Feds Undertaking Massive Passenger Profiling Plan 677
Logic Bomb writes: "The Washington Post is running an overview of a rather big-brother-ish airline passenger screening system the government is proposing. Keeping track of people's ticket purchases is one thing, but correlating people's addresses and living arrangements...! This attempt seems closer to completion and implementation than any other that's been proposed so far."
Your papers, please! (Score:2, Insightful)
So...? (Score:3, Insightful)
How will this help? (Score:4, Insightful)
Spending money on whatever isn't going to bring about better security. It will just bring a better false sense of security.
Re:So...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Assurances from whom? The government? Trust us, we're from the government and we're here to help you. Not!
The often quoted (and probably inaccurate) statement attributed to Benjamin Franklin applies here : He that would trade liberty for security deserves and would receive neither.
It's all too easy to become complacent about trading away liberties until finally you have none. It's not that I think this particular issue is the end of the world, it's the principle of retaining and defending your right to privacy. All liberties must be defended vigorously, lest we allow the systematic elimination of them all.
Just my $.05 (inflation, you know).
This will only inconvenience non-terrorists (Score:4, Insightful)
It's already a pain in the ass to board a plane two hours before takeoff, strip down to your underwear for the security screeners, and then wait on the tarmac for three more hours when the airport gets evacuated because the minimum-wage security screener was napping when somebody snuck through.
All this while the terrorists will do what they've always done: they'll case the airport, a little bit at a time, probing for every weakness. Then, when they're ready, they'll strike. And all we can ever do is play catch-up, closing the barn door after the horses are gone.
Now, I'm all for making the skies safe, but at some point the burdens outweigh the benefits. People already put up with a hell of a lot to fly somewhere. Add any more hassle and those planes will be flying empty.
This is why... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So...? (Score:2, Insightful)
You're right, there are already dozens of perfectly nice police states around the world. I sure wish the paranoid would just move to one of them and be "safe", instead of trying to turn the US into one...
--
Benjamin Coates
Re:Read the article. (Score:2, Insightful)
Due process?
A Geek Gives A First-Hand Account (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How will this help? (Score:3, Insightful)
what's wrong? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's called racism, fool. That's what's wrong.
The gov. is genuinely worrying me... (Score:3, Insightful)
A)Julius Caesar
B)Napolion Bonaparte
C)FDR
D)Hitler
It may not be him, though. Bush strikes me as a cream puff. He may not be emotionally stable (most cocaine/alcohol abusers aren't), but someone who claims to be "a uniter" and "compassionate" wouldn't be making the U.S. in to a pariah, the way it is becoming right now. In all honesty, the personality that fits the bill is Dick Cheyney. Colin Powell may be ex military, but if he wanted power he could be in the driver's seat right now. Hell, if he had announced his candidacy after the Republicans and Democrats did their primaries, he could have won on a write-in.
The question of the day is this: will whoever is calling the shots at the head of the US be satisfied before he starts WWIII? Afghanistan, fine. Some saber rattling is expected with Iraq, Sept 11 or no. But calling N Korea, Iran, and Iraq an "Axis" of terror is downright foolish. Right there he's comparing them to Hitler and the Nazis. Not very diplomatic, is it?
Let's just hope no permanent damage is done while the idiot in charge (may not be Bush) attempts to out-idiot himself.
BlackGriffen
Re:Ben Franklin (?) quote (Score:2, Insightful)
Franklin or whoever made it never had to worry about the murder of thousands (millions for a nuke) of his fellow citizens instantaneously by a handful of insane militants. The technology just wasn't there or even conceived of at the time.
I suspect the person making the quote might have a different view in the current circumstances.
I have a right not to be treated as a criminal (Score:5, Insightful)
"Innocent until proven guilty."
If every citizen has to submit to procedures that basically say, "We suspect you of being a criminal/terrorist threat," what happens to our rights? Until I do something that causes me to be accused of something, I should not have to submit to these invasions of my privacy. National defense should consist of looking outward at threatening groups, not inward at individual citizens. Our borders are like seives, close 'em up. We have no real defense against missiles (MAD is not true defense), build some interceptors. There's no reason for a nation to treat its people like criminals without cause.
