but which I don't necessarily care to exhibit to the general public, and do so without having my private stuff on display for all to see.
How about a celebrity, for example? What would it do to someone's political career if they were searched and it was found that they like wearing some kind of kinky item? It's not illegal, but it IS private.
I should have a right to be safe from unreasonable search and seizures.
Maybe we should pass an Amendment to the Constitution to safeguard such a right...
Then re-read my post.
I'm not knocking on you using it.
Someone threw the "what if someone gets high and hurts someone" bullshit.
I said that that's their problem.
If you hurt someone while on drugs it's not the drugs fault, it's yours for choosing to screw up your ability to make rational decisions.
People shouldn't be stopped from using drugs just because some people act stupidly while under their effect.
So I'm saying you should have every right to sit watching TV taking whatever drugs you want.
Ahh, I see... but that's a stupid point. Random facts looked up on Wikipedia are almost always correct, so dismissing someone for using it, while offering nothing of your own, is idiotic.
Wikipedia is an excellent source to refer to. It's easy to find the article yourself, and check the citations. The magic source of unimpeachable, well sourced information that you might want does not exist. The best we can hope for is a general reference source is one maintained by a community of rabid pedants constantly shouting "citation needed" all over the place.
Next time you're standing in line at your neighborhood Security Theatre, look carefully at all of the signs. Among those describing the protean potential dangers of tiny things with points and overlarge liquids you will see something to the effect of "Passage beyond this point gives us permission to search you".
If you want to argue that this violates your fourth amendment rights go hire a (good) lawyer. But you do give explicit permission as soon as you walk past that door.
"replying to this post gives me permission to empty out your bank accounts"
"Speaking to me in public gives me permission to punch you in the face"
"opening/installing this software gives us permission to install a rootkit on your PC"
Think it'll hold up in court??
Look at the numbers on mammograms and prostate exams. The medical industry isn't so different.
I'm betting . . . more than 1% would . . . be found to be violating some other pisant little law.
This is one of the great problems of 'the rule of law' that everyone claims to cherish. When we set up a government, any government, we assign some people to make rules. Every year, they add a few rules, but none ever go away. Pretty soon, we have so many rules that every single person is violating a few of them all the time. When everyone is a 'criminal', everyone is vulnerable to attack/intimidation.
What we need is a mechanism for making bad/pointless rules go away automatically.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
I read the previous comment that of all travelers, 99% are needlessly inconenienced
We definitely read it differently then... looking at it again, I think my interpretation is probably more what the poster intended... he/she wrote: "I'm sure that the 99% of innocents who get Probed...", which is talking about the percentage of those that it does effect, rather than the percentage of all people.
but they are such a small number overall that it is almost not relevant
Honestly, it's this kind of attitude that really worries me about people today... It's like saying that only 0.01% of the time that a woman walks through a dark alleyway she gets raped, so we really don't need to care about rape since it's such a small amount. Sure, rape is a completely different league of badness to being inconvenienced at the airport, but the severity isn't what you were debating - what you were debating is the amount that it happens... (keep reading below for my argument against the "low severity" of this issue)
and even if it did affect you (slim chances) the worst that happens is you are slightly inconvenienced. As others ahve already argued, this seems to be a fair tradeoff
A "tradeoff" involves losing something to gain something. I don't see anything being gained, therefore the loss, no matter how small, is too much.
I don't believe in "minor" drug offenses in public. Keep your drugs in your living room, if you must. If you are stupid enough to try and get drugs through an airport, then you deserve to be in that 1% that gets arrested.
I am an LSD user, and enjoy it immensely (in sensible moderation - it's not like I'm tripping all day every day). My taking of LSD impacts you in no way whatsoever and never will. Let's say I have a friend who wants to take a trip with me. He happens to live a thousand km or so away. I could drive it, and not be hassled by anyone at any time, or I could fly and potentially get arrested for the contents of my pocket. Regardless of what you think about drug use or even my particular case that I've presented here, I present it to raise a question: How is it any different whether I fly to visit my friend or drive? Why should the fact that I'm going through an airport make any difference to whether I "deserve to get arrested" (your words) compared to not going through an airport?
