Slashdot Mirror
US Changes How Air Travelers Are Screened
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that the Obama administration is abandoning its policy of using nationality alone to determine which US-bound international air travelers should be subject to additional screening and will instead select passengers based on possible matches to intelligence information, including physical descriptions or a particular travel pattern. Under the new system, screeners will stop passengers for additional security if they match certain pieces of known intelligence. The system will be 'much more intel-based,' a senior administration official says, as opposed to brute force. For example if US intelligence authorities learned about a terrorism suspect from Asia who had recently traveled to the Middle East, and they knew the suspect's approximate age but not name or passport number, those fragments would be entered into a database, shared with commercial airline screeners abroad, and screeners would be instructed to look for people with those traits and to pull them aside for extra searches. Administration officials have said that, in hindsight, the central failure in the attempted bombing of an Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight on Christmas Day involved inadequate sharing of information." In other TSA-related news, CNN takes a look at the full-body scanners that are beginning to be deployed in the US and elsewhere, concluding that they are good at finding concealed drugs but haven't found much that could bring down an airplane. John Perry Barlow is quoted: "Every time technology makes another leap forward, we have to reclaim the Fourth Amendment, and often we have to reclaim the entire Bill of Rights, because technology gives [the authorities] powers that were not envisioned by the Founding Fathers."
And here I was always told that I was "randomly chosen" for increased security screening.
See, it's not racial profiling if it's based on the shocking Intelligence Information that The Terrorists are often Brown People.
You may think I'm being sardonic, but you'd be wrong. If I were being sardonic, I'd have leaned to one side, sardonically.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I'm pretty far away in New Zealand, but I look at your constitution and then I look at what your government is dong and I have true respect for those among you whose eyes are open and are fighting to reclaim the freedom you should be entitled to as an American. We don't have anything nearly as powerful to protect our freedoms in the rest of the world; fight to keep yours.
This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
So let's say they have 3000 people on the terrorist watchlist... They expect security staff to know how each of these people look, their age, and travel histories? Is this just a smokescreen to say - "instead of using countries, we're going to profile terrorists." So if you're a 17-28 year old from the middle east who travelled to Pakistan ever, watch out, TSA has your number...
"screeners will stop passengers for additional security if they match certain pieces of known intelligence" = carte blanche for profiling by race, religion, ethnicity, etc., especially when the pieces of intelligence are known only to the screeners.
Is fingerprinting still mandatory when visiting USA?
I just passed on a company business trip because I don't want to be treated as a damn criminal at touch-down.
Basically, they're going to do what they've been depicted as doing in every movie and TV show for the last fifty years: ACTUAL DETECTIVE WORK. Crazy!
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Simply don't show any form of intelligence and they'll let you pass.
I wonder how the cases where drugs were found and reported to law enforcement will pan out.
Does consenting to a TSA screening also mean you're consenting to a search? I'm certain someone will attempt to try the unreasonable search and seizure/warrentless search defense.
This troubles me.
The Terrorists are often Brown People.
Except when they're black like the Christmas bomber, or white like Jihad Jane.
But don't let facts get in the way of your dreams.
Let's not be coy......the one thing they all seem to have common is they they're Muslim.
Dennis Miller once said:
"Noticing that 16 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia isn't being racist, it's being minimally observant."
Name...That...Autocomplete!
So are these new terahertz scanners FDA approved? FDA has guidelines and limits for any radiation exposure events.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Simply don't show any form of intelligence and they'll let you pass.
Nice try, the TSA HR department saw straight through that ruse and followed the lead.
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
The Terrorists are often Brown People.
And when the terrorists find a disaffected white nutcase who wants to go down in history as the world's biggest terrorist, he'll walk right by the line of PhD students who are being strip searched for having the wrong skin color.
This is one of the few changes in intelligence screening that actually seems to make some sense.
"concluding that they are good at finding concealed drugs but haven't found much that could bring down an airplane"
This is the conclusion? These people are idiots. Maybe they aren't finding things because there aren't things to be found? It's not like we get a plane or two knocked down every day and using this will reduce it to maybe a plane every week or month. It's a deterrent as is security theater and it happens to be a better deterrent than what is there now. Hopefully it will make it more difficult for emboldened nut jobs that don't show fear in the security lines.
except unabomber, oklahoma bomber, eco nuts, black panthers and other pure christian terrorists. but dont let facts get in the way of security theatre!
Make sure all your processors are made by AMD. From the summary:
The system will be 'much more intel-based,' a senior administration official says, as opposed to brute force.
Clearly, they're only screening people who use Intel processors.
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
>> it's a result of the tree of Liberty needing a little water.
More like the Tree of Liberty needs a little blood, whether it be metaphorical or not.
"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government." - Thomas Jefferson
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
Just have a plate with "Free Bacon". Extra searching on anyone who doesn't eat free bacon.
I'd be suspicious of anyone not liking free bacon.
What? The TSA hires mainly brown people? That’s news to me...
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Got to love outsourcing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lod_Airport_massacre
The system is broken: even the experts realize that. Should we be playing with the algorithm, or throwing the whole system out?
If racial profiling doesn't work, what do we do next? Do we keep going with the security theatre, building a divide between "us" and "them", or do we start attacking the causes of terrorism rather than pretending we can do anything about the effects?
Am i the only "european, single male in their 30es" who frequently travels on one-way (business class) tickets?
Despite my Airline PLATINUM standard (>100,000 miles/yr), in the past i have had frequently a series of SSSSSSS printed on my boarding pass, which was a sure fire 100% way to get pulled over EVERY SINGLE TIME for a "random" search in the security line.
After a while i just "volunteered" and asked "so, where's the sssspecial line" ?
i got a weird look, showed my boarding pass, and then the usual "oh, sir, you've gotta come with me, you've been randomly selected for additional security screening".
I tried to explain to the folks that they need to smarten up, because if they basically tell me at check-in that i'm the "chosen one" when going through security, i would of course have dumped anything which would be "suspicious" to my friends (with non-SSSS boarding passes).
Unfortunately my honest concerns (and ramblings about randomness and predictability) were usually met by the TSA drones with the famous lack of understanding and common sense.
I'm glad that MAYBE they are actually doing something reasonable, instead of the "security theater" of the last 10 yrs. but then again.... what am i thinking!
This reminds me the (not-so-funny) script for the screeners: some terrorist use to board first; some terrorsts use to board last; some terroris use to board in the middle...
Seriously, given a relatively small number of terrorists, it is likely that 50% of the passengers are going to be suspect...
You will note that he said often. That leaves exceptions, such as those you mention (if indeed Jihad Jane is convicted; I haven't followed her story at all), but it still leaves them harassing 'evil' brown skinned people.
SSC
And it'll happen despite a warning from the guy's father or other intelligence sources all because two intelligence agencies can't figure out the meaning of the word "sharing," Because of their blunder, we will have to submit to even more onerous restrictions that will probably have nothing to do with how the guy tried to kill people, and the people who failed in the intel community will get promotions and more responsibility.
SSC
Wonder what the public key field is for?
[T]he Obama administration is abandoning its policy of using nationality alone to determine which US-bound international air travelers should be subject to additional screening...
They're actually now trying to correlate security screening with specific, known information about actual suspects, rather than saying, "So you're from Pakistan? Would you mind coming with me, sir?" The new policies will be far from perfect, I'm sure, but they seem more sensible than a "random" screening based solely on nationality.
As to the body scanners, I have a hard time being bothered by this.
