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TSA Wants You To Keep Your Seat, and Your Hands In Sight
An anonymous reader excerpts from an AP story as carried by Yahoo News about changes stemming from yesterday's foiled bombing attempt of a Northwest Airlines flight: "Some airlines were telling passengers on Saturday that new government security regulations prohibit them from leaving their seats beginning an hour before landing. The regulations are a response to a suspected terrorism incident on Christmas Day. Air Canada said in a statement that new rules imposed by the Transportation Security Administration limit on-board activities by passengers and crew in US airspace. ... Flight attendants on some domestic flights are informing passengers of similar rules. Passengers on a flight from New York to Tampa Saturday morning were also told they must remain in their seats and couldn't have items in their laps, including laptops and pillows." The TSA's list of prohibited items doesn't seem to have changed in the last day, though.
How ridiculous can flying become? Just say "F**K YOU" to terrorists, and fly as if nothing had happened. Otherwise they've won.
With all due respect on the aisle thing, if I'm on a long-ish flight, fall asleep after eating whatever, and I have to pee badly enough, stand aside and let me use the lav, or I'll just piss in my paints in the aisle and let the cleaning crew on the ground deal with it... not my fault you guys tied to keep me from using the bathroom despite pointing out how badly I needed it a dozen++ times. I wish I was kidding, but I'm not. The TSA has gone beyond asinine now.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Seriously. Make every passenger from Nigeria go out through security in Amsterdam, then back in. And while you are at it if some guy in Nigeria goes to the US embassy and says look out for my son here is his name then bloody look out for that name in visa requests and think twice before granting it.
Oh and another thing. US security seems to focus on detaining the bad guys after they have landed in the US. We have heard of this happening to plenty of people. How about recognising that they can get up to bad stuff while still in the air over Detroit, and trying to keep the bad guys from even getting on the plane.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The TSA's list of prohibited items doesn't seem to have changed in the last day, though.
Explosive devices aren't already listed?
Indeed. It's the streisand effect of terrorism... 9/11 could have been at most a minor annoyance but instead it became the rallying cry for numerous restrictions on freedom with questionable results at best.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Impacting our day to day to lives = terrorism has succeeded.
Its psychological warfare. The mind is infinitely more powerful than any bomb.
Because apparently the only possible time to detonate something and bring down an airplane is in the last hour before landing. So THAT is why the shoe bomber failed....he did it too early!
How about we have a reasoned response to this instead of just blindly making shit up based on the last attack?
The last one sounded like some guy successfully set off a charge that was barely large enough to set his pants on fire, then some guy jumped him afterwards. How, exactly, is that foiled?
Just like the shoe bomber fracas a couple of years ago, is that to thwart a perp attacking an aircraft, what you need are passengers who are ready to go berserk on his ass. No TSA or air marshalls needed.
The spurt of rule-making that follows an incident like this is nothing but a demand for more docility from the public. The TSA is useless.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I've canceled my vacation. Not because I'm afraid of terrorists-- I'm not, at all. We're talking at about 1 death per 4 million passengers.
No, it's that in response to this sliver of a threat, you're guaranteeing that I'll spend twice the time in line, and the flight will be as miserable as you can make it. This will cost literally billions of dollars (at 300 million hours, about 450 lifetimes) of productive passenger time per year. And all because some twat might set his crotch on fire-- good thing you don't allow us to have water anymore.
Alright. Fine. Let the airlines go out of business; this nation of cowards deserves it. I suppose we'll need another bailout, to pay the airlines to leave their aircraft on the tarmac.
Those who would sacrifice essential liberty for imaginary security are assholes.
I'm all for security but now this all nonsensical. Instead of actually making actual changes they just impose extremely annoying rules that have no actual security improvement. What does it matter whether or not it is the last hour...can't the terrorist just set off a bomb...I dunno before the last hour. I don't understand what the actual point of this rule is.
So if I want to pee, read a book, put something away, or so much as even flinch I'm gonna be threatened with an arrest. Simply inconveniencing people isn't gonna make security any better...
You beat terrorists by raising a middle finger in their direction, mocking them mercilessly and accepting casualties once in a while. You kiss terrorist arse when you pull this kind of crap. What's next, handcuff passengers to their seats and have police strutting up and down the aisles during flights? Give me an effin' break!
