I don't think that's a claim you can validly make. Perception of how hard it is to get things onto a plane can prevent attacks. And unless you screen everyone's minds, you can't know that that's not the case. I'm not saying the balance is right.
That is not a counterpoint in any sort of way to what I was saying. Fear of being controlled could be enough. Thus making the origin point above my post wrong.
There is a term for what you described, security theater. I'm not saying it's worthless, but it's only not worthless because terrorists might believe it's not.
To the contrary, the stupidity of the average TSA worker is such that it may encourage bad-actors. Having to deal with such buffoons on every flight make it very difficult to sustain the delusion that gov't security is competent. They'd be better off just having everyone pass before a HAL-esque camera that does nothing but give you the illusion that you are being examined by some incredibly competent agent behind the scenes.
That the worst point about this kind of security checks: it's an annoyance for everybody but don't stop the bad guys.
When I came back in France during Christmas, the whole downtown access to a city was restricted, with checkpoints at every bridges. It slowed normal people for control multiple times a day. But because this "security" wasn't present 24/7 any islamist could import weapons at night and make a carnage during the day, with the additional effect of the checkpoint slowing people from escaping the area under attack. Hopefully, there wasn't the budget to employ national police for all the checkpoints, so technically you could cross them without any security people having the right to stop you, which I did one time.
They’re not even a law enforcement agency despite the very cop-like uniforms. They’re not legally “peace officers”, can’t make arrests, execute warrants, handle firearms, etc. I’ve seen discussions where actual police officers are a bit upset the TSA is watering down their uniform style, down to including police-like badges.
> There's a bill currently pending that would roll this back, introduced by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) in December. H.R. 3608, the "Stop TSA's Reach in Policy Act" (yes, the "STRIP Act") would prohibit any TSA employee who has not received the federal law enforcement training from being called an "officer" or wearing a badge or uniform that resembles what a real officer would wear.
Perhaps there should be a more modern marketing effort to push copies of Sinclair Lewis' "It Can't Happen Here"? It was written in 1935 but is stunningly modern. Empowerment of every dim-witted nibshit and mean-spirited person looking for the cover of "for the good of the country" or "for your safety" was a big part of it. And of course Trump's campaign mirrored the campaign of the demagogue in the book as well. Not to mention the campaigns against the media...
This reads more like an annoyed rant based on hearsay than actual journalism.
I am not a lawyer, so it may be that there are legal reasons why the TSA (specifically) cannot maintain a list of people, but ...
The majority of large organization dealing with customers keep customer service records, including notes on negative interactions. Keeping a list of people that have assaulted your employees, if the intent is to avoid creating a similar situation in the future, is completely rational and better for all parties.
If there was evidence of the TSA denying transit rights based on that list, that would be newsworthy, but it sounds like there is no evidence of that.
The government has a very long list of things they are specifically prohibited from doing, that under some circumstances a corporation might be able to do. Here's ten off the top of my head.[0]
That being said, the government keeping a secret list of a certain subset of its citizens certainly leaves a bad taste in my mouth even if I can't perfectly express why. I'd just as soon not have department of the federal government tracking who is good and who is bad outside of law enforcement.
If you're going onto someone's personal property, they are free to check your bags without probably cause, they are free to eject you if you say something you do not like, they are free (for the most part) to deny you your right to carry a firearm, to enforce any fine or penalty not otherwise prohibited by law, etc.
Government is prohibited from doing a lot of things that WalMart is free to do all day long, and not just because WalMart has good lobbyists (though that certainly helps).
I don't like doing this, but, you're wrong. The US "Bill of Rights" is most definitely a list of what the government is prohibited from doing. That's why every entry on it says things in the negative, like "shall make no law" and "shall not be", and why entries have specific context clarifications like "Congress" and "In all criminal prosecutions" and so on.
No part of the US Constitution outlines individual rights or freedoms. It outlines powers of the states, powers of the federation, and limitations on those powers. Sometimes certain "unalienable rights" are referenced, but there is no list of rights in the Bill of Rights.
Please don't shy away from doing it. There are usually several objectively wrong comments in every popular thread, sometimes approaching a double digit percentage when discussing anything remotely political (even apolitical governmental things like what the Bill of Rights is).
I wish more HN commenters would just come out and say "No, this is wrong and here's why."
> That being said, the government keeping a secret list of a certain subset of its citizens certainly leaves a bad taste in my mouth even if I can't perfectly express why.
