This is pretty harrowing to read. I've been fortunate enough to never go through any of this (but I don't _look_ like a 'terrorist'). I think America needs to take a hard look at itself and the compromises it has made on civil liberties in the name of this supposed 'safety' that we have now.
The Constitution imposes a lot of constraints on the government that make its job more difficult, presumably because those rights would not be protected if it was necessarily to rely on some inherent bit of goodness in bureaucrats.
Let's not forget that the Bill of Rights almost didn't make it into the Constitution and was only really tacked on as an afterthought to shut down anti-Federalist attempts to scuttle the Constitution before it was ratified.
And now several of those 10 Amendments have been eroded/defeated through recent law.
Great job that Constitution is doing us... but I guess it paints that much worse a picture of a country without it.
Right: laws are needed because of an inherent lack of goodness, not because of an inherent lack of common sense. There's a big difference between the two...
A caricatured example would be the serial killer who looks both ways before he crosses the street. We can agree that some of his 'core goodness' is certainly off...but his common sense is spot on.
Sadly, I lack the faith that such re-examination of our country will happen anytime soon. The inmates are in charge of the asylum and replacing them is going to take decades.
The only way the people take this country back is to start a third party. A REAL third party, somewhere between the moderate liberals and the libertarians.
Without any outside competition, it's just recycling the same type of candidates, with the same policies and with the same disregard for basic civil liberties.
> The only way the people take this country back is to start a third party.
If a party was started, it wouldn't be a third party, it'd be something like a fortieth party, excluding strictly regional parties.
The reason additional parties aren't competitive is structural in the electoral systems used in federal and state elections, and adding more parties isn't going to change that.
Exactly. So you have to go back yet another step and look at who has power to change the electoral system.
You might think the only answer is a constitutional amendment, which requires a supermajority of Congress, but in fact there's a backdoor: if you have the cooperation of a majority of state governments then you can certify any electors you like. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstat... for an attempt to change the U.S. electoral system in this way.
I think that Wikipedia article is far too sanguine about the likelihood that NPVIC would pass Constitutional muster.
First, it's not likely that the wording of Article II truly grants state legislatures unlimited discretion in the selection of electors. A state law that required electors to be men or Methodists would surely be unconstitutional today. And as a result, there's almost certainly an equal protection argument to be made against NPVIC: Sure, each individual voter is participating equally in a larger process to choose the President, but that's not the process prescribed by the Constitution. The process demanded by the Constitution is a state-by-state selection of electors, and if a state legislature wants to have an election, it better be an election in which every voter of that state is participating equally. A thought experiment: Could the state of California pass a law that counted every vote for the electoral slate of the Democratic party twice? Surely not. So how can they pass a law which discounts the vote of every voter except those that voted for the nationwide popular winner?
Second, if this agreement doesn't trigger the Congressional approval requirement of the Compact clause of Article I, I can't imagine what would.
Yes, something like that note is more or less exactly what I'd expect SCOTUS' position to be. And I don't think it would be a close decision.
Then the question becomes, if Congress endorses the pact, could it go into effect? The success of an equal protection claim against the agreement is a little trickier to forecast, since the justices who typically support a broad reading of equal protection are likely to be the most sympathetic to arguments for eliminating the disparity between the popular vote and the EC. But I think the Court would see NPVIC, rightly, as an "end run" around the amendment process, and require that state elections remain state elections: States do not have the power to facilitate national or interstate plebiscites outside the usual Constitutional order.
> Exactly. So you have to go back yet another step and look at who has power to change the electoral system.
For most elections (including most changes to election rules for federal offices), the correct answer is "the legislature (and sometimes the people directly, by initiative, to the extent that they have reserved legislative power) of the state in which the election occurs." This includes, incidentally, most of the procedures surrounding elections for the state's slate of Presidential electors in Presidential elections, as well as most of the rules for elections for most other offices.
There are some mandated aspects of the setup of elections for federal office (e.g., single member districts for Congress) that are set through federal law and require Congressional action to permit changes.
There are a few non-mandated-guidelines aspects of the setup of some elections for federal office (e.g., the safe harbor rules for the conduct of Presidential elections) that likewise involve Congressional action, but, as these are not mandates, states can change them without federal action, but there might be greater risk of Congress disqualifying the electoral votes of those states (but since the safe harbor rules are rules governing purely discretionary Congressional acts, its not clear that Congress would actually be barred from discounting electoral votes based on elections which complied with the safe harbor rules, and in any case its not clear that they actually would bar votes based on elections which didn't.)
There are very few aspects of federal elections that are governed by the Federal Constitution (e.g., that elections to the Presidency are by way of the electoral college and how electors are apportioned among the states, etc.)
> You might think the only answer is a constitutional amendment, which requires a supermajority of Congress
You might, if you have absolutely no idea about election law in the US, and have compounded that ignorance by only paying attention to one of the two methods of amending the Constitution specified in Article V, and, on top of all that, only considered Presidential elections.
> but in fact there's a backdoor
Or, rather, a whole lot of obvious, clearly marked, wide-open front, back, and side doors, windows, cat-and-dog doors, etc., as described above.
For that to work, we need a new voting system, such as Instant Run-Off, or Approval Voting. Luckily, that can be implemented on a per-state basis, as every state determines its own voting procedures.
Regarding the last part, have you asked if your landlord (or someone on their behalf) entered your apartment? For a newly rented out apartment, they may have had some kind of work to do or something to check over, and since you were away, may have just let themselves in.
This makes me so angry. This was one of the reasons I got out of consulting. Every fucking time, I would get an enhanced check. Surprisingly enough, it is nothing new. This is something you face if you are a minority. Hell, I remember a friend from back in Africa whose dad got blacklisted in the nineties because he had a beard. Brown catholic guy with a beard got blacklisted. The only difference now is that at least this guy is articulate enough to vocalize organized discrimination.
If I were a consultant today, I'd look into buying an RV. No more dirty hotel rooms or questionable restaurant food. And a much lower chance of a TSA encounter.