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
So what's the point of the new rules?
Human nature. When something bad happens, we try to prevent it from happening again.
It's easy to harshly judge these guys, but if they did nothing and another attempt was successful I would not want to be in their shoes. Not that I want to be in their shoes anyway. Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
As much as I agree that the response to terrorism is often irrational, try to maintain some perspective. Thousands of people dying cannot reasonably be described as a "minor annoyance."
So, during this time when you aren't allowed to get out of your seat, aren't allowed to use the bathroom (explicitly mentioned in an article I read):
What happens if you have to crap? Like really have to? I have a feeling if someone started yelling about how they were gonna shit their pants, a flight attendant would let them to the bathroom, although I think if you're at the point where passengers are having to yell about needing to take a crap (in front of dozens of passengers), you are opening yourself up to a lawsuit.
It's easy to harshly judge these guys, but if they did nothing and another attempt was successful I would not want to be in their shoes.
Abdulmutallab's failure was due to his own ineptitude, not the TSA's myriad rules & procedures.
If the TSA did nothing, they would not be any less effective.
Most people regard the annual road toll as a "minor annoyance".
I have trouble keeping my son in his high chair with his hands in plain site in a high chair. Good luck getting infants to sit still.
I don't know who's stupider: The idiots at the TSA who come up with the rules, the politicians that give them this power, or the dickheads that allow the politicians to be elected.
I'll stay well out of your country. I only wish your fucked up rules didn't get copied by our own government and idiotic organisations. We just had some ridiculous security restrictions lifted in Australia. What's the bet that all gets reversed thanks to you crazy as fuck yanks?
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
It's stupid not because it's exaggerated, but because it's ineffective. It's BS. I went to a conference in the US at the end of November, and was reminded just how bad it is to fly to and from the US. I have also flown to and from Israel, a country very much in the crosshairs of terrorists, and the security procedure was MUCH more humane, both on the flights and at boarding. (in fact, I didn't even need a visa for Israel, while I need to go through an incredibly complicated and expensive procedure to get a US visa... but this is a different story (or is it?)) The Israelis do have some security processes in place, but they are mostly stealth and unobtrusive. Well, in any case, they must be doing something right, because there has not been a hijacked or otherwise terror-affected flight to or from Israel in decades now.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
2 people die per second... 144000 per day.
4 babies born per second... 5760 per day.
I don't understand this math.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Every life is important. Just because it's not possible to prevent deaths everywhere , doesn't mean you should be ok with unnecessary slaughter of innocent people.
Their loved ones still lost them and that still causes them pain , not matter whether they got 'replaced' or not .
By your logic , you would be ok with having your entire family killed , as they will be replaced inside an hour ?
People are more than statistics.
Slipping shoelaces ?
If he had spent that long just trying to set it up, why didn't he also try to set it off while still in the toilet?
Also, what kind of brainwashing and delusions of thinking is going on that causes these people to think that blowing up a plane and themselves is the answer to anything? That is the real issue. What is it that's causing some people to go against every programmed instinct of human nature to try to do such things? And is there any way to intervene in that process, before it even gets to be a threat?
Especially because the terrorist in question remained in his seat the whole time.
In fact, the only person who seems to have left his seat is the guy who got up to stop the attack. So, should he have remained seated instead?
Exactly - how on earth did the TSA come up with such seemingly braindead directive? Makes you think that either there's someone incredibly cunning, or a sufficiently large group of utterly unimaginative and obtuse individuals work for the TSA.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Every life is important. Just because it's not possible to prevent deaths everywhere , doesn't mean you should be ok with unnecessary slaughter of innocent people.
In the real world, resources are limited. If spending 50 billion dollars on anti-terrorism saves 4000 lives, and spending 50 billion dollars on food aid saves 1 million lives, then the latter is clearly a better decision, notwithstanding the fact that every life is important.
Of course, in the real world, what we actually ended up doing is spending 1 trillion dollars fighting two deadly wars with heavy civilian casualties.
Thousands of thousands of people die each day outside the US in wars that appear to be a 'minor' annoyance to the US. 4000 people died under the terror campaign by the IRA in Ireland - supported by most in the US.
Every year 15 million children die of hunger alone.
