Not sure if anyone did anything wrong other than mishearing. A passenger thinks she hears someone sign off of a conversation with "martyr" and reports it. Given that information he's thrown off the plane which is also reasonable.
The guy who got kicked off also did nothing wrong. He was just talking to his uncle.
I suspect the same thing would happen to anyone regardless of race or nationality should the words Allah and martyr be uttered in close succession on a plane.
No. Let's see what happens if this same story is told without the racism. Bob is on the phone with his mother and said he will have a "salad" tonight. Sally across the aisle heard it as "suicide" and reports him. The attendant promptly calls security, has him evicted, and the FBI is called. Does that sound reasonable to you?
So no. Many people did lots of things wrong that day. The passenger who obviously doesn't know arabic mishears a word and reports him out of prejudice. The staff who took the complaint seriously because of his race. The security and FBI who harassed him for a long time as a result.
Do you really think a white man uttering Allah (where that's the only word heard by another passenger) would be subjected to the same treatment? And also, even if the man WAS a terrorist, do you really think he would go on the phone and talk about his terrorist plots in the open? Even if this guy said "martyr", that still does not warrant the treatment he received. Just like if Bob actually said "suicide," literally it's just a word that's sometimes used in a bad context. He wasn't misheard as saying "I will blow up this plane." So it took many layers of prejudice for this to happen.
Easy to rationalize after the event. Perforce because of our partial knowledge, we use prejudice (and faulty logic in the heat of the moment) everyday. It's also known as pre-judgement and it often gets things wrong. I don't know anybody these days who doesn't look round at his or her fellow-passengers on a flight, and wonder.
Discerning motivations and monday morning quarterbacking whether they were justified or not is a quagmire of futility. Really, the victim just needs to be made whole - force these organizations to stop creating externalities out of their self-created costs. To me, it sounds like the victim in this case is owed an automatic payment of at least several thousand dollars for the lost day, emotional distress, etc. The civil damages in a general kidnapping/wrongful imprisonment case are also a good reference point. He really should sue - free apologies don't reform bad incentives.
Southwest should have also removed the reporting woman from the plane so the victim could face his accuser, and also to reduce frivolous complaints. If she really thinks he was a t'rist, she should be wanting to get off that plane regardless.
I think this is reasonable deterrence. The accuser should be asked to get off the plane, and remain with the authorities, till such a time as the accused is allowed to leave or is taken into custody.
You are responding as if the reporting woman could have, should have, expected this outcome. For all she knew, the report could have just resulted in an extra-thorough search.
Except that, in Arabic, "Allah" is just how you say "God". And the number of standard set phrases that include the word ("inshallah" (God willing), "al-hamdu lillah" (praise the Lord!), "bismillah" (by God), "wallahi" (oh God, wow), etc.) are enormous.
So a ban on saying the word "Allah" is basically a ban on speaking any normal variant of Arabic.
"Shahid", the Arabic word for martyr, is a common first name. Saying that name in certain contexts might be cause for suspicion, but certainly not denying someone boarding.
Outrageous and disturbing behavior on the part of Southwest Airlines and the security people. As is too often the case, the details of what transpired are lost, but this sort of incident shows how irrational fears are now driving institutional behavior.
The security officer should ask for reason to believe there's a bomb that's a little bit more substantive than, "Dude was speaking a language I don't understand." Otherwise we're at great risk of crossing the line from authority-as-protector-of-the-public to authority-as-weapon-the-public-can-use-against-each-other.
You take a bunch of low payed people with below average education levels and throw them into a bueracratic system where there only goal is not to get fired and this is what you get. I just hope people blame management as much as they blame the individual workers because in all honestly it's not the individuals who are make these actions.
If we're going to speculate, let's go ahead and flip the hypothetical. So you're on the plane with your kid, and a passenger freaks out because they overheard a scrap of a conversation in a language they don't speak.
Security takes that very seriously, so of course they get everyone off the plane. You, along with every other passenger, are separately questioned about your activities, politics, and religious beliefs. Your carry on and checked luggage are both searched carefully. Your kid is interrogated to make sure that you're not lying about being their guardian, and that your stories add up.
Of course, they find nothing. There are no terrorists on the plane (although a couple of teenagers are arrested for failing a breathalyzer test). But out of an abundance of caution, the airline elects to cancel the flight, and bar you all from further travel with them for 24 hours. You're refunded your original ticket price, of course, with no hard feelings!
Does that still seem like a reasonable response to you? Or is it only when you're not subject to it that draconian security measures are an appropriate way to deal with a ludicrous imagined threat?
