Slovak Police Planted Explosives On Air Travelers

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Slovak Police Planted Explosives On Air Travelers

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday January 5, 2010 @11:40AM from the carrying-reality-tv-too-far dept.

Entropy98 writes "Slovakian Police have planted explosives on 8 unsuspecting air travelers. Seven were stopped by airport security, including one man arrested and held upon arriving at a Dublin airport. Unbelievably, one innocent traveler made it home with 90 grams of explosives, and had his flat surrounded by the police and bomb squad."

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Seriously? by NonSequor · 2010-01-05 11:43 · Score: 4, Insightful

What the crap, man?

--
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
1. Re:Seriously? by komisar · 2010-01-05 11:58 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  How about we repeat the exercise daily at randomly chosen airports around the globe?
  Screeners who miss the contraband (or allow a passenger to exit through an entry way) would be stripped of badges and ids, fired on the spot and escorted outside the airport.
  Passengers originating at or transiting through airports with a poor screening record would be denied entry to the US.
  Seriously.
2. Re:Seriously? by dbIII · 2010-01-05 12:01 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I really don't userstand why they didn't use harmless bits of plastic the right size made to smell like explosives by rubbing against it or something. I work with people that do work with explosives (seismic surveys) and they set off airport detectors with their boots or other work clothing at times.
3. Re:Seriously? by QuantumG · 2010-01-05 12:01 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Yes.. testing of security systems.. madness.
  
  --
  How we know is more important than what we know.
4. Re:Seriously? by Mad+Merlin · 2010-01-05 12:05 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  How about the US just flat out denies all air travel to, from and/or through the US. It'd be far less inconvenient for everyone involved.
  
  --
  Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
5. Re:Seriously? by petermgreen · 2010-01-05 12:14 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Using innocent and unsuspecting members of the public to do it though seems like a pretty fucked up thing to be doing and I hope whoevers idea this was gets punished appropriately.
  If you are a goverment want to do a test of airport security systems then fine but use someone who has agreed to do it, agree it with the governments of target countries first and give that person ID so that they can prove that they are doing an official test.
  
  --
  note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
6. Re:Seriously? by Schemat1c · 2010-01-05 12:14 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  How about we realize that we are far more likely to be killed by our car or the food we eat then by terrorists?
  How about we quit giving away all of our hard won freedoms like a bunch of scared pussies?
  
  --
  
  "Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
7. Re:Seriously? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-05 12:26 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Yes.. testing of security systems.. madness.
  Yes madness. If you're going to test the security system, you do it using government agents operating in plain clothes, you don't just go planting shit on regular passengers.
8. Re:Seriously? by Kell+Bengal · 2010-01-05 12:33 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  How about we quit giving away all of our hard won freedoms like a bunch of scared pussies?
  Sadly, time and time again, the population has shown itself more than willing to lie down and meow.
  
  --
  Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
  altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
9. Re:Seriously? by Darkness404 · 2010-01-05 12:35 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  That is the stupidest thing I think I have ever heard.
  
  For one, this would make security theater even more pronounced, at least with the way it is now there is a chain of blame meaning that no one person is usually blamed for a certain incident. For another it would make policy even stupider than it already is, its bad enough when you can't take liquids on the plane, whats next? Them searching through your laptop, prying off every key to try to find explosive residue underneath it? Already, human and civil rights are raped when you travel by air, adding more stupid policies aren't going to make us any safer. If someone really wants to blow up a plane they will find some way to if they are reasonably intelligent, unafraid of death, and we aren't velcroed naked to the plane during takeoff.
  
  Plus, in some countries airport security is bad, they don't have as much security theater as the US but somehow they manage to have avoid hijacking and terrorism. The US is about the only country that requires passengers to take off their shoes, has that made us any safer? Have you seen shoe bombings all across Europe, Asia and Australia because of this? No. It is security theater. The US tries to be high and mighty in security theater yet other countries have a lower rate of air incidents and have a "poorer screening record" than the US.
  
  Your policy would effectively deny entry to the US from many, many, many different countries. Effectively a travel ban. This is a bad thing to both the security, foreign policy and economic rights of the US.
  
  There comes a time when you have to look at the US travel screening system and realize it takes away a bunch of human rights, puts us an a 1984-style dystopia where people are afraid to look, talk, act or even think "suspiciously" thinking it will cause alarm and destroys the US economy. No one wants to fly on planes when the TSA wants to treat us all like criminals. No matter how well the airline treats you, your basic rights to not be treated like a criminal are violated by the TSA. Then because no one wants to fly, the airlines lose money, when they lose money they try to squeeze every single penny out of you, when you do that you don't want to fly even more then, and it repeats.
  
  --
  Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
10. Re:Seriously? by Darkness404 · 2010-01-05 12:45 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  We can have a lot of "what if" situations. What if terrorists have a space laser that will vaporize half the earth if we don't bow down to Allah? What if terrorists are in the administration of every school district and are indoctrinating our children? What if terrorists have some stock in Apple and every time you buy an iPhone you are supporting terrorism? What if terrorists use Linux, doesn't that make you a terrorist if you are using it?
  