Every time technology makes another leap forward, we have to reclaim the Fourth Amendment, and often we have to reclaim the entire Bill of Rights, because technology gives [the authorities] powers that were not envisioned by the Founding Fathers.
Fair enough, but I think the founding fathers would also have had a difficult time envisioning several dozen unrelated people climbing into a flying metal tube to cross the ocean in a matter of hours. They also probably didn't foresee the rise of ideologies that make those flying tubes attractive targets for persons armed with concealable explosive devices. Saying that the Founding Fathers were poorly-versed in 21st century technology and geopolitics doesn't mean much by itself. I'm willing to bet the passengers on any of the airplanes that have been subject to terrorist attacks in the past few years would have been willing to undergo a full body scan if it meant the bad guy couldn't get on the plane with them. Full body scanners also don't care what country you're from, if that means anything.
>> Administration officials have said that, in hindsight, the central failure in the attempted bombing of an Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight on Christmas Day, involved inadequate sharing of information."
I thought that the central failure in the attempted bombing was that the bomb did not go off and burned the guy's pants instead.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Except those guys didn't try to commit crimes on airplanes. Also, by "Oklahoma bomber" I assume you mean Timothy McVeigh, who was not a terrorist. He was a badly misguided revolutionary.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
in hindsight, the central failure in the attempted bombing of an Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight on Christmas Day, involved inadequate sharing of information."
...wow. Good thing we didn't know that EIGHT YEARS AGO.
Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
"Timothy McVeigh was not a terrorist. He was a...revolutionary."
-- John Gaughan of johngaughan.net 4/2/2010
Do it to everyone and it's "fair." Do it to a select few and it's harassment. It's not harassment when it's based on observation. Observation is ...? Well, how can it be done without invasion of privacy?
Exactly.
Just like a certain law enforcement agency where middle management can't spare the time to look into a report from one of their field agents about guys with Arabic-sounding names that want to learn how to fly airplanes but aren't interested in "How to Land 101". BUT, we need the patriot act to keep us safe.
The Israelis have trained interrogators, who interview every single human being before they are granted entry into their country. The team is highly professional, and they constantly try to send through their own people with falsified documentation, and if there are any people who are not caught, everyone they passed is terminated from their position.
Forcing everyone to throw away their water and take off their shoes and get body scanned is a surefire way to give everyone a completely false sense of security. If I were a terrorist cell, I'd be applying all over America for airport jobs. Once you are hired and they know your name, and you are waved passed security, you begin stashing explosives for later retrieval by third parties who will walk right through security, pickup the package, and wink at the flight attendants as they take their seat.
And the real trick is that the next terrorist attack won't be on a plane. It will probably be a real nuke stashed in a port somewhere, since we don't even bother to check the trillions of pounds of cargo we import each year.
Also, by "Oklahoma bomber" I assume you mean Timothy McVeigh, who was not a terrorist. He was a badly misguided revolutionary.
Is there a difference?
McVeigh and the Terrorists used the same actions to the same ends. Even if the reasons differed, the ends were the same. Therefore: If it quacks like a duck, it is probably a duck.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
"Every time technology makes another leap forward, we have to reclaim the Fourth Amendment, and often we have to reclaim the entire Bill of Rights, because technology gives [the authorities] powers that were not envisioned by the Founding Fathers."
The border crossing - the military check point - has never been a good place to assert your rights to anything.
Least of all to an immunity from search and seizure.
Let me fix that for you: See, it's not racial profiling if it's a Democrat administration doing the profiling. In which case, it's called intelligence-based screening.
The hypocrisy of Democrats since taking power is truly breathtaking to witness. I just wish their devote followers would realize they are nothing more than useful idiots for the political advancement of the party. It must really get old having to compromise your political position and along with it your integrity depending on who's in office. Then again, by nature, most Democrats likely lost their integrity long ago, if they ever had it to begin with.
You mean IGNORING of information. How much more intel do you need to screen someone when their own father calls in and says "hey, my son is on a flight to your country, and he's been hanging out with known terrorists. you might want to question him"?? That was simply a case of there was a legitimate threat, and PLENTY of warning, but they chose to flat out ignore it. As a result, you end up with some dickhead trying to set off an underwear-bomb instead of getting detained by authorities.
"So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
From here:
"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.
THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."
You both misspelled "fruitcake".
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
If they got their asses kicked they're terrorists.
If they win and get to write the history books they're revolutionaries.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
I can quack like a duck.
I am probably a duck?
That might explain my hunt and peck typing and why I can't stop shitting on people's cars..
which is totally what she said
Actually
[T]he Obama administration is abandoning its policy of using nationality alone to determine which US-bound international air travelers should be subject to additional screening...
(emphasis mine)
Looks like they're still screening by just nationality, but adding additional factors. I'm thinking "look for guys with big beards, funny accents, or towels on their head" :/
which is totally what she said
lol.
"the Obama administration is abandoning its policy of using nationality... and will instead select passengers based on possible matches to intelligence information, including physical descriptions or a particular travel pattern."
So they've gone from screening people based on nationality, to screening people based on their race and what country they're going to? Sounds like a classic Bush-era redefinition of words in place of changing of policy.
Terrorists are often Brown People.
Yeah, but hicks covered in their own shit usually don't make it as far as the security checkpoint.
"they are good at finding concealed drugs but haven't found much that could bring down an airplane."
Wow. Could that possibly be because drug smuggling is not that uncommon, but shitheads actually attempting to bring down airliners really is? Seriously, in the last decade how many attempts HAVE there been, out of the hundreds of millions of passengers flying during that same period? How many hand grenades and Popiel pocket nukes did they expect to find, anyway?
"Security theater" beliefs aside, and I'm not saying there is not a lot of security theater that is senseless and ineffective, I can always say it would be easy to figure out how to do it - but if it actually were that easy I believe we'd have seen a lot more attempts. Some would probably have been successful. Instead we get dipshits trying to light fuses on shoes and underwear.
Except those guys didn't try to commit crimes on airplanes.
Look up American Airlines Flight 444. It's the reason for the A in "Unabomber", you know.
And the Founding Fathers wouldn't have gone the "Let's trade our hard-won freedom for the empty promise of security!" route, either. They'd see those flying tin cans and say "How could a few men with small knives (or other blade-like instruments) take over an entire plane full of citizens when the citizens aboard should be more than capable of preventing such an attempt?" Then they would look at the way the general populace is being disarmed and say "This is exactly the opposite of what we intended!" when told that they could not carry their primary means of self-defense everywhere they went. They would look at how the people they did all of this for are giving everything they argued and fought so hard for away in order to feel safe, instead of actually being prepared and equipped to ensure that safety.
The "they couldn't have known" and "they didn't foresee" defenses are just a way of ignoring the original intent and then claiming that "now" is so much more different from "then" and that dealing with what affects us "now" was never the intent to begin with. They had boats, those not-so-mythical things called pirates, terrorists, and invading armies back then, and they dealt with them as they encountered them. The only real differences between "now" and "then" is that we can travel between locations faster, we can communicate faster with people farther away, and we have the ability to know what of (in)significance is currently happening in places we never heard of before to people we'll likely never meet in person. Admittedly, the "killing people" thing may have become easier with newer technologies, but so has the "saving people" thing, and sometimes we use the exact same tool(s) to do both. Exactly none of this didn't exist back then in one form or another, but we (as a people) seem so intent on treating "now" in such a different manner as "then" because we can, and not because we must.
The problem for the terrorists is that 99 out of 100 disaffected white nutcases work for the CIA or FBI.