Since I look like a respectable early 30s balding businessman most of the time, I'm hardly the kind of guy that gets picked out based on how I look anyway, nor do I live in the US and do my best to avoid visiting there since the crazy regulations started appearing, but that's not the point - even if this NEVER has ANY effect on me whatsoever, I'm strongly against it because of the effect that it has on others and the possibility that some people (such as yourself) are going to bend over and accept this, until eventually the governments eventually realise they can pull damn near anything because of people like you, and we end up with no freedoms left. No, this isn't the worst atrocity against human rights ever committed, nor is it even particular a big deal, but the fact is that every little thing matters and a step in the wrong direction, no matter how small, is still one step further away from where society should be headed.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
It boils down to the fact that if a law enforcement official doesn't like your face he can find some ancient law you've been violating and put you away.
I was going to suggest that we ought to subject law enforcement officials/legislators to that sort of investigation regularly and see how they like it. Trouble is, that would drive all the decent people out of government service and replace them with humorless, puritanical, . . .
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me or disagreeing with me... I think we agree though - meth is very bad and is not something I agree with, however the simple act of using it is NOT enough to put others at risk. The "typical meth user" does put people at risk, and it is pretty much directly linked to their meth use a lot of the time, but it's their "lifestyle" (of which meth is a big part) that's the problem, not the meth itself. As I mentioned, I've had it once (and never want to have it again) and I didn't magically turn in to a degenerate junkie, or serial killer or anything like that.
As far as E and weed go, I'm definitely with you on that. I can't smoke weed (it basically makes me feel a combination of seasick and extremely tired, with NO good feelings at all, so within seconds of smoking it I'll throw up and pass out (hopefully in that order)), however I'm very much in favour of marijuana legalisation. I also don't like E because amphetamines in general make me very nervous and far too excitable, but given the choice, I'd also vote for legalisation of it with restrictions on sale (licensed, age limited - similar to alcohol).
Personally what I DO prefer in the way of altered states, just for reference, is the psychedelics, and I do actively put my word in whereever possible when it comes to the topic of LSD legislation. (other psychedelics are also important and interesting, but I really feel LSD is one of the most amazing and useful substances ever discovered, and has been demonised to the point that it's nearly beyond all reasonable discussion with a lot of people)
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
...can't even agree much of the time on these points.
You have some who are very expansive in their use of language to the point that nearly any law can cover any activity, and then you have others who are so narrow in their use that nearly every law is almost impossible to violate.
The issue is that right now, if you investigate anyone deeply enough, you can find something they have done that violated some law or regulation.
Really, if you take an honest look at the situation, it sure seems that all of the different "interpretations" are really just attempts to evade the actual law and instead have the system arbitrarilly act in the interest of whichever "side" finds it inconvenient.
The strategy is to obfuscate what the laws actually say with a blizzard of words, assumptions, court precidents, rationalizations, and reasonings until the real meaning is lost to a maze of confusion.
Really, the big issue is that our current body of law is so huge and often self-contradictory that nobody can really be sure of whether many daily acts are legal or not.
Maybe the entire thing just needs a reboot where we scrap everything but the Constitution and start over.
Uhhhh I'd say 1% in this case validates its use. Uh duh. Even 0.5% is enough in my opinion as long as civil liberties aren't being violated.
It's even better. Both judges and laywers specialize.
As a matter of fact, I do have something to hide. Most people would not be happy about a complete stranger going through their underwear drawer at home, why should I feel comfortable with a complete stranger going through my underwear
Having trouble removing the skid marks?
Apparently any kind of facial hair will draw suspicion. I have yet to fly without being detained/questioned and I believe its because of my sideburns. It makes me look different than everyone else and different = suspicious. Even when traveling with my wife.
"You can be a criminal for possesion of a lobster, opeing a packet of cigarettes without fully destroying the tax seal and for any number of lesser known laws."
-Technically you may have broken the law, but there is something called Officer Discretion. Wheather or not you are charged is up to the discretion of the officer, wheather or not you are prosecuted is up to the discretion of the District Attorney, and wheather or not you are tried is up to the discretion of the judge.
As regards to seemingly "stupid" laws, many of them are specific for a reason: You may be breaking the law for lobster or crab fishing out of season, or taking game that is not allowed to be taken in certain areas. There was a man who was arrested by the FBI for possesing sturgeon in my area, but that was because he possesed individuals that were WAY under the legal limit, and had appoximately 35-40 individual fish altogether, OUT OF SEASON, and clearly intended for commercial sale.
Possesion of a lobster, or crab, may be illeagal if it is clear that it was recently taken and it is out-of-season or taken from an area where such fishing is unlawful, because then it can be resonably proven that it was taken out-of-season and therefore unlawful to possess. However, possession is not illegal if it was purchased out-of-season or you did not catch it yourself from either a restricted area. Then, the seller may be questioned as to their method of acquiring said item, and the person who actually took the lobster or crab is liable.
