We just disagree.

Yes, we do.

And what, exactly, do you suggest we do to people who don't have a 20 year credit history?

Have you ever driven a car? Statistically, you're putting a lot more people in danger by doing that than anyone here is doing by saying that someone shouldn't need a 20 year credit history to be allowed to use commercial transportation.

Can you explain in specific terms what you think DHS needs our library records, tax returns, credit histories and lists of telephone calls? What will they do with this, and why do they need it? Do you think that we should be "allowed" any privacy at all?

Rights and security need to be balanced. Things that add little to security but violate rights, liberty, privacy and freedom of hundreds of millions of Americans are bad.

East Germany kept extremely detailed records on at least a quarter of it's relatively small population. Much more detailed that the US could ever hope to keep on the American population. They were absolutely stunned by the fall of communism, too. All that digging, spying, facism and repression, and they still had no idea what was going on.

If one assumes for the moment that an individual or a group is planning to commit another 9/11-style hijacking operation; and, if you assume that these individuals have a high degree of probability of being on somebody's "list" or at least being flagged for SSSS, then it would make sense for this group to either fabricate a benign identity or steal someone else's identity.

Simply stealing an identity is an almost trivial act if you remember that stealing an identity to buy a plane ticket without drawing attention to yourself is a short-term proposition. Once, I had a credit card stolen or I dropped it and someone picked it up and started using it. I reported it less than 12 hours later as soon as I discovered it was missing. That was enough time for the thief to drive 100 miles away and charge about $500 of merchandise at several different stores.

In terms of getting through an airport checkpoint, all someone would have to do is to buy a plane ticket -- round trip -- using my credit card and make up a fake picture ID using my name and their own picture. All of this could be done before any system -- particularly one involving one of the famous "lists" -- flagged the credit card as stolen. Heck, if you do it within 24 hours of the flight you intend to hijack, you could go to a Kinko's and print out the boarding pass before the credit card was even reported stolen. I'm not sure that a stolen credit card would even set off the bells & whistles on one of the "lists" anyway. This would give a fake ID printing team plenty of time to make up something good enough to get through the checkpoint. The ID checkers -- including the intrepid TSA moat dragon -- only check names on the picture ID and the boarding pass. None of this discussion of establishing a track record even matters if you steal a credit card tied to an individual with a "track record" and use it right away to buy a ticket and print a boarding pass.

This scenario, because of the "last-minute purchase" component, might cause the bad guy(s) to be SSSS'd. But, if their plan calls for them to take control of the aircraft (or blow it up or whatever the objective is) without taking any prohibited items through the checkpoint (exactly what happened on 9/11), who cares if they're SSSS'd or randomly secondaried? The worst that will happen is that you'll get groped and yet another TSA officer will compare the name on the boarding pass with that on the fake ID.

Post 9/11 security is just like my home security system. The best I can hope to do is to defeat or deter the amateurs. The "professionals" can defeat either system with one hand tied behind their backs. So, if one is trying to explain why 9/11 hasn't happened again, the much-expanded and very expensive ID check system -- present and future -- is certainly not a good reason.

how dare they say they have the right to check my id, WHAT HAPPEND TO FREEDOM??

next thing you know, i wont be allowed to id minors trying to buy booze in my place of work because it infringes their constitutional right. and what the hell, i'll refuse to provide the state troopers my drivers licence after they pull me over for going 120 in a 50 zone. i want to stay anonymous. :rolleyes:

Tough day at Ted's Tequila Hut? :rolleyes:

There is no good reason to ask for ID at the airport.

I don't agree with a drinking age, but carding someone is to enforce this existing law.

You have been accused of committing a traffic violation. Is traveling by air a violation now too?

Next time, try the Everclear. ;)

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"They" don't need to look for ways to defeat the current system. Thanks to the gross incompetence of Comrade Secretary Mineta and his disgusting little cadre of subordinates, the current system can be defeated at will. In fact, it doesn't really do much more than act like a scarecrow. One hopes the crows get scared, because the stuffed dummy doesn't do much else.

Explosives can be taken past the check point at will. I don't think I can make that any clearer, but I'll repeat it: at will. Why? Because Comrade Secretary Mineta and his minions like DEN FSD Patrick Ahlstrom continue their disgusting little shoe perversions while doing nothing about explosives in undergarments or in body cavities.

Terrorists: you have carte blanche to proceed. Explosives in the pants, blasting cap in the laptop. A straw tightly packed with gunpowder might even suffice, though it's unlikely a real blasting cap will be noticed if you put it near similar looking components. Thank you, Comrade Secretary Mineta. And thank you to all the filth like Comrade Patrick Ahlstrom who perpetuate the Comrade Secretary's little shoe antics.