To be fair - it does. Nowadays, you never know when someone will blow up. Take for instance the Turkey bombing. Guy causally walked on the street and suddenly detonated himself killing a dozen of people.
I'm Serbian and I do not have a green card. I speak "buga, buga" language as my team mates call it. I look bulky since I do sports and weight lifting plus I have a shaved head and I have a beard. Typical criminal type looking. For the past six years I have been on an F-1 visa. Numerous times was my passport taken longer to "process", my I-20 and my emails taken longer to read. I was 10 finger printed every time, you know, just in case. I had to retake photos all the time. I am still looked down upon because my passport is not from the EU, but I'm European. People do not hear my accent.
Once my I-20 was not signed by my school - I was taken to a separate room - interrogated for 45 minutes and then they finally called the school and the school verified.
Once I took my shaker bottle and my protein with me in a carry on. I was moved aside to a separate room, interrogated for 20 minutes as they were running some kind of tests to the powder.
In London I was denied a visa for a 24 hour stay, when British Airways was on strike so I have spent the Christmas Eve with a security officer at the airport.
Have I ever called that racism/nationalism or whatever? No, not really. Police are there to protect you and are there to protect your interest.
9/10 times the police is wrong, but what about that 1/10 times when they're right? People just assume that cops will figure it out - they still have to do their jobs.
Where does it end? When the only people allowed to venture outdoors are those who pass a full military background check and submit to general anesthesia and a comprehensive cavity search, will that be excessive? After all-- anyone could explode at any moment, yes? No price can be too high.
That's clearly absurd. But it became absurd well before then. If we are willing to grit our teeth and do the math, almost any cost is too high to prevent the statistical non-event of a fatal terrorist attack.
In my country, good, innocent people, people with families and careers and dreams for the future, die every single day in senseless traffic accidents that could have been avoided if our incredibly safe public transportation were a little bit cheaper, or just a little less stressful. Every day, someone's son or daughter or mother or fiancee doesn't come home, ever again, because... "Anyone could be a terrorist."
Sorry, I'm not buying any of this "that one time out of ten" bullshit. If the security forces are indeed tasked with helping us to feel safe, they are doing an admirably shit job of it.
I always hear "this is an isolated case" when events like this come up. Truth is, it's not just an isolated incident. Similar events have happened multiple times on Southwest Airlines alone. Here's a Guardian article from November 2015 detailing some other cases: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/21/southwest-air...
Man am I lucky to be a twerpy white guy (some days).
When I travel I opt out of the scanner every time, ask the pat-down guy what happens if he finds drugs on me, and sometimes refuse the search by asking them if I'm under arrest ('if not, am I free to go?').
If the TSA agent won't let me leave without a search, I demand they call the cops, who are obligated to let me leave (not enter the airport, though) because I haven't committed a crime.
One time in SFO they called the bomb squad because I tested positive for fertilizer (or something) and I still went through all this. I refused something called a 'private room crotch rub', which I regret a little.
When I talk to friends who are any shade of brown they tell me 'you should have had your ass handed to you'.
> and sometimes refuse the search by asking them if I'm under arrest ('if not, am I free to go?') ... If the TSA agent won't let me leave without a search, I demand they call the cops, who are obligated to let me leave
Can you elaborate on the utility of this? I currently opt for the pat down and refuse the private search ("no, I'd rather do this in the open for everyone to see"), and generally end at that. Are you further describing what you do if something is found in the pat-down that you don't want escalated to the police, or what?
My whole thought process? It's security theater so there's not a lot of case law. Therefore I can do whatever I want. I'm just exploring the boundaries. If the GAO can get weapons in 19 times out of twenty, if bruce schneier can bring in a beer belly full of gasoline, and I'm still forced to go through the process, I'm sure as heck going to have some fun with it.
Sure, but you make it sound as if the end result is you leaving the airport and not boarding a plane. Are you deliberately spending time/money just to fuck with the TSA and not actually fly, or what?
No, once they say 'okay you can leave' I consent to the search and proceed to make my flight. If I'm challenging anything it's the idea that I can't leave until the search is complete.
Ah, thanks for the clarification. So you're just using time that they've already wasted by your arriving at the airport hours early.
I just assert myself during the process, but leave escalation up to them (like the time some goon-manager decided to re-search me after I was already in the process of reassembling myself).
BTW what do they say happens if they find drugs during one of the pat-downs? Since you mentioned SFO, have you found the answers/process/etc varies between there and TSA airports?
They say various stuff. They're training these guys better now and usually they're like 'do you have any?'. In the old days they'd say scary things like 'oh we have friends who deal with that' or 'I can't tell you our policies'.