Perspective - it's a great thing. I also don't believe most democratic elections are won via terrorist attacks at home or abroad. And we still have not really made up our mind whether the US/UK invasion of Iraq was legal.
The 9/11 attacks were a tragedy. However by turning such a tragedy into an excuse to attack and govern another nation or not even disclose the full details on the attacks of that day then the event was not a 'minor annoyance' to the US at all - it was a convenient opportunity!
The death of one man is a tragedy — the death of a million is a statistic.
Go "BOO" enough times and the US will spend itself into financial ruin. Wait -- that's happening NOW!
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
Scroll down -- there's a clearly-labeled section detailing which kinds of explosive are allowed and which aren't.
But see, this is one truly moronic result of security theater -- first, the explicit list of specific stuff you can't bring is also an implicit list of stuff you can. If I were an aspiring terrorist, I'd be reading through that thinking, "Hmm, a golf club would be really useful, but they're banned... I'll just bring a stick of rebar instead." That's the problem with security theater in general -- you're preparing for specific attacks, and by publicly preparing for those, you guarantee that the terrorists won't use that attack -- they'll use something else.
The second problem is that the list in itself is a list of ideas if you can manage to sneak that stuff past security. "Hmm, a spillable battery -- that's a good idea. I just have to put it in a wheelchair and pretend to be disabled..."
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Right, and as there's obviously no way this guy could have spent 20 minutes in the bathroom 61 minutes before landing, this new policy by the TSA is surly just another feather in the cap of the worlds most effective security organization.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
It should be. I know it's tragic but it shouldn't have been turned into the media extravaganza it was. Hell, there even was an official song. The proper response to terrorism is to non-hastily look into measures that allow that particular attack to be prevented in the future (such as, in this case, making the cockpit inaccessible from the passenger room during the flight) and nothing else.
The exact point of terrorism is to disrupt the target country. Now look at the situation - not only have the USA ruined their image over two wars, they (and everyone else) spend lots of money on harrassing innocent travellers in a way that doesn't even do anything, breeding contempt all the while. A few thousand deaths in an act that is extremely unlikely to ever be successfully repeated again should not be enough to let the most well-armed country in the world tumble head-first into raging paranoia against anyone and everyone, including its own citizens.
Regardless of the "if we don't X the terrorists have already won" rhethoric, the government of the States has done exactly what the terrorists wanted and it's still continuing to do so. The terrorists have already won and they keep wining because at the moment they and the government are working in the same direction: Away form the citizens towards ever greater surveillance and power concentration at the top. They're essentially using each other as PR agencies.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
After this rule more people will die from blood clots.
Sane airlines actually encourage people to get up from their seats at regular intervals.
E.g. Edelweiss Air used to show a video explaining the issue (I haven't flown with them in a while so I don't know about the current situation), Emirates has some pictures on how to keep circulation intact etc.
The TSA losers failed to prevent him from getting on the plane with a firecracker.
Now they are saying "well we need to treat you all like prisoners now."
You know what, the terrorists just won, with a @#$%ing firecracker.
"I have to PEE!"
"Please remain seated, sir."
Respectfully, you are the one that needs some perspective. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people die EVERY DAY. A few thousand in one place at one time is a tragedy. However its hardly a big deal on the scale of the entire planet. We make it out as a big deal because for the most part, people in western "civilized" cultures are largely unaware of the reality around them. Especially outside their own country.
and have the extra TIME to travel, I'll be driving more places, for sure. So what if it takes me 3 1/2 days to get to LA from Virginia? They'll at least be pleasant, I'll get to see a lotta scenery, maybe take a few pictures, and bypass the BS. If they ever get the high speed rail working, I might take that... if there's no security BS to put up with (pointless in a train - the terrorists just blow up the tracks..)
What kind of brainwashing and delusions made him think he could take down an airliner with a bag of stuff he regurgitated and cooked up in a plane toilet? This guy was a clown.
His own father had warned the US authorities about his extremism already, but they had basically opened a file then ignored him. Perhaps they made a realistic assessment that this guy was only a threat to his own trousers?
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
More people have died from deciding to take a car more often (instead of an airplane) than there died in 9/11. And most of those deaths weren't even on the planes, but in the buildings. (Never even mind the economic damage caused by the car crashes, insurance payouts, and travel time lost that could've been spent on business matters directly; and, more indirectly, the 3-trillion dollar Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the iraqi lives lost due to Blackwater having fun, etc.)