  Yeah, everyone is scared a terrorist group may have a nuke. And no, there is very little reliable data to show it has a nuke. It is a lot more reasonable to say that Iraq, with a simi-legitimate government, large area, and somewhat rich would have WMDs. Oh wait... when we invaded Iraq... they had no WMDs. If Iraq, a nation with many people couldn't get a WMD (or managed to turn these WMDs into ninjas so the US/UN/etc couldn't find them...) how much more unlikely is it that a terrorist group would both A) have a nuke B) have the ability to safely store the nuke in working condition C) have no leaks regarding the nuke D) take the nuke onto US soil E) detonate the nuke F) have the nuke go off G) have an acceptable kill-rate.
  
  Look, we are a lot more likely to be nuked by our own nuclear weapons than for a terrorist group to nuke us (excluding the governments of Iran, North Korea, etc) on our own soil.
  
  Paranoia only gets us so far, we can say "what if" to a number of things, but in the end, can we -really- back those things up to justify loss of human life, loss of an economy, loss of human rights, etc? I think not. There was a lot more hard evidence for Iraq to have WMDs than for a terrorist group to have nukes.
  
  --
  Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
11. Re:Seriously? by HeronBlademaster · 2010-01-05 13:20 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Ban religion? Don't be silly; that wouldn't solve anything. Generally speaking, people who commit violent acts in the name of religion are ignoring the teachings of the religion they claim to follow (e.g. the Crusades).
  If religion were magically erased from existence, these people would just find some other excuse for violence.
  I'm going to refer to the old axiom "correlation does not show causation". It's especially relevant with regard to religions that teach against violence.
12. Re:Seriously? by fractoid · 2010-01-05 13:58 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  It is a certainty that any well-funded terrorist group will eventually have access to nuclear-scale weapons, and probably in the next hundred years. We need to fix the social problems that cause terrorism before that happens. In real terms, that involves raising the level of education and the quality of life in all parts of the globe to the point where there are no large groups of people who are still so poor that they have nothing to lose, or so ignorant that they have nothing to believe in beyond what their local preacher tells them.
  
  Iraq didn't have WMDs because it didn't want them. A country is a large, stationary target that can't afford to risk playing dirty. What we should be afraid of are small groups with no allegiance to anything except their crackpot holy war (witness Hezbollah and their use of Lebanese civilians as human shields - they're the military equivalent of a guy who straps a playgroup full of 2-year-olds to himself before going on a shooting rampage, and then blames the police for any harm that comes to them).
  
  --
  Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
13. Re:Seriously? by ximenes · 2010-01-05 14:30 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I think it's conceivable that the world's population could have its quality of life raised across the board so that there are not people living in abject poverty who are literally starving to death, although it would be quite difficult and especially problematic to do so without causing the abject poor and working poor to effectively combine (meaning a reduction in quality of life for those presently at the low end of the scale but above the very bottom).
  However, raising the quality of life so that literally no one has anything to lose (as you put it) doesn't seem practical. If everyone is a millionaire, then that will be the new poverty as the value of things will adjust accordingly based on their scarcity as already happens.
  Put another way, someone will always have more than you in one way or another. More possessions, more political power, more social influence. If you feel that this is unbearable (as in someone who is legally permitted to obtain an abortion) or that you have no power to change this within the system (as with a tyrant suppressing political freedom) then people of a particular disposition will gravitate towards terrorism as a means to achieve their goals. Not to mention those who possess a strong enough dislike for another group of people based on religion, ethnicity, or other factors that their mere existence is offensive to you, which is even more difficult to solve as there is no middle ground.
14. Re:Seriously? by totally+bogus+dude · 2010-01-05 14:40 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Aren't the "typical" terrorists/extremists, particularly the ones who get into a position to be able to launch an attack on foreign soil, highly educated, and reasonably well off? I don't think the stereotype of "they only do it because they're so ignorant they believe in sky faeries" really holds water. While I agree somewhat that the West should be doing more to make the less fortunate parts of the world hate us left, I don't think this is a problem that can be solved simply by changing conditions.
  There will always be people who are willing to use violence to benefit themselves, and there will probably always be ways to profit from violence; whether that's materially or simply the joy of being surrounded by sycophants. And there will probably always be people who simply cannot tolerate the existence of certain other people. I mean, most Western nations are well educated and have national policies of inclusion and anti-xenophobia -- but still there's rampant racism and classism, and no shortage of people who fall for scams and join cults and so on.
15. Re:Seriously? by snowgirl · 2010-01-05 14:46 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  but not at one time.. Cancer kill thousands of people, but if you kill 20 at one time.. the news will not shut up..
  or maybe this logic should be carried on, well your honor, I only killed 1 person, the Flu kills more than that, so why should I serve anytime?
  The argument is not that we should ignore terrorism, but rather put it in perspective. A slow trickle of water from a leaky faucet over time will make you lose more money in wasted water than drafting a whole bath and then not using it at all.
  It's all about getting PRIORITIES straight.
  A better question based off what you proposed is to ask why the government spent more catching me as a murderer of one person, than it did curing the flu.
  