In my experience (sparse data here) california pat-down guys were the friendliest, sharing my take on the absurdity of the process and willing to go with whatever. My worst experience was with the chicago cops; they sided at first with the TSA manager and I think I came close to being arrested. I also tried to record them and that didn't go well.
JFK and LGA 'male assists' are serious about their jobs but also cognizant of the law. Once the cops get involved in new york, the situation feels controlled and safe to me.
You'd have a similar problem when you would visit certain places where "twerpy white guy" caused the same suspicion. I'd say you can be grateful that those places are unlikely to be on your travel list.
this reminds me of that white guy that was tweeting up a storm getting on a plane with his leatherman pocket knife thing and also exchanging lolstories with other white people about getting through airport security with questionable items.
The problem with framing things in terms of "privilege" is that it creates a race to the bottom.
No, it's a damned right to not be disassembled, scrutinized, and groped just to move about. Instead of nipping at the people whose rights are being violated the least, recognize that you're both fundamentally trying to help the people whose rights are being violated the most.
If their job is to invade my privacy and restrict my liberty then I don't feel obligated to be polite to them. I'm not sure if that makes me a bad person, but I'm certain that the Nazis were all just doing their jobs.
The TSA isn't violating your privacy or liberty. You have the option to not fly, or to charter your own aircraft if you don't want to be subjected to TSA. Your anger is misplaced. Maybe direct it at your representatives, or your fellow voters for doing such a poor job at electing representatives.
You may have a point, but I don't know how else to act. I live in a community where 30% of respondents oppose flag burning, 20% support the right to do it, and the other half will agree with either side depending on how the question is framed. So 'patriotism' is a mixed up concept with two sides.
In my case, I oppose the forces of chaos by making a fuss about search without probable cause. I recognize the social cost of acting this way, but it's not in my personality to blindly consent.
I don't disagree with you on the policy, but the way you're protesting it is pretty ineffective. Writing a letter will do more good than wasting the time of the lowest paid employees at the airport.
I can't justify making someone else's day more shitty (the employee who has to deal with this and the people behind you in line) and changing nothing just to make myself feel better.
I've drafted letters twice but haven't sent them. The first time, the snowden / prism stuff hit the news between writing and having a web connection, and I couldn't bring myself to hit send.
The second time I tried using the TSA web feedback form but it crashed when I hit submit.
It's their job to politely deal with a traveller who declines a suspicion-free search. If that "makes their day shitty", they're in the wrong line of work.
You can decide on any evil/stupid policy as long as you secure yourself with a layer of people hired to carry out your plan. This way no one can do anything about it, because:
* People actually doing wrong things are 'just doing their jobs'. They are also underpaid, with no job security, so only a bad person would make their job even harder.
* Ones who order them are not actually doing anything wrong. It doesn't help that you often can't find the person responsible up in the chain of command.
A lot of people are doing their jobs. Does it make a difference if I pay somebody to be the metaphorical Westboro Baptist Church of government nuisance?
Good and bad should be evaluated independently from, "I'm just doing my job here." No, nobody is ever just doing their job. We're all affecting each other, for better, worse, and all gray things inbetween.
More likely that someone that's "had enough" with "people like you" would "magically" find something in your bag, say that you made statements that you did not, etc.
Your advice is sage, but regardless of the reality behind this particular story, it is undeniable that there is a problem in the United States with people being hateful. There is definitely anti-Muslim sentiment. There is definitely anti-LGBTQ sentiment. I don't think it's a coincidence; we're fostering a culture of hate and fear.
Nice latent bigotry you've got there. You're implying that the bigoted passenger's suspicions 'might have been justified' and we're only hearing one side of the story. If there was any merit to the other side (which clearly there isn't) then this guy wouldn't have been allowed to leave freely after being publicly humiliated to appease the beast of the security apparatus.
I'm amazed how bigotry against Muslims and Arabs has become so 'accepted' in today's America. My 6 year old kids get called terrorists at school and nobody bats an eye. Imagine if Black or Jewish or Asian kids were called bigoted adjectives at schools, there would be a public outcry, but it's ok, they're just A-rabs, and people, including the potential next president, are playing that dirty game.
It's sickening and it's simply emotional terrorism.
Nice social justice warfare you've got here, accusing me of bigotry for not believing the usual journalistic gospel blindly. I'm certainly implying that reporters often don't tell their audience all the facts to push a specific narrative. Were you in the plane ? me neither so I'm skeptical and just choose not to blindly follow the "muslim thrown out of a plane because muh islamophobia" narrative. The article is one sided, that's not news that activism.
If i'm a bigot then you're the most gullible person on this planet.
