Originally Posted by
SATTSO
...sometimes they have to be told and taught to look out for things, to report suspicious activity and lost misplaced bags. I still believe that, and I do not think it breeds hysteria or fear. To me such activities is the product of a responsible society.
It's responsible to teach a child not to run out in traffic. It's irresponsible to make them so afraid of cars and roads that they develop a phobia. (Note, I'm an engineer, not a mental health specialist.) It's responsible to ask people to let someone know about a bag that might have been forgotten. It's irresponsible, and breeds hysteria and fear, to imply that every lost bag is a bomb, as the tone at the airports does.
But I have a real problem with requesting people to report "suspicious activity," particularly in an airport. What's suspicious to one person might be completely innocent to most others. An office, a school, a shopping center are all reasonably predictable environments, with the same group of people doing very similar things day after day. But most people in an airport are only there infrequently. They're there for vastly different reasons: going to a job interview, moving house, arriving for a funeral, leaving on a honeymoon, breaking up with a spouse. Who is to say what's "normal" and what's suspicious? The BDOs, with their 7 days of training, do the same as if they stopped people at random. Why would average citizens do any better?
It also turns us into a nation of busy-bodies. It gives permission to eavesdrop on conversations, to stare at people that are different in some way, to take an unnatural interest in everybody else's activities.
Originally Posted by
SATTSO
There is a huge difference between the unusual and suspicious. And reporting the suspicious (and even the unusual) says nothing about conformity.
There is very little difference between "unusual" and "suspicious" to many people. We all know someone who thinks the world would run much better if everyone would "just do it the way I do." And if reporting the unusual leads to someone being stopped for questioning, (or worse) then it is a very effective way of discouraging the unusual and rewarding conformity.
Case in point:
Link Read post number 27 which is a first hand account by one of the men accused. A woman in Boston reported two guys because she thought she overheard them talking about explosives and drugs. They were delayed long enough to miss a flight for a weekend trip, which essentially cancelled their whole plans. She was never identified or held responsible for messing up these guy's weekend. Now multiply that by every lonely busy-body looking for 15 minutes of fame by reporting someone for what they thought they heard. Is that the world you want?
If you want to genuinely help someone out, yes, go ahead. If you see someone lighting a fire in the men's, or the fuse on an ACME bomb, or beating someone up, by all means, call the police. But if you just think that those people look odd, or that that woman said something unusual, mind your own business. Please.