#1. I have a MiFi device, so I can get started with the preliminaries as my spouse drives. And of course, once I arrive I'll be on-site with your team.
#2. Because I provide my own living arrangements, my expenses will be much lower. I'll charge you diesel from my current location instead of a round-trip business-class airline ticket, and the RV park is $300 a month, vs. $150 a night at a hotel. Since I tow my car, you won't be paying for a rental. And you won't be billed for bi-weekly weekend trips home, as I bring my home with me.
#3. (fudge it a bit...) I can be there as soon as I finish wrapping things up with my current client. Probably on the 9th.
#2 A huge enterprise company would probably reject you for nickel and diming on their behalf. The billing rate is incredibly high mainly because they just want their job done.
#3 A consequence of high billing rates is that you will be required to be there as soon as possible.
Most striking and appalling is the lack of common sense and basic empathy throughout this whole ordeal. For example, he asked multiple times for water, a basic necessity for life, and was denied multiple times. That can't be rationalized in anyway—what did they expect, him to drown someone? His requests as to the nature of his detention were denied. His rights to privacy were utterly ignored. And it goes on…
We need to wake up and see that those that "protect" our safety have reduced us to a state of fear worse than that which we are trying to prevent. We are now being terrorized by our own terrorism prevention. Merely because we happened to clean for bed-bugs and look Middle Eastern.
When will we say enough is enough and do something about it?
The most popular argument against the TSA that I have heard? They spend too much of their time searching the "wrong people". You know the kind that wouldn't "hurt a fly"? Weasel phrases that in essence mean that the TSA should do what Israel does. Racial profiling. Not that they don't do enough of it. At least on paper, they try to mess up that by searching white grandmas from the midwest and little blonde girls. Of course, the latter is what America complains the most about really.
I've heard the same arguments. Sadly, I have no good answer for how the TSA should do their job. However, treating someone rudely and, to an extent, inhumanly, doesn't fit the bill.
Problem is affirmative action rentacops that the TSA has become. Israeli security personnel are highly trained, intelligent folks. The ethnic profile of such a TSA would be > 90% white. Cry racism, and there goes your competent force.
Competence in pattern detection is pretty much an IQ test. When you go higher on the scale, the number of non-whites, non-asians, and non-jews drops precipitously.
I wouldn't bet my house on this prediction, but I would bet a few hundred $. For one, maybe the competence required is not that high.
But you are surely wrong about Special Forces. They are overwhelmingly white. See here: http://e-ring.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/05/10/budget_watc...
As someone who has had a harrowing experience at an Israeli airport, I would dispute the claim that they are highly trained or even intelligent. I don't even want to recount my experience at Tel Aviv, its much milder than OP's but it spoils my mood just thinking about it.
The point to realize that America is not fucking Israel. We are not under threat the way Israel is. That is a country that is struggling for its existence; in missile range from Iran; surrounded by hostile forces on all sides.
In America, things are different. Sure the borders are porous; sure there is a low probability that the muslim guy down the street is a terrorist, sure there is a possibility that the war of 1812 could be repeated by the Canadians.
However, is the country really going to live its life based on insignificant probabilities? It has been 12+ years since 9/11. Surely, there is a time limit after which this insanity can mellow down.
> Sadly, I have no good answer for how the TSA should do their job
Shouldn't we be "profiling" based on assessed risk? And isn't the NSA making those assessments? It should be a simple as submitting the user's identity and circumstances and getting a guided response back: "no likely threat", "detain immediately", etc.
Not that I'm a fan of the NSA, but isn't that what they are ostensibly there for?
That would be extremely gutsy on the part of the TSA employee... I go through the pat-down dance at least once a month, and that test is always done while I'm standing there, and the pass/fail reports are quite obvious (big green/red boxes with text).
Is that dependent on the airport? I've flown as recently as two months ago, and I went through four pat-downs over the course of the trip. I never saw any green/red indicator when they tested the pat-down gloves.
Regardles, I wouldn't exactly put it past the TSA to make up a positive hit. It's not like we haven't ever had a police officer claim someone committed a traffic violation on someone based on appearance and ultimately find drugs or some other criminal behavior.
I think it's more than a little hyperbolic to describe their actions as 'rabid racism'
They had a legitimate reason for suspicion. That reason wasn't the color of his skin, it was the color of a computer screen (a screen that flashes green hundreds of times a day flashed red in this case).
It's quite obvious that much ignorance and xenophobia followed, but I don't think it crossed (laughably subjective) line of 'rabid.'
A friend of mine who is about as 'all American' looking as you can get (white, tall, former marine...) tripped the same alarms after he had been firing a gun at a range the day before. He had an obvious and clear explanation for the alarm, so his experience wasn't as invasive, but they certainly gave him a hard time about it.
>It's quite obvious that much ignorance and xenophobia followed, but I don't think it crossed (laughably subjective) line of 'rabid.'
I suppose we could get into definitions of racism here. We're likely talking about "institutional racism", for which "prejudice plus power" is a pretty good definition, but I think perhaps "prejudice multiplied by power" might be even more apt. The prejudice was clearly considerable, but the power, and how it interacted with that prejudice, is what raises it to the level that I think could be called "rabid".
Even if the chemical detector did trigger an alarm: These devices are not faultproof, and if you can't find an explosive, can't find surgical scars, can't find anything in the baggage, you could safely assume the passenger does not have any explosives on or in himself.
The only explanation that makes more sense if the TSA, NSA or FBI had warnings about very cleverly implanted explosive devices and want to keep that knowledge hidden. That would explain why the pat-downs didn't convince them (maybe they tried to evoke a pain response), why they didn't give him anything to eat or drink, and why the JetBlue representative didn't want him to fly on this day, but was fine with the next day...
Seriously, you cannot support that level of incompetency. How many people pass airport gates everyday? How many people are caught with explosives everyday? The second pat-down should have been enough to decide that the machine was triggered by some chemical not directly related to explosives, as they were enable to find any bomb anywhere. Worse, it is very clear in the story that they know it can happen.
> When will we say enough is enough and do something about it?
