Terror Plot Foiled - CEG Archives

are you talking about the one foiled in the UK? Because once CNN gets a hold of this, they'll be all over saying how FIRST OF ALL the UK is an unsafe TERRORIST BREEDING GROUND and that the threat to the US is COMPLETELY POSSIBLE AND PROBABLE!!! (God i hate CNN and that stupid Wolf BLitzer)

Damn, this is hte first I heard of it.

Originally posted by m4gician:
are you talking about the one foiled in the UK? Because once CNN gets a hold of this, they'll be all over saying how FIRST OF ALL the UK is an unsafe TERRORIST BREEDING GROUND and that the threat to the US is COMPLETELY POSSIBLE AND PROBABLE!!! (God i hate CNN and that stupid Wolf BLitzer)

Oh, like FoxNews is any better. If you want accurate and unbiased news, check BBC or NPR.

Originally posted by chemguru:
Oh, like FoxNews is any better. If you want accurate and unbiased news, check BBC or NPR.

That is just about the funniest bit of drivel I've ever heard!!!

Originally posted by chemguru:

Originally posted by m4gician:
are you talking about the one foiled in the UK? Because once CNN gets a hold of this, they'll be all over saying how FIRST OF ALL the UK is an unsafe TERRORIST BREEDING GROUND and that the threat to the US is COMPLETELY POSSIBLE AND PROBABLE!!! (God i hate CNN and that stupid Wolf BLitzer)

Oh, like FoxNews is any better. If you want accurate and unbiased news, check BBC or NPR.

NPR!?!?!? They are about a left as you can get.

And my boss just called and woke me up. Time to go to work. This is the first time they've told me to bring a bag though.

Gotta love working for the Government...

Originally posted by elraido:

Originally posted by chemguru:

Originally posted by m4gician:
are you talking about the one foiled in the UK? Because once CNN gets a hold of this, they'll be all over saying how FIRST OF ALL the UK is an unsafe TERRORIST BREEDING GROUND and that the threat to the US is COMPLETELY POSSIBLE AND PROBABLE!!! (God i hate CNN and that stupid Wolf BLitzer)

Oh, like FoxNews is any better. If you want accurate and unbiased news, check BBC or NPR.

NPR!?!?!? They are about a left as you can get.

Their programming is certainly left of center, but their news reporting is as unbiased as you will find.

Originally posted by spgoode:

Originally posted by elraido:
NPR!?!?!? They are about a left as you can get.

Their programming is certainly left of center, but their news reporting is as unbiased as you will find.

They're not as bad as some, but they are not balanced in their news reporting either.

This is just crazy. Good job Brits!
My Mom flew out of London just last week.

Originally posted by TourDeForce:

Originally posted by spgoode:

Originally posted by elraido:
NPR!?!?!? They are about a left as you can get.

Their programming is certainly left of center, but their news reporting is as unbiased as you will find.

They're not as bad as some, but they are not balanced in their news reporting either.

Agreed. I listen to NPR while on the road a lot, and they will ignore straight out facts to twist a story at times. And their call-in shows are horribly left of center, I tend to laugh more than anything during the shows because they are so far off center.

E1

I hope they don't !@$% around, and just go ahead an execute every single one of those effers!

Originally posted by Stazi:
I hope they don't !@$% around, and just go ahead an execute every single one of those effers!

I have new found respect for our Aussie friend.

Originally posted by chemguru:
...Oh, like FoxNews is any better. If you want accurate and unbiased news, check BBC or NPR.

Accurate? At times. Unbiased? No way in Hell.

Originally posted by m4gician:
are you talking about the one foiled in the UK? Because once CNN gets a hold of this, they'll be all over saying how FIRST OF ALL the UK is an unsafe TERRORIST BREEDING GROUND and that the threat to the US is COMPLETELY POSSIBLE AND PROBABLE!!! (God i hate CNN and that stupid Wolf BLitzer)

um, the article is from CNN

Originally posted by NO 4 EVR:

Originally posted by m4gician:
are you talking about the one foiled in the UK? Because once CNN gets a hold of this, they'll be all over saying how FIRST OF ALL the UK is an unsafe TERRORIST BREEDING GROUND and that the threat to the US is COMPLETELY POSSIBLE AND PROBABLE!!! (God i hate CNN and that stupid Wolf BLitzer)

um, the article is from CNN

Yeah, but he's right about Blitzer and CNN TV coverage.

Security was definetly tighter than normal. We took a trip to Colorado and security was about normal when we left Detroit. On the return through Vegas, it was much different. A lot more employees were working, and the high security risk line was longer. I was lucky enough to get the high security line. Any liquid or gel based product was thrown out (water, hand lotion, liquid medicines, shampoo, tooth paste etc). They ran my carry-on through the xray machine twice. Afterwards they quickly searched through it. The lady in front of me was given a complete pat down and her carry on was completly searched.
Then boarding the plane, everybody's carry on was given another quick search before boarding. Crazy!

Better crazy than dead, no?

I just talked to my cousin who was flying home from his summer in Europe, for school. He was scheduled to fly out of Heathrow and originally was on one of the planes that was supposedly targeted! This [censored]'s a little more emotional for me went it hits this close to home. I hope they torture these [censored] and then put them on life support to keep them alive!

I thought this was a test run? Did I miss something?

just another ploy by our gov't to keep us scared...

Originally posted by BlackBirdRacing:
just another ploy by our gov't to keep us scared...

Yea funny. Too bad it occured in the UK.

Without a doubt!

A lot of people were upset about the extra time and security though... I had about 6 hours to kill so I didn't care how long it took them to search through my camera equipment.

Originally posted by todras:

Originally posted by BlackBirdRacing:
just another ploy by our gov't to keep us scared...

Yea funny. Too bad it occured in the UK.

and what makes you think the weren't in it together?

This was a test run...but supposedly a computer (that was confiscated) shows flights that they were looking into possibly hijacking, so to say that someone already knows the flight they would've been on was for certain one of the targeted flights seems a little absurd...I'm sure that knowledge hasn't been leaked yet.

I'm not discounting the possibility of it being one of those flights but no way in he11 could they know which ones it would've been.

Originally posted by BlackBirdRacing:

and what makes you think the weren't in it together?

Go blow another trans.

Originally posted by YaaaarrroTour:
I just talked to my cousin who was flying home from his summer in Europe, for school. He was scheduled to fly out of Heathrow and originally was on one of the planes that was supposedly targeted! This [censored]'s a little more emotional for me went it hits this close to home. I hope they torture these [censored] and then put them on life support to keep them alive!

It would be difficult to be on a "supposedly targetted" flight since no fights were yet targetted. Certainly not ones that someone could be on right now since this thing was still in its' planning stages.

Mike's cousin is not the most believable type. LOL! Sorry Mike I think Hollister is FOS on this one.

Originally posted by sigma:

Originally posted by YaaaarrroTour:
I just talked to my cousin who was flying home from his summer in Europe, for school. He was scheduled to fly out of Heathrow and originally was on one of the planes that was supposedly targeted! This [censored]'s a little more emotional for me went it hits this close to home. I hope they torture these [censored] and then put them on life support to keep them alive!

It would be difficult to be on a "supposedly targetted" flight since no fights were yet targetted. Certainly not ones that someone could be on right now since this thing was still in its' planning stages.

Didn't they say that one of the hijackers had already made his adios mf's video? Sounds like it was more than a dry run.

Originally posted by todras:

Originally posted by BlackBirdRacing:

and what makes you think the weren't in it together?

Go blow another trans.

I was just trying to start sh!t...

I guess I got what I deserved todd

Originally posted by Pre98:
Better crazy than dead, no?

I am flying back to the US on the 22nd of this month. I am going to be pissed if they have put similar restrictions on carry on baggage as they have in the UK. The knee jerk measures taken by Britian's transit athourity are rediculas. Basically you cannot carry anything on the plane. I am sure the airlines are really happy about this, the only place you can get a drink is to buy it on the plane now since you can't take anything with you, can't listen or watch anything but what they give since you can't take any electronics with you, and since you are taking that stuff with you anyway they will gladly throw all that would-be carry-on baggage in the hold for a reasonable fee. No this is no crzay safe, it is crazy stupid and I doubt that it is saving any lives. Foiling would-be terrorist plots makes us safer, taking away coke bottles and making parents taste their baby's formula is just a waste of time and a giant circle jerk.

Kudos to the British MI-5 (or as Bill O'Reilly calls them, "the M One Five") for saving our sorry asses.

Originally posted by 96RedSE5Sp:
Kudos to the British MI-5 (or as Bill O'Reilly calls them, "the M One Five") for saving our sorry asses.

We have nothing to be sorry for, we have freedom and extremists are jealous enough to kill us over it. I agree though- thank you Great Britain.

Originally posted by Pre98:
Better crazy than dead, no?

I think this has all gone way out of hand. The terrorists will still find ways to do what they want to do, and all you've done is make everyone else's lives suck.

It goes too far when you have to check basic toiletries and can't listen to your iPod on a flight. I predict this will put at least one airline out of business as these rules kick the industry right back down when they were just starting to get up.

Originally posted by Pre98:

Originally posted by 96RedSE5Sp:
Kudos to the British MI-5 (or as Bill O'Reilly calls them, "the M One Five") for saving our sorry asses.

We have nothing to be sorry for, we have freedom and extremists are jealous enough to kill us over it. I agree though- thank you Great Britain.

The extremists don't want to kill us because they are jealous of our freedom. They want to kill us because we support Israel and because we aren't Muslim.

I'm not saying that all Muslims are terrorists. I'm just saying that all the terrorists these days seem to be Muslim.

Originally posted by ZoomZoom Diva:

Originally posted by Pre98:
Better crazy than dead, no?

I think this has all gone way out of hand. The terrorists will still find ways to do what they want to do, and all you've done is make everyone else's lives suck.

It goes too far when you have to check basic toiletries and can't listen to your iPod on a flight. I predict this will put at least one airline out of business as these rules kick the industry right back down when they were just starting to get up.

Exactly. Pretty soon it will be like prison where you have to strip down on your way in (the plane) and can't bring anything with ya) cavity check for sure.

I think security is important, but when it seems like it might be starting to be too much. I mean you already have a much greater chance of dying on the way to the airport than you do of having the plane blown up. Hell you probably have a better chance of choking to death on the airplane peanuts (which they don't seem to serve anymore).

I have to fly next week and I am looking forward to doing nothing the entire time. I am going to check my suitcase (something I hadn't planned on) because I can't bring my shave kit on board. Craziness.

Originally posted by Pete D:
...it seems like it might be starting to be too much. I mean you already have a much greater chance of dying on the way to the airport than you do of having the plane blown up. Hell you probably have a better chance of choking to death on the airplane peanuts (which they don't seem to serve anymore).

Maaaaaybe that's true, but why tempt fate? If a catastrophe can be avoided by instituting some security measures with only a small cost to convenience, why would you not take the safer bet?

Originally posted by Wien_Sean:

Originally posted by Pre98:
Better crazy than dead, no?

... it is crazy stupid and I doubt that it is saving any lives. Foiling would-be terrorist plots makes us safer, taking away coke bottles and making parents taste their baby's formula is just a waste of time and a giant circle jerk.

I think it likely will save lives, but you would be spared a LOT of the inconvenience if authorities could profile. BUT NOOOOOOOO, that might hurt somebodys feelings! It wouldn't be fair to target muslim men & women. waaahhhh!!!

Thank a liberal - then kick 'em in their P.C. junk.

Originally posted by TourDeForce:

Originally posted by Wien_Sean:

Originally posted by Pre98:
Better crazy than dead, no?

... it is crazy stupid and I doubt that it is saving any lives. Foiling would-be terrorist plots makes us safer, taking away coke bottles and making parents taste their baby's formula is just a waste of time and a giant circle jerk.

I think it likely will save lives, but you would be spared a LOT of the inconvenience if authorities could profile. BUT NOOOOOOOO, that might hurt somebodys feelings! It wouldn't be fair to target muslim men & women. waaahhhh!!!

Thank a liberal - then kick 'em in their P.C. junk.

Profiling is racism pure and simple. Just because someone fits the racial profile of a criminal is not reasonable suspicion for any one to stop, search, or arrest that person. It's not about hurting someone's feelings; it is about being fair and just. It is proven innocent until proven guilty and race, religion, or ethnic background proves nothing.

Let's think of it this way. What if we were to build a racial profile based on Tim McVeigh; an American, white, Christian, Male? So anyone who fits that profile would (I am assuming you would fit at least part of this profile.) be scrutinized more than anyone else, based on nothing but these four factors that have nothing to do with any real evidence against them. I call that shoddy and lazy police work, along with being an antiquated racist idea.

Originally posted by todras:

Originally posted by BlackBirdRacing:

and what makes you think the weren't in it together?

Go blow another trans.

Ewwwwwwww

Jim T.

I have to fly the end of the month. Usually I take my aviation headset and parachute on the plane because the craps expensive and I don't like to let it out of my sight. (I'm going to Tennessee to fly off the aerobatic restictions on a friends plane, hence the equipment need)Now I have to check this stuff in.

I just read that you will NEVER be able to go up into the statue of liberty again because the city of NY is worried about bombings and evacuations. I went up to the crown/head of the statue in 1975 when I was eleven. Will our children be able to see NY city from the top of the statue now? No they won't.