> the government keeping a secret list of a certain subset of its citizens certainly leaves a bad taste in my mouth even if I can't perfectly express why
Some possible reasons:
* Because the government is of the people, for the people, and by the people, it may not discriminate against a subset of the people for any reason that isn't a direct result of due process procedures
* Because lists and tools like this have historically been really good at facilitating discrimination against the people on it, and that it doesn't take terribly much to imagine a politically motivated party loosening the criteria for inclusion on these lists such that people from a certain country are easy adds, furthering discrimination against them
* Because a government under the American constitution only has authority by the consent of the governed, and we clearly cannot consent to secret lists that we cannot see or verify our membership / non-membership in
* Because often, the government uses inclusion on these secret lists to justify restriction of rights or privileges to those on it, as we have done in the past to restrict gun rights based on one's membership on the no-fly list
* Because oft as not, the government is really bad at keeping these lists free of false positives, such that senators, children, dead people and others have been mistakenly added, and
* Because the government is loath to remove people's names from the list, even where the names can be proven to have been mistakenly added, causing weird scenarios in which Muslim people who were fraudulently placed on the list have to sue for the right to sue to be removed from it
* Because these lists have been, and can in the future be easily turned against one's political opponents with a handful of keystrokes
I wish this comment wasn't downvoted to collapsed oblivion just because it prompted a great discussion very pertinent to the heart of the issue.
Kind of wish the quality responses could somehow be taken into account in the algorithm deciding what gets auto-collapsed and grayed-out to unreadability.
It represents what I'd guess to be a pretty common sentiment among many Americans who are motivated by fears of terrorists.
The link is pointing to NYTimes. OP was saying the original Boing Boing article pointed to both and the link was changed to the Times article, per the HN preference for linking to the original reporting (sometimes to the detriment when other articles provide commentary or additional insight).
Because people in the EU read their articles and view their adverts, which is presumably how they make a lot of their cash. What are they doing with the data of an unregistered visitor that means they aren't GDPR-compliant?
The TSA should be disbanded, full-stop. It does nothing to enhance anyone's security, wastes taxpayers money, and acts as justification to accept infringement of basic human rights. The agency is a net-negative for our society and simply should not exist.
The TSA is a massive welfare jobs program for under/non-educated people, they employ approx. 60k people. The security theatre is just the guise they gave it for the welfare to be accepted by the public.
Think how nice it would be having them all work on trail maintenance in our national parks. Our parks are a national treasure, yet apart from the majors (Yosemite, Yellowstone, etc) most have approximately zero budget for trail maintenance. In the Wallowa-Whitman, for example, last year they had approximately two people covering that entire area. There are so many other places we could deploy federal workers into jobs programs apart from the defense industry and this security theater.
But that's actual work. If people wanted to do actual work, there are plenty of manual labor jobs unfilled right now. You'd have to walk and dig and use tools and maybe sweat, none of which the TSA guys have to do.
I'd like to see the TSA go as much as the next, but they have some job positions I'd call real work. Throwing 80 pound bags on and off conveyor belts, looking forward to ski season when the ski bags hit, opening up suitcases full of things I don't want to see, touch or smell. They have their share of jobs sitting around or standing around looking important, but behind the scenes there is some "real" work going on. Too bad it doesn't accomplish much.
The problem is that the locations of the vast majority of TSA employees (major airports -- near to major cities) are not particularly near the major national parks in need of that kind of work. There was an article on here recently about how many people don't want to move from the rural hinterlands to the major urban centers (raises hand), so I assume that that feeling goes in the other direction as well...
How about instead of performing security theatre, they perform actual theatre? They could do it in the airport lounges to entertain waiting passengers. They'd still get props, and they'd still get to dress up, they'd love it!
Imagine how much better off we would be as a society if we paid them the same salaries to pick up trash and clean up our parks and public spaces. But that doesn't jive with our national ethos - authoritarianism.
But the scanners make it like like they are doing something useful. A large team of people with wooden sticks can dig the foundation for a major build - but since all those people know about modern excavators they will all feel unproductive despite getting the job done. The same size team 4000 years ago would not know of a better way, and so they would be happy to be helping making this large building.
Before the TSA, didn't airports just have security screeners employed by the airport directly? If the TSA is disbanded, you'll still have airport screeners and a set of regulations for their behavior.