The fact that some of us here mentioned "reasonable doubt" explains the shortcomings we currently have in depth of analysis beyond anything superficial. Our justifications sound like this - "while we murdered them in millions earlier, and now we murder them in thousands - we reserve the right to interrogate, disservice, and harass any of them on our soil should they speak the wrong way". If we are true Americans, we'd say this instead - "I believe in their right to liberty as much as ours. I will not be afraid because someone is speaking Arabic, or because someone's skin in brown, or because someone's face is bearded. I share the dangerous climate on our planet with my Muslim brothers, and I will take on the risks without stooping to bigotry. I will walk the straight path, and I will uphold the fundamentals of the very constitution our nation is built upon. We will fight terrorism together, for I understand it is a disease that has roots in no religion but in apathy."
Edit: omit "sickening". changed "you" to "we". Changed "three people" to "some of us"
Here it's used as a rhetorical device, "true Americans" is an appeal to our sense of national identity. Be careful identifying fallacies by the superficial qualities they have, pay attention to the context where phrases are used.
No it's not. It's a redefinition of terms to exclude counterexamples. I could say "no sandwich is vegetarian" and you show me a grilled cheese sandwich and I say "no true sandwich is vegetarian."
The problem is that people have been passing around a cheat sheet of logical fallacies, but using the mental version of a regex to try and match them. This is not a reliable technique for identifying fallacies. Usually, you would want to recognize them by their content, not their form, and it's essential to know the difference between formal and informal fallacies.
Thank you for the great post! I especially agree with your second paragraph.
I admit that my post constitutes a mixture of ethos, pathos, and logos - as opposed to being perfectly aligned with logical stipulations.
It's not good to be disablingly fearful of Islamic terrorism, but we do need to be prudent, and proactive in preventing it.
What those silly charts get wrong, is that the other 'fearful' things they compare terrorism to are well understood phenomena with linear input, outputs. More vehicles on the road, more traffic casualties, more smoking, more lung cancer, more overeating, more diseases of obesity, etc. etc.
In taking precaution against terrorism we must be aware that there is potential for nonlinear type events. A single event can drastically alter any metrics of average terrorism damage over a given time frame.
A little inconvenience for somebody now or then if it means heading off a potential explosive black swan type event, is just a fact of the modern world as long as there is Islam in the west.
>A little inconvenience for somebody now or then if it means heading of a potential explosive black swan type event, is just a fact of the modern world as long as there is Islam in the west.
But the salami slicing of convenience means hundreds of millions of people have been inconvenienced (by having to remove their shoes) because one guy one time tried to set fire to his plastique explosive footwear. How many human hours have been spent in queues at airports for this?
That's a good point, the way that the collateral inconvenience is dispensed is obviously far from perfect and definitely needs calibration.
What's ironic about the point you raise, is that it stems from one of the main topics of this thread.
Our collective refusal to admit that perpetrators of Islamic terrorism are heavily concentrated under a narrow band of characteristics means we all have to endure abject silliness like grannies and children being groped, and having to take off our shoes.
In working to prevent Islamic terrorism obviously more attention should be given to muslims than non-muslims.
Are there racial restriction on who is allowed to join Islam?
Can you explain to me why you took such umbrage to me stating the obvious, which is, that chart is flawed because the calculus around terrorism is different in important ways to the calculus around heart disease and car accidents?
It'd be nice if you answered some of my questions as I've done for you. Also, I'll point out that your attitude is unbecoming, and you seem to be interpreting wrongly or to narrowly or in the wrong context the things I've said. I never said the nypd should monitor all muslims indiscriminately.
From the document I provided, NYPD agreed to, "Prohibiting investigations in which race, religion, or ethnicity is a substantial or motivating factor." - monitoring anyone because they're Muslim is illegal and unconstitutional.
We will fight terrorism together, for I understand it is a disease that has roots in no religion but in apathy.
What are you basing such a claim on? If you ask the Islamists committing attacks, they will tell you just the opposite. If you read their literature, it will tell you just the opposite. I'm guessing you've done neither of those.
How one can conflate apathy, and the numerous proactive measures and actions necessary to carry out one of these attacks is beyond me...
If more people aren't disabused of these silly, naive, indoctrinated notions, we aren't going to make any progress in solving this problem.
The fact that I'm just stating facts, but many will no doubt read it as 'radical' or 'racist,' should give everyone pause.
So he's on a UC Berkeley debate team? From my experience, that's not as hateful an anti-American group as the San Francisco State debate team, or the Towson debate team, or the Binghampton or Bard debate team, but pretty close. I can see why the UC paper would think that makes the airlines look worse, but pro-genocide arguments like the following are quite normal and accepted at these kind of debate programs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC-Cqkq6zWc
>You self righteous naive children ought to have your irony detectors fixed.