Until we take an extemely hardcore stance against terrorism they have won. Start profiling. Do 65 year old white grandma's carry shoe bombs onto airliners?, no they bake flippin' pies! I don't give a rats azz about political correctness any longer, (never did anyway) start strip searching 30ish middle-eastern looking men and women before flights. Restrict their movement anywhere they go. As somebody already said, "not all muslims are terrorists, but as of now all terrorist ARE muslim." Make it well known that if you DO pull off a bombing all of you're living relatives will be imprisoned, tortured, and killed after we learn all there is to learn from them. These are not uniformed military combatants, they are terrorist and you must treat them as such. Geneva convention rules only apply to military combantants. Kill them immediatly as they would offer YOU no better treatment if the roles were reversed!

We need to take a no BS stance on the countries that support terrorism, and we know who they are. It's time to do something about it. If it comes down to all the civilised countries versus the whole damn muslim world to make this right, I say sigh me up and lets do it now.

And before you scream "but they ARE a civilized group of people" do I need to remind you of all the tortured, mutilated, and decapitated bodies we have come to expect from these "civilised" people?

The muslim community offers nothing in the way of support when an attack happens, they don't go public denouncing the attacks, but the minute you mention tracking the responsible parties down they crawl out of the sand and cry "foul! you're penalizing all of us" Damn right and we should. It's the only way to stop this.

Jim T.

Yikes!
We as Americans are so selfish. We want it all and we're willing to give up nothing to have it. Well we'll give up someone else's freedoms but not our own. What are we talking about here? Giving up your computer, ipod, bottle water, shampoo, time, etc in order to board a plane to go wherever you want whenever you want? Hike up your skirt and get over it! If you want security on the flight you're going to have to do your part instead of expecting someone else to do it for you.

Originally posted by RT and his SE:
Yikes!
We as Americans are so selfish. We want it all and we're willing to give up nothing to have it. Well we'll give up someone else's freedoms but not our own. What are we talking about here? Giving up your computer, ipod, bottle water, shampoo, time, etc in order to board a plane to go wherever you want whenever you want? Hike up your skirt and get over it! If you want security on the flight you're going to have to do your part instead of expecting someone else to do it for you.

Ryan for President.

Originally posted by Wien_Sean:
Let's think of it this way. What if we were to build a racial profile based on Tim McVeigh; an American, white, Christian, Male? So anyone who fits that profile would (I am assuming you would fit at least part of this profile.) be scrutinized more than anyone else, based on nothing but these four factors that have nothing to do with any real evidence against them. I call that shoddy and lazy police work, along with being an antiquated racist idea.

If 99% of the recent terrorist actions were taken by the so called "American, white, Christian, Male", then yes profiling based upon that would make sense... Then again, the activities have been taken by Middle-Eastern, Young/Middle Aged, Muslim, Males -- so it only makes sense to look at this group closer.

Quote:

Yikes!
We as Americans are so selfish. We want it all and we're willing to give up nothing to have it. Well we'll give up someone else's freedoms but not our own. What are we talking about here? Giving up your computer, ipod, bottle water, shampoo, time, etc in order to board a plane to go wherever you want whenever you want? Hike up your skirt and get over it! If you want security on the flight you're going to have to do your part instead of expecting someone else to do it for you.

Wow, so well put. =)

This goes along the lines of the typical American thinking of today. They want instant results, and do not want to wait for them. They believe the President should have been able to solve the "terrorist problem" in a year. Even funnier is the liberals who think the problem could have been solved in a year...via TALKING.

Actually, I just checked the TSA website and lookee lookee. I'm flying to Germany in a few hours and am relieved I can carry my lappy on-board.

Originally posted by TSA.GOV:

Question:

Media have also reported that laptops, cell phones and electronic items are no longer allowed. Is that true?

Answer

No. TSA continues to allow laptop computers, cell phones and other electronic items as carry-on items.

I don't think it's selfishness. Rather, it's a knee-jerk response to make it look like they are making you so much safer when the risk was minute in the first place. Symbolism over substance.

I see people taking other modes of transportation or declining to places because it's too much of a hassle. Making people drink baby formula. Guess what? You've just broken the cleanliness of it.

We are letting the terrorists win when they make us change how we live. We win when we don't let them.

Originally posted by Wien_Sean:

Originally posted by TourDeForce:

Originally posted by Wien_Sean:

Originally posted by Pre98:
Better crazy than dead, no?

... it is crazy stupid and I doubt that it is saving any lives. Foiling would-be terrorist plots makes us safer, taking away coke bottles and making parents taste their baby's formula is just a waste of time and a giant circle jerk.

I think it likely will save lives, but you would be spared a LOT of the inconvenience if authorities could profile. BUT NOOOOOOOO, that might hurt somebodys feelings! It wouldn't be fair to target muslim men & women. waaahhhh!!!

Thank a liberal - then kick 'em in their P.C. junk.

Profiling is racism pure and simple. Just because someone fits the racial profile of a criminal is not reasonable suspicion for any one to stop, search, or arrest that person. It's not about hurting someone's feelings; it is about being fair and just. It is proven innocent until proven guilty and race, religion, or ethnic background proves nothing.

Let's think of it this way. What if we were to build a racial profile based on Tim McVeigh; an American, white, Christian, Male? So anyone who fits that profile would (I am assuming you would fit at least part of this profile.) be scrutinized more than anyone else, based on nothing but these four factors that have nothing to do with any real evidence against them. I call that shoddy and lazy police work, along with being an antiquated racist idea.

Are you kidding me? What a bunch of bunk. You seem to suggest that we cannot be suspicious of ME males unless we have some sort of history on them of previous SUICIDAL acts of terror? GET REAL!!

If TM types were going to the middle east & blowing up mosques or foreign airliners, yes, profile the **** out of AWC males in the ME. Makes it kinda easy to filter out the evil doers when they mix in to a population that makes them fairly easy to spot. Same applies here, and nobody is getting their rights taken away. If they have no contriband they would be sent on their way. We're simply focusing efforts based on specific known criteria to protect them as well as the remainder of a population that is far less likely to commit acts of terror. All of a sudden, because a racial component is being applied, rational thought & application of scientific methods & mathmatical probabilities is bad?

Frankly Tim M is a bad example: If TM types were the root of terrorism & I was being seached every time I flew on a plane because of profiling for people like TM, I'd feel good about flying because all TM types were being scrutinized & that makes it far less likely that I or my family would die. Inconvenient? Yes. Discriminatory? Yes. Racist? I think not. My right to travel in safety has not been taken away. We're protected against unreasonable searches, but since the primary responsibility of government is the safety of its citizens, this is a reasonable precaution IMHO. They are not being sought out, they have the choice not to fly, if they wish it - & they won't be searched.

PC has gone too far when it trumps & interferres with common sense precautions to keep my family safe. When I fly on a plane, you bet your *** I watch any ME men like a freakin' hawk. Do I make them feel uncomfortable when I do that? Possibly. Too ******* bad.

I see profiling as ineffective and easily circumvented. The first thing they would do is suddenly recruit people who don't look that way.

Considering the number of terrorists compared to the number of middle eastern males (even if terrorists are truly a subset), you're going to piss off and alienate a lot of innocent people. The difference in probability is not statistically significant.

Chris, just make sure you have no stop in London. Flights in and out of Heathrow do not allow them. I saw that on a link to a state department page from my company's website.

what's scary is a few months ago when i flew to KY to buy my cobra, i accidently carried some stuff on the plane. i went through LAX and had to take of my jacket, my shoes, remove my laptop from the bag etc... to put through the scanner. after i put my jacket back on i realized that i had left my mini-leatherman in the pocket and after i got to my final destination in Dayton, OH i went to the restroom to change my shirt and found i had accidently left a sizeable utility knife in my bag, my carry on bag. i was like

cuz the thought of what would have happened had they been discovered raced into my mind. but...went undetected...

perhaps theyre more laxed (no pun intended) on inter-state flights?

or maybe just a fluke...

and what really sucks too is that i get mistaken for being middle eastern all the time!

i would have so many Customs latex-fingers all over me i would have

ed

good God, nothing like seeing adults standing there barefoot or in their socks.

why couldnt that jackass had a bra-bomb?

Originally posted by ZoomZoom Diva:
I see profiling as ineffective and easily circumvented. The first thing they would do is suddenly recruit people who don't look that way.

That would at least buy us time. At best, we'd get air travel that is as well policed as those flying in/out of Israel. Muslim terrorists would love to bring one of those down, yet it rarely happens. Seems they're doing something right, so I suspect your supposition of ineffectiveness is inaccurate.

Originally posted by ZoomZoom Diva:
Considering the number of terrorists compared to the number of middle eastern males (even if terrorists are truly a subset), you're going to piss off and alienate a lot of innocent people. The difference in probability is not statistically significant.

Tough. Don't like it? Stop Muslim extremists. We didn't start by singling them out, it would be the reaction to extremist terrorism if we did so. Blame THEM, not us. If it pisses them off enough to not want to come here, great. Problem solved.

Jesus Christ, put the profiling thing to rest. It's stupid.

Wanna know why?

Because, of the 23 people arrested in Britain recently, they weren't all "Muslim-looking". Most of them were born in Britain, all of them had lived most of their entire lives in Britain, and three of them were White guys named Oliver, Don, and Brian. Most of them were very young in age, as young as 17. They haven't released photos of all of them (none that I've seen anyhow), but one of the big stories in Britain is that these all look like "normal" people. The whole "how are we supposed to catch them when they look like any one of us" thing is running rampant through the British media right now.

And what of the transit bombers in Britain? One of the four wasn't Brown, he was a black guy from Jamaica.

And the "Show Bomber"? Richard Reid. You might think he looks like a Muslim guy, but he's the product of a Black father and White mother. Born and raised in Britain. If he cleaned up a bit there's no way he would have gotten caught by any "profiling" system.

Despite what you want to believe they're not all "middle-aged brown people"! Yes, they were all "Muslim", but is your next plan to put religious affiliation on your driver's license so that we can see that? Yeah, I'm sure all would-be bombers will be sure to check that box off for you.

They have zero problems recruiting other people to their cause, as evidenced by the wide variety of people involved in their crimes. If you start profiling and targetting specific looking people they'll simply recruit people that look differently. They're not [censored] stupid.

If you want the lighter side of it, read this Seanbaby article, though fair warning, it's got a lot of foul language and some may not agree with it, though you should look at it like it is, an article from a comedian, if you don't like it, that's cool, I think it's funny. Seanbaby rules.

Sorry Siggy, I won't let it go. Profiling is a tool like many others. If it is likely to save lives, and I think it is, then I say use it. I mentioned a system used by airports in Isreal. That seems to be working. IIRC it is a combination of profiling & behavior monitoring. Use it.

Got a better idea than random searches? Let us know because random searches are a freaking JOKE & huge numbers of man-hours & vast resources are wasted in these efforts.

The whole point of my end of the discussion is to find a better way. You're a bight guy, moreso than I for sure, so I welcome your constructive input.

I do not see how doing that is policing better than applying the same security regulations to everybody. When you apply to everybody, there are no loopholes. Essentially, you do your checking, and if you have probable cause, you pull them aside for more in-depth checks.

The neo-cons have spread the seeds of paranoia well, and people are just willing to let them do whatever they want. It's like people throwing off their clothes to get beads at Mardi Gras.

I think we need to accept this as a risk of flying and make decisions accordingly. I don't think we can ban and profile ourselves into any additional level of security, and you're tromping all over people's rights and any form of ethical fairness while you are at it. The day we purposely add ways tp treat people differently because of race and religion, is the day we take a major step back as an ethical and free society.

Originally posted by sigma:
Jesus Christ, put the profiling thing to rest. It's stupid.

Wanna know why?

Because, of the 23 people arrested in Britain recently, they weren't all "Muslim-looking". Most of them were born in Britain, all of them had lived most of their entire lives in Britain, and three of them were White guys named Oliver, Don, and Brian. Most of them were very young in age, as young as 17. They haven't released photos of all of them (none that I've seen anyhow), but one of the big stories in Britain is that these all look like "normal" people. The whole "how are we supposed to catch them when they look like any one of us" thing is running rampant through the British media right now.

And what of the transit bombers in Britain? One of the four wasn't Brown, he was a black guy from Jamaica.

And the "Show Bomber"? Richard Reid. You might think he looks like a Muslim guy, but he's the product of a Black father and White mother. Born and raised in Britain. If he cleaned up a bit there's no way he would have gotten caught by any "profiling" system.

Despite what you want to believe they're not all "middle-aged brown people"! Yes, they were all "Muslim", but is your next plan to put religious affiliation on your driver's license so that we can see that? Yeah, I'm sure all would-be bombers will be sure to check that box off for you.

They have zero problems recruiting other people to their cause, as evidenced by the wide variety of people involved in their crimes. If you start profiling and targetting specific looking people they'll simply recruit people that look differently. They're not [censored] stupid.

I said muslim people, not just LOOKING muslim. ALL of them, and if we piss them off, tough [censored]. I don't know about most here but I believe if we have to alter our lives in ANY way they have won. I'm not willing to accept that. Then again I'm a stone-cold conservative and taking crap from religious zealots isn't in my rulebook.

And if you believe that any kind of "soft touch" approach will solve this, you are very wrong.

Jim T.

Tell me how you are going to have any idea if someone is Muslim or not? There are many Muslims who don't look anything like thestereotype and many non-Muslims who do?