I know there are a bunch of clearly ridiculous laws, and there is probably no shortage of their mention on the InterWeb, suchas the law against bringing a moose into a bar, but alot of laws are not as simple as: "You can be a criminal for possesion of a lobster, opeing a packet of cigarettes without fully destroying the tax seal and for any number of lesser known laws."
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Last friday.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Unlike some of you, I squander a lot of my valuable TV time, observing wild animals eking out their last days on this planet. The shore of the river is a good place for this. Notify DHS.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
That wouldn't work, the pot smoker might expect the pilots to share their cocaine, and you know that ain't gonna happen...
How the hell are you shooting cocaine?
I don't think nearly as much of Schneier as many of my peers do, simply because I saw him talk and while he said some very true things, he also said some patently dumb things.
I think he's got the right idea on a lot of what's wrong, right now, but that doesn't make him a panacea.
That said, my respect for him drops more with this statement. Not because he's wrong about the TSA, but because if offered a chance to serve, he'll decline. If the president asked me to head an agency, and I thought I could do it at all, I'd jump at it.
His excuse is that he wouldn't be able to head the agency and downsize it is ludicrous. Many people work as the head of companies and downsize them. He could accomplish the real goal of safe transportation without spending as much.
So his excuse is just that. He's making plenty of money and can't fail where he is. He puts his pocketbook ahead of the liberties and happiness and safety of millions of his fellow citizens.
Great guy.
All we'd have to do to find this out is stop a bunch of randomly chosen passengers. A well-designed control group would tell us how well this thing worked.
That would be a very easy study to do. Why haven't they done it, then?
It's possible that 2% were carrying for all we know. Maybe this thing is an innocence detector.
Real numbers are a risk. Best to stay with the unknown.
If you watch the video he points out that is isn't very specific.
So you're argument is that it doesn't matter that you can be arrested for anything because police are nice and would never arrest you unless you deserved it?
Sure.
Lets forget about even having real laws and settle with "if we say so you go to jail". there's no real need for these law things or the posibility of not breaking them. Authority figures will just try to do what's best and never abuse their power...
Maybe I'm heartless, but any crime/sickness/accident/whatever that affects .01% of the population is statistically insignificant. It doesn't mean it isn't important, it just means people are getting riled up out-of-proportion with the situation. The "outrage" doesn't match the "injustice". Comparing TSA checks to rape is a bit over-the-top.
Hey, at least we agree!
Ask the unborn child if he/she wants to be born, and THEN decide.
Say something if you don't want to be aborted. Nothing? OK, you're the boss.
Applying the same test to disconnecting life support systems would make America's emergency rooms much less crowded.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The question that comes to my mind:
If pot, coke, heroin, LSD, and E were all legal and easy to acquire, would anybody ever bother with something as stunningly dangerous as Crystal Meth?
Isn't the main appeal of meth the fact that large batches of it can be quickly cooked up in a trash can in a vacant lake cabin using relatively cheap ingredients and then sold for outrageous amounts of money?
What would be the attraction for a potential market of users if they can get a better, safer high for less money without breaking any laws or dealing with low-life pushers?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
if you've just come back from amsterdam with a suitcase full of sex toys then, yeah... I think you have something to hide... What is your private, personal material should remain as such... it shouldn't be openly displayed to the public because of some a-hole on a power trip who has an IQ that can be counted on your fingers.
if you truly believe the "you have nothing to hide" argument then you should go live on a nudist comune, if you aren't already.
-- Sex is the antonym of pringles. Once you pop it's time to stop.
Body cavity searches.
Despite all the safeguards supposedly in place, if a cop really wants to, he can find a reason to arrest you. Most understand it'd be pointless, and they have better things to do. But the point is, an arrest in and of itself means nothing. Making it stick in court is something else entirely.
And now, empowered with the excuse of "the behavior machine thinger said he was acting suspicious!" the cop doesn't even need to look that hard for a reason. The machine beeps or whatever it does, he slaps the cuffs on you. "Just doin' my job," he might say -- and he's probably right.
But if the charges are dropped or you aren't convicted, is the TSA going to announce that? "We arrested over a thousand people but only a hundred of them were actually up to no good."
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
If they arrest a high percentage of people - they are using Orwellian tech to implement fascism - look at all the people arrested!
If they arrest a low percentage of people - they are incompetent and are using technology to harass a lot of innocent people - look at how many aren't even arrested!