Terrorist attacks in Europe or Israel have taken far many more lives than they have in the US.. The planes flying into buildings happened, sure.. but "9/11" was created in the mind of the world by the US response to it.
I can understand your thoughts, and I myself remember where I was on that day. I remember the discussions I had on that day.
BUT... What about all of those people that died in Spain? Or how about the ones in London? Have the Europeans decided to lock down all of their train stations and require body cavity searches?
Those people lost lives as much as anybody else, yet all we remember is 9/11. All we talk about is 9/11. All we have to endure are the endless lines of security searches, of taking off our shoes, belts, and what have you. Of me personally being searched for 45 minutes because Jolt decided it would be cute to introduce a brand new novel can of pop.
http://imstartintofeelit.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/jolt-blue-raspberry.jpg
Yes it was my mistake for taking fluids in my backpack. But was it my mistake that the TSA thought it was a brand new device? I am not blaming the TSA because they are doing their jobs. I am blaming the paranoia going through the American society...
Want to know what gets me even more, where are the twin towers V2? Want to know how inept parts of American society has become, just look at what has been built after the 9/11 attacks, NOTHING, NADA, ZIP! That is the tragedy. Think of it as follows, your enemy blows up your bridge, and yet nearly a decade later you still can't rebuild it. Who is weak I ask!!! (If it were up to me I would be forcing a mandate through to build a new set of towers to show them one is not weak...)
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
How do you determine someone is innocent? Innocent of what?
And the lives of cancer victims, who are losing out on funding that instead goes to the war on terror, are just as important. Giving them medical treatment happens to save vastly more lives per dollar than antiterrorism.
If he had set it off in the toilet, then the restrictions introduced would probably be worse. They would probably have banned the use of the toilet on planes.
Either way, "the terrorists win."
Terrorists are just spoiled children. They throw very big and dangerous tantrums for attention. Their acts and our responses are all attention.
Terrorists, like spoiled children, are best discouraged by ignoring them. Will there always be spoiled children? Yes. It's a fact of life. Can't stop life.
9/11 could have been at most a minor annoyance
The collapse of twin 110 story mega structures in Manhattan cannot be classed as a minor annoyance.
The hijackers struck the Pentagon. They made a serious attempt to reach the Capitol Building or the White House.
The geek needs to keep a little better grip on realty. When Yamamoto struck at Pearl Harbor, he knew exactly what the response would be.
So he will do this much earlier. Or is there some physics that makes an explosion 30 minutes before landing more dangerous then 1 hour and 30 minutes?
People smuggle drugs on planes all the time. (They put in in places where some people keep their watch.) One stick and two matches should be enough. And I am sure that they will be able to put the match on the stick. It is not that they need a fuse. That is only there for safety.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
9/11 had such a profound impact on the U.S. because it was spectacular, it was unprecedented, and it happened here. And, thanks to the 24/7 cable news cycle, we watched it unfolding, live, from our living rooms.
Anytime you have a large number of fatalities occurring from a single spectacular event, it will have a stronger emotional impact than a much higher cumulative tally of deaths over time. That's why airliner crashes, for example, are newsworthy and annual statistics are not -- those 100, 200, 300 deaths may be statistically a drop in the bucket compared to the annual deaths from car crashes, cancer, or whatever, but they occurred in a single, dramatic event.
The notion of using airplanes, and civilian airliners at that, as flying bombs was also not a possibility that was in the popular consciousness, not even as a plot element in an action movie. (How many people commented, on 9/11 and in the days following, that it all seemed unreal, like watching a movie and not reality?) And crash those planes into three of the most well-known, high-profile buildings in the world (the two WTC towers and the Pentagon), with a fourth crash into the White House or the Capitol (depending on who you believe) prematurely thwarted, and you have the ingredients for a real-life spectacular that will have a profound impact, regardless of how the numbers stack up statistically.
And it happened on U.S. soil. Prior to 9/11, with the possible exception of the OKC bombing, large scale terrorist attacks were something that happened in those "other" countries around the world. And with the perpetrators being "foreigners" (as opposed to a domestic malcontent like McVeigh and whatever conspirators he may or may not have had, depending on what you believe), and it's not hard to fathom the almost immediate adoption of the "America is under attack" and "we are at war" memes that were so adroitly exploited by the government.