  --
  WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
16. Re:Seriously? by Zerth · 2010-01-05 15:42 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I'd be more afraid of a cargo ship full of conventional explosives sailing into NY harbor than a nuke in NYC. Simply more feasible.
17. Re:Seriously? by Kreigaffe · 2010-01-05 16:32 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Yeah uh we already do that. VOLUNTEER army. He wasn't drafted, he SIGNED UP for that shit. He didn't snap because he was being forced to fight Muslims (he was a damn shrink, not a grunt), he snapped because he was CRAZY.
  Draw correlations between his religion and being crazy at your own peril..
  
  --
  ... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about. :|
Re:Send the police to jail by NewbieProgrammerMan · 2010-01-05 11:52 · Score: 5, Insightful

Really? In the shoot-first-ask-questions-later world of "fighting terrorism," you ask how planting explosives on somebody in an airport without their knowledge could get them killed?

--
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
Re:Why? by Jarik+C-Bol · 2010-01-05 11:52 · Score: 4, Insightful

in other news, we know know that RDX can get through airport security. No wonder a guy managed to get a crotch-bomb onto a plane during christmas.

--
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
Re:Send the police to jail by jameskojiro · 2010-01-05 11:52 · Score: 4, Insightful

When someone gets guns pointed at them for carrying "bomb laden" luggage the person who thinks his luggage is clean stands there in disbelief as they demand he gets on the floor and he is so stunned that he doesn't go down and gets mowed down on concourse B by over eager TSA agents....

--
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Multilayer WTF? by Opportunist · 2010-01-05 11:54 · Score: 4, Insightful

1. WTF: No theat to passengers? At the very least 8 passengers were put into serious danger, considering the trigger-happyness of some guards. Your bags get opened, they find explosives, now don't twitch the wrong way or else...
2. WTF: What about the whole security theater we have to endure? The whole privacy invasion and they can't even find effing explosives? Just do away with the whole crap and be done with it, at least the planes will go on time again that way. Because that showed one thing: If you want to blow up a plane, you can. You just might have to send a few guys, one of them will make it. And that's pretty much all you need. After all, as a terrorist you don't really care about picking a special target plane. Any will do to cause fear.
But I'm sure we'll soon get info how the whole thing works like a charm, after all 7 out of 8 bombs would have been detected...

--
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
1. Re:Multilayer WTF? by Opportunist · 2010-01-05 12:24 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Does it matter? Imagine I'm a terrorist and want to blow up a plane. Do I take my explosives with me? Hell no. Instead, I'll seed a few other travelers. For multiple reasons:
  1) The obvious one you mention, I might act suspicious because I know I will suicidally blow up the plane. They will probably search me throughly because I'm nervous. They won't search some random travellers.
  2) They might find one or two of my explosives. By spreading them over a number of people I increase my chance to get the items on the plane.
  The test is valid. What matters is that these things are on the plane. You might remember that the 9/11 attackers didn't bring their weapons on board themselves either.
  
  --
  We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Re:More proof by jameskojiro · 2010-01-05 11:59 · Score: 4, Insightful

Pshaw, if it was engineered it was "engineered by incompetence" much like any other massively bloated software development effort....
The only conspiracy in 9/11 besides the Islamic Radical one to fly buildings into planes was a "Conspiracy of Incompetence" amongst the many federal agencies that could have done something to prevent it. Most all the hijackers wre here on EXPIRED VISAS. Where the hell was ICE on enforcing this? Instead of creating the "Department of Homeland Insecurity" they should have fired and removed the pensions of those who ignored the warnings of those below them and promote those who were warning their superiors to the jobs of those fired. Fire the incompetent boobs that let it happen and blacklist them from ever getting another government job again in their lives.
After 9/11 there should have been several hundred people in the CIA and FBI walking out of the government buildinds with their possessions in boxes and their resumes on monster.

--
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Re:More proof by Sechr+Nibw · 2010-01-05 12:10 · Score: 5, Insightful

The only conspiracy in 9/11 .... here on EXPIRED VISAS. Where the hell was ICE on enforcing this?
ICE? Seriously? Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, that was formed in March of 2003? Yeah, they f'd up big by not preventing 9/11 in...2001.
If you haven't done anything wrong... by beej · 2010-01-05 12:29 · Score: 5, Insightful

If you haven't done anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about!
Maybe NOW people will stop saying that. Probably still wishful thinking on my part, I admit.
Re:You mean the illegal immigrant? by honkycat · 2010-01-05 13:58 · Score: 5, Insightful

Get this and get this straight, using lethal force against someone because they're running away to evade arrest is not acceptable. Whether they're criminal or not is irrelevant.
If only by BitHive · 2010-01-05 16:20 · Score: 4, Insightful

Yes, if only there was some kind of "final solution" that could eliminate all the undesirable elements in society...