Bruce Schneier vs. the TSA 741
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."
Biggest legal issue, IMO (Score:5, Insightful)
how is scanning teenagers not considered manufacturing CP?
we all know the images will be saved, they have to be. After all, what kind of security outfit would not want the capability to go back and look at the images after a future terror attempt happens? Of course they'll want to go back and review surveillance footage and these images, to see if they need to change thresholds or procedures, to see if/what they missed.
So given that it's a given they are saving them for forensics purposes (and perhaps for evidenciary purposes if a terrorist was brough to trial), isn't this the outright manufacture of child porn?
What is wrong in America? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is that a country founded on the ideological rejection of tyranny is creeping ever closer to the text book example of abuses of power?
Re:Thanks Congressman Ron Paul (R)! (Score:1, Insightful)
Oh, to the slashbots, Ron Paul is far WORSE than being a Republican: He is a Republican who actually BELIEVES in smaller government, who has consistently acted on those grounds, and campaigns for it. He is a Libertarian in disguise! He must be reviled at every turn, and any time he does good, it must be drowned out! slashbots cannot let the idea of personal responsibility and small government take hold - while they are quite happy to see the government prevented from interfering with their vices, the idea that the government won't give them free stuff and that they might actually be held accountable for their own actions and the consequences thereof - that's just crazy talk.
Correct me if I'm wrong (seriously) (Score:5, Insightful)
It's been a while since the 9/11 attacks, and maybe later updated information was hidden back in the classified ads of my newspaper - but I thought that the consensus was the 9/11 hijackers did not bring their boxcutters onto the plane with them. So these increasingly intrusive TSA make-work tactics would have had zero effect on the worst terrorist attack in US history.
Not to mention that, post 9/11, passengers and crew realize now that modern-day hijackers are mainly interested in killing everyone on the plane. So in the attempts that have followed, passengers and/or the crew have successfully thwarted those attempts. That's the real solution - an aware public.
These silly "solutions" the TSA keeps rolling out don't seem to be accomplishing anything other than annoying air travelers. If any of these measures had actually demonstrably stopped even one attempted attack, don't you think the TSA would be crowing it from the rooftops?
Re:What is wrong in America? (Score:4, Insightful)
Fear (Score:5, Insightful)
It all started on 9/11, when instead of reacting to the attacks as a matter for coordinated worldwide policing, we elevated those fuckers to the same status as a nation-state and decided to declare war on anyone and everyone who didn't instantly get in line behind us. We stoked our own fear to an insane degree, and it's already boomeranged back on us in so many ways. This is just one more self-inflicted wound in a long line of idiotic mistakes we've made over the last nine years.
Re:Thanks Congressman Ron Paul (R)! (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course you have just presented yourself as a person who cares more about someone's party affiliation than the actual content of whatever they are saying. Did you even bother to read - never mind, I know the answer. Just keep voting for your party and hope that things will get better. They won't. What the hell is the point of giving someone a vote when they don't even understand or care what they're voting for? /rant
I'd feel safer... (Score:5, Insightful)
The solution is simple (Score:1, Insightful)
Every passenger deserves the right to request to have their enhanced patdown conducted in private, by the agents mom.
Re:I'd feel safer... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would feel safer if we got rid of the TSA and just had one or two fully decked out marines on board each flight. Would be cheaper too...
Even that would be a complete waste of money. After 9/11 passengers know that if the plane gets hijacked they will likely die. The passengers and crew will now prevent a hijacking just as a Marine would. The other easy to imagine threat is that someone tries to blow up the plane. In that case a Marine isn't going to be much help. We would be better off devoting the money to intelligence and investigation.
Oblig. Alpha Centauri quote (best Civ game ever) (Score:5, Insightful)
link [generationterrorists.com]
As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Commissioner Pravin Lal
"U.N. Declaration of Rights"
Re:Thanks Congressman Ron Paul (R)! (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh please! Ron Paul is a rat. He just wants to privatize the system to get people to look away from the government. And his "show" bill to put congress people through the same process is just that, a show, something that would never pass, and he knows it.
Michael Chertoff needs to be investigated (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'd feel safer... (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is why nobody's trying to stop hijackings. They're trying to stop mid-air explosions that can be set off without anyone noticing before it's too late.
Re:What is wrong in America? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is that a country founded on the ideological rejection of tyranny is creeping ever closer to the text book example of abuses of power?
Why? That's an easy question to answer: because we're human. They're the classic reasons: greed, power, money, etc. There are a lot of people getting paid for the TSA to be so big, and a lot of people in a lot of positions of power. Because people are people, corruption comes out of that.
The question isn't "why", because the answer is always the same. The question should be "is anyone doing anything about it?" Thankfully, it appears that finally this major issue is receiving the type of response that it should. This is obviously a breach of fourth amendment rights, and the Israelis have proven that it's possible to have a higher level of security with a minimal level of interference, without simply outright violating people's rights in the name of security. Everyone needs to continue pressure to figure out a way to make air travel secure while not violating everyone's rights, because it's obviously possible and just not happening.