We ban accounts that comment like this on HN, so please don't comment like this. Instead (re-)read the guidelines and post civilly and substantively, or not at all.
How about if airlines instead offer a refund or voucher to scared white people who are afraid to share a flight with a brown person and decide to get off the plane?
How do you know this passenger was "brown". ME people come in many shades. Muslims come in pretty much all shades. What if he were Albanian and kicked off, would that have been okay?
It's not always white vs other. You can find this kind if fear in India (where you have violent clashes pretty frequently). Are you saying somehow Americans are better than other people and somehow therefore should be other than human? I know we should all strive to be better people. Looking at things along stark racial lines is not always helpful. Treating a subgroup of people as the Other is not particularly a "white" thing. It happens to all people --travel a bit. We should expect more from all people.
I know he's brown because it says so right there in the article. 'Brown' is a catch-all term that folks of many ethnicities, including Middle Eastern ones, use to describe themselves.
And the existence of racism on the other side of the planet does not somehow diminish or excuse or modulate how racism occurs in the USA.
There are people in India who are essentially the same "race" who do violence and injustice to each other, so it's not entirely clear to me "racism" is what causes people to act biased. That is my point. People are quick to attribute many ills to race but we see the same thing intra-racially, so there would appear to be other causes. That's not saying racism does not exist. It does, but I don't know this is attributable to it.
They could solve this issue in three minutes: if you make an accusation the you have to miss the flight as well. If accusation also have a cost, people won;t make them for rather flimsy reasons.
What the fuck does the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia have to do with a Muslim student having his human rights violated? "I'm Serbian" you said, and you're bitching because ~1000 civilians were killed in a some bombings. Did you forget the genocide that the Serbians committed not 4 years prior? You don't EVER get to bitch about your people getting killed in that operation, especially considering the state organized oppression Yugoslavia was subjecting the people of Kosovo to. Go fuck yourself, and shove your pity mongering up your ass where it belongs.
It has to do everything with it. Since, you're so ignorant and rude let me explain it to you like you are five, since I believe that is your age.
If a certain country bombards your country you have the right to hold a grudge against it, especially if someone closed to you died in "some bombing". If I wanted to be a dick about how the whole world, and especially how the US hates me I'd use that argument and say that's all because you bombarded us and you hate us. bla bla. Instead I chose to get my diploma in the US. Starting to make a connection?
No one even started the politics or who was right or who was wrong - but you obviously do hold some grudge. It was about human lives. If you really want to know - I thought that was a bad call, but why should you care, you just said go f. yourself out of the blue. You're still living in a cave - might want to try and get a real life education Patrick. Good job on being absolutely biased with no real opinion and experience about the situation :)
If you want to go to the politics. What happened to the Serbian children that were shot to death while they were swimming in a lake that started the whole incident? What about the organs that were farmed by your so called "Kosovo people."
Now on the point of "some bombing" - what you have just stated shows how much you appreciate a human life.
Well, also, since you're spoon fed the news by all the lobbied news station keep living in your ignorance.
Cheers. What a happy life you must live.Try and see a therapist - hopefully he'll be able to help you with your problems.
I have no vested interest in the Kosovo people, or the Serbian people, or the Bosnian people at all. I took offense to the fact that you brought up a war from the 90's as an argument against people downvoting you when you tried to defend the police who violated someone's human rights. The Serbians, the Bosnians, the Kosovars, I'm sure they were all equally guilty of war crimes during those wars. But don't use the deaths of these people as a way to shame us into taking your side.
You are right. They were. Serbs were at fault as well. Maybe the most.
But that was not the reason I brought up the bombing - I brought it to show how grudges could affect someone's behavior. Just like it could have influence mine when I was checked, just like how it could influence anyone - even the US people.
I never thought about shaming anyone - especially the US or you guys for the upvotes/downvotes.
If it's true that you were not trying to shame anyone, then I'm sorry for my outburst. At the same time, you just threw a link in at the bottom of your post with the line "For the people that forgot". No explanation, no justification. It seems out of place. It literally has nothing to do with story. At all. That was the reason for my outburst.
No need to be sorry - we just misunderstood each other, although the wording was a bit harsh. You are right - I should have provided the context. I apologize. I'll remove the link.
Comments like this are a bannable offense on HN, but we won't ban you because you recognized it as an error below. Please, however, only post comments that are civil and substantive in the future.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 184 ms ] threadNot sure if anyone did anything wrong other than mishearing. A passenger thinks she hears someone sign off of a conversation with "martyr" and reports it. Given that information he's thrown off the plane which is also reasonable.