Finally, the smug xenophobia and self-centeredness of Americans played a role. Why do you think a domestic plane crash, even a smaller commuter plane with fewer than 100 souls on board, gets hours of constant, live coverage on CNN while a jumbo jet with hundreds aboard crashing halfway around the world merits but a sentence or two at the hourly update? Think of the impact Hurricane Katrina had while killing fewer than 2000, compared to the Asian tsunami that killed 250,000 five years ago. Now consider how much attention, concern, and TV time were devoted to both. Sure, the Pacific tsunami did get some screen time, especially now that the ubiquitous presence of video cameras in average people's hands gave us some shaky, dramatic, horrifying footage to see. (Though I strongly suspect that if there had been no video at all, the event would have been even more marginalized on U.S. media.) But with the exception of a handful of Western tourists caught up in the disaster, those quarter million souls are "other" people..."fer'iners"...you know, them people that dress weird and talk funny and don't look like us. On the scale of emotional involvement, a couple thousand American lives merits an "OMG, this is horrible, something must be done" while 250,000 Indonesians, Sri Lankans, Thais, et. al. elicits an almost Seinfeldesque "Ah, that's a shame....wonder what's on HBO right now..."
So, it's not sheer numbers that determine what impact death has on a culture; it's all about context. Who got killed, where, how and why.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
Exactly - how on earth did the TSA come up with such seemingly braindead directive?
Sounds like they put the problem to a committee (I won't use the traditional metaphor becase it is a baseless slander against the noble camel).
Stopping people from going to the toilet or having stuff on their lap for the whole flight might actually help with the problem, but would be unworkable for other reasons (anybody want to invent a pants-mouted bomb detonated by urine?) So they reach for the political compromise: a time limit. Completey defeats the object, but hey, they're seen to be doing something - whereas pointing out that what we really have here is more evidence of the inefficacy of amateur binary explosives would be totally unacceptable.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
"And we still have not really made up our mind whether the US/UK invasion of Iraq was legal."
Really? Our minds have little to do with matters of law. US and UK politicians putting their fingers in there ears and singing "la,la, ll, la la" doesn't change the legal facts of he matter.
Their authority via coercion (political or military) allows them to tell the story how they wish and write history as they see fit.
Yeah, he knew Japan would be attacked. He didn't expect the US to attack its own citizens.
So why is the Government attacking its own citizens?
We all make grandiose statements about "security theater," how worthless new rules are going to be, vowing never to fly again, etc. etc etc...but how many of us take our comments beyond a Slashdot post? How many comments about knee-jerk reactions are knee-jerk posts? I'll admit to the same, having sworn off flying if at all possible and driving to my desired destinations.
I'm not saying "quit whining." Far from it--what is being said needs to be said, but it needs to be said in the proper forum. Contact the TSA, the airlines, and your Congressional representation. Tell them the same things (with a dash of proper grammar and spelling and a certain amount of decor, of course) that, as the flying (or former flying) public, you object to tax dollars being wasted on what is perceived to be ineffective security measures. Make it a voting issue when the next election comes rolling around. Let those who make the rules know that they are having an effect--a negative effect. Tell the airline about that road trip you took and how much more enjoyable it was without having to submit to a bunch of BS screening.
I'll grant you that the most you can hope for, as an individual, is some sort of form-letter response from your Congressional representation. The airlines won't care because, frankly, if you don't buy the ticket, somebody else will. The TSA won't care because, well, they don't have to care. (Yes, I'm a little cynical.) En masse, however, somebody, somewhere, might start to pay attention.
I'll take my own advice right now, and after reading up on the actual event and the ensuing rules changes, make it clear to my representation my position, and what I expect to be done about it. I ask direct questions, in hopes of getting something other than a form-letter response. That way if I get a canned response that doesn't address the question, I have a reason to ask it again.
My deep thought for the day.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
Somehow I thought it was all bad Bush policies and things were going to be paradise now.
I guess that it is just the nature of big government to want power for those in charge at the expense of liberty and doesn't truly depend on who it actually it is.
by the time it was 9/12, every person who died there, was replaced.
no matter how much you tell yourself that 'thousands' of dead is important, it simply isn't.