It seems to me like "grope them" is the reaction you get when you can't think of anything better, so there might be some problems with the people making these policies.
The fact that people are at least starting to stand up against those policies and for their rights is the right reaction and it's reassuring to see it finally happening. That's what makes this country strong: not the fact that we can stop everything from happening, but the fact that we change it if it does.
Ben Franklin said it best:
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Sadly it took me a while to realize (Score:5, Insightful)
Your linked article is satire. But I didn't really know if it was satire until I read it through.
The terrorists have won.
Re:I'd feel safer... (Score:3, Insightful)
The passengers and crew will now prevent a hijacking just as a Marine would.
The marine could carry weaponry onto the plane, the civilians can't. We'll get a nice police state once we all start asking for it. Military police roaming around our civilian lives sure is better than the gropings, right?
Re:Thanks Congressman Ron Paul (R)! (Score:2, Insightful)
If I don't like how a government conducts its business, I can always vote for a different one... Funny how everything is alike
I don't like Ron Paul for a lot of reasons (Score:5, Insightful)
but I don't let my dislike for him cloud my judgement of his individual ideas.
This is a good one; even though his wording in trollish and flamebait worthy.
Re:Biggest legal issue, IMO (Score:5, Insightful)
However, what does it tell the child when a government employee is allowed to touch them in areas their parents have been telling them all their lives no one but the doctor is allowed to touch them? While the parents stand by powerless to do anything about it? In full view of hundreds of other people? Are we supposed to amend what we tell our children to "no one can touch you there, unless they happen to have some kind of perceived authority over you or if they're wearing a uniform"?
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong (seriously) (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know why they wouldn't have: TSA regulations at the time said anyone was allowed to.
Well, the first step when they forbid boxcutters, bats, scissors and darts made some sense. The rest, not as much.
Of course, you're right that a change in public attitude (and official hijack response doctrine) from "give the hijackers control" to "risk everyone onboards' lives to stop the hijacking" solves a huge number of problems. And common sense efforts by a few other people have closed the rest of the gaps.
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong (seriously) (Score:3, Insightful)
"in the attempts that have followed the passengers and/or crew have thwarted attempts"
Exactly. Arm everyone. In Vermont we can carry hidden weapons. We don't need no stinking government permits. You never know if the person you're confronted is carrying a hidden handgun and will whip it out to shoot you. That knowledge makes you a whole LOT more respectful and it means that we have the weapons to take on a terrorists, bank robber, home intruder, etc.
Lastly, get a dog. Get a lot of dogs. Nobody messes with my dogs. If everyone took a full pack of dogs on the airplanes then we would not have any terror attempts. Merely dog food.
Re:Fear (Score:5, Insightful)
Terrorism is a criminal act and it should be treated as such. When we elevate it to an act of war we not only give the perpetrators far more legitimacy than they deserve, we also fight it with the worst possible tools for the job.
Re:How is the TSA invasive? (Score:5, Insightful)
And the TSA is welcome to go fuck off. They don't get to decide which liberties people must voluntarily compromise in order to fly, or at least that's not how it's supposed to work.
The idea that anything that's not a fundamental human right can be taken away on the whim of any random government bureaucracy is, bizarre, to say the least.
The TSA doesn't "own" flying. They are proposing measures that are invasive and fundamentally ineffective, and we're supposed to have a say in whether or not we want that.
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong (seriously) (Score:2, Insightful)
These silly "solutions" the TSA keeps rolling out don't seem to be accomplishing anything other than annoying air travelers.
Ah, but you missed a very obvious other accomplishment, lining the pockets of the company that makes these machines. I'm pretty sure these machines aren't cheap and come with ridiculous margins due to the monopolistic nature and mandatory status of said product.
Follow the money. Lobbyists and campaign contributions will be involved.
Re:Biggest legal issue, IMO (Score:4, Insightful)
Not with regards to child pornography. Possession, period, is 100% of the law.
Re:Biggest legal issue, IMO (Score:2, Insightful)
We tell them that it is never OK for someone to touch them that way, uniform or no, unless it's with their consent, and that they should scream bloody murder when someone does try to molest them that way. I'm 100% willing to delay my travel plans should my children get molested in an airport, and make sure that the perpetrators are identified and sued.
Re:Thanks Congressman Ron Paul (R)! (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, I find using the term "scientific" with regard to any economic theory suspect.
Re:Biggest legal issue, IMO (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How is the TSA invasive? (Score:1, Insightful)
Holy shit, you are possibly the dumbest, blindest idiot I've ever seen
Re:Israeli Airport Security folks are professional (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullshit.
Train people to conduct good security, and have them stationed at the airports. Make it a well-paying career and people might actually consider it as a career who might otherwise have avoided it. We may have more airports, but we also have more people who can be trained for the job, or are already trained.