Sadly, much later than most people think. Look at how long things have gone on in history, before people realized how bad it really was. In hindsight, it's easy, but when everyone just seems to be accepting it, it's not so easy. E.g. Germany in the 1930s.
Exactly. Even a couple of nights ago, I had a dream about going through airport security on my return trip (even though I returned over a week and a half ago, with no problem).
That makes sense. Most of my traumatic memories have been of events that have literally lasted a few seconds, but I can see how the same effect could happen for a longer one.
Guess I should count myself lucky I don't have those!
Yes, they're called flashbulb memories and they feel 'stronger' and more detailed than other memories. People assume that they're therefore accurate, but really, they're no more accurate than other memories.
In fact, the repeated recall can cause them to become distorted over time.
If you want to preserve a memory, write it down immediately while it is fresh. Don't trust that an old memory is accurate.
Wikipedia says the difference between flashbulb memories and traumatic memories is stress, and that there is "a shortage on studies regarding personal events such as accidents or trauma".
If you were in a similar situation, would you not try to mentally note as many details as possible? Especially if something came of it, you would want to remember as much as possible about the cops who interrogated you, what they asked, etc.
Memory is a funny thing. You don't recall a snap shot of all the details at once. You start telling a story and during the playback of the memories you'll be able to recall deep details.
Reading On Intelligence really solidified my thoughts on how memory (probably) works.
Some of those enablers are posting in this very thread. Instead of feeling shocked and even somewhat embarrassed at the state of their nation, they denigrate the author's ordeal - minimizing his trauma, denying his mental recall, and ultimately blaming him for causing a TSA test to issue a false positive... all while ignoring the common courtesy that should have been afforded to the accused. Give the guy a drink of water. Treat him with respect. Get him on another flight. Notify him that you searched his apartment.
>In all my life, I have only felt that same chilling terror once before - on one cold night in September twelve years ago, when I huddled in bed and tried to forget the terrible events in the news that day, wondering why they they had happened, wondering whether everything would be okay ever again.
Perhaps the terrorists knew this would happen all along. They knew our paranoia would surpass any efforts they could ever hope accomplish. Instead of terrorizing a few thousand, they could terrorize a whole nation—daily and officially.
There's no "perhaps" here. Of course they knew this would happen. That's the whole point. It's right there in the name: they're terrorists because they create terror. The US is now terrified and burning piles of cash and lashing out at its own citizens, which is exactly what the terrorists wanted to happen.
Sometimes I wonder. When Seal Team Six stormed his compound, an attack launched from an occupied into a sovereign country and killed him although he was unarmed. I wonder whether he felt dread or achievement.
"I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general — into an unbearable hell and a choking life." - Osama Bin Laden (http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/01/31/gen.binladen.interview...)
Terrorism isn't a crime against people or property. It's a crime against our minds, using the death of innocents and destruction of property to make us fearful. Terrorists use the media to magnify their actions and further spread fear. And when we react out of fear, when we change our policy to make our country less open, the terrorists succeed -- even if their attacks fail.
– Bruce Schneier
I found that sentence to be a non sequitur, illogically and gratuitously tacked on as an appeal to sentiment over rationality, and absolute bit of overwritten purple prose.
I'm so sorry... that I can't yet downvote your comment. What an incredibly derisive and pointless appeal to grammar you're trying to make. Having read the entire blog post, that line sounds like a very accurate description of the end feeling.
The United States (Government) are a bunch of unenlightened, racist, xenophobic people bent on oppressing people by treating every non english/anglo-saxon as a terrorist. Please, someone tell me this isn't the case in an absolute sense.
I lose points every time I criticize Noam Chomsky. Who are the other sacred cows on HN that if you criticize you automatically lose Karma? I'll take a stab:
Maybe the people who criticize Noam Chomsky should actually listen to what he says first.
He condemns America more than other regimes who also abuse power because he considers it the moral responsibility of every citizen to correct their own nation's behavior first, taking the principle straight from the Bible: "Remove the speck from your own eye."
Condemn Chomsky's anarcho-socialist ideals if you like: he actually has those. But calling him an America-hater both misunderstands his views and demonstrates his point about nationalism trumping democracy.
Eh, I think it's a tad more complex than that. The US is a heterogeneous culture with lots of people of varying cultures, religions, and skin tones. Though I'm certainly no fan of the TSA, and wish the US gov't would reform the system in a direction more like Israel's, they actually aren't treating every non-white person as a suspected terrorist.
Overly generic and condemning criticism about a group of people whom you are angry at for making overly generic and condemning criticisms about groups of people!!
The way they treated him is appalling. Even if he was Muslim, this shouldn't have happened! I travel a lot and have seen things like this happen before my eyes in the UK and Australia. People that look slightly ethnic and taken aside and "randomly" stopped.
EDIT: Sorry for the typo.
I actually tried turing testing chatbots a while ago (chatterbot, jabberwacky, etc.) to see if they've improved. No, they don't pass even remotely, and they all get very offended when you suggest they've failed (Chatterbot quote "Are you insulting me?"). Chatbots have a terrible temper.
Agreed. I tried having a conversation with Chatterbot, I asked it a question and it replied "Do you listen to the sounds", then I said what sounds and it replied "I am not a guy". Chatterbot basically spouts random responses its gotten, from a database.
On an offbeat note, this reminds me of the only time I've ever been thoroughly patted down at an airport. It was in Shreveport and during a weekday, with very little foot traffic. I was with a friend who looks like the classical all-American girl and me, well, I'm a minority but a "Golden Minority" (being facetious about that term, not serious...). Anyway, the TSA people were very nice about pulling us aside and patting us down and nominally going through our stuff. I thought it was weird but then I looked behind us and saw a woman and child, both dressed in hijab, who subsequently also received the full pat-and-search routine.
I was going to joke about how you must not have grown up in the 80s-90s, but doing a Google search just now, I see that I might have used the wrong term...