Re:So...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes we have national IDs and soldiers and security guards everywhere, but we have freedom of speech (at least to some extent). I can buy/rent a zone 1 DVD at any video store. I can publish code to decrypt DVDs without any limitation. I can practice cryptography [technion.ac.il] without being targeted. In Israel, the policial and social pressure groups rule and not the corporations. Here we have strict laws limiting campaign contributions.
Now, which country is more free?
Re:Your papers, please! (Score:4, Insightful)
As an example, France. The French do have national ID papers, but as with most European nations, they strongly limit data gathering by statute. (Of course, given what an amazingly high percentage of the French population works for the gov't in one form or another, any belief that they don't actually go ahead and collect that data anyway is charmingly innocent, but that's another matter.)
Treating these issues as a unit weakens the arguments against them, to me at least. Most folks in the US don't mind the idea of a national ID card, or even a national driver's license. They'd be annoyed if they had to show it all the time, but the simple combination of the ID's into one system doesn't bother them. Most folks who move between states would be strongly in favor of not having to go through the grief of changing their DL to the new locale. And, sadly, most of the folks in the US are sheep as regards protecting their personal data, so that argument doesn't do much either. I know that the civil liberties folks hope to tie in the idea of gov't lackeys demanding ID checks in hopes of getting the public to get angry with the other issues, too, but I think it's working the other way. Since everyone sees all of these topics tied together, their favor or apathy for some of the issues is becoming favor or apathy for the whole set. Lets keep separate issues separate, and clearly show why each is separately a bad idea. Didn't we all favor suing M$ to get *them* to stop bundling?
-reemul
Re:Ben Franklin (?) quote (Score:2, Insightful)
*I* suspect you're wrong, though the argument is wholly academic since whoever it was isn't around to clarify.
Let's suppose for a moment that you're correct, and this type of threat was not accounted for in the thought process behind our style of government and protection of liberties. Fine, change the style of government through the methods established in the Constitution. The way to do it is to abolish the Constitution and write a new one, removing those pesky liberties and protection of rights. If you can make it happen, more power to you. Those methods were introduced for just such a scenario - when this style of government has outlived it's usefulness, replace it with something that is more suitable to the current environment. Until that happens, however, I'll continue suppporting what we have because *I* think the strengths outweigh the flaws.
Systematically instituting unconstitutional liberty violations and passing more and more restrictive laws is *not* the right way to bring about change. It's a cowards method.
Re:what's wrong? (Score:1, Insightful)
You're an alarmist. It's not racism. If there are certain types of individuals whose appearance/actions fit a set of parameters that are known to be telltales of undesirable behavior, it's common sense to pay a little closer attention to those individuals.
For instance: In the middle of a hot summer day in Southern California, a man wearing a long trench-coat walks into a bank and stands in line with the rest of the customers who are wearing t-shirts and shorts. I certainly hope that the bank security is going to take a real close look at that individual. Why? Because his behavior/dress doesn't fit the profile of a usual bank customer. Does this mean they are "prejudiced" against people in trench-coats?
No. It means that they are observant.
Re:So...? (Score:2, Insightful)
Exactly. They HAVE to. We are the United States of America and we don't have to; and we can't. You don't turn the most capable country in the history of the whole fucking world, and put them on the task of watching every fucking citizen with an eagle eye till a few specs of information on a computer a thousand miles away happen to come together in such a way worthy of alerting G.I. Joe at the airport.
We have an immature relationship with technology, and we don't yet have the ethical vocabulary to begin to describe what is wrong with this. On top of that, most of us don't even realize that we're missing anything. That is at the heart of the problem here. If we don't grow up fast, this technology will become our master.
Re:what's wrong? (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, most of the anti-profiling arguments just piss me off. Most of the profiles are based on dry, boring math, just probabilities churned out by a computer somewhere. The best way for communities to not be harassed by profiling isn't to complain and demand that profiling not be used, its to demand that the members of their community stop the offensive behavior so that the profile is no longer accurate. If some agency only has the resources to check one of two people, one is an Arab man in his mid-twenties with a one way ticket and the other is an elderly black women on the return leg of a round trip, it's just good sense to check the young man. If they had the time and resources they could and should check both, but with limited options you go with the probabilities. No eldery black women have blown up anything big recently, sorry. Want to avoid that profiling? Make it so that young Arab men haven't blown up anything recently, either.
