Beware of the bus driver
 

http://wokv.com/localnews/2009/11/te...chool-bus.html

My mother-in-law, a former school bus driver, just LHAO when I told her about this. Her comment "do they realize how much of a pain it is just to try to keep your eyes on the road while monitoring all of the kids on the bus?"

When is FEMA and the TSA going to go to the local primary schools to teach children to watch their parents and report them for suspicious terrorist activities that are a threat to the Party and Big Brother? George Orwell is alive and kicking.

A "reporting mechanism" to report suspicious activity? They need a training course to tell people to call the police when they think something's up?

Google "Pavlik Morozov". You'll see exactly what this reminds me of.

Obviously they do. Isn't there a new thread here today where a woman left her bag on the sidewalk after exiting a taxi? How many passengers and taxi drivers saw it in the hour and a half and didn't report it? Maybe people need to be taught to report suspicious things, despite what you think...

Of course, when a woman at ATL reported an unattended piece of luggage, the report resulted in ... absolutely no action at all. Seems like those who are supposed to receive such reports could use instruction as well ...

If I called the police every time I saw a misplaced bag while out in public, I wouldn't have time to do much else. I recall a programme being in place where I live where the police teach garbage collectors what to watch for in terms of suspicious behaviour (looking for residential break-ins mostly) while doing their rounds. I can support a programme like that, just as I can support asking bus drivers to call police to report dangerous drivers or any suspicious activity. I'm not too sure a backpack on a park bench meets my definition of suspicious.

Pretty soon the kids will be turning in their parents to the bus drivers.

Welcome to East Germany. Perhaps the "S" in TSA will stand for Stasi?

Hey, ya know, "V" just started its remake appearance. Maybe this is all the a-holes at TSA HQ reliving their childhoods and still wanting to be Visitor Youth Leaders.

I've been saying that for 7 years now.

Well that makes it different from other TSA projects, for a start. :rolleyes:
This from an organization that can't get the names on the No Fly List sorted out, that can't inform its own employees whether shoes go in bins or not, that can't decide whether ice is a solid or a "frozen liquid", that can't decide between 3 and 3.4 on a fricking website, but they're going to correlate suspicious behavior reported by bus drivers to look for patterns???? You have got to be kidding! :td::td:

Pretty soon. And I'm sure Hero's Medals will be established soon after.

ETA: PoliceStateSurvivor beat me to it.

Since TSA never does risk management, I'll have to do it for them.

Suppose a couple of guys with white robes and beards travel from West Hideoutistan with a 155 mm shell and plan to place their IED under a US street. At home they plant their IEDs at night, as it is harder to spot them. Suppose in the US for some reason they plan to dig their hole in the daytime. They scout locations for a few days to find a rural road with a daily low traffic period to dig their hole.

School buses drive fixed days of the week, drive a fixed route, at the same time every day and driving the same direction, one way in the morning and one way in the afternoon. The IED diggers notice this and decide "no digging when the school bus is due by."

Schedule regularity means school buses are the most easily avoided vehicle there is, and thus school bus drivers are LESS likely to see suspicious activity than other forms of transportation. Duh.

OTOH, since no induvidual bus driver is likely to see a single "suspicious activity" in their entire lifetime, and that rare driver who does see a "suspicious activity" is lilely to only see one in their entire career, how are they supposed to notice PATTERNS? One or less than one event does not make a "pattern." :td:

How Quickly We Forget...
 

Just what I was thinking.

Bureaucracies and their ideas never go away. It's like Groundhog Day.

Yet what I site was no out in "public", as in any general location. It was at a specific location where people are asked to report unattended items or suspicious behavior. And it was not done. So I stand by what I said: people seemingly have to be taught to do this.

You're right. :rolleyes:

"You've got to be taught to hate and fear, You've got to be taught from year to year,
It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear, You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade, You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late, Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate, You've got to be carefully taught!"
Oscar Hammerstein, "South Pacific" (1949)

Most people know that 999,999 times out of a million*, an unattended bag in a public place, airport or otherwise, is just that: a lost or forgotten piece of luggage. Go to the lost-and-found of any airport, train station, bus terminal, department store, university, and look at all the stuff people leave behind. Actually, just the other day, someone from your airport ;) said:
Forgetting something, especially given the numerous pressures of air travel, is far more common than being a terrorist. Orders of magnitude more common. And most people understand that. Unless you "teach" them. :rolleyes:

*If TSA can make up statistics out of thin air, so can I. ;)

Which is what I said! ;)

I never said an unattended bag means there is trouble, or that suspicious activity means terrorist are lurking around the corner. If that's what your read into what I said, that's ok; we all have our biases and can't help but interject them into our conclusions.

And that TSO you cite, why, he's just brilliant! :D

Regarding those lost items TSA stores, as has been covered before those are items lost in a TSA area, such as the checkpoint. You would be surprised how many times a passenger tells something is left behind, either before or after the x-Ray, that they can describe the person who left the item.... And you want to smack them upside the head for not calling after the person who left the item. No they just watch them walk away.