The 2500 who died at the WTC weren't infants or elders. They were firemen.
They were men and women in their most productive years. In the rarefied business of investment banking and world trade.
Death is universal. But Death is also particular.
Hit hard enough, your city, your world, can be wounded beyond all hope of recovery.
As folks who travel in and out of Washington, D.C. may remember http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/american-aadvantage/149256-no-standing-up-first-30-minutes.html when Reagan National Airport (DCA) finally re-opened the FAA imposed restrictions on inbound flights to Washington National that prohibited getting out of your seats during the last 30 minutes of flight and imposed restrictions on outbound flights from Washington National that prohibited getting out of year seats during the first 30 minutes of flight.
Eventually some TSA brainiac is going to remember the other half of the rule and ask the aircrew to impose the 1 hour prohibitions on flights outbound from the US.
I say "ask the aircrew to impose" because on-board an in-air flight the FAA's own rules say even the Air Marshal cannot force the pilot do to anything so if you're prevented from going to the bathroom then it's the aircrew's fault and not TSA's. Nuremberg Principle IV is unambiguous in stating that "The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."
You're right - dismantling your own democracy as a response to terrorists is definitely not the right response. Particularly when the countermeasures are so stupid. Worth noting that there *is* an effective way of combating terrorists however. Remove their community support. They don't come from nowhere and they don't arrange all these plans and have these beliefs without some friends and neighbours wondering. But a people that see occupations of their countries or US support for regimes like the Saudis are a people that are angry enough that they become less willing to stop such individuals themselves. And these communities are the best defense against terrorists.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Religious extremism.
[Note: I added the word "extremism" to the above because it's the day after Christmas and in the spirit of the season I thought I would extend the hand of brotherhood to any superstitious readers of Slashdot who might be reading this on this Sunday morning before going off to church to pray to whichever murdering psychopathic deity you choose to worship.]
You are welcome on my lawn.
When Arabs are taught from childhood that they will be rewarded in paradise by sacrificing themselves for the cause; When Arab mothers rejoice in their children's suicide bombing; When a common rebuttal from Islam's followers is something like, "Stop accusing us of being violent or we will kill you!!" (especially over something as stupid as a cartoon) -- Then I'm guessing it will take *generations* to reform the mis-named "religion of peace" and they will have to *want* to reform before that can begin to happen.
If you look at the most common profile of people committing acts of terrorism over the last 40 years (young, male, radical islamic), I wouldn't hold my breath on any sensible self-reformation during the next several generations.
I think it was Golda Mier who said, "We shall have peace when they love their children more than they hate us" (or love killing us)...
Perhaps if we didn't have such an imperialistic international policy we wouldn't have this problem. How many international terrorist attacks have there been in Canada, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland?
Perhaps if we didn't feel compelled to try and tell people how they are supposed to live their lives and beholden to us they wouldn't be so pissed off all the time.
Many years ago this nation was based on what was termed Liberal Ideology where all men are free to choose how to live their lives. This meant freedom to fail as well as freedom to succeed. We have lost that ideology on several fronts.
The term Liberal has been turned around. Yesterdays Liberal is now Libertarian and Yesterdays Marxism is now Liberal Democracy. Republicans are pretty much out to lunch. Dispersion of resources through the government (tax the rich, subsidize the poor) is a corner stone of Marxist Doctrine.
If I fail, the government feels compelled to bail me out from my bad decisions. In effect, this encourages bad decisions because there is no real risk realized. If I succeed, the government feels compelled to tax me for my good decisions. This deters me from taking the risks necessary to succeed because the reward is not realized. The government encourages bad behavior.
As I fail, regulations are put into effect to prevent me from failing again. This also hinders my ability to succeed. Instead of using resources for building a successful company which makes money, hires people, and sells goods. My money is burned on worthless paper to show compliance to regulations that don't improve profit, employment, goods.
Overseas we assume we are the great protector of the world and are ever vigilant against the next Hitler of the world. Noble ideals, but who are we to decide what is right and wrong in this world? We claim the Chinese have poor human rights practices but there's no mention of that anymore. We are selective on whom we assault. Darfur can go to hell and we don't care. But we invade Iraq based on alleged photos that add up to nothing. We have an exit plan for Afghanistan, but when are we leaving Iraq?
