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Boston Globe Outs Secret TSA Tracking Program 'Quiet Skies' At Airports (bostonglobe.com)
The Boston Globe reports of a previously undisclosed program, called "Quiet Skies," that targets travelers who "are not under investigation by any agency and are not in the Terrorist Screening Data Base." The insights come from a TSA bulletin in March that describes the program's goal as thwarting threats to commercial aircraft "posed by unknown or partially known terrorists. The program "gives the agency broad discretion over which air travelers to focus on and how closely they are tracked," reports The Boston Globe. From the report: But some air marshals, in interviews and internal communications shared with the Globe, say the program has them tasked with shadowing travelers who appear to pose no real threat -- a businesswoman who happened to have traveled through a Mideast hot spot, in one case; a Southwest Airlines flight attendant, in another; a fellow federal law enforcement officer, in a third. It is a time-consuming and costly assignment, they say, which saps their ability to do more vital law enforcement work. TSA officials, in a written statement to the Globe, broadly defended the agency's efforts to deter potential acts of terror. But the agency declined to discuss whether Quiet Skies has intercepted any threats, or even to confirm that the program exists.
Already under Quiet Skies, thousands of unsuspecting Americans have been subjected to targeted airport and inflight surveillance, carried out by small teams of armed, undercover air marshals, government documents show. The teams document whether passengers fidget, use a computer, have a "jump" in their Adam's apple or a "cold penetrating stare," among other behaviors, according to the records. Air marshals note these observations -- minute-by-minute -- in two separate reports and send this information back to the TSA. All US citizens who enter the country are automatically screened for inclusion in Quiet Skies -- their travel patterns and affiliations are checked and their names run against a terrorist watch list and other databases, according to agency documents. The bulletin highlights 15 rules used to screen passengers. If someone is selected for surveillance, a team of air marshals will be placed on the person's next flight.
Already under Quiet Skies, thousands of unsuspecting Americans have been subjected to targeted airport and inflight surveillance, carried out by small teams of armed, undercover air marshals, government documents show. The teams document whether passengers fidget, use a computer, have a "jump" in their Adam's apple or a "cold penetrating stare," among other behaviors, according to the records. Air marshals note these observations -- minute-by-minute -- in two separate reports and send this information back to the TSA. All US citizens who enter the country are automatically screened for inclusion in Quiet Skies -- their travel patterns and affiliations are checked and their names run against a terrorist watch list and other databases, according to agency documents. The bulletin highlights 15 rules used to screen passengers. If someone is selected for surveillance, a team of air marshals will be placed on the person's next flight.
Yes, using the hours on an airplane to write up a report, play some small games or whatever else one can do on a computer is certainly cause for alarm.
Why don't they just make stasis pods mandatory on flights already.
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Socialism does not have to equal a fascist police state. Your entire post is on point and insightful, but you should really have left the socialist tangent out.
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You're right about everything but the word "socialist". Replace it with the word "authoritarian". The US is by far the least socialist western nation, but it is getting more authoritarian by the day.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
has stopped exactly ZERO terrorist attacks. Congress has flat out asked them and the TSA claims they can't say for security reasons. Yeah that number is zero.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I tend to become the focus of 'that guy looks weird' profiling, because I tend to look, weird.
My comfortable state of a dead-eyed, nearly unblinking stare. I find eye contact to be invasive.
The upshot of this is that I have to pretend to be normal. I have to jiggle my eyes around. Remember to blink.
I don't like having to 'fake normal.' But if I don't fake it, I get hassled by every authoritarian-leaning personality I encounter.
I'd rather they spend/waste their money on expensive, labor intensive HUMINT than spend it on more databases, better nudie scanners, etc and so forth. If they want to send a bunch of agents on wild goose chases writing reports, so be it. At least they might be there when someone gets blind drunk on a flight and starts harassing other passengers.