Anyone else accidentally read the title as "US Changes How Air Travelers Are Screwed"? Hurray for context-induced mental spelling correction!
McVeigh was a criminal, as are Al Qaeda. One uses terror to frighten countries into shooting themselves in the foot (e.g. Patriot Act) to collapse in on themselves, the other actually wanted to remove the government and start over fresh.
Motives are the difference. Bombing civilians is a heinous crime, but the ideology behind it is different. While McVeigh used terrorist tactics, he was not a terrorist. I think since 9/11 we throw that term around too loosely.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Hmmm... let's see. The SLA in the 1970's. White as well as African-American. The 1st or 2nd largest gun battle between law enforcement and a terrorist organization. 2nd if you count David Koresh et. al. as terrorists.
The KKK. They terrorized African-Americans, Catholics, and Jews since about 1870. Arayan nation and other affiliated groups also have terrorized those who do not agree with them or of different races. Oh yeah, you have to be of true white racial purity to join those groups.
The Weather Underground. White, middle class, college educated, and terrorists.
The Oklahoma City bombers.
The Unibomber.
The women's clinic bombers and doctor killers.
At this point I am more frightened of the uber-radical wingnut neighbor with a gun collection and pent up frustration and rage, than I am of any "camel jockies" or "towel heads" (to use two of the more polite phrases Ive heard over the years).
Charles Manson and friends. They wanted to start a race war, so it could be counted as terrorism. Oh yeah, all white.
Get your facts straight.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Careful now, you hatriot, only terrorists quote Jefferson.
I'm willing to bet the passengers on any of the airplanes that have been subject to terrorist attacks in the past few years would have been willing to undergo a full body scan if it meant the bad guy couldn't get on the plane with them..
Bolded for emphasis.
See the problem is that they don't seem to find explosives, just drugs (RTFS). If they worked, I might consider them an asset and thus weigh the privacy cost against the security benefit. However, it has been shown that the security benefit is all illusion, thus any such weighing in will obviously show the privacy cost (non-zero) out weighs the security benefit (zero).
As evidence of the machines' capabilities, the security agency released five photos of drugs or suspected drugs that airport screeners found after scans revealed anomalies on the ghost-like images of people's bodies. The agency said metal detectors would not have revealed the items.
Screeners using the technology also found a knife hidden in the small of a person's back at the Richmond, Virginia, airport, a concealed razor blade on a passenger in Phoenix, Arizona, and other concealed items such as large bottles of lotion, which are prohibited as carry-on items.
In addition, the machines have revealed numerous prohibited items that passengers evidently inadvertently left in pockets. Those items are confiscated but are not counted in the tally, a TSA spokesman said.
Oh yes, I feel much more protected now. I'm glad we are spending trillions on the War on Terror and the War on Drugs, and the War on Whatever in Iraq, and on and on. It doesn't bother me at all that they cannot point to any significant result that even remotely justifies the huge debt burden being created to pay for it all. I don't care that they can examine my body in great detail against my will. I don't care about the Bill of Rights. I don't care that I am losing the ability to sneak even minor things on my body, or that civil disobedience against drug laws or "contraband" laws can now be ruthlessly repressed. No siree Bob, I drank all the Kool-Aid, thank you very much. Every last drop.
Welcome, Comrades! Welcome to the Glorious Union of Soviet Corporatist Republics!
So, I was in Denver recently, and was in a HUGE collection of people at the security line. They had it routed back and forth, to the point where 1000 people were standing in an area maybe 30-40m on a side.
If you want to blow yourself up, disrupt air travel, and kill a shitload of people, the security line's a better place to do it. (The lethal radius of a 20kg bomb is pretty big, as I understand it...) And I'm sure the analysts know this, and insist on huge security lines anyway -- because it's wonderful theater.
"Administration officials have said that, in hindsight, the central failure in the attempted bombing of an Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight on Christmas Day, involved inadequate sharing of information."
And here I thought it was because of deliberate non-sharing of information.
If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
3^2 * 67^1 * 977^1
Vegetarians? Really? How many terrorists were vegetarians?
Then they would look at the way the general populace is being disarmed and say "This is exactly the opposite of what we intended!" when told that they could not carry their primary means of self-defense everywhere they went
A gun owner is seven times more likely to shoot himself than an intruder - study of Texas gunshot wounds. If a gun is your primary means of self defense, then you've already lost. You're more likely to commit suicide than ever use the weapon defensively, Rambo fantasies notwithstanding.
Hey, we're not all terrorists, but please continue the racial profiling so our white comrades can continue to carry out their missions.
Orbis terrarum est non altus satis
So NOW it's okay to do racial profiling? Interesting, considering most of the Obama administration accuse administration critics of being "racist"...
he'll walk right by the line of PhD students who are being strip searched for having the wrong skin color.
Have you been to an airport lately? There are no brown people being strip searched. It is grandmothers that have too much shampoo or kids that can't get all their electronics out of their pockets. The TSA is nothing but security theater -- a show put on to make the lemmings feel safe.
"My cause is just, therefore I may do anything, for ends justify the means."
Sounds about the same to me. Al-Qaida, McVeigh, and torture supporters in the government and military are all the same, and the proper name for what they are is "scum".
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
And it'll happen despite a warning from the guy's father or other intelligence sources all because two intelligence agencies can't figure out the meaning of the word "sharing,"
You are far too optimistic. We've all heard how the underwear bomber's father reported him and no one paid attention. Well, that's not true. They DID pay attention and they actively chose to let him keep his american visa. It wasn't a mistake, they did it on purpose. This information was released by Patrick F. Kennedy, undersecretary for management at the State Department.
Therefore all these "security changes" are 100% bullshit. No amount of hassling passengers will make any difference as long as the people in charge can arbitrarily exempt the ones that are actually known to be dangerous.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Many more uses of firearms for self-defense never involve a discharge of the firearm. Merely brandishing the firearm is usually enough to defuse the situation. Does the study you mention include the use of firearms for self defense when the firearm was never discharged?
Also, by "Oklahoma bomber" I assume you mean Timothy McVeigh, who was not a terrorist. He was a badly misguided revolutionary.
Is there a difference?
McVeigh and the Terrorists used the same actions to the same ends. Even if the reasons differed, the ends were the same. Therefore: If it quacks like a duck, it is probably a duck.
Unless of course the "duck" is a speaker with some sort of recording of a duck playing thru it.
Be seeing you...
I think you're confused. By agreeing to the body scan, you aren't trading privacy for security. You are trading privacy for a lack of privacy and a security theater performance. The body scanners don't find the "bad guys" or the tools that the bad guys allegedly use. They do grossly invade personal privacy, violate constitutional rights and further inconvenience innocent civilians. Just like removing your shoes, pat downs and bag searches.
I like how you understand that fear can be used to motivate passengers to give up their rights. Even if they're statistically safer flying than anything else they'll do this year. Successful terrorist attacks on aircraft are scary and make the news companies lots of money, but they're also so rare they're practically non-existent.
Any effort spent trying to stop the terrorists that already successfully made it as far as the airport security screeners is a waste. They could just as easily attack the security checkpoint, the bus they road to the airport in, the school, mall or library on the way to the airport, or any other target.
There are far fewer terrorists in the world than you would like to believe. There aren't enough resources to guard every possible target against every possible attack. Guarding anything less than everything is ineffective because a terrorist can just attack whatever is left. Guarding only against attack strategies that have already happened, or arbitrary imaginary ones from the movies is also ineffective, because a terrorist can just come up with a new strategy at very little cost, while the cost of protecting against each thing is huge.
