Slashdot Mirror
Bruce Schneier vs. the TSA
An anonymous reader writes "Bruce Schneier has posted a huge recap of the controversy over TSA body scanners, including more information about the lawsuit he joined to ban them. There's too much news to summarize, but it covers everything from Penn Jillette's and Dave Barry's grope stories, to Israeli experts who say this isn't needed and hasn't ever stopped a bomb, to the three-year-old girl who was traumatized by being groped and much, much more."
Another reader passed along a related article, which says, "Congressman Ron Paul lashed out at the TSA yesterday and introduced a bill aimed at stopping federal abuse of passengers. Paul’s proposed legislation would pave the way for TSA employees to be sued for feeling up Americans and putting them through unsafe naked body scanners."
Once again, I notice the Slashdot bias or leaving the party affiliation of an elected official off if it's a Republican but would be seen as a positive, or a Democrat doing something most /.er's would see as a negative...
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
isn't this the outright manufacture of child porn?
You are being obtuse. Intent is 90% of the law. There is a clear and obvious difference between a security guard seeing an x-ray of someone naked while searching for weapons, and a person taking nude pictures for fun or profit. The law instructs judges to consider what a "reasonable person" would think of a situation.
I find it refreshing that famous people aren't treated any differently than us common folk, and I find it amusing that they try to use their influence against the public's best interests.
Terrorism is not a police matter. That's the mistake that people have been making for years.
Honestly, I'm not sure why this is such a big deal -- it's as if we (Americans) think we have a God-given right to fly. Yet in everyday life, we must give up certain liberties; when I'm driving on public roads, I don't have the right to slam my foot to the floor and keep it there. But that's OK, because I voluntarily put myself in a car, on a public road.
In a similar fashion, I honestly don't mind a full-body scan (or whatever) at the airport, so long as I'm informed of this prior to buying my ticket. I see no reason why it's a violation of my rights, in the same way that I don't feel it's a violation of my rights to show a librarian the contents of my backpack when exiting the library. Knowingly putting yourself in a situation where your "normal" liberties must be compromised is your choice. You're welcome to take a bus, train, car or boat to your destination instead.
Racial profiling, on the other hand, is a completely different matter, IMHO.
Why is nobody jumping on that part of the summary? This is typical homeopathic chi bullcrap, like the people complaining of headaches from the nearby (unbeknownst to them long inactive) cell tower that was featured on slashdot awhile ago, and the people who are afraid to hold phones near their heads because they never took freshman level physics.
How's this?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul148.html
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They don't know what they want.
They say they're against regulation, but then they say they want some government interference.
Make up your mind already.
The grown-ups have already decided that more government intervention is better than less government intervention.
Nonsense. The Oklahoma City situation is a perfect example of what is wrong with the concept. All the things you said happen happened as you describe. But putting McVeigh in jail and exectuing him didn't bring anyone back to life. It did not and will not in the future *prevent* it from happening. The primary value of catching the "perpetrators" is deterrence for others. Putting terrorists in jail will not deter those in the future - they are already willing to die for their cause, no threat of punishment will prevent them from going ahead. So the idea that you are going to identify the "criminals" and put them in jail/execute them presumes that you will just take the hit, no matter the cost, and deal with the aftermath. That's why the "policing" concept has utterly failed.
Brett
They are controlled by their corporate masters.
Freedom is limiting choice. It is not MORE choice.
Forgive me, but this implies that you feel Black people are somehow truly inferior to white people when it comes to potential earning power. Why do you feel this is true?
Perhaps you should respond to some other post. I didn't say anything about blacks being inferior in any way.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
I don't know why they wouldn't have: TSA regulations at the time said anyone was allowed to.
"The TSA was created as part of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act passed by the U.S. Congress, and signed into law by President George W. Bush on November 19, 2001." - Wikipedia
Wow, that took seconds to refute.
How we know is more important than what we know.
That's because of the niggers.... not the guns.
That's not at all what I said, and does not follow from what I said. The goal is to *prevent* the attacks in the first place, not punish people afterwards. That can be accomplished any number of ways but searching people at the airport is not very effective. What you do is go after the sources of terrorism - Islamic extremeists - where they reside and draw resources from - the Middle East. And the state sponsors of terrorism - formerly Iraq, still Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Palestinian authority, etc. Sort of like *we have been doing for the last 9 years*.
Treating this problem as an analogy to conventional police work is foolish, dangerous, and won't work. We tried that for decades and it in fact, didn't work. And it also leads to exactly the problem you argue against, specifically, policing *the wrong people* and doing nothing useful.
Searching grannies at the airport is a nonsensical farce, I think we all agree with that.