The guy who got kicked off also did nothing wrong. He was just talking to his uncle.
I suspect the same thing would happen to anyone regardless of race or nationality should the words Allah and martyr be uttered in close succession on a plane.
So no. Many people did lots of things wrong that day. The passenger who obviously doesn't know arabic mishears a word and reports him out of prejudice. The staff who took the complaint seriously because of his race. The security and FBI who harassed him for a long time as a result.
Do you really think a white man uttering Allah (where that's the only word heard by another passenger) would be subjected to the same treatment? And also, even if the man WAS a terrorist, do you really think he would go on the phone and talk about his terrorist plots in the open? Even if this guy said "martyr", that still does not warrant the treatment he received. Just like if Bob actually said "suicide," literally it's just a word that's sometimes used in a bad context. He wasn't misheard as saying "I will blow up this plane." So it took many layers of prejudice for this to happen.
Southwest should have also removed the reporting woman from the plane so the victim could face his accuser, and also to reduce frivolous complaints. If she really thinks he was a t'rist, she should be wanting to get off that plane regardless.
It seems reasonable, and incentive-aligning, for both of them to be removed from the plane.
So a ban on saying the word "Allah" is basically a ban on speaking any normal variant of Arabic.
"inshallah" (God willing): Hopefully
"al-hamdu lillah" (praise the Lord!): Fortunately
"wallah" (oh God, wow): I swear, I promise
etc.
See also: swatting.
What if the guy was actually a terrorist? Would you praise that woman because she was the one alarming the police?
Instead of judging the woman, put yourself in her position - she panicked and reacted, if you had a child near you - would you have done the same?
Don't generalize too early - this is an isolated case.
Security takes that very seriously, so of course they get everyone off the plane. You, along with every other passenger, are separately questioned about your activities, politics, and religious beliefs. Your carry on and checked luggage are both searched carefully. Your kid is interrogated to make sure that you're not lying about being their guardian, and that your stories add up.
Of course, they find nothing. There are no terrorists on the plane (although a couple of teenagers are arrested for failing a breathalyzer test). But out of an abundance of caution, the airline elects to cancel the flight, and bar you all from further travel with them for 24 hours. You're refunded your original ticket price, of course, with no hard feelings!
Does that still seem like a reasonable response to you? Or is it only when you're not subject to it that draconian security measures are an appropriate way to deal with a ludicrous imagined threat?
I'm Serbian and I do not have a green card. I speak "buga, buga" language as my team mates call it. I look bulky since I do sports and weight lifting plus I have a shaved head and I have a beard. Typical criminal type looking. For the past six years I have been on an F-1 visa. Numerous times was my passport taken longer to "process", my I-20 and my emails taken longer to read. I was 10 finger printed every time, you know, just in case. I had to retake photos all the time. I am still looked down upon because my passport is not from the EU, but I'm European. People do not hear my accent.
Once my I-20 was not signed by my school - I was taken to a separate room - interrogated for 45 minutes and then they finally called the school and the school verified.
Once I took my shaker bottle and my protein with me in a carry on. I was moved aside to a separate room, interrogated for 20 minutes as they were running some kind of tests to the powder.
In London I was denied a visa for a 24 hour stay, when British Airways was on strike so I have spent the Christmas Eve with a security officer at the airport.
Have I ever called that racism/nationalism or whatever? No, not really. Police are there to protect you and are there to protect your interest.
9/10 times the police is wrong, but what about that 1/10 times when they're right? People just assume that cops will figure it out - they still have to do their jobs.
EDIT: For the people that forgot - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia
PS Oh man the downvotes, gotta love HN.
That's clearly absurd. But it became absurd well before then. If we are willing to grit our teeth and do the math, almost any cost is too high to prevent the statistical non-event of a fatal terrorist attack.
In my country, good, innocent people, people with families and careers and dreams for the future, die every single day in senseless traffic accidents that could have been avoided if our incredibly safe public transportation were a little bit cheaper, or just a little less stressful. Every day, someone's son or daughter or mother or fiancee doesn't come home, ever again, because... "Anyone could be a terrorist."
Sorry, I'm not buying any of this "that one time out of ten" bullshit. If the security forces are indeed tasked with helping us to feel safe, they are doing an admirably shit job of it.
Now if you were Bosnian, they'd care more :)
When I travel I opt out of the scanner every time, ask the pat-down guy what happens if he finds drugs on me, and sometimes refuse the search by asking them if I'm under arrest ('if not, am I free to go?').