Re:I'd feel safer... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Thanks Congressman Ron Paul (R)! (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? Then why didn't he introduce a bill forbidding the molestation of passengers and exposure to harmful and ineffective scans? Or better yet, if he really believes in smaller governement he would introduce a bill eliminating the TSA all together since they are a wasteful ineffective agency that has done nothing to make anyone safer.
Instead he proposes a bill which says, in effect, "if you don't like how you are treated by the TSA you can spend a few hundred thousand dollars trying to sue the Federal Government. This is nothing more than political grandstanding and pretending to be "against big government".
Re:Biggest legal issue, IMO (Score:3, Insightful)
Tell that to the parents that have been arrested because their three year old kid ran into the camera frame while running around naked on a camping trip. Or bath-time photos, etc. You know, all of that stuff that nobody would have thought twice about a decade ago. It can now very easily completely destroy your life, even if you're found not guilty (hell, even if charges are never pressed).
I also believe that airport security has been completely unreasonable for at least the past few years. What's currently happening makes me feel like I'm living in some sort of twisted In Soviet Russia joke (but I'll be sure to let the whole security line know that I normally have to pay extra for the happy ending, and thanks for the great service - might as well make the fondling guards equally uncomfortable).
Re:Thanks Congressman Ron Paul (R)! (Score:3, Insightful)
So what if a corporation dumps waste in the river, exposes workers to a toxic environment, over harvests the ocean or destroys entire species, abuses monopoly powers to destroy competition, or any number of negative externalities [wikipedia.org]?
Cutting corners and not getting caught (or getting caught but the penalty being less than the gain) can be very profitable. Sometimes the damage being done is hidden long enough that a corporation flourishes. It's not hard for permanent damage to be be done on either a personal or a very large scale. Suing the corporation doesn't really fix the problem.
Also, corporations have no conscience, no remorse, and basically act like a sociopath.
Corporations don't have the rights of an individual, they have the privilege of acting as in individual in very specific ways.
Re:How is the TSA invasive? (Score:5, Insightful)
The government doesn't give us rights. We have the rights inherently. Just because the government says driving on roads that I payed for isn't a right, doesn't mean their position is legally sound. Their unreasonable search and seizure of persons and property at airports is outright illegal under the Constitution. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it. The reason it continues is that nobody in power will prosecute them, and courts won't hear criminal cases brought by the general public.
Re:What is wrong in America? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because personal responsibility has been thrown out the window by a cabal of power-hungry politicians who use government to make citizens dependent on them. They want everything to be like Western Europe, with tons of regulation and a gigantic state that can force everyone to behave the way they want them to behave.
But don't worry. The anti-government wave of the 2010 midterms woke some people up. The GOP finally adopted a secular, economy-focused message and was very successful with it, and if that means this country shifts back toward libertarianism (you know, how it originally started), that's fine with me.
Re:How is the TSA invasive? (Score:5, Insightful)
So how long do you think before, TSA would require a body scan before boarding a bus or a train or a ship? You would still be fine with it, if you were informed in advance, right? One can still take the car or walk or swim, right?
Re:Libertarians are clueless (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Uh .. .what? The "grown-ups" (who I assume you do not number yourself among) have decided that more government intervention is better? Are you nuts? The question is not whether or not we need to reduce the size of Federal Government ... but what parts to cut.
Don't presume to speak for your betters.
Re:Fear (Score:5, Insightful)
Get it?
It is impossible to be safe from terrorism.and people really need to get over the idea that it's possible to be completely safe.
In the meantime, I'm sure you don't hesitate to jump in your car and get on the freeway because that's probably how your going to die and if yo live long enough, it'll be cancer or heart disease.
Re:Israeli security solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you every been through Ben Gurion?
It's very effective but it's a pain in the ass compared to US Security.
Last time it took me a full 3 hours from entering the airport to arriving at the gate to depart. They x-rayed my bags, then hand-searched them, and asked me grilling and misleading questions before I even got to the ticket counter to check-in! Then it was a long wait to get through immigration. Then I got singled out for another x-ray line that _crawled_ along. There was probably a dozen of us in that line and it took 30 mins to get us all through. I think they make you wait on purpose to see if you get nervous etc.
Effective yes, but I'd hate to have to go through that everytime I want to fly.
Re:Biggest legal issue, IMO (Score:5, Insightful)
how is scanning teenagers not considered manufacturing CP?
For the same reason that the "pat-down" isn't considered sexual assault: because the government is doing it.
Re:Libertarians do believe in government (Score:2, Insightful)
You mean like civil rights? Apparently the two Pauls are awfully big opponents of that sort of legislation.
Re:Fear (Score:5, Insightful)
Terrorism is not a police matter. That's the mistake that people have been making for years.
Of course it is a police matter. Murder was committed, and must be investigated by the police. When Timothy McVeigh bombed the federal building in Oklahoma, it was a police matter and was handled professionally.