Frankly, I'll get upset about the unfair treatment right after I get back from my trip to Mecca. Oh, that's right, I'm not allowed to go there, I'm not a member of the right group.
-reemul
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
You Haven't Thought This Out, Have You? (Score:2, Insightful)
Have you ever dealt with the effects of incorrect information in your credit report? Well, it really is hard to remove errors, and unless and until you do, you may as well be the person portrayed in the credit report. And your cost of living will be ridiculously high as long as that is the case. Your mortgage will be at 11 or 12 percent instead of 6 percent. And your car loan will be at 22 percent instead of 6 percent.
Now, when they implement this national database, you will have lots of WRONG and DAMAGING information about you in the database, and you will be treated as if you are that other person. And you will not be allowed to travel freely because you will BE THAT OTHER PERSON, for all intents and purposes, as long as the information is not corrected. So, what will be your recourse to correct it? Well, damn near none.
It isn't just a lack of freedom that is coming - it's the replacement of reality with a virtual reality that is laced through and through with a surrealistic and pernicious spin. When reality is less important than somebody's version of it then we are all in big trouble. And that is exactly where we are headed with shit like this.
Re:what's wrong? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it racism to point out the simple fact that 20 out of 20 9-11 terrorists and the famed Shoe-Bomber were those fellas with more consonants than vowels?
Suposing that by the "more consonants..." thingie you mean they had "funny sounding names".. It's not racism to point that fact out. It's just a simple fact. But to harass people because of appearences ONLY is prejudice and racism.
Why do you think bil Laden hates Americans. Do you think he hates them because he has met all of them had a nice talk to each and every one of them and come to the conclussion that Amercans suck and should be killed? I can assure you that he most probably has not made such a thorough investigation! He's being the same kind of fool like every other racist who judges all by the knowledge he has over a few. He probably has a problem with some imperialistic pricks but does the stupid mistake on blaming everyone in the same group. That's prejudice and racism and it's especially common in times of uncertainty.
Cheers...
Re:Not to mention the false hits... (Score:2, Insightful)
Not only that, but after so many false hits the screeners stop believing the results. If 99 out of 100 hits is a false positive, you can bet that screeners are going to be just waving people through. So again, we have only the illusion of security, and possibly even less real security than before.
Systems like this don't work, and can't work.
Re:what's wrong? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think strictly speaking, someone's name has more to do with their parent's culture than their race, but discriminating like that is still as bad. My name is andrew cosand. _ndr_w c_s_nd, 8, a___e_ _o_a__, 4: I have twice as many consonants as vowels. I'm white, i was born in LA and live in Southern California. I'm reasonably well educated, financially ok (i wouldn't say well off), and agnostic. But none of this is going to clue you in on whether or not i'm going to blow up the building you work in. The fact that you pick the spelling of someone's name as a basis of discrimination (like you'd have actually discriminated against a guy named Richard Reid...) merely helps to point out how bad an idea profiling is.
Re:Use cash instead of credit cards (Score:3, Insightful)
You think? Hey, here comes Joe. We have every conceivable record on Joe. We know Joe made $40,000 last year, but we can only account for $30,000 of it. What did Joe spend that other $10,000 on? We don't know. Did he spend it in cash? What on? What has Joe got to hide?
Let's understand this clearly. Get enough information on anyone, and you can start looking for the holes. This database is about how the government views your actions. If this thing actually gets off the ground, the question won't be "Can they prove I'm guilty", but "Have I proved my innocence?" Remember, at first it will be used to fight the good fight. It's for your own safety. You might be cuffed and locked up for hours, but once you get enough innocent Americans to vouch for your patriotism and loyalty, you'll be released. Whoopee.
This has the potential to make the McCarthy witch hunts look like a friendly tea party. I don't think I'm exaggerating. Our best hope is that it provides so many false positives that it becomes impractical to use. Specifically, let's hope some Senator spends a lot of cash while vacationing incognito with his "niece", and receives a tazering and an anal probe on his return flight as a reward. That should kill this thing pretty quickly.
Re:if the shoe fits (Score:4, Insightful)
Right. Except when it comes to the treatment of our 'prisoners of war'. Then, we are suddenly not at war.
Re:So...? (Score:2, Insightful)
* conservative == big business can do as it pleases, and the government will support that (with tax dollars).