Originally posted by TexasRealtor:

AHHHHHhahahaha! NB4TL!

hee hee

Quote:

Sorry Siggy, I won't let it go. Profiling is a tool like many others. If it is likely to save lives, and I think it is, then I say use it. I mentioned a system used by airports in Isreal. That seems to be working. IIRC it is a combination of profiling & behavior monitoring. Use it.

It would be impossible to determine if it is the profiling that Israel uses, or simply its' heightened security measures for all passengers, that have detered crime there. But logic would point towards the measures that cover all passengers as having a significantly larger impact. Passengers coming to or from Israel are individually-monitored, asked a serious of interrogative questions by highly-trained security personnel (not hourly-wage retards like most TSA personnel), all details are cross-refered with international security records, and at any time there are several people on board every flight that are armed with handguns and VERY well-trained on using them.

Profiling or not, a terrorist would have a hell of a time making it through every step of their security system.

Are you trying to say she's Muslim? Otherwhise I don't see the significance. Mods: please delete picture rather than locking thread if that was the intent.

...but there are several historical examples of where bending over and being polite did not turn pure evil into delicious candy.

Lots more funny stuff in there too. Thanks!

Originally posted by jthursby:

Originally posted by sigma:
Jesus Christ, put the profiling thing to rest. It's stupid.

Wanna know why?

Because, of the 23 people arrested in Britain recently, they weren't all "Muslim-looking". Most of them were born in Britain, all of them had lived most of their entire lives in Britain, and three of them were White guys named Oliver, Don, and Brian. Most of them were very young in age, as young as 17. They haven't released photos of all of them (none that I've seen anyhow), but one of the big stories in Britain is that these all look like "normal" people. The whole "how are we supposed to catch them when they look like any one of us" thing is running rampant through the British media right now.

And what of the transit bombers in Britain? One of the four wasn't Brown, he was a black guy from Jamaica.

And the "Show Bomber"? Richard Reid. You might think he looks like a Muslim guy, but he's the product of a Black father and White mother. Born and raised in Britain. If he cleaned up a bit there's no way he would have gotten caught by any "profiling" system.

Despite what you want to believe they're not all "middle-aged brown people"! Yes, they were all "Muslim", but is your next plan to put religious affiliation on your driver's license so that we can see that? Yeah, I'm sure all would-be bombers will be sure to check that box off for you.

They have zero problems recruiting other people to their cause, as evidenced by the wide variety of people involved in their crimes. If you start profiling and targetting specific looking people they'll simply recruit people that look differently. They're not [censored] stupid.

I said muslim people, not just LOOKING muslim. ALL of them, and if we piss them off, tough [censored]. I don't know about most here but I believe if we have to alter our lives in ANY way they have won. I'm not willing to accept that. Then again I'm a stone-cold conservative and taking crap from religious zealots isn't in my rulebook.

And if you believe that any kind of "soft touch" approach will solve this, you are very wrong.

Jim T.

Ohhh... I get it. We're going to create a 100%-effective lie detector at check-in. We're gonna hook every passenger up to it and ask "Are you Muslim?".

Gotcha.

Hell man, if you've got a foolproof system that can determine whether someone is Muslim or not, why not just use it to determine if someone is a Terrorist or not.

Originally posted by ZoomZoom Diva:
... and you're tromping all over people's rights and any form of ethical fairness while you are at it.

I'm talking about saving human life. Screw fairness!

Quote:

I don't know about most here but I believe if we have to alter our lives in ANY way they have won

I guess "we" only implies Christian-Americans.

Because, you know, there are millions of Muslim-Americans in this country too that would have their lives altered in some way using your great idea.

So I guess the terrorist would still "have won".

Muslim car. Still got sand in its crevices.

Originally posted by sigma:
Jesus Christ, put the profiling thing to rest. It's stupid.

Wanna know why?

Because, of the 23 people arrested in Britain recently, they weren't all "Muslim-looking". Most of them were born in Britain, all of them had lived most of their entire lives in Britain, and three of them were White guys named Oliver, Don, and Brian. Most of them were very young in age, as young as 17. They haven't released photos of all of them (none that I've seen anyhow), but one of the big stories in Britain is that these all look like "normal" people. The whole "how are we supposed to catch them when they look like any one of us" thing is running rampant through the British media right now.

And what of the transit bombers in Britain? One of the four wasn't Brown, he was a black guy from Jamaica.

And the "Show Bomber"? Richard Reid. You might think he looks like a Muslim guy, but he's the product of a Black father and White mother. Born and raised in Britain. If he cleaned up a bit there's no way he would have gotten caught by any "profiling" system.

Despite what you want to believe they're not all "middle-aged brown people"! Yes, they were all "Muslim", but is your next plan to put religious affiliation on your driver's license so that we can see that? Yeah, I'm sure all would-be bombers will be sure to check that box off for you.

They have zero problems recruiting other people to their cause, as evidenced by the wide variety of people involved in their crimes. If you start profiling and targetting specific looking people they'll simply recruit people that look differently. They're not [censored] stupid.

You forgot Zacharias Moussaoui, he looks like any other black man in the this country. All black people would have to be on the profiling list.

Originally posted by ZoomZoom Diva:
Tell me how you are going to have any idea if someone is Muslim or not? There are many Muslims who don't look anything like thestereotype and many non-Muslims who do?

Duh! profile KNOWN muslim's, then you will know the difference.

Jim T.

Originally posted by sigma:

Quote:

I don't know about most here but I believe if we have to alter our lives in ANY way they have won

I guess "we" only implies Christian-Americans.

Because, you know, there are millions of Muslim-Americans in this country too that would have their lives altered in some way using your great idea.

So I guess the terrorist would still "have won"

No, "we" would imply non-terrorists. And if the "non-terrorist" muslim's don't start openly denouncing terrorist type behavior than you watch THEM too. Do you think that some agency somewhere indeed knows the names of most if not all of the people that have cycled thru the terrorist training camps in years past? Somebody knows. The "softcore liberal" approach to dealing with terrorism is not working and will not work. As a civilised country we are too afraid to step on peoples toes. Problem is these people are NOT civilized and will kill you, your family, even their own people to prove just how UNCIVILISED they are!

I don't have a foolproof idea for preventing terrorism but, it appears nobody else does either!

I think they are creating a distraction. I believe the war in Israel and the airline bomb threat are just distractions to draw attention away from Iran's nuclear weapons program. Once Iran gets nuclear weapons then they will be able to cause the death and destruction that they have always wanted to cause.

Originally posted by spgoode:
You forgot Zacharias Moussaoui, he looks like any other black man in the this country. All black people would have to be on the profiling list.

Profiling doesn't mean just the way they look. You could profile someone based on the passenger list. You could lood at the name Zacharias Moussaoui, and you've got a pretty good idea that he is not a Mormon suicide bomber.

Originally posted by jthursby:
Duh! profile KNOWN muslim's, then you will know the difference.

Jim T.

known muslims? there is no list of known muslims. and i have a sneaky feeling there are no clairvoyants on the TSA payroll either.

as much as you guys may dislike the idea of it, the security measures in place since the terror plot was "foiled" are really a placebo that many of you are sucking down like its the cure. as some have already mentioned i agree the only way to continue to improve safety is stepping up the security measures (and the iq level of the people admistering them) and applying them evenly across the board. profiling limits sensitivity to other likely gaps and is a false sense of security. simply put it will not work.

it is HIGHLY unlikely the next big terror plot (by the real terrorists, not these amateurs that are most likely the expendable distractors and bait) will be carried out using planes or by people easily identified as sympathizers. there are much easier ways to attack us. realistically our government and the UKs gov should be expending much more effort securing our ports, food, water supplies, energy and gas utilities. these are such easy targets it's beyond scary.

Originally posted by muntus:

Originally posted by spgoode:
You forgot Zacharias Moussaoui, he looks like any other black man in the this country. All black people would have to be on the profiling list.

Profiling doesn't mean just the way they look. You could profile someone based on the passenger list. You could lood at the name Zacharias Moussaoui, and you've got a pretty good idea that he is not a Mormon suicide bomber.

Yeah, they probably would have thought he was one of those crazy Jewish suicide bombers, since Zacarias is a Hebrew name and Moussaoui isn't a common Muslim name, more common in Western Europe and Morocco, those of Moor descent.

Are you saying Morocco isn't predominantly muslim? Hell, they've had active terrorism there, too!

No, Morocco is very much Muslim. Damn near 100%. But they're a tiny portion of overall Muslims and the name Moussaoui, while popular there and elsewhere of Moorish descent, is not a widely popular name elsewhere in the Muslim world.

The point is that, even looking at the passenger manifest just picking out "muslim-sounding" names, the name Zacarias Moussaoui probably would not have thrown any flags because it sounds more Israeli than anything. And that still doesn't address Richard, Dan, Brian, and Oliver; the names of some others that have been arrested.

If 90% of the terrorists killed or captured happen to be young males who practice Islam, then it isn't really profiling but statistics. Profiling is pulling over a black man in Ohio just for speeding at night assuming that he will have four loaded weapons, be drinking staight vodka, wearing a flak jacket and......

....nevermind.

Originally posted by TexasRealtor:
If 90% of the terrorists killed or captured happen to be young males who practice Islam, then it isn't really profiling but statistics. Profiling is pulling over a black man in Ohio just for speeding at night assuming that he will have four loaded weapons, be drinking staight vodka, wearing a flak jacket and......

....nevermind.

If we profiled people for being stupid we'd all be in a lot of trouble!

Originally posted by TourDeForce:

Originally posted by ZoomZoom Diva:
... and you're tromping all over people's rights and any form of ethical fairness while you are at it.

I'm talking about saving human life. Screw fairness!

I think holding on to high ethical principles is important, so important that if a few additional people die, so be it. However, I don't see profiling saving any lives.

Originally posted by sigma:
Moussaoui is a common Muslim name in Western Europe and Morocco, those of Moor descent.

Fixed.

It doesn't matter if it sounds Muslim or not. If it is a Muslim name, "common sense profiling" should be used.

Originally posted by muntus:

Originally posted by sigma:
Moussaoui is a common Muslim name in Western Europe and Morocco, those of Moor descent.

Fixed.

It doesn't matter if it sounds Muslim or not. If it is a Muslim name, "common sense profiling" should be used.

So now you're "profiling" as extended from people are who Muslim, but realising that's impossible to determine, we've branched out to people with either Muslim-sounding names or people with Muslim last names whether they're actually Muslim or not. What about people with Muslim first names? Maybe Omar Smith?

And what about women? You want to target all Muslims, and all those with Muslim or Muslm-sounding names. But there's been no Muslim women arrested for terrorism. If you wanna really "profile", statistically-speaking a White Male is more likely to be a terrorist on a plane than a Woman with a Muslim last name. So, what then? Ignore the same statistics because we don't like what they say?

And then we still realize that we're going to miss at least 1 in 5 of them because, even now, 1 in 5 of these terrorists don't look Muslim and don't have Muslim or Muslim-sounding last names (or first names for that matter).

So all that needs to be done is either bring in 5 times as many people as you need so you can ensure that you still have as many as you need when the 1 in 5 make it through.

Or you do the much easier thing and bring in people that don't meet the profiling criteria.

I, personally, don't have a problem with profiling. But profiling in cases like these simply won't work. In terrorism the people actually doing the dirty work are just pawns. They're disposable, constantly changing, and can be anyone from anywhere -- it's just convenient right now for them to be largely Brown, Arabic descent, Muslim males because they're a dime a dozen. Profiling can work to catch the masterminds which aren't disposable and aren't dynamic, but it won't work to catch the guys doing the dirty work. The guys doing all the hard planning, the ones serious about what they intend to do, can go out tomorrow and find a bunch of teenage white girls to do what they want or whatever other group of people isn't going to have a high chance of being caught by a profile net. Sure, it'd be a little harder to find a white girl that'll do it versus the millions of muslim men that would

It's no different than changing your tactics when you can no longer get explosives on a plane -- you simply make a little change and disguise them in liquid drinks. It's called resourcefulness and adaptation. It's what terrorism is about. They're experts at it. They can change tactics just as easy, if not easier, than change initiates against them.

And what if we did profile? The tactics change more rapidly than we know to even look for them. Say we profiled and all these Muslim guys got to the Airport and were pulled aside. They were searched, asked some questions by some retarded TSA guy who had no real psychological training who may have noticed anything odd even if these guys weren't that good at hiding, nothing abnormal was found, and they boarded the plane. They then detonated their explosive sport drinks and killed a bunch of people. No one would have ever thought to run their sport drinks through any tests. They were just drinks. Profiling wouldn't have stopped anything from happening. Profiling doesn't stop people from doing something, it simply allows you an extra opportunity to catch them beforehand. But if you don't know what you're looking for it doesn't do a thing for you. We got lucky this time -- we knew what to look for before it was too late because of some tip-offs from Pakistan. It could have just as easily turned out much worse and we wouldn't have learned what to look for until too late, provided we ever did learn what they did to blow the planes up.

If not for the tips from Pakistan on who/what to look for, profiling or not, these guys would have boarded their planes, sport drinks in hand, and blew every one of them from the sky.