The better known term is "model minority," in which Asians, in America, were held up as what minorities should be like: smart, hard-working, non-confrontational to the status quo:
I swear "golden minority" was also a common term, because Asian-Americans were perceived as achieving toward high-pay professions (doctors, engineers, etc) and, well, we're also referred to as "yellow"...but there seem to be very usages of "golden minority" and Asian
It's sickening to hear that you had to go through such experiences. Funny that the 'default' scanner technology didn't set off any alarms. Many of these policies just seem to provide the sense that we're safer, rather than actually do anything to remove real dangers.
Thank you for posting this. I was about to book a ticket on Jetblue for next week but I am now decided not to fly with them or recommend them to anyone.
While we can fix private airlines and businesses for their stupid attitude there is, of course, no way for people to fix NSA/TSA and all those inverted bullshitters living on taxpayer's money.
Most airlines reserve the right to remove passengers from a flight if they feel it is safer to do so. This happens all the time, and I'm sure from the perspective of the expelled passenger it's always "unfair." I trust you will follow your own principle and boycott every airline.
For that matter every restaurant, home owner, bus driver, taxi, parkway, condominium, hospital, school, university or business has the right to remove a person from their premises. That doesn't mean people do or have to do it illustriously and then come back and say: we'll fly with you tomorrow - we'll let you travel on our airline only tomorrow because you're not "safe" today.
When the TSA circus cleared the person in question there is absolutely no reason for him to be prevented from travel.
> I trust you will follow your own principle and boycott every airline.
I hope you'll find someone who buys your ad hominem/bait elsewhere. On hacker news you might want to read up the guidelines [1] on quality of discussions and disagreements.
What I don't understand: If you are detained for several hours, why don't people call a lawyer? Why did he speak to the police (end even the FBI!) without legal counsel?
Alright. It was a genuine question - ok, they said you weren't detained at the beginning, but the moment you were forbidden to use the phone and the door was guarded you effectively were. I'm just surprised that didn't trigger the "I want a lawyer/I will leave now" impulse. But I admit to not having been in the same situation myself, especially not in a dangerous country like the USA.
The symptoms you described are most probably caused by an extreme low blood-sugar level - combined with the stress of the situation, you were close to collapsing. Or it was simply shock, dangerous as well. I was glad when not reading about that collapse.
Edit: Just to make that clear - the situation wasn't your fault regardless, didn't want to imply that (just realized one could interpret my comments that way). Absolutely unacceptable treatment by both the airline and the police.
It sounds like the best course of action is to just have an attorney present if a situation like this happens again. You knew you were being detained, no matter what the authorities said. As far as I know, there are no provisions anywhere that forbid you from having a lawyer present when and wherever you want.
I often see "have an attorney present" arguments, but they make me wonder - can you really afford to have an attorney on retainer if you're not independently wealthy? Or is it as simple as calling a plumber and asking them to come over?
Should I shop for an attorney and keep their contact information with me just in case I might need one?
Will the attorney be willing to come over at a moment's notice if I've never used their services before?
I suspect it is like any market. Some will be there within the hour, some will need ramp-up time. However, regardless of the attorney, I would suspect that any criminal defense lawyer would be able to effectively navigate the particular situation at hand. If it were me, I would tell them they can arrest me and charge me, or let me on my way. I would be shocked if the results of this finicky machine are admissible in court (given that polygraph results are not). Does anyone know whether or not that is the case?
Not on speed-dial, but I would not need too many calls to get one.
In that situation, you don't need to have him on speed dial. It's enough to stop talking and demanding one and you have to be given the opportunity to call one (in my country including internet access for research) - it was my understanding the the US justice system has the same rules.
It's easy to say that in retrospect, but at the time I would probably think that the questions will end in just a few minutes and I'll get on your flight eventually... So why involve a lawyer and make this an even bigger deal.
People like to blame the US government for this, though I think the real culprit is that often the dumber, more xenophobic members of society are usually hired for these kinds of positions. As in the case of police brutality, cameras need to be recording all encounters between travelers and airport security, and extensive quality control performed. This is an issue that is tarnishing the United States's reputation everywhere. Travelers are often the elite from their respective countries and the US is digging itself into a hole with this.
There's a big opportunity for startups to provide the backend for this quality control. A hosted webapp that allows teams of inspectors to seamlessly collaborate on monitoring the quality of TSA agents from anywhere.
But who hires and tolerates the dumber, more xenophobic members of society for these positions?
The biggest impediment to fixing or eliminating the TSA is that the decision makers don't eat their own dogfood. If every Congressperson had to endure the inhumane treatment that passes for airport security these days instead of being whisked through VIP lines the TSA would be fixed within months.
The thing is, senior people don't eat their dogfood in anything. The CEO of Ford probably drives a Benz. What has worked in all industries is quality control. Government has always had a problem in doing this (the DMV) but that's where startups should step into to educate the politician that it's good for both public and for the politician's future elections (using said startup's product).
To me one of the more troubling aspects of this is that in 2013 and after 12 years, the specialists we have fighting this "war" still have trouble distinguishing between Hindu & Muslim (though obviously Muslims should not be treated like this either). It might be easier for me b/c I'm Hindu but just looking at a name is usually enough to at least get past that part.
To anybody who's vaguely knowledgeable about these things, it not only points out my nationality, but also which region of India I belong to, my religion, and also my caste[0].
[0] Not that I pay attention to caste, but as you can see, Indian surnames contain a lot if information, to anybody even remotely trained in reading them.
You don't have to say your name, for obvious reasons, but would you mind giving an example of an Indian name, and how all of that information is encoded in it? That's REALLY fascinating to me.
Any name that ends in "-jee" or "-ji" is a British variant on an Indian Bengali name[0]. Almost anybody who has it (Mukerjee, Banerjee, Chatterjee) is originally from West Bengal, a state in India that borders Bangladesh.
Beyond that's, it's a Hindu name. Almost all Hindu names are specific to a particular caste (the origins of the caste system are simply a precise codification of socioeconomic status, so it's similar to someone being called "a Trump" or "a Kennedy").
