He also misread your post, for whatever reason.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. When one loses the ability to debate on logic, one moves to personal attack.

This is false. There is no evidence to indicate that it's a success. There are plenty of examples (including an ATP rated airline pilot, two US Representatives, and a US Senator) to indicate that it's an abysmal failure.

And that's before one considers that it's trivial to fake an ID, credit history, background--and does nothing to address the "sleeper" problem.

So, thousands of Americans have their rights infringed on a regular basis by a program whose principal tactic can be defeated by a bored ID thief.

You don't want to go here--I don't believe you are actually in the employ of an agency that would release you SSI, and even if you did, I'd still point out the holes in it. There are government agencies who know how to implement real security; the TSA lacks the intellectual and organizational capacity to do it--which is why we end up with the half-baked system with more holes in it than Senator Kennedy's liver we have today.

The problem is that the terrorists we're concerned about mostly aren't on that list. Most of the 9/11 hijackers weren't previously known to us, and wouldn't have been on any such list. And this is pretty fundamental -- there's no known way to obtain an exhaustive list of everyone who might ever commit an act of terrorism.

[QUOTE=2lazytothinkofname]OK, as long as we're splitting hairs and I'm up for a good debate tonight before I watch The Cheap Seats on ESPN Classic, I will admit I blurred the line between eligible voters and registered voters. Here's my definitions, which I anticipate you will find a way to disagree with:

Eligible voters: Any living, breathing US citizen over 18 at the time of the general election minus the number of calendar days (if any) that one has to be 18 to register in a given state or county.

Registered voters: A subset of eligible voters who take positive action to potentially participate in a given election. I'm sure you will agree that the number of registered voters is less than or equal to the number of eligible voters.

Actual voters: A subset of registered voters who took positive action to cast a ballot for somebody in a general election. The number of actual voters can be no greater than the number of registered voters, except, perhaps, in Chicago during the Daley years.

So, in absolute terms, 70% of registered voters can be no greater than 70% of eligible voters.

As long as you compare apples to apples, which I did, one should draw the same conclusions.

It's political football. Those who brings it up is going to be "soft on terror and security." "If you're not with us, you're against us." Sound familiar? There's plenty of zealotry on the security side, so please spare the name calling of those who disagree.

Calling us "antigovernment zealots" is way off base. No one here is advocating the overthrow the government (and keep in mind I worked for the federal government as little as three weeks ago, and not as mailman or patentl clerk). Are we advocating change in the way things are done? You betcha. I'm a Republican and I'm even getting tired of the crap the administration is spewing.

I think people individually are rather intelligent for the most part, but people as a mass are stupid. Sad thing is by the time the people wake up, it could be too late.

I'm not confident anything will change this year. It's an election year and politicians generally don't like to rock the boat too much. So unfortunately, I don't see much change heading our way with TSA or the Patriot Act. Although, there's always debate about whether the Patriot Act should have various provisions renewed as sunset clauses near. It hasn't been a walk in the park to convince Congress that we really need to keep it.

Things will get worse if there's another attack, because the "anything for security" / "I'm terrified of everything" crowd will use the attack to further its fearmongering and freedom-busting agenda.

Interestingly, a professor points out that there seems to be a negative correlation between civil liberties and terrorism. That is, most of the islamic terrorists these days (including the 9/11 terrorists) are people who came from wealthy countries, but countries with very limited freedom/civil liberties (e.g. Saudi Arabia). So the idea that cancelling freedom will equal security doesn't seem to have much empircal support.

Heh heh, but there's not a whole lot of terrorist attacks in Saudia Arabia now, is there? ;)

This is the fundamental flaw with your hostility to all security measures. None will ever be perfect. You find a few examples (Ted Kennedy, the pilot) and use that as your case for scrapping a program. This is intelectually dishonest. Planes crash every now and then, does that mean we shouldn't fly because there is a chance the plane will crash? Point me to a system, any system in any field that is always accuarate. Doesn't exit.

Of course there is no way to know who every potential terrorist in the world is, nobody is saying otherwise. But if you know some names of some people who you know or are fairly certain to have ties to terrorism, why not use that information? Might you mistake Ahmed Mohhamed al-Jabbar the terrorist from Saudi Arabia with Ahmed Mohhamed al-Jabbar the accountant from Chicago? Maybe. But that is a chance I am willing to take if it means the chance of the former getting on a plane with the intent to crash it into an office building is minimized.

You are missing the point. As we know (from the government itself), the "no-fly" list currently includes thousands of names. We don't know exactly how many thousands, but clearly the list is long. And the number of people represented by those thousands of names is even longer, because many people have the same or essentially the same name. It is within the realm of possibility that as many as a million people risk being stopped from flying -- even if only temporarily, while they prove they are not the terrorists the government is looking for. ("These are not the droids you are looking for..." Jedi mind trick.)