On 8 February 1950, East Germany saw the establishment of the Ministry for State Security (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit), commonly known as the Stasi.[7] The Stasi sought to "know everything about everyone".[8] Its annual budget has been estimated at approximately $1 billion.[8] Out of a population of 16 million, the agency kept files on nearly 6 million of its citizens.[8] The Stasi had 90,000 full-time employees who were assisted by 170,000 full-time unofficial collaborators (Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter); together these made up 1 in 63 (nearly 2%) of the entire East German population. Together with these, a much larger number of occasional informers brought up the total to 1 per 6.5 persons.[9][10][11][12][13][14] People in East Germany were subjected to a variety of techniques, including audio and video surveillance of their homes, reading mail, extortion, and bribery.[15]
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So your "solution" is to take everyone who might be against us, put them all in the same place, and make them miserable? Great idea!
Do you want jihadists? Because that's how you get jihadists.
Here's a better idea: Socialize these folks. Show them that what they think they hate isn't what they think it is. Listen to them. Figure out why they are angry. Work to assuage their fears, and make sure that they have what they need to live happy, comfortable lives.
And sure, this won't work for 100% of people. Adios is indeed the solution to them. But it will work for a damn good number of people. What you don't seem to realize is that immigrants aren't going to another country because they're happy and having a great time in their country. They're leaving because they are threatened, impoverished, or otherwise unable to have a fulfilling life in their home country.
If you shit all over those people, you're just making enemies. If you can make them feel welcome, you've not only gotten a friend, but you've now got ambassadors who can reduce the amount of hatred in their home country for yours. That's how you reduce all of the issues you identify, instead of increasing them they way your suggestions would actually function.
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Maybe sometimes airlines don't overbook their flights. Maybe sometimes when the gate desk claims the flight was overbooked, it's actually that air marshals are forcing their way onto the flight at the last minute.
I'm sorry, when's the last time anyone in a civilized country was executed for not paying their taxes?
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like the Stasi my first thought is, well, that's one way to do socialism.
One of the problems modern civilizations have is there's not enough work to keep everybody busy 16 hours a day. Not only that, but you've got to figure out how to give out food and shelter to people who, well, just plain aren't needed anymore. You can let them starve, but then they find themselves a strongman and he uses them for a coup. You can just give them food, but that pisses off anybody still working.
America's solution was the Military Industrial Complex. The excess productivity made possible by modern farming and manufacturing goes into an endless war machine. Given the scale of the Stasi that's probably what's going on. I know for a fact China's doing exactly that to absorb all the engineers they kept training.
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Well, then you must believe that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea to you) is really a democracy, because its in its name.
The Nazi Party had "Socialist" in its name essentially for the same reason that "Democratic" is in the name of North Korea -- it was a popular marketing term, regardless of validity.
Here is a good discussion of this issue.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
capitalism is the most generous form of governance there is
There's no way I can parse that that makes sense. Strictly, capitalism is defined by private individuals owning/controlling the means of manufacture (trade/profit).
I cannot understand where, in that, generosity fits. In as much as capitalism is often associated with some form of free market it's competitive. Still not generous. Please, can you clarify?
You want to enforce charity of others by mandating fees and taxes be placed upon them
Language is important. You call it 'charity' when you describe taxes being used for people other than those that paid them. The problem with a strictly personal and competitive system is that there are numerous cases where individuals are bad at making rational decisions (cognitive biases like discounting future negatives) or where individuals, acting rationally, can cause themselves harm that could be avoided by acting in concert (tragedy of the commons). There are economies of scale that can be achieved where people contribute to a pool and a centralised system provides services or utilities where profit based competition would degrade service (healthcare, utilities) and that's before we look at social contracts and whether being born and raised in a country whose previous generations have provided you with peace, prosperity, education and health obligates you to at least leave the system no worse for your participation.
Call that 'charity' if you will, but you're being either obtuse or misleading.
'Socialism', in its pure form is just as toxic as 'capitalism'. Both need to be regulated and restricted, those countries with the longest history of high standards of living for most of the population have a mix of socialist policies along side of capitalism.
Noting that socialism fails at extremum is trivial. Your inability to consider anything less than 'pure' socialism is a kind of blindness that I can only presume is some relic of the US school system.