Priests can also tell further information from the name, such as the gotra: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotra . In layman's terms, this is a way of identifying one of your earliest known ancestors.
[0] The British changed a lot of names of both people and places when they were in power - ex., they changed "Mumbai" to "Bombay", although people are now starting to use the original name again.
Only that caste names not just socioeconomic markers, but plain racial bigotry as well!! Regret what happened to you, but please don't defend caste which is almost mean the same racism in India.
Not true at all! My rep. is very kind and does actually listen to her constituents. I won't say the same for my senators but my rep is pretty level headed and listens to her constituents.
Also, your apathy is what is causing the problem! Get out there! VOTE! Talk to your elected officials. Absent you, the lobbyists and mountebanks out there sure will. Monopolize your rep.'s time. You matter! You count! Act like it!
It sounds like the phone was nearby during this entire inexcusable ordeal. Too bad it wasn't recording the entire time.
The names of everybody involved in detaining or interviewing or interrogating should be released and they should explain from their point of view.
How can we stop the TSA from thinking religious boom boom terrorism is a real thing in the US when it obviously isn't?
[Sidenote: I've had the "uncontrollable shaking without being cold" thing before too (due to lack of food). It's really bad. Only solution is to eat something immediately. The shakes should go away within 30 seconds. I imagine if you let them continue for more than a few minutes, you'll collapse/blackout/seize/Something Bad™.]
Oh for crying out loud. A well-nourished human body can go for between a week and a month without food. Nothing bad would have happened to his health (he stated he is not diabetic) after a day or so without eating.
It was probably because of the inexcusable treatment and stress that he received. That is more than enough to be angry about, no need to make stuff up.
This is a manifestation of the US institutionalized xenophobia.
Good manners and taste should keep me from using this submission as another soapbox against how the US views foreigners, but when you see foreigners as enemies, a citizen who looks or acts vaguely "foreign"— I can't offer a precise definition of what "looking foreign" entails, but it's a combination of being a part of a small demographic group, and being a part of an ethnicity that is regularly caricatured in the media and in public discourse—will be treated with the same respect and care dispensed to a real foreigner.
Are you an American? I'm curious, because in my experience the American interment of Japanese is fairly well known among Americans and Japanese, and not well known by everyone else.
I am. Most likely I learned about it in passing in a history course and have since forgotten because it didn't make an impact at the time. I doubt I'll forget again.
I'm not sure wether to chalk that up to ignorance or just a cultural understanding of the word. I realize here in the US, "Concentration Camp" has become synonymous with the Nazi death camps. However, a concentration camp is just another word for a place to intern people. A death camp is where people are sent do die.
The term "concentration camp" really only came to mean "death camp" during/after WWII. Before then it was used more or less literally, a camp where people are concentrated (which is not to say that they were not often brutal and deadly... but the purpose of the camps was not extermination)
"Concentration camp" has been used to describe Nazi death camps for a long time, and has come to be more-or-less synonymous. None of the Japanese camps systematically killed people, as far as I know. Manzanar was an atrocity, but it was not in the same league as Dachau. To call them both by same name is misleading.
That said, 'internment camp' sounds far too weak. From what I've read, every piece of property they couldn't carry was taken, and they were rounded up and forced to live in horse-stalls for the duration of the war. Every single family, as far as I know, had to not only suffer the indignity of being held without cause, but then had to rebuild from zero after the war. I can't think of a better term, but it needs one.
Concentration camp (KZ) sounds about right. The term for places like Dachau and Auschwitz is Vernichtungslager (extermination camp). A concentration camp is not set up for industrial mass-murder of its prisoners.
In modern English the distinction is not consistently made. Sometimes you see extermination camps and concentration camps talked about, but other times you see both talked about just as 'concentration camps'.
I certainly agree. Concentration camp is an umbrella term, both in German and English. However, if we're talking about the exact type of camps, it makes sense use the proper words and inform readers of the distinction. It's only fair to the victims to use appropriate language and not play down the severity of their situation.
Yes, I agree. To be clear, I do prefer using the term "concentration camps" to refer to what the US did to the Japanese, but I understand that others object to that and find their objections fairly reasonable.
I wouldn't necessarily argue the use of "concentration camps," but as I said in this thread, my grandparents and many of their family and friends were interned and they all use "internment camp" as the preferred nomenclature. They have generally avoided the use of "concentration camp."
"the American encampment in a higher ethnic concentration of Japanese" doesn't roll off the tongue quite as easily.
I'm not sure what the distinction is you're trying to make. That calling them 'interment camps' is somehow better than 'concentration camps'? Both words refer to holding a designated group of people, perceived to be a threat against their will without evidence or trial.
The distinction he is trying to make is quite clear... The term 'concentration camp' has a far greater negative connotation associated with it for glaringly obvious reasons...
Yes, "interment camp" is a euphemism for "concentration camp", but to be fair at about the same time "concentration camp" become a euphemism for "death camp".
> Yes, "interment camp" is a euphemism for "concentration camp", but to be fair at about the same time "concentration camp" become a euphemism for "death camp".
And "concentration camp" is itself a euphemism for "prison camp". So its probably better if we strip out the euphemisms and refer to:
1. "Prison camps", and
2. "Death camps" (or, even more accurately, "Extermination camps")
(Recognizing that the second is a subset of the first, not a disjoint category.)
And avoid "concentration camps" and "internment camps" entirely.
He is using the term "concentration camp" in the original sense of the term to mean "prison camp". What we call "Nazi Concentration Camps" were often "death camps" and/or "labor camps", but those are not what he means by "concentration camp".
"Internment Camp" is a euphemism for "concentration camp", which is itself a euphemism for "prison camp". "Concentration camp" has also come to be a euphemism for "extermination camp".
So:
Is a: | Can be called a [...] Camp
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Prison camp | Internment, Concentration
Prison camp with labor | Internment, Concentration, Labor
Extermination camp | Concentration, Extermination, Death
He is talking about the first line, you are talking about the third. In modern English, the term "concentration camp" is most strongly associated with the third.