In 2002 and 2005, when some people used bombs to murder tourists in Kuta Beach (on Bali Island, Indonesia), the Indonesian police tracked down the perpetrators and brought them to justice. Indonesians didn't turn their country into a police state. They just brought murderers to justice. But then, Indonesia has intelligent police who use human intelligence, rather than quoting and following a textbook, to perform police work and interrogate prisoners.
Calling murderers "terrorists" doesn't change that fact that murder, a criminal act, was committed. An act of war is between two nation-states, not a band of angry nutters and a nation-state. Otherwise, we would be able to send the US Army against the Montana Militia.
Of course, if you want to argue that we should go after countries that give material support to murderous organizations, then we should have gone to war with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan.
Re:Biggest legal issue, IMO (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
You're being well, naive, I'm afraid. Yes, if the relevant laws and the Justice System were fully functional and rational regarding child pornography, you might well be correct. But they're not, you know that, in fact they've gone completely 'round the bend, friend. And let me ask you this: what's going to happen when a few hundred thousand of those images show up as torrents? You know it's going to happen: 90% of Slashdot will download them immediately, just to see what the fuss is all about. However, the companies that make those machines, and the ultimate culprit, the TSA itself, are not going to want to take the heat. But after all the hoo-rah the Feds have been making about child porn lately, they're going to have to be seen doing something.
... you have a machine capable of generating nude imagery of the public en masse, and then storing those pictures indefinitely. The ONLY thing that prevents them from being a liability are underpaid private-sector employees and a government organ that cannot be trusted, period, under any conditions.. Those pics are going to get out, sooner or later, and in fact they're already being improperly if not illegally stored [slashdot.org].
This a serious cluster-fuck just waiting to happen. I mean, come on
Re:Fear (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't "police" terrorism, and we didn't declare war on everyone who disagreed with us. I get the point you're trying to make, but talk about hyperbole.
You can make law enforcement and the rule of law your primary means of fighting terrorism, rather than leading with the military and supporting that with extra-legal activity. The two are vastly different approaches.
I take your point about hyperbole. We obviously didn't declare war on everyone who disagreed with us. But we also needlessly turned plenty of sympathetic friends into wary neutrals or opponents very quickly, by painting this as a war of good v. evil, rather than a fight to extinguish a few nationless pirates.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Libertarians are clueless (Score:3, Insightful)
It worked out great as another example of government overregulation.
Re:Thanks Congressman Ron Paul (R)! (Score:4, Insightful)
Hey, better the Paulites blow their mod points on an intentionally provocative post than on a sensible, insightful one.
Re:How is the TSA invasive? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're welcome to take a bus, train, car or boat to your destination instead.
I've heard this argument over and over again, and it misses a very real factor of modern life: it is assumed by society that you will travel in such a way as to be expedient. I cannot say to my supervisor, "sure, I'll be glad to attend that important conference in Bejing, but it will take me six weeks to get there and another six to get back because I won't fly," and expect to still have a job. Electing to not fly by commercial airline to any destination that is outside of normal driving range, as evaluated not by you, but by everyone else, effectively eliminates most means of employment over unskilled labor. It means attending not your choice of college, but the local ones. It means interviewing only for positions that have, essentially, no required travel whatsoever. And remember that even when travel is not a requirement of employment, it is often a prerequisite to advancement. Modern life assumes travel by air. Your opportunities are severely stunted if you do not fly.
A more realistic view would be that you do not have a choice: flying is part of life.
Re:Thanks Congressman Ron Paul (R)! (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, if anybody at all in this thread were talking about having no government. Libertarians are not anarchists.
Re:Thanks Congressman Ron Paul (R)! (Score:5, Insightful)
Companies have the conscience, remorse and morals of those people who control them.
Companies are not autonomous entities. To perpetuate such a preposterous idea is to absolve those who run companies of any responsibility for their decisions and actions.
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong (seriously) (Score:2, Insightful)
These silly "solutions" the TSA keeps rolling out don't seem to be accomplishing anything other than annoying air travelers. If any of these measures had actually demonstrably stopped even one attempted attack, don't you think the TSA would be crowing it from the rooftops?
I think you miss the point ... they are accomplishing what they're designed to do: make someone a whole lot of money.
Re:Fear (Score:2, Insightful)
Terrorism was a police matter when it was Timothy McVeigh blowing up a federal building.
That's not really a valid comparison. Timothy McVeigh was an American citizen on American soil. He was caught and arrested by a State Trooper in OK or KS as I recall. The people who were responsible for 9/11 were operating on foreign soil and being shielded by a foreign Government. How exactly do you propose to solve this problem using conventional law enforcement? Did I miss the creation of an American law enforcement agency with jurisdiction in Afghanistan?
Re:Michael Chertoff needs to be investigated (Score:4, Insightful)
look him up. He has abused and manipulated his relationships with Homeland Security to try and make billions for him and his friends with the naked scanners. Part of the groping is to try and force people to use the scanners so they can sell more of them. Chertoff and Rapiscan Systems need to be indicted.