* liberal == the general population is too stupid to take care of itself, so the government will come to the rescue.
in reality, the philosophical underpinnings of conservative and liberal political theory have nothing to do with their present forms. here's a more concrete example:
the _conservative_ justices on our supreme court have often ruled in favor of giving police more authority to trample people's rights. imho, being _convervative_ (or classically liberal) means the average citizen should have _more_ liberty, especially from the prying eyes of the police. conservativism != facism. facism is a political relative of liberalism (the state being in full control) rather than conservativism.
let's look at the recent enron debacle. the media is portraying enron as the bastard son of free market capitalism. the company represents everything that is wrong with adam smith's vision of a free market economy. the reality, however, is quite a bit different. enron, though unregulated by the government, wanted to be involved with the government. meetings with cheney. political contributions to both parties to help further their agenda. that doesn't sound very _laissez faire_ to me....free market conservativism means the government stays out of business and businesses take the responsiblity to regulate themselves....
so...until people understand how our constitutional system works, and how the various political theories apply to it, our country will look like a hopeless mess. and our liberties will always be blunted.
It's gone too far... (Score:2, Insightful)
The day of 911, when my teachers began talking about how everything was going to change from here on out, I knew that we were in for trouble. My biggest concern wasn't so much that they were changing laws, and making new ones that take away freedom. No, it was when I was hearing people saying it was okay, that it was for the better...
Can't anyone see that they are blatantly using 9/11 as a cover for doing WHATEVER they want to do. They have called it a war so that they can use whatever powers necessary to do whatever they have the slightest inclination to do.
We can't just sit back and say this is okay. Write your congressmen!!! I don't even put much stock in this action, but if enough of us do, we can pray that somehow it changes things.
Remember this?
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world." -- Declaration of Independence
Re:Hey... (Score:1, Insightful)
This form of public discussion is, in fact, a better medium for the broadcast of bad ideas then public speaking if for no other reason then they will immediately, and often logically, be shot down in flames thus helping to clear some wrong headed ideas that tend to flow all too easily into the public mind.
Won't work because of the base-rate fallacy (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with massive screening systems like these the reverend Thomas Bayes (of Bayes's theorem) is not the detection part, i.e. being able to actually detect all the bad guys, but not drowning in false alarms when doing so. And the base-rate fallacy says that there's not a whole lot you can do about it.
I've developed the argument further in an intrusion detection context see for example The base rate-fallacy and it's implications for the difficulty of intrusion detection [nec.com], and it's directly applicable here. The article has an introductory example, that explains that under certain conditions a 99% accurate medical test, won't work at all. The references lists a few other papers by Matthews that are well worth a read also.
In short, since there are precious few passengers that are actually "terrorists" for any real definition of the world, the system must be several (perhaps 1x10^5 -- 1x10^6) times better at suppressing false alarms, than at detecting actual terrorist, to avoid the situation where "all" alarms (from a practical standpoint) are false alarms, i.e. the fact that you were flagged says nothing about you being a danger or not.
What's worse of course is that people when faced with such systems start to ignore their output sooner rather than later, and then the system becomes completely useless even from a narrow security perspective.
So, no, it won't work. It could have worked against the "casual" threat, its very existence could have served as a deterrent, but there are hardly any spur-of-the-moment suicide bombers, so, no, scrap that to. It can't work, because Bayes says so.
Re:So...? (Score:2, Insightful)
In the immortal words of Tonto, "Who you calling *we*, White Man?"
While I agree that hypocracy is rampant, I challenge you to find one place where I've advocated the restriction of civil liberty for any reason, or specifically the creation of a false sense of security.
While uninformed people have asked for this type of regulation, I find your assertion that this is what the collective "we" wanted quite disturbing.
Re:Your papers, please! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:what's wrong? (Score:2, Insightful)
This is an argument (flame really) as ridiculous as they come. So are Nepalese all racist because they are all Budist? Is Mexico racist because they are all Latino Christian? You probably live in an ethnically diverse place but there are places where there have not been many incomers in a long while so people are homogenous. It doesn't mean they are racist!
D.
Re:So...? (Score:2, Insightful)
And you trust "them" to use this newfound toy only for those reasons you find acceptable?
"Well, I know we're only supposed to use this for anti-terrorism, but it's a really important case and if we only do it this once...."