If the TSA agent won't let me leave without a search, I demand they call the cops, who are obligated to let me leave (not enter the airport, though) because I haven't committed a crime.
One time in SFO they called the bomb squad because I tested positive for fertilizer (or something) and I still went through all this. I refused something called a 'private room crotch rub', which I regret a little.
When I talk to friends who are any shade of brown they tell me 'you should have had your ass handed to you'.
Can you elaborate on the utility of this? I currently opt for the pat down and refuse the private search ("no, I'd rather do this in the open for everyone to see"), and generally end at that. Are you further describing what you do if something is found in the pat-down that you don't want escalated to the police, or what?
I just assert myself during the process, but leave escalation up to them (like the time some goon-manager decided to re-search me after I was already in the process of reassembling myself).
BTW what do they say happens if they find drugs during one of the pat-downs? Since you mentioned SFO, have you found the answers/process/etc varies between there and TSA airports?
They say various stuff. They're training these guys better now and usually they're like 'do you have any?'. In the old days they'd say scary things like 'oh we have friends who deal with that' or 'I can't tell you our policies'.
In my experience (sparse data here) california pat-down guys were the friendliest, sharing my take on the absurdity of the process and willing to go with whatever. My worst experience was with the chicago cops; they sided at first with the TSA manager and I think I came close to being arrested. I also tried to record them and that didn't go well.
JFK and LGA 'male assists' are serious about their jobs but also cognizant of the law. Once the cops get involved in new york, the situation feels controlled and safe to me.
No, it's a damned right to not be disassembled, scrutinized, and groped just to move about. Instead of nipping at the people whose rights are being violated the least, recognize that you're both fundamentally trying to help the people whose rights are being violated the most.
You go out of your way to be a dick to people doing their jobs because you feel the need to prove some point in the most obtuse way.
In my case, I oppose the forces of chaos by making a fuss about search without probable cause. I recognize the social cost of acting this way, but it's not in my personality to blindly consent.
I can't justify making someone else's day more shitty (the employee who has to deal with this and the people behind you in line) and changing nothing just to make myself feel better.
The second time I tried using the TSA web feedback form but it crashed when I hit submit.
It's their job to politely deal with a traveller who declines a suspicion-free search. If that "makes their day shitty", they're in the wrong line of work.
* People actually doing wrong things are 'just doing their jobs'. They are also underpaid, with no job security, so only a bad person would make their job even harder.
* Ones who order them are not actually doing anything wrong. It doesn't help that you often can't find the person responsible up in the chain of command.
So it works as intended.
Good and bad should be evaluated independently from, "I'm just doing my job here." No, nobody is ever just doing their job. We're all affecting each other, for better, worse, and all gray things inbetween.
More likely that someone that's "had enough" with "people like you" would "magically" find something in your bag, say that you made statements that you did not, etc.
Be careful.
I'm amazed how bigotry against Muslims and Arabs has become so 'accepted' in today's America. My 6 year old kids get called terrorists at school and nobody bats an eye. Imagine if Black or Jewish or Asian kids were called bigoted adjectives at schools, there would be a public outcry, but it's ok, they're just A-rabs, and people, including the potential next president, are playing that dirty game.
It's sickening and it's simply emotional terrorism.
Nice social justice warfare you've got here, accusing me of bigotry for not believing the usual journalistic gospel blindly. I'm certainly implying that reporters often don't tell their audience all the facts to push a specific narrative. Were you in the plane ? me neither so I'm skeptical and just choose not to blindly follow the "muslim thrown out of a plane because muh islamophobia" narrative. The article is one sided, that's not news that activism.
If i'm a bigot then you're the most gullible person on this planet.
Edit: omit "sickening". changed "you" to "we". Changed "three people" to "some of us"
Careful with that; it's the no true scotsman fallacy. The sad thing is that these people are, in fact, True Americans.
The problem is that people have been passing around a cheat sheet of logical fallacies, but using the mental version of a regex to try and match them. This is not a reliable technique for identifying fallacies. Usually, you would want to recognize them by their content, not their form, and it's essential to know the difference between formal and informal fallacies.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11516085
What those silly charts get wrong, is that the other 'fearful' things they compare terrorism to are well understood phenomena with linear input, outputs. More vehicles on the road, more traffic casualties, more smoking, more lung cancer, more overeating, more diseases of obesity, etc. etc.
In taking precaution against terrorism we must be aware that there is potential for nonlinear type events. A single event can drastically alter any metrics of average terrorism damage over a given time frame.
A little inconvenience for somebody now or then if it means heading off a potential explosive black swan type event, is just a fact of the modern world as long as there is Islam in the west.