If you want to protect against an invisible enemy that can attack anywhere, at any time, through an means, you have to do it proactively and logically. You have to identify the enemy, their source and motivations before they plan and implement an attack. You don't want to waste resources and burn freedoms trying to guard against them after they're armed and at the gate.
Even if you could guard every target against every possible attack. Is that police state one you want to live in?
From Webster:
Main Entry: terrorism
Pronunciation: \ter-r-i-zm
Function: noun
Date: 1795
: the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion
You can call yourself a revolutionary if you go after military targets, but if you are deliberately launching attacks on civilian targets to affect change in government, then you are the very definition of a terrorist.
[T]he Obama administration is abandoning its policy of using nationality alone to determine which US-bound international air travelers should be subject to additional screening...
They're actually now trying to correlate security screening with specific, known information about actual suspects, rather than saying, "So you're from Pakistan? Would you mind coming with me, sir?" The new policies will be far from perfect, I'm sure, but they seem more sensible than a "random" screening based solely on nationality.
Yea, it's imperfect. Not only that but the Constitution of the USA does not give the federal government these powers.
Every time technology makes another leap forward, we have to reclaim the Fourth Amendment, and often we have to reclaim the entire Bill of Rights, because technology gives [the authorities] powers that were not envisioned by the Founding Fathers.
Fair enough, but I think the founding fathers would also have had a difficult time envisioning several dozen unrelated people climbing into a flying metal tube to cross the ocean in a matter of hours. They also probably didn't foresee the rise of ideologies that make those flying tubes attractive targets for persons armed with concealable explosive devices. Saying that the Founding Fathers were poorly-versed in 21st century technology and geopolitics doesn't mean much by itself. I'm willing to bet the passengers on any of the airplanes that have been subject to terrorist attacks in the past few years would have been willing to undergo a full body scan if it meant the bad guy couldn't get on the plane with them.
Then amend the Constitution. Don't treat it like TP. As for what the Founding father envisioning, they easily envisioned government goons knocking down doors and dragging away the people inside. As for terrorists, as President, Thomas Jefferson sent the Marines to fight Barbary pirates in North Africa. Between them and what the British did the Founding Fathers knew what the enemy was capable of. British Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton of the Green Dragoon wasn't known as a butcher for nothing, he "practiced total war -- burning houses, destroying crops, the end justifying the means".
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Let me refer you to the god damned title of the story:
US Changes How Air Travelers Are Screened
I agree that it's security theater, but let me quote on of my favorite comments ever. The words, they MEAN things.
If the public stands still for this and keeps on flying like there's nothing unusual about being herded stripped and tagged like livestock, then they'll get what they deserve: which is to be treated like livestock. Anyone who thinks all of this is about "security" or "terrorism" is an ignorant fool. It's about what it has always has been about: the rich and powerful having control over the general public; the authorities lording it over the peasants; getting everyone accustomed to spineless docile obedience.
"The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities." - Zbigniew Brzezinski, political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman, United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981
"Fearful people are more dependent, more easily manipulated and controlled, more susceptible to deceptively simple, strong, tough measures and hard-line postures... They may accept and even welcome repression if it promises to relieve their insecurities." - George Gerbner, head of the Annenberg School for Communication for 25 years
So the fact that there are terrorists of every creed and color means that TSA should be screening 80 year-old ladies and ignoring people that match the description of 80% of terrorists.
The only solution to the problem you mention is to strip search everyone, and that would be very time-consuming.
The only solution to the problem you mention is to strip search everyone, and that would be very time-consuming.
Or stop becoming involved in entangling alliances overseas for the short term benefits of cheap energy sources that have been ruining the region for decades. Unless you actually believe they hate us "for our freedom."
At the outset, the author draws several conceptual distinctions that are subsequently applied to the case-study at hand. He distinguishes between the "American national interest paradigm," according to which U.S. policy toward the Middle East is primarily determined by vital security interests and strategic preferences that American policy makers have sought to maintain and implement throughout the region (such as trying to resolve or stabilize the Arab-Israeli conflict, maintaining access to Arab oil, containing the Soviet Union), and the "special relationship" paradigm, according to which American policy toward Israel is mainly derived from "a broad cluster of predispositions, sentiments and attitudes toward Israel in American public opinion, which are permeated with sympathy, support and affection." ...
The author argues that between 1957 and 1960, a gradual shift occurred in the American policy toward the Middle East in general, and toward Israel in particular. Seeking to create a series of bilateral security arrangements with individual Middle Eastern states in response to regional crises that took place between 1957 and 1959, the Eisenhower administration no longer deemed an Arab-Israeli peace as a sine qua non for attaining Arab unity and support in the struggle against Communist expansionism. As a direct result of these changes, "the perception of Israel as a potential strategic asset to the United States came to increasingly permeate the cognitive map of Washington's policy makers." This shift became most vividly evident in July 1958, when Israel was called upon and agreed to permit a British and American airlift of strategic materials through Israeli airspace to prop up the embattled Jordanian monarchy that was being challenged by a radical nationalist uprising fomented by Egypt's Nasser. Ben-Zvi claims that "the 1958 Jordanian Crisis can be thought of as the 'trigger event,' which provided the impetus for completing the swing of the perceptual pendulum from Israel as a strategic liability and an impediment to American regional designs, to Israel as an indispensable asset to American and British strategic plans and objectives." These developments provide additional proof that the shift in the American strategy toward Israel in the late 1950s was due exclusively to external factors in the Middle East, and not to any lobbying activities by pro-Israeli organizations.
http://www.mepc.org/journal_vol6/rubner.html
All terrorists are try to start a revolution in one way or another. A lot of those in the middle east are trying to force people to believe in muslim. That right there is what a revolution is. We slap terrorist on them since they are trying to change the way our government works through means not controlled by the government. The Americans in the American Revolution were considered terrorists against the crown. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/revolutionary
of, pertaining to, characterized by, or of the nature of a revolution, or a sudden, complete, or marked change: a revolutionary junta.
WTF Slashdot, why do I have to login 50 times to post?
he was not a terrorist. I think since 9/11 we throw that term around too loosely.
"Terrorism" was used improperly before 9/11. Ecoterrorism was used in 1998 by "The Washington Times".
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
And when the terrorists find a disaffected white nutcase who wants to go down in history as the world's biggest terrorist, he'll walk right by the line of PhD students who are being strip searched for having the wrong skin color.
The way you say this, anyone would think that the terrorist threats faced today are being organised by a very clever, very resourceful organisation that can do more or less whatever it wants.
There is no fucking chance whatsoever this applies to Al Qaida. Frankly, if it was, we'd have seen far more attacks and they'd have been far more successful. As it stands, the US and the UK have had precisely one major co-ordinated, successful attack each. Here in the UK we've also had a handful of utterly pointless attacks (come on - what idiot decided that driving a car full of gas cylinders into an airport in Glasgow, of all places, would result in anything more than a heavy kick in the head and/or testicles?).
If you want an example of what happens when you have a clever, resourceful terrorist organisation attacking you, look at the IRA in the 1970's/80's.
The World Trade Center was not some random civilian target. It was considered a legitimate target by the people who made the attack. And the intention to attack it was announced well in advance of the successful attack.
The federal building in OK was also considered a legitimate target by the people who attacked it. The day care center there was collateral damage, not the intended target of the attack.