Surrendering your liberties *with conditions* is naive. Power granted will be abused, eventually. Only by fighting to retain all of your liberties can you have any hope of retaining any of them.
Re:So...? (Score:3, Insightful)
But you completely missed to see the connection to the next.
Not from using, but from practicing. As in creating, testing and otherwise trying to understand cryptology, or to find out if a specific method is snake oil or not. If you do obtain such knowledge, intentionally or not, and it protects any copyrighted work. you've got a gag order called the DMCA.
Kjella
I think Jacob Levich said it best... (Score:4, Insightful)
Bush's Orwellian Address
Happy New Year: It's 1984
by Jacob Levich
Seventeen years later than expected, 1984 has arrived. In his address to Congress Thursday, George Bush effectively declared permanent war -- war without temporal or geographic limits; war without clear goals; war against a vaguely defined and constantly shifting enemy. Today it's Al-Qaida; tomorrow it may be Afghanistan; next year, it could be Iraq or Cuba or Chechnya.
No one who was forced to read 1984 in high school could fail to hear a faint bell tinkling. In George Orwell's dreary classic, the totalitarian state of Oceania is perpetually at war with either Eurasia or Eastasia. Although the enemy changes periodically, the war is permanent; its true purpose is to control dissent and sustain dictatorship by nurturing popular fear and hatred.
The permanent war undergirds every aspect of Big Brother's authoritarian program, excusing censorship, propaganda, secret police, and privation. In other words, it's terribly convenient.
And conveniently terrible. Bush's alarming speech pointed to a shadowy enemy that lurks in more 60 countries, including the US. He announced a policy of using maximum force against any individuals or nations he designates as our enemies, without color of international law, due process, or democratic debate.
He explicitly warned that much of the war will be conducted in secret. He rejected negotiation as a tool of diplomacy. He announced starkly that any country that doesn't knuckle under to US demands will be regarded as an enemy. He heralded the creation of a powerful new cabinet-level police agency called the "Office of Homeland Security." Orwell couldn't have named it better.
By turns folksy ("Ya know what?") and chillingly bellicose ("Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists"), Bush stepped comfortably into the role of Big Brother, who needs to be loved as well as feared. Meanwhile, his administration acted swiftly to realize the governing principles of Oceania:
WAR IS PEACE. A reckless war that will likely bring about a deadly cycle of retaliation is being sold to us as the means to guarantee our safety. Meanwhile, we've been instructed to accept the permanent war as a fact of daily life. As the inevitable slaughter of innocents unfolds overseas, we are to "live our lives and hug our children."
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. "Freedom itself is under attack," Bush said, and he's right. Americans are about to lose many of their most cherished liberties in a frenzy of paranoid legislation. The government proposes to tap our phones, read our email and seize our credit card records without court order. It seeks authority to detain and deport immigrants without cause or trial. It proposes to use foreign agents to spy on American citizens. To save freedom, the warmongers intend to destroy it.
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. America's "new war" against terrorism will be fought with unprecedented secrecy, including heavy press restrictions not seen for years, the Pentagon has advised. Meanwhile, the sorry history of American imperialism -- collaboration with terrorists, bloody proxy wars against civilians, forcible replacement of democratic governments with corrupt dictatorships -- is strictly off-limits to mainstream media. Lest it weaken our resolve, we are not to be allowed to understand the reasons underlying the horrifying crimes of September 11.
The defining speech of Bush's presidency points toward an Orwellian future of endless war, expedient lies, and ubiquitous social control. But unlike 1984's doomed protagonist, we've still got plenty of space to maneuver and plenty of ways to resist.
It's time to speak and to act. It falls on us now to take to the streets, bearing a clear message for the warmongers: We don't love Big Brother.
Jacob Levich (jlevich@earthlink.net) is an writer, editor, and activist living in Queens, New York.
Re:So...? (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless it is racist speech against Palestinians, in which case you get elected head of government.
Hey, someone had to bring it up.
Israel may not be a police state for Jewish people, but ask any of your Palestinian citizens and see what they say.
There is the main problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Information technology is not some kind of magical spell that will allow telepathic scanning of what goes on in a person's head before the fact. All the data processed by a computer will be configured to respond to specific clues, which people will always manage to go around.
Computers will never replace the judgement of a human being, and will never be able to determine what the intentions of a person are because of a very simple reason: computers measure actions, and the same action by different individuals does not imply that they have the same motives.