I travel for work constantly and I can tell you right now every airport has their own security rules, even different TSA employees have their own rules. And they're all flexible when they need to be. Before I had pre-check, I was swabbed and run through a metal detector because the line was backing up too long. Now that I have pre-check, sometimes my laptop has to come out, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes my watch has to come off, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes my medically-required syringe and bottle of liquid is acceptable, sometimes I have to argue with them. Sometimes the metal detector randomly selects people for advanced screening. Sometimes I forget that my phone is in my pocket and wonder if the metal detector is even turned on since it didn't beep.
TSA does not follow a single set of rules. They make it all up as they go along, and the rules change day-to-day.
Not unless they decide to form a consortium to organize/cooperate with each other, perhaps motivated by a desire to reduce their liability. What would prevent the nominally independent security teams at LAX, ORD, LGA, etc from freely sharing their "intel" with one another? I really doubt you could sell the public on legislation that banned LAX security from talking to ORD security.
An airport security consortium of nominally independent security departments may end up being little better than the TSA. (I'd speculate that it could even be worse, but that seems dangerously close to defending the TSA and that makes me feel ill.)
> Before the TSA, didn't airports just have security screeners employed by the airport directly?
Yep. And in many cases, all of those "ineffective" security people were fired when TSA was created after 9/11. Then, in order to fill all of the openings, TSA hired them (with little to no training) and gave them raises. Source: I know a few who went through this process in a regional airport (Toledo Express, in Ohio).
> “The bottom line is that in the post 9/11 world, do we really need another watch list — particularly one from the T.S.A., which is not an intelligence agency?”
You can never have too many watch lists. For your safety.
We now need a watch list of people who do not like watch lists.
For people who do not like being put on watch lists.
For people outside TSA who create watch lists of watch lists.
A watch list for journalists who write about watch lists.
Basically, there is no problem so great it cannot be solved by creating another watch list.
How would a person even know how to be that innocent? Only through researching and studying what criteria are focused on when determining guilt. And who would do something like that? A turrurist.
How do they know if you're on the list? I don't see anywhere in the article where it explains how the boots on the ground would know that John Q. Public is a persona non grata.
Does it get flagged when you scan your ticket and then coded into the otherwise meaningless scribble they write on it?
AFAIK it's handled through the airline when you purchase the ticket, and then is marked on your boarding pass that you get from the airline. If you've ever seen a boarding pass that has "SSSS" printed on it, it's to indicate to airline staff and TSA that the pass holder gets additional screening. I imagine this "95 list" is similar.
I’ve had SSSS on my boarding pass multiple times when flying to the US. At Stockholm and Copenhagen they will take you out of line at the extra check at the gate (post security), to do another GC check of your luggage. Swedish airport security typically would also take my passport away until after the check. Amsterdam has a central area for this with Delta, after which they tell you the real gate (which is not on the monitors). United is again at the gate.
Also: on days that I would get SSSS’d, mobile and self-service check-in would not work, forcing me to get the pass at the counter.
Flights not to the US, even if outside the EU don’t have these checks.
Honestly, If I would have something to hide, the SSSS on my pass would give me ample warning to just leave the airport again.
Wondering if I can ask ‘why’ using a GDPR request now
I've never boarded a plane in Germany, but in every other country I have (a few in Europe, several in Asia, and the US for sure), you have to show ID and boarding pass to airport security, and some countries also required it when going through passport control.
The checkpoints on the other hand (and not escapes across the border) were rather intimidating and slow, but didn't kill visitors who went through orderly.
But we can use it as inspiration to think: How many have died at the U.S. - Mexican border? How many have been killed by border agents? How many died in the desert or due to other causes - of omission or commission by the government, and of first order, second order or further consequences of those (in)actions?
While the OP is making a wild comparison, I am not sure this is a fair counterargument. If random people decided to "escape" through TSA checkpoints by wildly running through them, would those people be killed at a lower or higher ratio? I don't know what the answer is, but I know the ratio is probably higher than 0.
Possibly coincidence, but the two times I bitched about transiting through the US on an upcoming flight on Twitter (which has my real name), I got randomly selected for SSS.
There is virtually zero chance that I’m not on this list.
Attorneys: if you think that there is a case to be made about civil rights here, and you are looking for a star plaintive, I can imagine no greater joy than ruining the TSA and I would be happy to help.
Long story short, one time TSA incorrectly thought I carried a weapon into security. I didn’t, police were called and they confirmed it was a toy fidget spinner.
A TSA employee who was never given my drivers license looked over one of the cops’ shoulder and jotted my info down. I went on my way but 45 days later I got a fine and a three-year pre-check ban.