Bart -- Interesting comments and I agree with your assessment of "dumb luck" playing a big part in these types of operations -- ie: "The Fog of War." The bad guys had the time, place, and element of surprise completely under their control, so they could afford to have all sorts of practice runs and be very cautious. I think a lot of this cautiousness had to do with the huge investment OBL made in these guys, in terms of cost, training, and time. I'm not sure he had thought through the communications required to plan for all contingencies. For example, what would have been their contingency plan if one or more of the groups had not made their flights for one reason or another? Because of compartmentalized security, I'm not sure anyone on a particular hijacking team knew about the others, let alone be able to communicate with them. Would they have aborted the entire attack? Who knows? Maybe one of their success criteria was just to attempt a hijacking? I'm thinking like a J-3 or J-5 guy here, so perhaps I'm giving them too much credit for wringing out every possible thing that could go wrong with the operation and developing contingency plans. All of this would required centralized control of the operation, which I suspect didn't exist after OBL said "go." Some of the flights left late. Did the success of the attack, including the element of surprise, hinge on on-time departures of all four flights? Who knows? If the good guys had apprehended one of the teams, would they have assumed that there were more teams that day? How would we have reacted? I haven't seen anything come out of the War Colleges yet, but that's where some deep thinking and analysis needs to occur.

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I think this is a good assumption. Unfortunately, it appears that nobody bothered to think these kinds of scenarios through, or if they did, they never bothered to communicate it to anyone who mattered. If you read the 9/11 report, it's clear that nobody who could have made a difference had ever even considered one plane being hijacked like this, let alone four.

Of course, we did have all of the "dots" that this type of attack was in the works, and even that some of these people were up to something (even if we didn't know what that something was) no good. Unfortunately, we didn't connect those dots or keep a close enough eye on the people we knew were dangerous.

Yeah, wanting to travel around the country is certainly equivalent to breaking the law. At least, in East Germany if you didn't have the proper "papers."

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Why would any self-respecting terrorist even bother trying to get an IED thru the checkpoint when they could have an airline's cargo department just put the damn thing on a plane?

If one is an Islamofascist terrorist, then the suicide bombing is the ticket to all of those virgins in paradise. Any infidel can put an explosive in the cargo hold.

Most of the comments in this forum aren't of the "kumbaya" type, but rather of the balancing liberty with security, or balancing liberty with fake security type.

I agree with Bart's 'world's a dangerous place' pronouncement, but TSA in its wisdom, as Bart has ALSO always maintained, is committed to 100% risk AVOIDANCE. Any simulacrum to the real world, which sure as hell IS a dangerous place, must be swallowed hard to get that bit of TSA logic down the throat. In my opinion, any guiltless citizen forced to stand in line and pay to get any form of strip search is already underscoring the point. Not only is this world a dangerous place, there are nasty people in it. Some want to blow you out of the sky because you are an infidel, and some want to force you to be patted down because of an 'attitude' or no cause at all.

Nasty folks all.

Most all Islamofascist terrorists are not suicidal; and nearly all Islamofascists want to live to see their objectives achieved. So a terrorist (including witting enablers) smuggling an IED through the checkpoint -- or putting together one from supplies available airside -- and/or (also) getting one onto the plane via the cargo holds is still a real possibility. Terrorists who believe their political objective are worth more than their own life AND terrorists who believe their political objective is less than their own life are both problems. Although the former may go for the cockpit still or carry-on/travel-with "opportunity", the latter may still exploit the cargo window of "opportunity".

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What an interesting choice of words. Particlulary with reference to hyperbole.

Are you suggesting the time to defend liberty is only once a people are fully oppressed? How many cuts into the death of thousand cuts is one expected to endure before saying "ouch?"

Forward looking slipperly slope arguments are always dangerous and open to ridiculous conclusions, but that cuts both ways in the pro-liberty v. pro-security debate.

I love liberty a bit more than I love security. If that is the death of me, so be it, at least I lived free.

[QUOTE=whirledtraveler]They need a challenge from an Alaskan who can only travel by air.[/QUOTE

There is always a boat.

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But how about "papers, please" for this poor kid?

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=222

Supposedly not on the list, but yet TSA gave him a letter to help him when he gets harassed at the airport. :rolleyes:

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But it has to start somewhere. Countries have turned from democracies into tyrannies exactly because people "shut up and took it" - which is what you seem to be suggesting we do here.

Nobody is saying that the US today is exactly like Stalin's Russia where people get executed on a whim. But here in the US today we do have many (including top government officials) who argue for secret detentions of people who are secretly arrested for secret reasons. Didn't the "summary execution" states you complain about also lock people up with no charges, possibly secretly? Isn't this something that we used to complain about every tyrant doing since the beginning of time?