Despite what many politicians and officials seem to think, computers will not solve all of the world's problems. Their "faith" is just that: a belief in something based on no rational grounds.
Inevitable (Score:2, Insightful)
Just how many databases are they planning to put together for this profiling? The US government already has granted its law enforcement agencies the right to trawl through email and other web traffic. Is that information going to be used too?
I would be suprised if it were not. From what I gather they now have the legal right to do this.
It strikes me that it could be incredibly easy to get a "dangerous" profile. Just write some emails/articles that are harshly critical about Bush's approach to the war on terrorism. Send too many attachments with your emails and you may be sending stenographic info. Send a random binary file as an attachment, or even just a corrupt file, and you must be sending cryptographic communications (of course you cannot prove otherwise). Hell, just use crypto. Buy plane tickets for a couple of friends and check in at different times from them, or not at all. Exchange emails with Muslim friends expressing anger and disgust about the racist abuse they're suffering from redneck idiots and offer your support and you must be a danger. The possibilities are almost endless.
By the sounds of it, if you were to do all of these things you would guarantee yourself a strip-search every time you fly in the USA.
Do you know who all your friends friends are? Can you really guarantee that you have no link to a terrorist organisation, or organised crime?
Of course not, and nor should you have to. However in a country where even the government has supported terrorism in the past it would not be all that unlikely for a data mining system to find such a link.
I thank God that I'm not an American.
This already happens (Score:3, Insightful)
It isn't racial profiling or segmenting out certain people, just tracking patterns of who does what.
Hell, even in small as Lancaster PA of a population of 300,000 at most, they profile. They profile segments of town to track population, growth, crime and variations in all of the segments. If they see a crime "Wave" moving through they have an idea of where it originates and they can attack it from the source.
You aren't aware of it, you aren't being racially profile or magically segmented out, people are just using what is known to track, monitor and predict many fascets of normal everyday life which just so happens to include the threat of terrorism.
Your aren't loosing any liberties when people use information already available. They're not going to do anything unless your being suspicious.
If you fly 3 different airlines across the us constantly scoping out different airports and have the abilities to rackup miles, rewards, points and member benifits, but don't then that should raise a flag, especially if your paying cash for tickets or full price. As the typical person no matter if a business or personall trip will try and get all the benifets and perks of flying including saving money on advanced purchases, hotel rewards, point sharing rewards and predicting and scheduling their plans.
The people being evavisive for a reason will have another reason to fear flying. Either way you won't loose your liberties unless your TRYING TO.
The US has laws and rules to protect your rights, you don't loose them unless you express through actions or words you understanding of the loss of these rights.
I don't see a single legit american being held, all the people being held without release right now are people overstaying visa's or using education visa's for other purposes. The country they come from can get them extradited, but they don't. Is it wrong for Americans to protect themselves because other countries could care less about there own citizens?
These aren't people who merely stole a candy bar from 711 who are going to be held, and i'm sorry but a visa infraction is a SERIOUS crime. Your over staying your legal visit in a country and your stated purpose is no longer binding. Your going to pay the price and you were told simply the cost of your actions when you came to this country.
So don't consider it PROFILING, consider it being rational and using the numbers just like everything else is done. If you county has a high traffic accident rate you pay a higher insurance premium because they came up with a rational way of handling the problems of that area, they profiled the population and didn't hand all the expenses to black people, white people, chinese or japanese, but you know if that WHOLE DAMN AREA IS BLACK, WHITE OR CHINESE THEN IT IS THAT POPULATION THAT HAS TO ACCEPT THAT PROBLEM AND FIX IT. There are plenty of other BLACK, WHITE, CHINESE,INDIAN areas that DON'T have that problem.
These AI/datamining projects never work (Score:2, Insightful)
Systems that build a big pile of data and "try to find patterns" sound good, but never seem to work in real life.
They always seem to degrade into a very simple rule of thumb like "If you paid late before, you might pay late again." Duh.
So is the new rule "If you hijacked a plane before, you might hijack another one?" You dont need to track who I live with/sleep with to keep a list of people that hijack planes.
These systems that "find subtle patterns" usally find data artifacts that have little or no predictive power with lots of false positives.