The assassinations being carried out in Pakistan, are also being carried out be people who think the targets are legitimate and that any innocent people being killed in the attempts are collateral damage and not the intended targets of the attacks.
"Revolutionary" = Motive
"Terrorism" = Means
You can be both, as in the example of Timothy McVeigh.
A gun owner is seven times more likely to shoot himself than an intruder - study of Texas gunshot wounds.
Then the owner who shot himself didn't know how to properly handle his firearm, he knew how to properly handle it and still didn't handle it properly, he intended to shoot himself, or there was some form of struggle and the firearm went off while pointed at the owner. Other than a ricochet, there is no other possible way for a person to be shot with a firearm in his own hand.
Also, that statistic is either being badly misquoted, or the study included all instances where the owner's firearm was used against him by a perpetrator... though it may also be including gun-related suicides. In any event, your quoted statistic also seems to gloss over the rest of the statistics, one of which is: A gun is fired in fewer than 1 percent of all home intrusions where a gun is wielded by the homeowner. The rest of the time, it's merely shown to be in-hand and the intruder either leaves, or behaves himself while awaiting the arrival of the police. And that's just for home invasions.... Exactly how many home invasions do you figure would occur if it was assumed that everyone was armed in some manner? What about carjackings, rapes, muggings, assaults, or even kidnappings?
The whole purpose of having an armed society was (and still is) to allow the society to protect itself from those who would harm it and the people in it. That mentality was written into the Constitution to allow the people to protect themselves both from an oppressive government (both "theirs" and "ours") and to allow the people to defend themselves and others from direct attackers.
If a gun is your primary means of self defense, then you've already lost.
The "primary means" or "most effective means" doesn't always need to be "a gun." A knife, a baseball bat, a crowbar, a screwdriver, a book, a slightly dull pencil or ball-point pen, or even a rock can be used as a means of defense if need be, though they each require a degree of strength and/or skill that can easily be overcome by a moderately skilled assailant. The gun has been called "the great equalizer" for very good reason: It doesn't need to be used at close range, and it doesn't require much training or physical skill to use one correctly and effectively. The same cannot be said for any of the other potential weapons that are commonly available.
As for the "you've already lost" part, well, it's been well-proven that assuming defeat will tend to bring about the very defeat that is assumed. The whole point of "self defense" is to "prevent harm to self." Assuming that you may as well not try to defend yourself because you assume you will fail will guarantee your failure. The point is to make the attempt, even in the event that you ultimately fail in the end. To do otherwise, yes, that is effectively suicide.
You're more likely to commit suicide than ever use the weapon defensively
For that to be the case, the wielder must be consciously and seriously considering suicide when handling a gun. As I pointed out above, the only people accidentally killed by the firearm they are wielding are the ones who either have no respect for their weapon, or refuse to handle it properly.
All too often throughout history, there are examples of freedoms lost because the people were unable to (effectively) fight, usually accomplished by outlawing weaponry for the general populace (swords/spears/bows/crossbows back long ago, guns today).
I don't think liberty and freedom will be lost in the USA because of ineffectiveness in fighting to keep them but because of apathy. We've had generations live who have not had to fight and losing a little liberty here and there is just so "ho, hum".
This is why the citizens of the U.S. keep requiring the right to bear arms
Unfortunately it's small groups who keep fighting, other than the NRA, the fight to keep the right to bare arms. And some of those groups give the rest black eyes, such as the militia group in Michigan in the news now. Gun control advocates have about as much if not more influence.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Also, by "Oklahoma bomber" I assume you mean Timothy McVeigh, who was not a terrorist. He was a badly misguided revolutionary.
Potato, potato? You may agree with his motivations or not, but blowing up a building full of bureaucrats (and a daycare) is not an act of revolution (i.e. military action) it is an act of terrorism.
I'm not sure I follow. Are you saying we should be comparing terrorists to ducks? Would it work if we used a large scale?
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
Setting aside your interpretation of the 2nd amendment, there are few worse things that I can think of than allowing untrained armed citizens aboard a commercial airliner. You have heard of decompression, right?
Similarly, your thought that the "original intent" should be carried to the end of time argument wears thin. Pirates were often mercenaries of the state and terrorists were pirates. Any thought of an invading army of America makes me chuckle and think that someone's been watching Red Dawn once too often.
Also, if you think then is not so different from now, just try to imagine what the founders would have thought of what we're doing right now on Slashdot. The internet would have blown their mind...and that's pretty commonplace today.
What additional freedoms do you think Americans have? I felt more "free" when I lived in New Zealand - I wasn't tied to a job for health insurance,
Unfortunately there is no free market in health insurance in the US. And there hasn't been sense World War II. Some of us have been fighting for the freedom though.
I wasn't drug tested when I applied for a job,
Some of us have also been fighting to end the War on Drugs. Either politicians haven't learned from Prohibition or they have ulterior motives. Hemp, marijuana, was made illegal only because wealthy and powerful industrialists in the US saw it as a threat. Opium was first made illegal in the City of San Francisco in 1872 because of "anti-Chinese hostility", Chinese were the major users of opium.
I was free to walk barefoot in a shop,
As was I while I lived in Florida.
I didn't have to deal with the massive bureaucracy of health care and taxes here
America has no free market in health insurance, and there is little competition between insurance companies.
I knew that if I lost my job I would get a little help from society until I was back on my feet again
"Unemployment compensation is money received by an unemployed worker from the United States or a state."
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
come on - what idiot decided that driving a car full of gas cylinders into an airport in Glasgow, of all places, would result in anything more than a heavy kick in the head and/or testicles?
Yeah, but cylinders or no, that just comes with going to Glasgow.
Who funds those ragtag bands of deranged fanatical nitwits? Those little groups would be nowhere without outside funding and logistical assistance of various kinds. While some money comes from opium and a few other illegal activities, the major sponsors of Islamic extremist terrorism are wealthy Arabs on the western side of the Persian Gulf. We do not pursue them because they are business partners of the US ruling class, and I am not referring only to the petroleum industry. Who funds the madrassas, the extremist parties in Pakistan and elsewhere? Who owns two thirds or more of the mosques in the world and supports deranged preachers?
airlines are a private industry - there's nothing that states they have to let you fly.
Therein lies the rub, individual airlines should be the ones to set security procedures not the government. I as a passenger should be able to decide if I want to board an airline's flight that requires ID or one that does not. If an airlines wants to do an anal exam, they should be allowed to require one. Then if a passenger doesn't like that requirement s/he could then fly on an airliner that does not require it. Oh, and there's nothing that states government can't prevent passengers from flying either.
If you're not a US citizen, you're not protected by the Constitution.
Can you point out to be where in the Constitution of the USA it limits rights to only US citizens? Here's what James Madison had to say about Constitutional Rights of Non-Citizens. Thomas Jefferson said "An equal application of law to every condition of man is fundamental." It would have been quite easy for the Founding Fathers to exclude foreigners from having rights too, but did they? No! They said the opposite.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Timothy McVeigh
Ku Klux Klan
IRA
The Sons of Liberty
Only to name a few white terrorists. I'd actually guess that if counted white people have terrorized more than most others combined. Especially if you take into account that bombing civilian areas are a form of state sponsored terror ... which white people have been doing steadily for the past 60 years.
*DrugCheese rants*
Do you get free meals at restaurants because they don't want to give you a second bill?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
allowing untrained armed citizens
The key part of your argument is that the citizens are untrained. I would not expect any citizen to be armed with a weapon they have no training in handling, even if that training was "This is how you don't accidentally stab yourself or others with a knife" or "this is what will happen to whatever your bullet hits," I would expect there to be the part where "so you'd better make sure it only hits what you want it to" is also taught.
