Comments on: Air marshals file fake terrorist surveillance reports

By: TheMan

TheMan — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 02:42:40 +0000

I think maybe I have ended up on one of those lists. On my last few trips I was singled out at EVERY SINGLE AIRPORT. I got the full treatment searched at every checkpoint. The pat down, they tore apart my bags and wiped and tested just about everything in them. snapped pictures of me. If I wasn’t in a rush to get on the plain I would have made a stink about it. The whole being detained without warrant, illegally searched just about every right was ignored.

Actually this reminds me I need to file a report to the airlines some things came up missing out of my bags. Since they were searched at every checkpoint (in a couple of places that meant 3 of these “Random” checks.) I don’t know how random they can be since I was checked at every one of them. Statistically an impossibility.

So I think that there might be a little more consequence than the random police stop for a broken tail light.

Also as Dana said how many hits before they determine there is a pattern and now you are on a FBI watch list having every email you write analyzed every phone conversation listened to? How many hits before they use one of their new powers to fight terrorism to detain you without arrest or trial for a few days/weeks/months?

By: Dana Hanley

Dana Hanley — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 03:56:33 +0000

But what if you are just weird? Like my brother? He’d be picked up by every air marshall as some suspicious character. How many times can you draw attention before they start to look like a pattern? I personally object more to the principle of it, anyway. Some things just shouldn’t have a quota. I would be quite happy to know that fewer than one terrorist could be found on any given flight in any given month.

And how long will it be before we hear a report that however many thousands of “suspicious” individuals have been found flying around on these airplanes necessitates increased security measures although a good deal of the suspicious individuals were determined to be so to meet quotas?

I think that qualifies as a run on and if you ever sort it out, congratulations.

By: Rob Miller

Rob Miller — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 00:21:24 +0000

I saw independent commentary that likened the permanent consequences being put on these lists to those of a traffic stop which doesn’t even result in a warning, but I can’t seem to find the link anymore.

Sure, it’s really stupid and indicative of most of the stupidity involved in the “war on terror”, but it is being sensationalised somewhat

By: Michael Hampton

Michael Hampton — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 03:31:54 +0000

No, I wasn’t flying, which is why I had to deal with the sniper in Indiana. I apparently missed him by no more than an hour when he struck up near Chicago early today.

By: Dana Hanley

Dana Hanley — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 03:16:02 +0000

Oh, well, glad you missed the sniper, anyway. And the air marshalls.

By: Dana Hanley

Dana Hanley — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 02:09:18 +0000

I saw that last night and thought of you. You have to be suspicious enough to have landed on some list during your flight…(you were flying, right?)