Yes, most people need to be taught to report things, but it does not mean whY they report means terrible things are about to happen. Many times it's just helpful, so a person doesn't forget their bag, or we can return it to them, etc.

But as a society we do not. It's called the diffusion of responsibility.

http://www.psywww.com/intropsych/ch1...nsibility.html

So again, I stick by my claim that we have to be taught to report things.

This is a direct result of the TSA. People have been taught that if you act up at the checkpoint you will be punished. People are scared to make a scene by calling after a stranger no matter how innocent the outburst is.

Be sure to congratulate your superiors for a job well done.

No, I believe this is because of human nature and has nothing to do with TSA. Friend of mine works for a local shopping center, same story there, albeit different things in the lost and found, as people usually do not take luggage and such to the mall. And I remember many years ago I walked into a mcdonalds, sort of full, and I saw a man sitting by himself, upper body laid out on the table, arms thrashing, having some kind of seizure. No one helped him, no one called 911. I was the only one that helped, everyone else watched and ate their meals as I tried to help while paramedics came. No TSA back then (mid 90's).

No, in general people do not take responsibility for much around them, as the theory of the diffiusion of responsibility indicates. People often have to be taugh to do these things.

There is a large difference between someone that is having a medical problem and someone seeing a person set something down at the mall. Most people are scared to help a person in a medical emergency because they do not have training and are afraid they will make things worse. When a person has a seizure most do not know that the best thing to do is prevent them from crashing into stuff and let the seizure subside on its own. So any "help" given could be harmful.

Most people have their heads buried when they are in the mall. While they may see someone walk away from their purse it does not click that the person is forgetting the object.

In that link (no I did not read it all too many words for my tired brain) people were less likely to react when there were more people around. This is due to a lack of confidence that they will be able to help. When the subjects were fewer the response rate went up dramatically. (31% v. 85%)

The checkpoint is a wholly different dynamic. If you see someone leave something at the checkpoint you know they did not just wander a few feet away. You know that if you have any type of outburst you will be in trouble with the authorities. So instead of calling out to that person and calling unwanted attention to yourself, you tell the authority at the checkpoint.

You don't understand that most people are intimidated by the TSOs. You guys wear cop uniforms, you can deny passage at a whim, you can submit the PAX to humiliating procedures at a whim and you can call real LEOs and we all know at that point the PAX is screwed.

You guys scare the hell out of people. We feel we are walking through gangland wearing the wrong colors. Do nothing that draws attention and you may make it out unscathed.

I might have not explained something eariler, so I'll try to correct that now. Regarding things left at checkpoints, some times passengers tell us, sometimes they do not. There have been many times where something was left behind and people just march around it. They see it, cause they move out if the way, but seemingly care less that it was left.

I do not doubt that we intimidate people. I consider myself fairly kind and nice. I do not yell at people, i smile all the time at passengers even when I don't feel with, and I am careful of my body language. Yet I'm 6'4", 220 pounds, and I have had people tell me things like I'm glad your security, things like that. And I M nit the biggest guy here. And yes, the "cop" uniform scares people too, even on smaller people.

Yet, I still stand by what I said eariler. Even outside the airport, peeople often fail to help others, report things, whatever. Generally, people need to be taught to do these things.

The link I post cites a theory called dIffusion of responsibility - basically it claims the more people that are around, they tend to think other will take responsibility for whY needs to be done, which is why things often are not done (helping people, reporting a bag).

Regarding the medicle emergency at mcdonalds I walked into, I complained to the store manager after paramedics arrived as to why they didn't call for help. They said they though he was a drug user and sort of got what he deserved... Turns out he was on medication and missed taking a daily dosage.

And how is a passenger supposed to know that an item was left behind? Maybe the owner got sent back through the screening line again and will be along in a couple of people to claim their item. Maybe the owner was pulled aside for secondary screening, or requested a private screening, and didn't know that they should ask to have their belongings brought along with them.

There have been plenty of stories here where passengers have attempted to offer helpful suggestions to TSOs on duty, only to be told to mind their own business and move along, lest one be charged with "interfering with the screening process". Granted, not every helpful suggestion is actually helpful. But when a 6'4", 220lb. man wearing a uniform and an official-looking badge barks an order at you and threatens you with vaguely unspecified consequences if you don't comply ... you learn pretty quickly to mind your own business.

You want to train passengers to look out for others? Then train TSOs not to bark at passengers who are doing precisely that. You get the behavior you reward.

MCTS
 

In Milwaukee, I've personally seen several incidents aboard Milwaukee County Transit System's buses and I'm glad that they have a reporting system in place. Sheriff's deputies have jurisdiction on these buses but they also employ Wackenhut private security. The former are used in cases where violence or the threat of violence has occurred and the latter for incidents where violence has not occurred and they occasionally ride along as a visible deterrent. More importantly, the private security personnel are not law enforcement and don't carry guns. The buses also have overhead surveillance cameras(eyes in the sky).