I have a 15 year old white girl and I can tell you no I repeat NO amount of coaxing would make her do anything beyond go to the mall, buy clothes and surf pervspace. I think you are wrong in that assumtion. And it is a BROAD assumtion on your part not anyone elses. You think that terrorist can recruit non-islamic people to go blow themselves and others up? What is the promise?, all the latte's and chino's they want? That assumtion is insane. You have to be born into western hatred to ever contemplate doing something so stupid. most of us were not. Thats blame passing instead of looking at a core solution. Sounds like your idea is "there isn't much we can do except put a complete halt to our own lives so that nobody gets offended" approach to terrorism.
Thats a big stinking pile and you know it.

Jim T.

I think profiling is OK. I've taken 4 flights since 9/11 and I got picked out of the crowd and searched before boarding the flight. I carry a lot of paperwork with directions, addresses and telephone numbers. I carry the paperwork with me because I would be lost without it.

One flight from Salt Lake City to Denver flew into a storm. The plane felt like it was being tossed around like a toy but it didnâ�?��?�t fall apart.

Originally posted by jthursby:
I have a 15 year old white girl and I can tell you no I repeat NO amount of coaxing would make her do anything beyond go to the mall, buy clothes and surf pervspace. I think you are wrong in that assumtion. And it is a BROAD assumtion on your part not anyone elses. You think that terrorist can recruit non-islamic people to go blow themselves and others up? What is the promise?, all the latte's and chino's they want? That assumtion is insane. You have to be born into western hatred to ever contemplate doing something so stupid. most of us were not. Thats blame passing instead of looking at a core solution. Sounds like your idea is "there isn't much we can do except put a complete halt to our own lives so that nobody gets offended" approach to terrorism.
Thats a big stinking pile and you know it.

Jim T.

Yeah, I know a Muslim that won't attack the US, therefore the same must old true for all of them, right? Yeah, a sample of one proves your point.

Talk about a big stinking pile.

Did you miss the part where all but 3 of the terrorists arrested in Britain last were were born in Britain, and all of them had been raised there? That 4 of them were White guys? No one thought little 21-year old Don Stewart would be capable of something like that either. But he was.

Richard Reid and Zacharias Moussaoui were Europeans that, while they did have a long-standard hatred of the US, they were not "born into" Western hatred. What's your excuse there?

There are hundreds of millions of people throughout the world that hate the US. And yes, while 95% of them may look a certain way, there's a small group that provide a wealth of options. Do you seriously believe that there aren't White people that hate the US? That women aren't at least a small part of that group? It doesn't take millions to bring down a plane, it only takes one. We don't need a huge group. Are you seriously so deluded that you think someone couldn't easily find a person, even a few dozen, of any background, of any sex, of any race, that would be willing to do whatever anyone wanted them to? They don't even have to hate the US they just have to be someone with enough hatred for the world to do something so vile.

Young people in particular are very susceptible to what amounts to brain-washing. In a small amount of time you can make a disenchanted teenager think and do damn near whatever you want. That's why al Qaeda is eating up these teenage converts to Islam.

Jim Jones, David Koresh, Charles Manson. Just a few names off the top of my head to display what the power of suggestion and a relatively small amount of time can do for you. Any one of those guys could have had their followers kill planeloads of people and it would have unquestionably been done. And probably have been done by a Young White Woman.

If you seriously are so deluded in your belief that only brown Muslim people want to commit heinous crimes then you might want to call up the British police and tell them to release Oliver Savant, Don Stewart, and Brian Young. Surely they had nothing to do with all this recent hub-bub in Britain. I mean, they're White for chris'sakes. Everyone knows white guys don't do stuff like that. :rollseyes:

Quote:

Sounds like your idea is "there isn't much we can do except put a complete halt to our own lives so that nobody gets offended" approach to terrorism.

And it sounds like you've got a reading comprehension problem. I said I didn't have a problem with profiling, so stop assuming that because someone doesn't like your profiling nonsense that you need to reply with some drivel about how they must be some "PC liberal" and try actually addressing the point. This might be difficult for you to understand but I simply want a plan that works. Or at least works better. Not a plan with gigantic gaping holes you could walk a blind elephant through like the "If only we could profile we could solve all our problems" plan.

If you want to profile, fine, I don't care. But it won't mean a damn thing when it's all conducted and ran by the semi-retarded, lucky-if-they've-got-a-GED, couldn't-make-it-through-police-academy, TSA guys we've got now who can't pronounce psychological profiling or interrogation process, let alone actually do it, and when the other 99% of passengers that don't meet the "profiling criteria" get hustled through some of the laxest "security" known to man.

There's a reason why El-Al, the most secure airline in the world, focuses less on profiling and more on every passenger on the flight. While some people are filtered out and more rigorously checked everyone gets checked in a manner that we wouldn't even do to the ones we did pull out due to profiling. Because, when push comes to shove, we're still more worried about how expensive and time-consuming such an operation would be rather than how much safer it might make us; and we don't want Americans to be interrogated before every flight. God forbid we hurt someone's feelings.

Originally posted by sigma:

Originally posted by muntus:

Originally posted by sigma:
Moussaoui is a common Muslim name in Western Europe and Morocco, those of Moor descent.

Fixed.

It doesn't matter if it sounds Muslim or not. If it is a Muslim name, "common sense profiling" should be used.

So now you're "profiling" as extended from people are who Muslim, but realising that's impossible to determine, we've branched out to people with either Muslim-sounding names or people with Muslim last names whether they're actually Muslim or not. What about people with Muslim first names? Maybe Omar Smith?

And what about women? You want to target all Muslims, and all those with Muslim or Muslm-sounding names. But there's been no Muslim women arrested for terrorism. If you wanna really "profile", statistically-speaking a White Male is more likely to be a terrorist on a plane than a Woman with a Muslim last name. So, what then? Ignore the same statistics because we don't like what they say?

From the USA Today article "Most of those named in the list were London residents. All had Muslim names, many of which are common in Pakistan. The youngest person was 17, the oldest 35."

Originally posted by muntus:

Originally posted by sigma:

Originally posted by muntus:

Originally posted by sigma:
Moussaoui is a common Muslim name in Western Europe and Morocco, those of Moor descent.

Fixed.

It doesn't matter if it sounds Muslim or not. If it is a Muslim name, "common sense profiling" should be used.

So now you're "profiling" as extended from people are who Muslim, but realising that's impossible to determine, we've branched out to people with either Muslim-sounding names or people with Muslim last names whether they're actually Muslim or not. What about people with Muslim first names? Maybe Omar Smith?

And what about women? You want to target all Muslims, and all those with Muslim or Muslm-sounding names. But there's been no Muslim women arrested for terrorism. If you wanna really "profile", statistically-speaking a White Male is more likely to be a terrorist on a plane than a Woman with a Muslim last name. So, what then? Ignore the same statistics because we don't like what they say?

From the USA Today article "Most of those named in the list were London residents. All had Muslim names, many of which are common in Pakistan. The youngest person was 17, the oldest 35."

You might want to read a bit, rather than just post some excerpts.

They all had Muslim names that they went by.. But the names of the ones I was referring to were still legally the "White" names. For example, yes, Oliver Savant "had a Muslim name" so your excerpt is correct, but he was still Oliver Savant. That's what it would say on his ID, on his passport, on the computer when he checked in, etc.

Speaking of name-changes. What about Muslims that change their names to something "White" like "James Eggermeyer". So I guess we need to revise the criteria once so that it's now: Muslims (if we can somehow determine that), people with Muslim last names, people with Muslim-sounding last names, and people who look Muslim. And we still haven't decided on what to do about the women, correct? And what about those with Muslim first names? What about guys that are clearly white, have white first and last names, but maybe look a little Muslim? You know, they've just got some look about them. Them too?

Man, you keep it up and eventually you'll have us all included in your profiling criteria. And there lies the rub.

Originally posted by sigma:

Originally posted by jthursby:
I have a 15 year old white girl and I can tell you no I repeat NO amount of coaxing would make her do anything beyond go to the mall, buy clothes and surf pervspace. I think you are wrong in that assumtion. And it is a BROAD assumtion on your part not anyone elses. You think that terrorist can recruit non-islamic people to go blow themselves and others up? What is the promise?, all the latte's and chino's they want? That assumtion is insane. You have to be born into western hatred to ever contemplate doing something so stupid. most of us were not. Thats blame passing instead of looking at a core solution. Sounds like your idea is "there isn't much we can do except put a complete halt to our own lives so that nobody gets offended" approach to terrorism.
Thats a big stinking pile and you know it.

Jim T.

Yeah, I know a Muslim that won't attack the US, therefore the same must old true for all of them, right? Yeah, a sample of one proves your point. Talk about a big stinking pile.

Did you miss the part where all but 3 of the terrorists arrested in Britain last were were born in Britain, and all of them had been raised there? That 4 of them were White guys? No one thought little 21-year old Don Stewart would be capable of something like that either. But he was.

Richard Reid and Zacharias Moussaoui were Europeans that, while they did have a long-standard hatred of the US, they were not "born into" Western hatred. What's your excuse there?

There are hundreds of millions of people throughout the world that hate the US. And yes, while 95% of them may look a certain way, there's a small group that provide a wealth of options. Do you seriously believe that there aren't White people that hate the US? That women aren't at least a small part of that group? It doesn't take millions to bring down a plane, it only takes one. We don't need a huge group. Are you seriously so deluded that you think someone couldn't easily find a person, even a few dozen, of any background, of any sex, of any race, that would be willing to do whatever anyone wanted them to? They don't even have to hate the US they just have to be someone with enough hatred for the world to do something so vile.

Young people in particular are very susceptible to what amounts to brain-washing. In a small amount of time you can make a disenchanted teenager think and do damn near whatever you want. That's why al Qaeda is eating up these teenage converts to Islam.

Jim Jones, David Koresh, Charles Manson. Just a few names off the top of my head to display what the power of suggestion and a relatively small amount of time can do for you. Any one of those guys could have had their followers kill planeloads of people and it would have unquestionably been done. And probably have been done by a Young White Woman.

If you seriously are so deluded in your belief that only brown Muslim people want to commit heinous crimes then you might want to call up the British police and tell them to release Oliver Savant, Don Stewart, and Brian Young. Surely they had nothing to do with all this recent hub-bub in Britain. I mean, they're White for chris'sakes. Everyone knows white guys don't do stuff like that. :rollseyes:

Quote:

Sounds like your idea is "there isn't much we can do except put a complete halt to our own lives so that nobody gets offended" approach to terrorism.

And it sounds like you've got a reading comprehension problem. I said I didn't have a problem with profiling, so stop assuming that because someone doesn't like your profiling nonsense that you need to reply with some drivel about how they must be some "PC liberal" and try actually addressing the point. This might be difficult for you to understand but I simply want a plan that works. Or at least works better. Not a plan with gigantic gaping holes you could walk a blind elephant through like the "If only we could profile we could solve all our problems" plan.

If you want to profile, fine, I don't care. But it won't mean a damn thing when it's all conducted and ran by the semi-retarded, lucky-if-they've-got-a-GED, couldn't-make-it-through-police-academy, TSA guys we've got now who can't pronounce psychological profiling or interrogation process, let alone actually do it, and when the other 99% of passengers that don't meet the "profiling criteria" get hustled through some of the laxest "security" known to man.

There's a reason why El-Al, the most secure airline in the world, focuses less on profiling and more on every passenger on the flight. While some people are filtered out and more rigorously checked everyone gets checked in a manner that we wouldn't even do to the ones we did pull out due to profiling. Because, when push comes to shove, we're still more worried about how expensive and time-consuming such an operation would be rather than how much safer it might make us; and we don't want Americans to be interrogated before every flight. God forbid we hurt someone's feelings.

Your right sigma, we are all wrong, go about it your way.

sounds like typical liberal drivel, no matter what anyone says its wrong. You win we all give up.

Jim T.

Guilt trips are the weapons of 8th grade girls, not politicians.

Originally posted by sigma:
Man, you keep it up and eventually you'll have us all included in your profiling criteria. And there lies the rub.

Better than including nobody because someone might get offended.

US - No hand luggage - end of
UK - Were gonna check all hand luggage, result serious delays and mayhem

Originally posted by jthursby:
Your right sigma, we are all wrong, go about it your way. sounds like typical liberal drivel, no matter what anyone says its wrong. You win we all give up.

Jim T.

Yes, a person that likes profiling but doesn't agree with you that it will do something in this case must be a Liberal.

I thought you were just ignorant which I could blame you for but apparently you're just a [censored] moron, and that's not your fault, it's just the way God made you. Let me know when you want to actually have an intelligent discussion presuming that's something that you're at least capable of doing. I long for something outside of your poorly-composed "anyone that disagrees with me must be a Liberal" responses.

Originally posted by muntus:

Originally posted by sigma:
Man, you keep it up and eventually you'll have us all included in your profiling criteria. And there lies the rub.

Better than including nobody because someone might get offended.

One more time for those that are slow -- not liking profiling in this case ain't got a damn thing to do about "offending" people. I challenge you to go back and find anywhere in this thread where I mentioned offending someone as a reason not to profile. I will PayPal you $100 right now if you can find one.

I don't give a flying [censored] about "offending" people. I do care about a system that works, not one that gives the illusion of something that works while weakening the overall security because, all else being equal, if you focus more time and energy on one thing you lose focus on everything else. If you know what you're looking for, profiling works fine. Problem is -- we don't.

Let me know when you can figure out how profiling could have stopped any of the 19 9/11 hijackers. Or how it could have stopped Richard Reid. Or stop any of the 23 recently arrested presumed terrorists in Britain. Because the world's leading security experts would love to hear it.