I fought the case directly with TSA, inc submitting a letter from LAX PD stating there were no weapons incidences whatsoever on the day in question. They dropped the Notice of Violation immediately.
The pre-check ban, however, is unchallengeable. It should expire this winter but my hopes are not high that I’ll ever get it again.
Part of me (a small part) wants to be OK with this. Because, a person/business/organization should be able to maintain information on interactions with people where "issues" have occurred. Example: "Hey, if this guy comes into the restaurant, he tends to drink too much and cause trouble."
Unfortunately, the TSA's track-record with pretty much everything is terrible. So, I don't see anything good coming from it.
TSA is not a business, it's a government agency. There are things businesses can do that the government is prohibited from because there's one very big thing the government can do that a private business cannot: deprive you of your freedom.
Exactly. That's why, among many other things, transparency is important. I'd have no issue being on a list if I knew I was on it and had a process to get a fair decision to be removed.
However, that doesn't happen. So, we're stuck with an ineffective bureaucracy that is a waste of time, money and resources that labels itself "security".
I agree that transparency is important. But also, don't forget the force multiplier that being an organization has against an individual, even if they (ostensibly) have to play by the same rules.
I'm saying that you keeping a notebook with information on people who have offended you is much different than Amazon or the government keeping a list of people who have offended them.
Possibly a counter example: Public schools can expel students. But, I’m not sure: can other schools (other school districts?) generally find out whether you’ve been previously expelled?
Yes. Moreover, if you get expelled from school in a district, you don't actually stop going to school, you go to a different school with other expelled students.
I opt out of the body scanner, and often experience extreme levels of hostility due to this. (Or related issues, such as keeping my items in my view during the screening process.)
I have never sworn, threatened, etc a TSO, but I still fear I could be put on such a list one day for my "difficult" behavior.
Personally, I think if they think behavior is egregious enough to need to be documented they should have the airport police cite the person for disorderly conduct. Police officers have a fairly wide latitude for issuing this charge, and we have an established court system to deal with appealing the matter.
> I opt out of the body scanner, and often experience extreme levels of hostility due to this. (Or related issues, such as keeping my items in my view during the screening process.)
How strange that I have the opposite experience.
I do this too, dozens of flights per year in some years, opting for a pat-down and holding my items with me until they have someone ready, every time, and I've never once experienced rudeness or hostility from a TSA employee.
Agreed, I've also opted for the pat-down every time, and have had only neutral-to-positive interactions and never hostility. Maybe it's worse in other cities?
>Agreed, I've also opted for the pat-down every time, and have had only neutral-to-positive interactions and never hostility. Maybe it's worse in other cities?
To be fair, I had good experiences flying out of IAD and DCA. I think they're either better trained, mindful that the person they're abusing may have some power, or a combination of the two.
Other airports though, the TSOs seem to take it personally if you opt out, and then everything else (asking not to re-use gloves, insisting on keeping baggage in your sightline etc)is you being "difficult".
No choice of words / tone can overcome the fact that these people find someone "challenging" them in any way shape or form as an affront.
(I don't come at it like some sort of sovereign citizen and try to smile/be polite. This works ~60% of the time)
>use disorderly conduct
The police would just automatically agree with the agent, if you're not in a filmed area then you could get to go to court, be essentially forced to plead guilty, pay fines, and write an apology letter to the person who may have groped you inappropriately. Then you're on a public list, where anyone can use this possibly incorrect information against you.
The secret list actually sounds more democratic than (ab)using the court system to me since it's basically just a private account of someones opinion and everyones entitled to free speech.
>The secret list actually sounds more democratic than (ab)using the court system to me since it's basically just a private account of someones opinion and everyones entitled to free speech.
I probably should have made this assumption explicit, but I would assume that police summoned to a checkpoint and told things like "he rudely opted out" would be told that no crime has occurred.
This is the case currently, and the whole reason they're creating a list: to punish legal behavior.
I used to opt out until feeling pretty violated from the enhanced pat-down a year or so ago. I've been patted down for weapons in many countries across the world and it wasn't necessary for those folks, or anyone in the previous 15-16 years, to wipe the back of their hand across my genitals in every way possible.
Maybe we should think of getting rid of ineffective state-sanctioned sexual assault instead of more lists.
I just flew from UK to USA and the UK security (Heathrow) made my 5-year-old daughter go through the body scanner!!
Ie, the first metal detector arch beeped for her (I think it was a hair clip she had on) and they said she had no choice but to go through the body scanner.