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
"I hope you die a miserable death."
nice one AC.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
So as an Undergrad Psych student, I took a class called Deception, Brain and Behavior with a noted expert in the field, Travis Seymour.
We went over the so called Micro-expression system developed by Paul Ekman, who helped create the TSA system, known as SPOT.
Some notes: Ekman's system depends on expressions occuring in 1/15th of a second. Trained observers who worked with Ekman for years still disagree on expressions, even when using slowed down film from high speed cameras.
And as best as I can find, the TSA does 7 days of training to use it, 4 in class and 3 on the job.
Oh and Ekman himself thinks the current SPOT system sucks, though that may just be covering his ass because he helped develop it.
http://www.santacruzbynight.com/index.shtml Santa Cruz By Night Vampire Larp
It is reasonable to allow for a longer review period after a few cycles, but not quite that quickly.
I would also add an automatic sunset so if a law is not positively acted on during it's review, it is repealed in full. Further that each law to be extended must have an individual bill passed to do so, no bulk extensions in the last hour of the session, no riders.
If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, 99% of the time it probably isn't a duck at all.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
AntiHero says: Screw (F*CK*) TSA. TSA sucks. We have a fake economy where criminals swindle the american taxpayer out of our money through fraudulent practices (bad loaning, derivatives, interest, inflation, etc.) And we have the Criminal War Pigs that got us into illegal wars based on lies with no way out of with no objectives for winning and no proof/evidence for us even to be there in the first place, undeclared phoney wars with no purpose.
Screw TSA, screw the bush Administration, screw the wallstreet crooks, and screw the Obamanites when they figure out Obama is the same as the whole lot of 'em. Peace.
Even better, ask a cop! They don't know all the laws they're expected to enforce either. Like everyone else, they use their best guess and hope for the best.
Even lawyers don't know all of the law. They generally specialize in a particular area.
I have to wonder how much justice there can be if "ignorance of the law is no excuse" and yet literally EVERYONE is ignorant of at least a portion of the law.
We could make some sort of trigger lock that has to be opened before the gun can fire.
I mentioned one - a retention holster. Police use them all the time. They use a number of 'retention' IE 'you can't pull it out if you don't know what you're doing'. Fingerprint or RFID would be a new twist. but eh.
As for time, we can easily leave it on a dead-man's switch. Make the gun free to use, as long as it hasn't been removed from contact with the sky marshal. You can open the lock without a fingerprint if the lock has remained within a foot of an RFID worn on his waist or one worn on his wrist.
Now you're getting into territory of 'solution looking for a problem' than 'problem looking for a solution'. Aside from an Air Marshal that deserves to be fired for leaving her weapon in the bathroom twice, retention hasn't been a problem. It's not normally a problem for police or CCW holders.
Frankly speaking, your gun is the best defense against having your gun taken away and used on yourself or somebody else. Making it harder to use initially is only asking for trouble.
And a ten minute time limit would easily allow me to shoot through all the ready magazines an officer is normally going to carry (one in the gun, two to four reloads).
And, just as relevantly, you don't put the sky marshal out where people could wander by and grab his gun.
Don't ID the marshal to everyone, don't have the marshal have his gun out where everybody can see it, train him on retention. Far cheaper and more effective than a RFID ring or bracelet that can be taken, or a biometric scanner prone to false negatives and plain taking too much time. Cheap trick - a reseting grip safety. You release the grip, the safety pops on.
I think that it's telling that in every state that's proposed 'smart' guns that won't fire except for an ID'd user the police lobbied long and hard to win exemptions to the very same rules. Yet more police are killed by their own gun than civilians(discounting 'joint' guns and suicide).
As for bailiffs - I hate to say it, but the last rampage committed against a bailiff that I've heard about was done to one old enough to draw social security. I've known some tough old guys, but this guy wasn't.
I don't read AC A human right
more than 1 in 100 Americans were incarcerated, so that's more than 1% "hit ratio" if you simply searched every American for illegal drugs, fake IDs or similar.
Nonsense. Unless you think that everyone who ever does anything illegal is currently incarcerated and everyone who is incarcerated would, if not currently in prison, constantly carry evidence of some crime around with them. Those are both such uncertain assumptions that they make your conclusion completely unsupportable.
Help prevent the slashdot effect; stop reading the articles.
I believe their reasoning (detaching my own personal opinion) is that drugs impair people. Imagine a lot more coked up people driving on our roads and highways and walking around neighborhoods. Unlike alcohol, some drugs cannot be used in moderation - some instantly and completely get people wasted and make them dangerous to society.