But the salami slicing of convenience means hundreds of millions of people have been inconvenienced (by having to remove their shoes) because one guy one time tried to set fire to his plastique explosive footwear. How many human hours have been spent in queues at airports for this?
What's ironic about the point you raise, is that it stems from one of the main topics of this thread.
Our collective refusal to admit that perpetrators of Islamic terrorism are heavily concentrated under a narrow band of characteristics means we all have to endure abject silliness like grannies and children being groped, and having to take off our shoes.
What's next, suggesting for everyone's safety people are seperated from other people based on their beliefs or ethnic background?
Notice how my comment laid out a logical sequence of statements that amounted to coherent reasoning.
While yours is nothing more than a hostile attack, attempting to a apply a witchhunt type label.
What are you trying to contribute to this conversation?
Edit:
I initially took your comment for sarcasm. I guess it's probably not, but I find it really strange.
There isn't even an implied or explicit mention of race in the comment you attacked.
Are there racial restriction on who is allowed to join Islam?
Can you explain to me why you took such umbrage to me stating the obvious, which is, that chart is flawed because the calculus around terrorism is different in important ways to the calculus around heart disease and car accidents?
https://www.aclu.org/cases/raza-v-city-new-york-legal-challe...
Still believe you're right, and if so, why?
What questions have I not answered?
What are you basing such a claim on? If you ask the Islamists committing attacks, they will tell you just the opposite. If you read their literature, it will tell you just the opposite. I'm guessing you've done neither of those.
How one can conflate apathy, and the numerous proactive measures and actions necessary to carry out one of these attacks is beyond me...
If more people aren't disabused of these silly, naive, indoctrinated notions, we aren't going to make any progress in solving this problem.
The fact that I'm just stating facts, but many will no doubt read it as 'radical' or 'racist,' should give everyone pause.
https://www.southwest.com/assets/pdfs/corporate-commitments/...
Which of course doesn't mean those assertions are legally valid, but that's the contract.
And yet you hold a strong opinion on the basis of nothing.
You self righteous naive children ought to have your irony detectors fixed.
We ban accounts that comment like this on HN, so please don't comment like this. Instead (re-)read the guidelines and post civilly and substantively, or not at all.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
(We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11515503 and marked it off-topic.)
It's not always white vs other. You can find this kind if fear in India (where you have violent clashes pretty frequently). Are you saying somehow Americans are better than other people and somehow therefore should be other than human? I know we should all strive to be better people. Looking at things along stark racial lines is not always helpful. Treating a subgroup of people as the Other is not particularly a "white" thing. It happens to all people --travel a bit. We should expect more from all people.
And the existence of racism on the other side of the planet does not somehow diminish or excuse or modulate how racism occurs in the USA.
What the fuck does the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia have to do with a Muslim student having his human rights violated? "I'm Serbian" you said, and you're bitching because ~1000 civilians were killed in a some bombings. Did you forget the genocide that the Serbians committed not 4 years prior? You don't EVER get to bitch about your people getting killed in that operation, especially considering the state organized oppression Yugoslavia was subjecting the people of Kosovo to. Go fuck yourself, and shove your pity mongering up your ass where it belongs.
It has to do everything with it. Since, you're so ignorant and rude let me explain it to you like you are five, since I believe that is your age.
If a certain country bombards your country you have the right to hold a grudge against it, especially if someone closed to you died in "some bombing". If I wanted to be a dick about how the whole world, and especially how the US hates me I'd use that argument and say that's all because you bombarded us and you hate us. bla bla. Instead I chose to get my diploma in the US. Starting to make a connection?
No one even started the politics or who was right or who was wrong - but you obviously do hold some grudge. It was about human lives. If you really want to know - I thought that was a bad call, but why should you care, you just said go f. yourself out of the blue. You're still living in a cave - might want to try and get a real life education Patrick. Good job on being absolutely biased with no real opinion and experience about the situation :)
If you want to go to the politics. What happened to the Serbian children that were shot to death while they were swimming in a lake that started the whole incident? What about the organs that were farmed by your so called "Kosovo people."
Now on the point of "some bombing" - what you have just stated shows how much you appreciate a human life.
Well, also, since you're spoon fed the news by all the lobbied news station keep living in your ignorance.
Cheers. What a happy life you must live.Try and see a therapist - hopefully he'll be able to help you with your problems.
But that was not the reason I brought up the bombing - I brought it to show how grudges could affect someone's behavior. Just like it could have influence mine when I was checked, just like how it could influence anyone - even the US people.
I never thought about shaming anyone - especially the US or you guys for the upvotes/downvotes.
edit: cannot remove the link for some reason
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11516200 and marked it off-topic.