I was not comfortable with that at all, but they lied and told me I had no choice. Immediately afterwards I looked it up online and saw that you can opt-out with a pat down.
I was pretty pissed they didn’t let me know this option, told me I had no choice. I think they were being lazy and didn’t want to deal with extra work. I submitted a formal complaint to Heathrow within an hour and they didn’t admit wrongdoing. They said there’s always an option to pay down. But refused to acknowledge their own security people didn’t present me with that option.
Anyway, just my rant from what happened a few days ago, somewhat on topic to this. (It’s the UK version of the TFA).
I don't know if I would be comfortable with TSA agents patting down my 5 year old daughter either; so even if you legally had a choice, it wasn't a great one :(
> Part of me (a small part) wants to be OK with this. Because, a person/business/organization should be able to maintain information on interactions with people where "issues" have occurred.
It's different when it's a government. If they are going to sanction you and deny you rights and impose other costs, they must do it after public due process.
Other commenters have noted that businesses don't have the governments monopoly on the use of force, but also worth noting is that if a business chooses to treat you poorly, you can (usually) select a competing business. Not so with the TSA. They have a monopoly on security at all US airports (I think. Perhaps smaller airports are different?)
>maintain information on interactions with people where "issues" have occurred
The original title & article of this submission (while probably not as informative as currently) made it more clear that the TSA is being accused here of targeting people who have made complaints against the TSA.
Just wondering why do these polarising news articles from Main stream media being allowed on front page ? I do not see how HN community can have a healthy discussion around this topic that did not happen in past.
It’s for your security.
Nothing to hide, then nothing to fear.
If it saves just one life, who cares how much it costs, or what freedoms you have to sacrifise.
Just think what might happen.
People sacrifised there lives for your freedoms.
You can’t put a price on safety.
Think of the children.
God works in mesterious ways.
It’s time to reflect, and open page x and chapter y of the bible.
Ask not, what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
God save the queen
Since when did repeating the doctrine become mockery.
There always seems to be a need for the bullies of society to have there say. The TSA in this case.
You disagree and they will beat you. You agree and they will beat you for mockery.
For example, does the person scanning my boarding pass see it? IIRC the ID checkers often don't have radios or full blown computers.
Likewise, the screeners themselves don't look at your BP or a computer.
Do they just... warn the entire staff a known soveriegn citizen will be coming through?
(I'm not endorsing such a list, but others have commented how it's problematic... reservations aside I'm curious about the logistics of how they would even make use of such a list)
When we see stories of China’s social credit system, I always see people who automatically shudder at the thought. But in the end, the US wants the same thing. The Chinese system almost seems more honest, because they admit what it is and embrace it. In the US such a system would be piecemeal and hidden. It’s not clear to me that that’s better.
I don't know why people keep going around thinking they're being repressed if their decisions have consequences. The only way that will happen is if you're a brain in a vat. Or being treated like one by your society; where nothing you do matters but you keep being fed an illusion of response in order to make you think such actions are still worth taking.
> Free of reprisal from the government. I don't know why people keep going around thinking they're being repressed if their decisions have consequences.
The willful disingenuousness of that argument becomes apparent when applied to other acts most people would abhor:
"That anti-X graffiti sprayed on your house is perfectly okay since it isn't the government that's persecuting you. I don't know why people keep going around thinking they're being repressed if their decision to worship X/be an X/etc. has consequences."
The "free of reprisal from the government" isn't a principled stance; it's a tacit admission that the the speaker is ethically okay with mob justice as long as the mob is on their side.
And I don't know why people keep applying the specious reasoning that: The absolute absence of any consequence for actions/speech is undesirable, therefore any consequence that gets implemented is intrinsically desirable until laboriously proven otherwise.
That's certainly not the reasoning I'm using here. If you say something stupid in public, you are also free to explain yourself and negotiate a proper consequence. The consequence that gets implemented is a direct result of your actions in the context you chose to operate in yourself.
If you don't want to (for example) not lose your job for saying racist things, then you've got to find and sell the value of that. If you can't, that's on you.
America in the 1840s: "If you want to (for example) not lose your job for supporting abolition, then you've got to find and sell the value of that. If you can't, that's on you."
America in the 1910s: "If you want to (for example) not lose your job for supporting women's suffrage, then you've got to find and sell the value of that. If you can't, that's on you."
America in the 1950s: "If you want to (for example) not lose your job for supporting leftists, then you've got to find and sell the value of that. If you can't, that's on you."