I imagine this will happen right after Bush & Cheney are sent to prison for their ties to Haliburton and other no-bid contract corporations. And *that* will happen right after Henry Kissinger is sent to prison for war crimes.
In other words, don't hold your breath.
Re:Biggest legal issue, IMO (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope. In reality, the damage is done before the Jury even gets their say.
Re:Biggest legal issue, IMO (Score:1, Insightful)
Sorry, but Dick Cheney and John Woo ruled that this isn't the case. The government is allowed to do whatever they want, no matter how many so-called "laws" oppose it.
If you disagreed with that doctrine, you'd have voted in someone who pledged to do something about it, rather than Obama. oh, wait.
Full body scans don't work - body cavity (Score:5, Insightful)
The full body scans are silly because Al Qaeda has ALREADY [cbsnews.com] used suicide bombers with explosives in their BODY CAVITIES. These are not exposed by full-body scanners that stop at the skin surface.
From the linked article "Asieri had a pound of high explosives, plus a detonator inserted in his rectum." That was 2009.
Re:Libertarians are clueless (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not how big the government is, it's how effective they are at providing the infrastructure and services that underpin modern life. Truth be told I already have most of the things in the above list because I don't live in a superpower that spends half it's tax revenue on military dick swinging and the other half on narcarsistic corporate welfare.
As for freedom; it's is a state of mind and what I really don't need or want is a government service to provide my state of mind.
Re:I don't like Ron Paul for a lot of reasons (Score:3, Insightful)
It is important to remember that Ron Paul is only against federal government officials putting people through body scanners and heavy pat downs. If the exact same procedures were put in place by the corporations that own the airlines or airports, and carried out by employees of those corporations, then he would say that should be a completely legal situation. As an extreme example - if an airline insisted that all (white/black/asian) women must submit to group sex with (white/black/asian) men before boarding, then that should also be a completely legal situation. That is obviously an extreme example, but what I'm getting at here is that Ron Paul believes that corporations and individuals should be able to enforce any rules that they want on their property, as a condition of being allowed to remain on that property. The airport is some corporation's property. The airplane is some corporation's property. It should be lawful for corporations to enforce any rules, even racist ones, on potential passengers. State government can presumably also do the same. However, the moment the federal government attempts to do it, then it has overstepped the constitutional authority bestowed on it, and must be stopped.
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong (seriously) (Score:4, Insightful)
If you really want to know how disarming the population affects crime rates, compare the crime rates before and after in a single location before and after gun laws are changed, or compare crime rates in cities in, for example, right-to-carry and no concealed-carry states. For example, there is a very interesting graph of the crime rate in Florida before and after it passed a right-to-carry law in 1987 at http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp [justfacts.com] . In other words, I see your "...concealed weapons has surely made America one of the most respectful places in the world..." and raise you a "Indeed, and the handgun bans in Washington D.C., Chicago and NYC have certainly made them safe places to live!"
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Re:I'd feel safer... (Score:4, Insightful)
Suggesting that passengers would stand up against plane hijackers is absurd. The American public at-large already crapped it's pants and bent over for the federal government when ordered to do so. Why would those same people not cower in fear when confronted directly with any other threat?
Of course American's are terrorized cowards. They will do anything to have someone tell them that it's going to be alright, that their investments are safe, that their house is worth more than it is, that social security will be around when they retire, and that the plane will land safely if they just do as they are told.
Want a direct example? Just look at these bus passengers do nothing as an old man is assaulted by some bully:
http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2010/11/raymel_curry_sucker_punches_di.php [seattleweekly.com]
Re:Libertarians are clueless (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you missed the whole "Socially Liberal" part, since you keep trying HARD to force libertarians into the tired grooves of either "neocon republican" or "limp wristed spend thrift liberal". Libertarians are not either.
The libertarian would be FOR government regulation for such things as equal rights. What they are against is regulations saying which kinds of house you can own, or what kind of shirt you can wear on the subway (or what kinds of games you can buy for your kids.)
It's simple-- Libertarian comes from "Liberty"-- for the most part, anything that increases the liberty of citizens is considered good; Biggotry is not a liberty that is good for the general citizen, because it de-facto implies obstructionism and lack of liberty to a portion of those citizens. Same with Gay marriage (concerning obstructionism being bad).
If anything, the Libertarian is more likely to suffer the bias AGAINST big business, BECAUSE big business tries to keep people down in general (to prevent competition). Your assertion that Libertarians would support racial biggotry is horribly unfounded, and serves only to highlight your own ignorance of that ideology.
Re:I'd feel safer... (Score:4, Insightful)
yeah, a scared untrained mob vs 4 trained individuals in a small space. Not going t stop a take over of the aircraft.
Wanna bet? Flight 93, the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber prove otherwise. Yeah, Flight 93 crashed, but the hijackers already had control of the aircraft when the passengers found out what was going down. There are other examples of passengers taking out suicidal hijackers, but most Americans have never heard the stories because they happened elsewhere (I remember reading about a group of passengers who took out a suicidal hijacker in Africa in the mid 90s, but it wasn't CNN that brought the story to me).