In the mean time, it will be more useful for divorce lawyers if they can get their hands on the data. Ever want to hide from an ex wife? Never fly on a plane. Ever.
Re:Your papers, please! (Score:1, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Bin Laden Quote (Score:2, Insightful)
This reminded me of an interesting quote of Bin Laden on the BBC this morning:
"I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The US Government will lead the American people - and the West in general - into an unbearable hell and a choking life."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_ea st /newsid_1795000/1795531.stm
Osama's the man (Score:2, Insightful)
From CNN's report on the mid-October bin Laden tape just released:
Sounds about right, eh?
-ben
(only slightly more glad that I'm Canadian...)
Re:Not really... (Score:1, Insightful)
q. Why are Anonymous Cowards like Muslims?
a. They all look the same, they stink, and all they can talk about is hatred.
first off, hatred is everywhere- from the middle east to your backyard...coincidentally it sounds like you got some hatred there yourself. secondly, every single religion has fundamentalists that plague it, from the christians to the jews. summing up this rant, in one disorganized sentence: anyone who generalizes is doing the same as "those stinking, hate filled muslims" (to put it in your words)
Re:Your papers, please! (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm a staunch Republican and I think Bush is terrific but I agree with the ACLU and all the liberal groups on this one: impugning people's rights is not an viable option, no matter how great the intentions.
Another poster mentioned in Germany that gun registration was in place for years before Hitler, and he simply used those lists to take guns away.
The problem is not the motives or intentions now, or the fact that we have legitimate problems to solve. The problem is that if unethical parties come to power, they can take control of the country much more easily if they control all information and weapons. I think the Bush Administration has both the highest ethics and the best motives -- it's future administrations that worry me.
Re:Ever bother to read the Geneva Convention? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:man's house his castle (Score:2, Insightful)
Orwell would be chagrined that a bunch of whiny, priviledged citizens of the United States are complaining about how not being able to burn leaves and having to fill out a census.
Glad you can read his dead mind. I'll ignore the brainless insults.
First of all, leaf burning laws are local, not federal laws.
So? The parent post said terrorism was ending the idea that a man's home is his castle. I said that the idea has long been under attack, terrorism or no.
Second of all, censuses have been in existence in the US since 1790. 2 years after the adoption of the Constitution.
Did they threaten fines and criminal penalties for not filling it out in 1790? Also, it is supposed to be a simple enumeration, it has been expanded way, way beyond that.
I can't bear to reply to the idea that federal standards on toilet flush capacity is Orwellian...
Didn't say it was. But it relates to my house being my castle. There is no reason for the federal government to be regulating this.
Re:So...? (Score:2, Insightful)
(Emphasis added). No need to wonder. They had this thing called the Smith Act [upenn.edu]. Being affiliated in any way with the Communist Party was a sure ticket to hell on earth. Imagine the combination of this law and this sort of political climate & the surveillance technology in this proposal. I am very afraid.
The more things change... (Score:2, Insightful)
"We don't like the looks of you, you can't fly on our airplane."
Boy, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
-Thomas
Re:Your papers, please! (Score:1, Insightful)
"You do not have a constitutional right to airline service. Just clearing the air here. You can protest. You might not be able to take the privately owned airplane, but such is life."
Where is the alternative? I can drive, but must have a license to do so. I can hitch, but it's illegal to hitch on most highways. I can take the bus, but Greyhound is talking about checking IDs too.
When the Supreme Court said it's ok to have "sobriety checkpoints" it did so only on the condition that they can be reasonably avoided by anyone wishing to do so. I don't see any reasonable alternative here to an ID check if I need/want to travel across the country.
Re:This will only inconvenience clueless traveller (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, there is now a pretty good chance that I will have to take my shoes off and have someone search them before I can get on a plane. However, I can, if I have purchased a domestic airline ticket, check a bag onto an airplane, then leave the airport and that bag will fly without me to its destination.
So on one hand you have a stupid little rule that inconveniences a lot of innocent people (there are so many better ways to get stuff onto an airplane than in one's shoes). But at the same time, there are huge security holes that are being ignored.
It would seem that the new "tighter" security is all about the perception of security in order to encourage people to fly. They don't seem to care whether that perception reflects reality at all.