American funded Irish republican terrorists murdered two innocent children on that day.
If we'd done our foreign policy then the way we and the US do now, we'd have responded by sending the troops into Mexico to force regime change...
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
I don't think that was quite the point being made. It's more a demonstration that even in places where terrorism has taken more lives, there can be far less of a knee-jerk reaction (and thus potentially far fewer arbitrary and ineffective restrictions on our activities in the name of safety).
You needn't necessarily be concerned about the acts of terrorism in Europe, but you may want to look to them to see an alternative method of dealing with attacks.
That's true in the short term, but as long as you do the feeding in a responsible, adult, non-attention-seeking, non-empire-building, humanitarian way, then the long term results will differ considerably.
The reasons America is targeted by the terrorists is solely because of some, less than ideal policies regarding regime change. No-one cares what the Canadians (for example) do, they're not targeted for destruction by Al Quaeda, but then they never went charging in places shouting loudly that the locals had to change their political ways, and buy more coca cola.
If you fed the world's poor, there would be far fewer young men so ready to accept the brainwashing propaganda from the terrorist leaders (you know, the ones who don't do the suicide bombings themselves). If America could free itself from the self-made shackles of oil consumption and global corporate profiteering, the world would be a far better place.
My father might have said the same ting about me. So now what? What If I warn the authorities about YOU?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
TSA tends towards reaction to publicized events that give an impression of stalwart action. Whether or not effective in actually avoiding or mitigating any given threat, even the proximate cause for the reaction in the first place, is utterly beside the point. In the bureaucratic mindset, the overarching threat is to the agency's continued funding stream, which depends in the long haul on avoiding negative public perception that may weaken them in the appropriations process. The most effective emerging countermeasure to air terrorism has become an alert public, manned up, willing and able to protect themselves. This terrifies TSA, because it potentially changes the cost to benefit ratio both to would be terrorists and TSA as an otherwise relatively ineffective funding sump.
David and Mr. "almost 2 people die every second" both miss THE key point illustrated by the response to the attacks on 9/11. The people at the top of those buildings were some of the wealthiest people on the planet. If they were dirt-farmers in Sudan or Ethiopia, we'd be all maintaining our calm perspectives. But when they're multi-millionaires in NYC, then we need to do something drastic. The idea that all people are of equal worth and value is a nice idea, but it is not put into widespread practice. The way our world allocates resources, 1 NYC bond trader or better yet, a Goldman Sach's senior partner could easily equal 1,000 Oklahomans or 5,000 Okinawans or 50,000 Columbians or 1,000,000 Sudanese or 2,000,000 Congolese. Perhaps there's a need for a human worth calculator web-site... So, if we have to crap ourselves in coach class on airplanes 100 times a day around the USA so that a single Goldman Sachs partner has a 0.000000000373% lower chance of being a victim of a plane falling out of the sky and landing on his yacht (he would not be caught on a commercial flight), then so be it. It's a fair trade.
Unfortunately, that's probably the case. "We can't rescind a policy! People might start thinking we don't know what the hell we're doing!" Of course, most people *already* think they don't know what the hell they're doing.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Funny and sad that these regulations meant to address the Christmas Day incident wouldn't have prevented it. He was seated, and didn't have anything in his lap. I think this goes to show you that they wanted to push these regulations through but didn't think they would be tolerated, so they were just waiting for an "incident" as an excuse.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
You seriously believe that the possibility of being shot is going to deter someone from attempting to blow himself up?
-Mike
I'm sorry; I don't know what I was thinking!
That depends on your perspective - more Americans died in car crashes in September 2001 than died in the attacks. What about them?
Where's the fiery indignation for those deaths?
No one is claiming that individual lives are insignificant, but the response to 9/11 has just been silly.
So you lost some buildings and some citizens in a terrorist attack. The buildings are nothing - rebuild them, as we've been doing in Europe for decades in the face of terrorism on multiple fronts. The people clearly cannot be replaced and it is tragic, but the response to 9/11 really isn't the way you want to remember/avenge/retaliate in their memory.
When Yamamoto struck at Pearl Harbor, he knew exactly what the response would be.
When Yamamoto struck Pearl Harbor, he was flying a Japanese flag on a Japanese warship made in Japan. It's pretty easy to find the bud and nip it.