OK, if you're with me so far, then ask yourself how many terrorists are likely to be in the U.S. waiting to "strike." Personally, I believe the figure approaches zero, but you may prefer a higher number. Is it a thousand? Even using that figure, the ratio of innocent people stopped by the no-fly list to actual terrorists is maybe as high as 1000-to-1. Is this acceptable to you? It certainly is not acceptable to me.

Bruce

Hmmm, the government says the list is in the thousands, but it is within the realms of possibility that it's a million. It is within the realm of possibility that I will win the lottery get struck by lightning and shoot a hole in one on the same day, but I doubt it's gonna happen. Why bring up the government's number only to dismiss it in favor of a purely speculative number that you or anyone else cannot prove?

So you'e another one of these "there is zero threat" guys. If that is your argument, then sure we don't need a no-fly-list, we don't need the TSA, we don't need security period since there is nothing to fear. I am going on the crazy assumption that al-Qaeda isn't quite done and may, just may try to strike again.

I think you misunderstood part of what I wrote. If the list of names is in the thousands, then the number of people affected is much, much greater, because many people have similar names. For instance, if "Edward Kennedy" is on the list -- as we know it was, at least at one time -- there must be thousands of Edward Kennedys in the U.S. Now do you agree that perhaps a million people may be caught up in this dragnet? Is that acceptable to you? Are you willing to pay so high a price to be "safe"? :rolleyes:

Bruce

No, we should continue to fly because planes are extremey safe. Most crashes are caused because of suboptimal aircraft maintenance, pilot error, weather-related troubles, air traffic control issues, etc. Don't you think we should do more analysis of those things to see if we might get more safety improvement per dollar shoring up other problems than on using a faulty list that increases the chance that everyday Americans will not be able to fly conveniently?

Increased security hassles (especially for the tens of thousands of innocents on the no-fly list) increases the likelihood that people will drive long distances instead of fly. Extra security costs and taxes increase flying costs for passengers, which increases the likelihood people will drive instead of fly. Flying is so much safer that the extra security costs and hassles causes increased highway deaths. Although you said this was absurd, this can be shown statistically, and you never responded to my post #17 in this thread.

2lazy(and others):

Obviously, losing family in work camp, et. al, is part of fascism. Being forced via coercion by a purportedly 'good guys' government to partially strip in public and be frisked is far more than an inconvenience. Without due process, being singled out as a public example UNABLE TO LEARN WHY is also a prong of fascism. Even with the herniated excuse of "implied consent" and "security", in a 'free society' it is an affront not only to your entitlements, but to your intellect, or should be.

By extension, those involved in its promulgation are part of fascism. Your argument sems to depend on basically ignoring the 'small stuff', which you refer to as "inconveniences". In that same light, murder and kidnapping might be crimes, but burglary or attempted assault might be inconveniences, not worth noting or taking action.

IMHO, you might need to check your Richter Scale of Rights. If you violate constitutional mandates, you seem to be saying, a LITTLE bit, then that's okay.

'taint okay with this old guy. Scary as sweet jeepers. Further down that tunnel you go the darker it gets.

Actually, that wasn't my argument. You're attacking a strawman. What I said was that most of the terrorists aren't on the list.

I understand that security mechanisms don't have to be perfect to be useful. What I'm saying is that this security mechanism is so incredibly imperfect, and so costly in terms of its harm to civil liberties, that the miniscule benefits aren't worth the costs.

By the way, your suggestion that I harbor hostility towards all security measures gave me a good chuckle. You're misinformed. (It is true that I harbor considerable skepticism about security theater. Perhaps that's what you're thinking of.)

It's not "a few." It's dishonest to suggest that it is just a few. There are 80,000 names on the list, but for each name on the list there are several other similar names that also get caught up in the dragnet because they're pronounced or spelled similarly. So far we've heard no stories of any terrorists actually being caught by the no-fly list (and I'm sure the government would love to have an example to "vindicate" the program), but we do know that a number of people get harassed because of the no-fly list every day.

Terrorism happens extremely rarely in the US, but auto accidents have killed 200,000 since 9/11 (versus less than 3,000 people who died on 9/11). Does that mean that we should be terrified of air travel and engage in a massive program to restrict rights, privacy, liberty and freedom on the off chance that doing so might accidentally stop terrorism? And if we're going to do that w/r/t terrorism, shouldn't we be doing something even more severe to stop car fatalities?

Right. And systems that are never or almost never accurate tend to get scrapped.