“I don't know why people keep going around thinking they're being repressed if their decisions have consequences.“
For me, it’s because I fear both the government putting me in jail and private business putting me in poverty.
Today, private enterprise fills many roles previously by government. So while getting put in jail for “slandering” the government is bad, so is losing your ability to use the internet or be gainfully employed.
“Decisions have consequences” is such a weird statement as no one argues they don’t. The argument is that the consequences are inappropriate and don’t have the rule of law to protect people. By this I mean, going to jail means a trial and jury and judge and due process. Private enterprise making arbitrary decisions that have similar impact (losing hosting, delisting from Google, removed from Facebook, blackballed by industry) has no rule of law.
So for me, it seems odd that people don’t understand this aspect.
Also it's generally operated by private companies or public-private partnerships (I was actually listening on the radio to someone saying that one reason so much military/intelligence work was being contracted out was that it was harder to get information through FOIA requests and the like).
This is what happens whenever you have unchecked power. It grabs more power. There is likely nothing deliberately malicious or malevolent here and those grabbing this new power have probably convinced themselves its necessary for safety and similar reasons. Any power without proper checks and balances will be used to garner more power. Any power without proper checks and balances will be abused by the person wielding that power - maybe without them even knowing they are doing so.
At a certain point so many people are going to be on one "list" or another that the purpose is completely defeated (well, one wonders if that's not already the case).
How is this constitutional? At least the Chinese are public about their system unlike the shadow social credit system we are currently using/testing/sleepwalking towards here in the USA. Disgusting.
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[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 184 ms ] threadhttps://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/01/tsa-fails-95-perce...
There is a term for what you described, security theater. I'm not saying it's worthless, but it's only not worthless because terrorists might believe it's not.
When I came back in France during Christmas, the whole downtown access to a city was restricted, with checkpoints at every bridges. It slowed normal people for control multiple times a day. But because this "security" wasn't present 24/7 any islamist could import weapons at night and make a carnage during the day, with the additional effect of the checkpoint slowing people from escaping the area under attack. Hopefully, there wasn't the budget to employ national police for all the checkpoints, so technically you could cross them without any security people having the right to stop you, which I did one time.
Here’s the evolution of TSA uniforms over time. You the transition to being faux-cops: https://i0.wp.com/loweringthebar.net/wp-content/uploads/2012...
There was even proposed legislation to stop calling them “officers” but this didn’t happen. More details here: https://loweringthebar.net/2012/01/junior-tsa-officer-badge-...
I am not a lawyer, so it may be that there are legal reasons why the TSA (specifically) cannot maintain a list of people, but ...
The majority of large organization dealing with customers keep customer service records, including notes on negative interactions. Keeping a list of people that have assaulted your employees, if the intent is to avoid creating a similar situation in the future, is completely rational and better for all parties.
If there was evidence of the TSA denying transit rights based on that list, that would be newsworthy, but it sounds like there is no evidence of that.
That being said, the government keeping a secret list of a certain subset of its citizens certainly leaves a bad taste in my mouth even if I can't perfectly express why. I'd just as soon not have department of the federal government tracking who is good and who is bad outside of law enforcement.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights
Government is prohibited from doing a lot of things that WalMart is free to do all day long, and not just because WalMart has good lobbyists (though that certainly helps).
No part of the US Constitution outlines individual rights or freedoms. It outlines powers of the states, powers of the federation, and limitations on those powers. Sometimes certain "unalienable rights" are referenced, but there is no list of rights in the Bill of Rights.
It's also not an "important distinction" here.
I wish more HN commenters would just come out and say "No, this is wrong and here's why."
http://www.washington.edu/news/2014/10/14/documents-that-cha...
Some possible reasons:
* Because the government is of the people, for the people, and by the people, it may not discriminate against a subset of the people for any reason that isn't a direct result of due process procedures
* Because lists and tools like this have historically been really good at facilitating discrimination against the people on it, and that it doesn't take terribly much to imagine a politically motivated party loosening the criteria for inclusion on these lists such that people from a certain country are easy adds, furthering discrimination against them
* Because a government under the American constitution only has authority by the consent of the governed, and we clearly cannot consent to secret lists that we cannot see or verify our membership / non-membership in
* Because often, the government uses inclusion on these secret lists to justify restriction of rights or privileges to those on it, as we have done in the past to restrict gun rights based on one's membership on the no-fly list
* Because oft as not, the government is really bad at keeping these lists free of false positives, such that senators, children, dead people and others have been mistakenly added, and
* Because the government is loath to remove people's names from the list, even where the names can be proven to have been mistakenly added, causing weird scenarios in which Muslim people who were fraudulently placed on the list have to sue for the right to sue to be removed from it
* Because these lists have been, and can in the future be easily turned against one's political opponents with a handful of keystrokes
Except...it does. How else do you explain affirmative action? Or, for that matter, social security, medicare, medicaid, welfare?