Without the benefit of hindsight none of them would have aroused any undue suspicion.
No one would have thought anything of a guy carrying a boxcutter at the time of 9/11, most of them had relatively clean records, had been here for some time, were not known for their relgious or poltiical activism at all, were well-educated men trained to act perfectly normal under questioning, and at the time were not known to have travelled to terrorist camps. They would have gotten through security no matter what.
No one would have thought to check inside the soles of Richard Reids shoes.
No one would have thought to check the sport drinks that these recent British guys had on them, they were mostly British born, all British-educated, and largely perfectly "normal" people with no major criminal records and no known connection with terrorist organizations. They would have boarded and blown up their planes as planned. The best chance in that case is that perhaps their relative young age might have made them crack if sufficient pressure was applied by interrogation/interviewing a la El-Al. But there's no way we'd apply the kind of pressure that El-Al does to passengers with their Mossad interrogation techniques. It would never fly in the US, neither on a selective scale nor on a total population scale.

Thank you Sigma!
No one wants to be inconvenienced by increased security at the airport but in order to be effective the measures have to be applied uniformly across the board. If you don't think the terrorist are smart enough to work around a profile you wrong.

Even Chernoff made the same point on Fox this morning, that terror groups would learn to use attackers outside standard profiles... and that makes him a driveling liberal?

I'm not concerned about offending people, but I am concerned with our government discriminating against certain people (more than they already do). I also believe that we need to really study the safety improvements for actions versus the harm they cause to people BEFORE we just implement them knee-jerk.

You must treat everyone equally and interfere with their lives as little as possible. I think banning beverages and making people check basic toiletries is excessive, and nobody really studied the added safety before implementing it.

That is not coming from a liberal point of view, but a libertarian one.

Wow the last time I checked I thought I was in the United States of America, a country founded on ideals like Freedom and Liberty, guess I was wrong.

Our current system obviously does not work, yet nobody seems to have a problem with cranking up the dial a bit. I would be perfectly happy with a much more lax policy, but then again I'm not the typical American that eats up the spoon fed fear-inducing drivel that the media (on any part of the spectrum) is more than happy to churn out. I suppose that is what the terrorists really want, and that is what they are getting.

Remember folks, the main part of Terrorism is Terror. Without that, the whole terrorism thing just doesn't work.

Originally posted by deedum:
US - No hand luggage - end of
UK - Were gonna check all hand luggage, result serious delays and mayhem

Don't worry, once everyone stops hyperventilating things will return to normal. "Normal" of course being the world where putting your shoes through the x-ray machine is an effective security measure.

But still no better ideas from you huh sigma? Just attacks and name calling? Figures, who's the ass now? Thats right you. Just attack ideas you don't like while offering NOTHING else. Typical.

Jim T.

PS its easy to be an ass when you hide under the cloak of a pseudonym.

Calling sigma an ass, while you're having your own special little tantrum, seems to make a point different from the one you intended. And do you ever play that pseudonym card on JaTo and TourDeForce?

Are you sure this is where you want this discussion to go?

Originally posted by jthursby:
But still no better ideas from you huh sigma? Just attacks and name calling? Figures, who's the ass now? Thats right you. Just attack ideas you don't like while offering NOTHING else. Typical.

Jim T.

PS its easy to be an ass when you hide under the cloak of a pseudonym.

First of all, it is a logical fallacy to believe that because someone recognizes some plan as, erm, stupid, that they must have a "better" alternative plan to propose.

Secondly, You must be more stupid than I thought. Does your reading comprehension suffer when sentences extended beyond 10 words? Would it help if I broke my admittedly long-winded posts into chapters so you have time for a juice break? I'd actually create a bulleted list of what my "better ideas" (IMHO) were, but at this point I'm not sure you would actually read and understand it nor do I think I could draw enough pretty pictures to help you out.

PS I don't see how going by "sigma" rather than "Mark" makes any difference in what I say, but I make no secret of my "real" identity and lots of people here either know me personally or at least know my real name.

Man, who gives a crtap about who's offended and who's singled out.

When I travel I want to make sure I don't end up as hamburger at 30,000ft. So check everyone and anyone you thiuk looks, acts, smells or sounds suspicious.

It's the over-zealous liberal POV that some of you guys stand for, that is hated by these bastards. So you guys crying about "fairness" as a right of everyone, will and is being used against you to kill you. Kind of oxymoronic if you ask me.

To effen bad if you look like a suspect - you wanna fly - deal with the consequences.

Originally posted by ZoomZoom Diva:
I'm not concerned about offending people, but I am concerned with our government discriminating against certain people (more than they already do). I also believe that we need to really study the safety improvements for actions versus the harm they cause to people BEFORE we just implement them knee-jerk.

You must treat everyone equally and interfere with their lives as little as possible. I think banning beverages and making people check basic toiletries is excessive, and nobody really studied the added safety before implementing it.

That is not coming from a liberal point of view, but a libertarian one.

Fine. No studied added security benefits - granted. My questions for you then are:

1. Given the circumstances, what were the potential benefits of the policy - at least short term?

2. While a study of the proposed new policies is going on, do you shut down the airports? For how long? At what cost? Or do you maintain the status quo which would have done NOTHING to stop a potential follow up terror effort?

3. Given the possibility of a potential follow up terror effort, what do you suppose are the potential concequences of NOT implementing the policies cited?

4. What is the better system you propose? That is something we're all interested in.

I don't care about what will NOT work. I want to know what WILL work.

Originally posted by Stazi:
Man, who gives a crtap about who's offended and who's singled out.

When I travel I want to make sure I don't end up as hamburger at 30,000ft. So check everyone and anyone you thiuk looks, acts, smells or sounds suspicious.

To quote Ron White, "If I'm standing in line behind someone to get on a plane and they need two buckets of phlegm to say their name, I'm checking their shoes for fuses, and I don't care who sees me do it!"

Originally posted by Stazi:
Man, who gives a crtap about who's offended and who's singled out.

When I travel I want to make sure I don't end up as hamburger at 30,000ft. So check everyone and anyone you thiuk looks, acts, smells or sounds suspicious.

It's the over-zealous liberal POV that some of you guys stand for, that is hated by these bastards. So you guys crying about "fairness" as a right of everyone, will and is being used against you to kill you. Kind of oxymoronic if you ask me.

To effen bad if you look like a suspect - you wanna fly - deal with the consequences.

Exactly.

Heres' the part I don't get. If we aren't profiling, how do we know it doesn't work? Some people sure think it wouldn't work, but how can we know it won't work unless we try it for a period of time? It makes sense to me to try every tool in the box and see if they all aren't effective to a measure of degree. Arguing that we shouldn't alter our tactics in this way or that because the terrorists can alter their's is a moot point. We want to make the whole process of killing people more difficult for the terrorists. If they have to look differently, use more sophisticated weapons, recruit 15 year old white chicks(

), all the better. It makes it harder for them to succeed and easier for them to screw something up. Think about it, it used to only take a pair of boxcutters to kill 2,000 people. Now it's not that easy.

And here's my flame bait: The terrorists profile against us. Don't we have the right to profile against them if it might save someone's life? Don't we have an obligation to our citizens and our guests who travel here to do everything we can to prevent even one death?

Originally posted by PDXSVT:
Calling sigma an ass, while you're having your own special little tantrum, seems to make a point different from the one you intended. And do you ever play that pseudonym card on JaTo and TourDeForce?

Are you sure this is where you want this discussion to go?

My e-mail addy is in my profile for EVERYBODY to see. I personally know many CEGers from the SE & beyond, so I'm not hiding behind an online pseudonym. Neither have I called anybody an ass to my recallection - unless I was obviously just playin'. I am not now, or ever been, a hateful person. Like so many, I seek answers.

Originally posted by sigma:
I'd actually create a bulleted list of what my "better ideas" (IMHO) were, ...

Let's have it. I've been asking for this information from ANYBODY who would denounce profiling, and I've done it in a civil manner, I thought. Or don't you think I have the smarts to figure out your fancy writin'.

Originally posted by TourDeForce:

Originally posted by PDXSVT:
Calling sigma an ass, while you're having your own special little tantrum, seems to make a point different from the one you intended. And do you ever play that pseudonym card on JaTo and TourDeForce?

Are you sure this is where you want this discussion to go?

My e-mail addy is in my profile for EVERYBODY to see. I personally know many CEGers from the SE & beyond, so I'm not hiding behind an online pseudonym. Neither have I called anybody an ass to my recallection - unless I was obviously just playin'. I am not now, or ever been, a hateful person. Like so many, I seek answers.

Originally posted by sigma:
I'd actually create a bulleted list of what my "better ideas" (IMHO) were, ...

Let's have it. I've been asking for this information from ANYBODY who would denounce profiling, and I've done it in a civil manner, I thought. Or don't you think I have the smarts to figure out your fancy writin'.

Heh, They can't or wont, they drag the issue out until its something far from it's original intent, eveyone is argueing and the original context of the debate is lost. Like I've been saying TYPICAL behavior. No answers, just smoke and mirrors.

Jim T.

Originally posted by jthursby:

Originally posted by TourDeForce:

Originally posted by PDXSVT:
Calling sigma an ass, while you're having your own special little tantrum, seems to make a point different from the one you intended. And do you ever play that pseudonym card on JaTo and TourDeForce?

Are you sure this is where you want this discussion to go?

My e-mail addy is in my profile for EVERYBODY to see. I personally know many CEGers from the SE & beyond, so I'm not hiding behind an online pseudonym. Neither have I called anybody an ass to my recallection - unless I was obviously just playin'. I am not now, or ever been, a hateful person. Like so many, I seek answers.

Originally posted by sigma:
I'd actually create a bulleted list of what my "better ideas" (IMHO) were, ...

Let's have it. I've been asking for this information from ANYBODY who would denounce profiling, and I've done it in a civil manner, I thought. Or don't you think I have the smarts to figure out your fancy writin'.

Heh, They can't or wont, they drag the issue out until its something far from it's original intent, eveyone is argueing and the original context of the debate is lost. Like I've been saying TYPICAL behavior. No answers, just smoke and mirrors.

Jim T.

Quote:

I said muslim people, not just LOOKING muslim. ALL of them, and if we piss them off, tough [censored].

And this is your solution?

IT WON'T WORK! The reasons why it won't work have been layout to you already but somehow you just can't see it. What happens when they(the terrorists) change the profile? You'll miss them because you're looking through a pin hole and not seeing the whole picture. Do you think they're going to send out a memo?
This question was asked of you before and got no answer so lets try again...how will you spot the Muslim? By name, skin color, summer camp resume, turbans? It is the 2nd largest religion(Islam) on Earth you know. You seem to think this is some great con vs lid debate but it's not so you can put that one to rest.

Here's my answer.

Quote:

No one wants to be inconvenienced by increased security at the airport but in order to be effective the measures have to be applied uniformly across the board.

You have to cast a broad net to catch these people. You won't catch them all but you're much more likely to catch them this way than with a profile. Part of their planning is how to defeat security and a profile is easily side stepped.

Originally posted by RT and his SE:

Originally posted by jthursby:

Originally posted by TourDeForce:

Originally posted by PDXSVT:
Calling sigma an ass, while you're having your own special little tantrum, seems to make a point different from the one you intended. And do you ever play that pseudonym card on JaTo and TourDeForce?

Are you sure this is where you want this discussion to go?

My e-mail addy is in my profile for EVERYBODY to see. I personally know many CEGers from the SE & beyond, so I'm not hiding behind an online pseudonym. Neither have I called anybody an ass to my recallection - unless I was obviously just playin'. I am not now, or ever been, a hateful person. Like so many, I seek answers.

Originally posted by sigma:
I'd actually create a bulleted list of what my "better ideas" (IMHO) were, ...

Let's have it. I've been asking for this information from ANYBODY who would denounce profiling, and I've done it in a civil manner, I thought. Or don't you think I have the smarts to figure out your fancy writin'.

Heh, They can't or wont, they drag the issue out until its something far from it's original intent, eveyone is argueing and the original context of the debate is lost. Like I've been saying TYPICAL behavior. No answers, just smoke and mirrors.

Jim T.

Quote:

I said muslim people, not just LOOKING muslim. ALL of them, and if we piss them off, tough [censored].

And this is your solution?

IT WON'T WORK! The reasons why it won't work have been layout to you already but somehow you just can't see it. What happens when they(the terrorists) change the profile? You'll miss them because you're looking through a pin hole and not seeing the whole picture. Do you think they're going to send out a memo?
This question was asked of you before and got no answer so lets try again...how will you spot the Muslim? By name, skin color, summer camp resume, turbans? It is the 2nd largest religion(Islam) on Earth you know. You seem to think this is some great con vs lid debate but it's not so you can put that one to rest.

Here's my answer.

Quote:

No one wants to be inconvenienced by increased security at the airport but in order to be effective the measures have to be applied uniformly across the board.

You have to cast a broad net to catch these people. You won't catch them all but you're much more likely to catch them this way than with a profile. Part of their planning is how to defeat security and a profile is easily side stepped.

Ahh a suggestion finally. The "we may get lucky approach". Thats what it seems we have been doing up till now.

Jim T.

Quote:

Heres' the part I don't get. If we aren't profiling, how do we know it doesn't work? Some people sure think it wouldn't work, but how can we know it won't work unless we try it for a period of time?