And, yes, I've heard of decompression... and that's what those little masks are supposed to pop out of the ceiling in the even of... yet there's still nothing preventing a passenger from trying to pull that big, red handle on the fuselage door in mid-flight. Before a flight, we tell the passengers about the emergency exits, and the little masks that will fall from the ceiling in the case of lost cabin pressure, but we can't tell people "those of you with firearms, please ensure that they pose no danger of accidental discharge during flight if you have not already done so?" Then again, those with firearms would automatically be assumed to be responsible enough to do just that without having to be told... that's what that whole "responsibility" thing is all about.
Similarly, your thought that the "original intent" should be carried to the end of time argument wears thin.
Dies that mean the "don't kill other people" argument also wears thin, or the "don't steal" one? There is no specific mention of an invading army, the intent was "defense of self and others, regardless of the source of the attack." At what point in time should that mentality come to an end? Perhaps tomorrow the "don't steal" one should be old enough to no longer be needed, followed by the "don't kill people" one the next week?
try to imagine what the founders would have thought of what we're doing right now on Slashdot
Of course, silly me... Writing letters and sending them to people was a completely foreign concept to them... oh, wait, it wasn't. Oh, maybe the "talking to multiple people at once" part? No, that was what parties, public gatherings, and town meetings easily allowed. The only real difference is, as I said before, the speed at which it happens. They had things called newspapers, books, town halls, and post offices. The only real difference here is that someone went and added "on the Internet" to a practice that was common long before the country was a country.
Or a former member of the IRA, which was successful in getting a change in government.
Setting aside your interpretation of the 2nd amendment, there are few worse things that I can think of than allowing untrained armed citizens aboard a commercial airliner. You have heard of decompression, right?
Didn't Mythbusters do an episode on that? Besides, the only reason the armed citizens would be untrained is because they were not allowed to own a firearm until they were an adult and, then, had limited opportunity to practice.
then what's the problem with it?
"Why, Even If You Have Nothing To Hide, Government Surveillance Threatens Your Freedom:
The Case Against Expanding Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Powers".
'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy.
If you have nothing to hide, you have everything to fear.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Those are kind of solo cases that disperse and become nothing more, timothy mcvey and the una bomber seem to be the standard parrot response to any kind of talk about Racial Profiling. Well unfortunately the list is several hundred pages long for Middle Eastern Muslims and those who have immigrated from there, it seems to be the trendy thing that spreads throughout the world where Muslims are. Oh wait now parrot the response of the irish catholics and protestants attacking eachother, well that has long dispersed also and it is never ending in the Middle East.
If the people in the Middle East didn't have one common enemy(The West), than they would be killing eachother but unfortunately they got this black gold(oil) over there and got lucky to have a voice in the community.
Oklahoma City bomber felt bad after he learned that there was a daycare center in there.
Black Panthers; well they are just a joke and their hay days are long gone. Malcom X even distanced himself from them towards the end.
Pure Christian terrorist, well that's still up in the air as we saw recently but even than they are pretty well contained. I mean the worse thing I can think of is that recent group recently and the Westboro Baptist church.
Lets get it out of the way and say that we are talking about Muslim Terrorist, it is a god damn boiling pot over there of non stop feeding of teaching the children to hate the West from birth. Westboro Baptist church as horrible and disgusting as they are some of their kids are pretty level headed and know whats going on in the outside world.
Where do you draw the line? The Pentagon is the nerve-center of the military, and roughly half civilian. Federal buildings contain Department of "Defense" civilians: a military organization containing civilian employees. When I was in the military I worked in organizations that were 2/3 civilian, but I wouldn't doubt for a second that they were valid military targets to an enemy, being located on a military installation.
Again, I don't think the target matters, but the goal. Terrorists wish to sew seeds of fear so their enemies will give in to them one way or another (get out of Saudi Arabia, enact anti-freedom (Patriot Act) legislation, or just plain chaos and mayhem). Revolutionaries love the countries they attack, love them enough to remove the cancerous tumors (the government) even if there is collateral damage.
The means are different, but the ends are the same. Innocent people die in horrific incidents. I condone neither course of action, I just think it is important to call them what they are: criminals. "Terrorism" is an emotional term designed to elicit support no matter how draconian the response to the threat: to win votes: to bring solidarity behind one's goals even if those goals are the antithesis of freedom and democracy.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
It's a terrible statistic to start with.
Note the use of the word "intruder" to narrow down the possible rebuttal scenarios and maximize the statistic's numeric value for shock value.
Note that it leaves out the possibility of not needing to shoot the gun as an effective use of a gun.
Note that suicides are also included to maximize the numeric value of people "shooting themselves" and ignores the fact that not having a gun may not change the eventual outcome.
It reminds me of one gun statistic that was released phrased the "possession" of a gun as being mere ownership. Never mind the fact that the gun could have been an old .22 bolt action rifle in a closet at home, but the owner was out on the town and got shot and robbed. The study counted that as showing how people who "possess" guns as being more likely to be shot than non-gun owners. It was laughably easy to spot the data massaging that study had done.
People like to consume the statistics they're given because it's convenient. They're little "facts" they can point to and say, "See! There's the truth!" when it's a distortion of the overall picture or even the opposite of what the numbers actually mean. It's something that's done by everyone who wants to sway public opinion about any subject at all. A little skepticism of statistics is healthy and would go a long way to help people understand when they're getting a fast one pulled on them.
And apparently you don't think that decompression aboard a plane is a serious enough event to want to prevent. Your concept of airline safety is much different than mine.
Dies(sic) that mean the "don't kill other people" argument also wears thin, or the "don't steal" one? There is no specific mention of an invading army, the intent was "defense of self and others, regardless of the source of the attack."
You forgot this then from your original post:
They had boats, those not-so-mythical things called pirates, terrorists, and invading armies back then, and they dealt with them as they encountered them.
To which I was responding. Ah, then in your second post, you talk about what "the intent" was... So in this enlightened time where you are trying to put together an argument, I might have misread your intent? Do you see where I'm going with this? What gives you special insight to what the Founders intended or that the introduction of new information may change that "intent".
Of course, silly me... Writing letters and sending them to people was a completely foreign concept to them... oh, wait, it wasn't. Oh, maybe the "talking to multiple people at once" part?
Don't be obtuse. You write a letter back in the 1700's, it would take days/weeks/months to get to it's destination. We have the possibility to converse in near real-time on a forum and in real time if we go to something like chat or IRC. Taking your argument to the logical extreme, which you seem so fond of doing, then we really don't have much different than our ancient ancestors from Persia, or even back further. You seem to assume that nothing is that much different from when we finally came out of our caves.
If you were to bring any of the founders to today they would be shocked at where we are and might struggle to understand many concepts we take for granted. This is still a time where they treated diseases with leaches for God's sake. If I showed even Thomas Jefferson my laptop, you think he could immediately get his brain around it? The more and more we progress, the more abstract our concepts become, but no...you seem to think that they'll understand everything and want to continue on just as they did back in 1770.
My great-grandmother understood what a laptop was the first time she saw one and she was born in 1900. Do you think the Founding Fathers were stupider than her?
I must admit I'm a bit tired of the old argument that people in the 1700's were somehow incapable of understanding today's technology. Do you think they had smaller brains than we do?