(Actually, IIRC some Japanese prison camps were in fact labor camps, though I think the work they did was almost entirely agricultural. No bomb-assembly to my knowledge.)
@dragonwriter suggests avoiding the terms "concentration" and "internment" entirely and only using "prison" and "extermination" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6260756). I think this is a reasonable suggestion.
I can't say I agree. My grandparents were interned at Tule Lake and they (along with my other Japanese-American family) prefer "internment" as the nomenclature.
"Concentration camp" implies something else entirely, to them.
It should be noted that other Asian people of non-Japanese descent were also wrongly forced into the same Japanese concentration camps. This occurred both in the United States and Canada.
I think you mean 'internment' or 'relocation' camps. The rational for the camps was to relocate people of Japanese heritage away from the coasts or other military 'exclusion zones'.
There are plenty of reasons to criticize this policy but calling the camps 'concentration camps' is factually wrong and only serves to obfuscate the rationale (right or wrong) for the camps.
> It's amazing how many people don't know we had concentration camps in the USA in recent history.
When you say "concentration camp" people think of gas chambers, crematoria, and genocide, which were not components of Japanese internment. The term is still technically correct, but that may be why people are confused and surprised.
Maybe my school was odd... Japanese internment was at least mentioned every year in US History between 7th and 11th grade.
It's actually a manifestation of the US security state. Foreigners or foreign-looking people are just the first victims. Rest assured, before long everyone in the country will be suspect.
Differential treatment of foreigners is hardly a unique US phenomena. And don't interpret that as my support for any particular US border control or security policy.
Seeing where the airline operates and since I'm not in US, I won't have a chance to boycott the airline. However, if I ever get a chance to travel to/out of US(which is bound to happen), Jet Blue will not be my airline of choice.
If my friends happen to have to use an airline, I will let them know what I've heard of the airline, and suggest them to find an alternative. That's pretty much it. It's not much, but I won't forget the name Jet Blue.
985 comments
[ 5.5 ms ] story [ 330 ms ] threadAnd now several of those 10 Amendments have been eroded/defeated through recent law.
Great job that Constitution is doing us... but I guess it paints that much worse a picture of a country without it.
A caricatured example would be the serial killer who looks both ways before he crosses the street. We can agree that some of his 'core goodness' is certainly off...but his common sense is spot on.
Without any outside competition, it's just recycling the same type of candidates, with the same policies and with the same disregard for basic civil liberties.
If a party was started, it wouldn't be a third party, it'd be something like a fortieth party, excluding strictly regional parties.
The reason additional parties aren't competitive is structural in the electoral systems used in federal and state elections, and adding more parties isn't going to change that.
You might think the only answer is a constitutional amendment, which requires a supermajority of Congress, but in fact there's a backdoor: if you have the cooperation of a majority of state governments then you can certify any electors you like. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstat... for an attempt to change the U.S. electoral system in this way.
First, it's not likely that the wording of Article II truly grants state legislatures unlimited discretion in the selection of electors. A state law that required electors to be men or Methodists would surely be unconstitutional today. And as a result, there's almost certainly an equal protection argument to be made against NPVIC: Sure, each individual voter is participating equally in a larger process to choose the President, but that's not the process prescribed by the Constitution. The process demanded by the Constitution is a state-by-state selection of electors, and if a state legislature wants to have an election, it better be an election in which every voter of that state is participating equally. A thought experiment: Could the state of California pass a law that counted every vote for the electoral slate of the Democratic party twice? Surely not. So how can they pass a law which discounts the vote of every voter except those that voted for the nationwide popular winner?
Second, if this agreement doesn't trigger the Congressional approval requirement of the Compact clause of Article I, I can't imagine what would.
Then the question becomes, if Congress endorses the pact, could it go into effect? The success of an equal protection claim against the agreement is a little trickier to forecast, since the justices who typically support a broad reading of equal protection are likely to be the most sympathetic to arguments for eliminating the disparity between the popular vote and the EC. But I think the Court would see NPVIC, rightly, as an "end run" around the amendment process, and require that state elections remain state elections: States do not have the power to facilitate national or interstate plebiscites outside the usual Constitutional order.
For most elections (including most changes to election rules for federal offices), the correct answer is "the legislature (and sometimes the people directly, by initiative, to the extent that they have reserved legislative power) of the state in which the election occurs." This includes, incidentally, most of the procedures surrounding elections for the state's slate of Presidential electors in Presidential elections, as well as most of the rules for elections for most other offices.
There are some mandated aspects of the setup of elections for federal office (e.g., single member districts for Congress) that are set through federal law and require Congressional action to permit changes.
There are a few non-mandated-guidelines aspects of the setup of some elections for federal office (e.g., the safe harbor rules for the conduct of Presidential elections) that likewise involve Congressional action, but, as these are not mandates, states can change them without federal action, but there might be greater risk of Congress disqualifying the electoral votes of those states (but since the safe harbor rules are rules governing purely discretionary Congressional acts, its not clear that Congress would actually be barred from discounting electoral votes based on elections which complied with the safe harbor rules, and in any case its not clear that they actually would bar votes based on elections which didn't.)
There are very few aspects of federal elections that are governed by the Federal Constitution (e.g., that elections to the Presidency are by way of the electoral college and how electors are apportioned among the states, etc.)
> You might think the only answer is a constitutional amendment, which requires a supermajority of Congress
You might, if you have absolutely no idea about election law in the US, and have compounded that ignorance by only paying attention to one of the two methods of amending the Constitution specified in Article V, and, on top of all that, only considered Presidential elections.
> but in fact there's a backdoor
Or, rather, a whole lot of obvious, clearly marked, wide-open front, back, and side doors, windows, cat-and-dog doors, etc., as described above.
And Fuck Jet Blue while we are at it.
-1 client. How bout no.
#1. I have a MiFi device, so I can get started with the preliminaries as my spouse drives. And of course, once I arrive I'll be on-site with your team.