Secure flight deck doors...
Yes, and we already have that.
...and a auto pilot code that can't be turned off is the real way to go. It would make any attempt useless.
You do realize that the certification requirements for an autopilot state that the pilot *has* to be able to override it, because from time to time, they do fail, right? I will refuse to get on board -- or allow my family to get on board -- any airplane that has an autopilot that the pilot can't shut off, because the odds of a runaway autopilot are far greater than the odds of a terrorist hijacking.
Mid flight explosion? get rid of the scanner and get a few dogs. Hell, just one dog people have to walk past on their way down the gang plank.
Yeah, I agree with you there. My dumbest dog is a lot smarter and a whole lot more trustworthy than those goons at TSA -- especially the ones dictating policy.
Re:Thanks Congressman Ron Paul (R)! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Biggest legal issue, IMO (Score:4, Insightful)
The funny thing is that Nixon, the bane of the 70s era Democrats, would have be branded a socialist by today's GOP.
Re:Fear (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Well, to be fair, it did deter McVeigh from doing it again.
I'd wager a guess that the fair way in which he was caught & convicted served to reinforce the moral force of the us government, which indirectly reduced the chance of terrorism By not turning new people into the kind of fema-camp paranoid terrorists of McVeigh's ilk.
Put another way, there's not much you can do about die-hard terrorists (usually people whose only skill is destroying things and/or sociopaths). But sticking to principals like fairness, justice, and proportionality helps stop otherwise normal people from becoming terrorists
Re:Biggest legal issue, IMO (Score:2, Insightful)
Please do not use the "think of the children" defense. It is as bad as the "think of the terrorists" excuse they are using.
"Think of the children" is especially poignant and valid in these cases. Teaching children to submit to arbitrary actions by persons in authority is bad for freedom and our way of life. A few generations of that, and all real freedom will be gradually eroded. It's not so much "think of the children," but more "think of what we are teaching our future generations about freedom and our way of life."
The terrible thing about the "war on terror" (much like the war on drugs) is that it is a war with no enemy and no victory conditions, and as such, it is a war on ourselves. It will never end. We are witnessing how it has eroded freedom in the last 7 (?) years alone. Imagine what it will have accomplished in a generation or two on our freedoms. That is why we must think of the children. The insanity must be stopped before it becomes indoctrinated into our children. After that, all hope is lost since values are learned.
Re:Biggest legal issue, IMO (Score:5, Insightful)
The "think of the children" defense is perfectly applicable here. It is not just a superfluous use of children's issues to misdirect people from the real issue; here, patting-down children causes real harm, and draws people's attention to the primary issue itself. I agree that the groping of adults should be enough to stop this behavior on the part of the TSA, but the role that children play in this situation is different and compelling. As the GP pointed out, not only are these pat-downs useless when used on children, but they also monstrously undermine healthy efforts to teach children to protect their own bodies. The practice on adults is offensive and useless; on children it is perverse, reprehensible, and cruel.
Moreover, be practical: The hardest part of fixing this problem is getting the attention of beauracrats, which means getting the attention of the public and media for long enough for those beauracrats "care". Highlighting that children are being needlessly affected here, and that the TSA is removing children from their parents' control, are real problems that get the attention needed to fix the problem.
Re:Fear (Score:3, Insightful)
You do not understand. You must be re-educated. In a successful police state, the police do not create terror nor do they frighten anyone. In a successful police state, the people are calmed by the presence of the overarching protectorate and continue about their business unafraid.
It is only malcontents and miscreants like yourself, who obviously have something to hide from the protective services agents, that create the fear and discontent amongst your fellow citizens. Thus, you see, you are the creator of the terror, and you must be re-educated or eliminated.
The protective service agents are busy right now protecting air travelers, so please convey yourself to the closest protective agent office and make yourself available for the re-education process.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. That is all.
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong (seriously) (Score:3, Insightful)
Cause back then we had this thing called "freedom".. and I'd be happy to have it back.
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong (seriously) (Score:3, Insightful)
No-fly lists do far more harm than good, not to mention they're trivially easy to defeat. This is especially true of the current no-fly list; all it is is a list of names. There are no nationalities, ages, genders, or anything else linked to the name. The government suspects Jim Smith of terrorism, so they put the name on the no-fly list; suddenly no Jim Smith in the country can get a plane ticket. (Unless they use their middle name to buy the ticket; that's legal and it circumvents the no-fly list.) Does your three year old's name match a name on the no-fly list? That's too bad, the airlines don't exercise any common sense, even if you're there buying the ticket with your child in person.
If there were mandatory globally unique IDs, then sure, a no-fly list would make sense. But today, there isn't a good way to implement a no-fly list that doesn't hurt far more than it helps.