Um, we are profiling. And how do we know it doesn't work? We were profiling before 9/11. Didn't work so well, did it?

The difference is that we didn't profile on something as open-ended and ultimately useless as whether or not a person is Brown. We profile based on criminal activity, suspicious movements, and other items that directly relate to crime. But even those capabilities are limited by a lack of law enforcement cooperation and some civil liberties laws that make some things like finances and unususal spending or purchasing habits unattainable. And ultimately limited by the fact that even "good guys" with no records can commit heinous crimes.

And what did the terrorists do? They adapted.

. They went through pains to ensure that the people they hired stayed out of trouble. The started revruiting within a nation and limited movements that might arouse suspicion. They knew the profile and they altered their tactics to bypass it. It's how they got 9/11 done. It's how Richard Reid got a bomb on the plane inside his shoe. And it's how these British guys would have gotten their bombs on their planes.

Quote:

Think about it, it used to only take a pair of boxcutters to kill 2,000 people. Now it's not that easy.

"Not that easy"? Now it only takes a sport drink and an iPod. Sounds pretty damned easy to me. We got damned lucky that one wasn't carried out thanks to that tip from Pakistan.

Originally posted by TourDeForce:
Let's have it. I've been asking for this information from ANYBODY who would denounce profiling, and I've done it in a civil manner, I thought.

You should know. You brought up El-Al yourself, which I've frequently mentioned as doing it right, albeit a bit "further" than you can get away with in the US.

This will be verbose, the last paragraph has the short and sweet of it...

El-Al does profile, yes, albeit in a completely different way than people here of thinking when they think of profiling. I don't have an issue with profiling. I have an issue with thinking that profiling is actually going to catch anyone. That's not what profiling does. Profiling doesn't catch people, it simply says "there's something unusual with this one" and sets it aside for closer look. There's nothing unusual about a Muslim on a flight or a guy named Ahkmed. There is something unusual about a bunch of passengers of varying last names who all specifically request seats in an area of the plane well-hidden by a bulkhead. Profiling would set them aside for further questioning and more in-depth look to see if there's any commonalities amongst those passengers. It doesn't go, "Hey, you, Muslim, Step Aside." Not because that would offend Muslims, because you have a finite amount of time and resources and if your profile focuses on the Muslim guy it ignores those guys who really are illustrating potentially suspiscious behavior.

El-Al doesn't profile based primarily off the way a person looks. Whether they're Muslim or not. Or what they're last name is. Those are factors in the algorithm yes, but the meat of their system looks at criminal history, past travel arrangements, any unusual discrepancies in your financials. Passenges are subjected to interviews by trained personnel looking for anything remotely suspiscious. Most importantly every single passenger is subjected to the same profiling routine. White people or people with the last name of Smith don't get a free pass simply because they're White.

There is a very significant root difference between the way that El-Al does security and the way that the TSA does security. The difference is that the TSA is looking for something and El-Al is looking for someone.

Looking for a weapon, looking for a Muslim, looking for a Brown guy, it's all looking for something. Things change easily. You change the weapon to whatever they're not looking for at the time. You choose people that don't match the profile.

But people are much more difficult to change. Fundamentally there are certain characteristics between terrorists that are MUCH less likely to change than what color a person is. Trained psychological profilers, as opposed to the incredible bureaucratic inefficiency and display of retard-dom that is the TSA, can pick these behaviors out based on responses to questions or how a person acts/reacts.

Terrorists can be White, Black, or Brown. Might have Muslim last names or might not. Might be Muslim might not. Might even be female. The might have boxcutters, bombs, guns, or even laced sport drinks. But they're all farking nutjobs. You can change to recruiting teenage white girls, but you're still gonna have to find one that's a wacko, that shares the same inherent characteristics of the Muslim men you could have gotten, if you want her to do the same thing.

Does it work? Well, the most targetted airline in the world hasn't had a single terrorist attempt since they changed the way they thought of security.

Plain and Simple: Start looking for wackos and nutjobs, stop just looking for bombs that are obviously changing faster than you even know what to look for, and don't start looking for a "profile" that can also change faster than you even know what to look for.

Originally posted by jthursby:

Originally posted by RT and his SE:

Originally posted by jthursby:

Originally posted by TourDeForce:

Originally posted by PDXSVT:
Calling sigma an ass, while you're having your own special little tantrum, seems to make a point different from the one you intended. And do you ever play that pseudonym card on JaTo and TourDeForce?

Are you sure this is where you want this discussion to go?

My e-mail addy is in my profile for EVERYBODY to see. I personally know many CEGers from the SE & beyond, so I'm not hiding behind an online pseudonym. Neither have I called anybody an ass to my recallection - unless I was obviously just playin'. I am not now, or ever been, a hateful person. Like so many, I seek answers.

Originally posted by sigma:
I'd actually create a bulleted list of what my "better ideas" (IMHO) were, ...

Let's have it. I've been asking for this information from ANYBODY who would denounce profiling, and I've done it in a civil manner, I thought. Or don't you think I have the smarts to figure out your fancy writin'.

Heh, They can't or wont, they drag the issue out until its something far from it's original intent, eveyone is argueing and the original context of the debate is lost. Like I've been saying TYPICAL behavior. No answers, just smoke and mirrors.

Jim T.

Quote:

I said muslim people, not just LOOKING muslim. ALL of them, and if we piss them off, tough [censored].

And this is your solution?

IT WON'T WORK! The reasons why it won't work have been layout to you already but somehow you just can't see it. What happens when they(the terrorists) change the profile? You'll miss them because you're looking through a pin hole and not seeing the whole picture. Do you think they're going to send out a memo?
This question was asked of you before and got no answer so lets try again...how will you spot the Muslim? By name, skin color, summer camp resume, turbans? It is the 2nd largest religion(Islam) on Earth you know. You seem to think this is some great con vs lid debate but it's not so you can put that one to rest.

Here's my answer.

Quote:

No one wants to be inconvenienced by increased security at the airport but in order to be effective the measures have to be applied uniformly across the board.

You have to cast a broad net to catch these people. You won't catch them all but you're much more likely to catch them this way than with a profile. Part of their planning is how to defeat security and a profile is easily side stepped.

Ahh a suggestion finally. The "we may get lucky approach". Thats what it seems we have been doing up till now.

Jim T.

Your reading skills have failed you once again!
Let's make it simple so you can explain your great wisdom to the rest of us lay people.

Question #1
How will you spot the Muslims?

Question #2
What happens when they stop fitting the profile?

Originally posted by sigma:

Originally posted by TourDeForce:
Let's have it. I've been asking for this information from ANYBODY who would denounce profiling, and I've done it in a civil manner, I thought.

You should know. You brought up El-Al yourself, which I've frequently mentioned as doing it right, albeit a bit "further" than you can get away with in the US.

El-Al profiles as part of their system - which you admit works, yet you insist that profiling can't be done to any degree that has been suggested in this thread, and further that the El-Al system cannot be implimented here.

I ask for a solution & you offer one that you freely confess we cannot use. Not much of a solution then is it...

C'mon, Sigma! Throw some meat into the discussion!

Now now, TourDeForce. You're a bright guy and I respect your, but you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. And perhaps I'm not being clear, but I'm certainly being verbose.

Originally posted by TourDeForce:

Originally posted by sigma:

Originally posted by TourDeForce:
Let's have it. I've been asking for this information from ANYBODY who would denounce profiling, and I've done it in a civil manner, I thought.

You should know. You brought up El-Al yourself, which I've frequently mentioned as doing it right, albeit a bit "further" than you can get away with in the US.

El-Al profiles as part of their system - which you admit works, yet you insist that profiling can't be done to any degree that has been suggested in this thread, and further that the El-Al system cannot be implimented here.

I ask for a solution & you offer one that you freely confess we cannot use. Not much of a solution then is it...

C'mon, Sigma! Throw some meat into the discussion!

I never insisted that profiling can't be done to "the degree that has been suggested in this thread". I said that it wouldn't yield anything when done "in the way that has been suggested in this thread". It can be done, it just wouldn't do anything because the type of profiling suggested in this thread is NOT the same type of profiling that El-Al does.

Like I said, profiling works when you know what you're looking for. El-Al's profiling works because they are looking for terrorists. They know what they're looking for and their system is designed to look for it. Looking for Terrorists is not the same thing as looking for Muslims. If El-Al profiled every Muslim on their flights the plane would never leave the ground; yet despite not checking every Muslim or anywhere even close to every one, and despite being the most targetted airline in the world, they have no security problems.

The profiling suggested within this thread looks for Muslims. What does that get you? Nothing. At best it might help find terrorists within the Muslim population if it was executed properly with the proper infrastructure underneath to research people, interview them, and monitor them before and after the security check. That's a dangerous presumption to make, that your terrorists will never change in demographic (although we know that they are) and that your underlying investigative infrastructure is thorough (which is we know it is not).

It's very simple -- Do you want to find Muslims or do you want to find Terrorists? Because that's the fundamental difference between the type of profiling suggested in this thread and the type of profiling done by El-Al.

Quote:

I ask for a solution & you offer one that you freely confess we cannot use. Not much of a solution then is it...

I didn't say we couldn't use it. I said they took it further than we could get away with in the US. Big difference there. We can't have the CIA interrogating people at the Gate, for example, but we could train our TSA agents in psychological profiling and observation techniques rather than them just being Bin Monkeys. Hell I'd be happy if they could find a friggin' knife that I throw into the bucket since I've gotten knives through security more often than not which instills so much faith in the system.

There are certainly aspects we can easily do here in the US without worrying about the ACLU throwing a hissy fit. And some of it will require a slight culture change. Better law enforcement cooperation which is still very lacking years after 9/11 would ensure that the crosschecked records are current and thorough. Having trained security personnel to ask specific poignant questions (that aren't always the same) to gauge reaction should be a basic cornerstone of security, but we only do it in the US on International flights and those entering the borders via car. At least US Customs and Border Patrol tries some sort of observational profiling with their very limited resources, but for domestic flights the TSA might as well be deaf, dumb, and blind.

At this point I'd honestly be happy if we could just get our half-assed "security" system and methods down that we've got right now. But what we really need is a mentality shift akin to the one that El-Al had in the 70's. But, frankly, it's all a moot point because, as long as the TSA is running it, nothing is going to get done. They can't even get something as simple as operating an X-Ray machine down, with people getting guns, knives, stun guns, and Lord knows what else through all the time. We certainly can't expect them to do something that is significantly more complicated.

If they're at the airport, you're too late and already failed. I suggest concentrating on keeping the terrorists from getting there in ways which preserve the Constitutional rights of all Americans. I would intensify those operations, and yes, leave the current flying experience of the flying public untouched unless you can do something with can prove results.

We need to determine recipies for liquid explosives and then if necessary ban those substances in a targeted manner. Target items that are not what the container says they are.

I liked Jay Leno's monologue. We're banning hairspray, perfume, makeup, and MP3 players. Are we being attacked by Al Qaeda or drag queens?

Originally posted by ZoomZoom Diva:
If they're on the plane, you're too late and already failed.

Fixed.

While I think it is rather impolite to disagree by editing somebody's statement, the least you can do is paraphrase properly by putting the altered part of the quote in brackets.

Originally posted by ZoomZoom Diva:
While I think it is rather impolite to disagree by editing somebody's statement, the least you can do is paraphrase properly by putting the altered part of the quote in brackets.

lmao are u serious. You sound like a girl. Wait, diva are you a girl?

Originally posted by muntus:

Originally posted by ZoomZoom Diva:
If they're on the plane, you're too late and already failed.

Fixed.

Hope that's better.

If you declare defeat if someone with motive arrives at the airport, what's the point in trying to discourage them? Do I have that part correct?

Well, you still try, but you've lost a very important battle. Now, they could bomb the terminal just as easily as the plane if they don't think they can make it on the plane. Also, in focusing excessively on what goes on the plane, you are causing great stress and inconvenience for everyone else.

Originally posted by ZoomZoom Diva:
Well, you still try, but you've lost a very important battle. Now, they could bomb the terminal just as easily as the plane if they don't think they can make it on the plane. Also, in focusing excessively on what goes on the plane, you are causing great stress and inconvenience for everyone else.

So if we make it easier to sneak explosives onto a plane, they won't bomb it? Of course not. Do you think the only reason they haven't bombed a terminal yet is because the planes are so easy to bomb? Please explain.

Who cares if someone is greatly stressed or inconvenienced if it might prevent one death? If the security measures at the airport cause such stress in some people, perhaps they are not fit to fly.

No, the biggest thing is we have succeeded in keeping them out of the terminal. We have infiltrated their plans and cracked down on the plots before they are launched.

I am definitely not one of those people who believe any action is OK if it might save a life. I think we need to look at it from a risk/reward point of view. Right now, I think we've gone too far out in punishing everyone for the potential actions of a very few. I think people need to allowed to fly with their basic toiletries and such, even if it means assuming a little risk.

Originally posted by ZoomZoom Diva:
I think people need to allowed to fly with their basic toiletries and such, even if it means assuming a little risk.

I will NOT have YOU choosing what risks are acceptable to me & my family. I will have every reasonable tool utilized to insure the safety of the flying public in general & my family in particular, thank you very much. I don't care how much stress YOU endure, my family are not pawns to be risked for sake of YOUR convenience.

What gives YOU the right to determine what measures are reasonable and what measures are not? I think we have gone beyond reasonable and into paranoia, which is a victory for the terrorists.