#2. Because I provide my own living arrangements, my expenses will be much lower. I'll charge you diesel from my current location instead of a round-trip business-class airline ticket, and the RV park is $300 a month, vs. $150 a night at a hotel. Since I tow my car, you won't be paying for a rental. And you won't be billed for bi-weekly weekend trips home, as I bring my home with me.
#3. (fudge it a bit...) I can be there as soon as I finish wrapping things up with my current client. Probably on the 9th.
#3 A consequence of high billing rates is that you will be required to be there as soon as possible.
Justin Thompson Director Customer Support Justin.thompson@jetblue.com (801) 449- 2732
David Barger Chief executive officer (718) 286-7900 david.barger@jetblue.com
http://photographyisnotacrime.com/2008/09/30/the-video-that-...
http://www.jessdugan.com/blog/13699650/JetBlue-stole-my-came...
We need to wake up and see that those that "protect" our safety have reduced us to a state of fear worse than that which we are trying to prevent. We are now being terrorized by our own terrorism prevention. Merely because we happened to clean for bed-bugs and look Middle Eastern.
When will we say enough is enough and do something about it?
In America, things are different. Sure the borders are porous; sure there is a low probability that the muslim guy down the street is a terrorist, sure there is a possibility that the war of 1812 could be repeated by the Canadians.
However, is the country really going to live its life based on insignificant probabilities? It has been 12+ years since 9/11. Surely, there is a time limit after which this insanity can mellow down.
Shouldn't we be "profiling" based on assessed risk? And isn't the NSA making those assessments? It should be a simple as submitting the user's identity and circumstances and getting a guided response back: "no likely threat", "detain immediately", etc.
Not that I'm a fan of the NSA, but isn't that what they are ostensibly there for?
That they apparently had no idea what a Hindu is doesn't make it one bit better.
As the article itself describes... when he skipped the pat-down (and therefore skipped the ERD), no one batted an eye at his race.
It's not a wise course to take government employees at their word.
I think that theory warrants about as much consideration as chemtrails.
Regardles, I wouldn't exactly put it past the TSA to make up a positive hit. It's not like we haven't ever had a police officer claim someone committed a traffic violation on someone based on appearance and ultimately find drugs or some other criminal behavior.
In the past two months, I've had pat-downs in DCA, BWI, and PHI (my home airport, SYR, doesn't have scanners, so there's nothing to opt out of).
They all use machines similar to this one:
http://www.tsa.gov/sites/default/files/images/edt_closeup.jp...
I've never seen a failure myself (the green bar you see pops up after a few seconds), but according to a friend who has, a red bar pops up instead.
I think it's more than a little hyperbolic to describe their actions as 'rabid racism'
They had a legitimate reason for suspicion. That reason wasn't the color of his skin, it was the color of a computer screen (a screen that flashes green hundreds of times a day flashed red in this case).
It's quite obvious that much ignorance and xenophobia followed, but I don't think it crossed (laughably subjective) line of 'rabid.'
A friend of mine who is about as 'all American' looking as you can get (white, tall, former marine...) tripped the same alarms after he had been firing a gun at a range the day before. He had an obvious and clear explanation for the alarm, so his experience wasn't as invasive, but they certainly gave him a hard time about it.
I suppose we could get into definitions of racism here. We're likely talking about "institutional racism", for which "prejudice plus power" is a pretty good definition, but I think perhaps "prejudice multiplied by power" might be even more apt. The prejudice was clearly considerable, but the power, and how it interacted with that prejudice, is what raises it to the level that I think could be called "rabid".
The only explanation that makes more sense if the TSA, NSA or FBI had warnings about very cleverly implanted explosive devices and want to keep that knowledge hidden. That would explain why the pat-downs didn't convince them (maybe they tried to evoke a pain response), why they didn't give him anything to eat or drink, and why the JetBlue representative didn't want him to fly on this day, but was fine with the next day...
Sadly, much later than most people think. Look at how long things have gone on in history, before people realized how bad it really was. In hindsight, it's easy, but when everyone just seems to be accepting it, it's not so easy. E.g. Germany in the 1930s.
This was well written and very interesting to read, but I do wonder how one could recall the details so specifically?
Guess I should count myself lucky I don't have those!
In fact, the repeated recall can cause them to become distorted over time.
If you want to preserve a memory, write it down immediately while it is fresh. Don't trust that an old memory is accurate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashbulb_memory#Flashbulb_mem...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashbulb_memory#Critique_of_f...
Reading On Intelligence really solidified my thoughts on how memory (probably) works.
http://www.amazon.com/On-Intelligence-Jeff-Hawkins/dp/080507...
The only thing I really feel like saying is "I'm sorry", as you'll never get any sympathy from this system's enablers.
It's all sad and disgusting.
Wow... just wow.
It's brilliant and pathetic at the same time.
I found that sentence to be a non sequitur, illogically and gratuitously tacked on as an appeal to sentiment over rationality, and absolute bit of overwritten purple prose.
"Oh! The irony!"
They assume he was a Muslim and 'off course Muslims have problems following instructions from women'.
Noam Chomsky Paul Graham Elon Musk Jeff Bezos
He condemns America more than other regimes who also abuse power because he considers it the moral responsibility of every citizen to correct their own nation's behavior first, taking the principle straight from the Bible: "Remove the speck from your own eye."
Condemn Chomsky's anarcho-socialist ideals if you like: he actually has those. But calling him an America-hater both misunderstands his views and demonstrates his point about nationalism trumping democracy.
9.5 / 10
The better known term is "model minority," in which Asians, in America, were held up as what minorities should be like: smart, hard-working, non-confrontational to the status quo:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/thenextamerica/education/asia...
I swear "golden minority" was also a common term, because Asian-Americans were perceived as achieving toward high-pay professions (doctors, engineers, etc) and, well, we're also referred to as "yellow"...but there seem to be very usages of "golden minority" and Asian
While we can fix private airlines and businesses for their stupid attitude there is, of course, no way for people to fix NSA/TSA and all those inverted bullshitters living on taxpayer's money.
When the TSA circus cleared the person in question there is absolutely no reason for him to be prevented from travel.