Re:Biggest legal issue, IMO (Score:5, Insightful)
And why shouldn't she have pasted it on facebook? In my parent's photo album there are heaps of photos showing me as a child naked in the bath. They've shown these photos to heaps of people. Not on facebook, but facebook didn't exist back then. Are they child pornography? Of course they're not fucking pornography. They are photos of me as a child in a bubble bath with my brother taken by a parent who loves us both. I was never molested or treated badly. If you choose to view innocent photos in a sexual manner than that is your fucking problem. There is and was nothing sexual in these photos of me and surely to be considered "pornography" there has to be some sexual intent. The fact that you consider that putting them on facebook immediately makes the photos pornographic in nature just says to me that you're as stupid, ignorant and downright idiotic as the rest of the people who think it's pornographic. Fuck you. Thanks.
Re:Well, multiple reasons (Score:4, Insightful)
"They are not at all clear representations with easy to identify anatomy. They are strange ghostly pictures that are recognizable as a human form but little else"
This is false. For the one doctored image there are hundreds of real images you can view and the only thing indistinct about them is color.
"First is because it is not sexual in nature."
That literally varies from one examiner to the next. Unless you are going to claim that $10/hr barely trained employees with no significant qualifications maintain a perfect professional disassociation from the innate instincts in every human. Even doctors only pretend this and some of them poorly.
Re:Biggest legal issue, IMO (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you hit the nail right on the head! When inappropriate touching becomes normalized, it will cause psychological issues to pop up. There is a definitive argument that when children are brought up in that way, that they will suffer consequences later in life.
In working with children in schools, it is very easy to see that the effects impact every child differently, though you can see some commonalities as well. Girls develop emotionally much faster than boys, so the distinction of sexual touching, even in the context of a doctor or parent is very quickly determined to be 'okay' vs. 'inappropriate'. Boys on the other hand cannot make sense of it and that leads them to regress emotionally. They clam up, become aggressive or completely docile, as if disconnected from their own bodies.
I feel this government sponsored action is wrong simply because it inflicts greater injury to it's Citizens. I would fully support a long prison sentence for the guy/girl who came up with this. Yes, yes, I know I should stop dreaming.
Re:Fear (Score:3, Insightful)
1.5 million people have died as a result of our attack on Iraq. White ones, brown ones, Americans, Iraqis, mostly civilians and many of them not from bombs but from starvation after the infrastructure needed for their water, food, and medical care was destroyed.
I'm pretty sure we didn't lose those kind of numbers in the towers.
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong (seriously) (Score:3, Insightful)
Be prepared for random body cavity search. Just be glad you were not a teenage girl when that happens, as it will be much more traumatic for them.
Uh, hi.
Speaking as a bearer of a set of ovaries since my gonads differentiated in the womb, and speaking as one such who isn't a teenager anymore, can I just say... seriously? Really? What, something like this would be old hat to the "more experienced" crowd? The truth is, it's going to be traumatic no matter how you slice it, with variation (if any!) by the individual, not the cohort.
There's adolescence, with all of its slings and arrows, and then there's assault.
Re:Libertarians are clueless (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone is against overregulation. They just disagree about what the right amount is.
Re:Biggest legal issue, IMO (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh please, as if there are viable alternatives to flying. You've got a screwed up definition of empowerment if you think being bullied into not traveling by the TSA doesn't make you powerless.
Re:Thanks Congressman Ron Paul (R)! (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, if you are making north of 200k and "have a harder time providing for our family", you ain't doing it right. Cell phones, every cable channel, the new lex in the 3 car garage. If you adjust for inflation that 20k is nice. I make less than half of what you make, and I am living high on the hog. I honestly don't know what you are doing wrong, but you are doing it.
Re:Libertarians are clueless (Score:3, Insightful)
You've proved my point exactly: that's the right level of regulation - to them, but it's too much for you. Others might even consider deleting the bit about safe products and levelling the playing field. From their POV you're nothing but a dog-down dawty comyahnast!
Ask people whether they like their bathwater too hot (or too cold). Of course they don't. That doesn't mean everyone agrees on the ideal temperature, or even agrees that there is one.
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong (seriously) (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you asian or do you have asian relatives? No?
Actually, yes. But I'm not really sure that matters. I would never be so presumptuous as to assert that having Asian relatives makes me an expert on all things Asia.
I do have asian relatives who grew up in their native countries before moving to the US, so I'm aware of how they're expected to act
Define "Asian" in this context. Do you realize that there is an enormous amount of cultural diversity between different countries in Asia? And within a given country as well? If a person in Japan had a *Mexican* relative, would that qualify him as an expert on *American* culture?
and yes, it IS like a robot - someone who unthinkingly does what they're told by their boss / parent / spouse and "brings shame" if they dare to do what they want instead of what they're told.
So you are making generalizations about all of Asia based on the few relatives that you know? This is a type of logical fallacy known as a Hasty Generalization [nizkor.org]. My personal experiences living in Japan directly contradict your claim that Asian people are like robots. I met hundreds of people who I would describe as rebellious, who were doing what they wanted rather than what they were told. Many were way more rebellious than I was growing up in America. So I would say that our personal anecdotes would cancel each other out.