Not to the degree you might think. The illegality of the drugs creates a selection bias. You only find out about the people who couldn't handle it (who may have been dysfunctional in the first place). The rest remain functional and keep their drug use a secret.
After WWI, there were a great many decorated 'junkies' who lead upstanding and productive lives in spite of being unable to break their heroine addiction.
Meanwhile, for some, alcohol is ruinous.
Wow, you sound really good at bending over and taking it! Can you offer any tips on how I can start obeying the whim of anyone who remotely resembles an authority figure?
I've seen the video and it makes a great case but here is an honest question:
A crime is being commited right now - do you call the police? (This is going to eventually involved talking to the police, so maybe you better not?)
Someone commits a crime in the street and you are a witness - do you talk to the police after the fact? (Sorry, I'm just a pedestrian, ask someone else!)
A crime happens in your house - do you talk to the police after the fact? Only if you could be a suspect? How do you ever know? Better play it safe and refuse to talk I guess.
In other words, at what point does the advice "don't talk to the police" get turned on hmmm...?
Picking out 160.000 people at random, or based on a border guard's hunch would likely have gotten as many hits.
Sounds like a waste of money to me.
Sounds like a serious threat to civil liberties to me. The money involved is of little interest.
Well, since it's my civil liberties AND my money being used to trample them, I care about both.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
That's exactly how it works. You are not required to submit to any search at the airport, but if you refuse you won't be allowed to board the airplane.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
"he can do whatever the hell he wants (except DUI as it's illegal)"...
doing drugs is illegal too... but you aren't against that?
perhaps what you mean is that he shouldn't DUI or operate heavy machinery under the influence becuase that would endanger others?
saying "don't do this because it's illegal" but then saying it's okay to do other illegal activities will just confuse your child... tell him instead the rules of your house and how they cross-section with the law (using a venn diagram i suppose), and discuss how those morally and ethically are different.
-- Sex is the antonym of pringles. Once you pop it's time to stop.
ASPD is recognized as a disease by WHO
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASPD
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
An effect tending to limit the total number of laws is a benefit, not a drawback. Better fewer, simpler, wiser laws that apply correctly to ever-broadening human experience than an ever-broadening mass of special-case rules for the each hot topic over the course of history.
Not that it's easy. All communication seems to be harder to get right tersely than verbosely. Surely legal code must be one of the hardest cases of this problem.
but apparently not when collectivism is desired and marketed by the powerful to enhance their own power.
I understand the point, but I disagree with the extent to which we've gone and the purity of motivation you assume on the parts of our beloved leaders. A nation whose government cannot follow its own laws or constitution will not remain a nation of laws for long.
I think our society was far more open at the begining of this decade when one had reasonable confidence that the government wasn't spying on and abducting Americans without a warrant. I think our society was far more open when in the 90s I could drive past the white house. I think our society was far more open in the 80s when I could get on a plane without showing ID. I think it was far more open in my mother's childhood when one could take a picnic on the white house lawn.
These things seem to me to be increasing in severity as we fall further down that slippery slope. One would have thought we'd have learned this lesson with greater durability from J. Edgar Hoover and McCarthy's time. Instead we've leaders who actively throw that lesson under the bus for expediency's sake.
One of my favorites was Elliot Spitzer being caught for fraud, etc. in a surveillance program he authorized for terrorism. An authorization that at the time we were promised was only for terrorism and wouldn't be used for anything less "critically" threatening.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
We aren't interested in statistical studies of colored balls in a jar.
Real-world techniques are being used to effectively deter the attacks. The Constitution is not a suicide pact.
It would make planes the holy grail of bombability - walk on with a couple of lbs of explosives and be guaranteed a 200+ kill on the plane and maybe 100s more on the ground if you time it right. Are you seriously suggesting that is acceptable because you believe you mustn't be searched even when getting on someone else's private property as a privilege?"
Absolutely, free men are never to be searched without great cause. I stand in awesome company when I say this. You think Washington, Franklin or Jefferson would have put up with the TSA for even a second?
First off, travel is not a privilige. It's a guaranteed right as the courts have affirmed on numerous ocassions. If you're not free to move around, you're not free to do anything. Secondly, the minute you open a public business, you give up your "private property" rights. I can bar someone from my home just because I don't like they way they look. I can't do the same from my business.
But forget the details, here's your real problem. You're afraid. Someone could do something bad that could hurt a lot of people, and because of that fear, you think we should toss our liberty out the window and hope the big strong men in suits and uniforms protect us.