It's all about freedom and fighting government intrusion into our personal lives.

Originally posted by sigma:
I didn't say we couldn't use it. I said they took it further than we could get away with in the US. Big difference there.

Can't use it Vs. unable or not permitted to use it. Same result, yes? Bah, that's just quibbling, so I'll skip it.

Originally posted by sigma:
We can't have the CIA interrogating people at the Gate, for example, (why not?) but we could train our TSA agents in psychological profiling and observation techniques rather than them just being Bin Monkeys. There are certainly aspects we can easily do here in the US without worrying about the ACLU throwing a hissy fit. And some of it will require a slight culture change. Better law enforcement cooperation which is still very lacking years after 9/11 would ensure that the crosschecked records are current and thorough. Having trained security personnel to ask specific poignant questions (that aren't always the same) to gauge reaction should be a basic cornerstone of security, but we only do it in the US on International flights and those entering the borders via car. At least US Customs and Border Patrol tries some sort of observational profiling with their very limited resources, but for domestic flights the TSA might as well be deaf, dumb, and blind.

At this point I'd honestly be happy if we could just get our half-assed "security" system and methods down that we've got right now. But what we really need is a mentality shift akin to the one that El-Al had in the 70's. But, frankly, it's all a moot point because, as long as the TSA is running it, nothing is going to get done.... We certainly can't expect them to do something that is significantly more complicated.

That's kinda an insult to the TSA guys, & I don't think they deserve a lot of the harsh criticism being tossed their way. Sure, many of them are bin jockeys right now, but you can bet that is gonna change over time. I'm sure the government has been looking at what works & implimenting the appropriate techniques in key locations across the country. More training is coming, in process, and will intensify with each attempt to execute a terror plot. Heaven forbid there should be a successful attempt, what then for security? No measure will be too drastic. In the meantime, this discussion has put things into a more rational perspective for me, so perhaps my reaction was a bit rash, but the profiling of what we have seen to be the typical terrorist is still a usable tool in the overall effort IMHO. By your own admission (a few posts back) it is being successfully utilized to some degree by El-Al.

You almost touched on another potential problem for our air travel security efforts. Not the TSA as an organization, or the seeming lack of training, but the complexity of the air travel system. How many airports does El-Al have to monitor? How many DOMESTIC flights do they deal with? Now how many airports are in the U.S. that require monitoring?

Once you complete nationwide training of competent people in the major airports, some of the training is obsolete or is due for refreshing & adaptation - It's gonna take a while to get really revved up for this security. The difference in scale is MAMMOTH, and we'll certainly be looking to technology to make that task a bit more tame.

Freedom of movement has become very taken for granted in this country. Interstate flights should be considered the equal to international. After all, are we not a union of independent nation-states of sorts? A complex task is made more complex still because of sheer numbers. Frankly, these years since 9/11 I think GW & the government in general underestimated the scale of the threat. I suspect they thought they would be dealing with a few terror networks, a bunch of terror cells that they could take out or hunt down in a matter of months. The indoctrination, distrust, & hatered seem to be very deeply seeded and more expansive & passionate than I would have imagined. Scary stuff.

It's late, I'm babbling. Sorry. Good chatting with you.

<=== (* off to bed *)

Originally posted by ZoomZoom Diva:
It's all about freedom and fighting government intrusion into our personal lives.

No. It's all about staying alive & fighting terrorism until it is no longer an issue. This is not the kind of problem you can ignore & it will go away. You will eventually be impacted by it in a very personal & dramatic way if you don't address the threat. It is inevitable as long as the threat exists.

I'm sorry to say it, but the government is our friend on this one. The threat must be ELIMINATED.

OK, I was just baiting you with that last statement....

Originally posted by ZoomZoom Diva:
I think we have gone beyond reasonable and into paranoia, which is a victory for the terrorists.

No, a victory for the terrorists would have been blowing up a plane. Arresting them is a victory for the free world.

Originally posted by TourDeForce:

No. It's all about staying alive & fighting terrorism until it is no longer an issue. This is not the kind of problem you can ignore & it will go away. You will eventually be impacted by it in a very personal & dramatic way if you don't address the threat. It is inevitable as long as the threat exists.

I'm sorry to say it, but the government is our friend on this one. The threat must be ELIMINATED.

OK, I was just baiting you with that last statement....

Welcome to the United States of Fascism?

Originally posted by muntus:

No, a victory for the terrorists would have been blowing up a plane. Arresting them is a victory for the free world.

Is it really? The goal of terrorism is to inflict terror, it isn't just about a body count, but it is very psychological. If all they were concerned about was body count, do you think they would have chosen this route? Or even what they did on 9/11. Not even close.

Even though the plan of the bombings was not carried out, they still won, because all over the West the sheep in our societies are watching their news and trembling in fear over the thought of these attacks.

Originally posted by Pete D:
Welcome to the United States of Fascism?

So we defend against Islamo-fascism and we're the ones who are the fascists?

Originally posted by Pete D:

Originally posted by muntus:

No, a victory for the terrorists would have been blowing up a plane. Arresting them is a victory for the free world.

Is it really? The goal of terrorism is to inflict terror, it isn't just about a body count, but it is very psychological. If all they were concerned about was body count, do you think they would have chosen this route? Or even what they did on 9/11. Not even close.

Even though the plan of the bombings was not carried out, they still won, because all over the West the sheep in our societies are watching their news and trembling in fear over the thought of these attacks.

They create terror through death. Terror without death is not their goal. If indeed terror, even without death, was their ultimate goal(which it isn't), they would all study computer programming, acquire jobs in every sector they could, and unleash an electronic assault in order to shut down communications, banking, internet, and power grids. That would inflict more terror than blowing up planes.

So why the samll scale terror(blowing up planes instead of shutting down the continent)? Their ultimate goal is to kill the infidels. Terror is a nice by-product.

Originally posted by muntus:

Originally posted by Pete D:
Welcome to the United States of Fascism?

So we defend against Islamo-fascism and we're the ones who are the fascists?

If by defending ourselves you mean destroying the liberties of Americans without seeing any tangible benefit, then yes.

Originally posted by muntus:

They create terror through death. Terror without death is not their goal. If indeed terror, even without death, was their ultimate goal(which it isn't), they would all study computer programming, acquire jobs in every sector they could, and unleash an electronic assault in order to shut down communications, banking, internet, and power grids. That would inflict more terror than blowing up planes.

So why the samll scale terror(blowing up planes instead of shutting down the continent)? Their ultimate goal is to kill the infidels. Terror is a nice by-product.

I can't think of too many things that strikes fear in the heart of people more than death. Whether the death actually happens (like in 9/11) or is "foiled" (like in the recent plan) the terror still ensues. If they wanted nothing else than to kill as many Americans as possible they wouldn't be popping planes out of the sky. Despite what many people imply the leaders of these organizations are NOT stupid.

Muslims face extra checks in new travel crackdown
By Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent

THE Government is discussing with airport operators plans to introduce a screening system that allows security staff to focus on those passengers who pose the greatest risk.

The passenger-profiling technique involves selecting people who are behaving suspiciously, have an unusual travel pattern or, most controversially, have a certain ethnic or religious background.

The system would be much more sophisticated than simply picking out young men of Asian appearance. But it would cause outrage in the Muslim community because its members would be far more likely to be selected for extra checks.

Officials at the Department for Transport (DfT) have discussed the practicalities of introducing such a system with airport operators, including BAA. They believe that it would be more effective at identifying potential terrorists than the existing random searches.

They also say that it would greatly reduce queues at secur-ity gates, which caused lengthy delays at London airports yesterday for the fifth day running. Heathrow and Gatwick were worst affected, cancelling 69 and 27 flights respectively. BAA gave warning yesterday that the disruption would continue for the rest of the week.

So to summarize Sigmaâ�?��?�s and my own posts, I suggested profiling as a way to put a dent in terrorism. Sigmaâ�?��?�s immediate reply was to attack.

Quote:

Sigma,
Jesus Christ, put the profiling thing to rest. It's stupid.

Then when that method didnâ�?��?�t work but for one or two people, he resorted to sarcasm.

Quote:

Sigma,
I guess "we" only implies Christian-Americans.

When he knew EXACTLY what I meant by the statement.
And then more sarcasm instead of ideas.

Quote:

Sigma,
Because, you know, there are millions of Muslim-Americans in this country too that would have their lives altered in some way using your great idea.
So I guess the terrorist would still "have won".

And when that didnâ�?��?�t work we started name calling.

Quote:

Sigma,
I thought you were just ignorant which I could blame you for but apparently you're just a [censored] moron, and that's not your fault, it's just the way God made you. Let me know when you want to actually have an intelligent discussion presuming that's something that you're at least capable of doing. I long for something outside of your poorly-composed "anyone that disagrees with me must be a Liberal" responses.

Secondly, You must be more stupid than I thought. Does your reading comprehension suffer when sentences extended beyond 10 words? Would it help if I broke my admittedly long-winded posts into chapters so you have time for a juice break? I'd actually create a bulleted list of what my "better ideas" (IMHO) were, but at this point I'm not sure you would actually read and understand it nor do I think I could draw enough pretty pictures to help you out.

Then we change our previous statement but add something to make it look not quite as hypocritical as it should.

Quote:

Sigma,
Like I said, profiling works when you know what you're looking for.

Which is it? "Jesus Christ, put the profiling thing to rest its stupid", or "Like I said, profiling works when you know what you're looking for"
.
Can you answer that without sarcasm, calling me or anyone else stupid, and not try to sound so arrogant about your perceived â�?��?superior intelligence and powers of observationâ�?�?

Thank you,

Jim T.

Originally posted by jthursby:

Quote:

Sigma,
Jesus Christ, put the profiling thing to rest. It's stupid.

Then when that method didnâ�?��?�t work but for one or two people, he resorted to sarcasm.
Quote:

Sigma,
I guess "we" only implies Christian-Americans.

When he knew EXACTLY what I meant by the statement.
And then more sarcasm instead of ideas.

Quote:

Sigma,
Because, you know, there are millions of Muslim-Americans in this country too that would have their lives altered in some way using your great idea.
So I guess the terrorist would still "have won".

Um, that wasn't sarcasm.

Your "idea" was that we should yank out all Muslims as part of your "profiling" so that "we", as Americans, would not "have our lives altered in any way" by having to go through extra security.

That statement totally ignores the fact that you would be "altering the lives" of millions of Muslim-Americans with your "idea".

Hence my question if by "we", in the "we should not have our lives altered" referred to just Christian-Americans (though I suppose "non-Muslim-Americans" would have been a better description).

If your line of logic is that "if we alter an American's life the terrorists have won" then simply be executing your plan the terrorists have "won" because there's always going to be some innocent American who will be slightly inconvenienced by any change in security protocols.

Originally posted by jthursby:
Then we change our previous statement but add something to make it look not quite as hypocritical as it should.

Quote:

Sigma,
Like I said, profiling works when you know what you're looking for.

Which is it? "Jesus Christ, put the profiling thing to rest its stupid", or "Like I said, profiling works when you know what you're looking for"

The whole cut-and-paste out-of-context thing. The first quote was made in regards to the type of profiling suggested here. The "if we just look at every Muslim we're bound to catch them all" mentality. The second quote is in reference to the type of profiling that actually does something; as said in the quote -- profiling when you know what you're looking for.

I didn't change anything. I said that profiling works when you know what you're looking for WAY early in my posts. Hence the "Like I said" in the post that you quoted, that was referring to an earlier post.

Have you not yet figured out the difference between the type of profiling suggested in this thread by the likes of you and the type of profiling that actually gets things done? I don't know how else to make it any clearer for you. You seem to be the only one that doesn't get it.

Originally posted by sigma:

Originally posted by jthursby:

Quote:

Sigma,
Jesus Christ, put the profiling thing to rest. It's stupid.

Then when that method didnâ�?��?�t work but for one or two people, he resorted to sarcasm.
Quote:

Sigma,
I guess "we" only implies Christian-Americans.

When he knew EXACTLY what I meant by the statement.
And then more sarcasm instead of ideas.

Quote:

Sigma,
Because, you know, there are millions of Muslim-Americans in this country too that would have their lives altered in some way using your great idea.
So I guess the terrorist would still "have won".

Um, that wasn't sarcasm.

Your "idea" was that we should yank out all Muslims as part of your "profiling" so that "we", as Americans, would not "have our lives altered in any way" by having to go through extra security.

That statement totally ignores the fact that you would be "altering the lives" of millions of Muslim-Americans with your "idea".

Hence my question if by "we", in the "we should not have our lives altered" referred to just Christian-Americans (though I suppose "non-Muslim-Americans" would have been a better description).

If your line of logic is that "if we alter an American's life the terrorists have won" then simply be executing your plan the terrorists have "won" because there's always going to be some innocent American who will be slightly inconvenienced by any change in security protocols.

Originally posted by jthursby:
Then we change our previous statement but add something to make it look not quite as hypocritical as it should.

Quote:

Sigma,
Like I said, profiling works when you know what you're looking for.

Which is it? "Jesus Christ, put the profiling thing to rest its stupid", or "Like I said, profiling works when you know what you're looking for"

The whole cut-and-paste out-of-context thing. The first quote was made in regards to the type of profiling suggested here. The "if we just look at every Muslim we're bound to catch them all" mentality. The second quote is in reference to the type of profiling that actually does something; as said in the quote -- profiling when you know what you're looking for.