Not that I disagree with your points in general, though.
Kind of wish the quality responses could somehow be taken into account in the algorithm deciding what gets auto-collapsed and grayed-out to unreadability.
It represents what I'd guess to be a pretty common sentiment among many Americans who are motivated by fears of terrorists.
Direct: https://outline.com/Uw75c8
https://duckduckgo.com?q=!wayback%20http://www.latimes.com/o...
Direct: https://web.archive.org/web/20180530171449/http://www.latime...
But I guess there are people who cannot even do those jobs. Even McDonalds has standards.
What would effectively change?
TSA does not follow a single set of rules. They make it all up as they go along, and the rules change day-to-day.
An airport security consortium of nominally independent security departments may end up being little better than the TSA. (I'd speculate that it could even be worse, but that seems dangerously close to defending the TSA and that makes me feel ill.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screening_Partnership_Program
Yep. And in many cases, all of those "ineffective" security people were fired when TSA was created after 9/11. Then, in order to fill all of the openings, TSA hired them (with little to no training) and gave them raises. Source: I know a few who went through this process in a regional airport (Toledo Express, in Ohio).
You can never have too many watch lists. For your safety.
We now need a watch list of people who do not like watch lists.
For people who do not like being put on watch lists.
For people outside TSA who create watch lists of watch lists.
A watch list for journalists who write about watch lists.
Basically, there is no problem so great it cannot be solved by creating another watch list.
Yes, you are being watched.
I can take the Clay Institute money I’m sure to win and blow it all on hats.
I think you just broke the system with a loop...
That's a watchlisting.
Then you could sell consumers products the help them lower their WATCO score.
Does it get flagged when you scan your ticket and then coded into the otherwise meaningless scribble they write on it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_Security_Screening_S...
Flights not to the US, even if outside the EU don’t have these checks.
Honestly, If I would have something to hide, the SSSS on my pass would give me ample warning to just leave the airport again.
Wondering if I can ask ‘why’ using a GDPR request now
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_attempts_and_victims_of...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_inner_German_bord...
But we can use it as inspiration to think: How many have died at the U.S. - Mexican border? How many have been killed by border agents? How many died in the desert or due to other causes - of omission or commission by the government, and of first order, second order or further consequences of those (in)actions?
Attorneys: if you think that there is a case to be made about civil rights here, and you are looking for a star plaintive, I can imagine no greater joy than ruining the TSA and I would be happy to help.
What makes you say that?
A TSA employee who was never given my drivers license looked over one of the cops’ shoulder and jotted my info down. I went on my way but 45 days later I got a fine and a three-year pre-check ban.
I fought the case directly with TSA, inc submitting a letter from LAX PD stating there were no weapons incidences whatsoever on the day in question. They dropped the Notice of Violation immediately.
The pre-check ban, however, is unchallengeable. It should expire this winter but my hopes are not high that I’ll ever get it again.
Unfortunately, the TSA's track-record with pretty much everything is terrible. So, I don't see anything good coming from it.
*edit: example in the first paragraph
However, that doesn't happen. So, we're stuck with an ineffective bureaucracy that is a waste of time, money and resources that labels itself "security".
I'm saying that you keeping a notebook with information on people who have offended you is much different than Amazon or the government keeping a list of people who have offended them.
I have never sworn, threatened, etc a TSO, but I still fear I could be put on such a list one day for my "difficult" behavior.
Personally, I think if they think behavior is egregious enough to need to be documented they should have the airport police cite the person for disorderly conduct. Police officers have a fairly wide latitude for issuing this charge, and we have an established court system to deal with appealing the matter.
Much more democratic than a secret list.
How strange that I have the opposite experience.
I do this too, dozens of flights per year in some years, opting for a pat-down and holding my items with me until they have someone ready, every time, and I've never once experienced rudeness or hostility from a TSA employee.
To be fair, I had good experiences flying out of IAD and DCA. I think they're either better trained, mindful that the person they're abusing may have some power, or a combination of the two.
Other airports though, the TSOs seem to take it personally if you opt out, and then everything else (asking not to re-use gloves, insisting on keeping baggage in your sightline etc)is you being "difficult".