In one incident, I walked right into the middle of it. It was at night, the bus was packed when I got on, and everyone looked very tense. Every seat was taken except for this one in which this male was like sitting sideways taking up both seats. I stood in back and things were unusually quiet. We stopped a little further up ahead and Sheriff's deputies boarded talking with the bus driver who pointed out the male sitting sideways. From what I learned, this male had made death threats against a group of young women traveling together. What the idiot did not realize is that they had called 911(probably pretending it was one of their friends and talking softly) and the bus driver probably alerted the Sheriff's Office as well. They escorted the male off the bus, pulled the surveillance tape from its locked storage area, and then made all of us get off and get on another bus. My guess is they were treating the original bus as a crime scene.

In a second incident, this male was at the back of the bus and he was bad mouthing the driver. I walked into the middle of this one as well and this guy would not shut his mouth no matter how many times the bus driver ASKED him politely to do so. A little ahead, we stopped and Wackenhut security personnel entered, escorting the male off the bus. As we pulled away, they were still talking with him. Since there were no Sheriff's deputies around, I doubt that this guy was arrested. Had he resisted, that would have been another matter.

IMO, it is a reasonable initiative for school bus drivers. It's a reporting mechanism only. There are domestic terrorists out there as well as foreign terrorists. With our record unemployment rate, Federal/State/City cutbacks, and a worsening economy, I think it is a prudent measure.

Because, after all, we should always suspect anything remotely unusual. All hail conformity.

Nice how you use the height and weight I provided about myself and added the barking an order part! ;) I don't bark, nor bite.

And I don't want to train passengers to look out for others. As passengers they have other things to concern themselves about. As humans, wouldn't it be nice if everyone did look out for each other? But I know enough about human nature to know that we encompass the entire spectrum of behaviors, from the noble to the dispicable.

My original point was this (and we've gone off in tangent here): people do not oftendo what they should, and yes, 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.

I agree.

There is a huge difference between the unusual and suspicious. And reporting the suspicious (and even the unusual) says nothing about conformity.

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.
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.

Unfortunately, the difference is in the eye of the beholder. And from those who promote a mentality that says "report everything, just to be safe", the hassle endured by those who have to deal with false allegations is painful.

Paranoid? Maybe. Tell that to the dad who went walking with his daughter out in public, and because somebody thought it looked "suspicious", had to deal with a multi-hour, multi-agency investigation. Or tell that to dads in Virginia who wonder if they should hold hands with their kids, because the VA Department of Health has posters telling people to call the cops if they see it. Heck, tell that to Henry Gates, who got arrested because a neighbor saw a Black man struggling with Gates' front door and called police with her "suspicions". (Of course, at least Dr. Gates got a beer out of it.)

Yes, there's a big difference between "unusual" and "suspicious". And most people aren't trained well enough to be able to make that distinction.

Oh, yes it does. If I get hassled every time I do something "unusual", even if it turns out that I'm completely justified in my actions, eventually I'm going to wear down and stop acting unusual so that I don't have to waste my time and energy (and perhaps money) defending myself against irrational charges. Voila: conformity.

It's what Jeremy Bentham called the "panopticon". And it's a dangerous idea.

I disagree with what you say.

Gates is not a good example for you to use to support your idea. He was not reported because of his race; a neighbor reported it because she saw him forcing a door open. And he was arrested because of the way he acted after th police figured out whY was happening and was preparring to leave. All of his bluster came to nothing when what really happened came out and the country saw what an ... he was, and now isn't he happy there are other news stories that make us forget what an idiot a harvard professor can be.

No. You're wrong. We must focus on school bus drivers. School buses, after all, carry children. Do you want to leave our children open to danger? Are you against children? Why aren't you thinking of the children? WWWWWHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYY?

Mike

Again, I basically disagree and will leave it at that. ;)

Jeremy Benthem ended up in his own little panopticon:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._Auto-Icon.jpg

Amen.

A coworker recently got an email from somebody in her neighborhood group who we will call "W." Apparently, W had seen a suspicious looking man sitting in his car watching kids get off the school bus. So W decided to send around an email to everyone in the neighborhood email group "warning" them about the strange man watching kids get off the school bus. Of course, it turned out to be a guy waiting for his kid to get off the bus so the kid wouldn't have to walk home through the rain. After a threat to call the police on W, she issued an "apology," in the style of, "I'm sorry if anyone was offended but I was just thinking of the kids..."

Mike

Our fist line of defense; Ms. Crabtree :D

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...d74ha03jf6.gif

So what about all the other examples and arguments jkhuggins provides?

I decided to leave it at that. He and I disagree. A conversation like this can go forever. I've said what I wanted to say; I have never fooled myself into believing I will change anyones mind here, that has never been the reason why I post. I'm content with what I said, and that's about it. :)