I didn't change anything. I said that profiling works when you know what you're looking for WAY early in my posts. Hence the "Like I said" in the post that you quoted, that was referring to an earlier post.

Have you not yet figured out the difference between the type of profiling suggested in this thread by the likes of you and the type of profiling that actually gets things done? I don't know how else to make it any clearer for you. You seem to be the only one that doesn't get it.

I get it just fine, I have from the start. We were both talking about profiling in one way shape or form. Your arrogance must block your powers of deduction. One word my friend, Hypocrite. You can twist it any way you want. Make whatever snide comments you like about my ability to read and understand your bombastic literary. We were probably closer in idea than than you thought, had you cared to look. I'm done.

Jim T.

Quote:

I get it just fine, I have from the start. We were both talking about profiling in one way shape or form. Your arrogance must block your powers of deduction. One word my friend, Hypocrite. You can twist it any way you want. Make whatever snide comments you like about my ability to read and understand your bombastic literary. We were probably closer in idea than than you thought, had you cared to look. I'm done.

Jim T.

"Closer in idea than [I] thought"?

I "cared to look" thanks. Here's your ideas:

Originally posted by jthursby:
start strip searching 30ish middle-eastern looking men and women before flights. Restrict their movement anywhere they go.

Your very next post:

Originally posted by jthursby:
I said muslim people, not just LOOKING muslim. ALL of them.

(your emphasis, not mine, and actually, as clearly evidenced above you did say "looking")

You were very explicit in your ideas on how to "profile" -- "strip-searching ALL 30-ish middle-eastern LOOKING men and women and ALL muslims" [we'll ignore the fact that almost none of the known terrorists are anywhere near the age of 30 or a woman so your 'profile' sucks; you would literally capture more terrorists by strip-searching all white guys than you would profiling 30-ish muslim men and women]. You were also very insistent that any new security measures not effect anyone outside this profile at all.

That is the only insight that you provided into your opinion on profiling and how it should work. If you think that's even remotely similar in idea to what I'm talking about you're still not getting it because it's damn near the total opposite.

I hope you guys can try and keep this civil. Pretty much, this has been a good debate and should stay that way.

The frozen assets list from CNN on the arrested terrorists from the UK. Well, I donâ�?��?�t see a single â�?��?Englishâ�?� sounding name in the bunch. Now my last name is easy to find its origin. Thursby. Itâ�?��?�s English and easy to figure out. Where you were born or live now has nothing to do with your ethnic background. So you were born English but changed youâ�?��?�re name to one of a Middle Eastern origin? (Cat Stevens) Red flag time. On the watch list. Itâ�?��?�s simple, no matter who says it isnâ�?��?�t.
Jim T.

â�?�¢ ALI, Abdula, Ahmed
DOB: Oct. 10, 1980
Address: Walthamstow, London, United Kingdom
â�?�¢ ALI, Cossor
DOB: December 4, 1982
Address: London, United Kingdom, E17
â�?�¢ ALI, Shazad, Khuram
DOB: June 11, 1979
Address: High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom
â�?�¢ HUSSAIN, Nabeel
DOB: March 10, 1984
Address: London, United Kingdom, E4
â�?�¢ HUSSAIN, Tanvir
DOB: Feb. 21, 1981
Address: Leyton, London, United Kingdom, E10
â�?�¢ HUSSAIN, Umair
DOB: Oct. 9, 1981
Address: London, United Kingdom, E14
â�?�¢ ISLAM, Umar
DOB: April 23, 1978
Address: High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom
â�?�¢ KAYANI, Waseem
DOB: April 28, 1977
Address: High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom
â�?�¢ KHAN, Assan, Abdullah
DOB: Oct. 24, 1984
Address: London, United Kingdom, E17
â�?�¢ KHAN, Waheed, Arafat
DOB: May 18, 1981
Address: London, United Kingdom, E17
â�?�¢ KHATIB, Osman, Adam
DOB: Dec. 7, 1986
Address: London, United Kingdom, E17
â�?�¢ PATEL, Abdul, Muneem
DOB: April 17, 1989
Address: London, United Kingdom, E5
â�?�¢ RAUF, Tayib
DOB: April 26, 1984
Address: Birmingham, United Kingdom
â�?�¢ SADDIQUE, Muhammed, Usman
DOB: April 23, 1982
Address: Walthamstow, London, United Kingdom, E17
â�?�¢ SARWAR, Assad
DOB: May 24, 1980
Address: High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom
â�?�¢ SAVANT, Ibrahim
DOB: Dec. 19, 1980
Address: London, United Kingdom, E17
â�?�¢ TARIQ, Amin, Asmin
DOB: June 7, 1983
Address: Walthamstow, London, United Kingdom, E17
â�?�¢ UDDIN, Shamin, Mohammed
DOB: Nov. 22, 1970
Address: Stoke Newington, London, United Kingdom
â�?�¢ ZAMAN, Waheed
DOB: May 27, 1984
Address: London, United Kingdom, E17

Does/should the Korematsu case have some bearing here?

Originally posted by PDXSVT:
Does/should the Korematsu case have some bearing here?

Thank you for adding this. I just started reading about the case. Very interesting.

I see the battle as one of ideals. Unfortunately, we're sacrificing our ideals because we're too focused on people. Everytime we step away from our ideals, the terrorists win.

Sure, we win battles when we arrest and kill terrorists, but we can't give up ground and sacrifice our ideals. A few lives are worth sacrtificing to keep American free.

Would you still say that if your family were the "few lives worth sacrificing"? I don't think so.

At least I wouldn't.

Personalizing policy decisions generally make for bad policy decisions. However, I do say it being fully aware that someone I love has every bit as much of a chance of being included as anyone else.

What I'm getting at is, if this became a US Gov. policy, you would be onboard with it, correct?

If, due to this policy, your family was killed by a terrorist act, would you reconsider your support for this policy?

Please, correct me if I'm reading you wrong on this.

Originally posted by TBoomer:
What I'm getting at is, if this became a US Gov. policy, you would be onboard with it, correct?

If, due to this policy, your family was killed by a terrorist act, would you reconsider your support for this policy?

Please, correct me if I'm reading you wrong on this.

While I can't speak for ZZD (so I will post my own opinion), I would like to think that I would still support the policy. The loss of many loved ones in my life has lead me to be a little bit of a fatalist.

On a slight tangent. I have to ask for those that seem to have the attitude that "anything is worth it, to save one (American) life" Does that apply to other things? Or just terrorism? For I am a numbers kind of guy, and on the list of preventable deaths in the US, terrorism doesn't even score high enough to be statistically significant.

I just think it's stupid to throw caution out out the window to save nothing but an extra 20-40 minutes in a line at an airport...or God forbid, you can't listen to some music on your flight. I suppose it is a matter of perspective and priority. The one that makes me laugh, though, are the people who are angry because they can't carry their shampoo on the plane. Who the hell washes their hair on a plane? Now, snake repellant, I could see...

Originally posted by TBoomer:
I just think it's stupid to throw caution out out the window to save nothing but an extra 20-40 minutes in a line at an airport...or God forbid, you can't listen to some music on your flight. I suppose it is a matter of perspective and priority. The one that makes me laugh, though, are the people who are angry because they can't carry their shampoo on the plane. Who the hell washes their hair on a plane? Now, snake repellant, I could see...

Most business travellers, who make up the vast majority of domestic travellers, don't check their bags. Therefore they carry everything they need for the week on their carry-on. For some people this could mean shampoo if they bring their own. For others it's lotions, makeups, contact lens solution, any countless other things.

For these people, not only are they having to arrive at the airport 1 to 2 hours earlier (and up to 3 if your airport isn't well setup for security) they now have to stand around after arriving for at least another 30 minutes. If you fly 2, 3, 4 times a week as many business travellers such as myself do, that adds up to a LOT of extra time. Time that's usually coming out of your probably already limited personal time.

And to make matters worse, aircraft have been designed around the fact that XX% of passengers won't check their luggage. And, occassionally, bags still didn't fit on planes. Now that these people are checking their stuff too a much larger percentage of baggage isn't fitting on the planes. Which means these business travellers now have a greater chance of arriving somewhere and being without their luggage while on a business trip -- not the kind of position many people want to find themselves in if they don't have this liquid they find so necessary.

Yes. I have never posted what I think without being able to support it if it were implemented. I would continue to support it even if someone I loved died. Liberty is worth it.

Tell me why you can carry knitting needles or a 7" wrench on a plane, but lip gloss is banned? There is no logic to the rules, as I am far more worried about what a knitting needle can do. I think banning basic toiletries is paranoid. Basic consumer electronics are now permitted, so the MP3 player is safe.

Also, keep in mind that passenger planes carry a substantial portion of the nation's air freight. If the number/voulme/weight of checked luggage increases, then the ability to carry cargo decreases. This reduces a revenue stream for the airline which will either lead to higher ticket prices and/or losses within the industry.

Liberty, maybe, but what about life? Wasn't that listed first?

Just fanning the fire here. Have a good evening!

Originally posted by TBoomer:
Liberty, maybe, but what about life? Wasn't that listed first?
Just fanning the fire here. Have a good evening!

Discussion is winding down here. Been fun!

I consider the balance between life and liberty like old Benny boy did:

Originally posted by Benjamin Franklin:
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Originally posted by ZoomZoom Diva:
I consider the balance between life and liberty like old Benny boy did:

Originally posted by Benjamin Franklin:
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

That's been bandied about for a long time. Again I querry, what liberty is being surrendered? None, as far as I can tell. BTW, privacy in an airport or on an aircraft is not a freedom or right. You're out in public & utilizing somebody elses equipment & facilities to get to your destination. The expectation of privacy is NIL. Anybody can still travel, it's just a little less convenient because you have to wait at passenger screening.

We define liberty differently. I take a broader definition. Not being able to take basic necessities with me on a carry-on bag is surrending liberty. Forcing people to spend extra hours of their valuable time to get on and off a plane is surrendering liberty. Screening needs to be quick, simple, and reliable. We need to allow people to bring normal items with them when they travel. We need to be reasonable about all this and stop paranoid knee-jerk reactions to everything.

We have gone beyond inconvenience to blind panic.

Quote:

Not being able to take basic necessities with me on a carry-on bag is surrending liberty.

But is it surrendering essential liberty? That's an important qualifier that I'm sure that Franklin said on purpose.

Originally posted by ZoomZoom Diva:
Tell me why you can carry knitting needles or a 7" wrench on a plane, but lip gloss is banned?

Give me lip gloss, or give me death!

Fine, the idea that a TSA agent can pull you out of line, interrogate you as much as he or she wants and deny you from boarding a flight without a single shred of evidence is a violation of essential liberty.

The first amendment right to assemble requires freedom of travel.

I interpret Benjamin Franklin to state all liberty is essential, not that only some types are.

Muntus, that's Patrick Henry you're paraphrasing...

Originally posted by ZoomZoom Diva:
Muntus, that's Patrick Henry you're paraphrasing...

Very good. You win a cookie.

Your interpretation of Ben is a bit over zealous IMHO. I think he was more reasonable than to say every little freakin' thing we do is an essential liberty - even if the exorcise that liberty endangers others. That's not logical or reasonable thinking.

Your liberties end when they infringe upon the liberies of others.

Less collective safety does not infringe on the liberties of others, and I believe that is exactly what Benjamin Franklin is referring to. He is very clearly saying liberty is more important than safety.

The ability to go about our daily lives and activities in a resonable manner is a very important liberty to me. These rules prevent that with no proven benefits, and were implemented as a paranoid knee-jerk reaction rather than a well reasoned thought out process.

Maybe part of the difference is I think there are no real benefits for all these rules, and that allowing people to carry their basic toiletries on a plane has a statistically zero chance of endangering anybody.

Huh...I was always under the impression that Franklin was specifically referring to the greater advantage of liberty over the "protection" that the British army and navy provided.

As such, the quote is not really applicable to this.

But it does sound nice...

Originally posted by ZoomZoom Diva:
The ability to go about our daily lives and activities in a resonable manner is a very important liberty to me. These rules prevent that with no proven benefits, ...

A little extra security is reasonable to me. You're one of the FEW that seems to have a problem with it. Lip gloss be damned! I want to LIVE!!

Originally posted by ZoomZoom Diva:
Maybe part of the difference is I think there are no real benefits for all these rules, and that allowing people to carry their basic toiletries on a plane has a statistically zero chance of endangering anybody.

How can you track how many 'incidents' these & other security measures may have prevented?? Can't be done - it's impossible. Tracking security failures is easy enough though, isn't it.

Maybe in the past the chances were zero that those items would be a potential weapon, but with heightened terror efforts, who knows what the risks are of allowing such materials on board are? As has been stated before, the game changes as time goes on. Past statistical unlikelihoods are things the terrorists are counting on as a weakness they can exploit - as evidenced by this new method, so your insistance that those items be overlooked could bring them to the rhelm of LIKELY tactics.

Why are you so adamant that travel be totally convenient for YOU at the risk of EVERYBODYS safety? These measures may have been knee jerk, and if later determined to be in-effective or of no further benefit, they'll be cast by the wayside, so no harm done. Frankly, I think they're temporary measures until some better system or idea is developed, and considering the recent threat, I think they're reasonable temporary measures to insure the safety of passengers. Therein lies the difference in our points of view, I guess.