No choice of words / tone can overcome the fact that these people find someone "challenging" them in any way shape or form as an affront.
(I don't come at it like some sort of sovereign citizen and try to smile/be polite. This works ~60% of the time)
>use disorderly conduct The police would just automatically agree with the agent, if you're not in a filmed area then you could get to go to court, be essentially forced to plead guilty, pay fines, and write an apology letter to the person who may have groped you inappropriately. Then you're on a public list, where anyone can use this possibly incorrect information against you.
The secret list actually sounds more democratic than (ab)using the court system to me since it's basically just a private account of someones opinion and everyones entitled to free speech.
I probably should have made this assumption explicit, but I would assume that police summoned to a checkpoint and told things like "he rudely opted out" would be told that no crime has occurred.
This is the case currently, and the whole reason they're creating a list: to punish legal behavior.
Maybe we should think of getting rid of ineffective state-sanctioned sexual assault instead of more lists.
Ie, the first metal detector arch beeped for her (I think it was a hair clip she had on) and they said she had no choice but to go through the body scanner.
I was not comfortable with that at all, but they lied and told me I had no choice. Immediately afterwards I looked it up online and saw that you can opt-out with a pat down.
I was pretty pissed they didn’t let me know this option, told me I had no choice. I think they were being lazy and didn’t want to deal with extra work. I submitted a formal complaint to Heathrow within an hour and they didn’t admit wrongdoing. They said there’s always an option to pay down. But refused to acknowledge their own security people didn’t present me with that option.
Anyway, just my rant from what happened a few days ago, somewhat on topic to this. (It’s the UK version of the TFA).
It's different when it's a government. If they are going to sanction you and deny you rights and impose other costs, they must do it after public due process.
The original title & article of this submission (while probably not as informative as currently) made it more clear that the TSA is being accused here of targeting people who have made complaints against the TSA.
There always seems to be a need for the bullies of society to have there say. The TSA in this case. You disagree and they will beat you. You agree and they will beat you for mockery.
But a doctrine is not sentient, nor sapient.
For example, does the person scanning my boarding pass see it? IIRC the ID checkers often don't have radios or full blown computers.
Likewise, the screeners themselves don't look at your BP or a computer.
Do they just... warn the entire staff a known soveriegn citizen will be coming through?
(I'm not endorsing such a list, but others have commented how it's problematic... reservations aside I'm curious about the logistics of how they would even make use of such a list)
Some pages that discuss negative freedom in a book I'm reading: https://imgur.com/a/xXN4ivm
Bear in mind that I personally reject those things as abhorent, but "no fear of reprisal"?
Mind you, I do agree that you know you're in a free society when you can react to stuff and have no fear of reprisal.
I don't know why people keep going around thinking they're being repressed if their decisions have consequences. The only way that will happen is if you're a brain in a vat. Or being treated like one by your society; where nothing you do matters but you keep being fed an illusion of response in order to make you think such actions are still worth taking.
The willful disingenuousness of that argument becomes apparent when applied to other acts most people would abhor:
"That anti-X graffiti sprayed on your house is perfectly okay since it isn't the government that's persecuting you. I don't know why people keep going around thinking they're being repressed if their decision to worship X/be an X/etc. has consequences."
The "free of reprisal from the government" isn't a principled stance; it's a tacit admission that the the speaker is ethically okay with mob justice as long as the mob is on their side.
If you don't want to (for example) not lose your job for saying racist things, then you've got to find and sell the value of that. If you can't, that's on you.
America in the 1910s: "If you want to (for example) not lose your job for supporting women's suffrage, then you've got to find and sell the value of that. If you can't, that's on you."
America in the 1950s: "If you want to (for example) not lose your job for supporting leftists, then you've got to find and sell the value of that. If you can't, that's on you."
See a problem with your viewpoint here?
For me, it’s because I fear both the government putting me in jail and private business putting me in poverty.
Today, private enterprise fills many roles previously by government. So while getting put in jail for “slandering” the government is bad, so is losing your ability to use the internet or be gainfully employed.
“Decisions have consequences” is such a weird statement as no one argues they don’t. The argument is that the consequences are inappropriate and don’t have the rule of law to protect people. By this I mean, going to jail means a trial and jury and judge and due process. Private enterprise making arbitrary decisions that have similar impact (losing hosting, delisting from Google, removed from Facebook, blackballed by industry) has no rule of law.
So for me, it seems odd that people don’t understand this aspect.