When the hijackers attacked, most of them were from Saudi Arabia, all from the middle east, all had proper Visas, all had been in the country for at least weeks if not months or years. They did not fly any flag and did not represent any country. They used box cutters and airplanes as weapons.
Both groups knew the effect of their attacks. I can promise you that bin Laden got exactly what he wanted. A cosmic war of Good and Evil, with Bush even saying as much on television, between Islam and the West. He got us to give up the liberty we fought and won over hundreds of years in less than two hours, with the loss of a lot property and 3,000 lives.
Imagine if instead of torturing people and invading two countries and starting two wars we had produced evidence, fought hard to extradite bin Laden from Afghanistan, tried him at the world court, and locked him up for the rest of his life. We would have said that the West is not barbaric, fundamentalist religious fanatics are. We are constitutionalists - we believe in the rule of law, equally applied to everyone. We may not achieve perfection, but we're the closest thing the world has got. We are genuinely here to make the world a better place, and we have learned from the mistakes of former world super powers.
Everyone says if you want to change the world, start with yourself. How about reminding everyone that freedom isn't free, not because you have to invade and sacrifice the lives of soldiers, but because sometimes you have to obey laws that your enemy does not. Sometimes you have to recognize that liberty and security are mutually exclusive.
If you let emotion and hate dictate your actions, not only do the terrorists get a recruiting tool to attract more followers, they remove the moral high ground where you once stood. Then it's just two barbarians at each other's throat, one with satellite guided weapons and tanks, and the other with suicide bombers and IEDs.
Terrorists don't attack the US because the US cause X deaths a year...they attack us because we dropped a bomb on their sister. Or tortured their cousin.
Hate is not statistical. Anger is not statistical. Terrorists causes are not statistical. They are personal.
Sure, people like bin Laden will stand up and list of a lot of vague, impersonal reasons designed to make people sympathized with them, which does somewhat work. If people think they're fighting evil, those people will be able to overlook some of their evil.
But that just gets people to the 'I won't turn in that guy I know' stage of terrorism support, it doesn't make them get on an airplane with a bomb and destroy their life...only personal loss makes people do that.
Oh, and let's not confuse the people who are fighting to stop the US from occupying their country with 'terrorists'. Terrorism is a tactic, not a goal. Someone picking up a gun and shooting at people in the military is not terrorism...at worse, it's an insurrection.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
> You needn't necessarily be concerned about the acts
> of terrorism in Europe, but you may want to look to
> them to see an alternative method of dealing with attacks.
Or look at Israel. They're the target of easily more terrorism than any other country (perhaps all other countries combined), so anything that's above and beyond the measures Israel takes is probably excessive.
Does Israel stop plane passengers from leaving their seats during the last hour of the flight? Do they confiscate bottled water? If they don't, then I'm betting we don't need to either.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
First of all, 3rd world nations don't just "allow" these people to be here. When rich nations like the US and UK cannot wipe a few simple terrorist organisations like the KKK or IRA from existence what chance does a dirt poor 3rd world nation have?
Secondly, you make it sound if the locals have a choice in the matter, this contradicts your first (wrong) point in saying that the camps are government sanctioned, meaning that the locals do not have a choice on weather they trade with the camps or not. But in either case the locals don't have much of a choice, in most of the 3rd world (the ME especially) each area is a fiefdom run by a warlord, this person has the guns and makes the decisions for everyone. So Ahkmal the local store owner hasn't much of a choice, especially when it comes down to feeding his family or ending up against a wall.
If 3rd world nations attack these groups you either end up in tribal warfare like Somalia or fighting them for decades like Colombia and FARC.
You miss a giant point in all of this, did we blame the average Japanese person for the actions of the Imperials, did we blame the average German for the atrocities of the Nazi's. No of course we didn't because we make a huge distinction between a leader who gave the order and someone who had no direct involvement. I don't blame the average USian for the abuses of your previous government because I know that you didn't issue the orders yourselves. Leaders are responsible, civilians often don't get a say in the matter.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The interview is the major part of Israeli security - they have algorithms, and they _work_. In Israel they're allowed to profile without being jumped on, and they do it to great effect. Read "Unsafe at Any Altitude" (http://www.amazon.com/Unsafe-Any-Altitude-Exposing-Illusion/dp/1586421360).