I would question whether you even understand your relatives as well as you think you do. Your "brings shame" quote sounds like something out of "The Last Samurai" rather than anything that anyobody would *actually* say. Is it possible that you are just projecting a popular stereotype of Asian culture onto your relatives instead of actually getting to know them? If you said to your Asian cousins, "Asians are like robots", what do you think they would say in response? Would they beep affirmatively and walk away? Or might they actually exercise some free will and disagree with you?
And I've got news for you - Americans do what their bosses, parents, and spouses tell them to do all the time. How is it that when Americans follow orders it is "thinkingly" but when Asians do it, it is "unthinkingly"?
If we all followed traditions, women would be stuck in the kitchen or relegated to only jobs like being a teacher, nurse, or secretary. Blindly following tradition is the exact opposite of thinking freely. A free thinker says "why" and rejects the notion of tradition for the sake of tradition. You don't understand this though and think that it's somehow possible to combine "no free will" with "free thinking".
You are putting the word *blindly* in my mouth, and then attacking me for saying that we should *blindly* follow rules and traditions. This is an example of the Straw Man [nizkor.org] logical fallacy. In reality, I agree with you that we should challenge laws and traditions that are harmful to society. For example, I would support challenging the TSA's new laws requiring passengers to either pass through a backscatter x-ray machine or be pat down before boarding a flight - on the grounds that the law does more harm than good.
I merely said that sometimes we might choose to *follow* a rule or tradition, without in any way sacrificing our ability to *think* freely.
You cannot tolerate the notion that someone might choose differently than you do and thus try to insult them and call them moron's simply because they don't bow to your infinite wisdom.
You just said that Asians are like robots, and your are calling me intolerant?
I welcome opposing opinions - as long as they have some basis in logical thought. Your arguments do not. If you are going to respond to me again, please try to do so without committing any more
Thank you (Score:5, Insightful)
You said the same things I wanted to say, but better. For once, the "Think of the children" mantra is actually reasonable here, and it might actually help to snap people out of their complacency and make them realize how degrading this latest security theatre is. It's one thing to meekly give up all of our privacy and liberty just because the government asks us to, but even BEYOND that, they are now trying to take away our basic dignity. People need to draw the line somewhere and make the TSA realize, enough is enough.
Imagine you have a teenage daughter. Would you rather: (1) have her be irradiated by a medically-unproven scanning device which will show images of her naked body to the sleazy TSA guys behind the counter, any one of whom might capture that image with his cell phone to wank off to later, or: (2) have her be physically molested by a same-sex TSA employee who will touch her breasts and crotch, in public view in front of other passengers, or (3) have her be physically molested by a same-sex TSA employee who will touch her breasts and crotch, in a private room out of sight?
All three of these are grossly invasive and unacceptable options. Of course they're grossly invasive and unacceptable for adults too, but it might be easier to make people realize this if they happen to be a parent and you can explain it to them in terms of what is going to happen to their child. After thinking this through, I think any decent parent would be quite angry at the TSA.
Re:Libertarians do believe in government (Score:3, Insightful)
The Libertarian policies seem good on the surface, but many libertarians also are against the government funding education and healthcare. Many libertarians think the governments role should be limited to defense, police, and justice. If everyone was forward thinking, hard working, intelligent, and never had any bad luck, say getting cancer, this would work great. The real world is full of people that do need some help at different points in their lives.
Re:Biggest legal issue, IMO (Score:3, Insightful)
Monoculture and vendor lock-in (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a bit more complex than that, and a lot of it has to do with the belief that people will construct institutions using the frameworks available to them.
In the US, we do not have universal healthcare (despite the passage of the "Universal Healthcare" bill, we still do not). There are certain areas, despite that, which do have universal healthcare available. I live in one of the only urban areas in the United States that can be considered nominally conservative, and we have an association of private organizations (charities, doctors, hospitals) that provide healthcare for anyone who is unable to afford it, and do so quite successfully. The largest threat to this association is the government. It is a sustainable model, but once healthcare is nationalized it will no longer be supported. As with other things, people will eventually forget that it is possible, frequently preferable, to control important processes through the local community. If anything happens to the national system, or if there are major disasters in other places which impact it adversely, local communities that could otherwise take care of themselves are adversely affected when they would not otherwise be.
By centralizing things, you create a monoculture which has all the weaknesses of any other monoculture. If there's anything geeks should understand, it is that such monocultures breed nasty weaknesses which can be easily, effectively, and ruthlessly exploited. It's amazing how much the open source movement parallels some of the concepts of libertarianism, and how blind many people are to that fact. It's fine if you want all these government services, but you should be able to pick other platforms for most functions if you so choose. Do you really want complete vendor lock-in for every service you access, or would you like people to be able to innovate and create novel solutions from the ground up?
Re:Biggest legal issue, IMO (Score:3, Insightful)
No, I don't want to fly somewhere. I want to be somewhere, and the only way to make that happen is by flying.