You're right, this isn't East Germany or the Soviet Union where one needed government approval to travel inside the country. But there are people here who are advocating that kind of thing and the government, in many ways, is working towards it. Look at comments from people who think your credit score should determine if you're allowed to travel inside the country, or who want to give the government the ability to "no fly" people for secret reasons, or Congresspeople who think that the "no fly" list should determine if you're allowed entry into a public park. Isn't arbitrarily blacklisting people from travel what we used to complain about East Germany and the Soviet Union doing?

Just because we're not living under "true tyranny" it doesn't mean that we should just sit back and do or say nothing. The founding fathers weren't living under "true tyranny" either. They may have been taxed without representation, but that's not exactly Stalin. Yet the framers of the Constitution spoke, debated and wrote endlessly about freedom and liberty and worked to create a country where those principles were respected.

Four years ago the only reason the Patriot Act, a huge power grab, could pass was because it was "only temporary" and hastily pushed through when people were terrified and not paying attention. When it came up for renewal in December -- permanent renewal -- everyone fully expected it to sail through Congress with little or no debate, no public outcry, nothing. In fact, the only reason that it didn't get passed on that day was because the New York Times "coincidentally" published the NSA spying story on the same morning that it was up for a vote.

You really can't see how far we've come from 9/10 with regards to freedom, privacy, liberty, etc. and how fast it has happened? How far down the slope should we get before you think we're "allowed" to speak up? Will we even be allowed to speak up at that point? There was an article in last week's Newsweek about the Department of Defense's little known domestic spying program that is spying on such "dangerous" groups as some peaceful folks who protested outside of Haliburton's headquarters. And of course, we've read stories of other dissenters who "magically" found themselves on the "no fly" list.

Finally, saying "it's worse elsewhere" is not an argument. A greater percentage of the population of Ethiopia is starving than the American population. That doesn't really make me feel any better about starving kids here in the US.

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The tyrants of classical times were popularly supported and would have majority/plurality support from the populace and take ground incrementally at first before making far larger and more absolutist power grabs,. This often began with restrictions on fundamental aspects of life -- including transportation, finance, consumption, etc. A good history lesson would show that tyranny was a classical manifestation of mob rule desire -- esp. by and for the scared chickens and chickenhawk mob -- and would be vested in a unitary executive and excercised by the unitary executive and people who claimed to be loyalists to such unitary executive. And it is no surprise that waving the flag of "popular" concerns related to safety/security of the majority were routine.

Thankfully, we were previously given a Constitution that is supposed to protect us from such excess and excuses; unfortunately, too many people nowadays are surrender monkeys willing to give "security" increased resources and powers while stripping down -- at least in practical terms -- checks and balances.

I agree, indeed, with both parts of the statement.

I also agree with those who responded with arguments stating that this contry is on a dangerous path towards a police state.

"Objectionable" is an understatement. I consider some security procedures to be egregious violations of right to privacy. I am specifically referring to dump searches of my bags and patdowns in the absence of any suspicions, reasonable or otherwise.

We both agree that there is no security value in SSSS. In fact, there is no value in it even from the risk avoidance point of view. Then why is it in place? I suggest that the purpose is to desensitize the public and then impose a more stringent regime.

TSA was also planning to introduce programs such as CAPPS II and Secure Flight, which would amount to conducting background investigations of all air passengers. Thank God, neither of these programs has been implemented.

And what about thousands of names on the no-fly list? How is this not a KGB-style blacklist?

I know we have once agreed to disagree, but since you specifically mentioned my name, I am prepared to reopen the debate. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of time right now.

You certainly are an intelligent and worthy opponent. Debating with you is a pleasure.

Enjoy the Superbowl!

No, declining to remove one's shoes at the WTMD is not a "stand" against government tyranny. Mainly because the government, in the form of the TSA website, does not require or demand their removal. What it is is a stand against individual tyranny in the form of TSA staff who insist that removal is required. You probably disagree (judging by your choice of adjective), but I believe that it is both worthwhile and necessary to resist any unlawful or unsanctioned acts perpetrated by the Securty Machine.

Tyranny ? Probably not. Oppression ? Maybe. Intimidation ? For sure.

Not this cupcake.

Now, wanna debate how ID for complaining differs from tyranny ?

I realize everyone here belives the governmnet is incapable of walking and chewing gum but I think the database contains more than first initial, last name. DOB, sex at the minimum come to mind. If the no-fly list were indeed in the millions, we'd have empty planes as nobody would ever get on. The fact that there have been so few examples of no-fly list errors proves that your millions scenario just doesn't exist.

Yea, okay, you've said that time and time again.