> I trust you will follow your own principle and boycott every airline.
I hope you'll find someone who buys your ad hominem/bait elsewhere. On hacker news you might want to read up the guidelines [1] on quality of discussions and disagreements.
[1] http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
There is so much horrifying with that story it makes me shudder.
Maybe I could make that more clear.
The symptoms you described are most probably caused by an extreme low blood-sugar level - combined with the stress of the situation, you were close to collapsing. Or it was simply shock, dangerous as well. I was glad when not reading about that collapse.
Edit: Just to make that clear - the situation wasn't your fault regardless, didn't want to imply that (just realized one could interpret my comments that way). Absolutely unacceptable treatment by both the airline and the police.
Should I shop for an attorney and keep their contact information with me just in case I might need one?
Will the attorney be willing to come over at a moment's notice if I've never used their services before?
Come get me, coppers!
In that situation, you don't need to have him on speed dial. It's enough to stop talking and demanding one and you have to be given the opportunity to call one (in my country including internet access for research) - it was my understanding the the US justice system has the same rules.
There's a big opportunity for startups to provide the backend for this quality control. A hosted webapp that allows teams of inspectors to seamlessly collaborate on monitoring the quality of TSA agents from anywhere.
The biggest impediment to fixing or eliminating the TSA is that the decision makers don't eat their own dogfood. If every Congressperson had to endure the inhumane treatment that passes for airport security these days instead of being whisked through VIP lines the TSA would be fixed within months.
To anybody who's vaguely knowledgeable about these things, it not only points out my nationality, but also which region of India I belong to, my religion, and also my caste[0].
[0] Not that I pay attention to caste, but as you can see, Indian surnames contain a lot if information, to anybody even remotely trained in reading them.
Beyond that's, it's a Hindu name. Almost all Hindu names are specific to a particular caste (the origins of the caste system are simply a precise codification of socioeconomic status, so it's similar to someone being called "a Trump" or "a Kennedy").
Priests can also tell further information from the name, such as the gotra: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotra . In layman's terms, this is a way of identifying one of your earliest known ancestors.
The name even has a Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukherjee
[0] The British changed a lot of names of both people and places when they were in power - ex., they changed "Mumbai" to "Bombay", although people are now starting to use the original name again.
Call your representative today and talk to them about this story if you are disturbed by it. Please, you have to speak to have a voice.
Also, your apathy is what is causing the problem! Get out there! VOTE! Talk to your elected officials. Absent you, the lobbyists and mountebanks out there sure will. Monopolize your rep.'s time. You matter! You count! Act like it!
It sounds like the phone was nearby during this entire inexcusable ordeal. Too bad it wasn't recording the entire time.
The names of everybody involved in detaining or interviewing or interrogating should be released and they should explain from their point of view.
How can we stop the TSA from thinking religious boom boom terrorism is a real thing in the US when it obviously isn't?
[Sidenote: I've had the "uncontrollable shaking without being cold" thing before too (due to lack of food). It's really bad. Only solution is to eat something immediately. The shakes should go away within 30 seconds. I imagine if you let them continue for more than a few minutes, you'll collapse/blackout/seize/Something Bad™.]
It was probably because of the inexcusable treatment and stress that he received. That is more than enough to be angry about, no need to make stuff up.
Good manners and taste should keep me from using this submission as another soapbox against how the US views foreigners, but when you see foreigners as enemies, a citizen who looks or acts vaguely "foreign"— I can't offer a precise definition of what "looking foreign" entails, but it's a combination of being a part of a small demographic group, and being a part of an ethnicity that is regularly caricatured in the media and in public discourse—will be treated with the same respect and care dispensed to a real foreigner.
It's amazing how many people don't know we had concentration camps in the USA in recent history.
We are just a hop skip and jump away from that again, all it would take is another major nightmare.
I had never heard of this.
Concentration camps are where you send people to die.
That said, 'internment camp' sounds far too weak. From what I've read, every piece of property they couldn't carry was taken, and they were rounded up and forced to live in horse-stalls for the duration of the war. Every single family, as far as I know, had to not only suffer the indignity of being held without cause, but then had to rebuild from zero after the war. I can't think of a better term, but it needs one.
I'm not sure what the distinction is you're trying to make. That calling them 'interment camps' is somehow better than 'concentration camps'? Both words refer to holding a designated group of people, perceived to be a threat against their will without evidence or trial.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment#Concentration_camp
And "concentration camp" is itself a euphemism for "prison camp". So its probably better if we strip out the euphemisms and refer to:
1. "Prison camps", and
2. "Death camps" (or, even more accurately, "Extermination camps")
(Recognizing that the second is a subset of the first, not a disjoint category.)
And avoid "concentration camps" and "internment camps" entirely.
"Internment Camp" is a euphemism for "concentration camp", which is itself a euphemism for "prison camp". "Concentration camp" has also come to be a euphemism for "extermination camp".
So:
He is talking about the first line, you are talking about the third. In modern English, the term "concentration camp" is most strongly associated with the third.(Actually, IIRC some Japanese prison camps were in fact labor camps, though I think the work they did was almost entirely agricultural. No bomb-assembly to my knowledge.)
@dragonwriter suggests avoiding the terms "concentration" and "internment" entirely and only using "prison" and "extermination" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6260756). I think this is a reasonable suggestion.
"Concentration camp" implies something else entirely, to them.
Over here, the U.S. are reviled due to their part in the local dictatorships (they trained torturers, among other things).
There are plenty of reasons to criticize this policy but calling the camps 'concentration camps' is factually wrong and only serves to obfuscate the rationale (right or wrong) for the camps.
When you say "concentration camp" people think of gas chambers, crematoria, and genocide, which were not components of Japanese internment. The term is still technically correct, but that may be why people are confused and surprised.
Maybe my school was odd... Japanese internment was at least mentioned every year in US History between 7th and 11th grade.
If my friends happen to have to use an airline, I will let them know what I've heard of the airline, and suggest them to find an alternative. That's pretty much it. It's not much, but I won't forget the name Jet Blue.