Does anyone else smell Snake Oil? (Score:2, Insightful)
The level of detail they want to put into your dossier is considerably more than a private investigator could come up with, and PIs charge hundreds (maybe thousands) of dollars for such a report. These guys are going to keep the price down around $2 per ticket. Yeah. Sure.
2. A background check on one prospective passenger will be rather intensive. They're talking about using phone records here, which alone could bind the average person to several dozen other people. Let's call this number "a". Now, they're going to explore seven degrees of association. This means that 1+a**7 people need to be checked to vet one passenger. (Current population of Earth: about 6*10**9). How far in advance do I need to make my reservation?
3. Remember Kevin Bacon? I remember reading a couple of years ago that between any two people on Earth chosen at random there are on the average LESS THAN SIX degrees of separation. Yep, that applies to Ashcroft and Bin Laden as well.
4. Bad data is worse than no data, and it won't take much pollution to render the whole thing completely useless. The Feds will need to tamper with the data to allow their agents to work undercover and to operate the Witness Protection programs. This database will be an irresistable cracker target. And where would we get data on non-citizens?
Both major (and probably some of the minor) political parties will have their private cracks into the database and neither will hesitate very long to use those cracks to find or create dirt on their opponents and to try to clean their own candidates' records. It won't take long for them to dispel anyone's delusion that this thing is in any way accurate.
In short, it's just not going to work. I suspect someone's looking for free publicity or maybe some "venture capital".
Re:My Airline Security Story (Score:2, Insightful)
I always carry a swiss army knife in my briefcase. It has tweezers, a screw driver, etc. Useful little tool for emergencies.
When I flew from LAX to Japan, I put my briefcase through the XRAY machine and had no problem.
When I was leaving Japan, I put my briefcase through XRAY and the operator stopped me, asking "do you have a knife in your briefcase?"
"Yes", I replied.
All hell did not break loose.
She politely informed me that I would have to check the knife as a security item. No alarms went off. They didn't quarantine me. No body-cavity searches. I just opened my briefcase, gave her my knife, and she gave me a claim check.
So my end result was the same as yours, but my experience was different.
So what's the moral of my non-story? Maybe it's the attitude of the person behind the machine that makes the difference?
Re:I have a right not to be treated as a criminal (Score:2, Insightful)
Probably build some more fighter planes in case somebody tries to do a repeat of Sept 11, right? Given the number that already existed and how completely useless they were, it would seem like flawed argument.
So either, your argument is based on Xenophobia, and you want to keep everyone out (those damn foreigners, always up to trouble, you can tell, they have shifty eyes), or you believe that your borders can keep all the baddies out. I thought most of the people involved were in the US legitimately.
I for one do not see the problem of losing a little privacy if it means my plane is less likely to be blown up. Some guy searches my bag, big deal. OK, so he saw some of my personal items, lost a little privacy, but gee, he probably searches a whole lot of other bags. It makes me feel safer.
Quite honestly, to suggest that looking outward at threatening groups is going to solve anything is to me an easy solution. Not only that, but there will always be a minority that jump on the Xenophobia bandwagon. Australia has that bad, even here in NZ we get it occasionally. It wont solve anything.
Re:This will only inconvenience clueless traveller (Score:2, Insightful)
Um, no you cannot check your bag, leave the airport and have it fly to the destination. That changed a few weeks ago. All bags are matched with the manifest. You, obviously don't fly frequently. I hear all of the time folks being paged because the flight is about to leave. Why do you think that is? It's because if those dumbasses don't show up, they are going to have to offload their luggage.
I agree, it is the clueless jerk who is messing up air travel. I would like to have a frequent traveler card, so I can bypass the clueless idiots and get on to my next consulting engagement.
Note to NRA members (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:what's wrong? (Score:3, Insightful)
Then to make things worse, every now and then they'll catch a guy who did steal the car, not because young black males in expensive cars are more likely to be theives, but because some actually are theives. Then, the cop feels justified in his/her profile and continues on with it. The cop may even think "I don't pull over nearly as many white young males who have stolen a car" not realizing that it's because of the disproportionate number of young black males pulled over.
The problem with computerized profiling is that it will continuously flag certain individuals that meet the profile. Every time they go somewhere they will have to deal with it, simply because they choose to be different within their rights. I wouldn't want to be a gay polyamorous man heading to Disneyland with my group once this system is put in.
Re:I have a right not to be treated as a criminal (Score:2, Insightful)