My father didn't even have a calculator growing up. He learned to use a slide rule. When the Internet first began to develop, he was one of the first people on it. He quickly learned how a computer works. My grandfather used to repair radios with vacuum tubes. Now he finds old favorite songs on Youtube. It didn't take him long to figure out how to do it.
"The more and more we progress, the more abstract our concepts become..." The part of that which intrigues me is the word "progress". How many children do you think were born out of wedlock in 1770? What was the literacy rate? (I can answer this one right off... in the northern colonies it was universal, because nearly every child was taught to read well enough to understand the Bible.) Did you know that leeches for medical use started making a comeback in the 1980's? Did you know that maggots can clean the dead flesh from a wound and promote healing so effectively and efficiently that only antibiotics halted their use in U.S. hospitals? Did you know that with the discovery of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, hospitals are starting to use maggots again?
Sure, we have made progress in some areas. In others, we have remained the same. In still others, we have regressed. If we want to talk about 'abstract concepts'... have you ever read documents from that era? Have you ever read the Federalist Papers? Of course the Constitution wasn't 'abstract'. You don't want the highest law of the land to be 'abstract'. Have you read Paine's works? Jefferson's? Do you honestly think that they lack the capability to understand abstract concepts? In that area, I believe that we of the Soundbite Era have regressed.
My great-grandmother understood what a laptop was the first time she saw one and she was born in 1900. Do you think the Founding Fathers were stupider than her?
Where did I say this? I'm not saying that the Founders wouldn't be capable of understanding today's technology, but you seem to assume they would be able to immediately jump into our current society.
Your next ideas are all strawmen to the original thought. Personally, I don't care what your father was brought up with because you are demonstrating the ability to adapt with changes over time...same thing with your grandma. Pluck them out of time and then drop them into where we are now. My laptop might be considered witchcraft by the standards of a 1700's land owner because of the countless pieces that make it so--electricity, transistors, silicon, not to mention all of the abstract concepts that go into a program or operating system.
As far as your arguments about abstract concepts, I wish people would read them and other historical documents of the time. Of course, our soundbyte era has taken nearly all of these documents out of context and I find it hilarious when I find a Jefferson quote used to support unrestricted consumerism or people that consider that the constitution, a document that has worked into its fabric the ability to amend itself, is considered to be untouchable and unchanging.
So, to be clear, your arguments are thus:
(1) "Nobody but a "trusted," official representative of the government, or those authorized by that government, should be allowed to defend you or your fellow citizens in an effective manner."
(2) "You and your fellow citizens are all completely incapable of rational thought and behaving in a reasonable and responsible manner."
(3) "Official representatives of the government are always completely capable of rational thought and behaving in a reasonable and responsible manner."
(4) "You and your fellow citizens will never have a need to defend themselves from the actions of an official representative of the government."
(5) "You are incapable of divining, through research, rational thought, and a basic understanding of many of the common political and societal concepts in play at the time, the most likely intent of a basic, well-covered, and openly public right granted to all citizens of the country in which you are obviously a citizen."
(6) "Speed and scope are all that it takes to turn an abstract concept into a completely different abstract concept."
Now, I may have missed one or more of your key points, like "You should have really previewed your post before hitting the Submit button," but I think I got them all.
For (1) through (4), the response is fairly simple: The second amendment expilicitly allows the citizenry the tools most capable of providing the ability to defend themselves from any attacker, regardless of who the attacker represents. This implicitly includes agents of our own government in that list of "attackers," whether that inclusion scares the crap out of you or not. Whether you feel comfortable about it or not. That hypothetical guy having the bad day will just have to be extremely careful about how he goes about declaring just how bad his day was to his fellow passengers lest they feel the need to defend themselves and those around them. If you want to be the one to not defend yourself when the guy decides to start bludgeoning you the head with his laptop because his spreadsheet app decided to crash on him, then be my guest. But, to determine, on your own, based solely on the fear of a potential worst-case scenario, that nobody should be allowed to do the thing you obviously don't want to do? That doesn't sound much like being a responsible citizen to me.
As for (5), you have no idea what I know, how I know it, or where I got my information. You definitely don't know my overall thought processes or my ability to convert concrete ideas into abstract ones and use those abstracts in dealing with concrete situations. Add this to a willingness to actually look for the why of a thing instead of stopping as soon as I find the thing itself (or worse, someone giving me the what), and I often get told I have a pretty good grasp on the motivations behind things.
Now for (6). To reiterate, the only difference between Slashdot and a town hall meeting or a mailed letter or even a community bulletin board (the kind with pieces of paper) is the number of people that can be communicated with and the speed of the communication. There is nothing new to putting words (writing/typing) on a medium (paper/web form) and sending it to a destination (posting board/website) where other people can read it and/or respond to it in a similar manner. The difference between mailing a letter to someone and emailing the same letter is the term "electronic" (electronic + mail = e-mail). The only real difference in these cases being the number of people who can read/post, and the speed at which the messages reach their destination. In this way, saying that the the concepts of writing a letter and writing an email (or posing a message on Slashdot and sticking a note on a posting board) are completely different just show that you pay no attention to what you're doing, and more attention to what you're using while you do it.
I agree. It's awesome how the Founders wrote right into the Constitution that Etrias would be gifted the power to amend it, yea, although the Unbelievers wouldst mock him and say "Etrias, dost thou not know that it taketh an Act of Congress to amendeth thy Most Holy Constitution?" and Etrias would speakest thus: "Callow churls, only I knowest the True Minds of the Founders, for I am of Their line. I bear the Marks and the Signs foretold my coming. Yieldeth unto My wisdom, love me, and despair."
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Er, not all of my examples involved adapting with changes over time. My great-grandmother didn't touch or deal with a computer until she was in her 90's. What makes you think that the Founding Fathers would have to have transistors explained to them? Do you think the average computer user knows what one is? Silicon? Already in use in the 1700's. Electricity? One of the Founding Fathers was Ben Franklin, remember what else he was famous for? :) How could they possibly understand the notion of binary? Maybe by likening it to a semaphore? That was the earliest form of telegraphy, the Internet being the latest.
Current society? What do you think would be a foreign concept to them? The majority of differences between the U.S. now and in its founding are societal constructs that we hold in common with Ancient Rome.
"...the constitution, a document that has worked into its fabric the ability to amend itself, is considered to be untouchable and unchanging." Then AMEND IT. It's one thing to say, "The second amendment is outdated and we need to change it." It's quite another to say, "The second amendment can be reinterpreted to mean this and that, so that we can change the laws of our country without having to get two-thirds of Congress on board."
Apologies to Mr. Godwin but does Hitler count?
"You have heard of decompression, right?"
This question presumes facts not in evidence, namely that a bullet hole (the supposedly inevitable result of "untrained armed citizens" defending themselves aboard an aircraft) will cause the aircraft to lose pressurization. In reality, there have been pop-sci "studies" (Mythbusters is not exactly rigorous academic science, but it'll do for our purposes here: http://mythbustersresults.com/episode10 ) that show an aircraft has no difficulty at all maintaining adequate pressurization with bullet holes -- yes, holes, plural -- penetrating the pressure vessel.
I'm not advocating that we should let *anyone* on an airplane with a weapon who hasn't been adequately trained in its use, but to hide behind "we'd all pop like frogs in a vacuum bell!" is just silly. I'd be a lot more worried about what would happen in the inevitable case of an armed civilian who has had one drink too many and experiences a bit of "air rage" at the kid kicking his seat, the stinky passenger next to him, the (perceived) rude flight attendant, etc. That *will* happen, and sooner rather than later. The risk to the airplane is minor compared to the risk that some wackjob, who is not in any way a terrorist, will snap and seriously hurt or kill someone. It's very nearly happened on several occasions *without* loaded firearms being involved.
p
In Korea, long hair is for old people!