Patrick Henry disagrees with you.
Here's your problem. You're posting on a board filled with engineers. I'll bet at least half of the people on this board could wreak some real havoc. It takes brilliance to create something new, but any jackass can rip something apart. Destruction is easy. "But, but, you could take a bomb and kill a couple hundred people..." Sure, but that's true of any large gathering of people.
Freedom and Liberty are not safe. They're never going to be safe. There's no way to make them safe. You could spend a year coming up with the most air-tight security you can imagine, and the denizens of Slashdot would pop it almost immediately. Go back and read Feynman again. The military would come up with the best schemes they could. Feynman would have them ripping their hair out by lunch.
Consider the history. A mental patient with a fixation on a Hollywood starlet managed to get a bullet past the best bodyguard service ever. The whole Union Army couldn't keep a flaky actor from killing one of our greatest presidents. Consider Iraq. We've put Draconian security measures in place, complete with "If in doubt, shoot" orders. We're still losing men to half-assed mouthbreathers who lack the balls to let their women speak their mind.
You can be Free, or you can be Fearful, but you can't be both at the same time. Yes, the man next to you could be a suicide bomber. No, you don't get to cancel his Liberty to check. Yes, your waiter might be carrying SARS. No, you don't get to force him to pass medical quarantine every morning.
We're Americans. People should speak their minds without fear as befits free men. Pray to whatever god you believe in, or deny whatever deity you choose. We don't search people until we can convince a judge that they've already done something wrong.
And the fact that some of my fellow countrymen haven't soaked this lesson down to their very bones just terrifies me...
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
3 out of 4 times I aero-travel in US, I was the selectee for pat-down search.
The 1st time I'm very co-operative, but the later ones come annoying.
BTW, I'm from China.
You've twice said "suspiciously behaving people" as though that has some meaning. Based on the available evidence, I'd surmise that it's 99% meaningless.
You might want to think about that the next time you go through a security checkpoint. The goons working it are wrong at least 99% of the time (I say "at least" because I'm assuming that as well as being 99% wrong in who they do stop, presumably they're also failing to stop some evildoers). If placing yourself into their hands doesn't worry you enough to make you act (suspiciously) nervous, well, it should do.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Of course it has meaning...it's the people they are pulling aside. Of course it is a meaningless and subjective metric, but it is the standard they are using. I have been singled out for suspicious behavior (I was wearing a lapel pin of the very prominent government agency I was traveling to). They asked me what the deal was with my lapel pin and I explained. I continued on my way. If I had drugs, a weapon, or even an arrest warrant, I would hope they would have detained me.
Actually, I'm from a military family with generations of service and a couple at the bottom of the Pacific. Yes, I've actually been shot at. It's no fun at all.
Not that I'm posting AC, of course. :-)
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
We don't outlaw blunt objects, we teach people to use them 'carefully'.
The only thing about drugs that scares me is that it removes any 'reservations' one might have. It kind of undoes "education", something not present in most non-regulated things.
If there is one thing to be learned on slashdot, it has to be sarcasm.
If I'd have mod-points I'd mod you up (insightful) regarding both the ease at which one can get said illegal drugs *and* the (potential contents) of that stuff =(
Then again, it's not because something is regulated that it becomes "safe". Think of the many food-industry scandals that emerge all too frequently all over the planet (melamine in milk, anti-freeze in wine, car-oil in cattle-feed, etc...)
If there is one thing to be learned on slashdot, it has to be sarcasm.
i don't think you've done many drugs.
i've never done any drug that loosened my innate understanding of right and wrong, made me devalue my morality, or in any way removed any 'reservations' that i had about amoral behavior. (and i've done a wide variety of drugs, albeit mainly hallucinogens, and only after extensive research into their side effects and addictive properties). sure, some of my reservations about conforming to societal norms fell away, but nothing that would lead me to behavior that would harm another person (unless it is true that seeing me nude will scar you for life).
and obviously my perception of and interaction with the world changed - but i was lucid enough to realize that it had changed, and that the drug had changed it; moreover, i was lucid enough for the "real me" to still be in the driver's seat of the "high me".
you can buy a gun without anyone teaching you how to use it safely. A GUN, for fook's sake. for a more apt analogy, a bottle of wine doesn't come with any safety training - just the knowledge that you better use it responsibly. why can't the same be true for a doobie?
the united states is a nation of laws; badly written and randomly enforced -- frank zappa