You clearly haven't been reading this thread, nor do you seem to be even vaguely aware of the issues addressed in the Gilmore case.

We wish it was just taking off shoes, but it is not.

It's about secret regulations that carry the effect of law, but can change at any moment, without review or public comment.

It's about the government deciding whether citizens may travel, without right of petition.

It's about the government tracking where and when and with whom its citizens travel, even domestically.

It's about random, intrusive searches and forced checkpoints.

Because you claim heightened enlightenment, please reveal to us how much freedom we have to sacrifice before we may protest.

You're absolutely right.

No regulations should ever be secret. The TSA should publish everything they do, exactly how they do it, when they do it, why they do it. While we're at it the FBI should be required to publicize every time they start an investigation, can't keep that stuff secret for the citizens. The DEA should be required to disclose who their undercover agents are, again can;t have those goons keeping secrets. The militray should publish all their R&D at once. After all a government agency keeping secrets? Tsk tsk tsk!!!

And while we're at it what's with this security clearance business to work for defence contractors? How dare the government require its citizens to undergo security checks? Fingerprinting simply to get a job? Why that is an outrage and is the first step towards a totalitarian regime,

Some of the entries on various US government blacklists are nothing more than partial names. And at least one name on one of the blacklists perpetuated by our government and used in the aviation sector was shared by at least one million persons. ;) Another series of names on the blacklists were entered with the wrong gender and not corrected for nearly 3 years. ;)

Sure there are actual persons who are more uniquely listed in some of the blacklists, but there have also been mere names on blacklists that equated to over a million persons who were not individually identifiable or distinguishable from the name on the list.

Our government's implementation of blacklists is many things, but one thing it is not is perfect. And with the public-private "workaround" approach beloved by a government that believes laws should be skirted when convenient and don't apply to "the ruling establishment", I won't be surprised if it gets worse for many more before it gets better. ;) (I don't ignore that we have a government that believes in -- and has a policy of -- burning bodies of those who it kills but wishes not to publicly mention as having been killed by it. ;) )

Please note I wasn't talking about removing shoes. In that post, I was referring to secret lists that the government is keeping and the fact that there is little to no due process for getting one's self off the list, or even finding out why you're on it.

If you view that as a good thing and a means of protecting liberty, then we'll have to agree to disagree.

Please remember that I did work in the same field as you. I don't have as much experience you, but I do know more about intelligence, lists, Washington BS, etc, than a lot of people because I dealt with it and worked it on a daily basis. I know what they CAN do, and I believe they need to be kept on a short leash as not to abuse it.

If the agency I worked for was constantly breathing down people's necks about oversight and compliance, and scaring people with time at Club Fed for violating policies on protected entities, EVERY agency had better be under the same scrutiny. I was called to the carpet for a simple mistake, and I didn't get in trouble because of unknown identity at the time. I also know the mess that can happen when that policy IS violated and the repercussions that can happen down the road. I don't think DHS and TSA are under the same scrutiny.

No, removing shoes isn't a hallmark of facsism and tyranny, but secret government lists are. And if a Senator got hassled, had a hard time getting off the list, and only got off the list because of his clout and position as a US Senator, we have a serious problem. Most citizens don't have the clout, connections, or resources that Ted Kennedy did to get off the list. And yes, I've even seen people on official travel orders get hassled over this.

Secret lists are heading us down the wrong direction. I agree that certain aspects of the list need to be kept secret (as life is in the world of spooks), but there should be a due process to get people who are on the lists removed, and a way to ensure that innocent people aren't constantly getting flagged, harassed, and denied boarding simply for having the audacity to have the same name as someone who IS a threat. The current method does not allow this.

If someone truly is on the list that deserves to be, build a case and pick them up and get them off the streets.

Super

There's something we can agree on. :D

There's that trademark right-wing hyperbole again.

Of course we want clandestine operations, we simply don't want secret laws. Regulations have the effect of law, you can go to jail for violating a regulation, you can have your property siezed. Regulations should be published and public. Period.

As a self-proclaimed expert on when free citizens have the right to complain, will you please detail for us at what point in the constriction of rights are we permitted to complain? Before or after its too late?

I've picked the Steelers over the Oilers for quite a few decades now. Three for the Steelers. :D

Whatever. You're talking apples and oranges.

Sometimes it contains that information. Other times it doesn't, which is why we get infants and toddlers on the no-fly list, too.

No, it doesn't prove that because most of these people are able to travel, just after they are held up for a few minutes to a few hours. But they shouldn't be harassed in the first place.

Didn't any of you folks in favor of less freedom and more government control watch President Bush's State of the Union address?

"Every step towards freedom makes our country safer . . ."

I agree with the President.