OK, let's throw in shoe bomber Richard Reid (?) and that guy who flew a plane into the IRS building in Austin, TX. I assume that you won't object to including Mr. Stack in the list even though he committed a crime with an airplane rather than on board one.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
In the CNN article the TSA shows boarding passes. They seem to have gone to some effort to hide the identity of the suspect. I wonder if the bar codes on the boarding passes are encrypted, or do they contain the all the information from the boarding pass in clear text?
*koff* WMD *koff*
Or just ask Canadian citizen Maher Arar how great it is to get on a plane to the US and get off one in Syria to be tortured and detained without charge - based on somebody's accidental or deliberate injection of bogus "intel".
That could be YOU. Ever think of that?
you had me at #!
n/t
you had me at #!
Leave Charley out of this. He was scapegoated by those sick fucks who did the murdering. Then by that opportunisic freak Bugliosi. The way society has treated Charles Manson is a perfect indictment of all that is patholigical in the United States.
You're right about Debt though!! Really, really right. Please read my sig for the solution.
Social Credit would solve everything...
Hitler was also a non-smoker, teetotaler and short. Let's get those bastards too while we are at it.:)
> "The Washington Post reports that the Obama administration is abandoning its policy of using nationality alone to determine which US-bound international air travelers should be subject to additional screening...."
"Here comes one. It looks like this one has a nationality. We'd better 'randomly' screen them."
After all, they use nationality, not any particular nationality. For instance I have a friend that was injured and medically retired as a SEAL team commander. He's 'randomly' selected at international connection, US outbound or inbound. He's also stopped at every gate on a US only trip, including transfer points. He must be very national looking. Or maybe it's his tendency to say things like "Officers retire, but rarely resign. When we promise to defend against enemies, foreign AND DOMESTIC, it's for life."
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
According to this example, the system would screen every single young male traveling from India via Dubai. But that's what the system is all about: explain to you that everyone is a threat.
But that's not all. They also have let the underwear bomber pass the security checks without even having a passport, skipping totally the checks thanks to a guy that was accompanying him.
Also, did you hear about the story of the guy in Orange, that was on the same plane, and that was later pulled away from the other passengers while they were waiting in the all? Officials have changed 6 times their story about this guy, moving from denying his existence to "he was not in the plane" and others, which many witness from this flight said was wrong.
All of what I'm saying can be CHECKED, but it was not, and main stream news totally skipped the story which in a normal world would have start an internal investigation.
Knowing all this, I am thinking twice before planing a trip to the US. I wanted to go to Debconf next summer, but I'm not sure anymore. I don't really want to take a seat as a ginny-pig on a staged event, or being scanned, filed, and profiled from head to feet.
But that's not all. They also have let the underwear bomber pass the security checks without even having a passport, skipping totally the checks thanks to a guy that was accompanying him.
No one who is in a position to know anything has said that.
The only claim is that a "sharp dressed man" tried to get the underwear bomber through checkin without a passport but was rebuffed, and the eventually the bomber did show his passport and only then was let through.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
It would have been very easy to release the video tape, but it was not... WHY ?
So you have a bit of sympathy for the McVeigh's cause, but not that of the various other groups, so, therefore, McVeigh is not the same type of beast as the other groups who are willing to slaughter innocents for some idiotic ideology?
And even accepting your "overthrowing our government is not terrorism" argument, then we must say that ELF, the Weather Undergound, and other left wing groups from the 60's are also not terrorists, but just "misguided revolutionaries".
This would also remove a large group of Palestinian terrorists from the running, since they just want to remove the Israeli government. What about international groups who attack the US, using terror tactics, to depose our government because of its perceived influence on their region? Wouldn't they just be revolutionaries too?
The label "terrorism" is about tactics, not motive. Using tactics that cause terror or panic, usually by lashing out at civilians, are terrorism, no matter the ends your using them for.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
You're the expert, you should know.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
It would have been very easy to release the video tape, but it was not... WHY ?
Sure, that's pretty suspicious, but even if the sharp dressed man is CIA or something, no one has said that he escorted the guy past security checkpoints.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/bomber-had-no-passport-helped-to-board-plane-by-sharp-dressed-man.html
I'm so sick of people calling this a bombing attempt. If you actually read the details of it rather than just listening to the buzz and fear mongering, you would have learned that it was just some deranged idiot who tried to light a firecracker on the plane...NOT a "terrorist plot". When are people going to start to wake up and stop being controlled by this stupid idea of terrorism being a global threat lurking around every corner?
a free universal health care system
One, there is no free lunch, er health care system. It has to be paid for one way or another. And if people don't see where the money goes, they don't pay out of pocket for instance, then they will not shop around for lower prices. Two, the US does provide free health care, I myself am a prime example. One day more than 10 years ago I was a college student without health insurance, I could not afford it, when I was hit while riding my bike after class. Days later when I came out of a coma I was in a hospital. Without any way to pay, for months I got medical care and therapy. The medical bills, for which I could not pay, came to more than US$120,000. Again for more more than 10 years I've been on disability, Supplemental Security Income which is a government provided income. Because of my disability, for health insurance I am on Medicare, another government program. Both are funded by taxes.
partly because it seems when given the opportunity here many large business operating in the free market will do everything they can to screw the consumer.....
That is why I said we need competition. In a free market insurance companies will compeat with each other to sell insurance.
You can go barefoot in Florida? Nice. I've come across many no shirt/no shoes/no service signs in the mid west...
Yeap, in Florida we can go barefoot. There is the occasional "no shirt/no shoes/no service" sign but many businesses don't require them. Where I live now in the upper Midwest there are more businesses with those signs. Then again the weather is just getting so shirts and shoes aren't needed outdoors here. I love walking around barefoot in my garden however all too often I find broken glass so I'm more careful here than I was in Florida. Heck, in FL I for exercise I ran barefoot.
I'm all for giving people a nudge back to work, but given the long term unemployment of the current recession, lifetime caps seem ridiculous.
I don't know what to think about government provided unemployment insurance. Actually I don't mind if individual states have it but I'm against the federal government doing it. Many foreigners don't know, and Americans forget or don't realize, that the Constitution of the USA enumerates exactly what powers the federal government has. That list is pretty short, the Constitution fits on 10 pages, the amendments take another 7 pages for a total of 17 pages. That is, according to my software and printer. If the Constitution does not say anything about the authority or power of something then the federal government does not have it. And nowhere is health care or medicine found. Neither are a multitude of other things the government does either. And if the Constitution isn't followed then it means nothing.
As for helping people, with work and health care, I too support that but I believe private enterprises and smaller government does it better. Whatever I'd rather the government just give X dollars, say $4000, to people to allow them to buy insurance and set up a health savings account than what the new law does. Combined with a national free, er freer, market in health insurance would drive costs down.
Not everyone knows this so let me explain what I mean by a free market in health insurance. First, each state controls who can sell insurance in the state and people can't cross state lines to buy insurance. For instance I can't buy insurance from someone in another state that is cheaper than insurance is where I am. Secondly, there are tax breaks. Employers get tax breaks for offering employees health insurance. However if an individual buys their own insurance then they do not get tax breaks. If individuals got the same breaks as employers then there would be millions of people in the market for insurance. Those millions would drive insurance costs down.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?