US–EU Flight Talks Collapse 457
fantomas writes, "The BBC is reporting that the current US-EU talks over data collected from people flying to the USA collapsed last night. US Customs and Border Protection is insisting on access to the airlines' records and 34 pieces of data to be collected from each passenger. This data has been gathered since 2004, but only as a temporary measure. The European Court of Justice threw out the temporary agreement and set a deadline of Sept. 30 to arrive at a new one. Airlines that refuse to hand over information to US authorities may be fined up to $6,000 per passenger, and the passengers themselves held up in immigration for hours. Good for the EU on protecting the privacy of their citizens? Or are they hindering the War on Terror?" An EU official said that the EU wanted to give away less data, while the US wanted more.
Crap (Score:5, Interesting)
Crap, I'm flying to Costa Rica from the EU this Thursday, the plane will make a stop in Miami. I hope the customs checks aren't going to be more insane than they've already been recently.
That said, the US can't really complain too loudly if EU carriers stop giving them all the info they want now - it's clearly against EU privacy laws, and apparently at least one EU carrier (Air Italy) has never given all the info and wasn't prevented from landing, so it would be hypocritical to refuse landing rights immediately.
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Can you touch your toes?
America, you are so f'd up (Score:5, Insightful)
my point is not that halal meals should be indicated to the americans (pretty f'n far from that, actually). my point is simply that america would profile muslims, but this particular item (food choice) only allows them to profile 16 year old girls and rastas (please accept my hyperbole). outside of a mad powergrab, what is the point of this?
i cannot begin to imagine the thought process that lead to this filtering.
once again, a great example of regulations that will have no positive effect on terrorism, which can only cause great discomfort for the majority, and further weaken any notions of individual liberty.
and before any of you go on about how an airplane (or shopping mall, or street corner, or toilet, or your front lawn, etc.) is not private space, let me simply point out that at least without the collection of this data, my being there is not the grounds for the wet dream of some analyst. but now it is, thanks to the greatest democracy the world has ever known.
Re:America, you are so f'd up (Score:4, Insightful)
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http://world4.monstersgame.co.uk/?ac=vid&vid=4701
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Re:It's spelt "muslim", not "moslem". (Score:4, Informative)
So, one may find a Muslim writing (in English) "Muslim", "Moslem", "Musulman" (from the Turkish, Farsi, Urdu, and Hindi), "Musliman" (from the Bosnian) , and so forth.
"grammar nazi"
This is a point of orthography, not grammar.
Re:It's spelt "muslim", not "moslem". (Score:4, Funny)
Privacy in US (Score:5, Interesting)
A few days after I went back to China. A very good friend wanted to buy a new DC, so she played with my camera for a while. She politely asked me if it was okay for her to look at the pictures before switching to playback mode.
So much for "respecting other people's privacy" in US.
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In Soviet Russia... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In Soviet Russia... too true... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you ever have an opportunity to talk with someone who lived in a soviet country, I highly recommend asking them what tool of oppression featured most highly in their day-to-day lives.
So far, from the opinions I have gathered, being required to show ID and other papers arbitrarily demanded by authorities ranks pretty highly. It is an infringement of privacy and limits your ability to conduct your own business without being scrutinized by your neighbors (or worse your local constabulary).
Every time I have to show my drivers license at the airport I have a chuckle at the inane pointlessness of it. But in truth I should be pissed off. Why does the flight attendant need to know who I am? What difference does it make who I am? They're certainly not protecting me from terrorists because the last batch of terrorists all had perfectly legitimate ID which they used! It is an information grab by Big Brother, plain and simple.
Re:In Soviet Russia... too true... (Score:4, Interesting)
Read it [slashdot.org]
"Orwell was writing about the reality of 1948, with the layers of appearance peeled-off. The shallower chisel-marks of his own time were cast into sharper bas-relief by supposing an arc that played 36 years into his future.
And here we are. Here we have been."
Look up "Police State". (Score:5, Interesting)
It is the transfer of power from the citizen (government of the People, by the People, for the People) to the Police.
In a Free society, the police are restricted in the exercise of their authority to defined circumstances. The traffic cop can pull you over if you're in your car.
When the police can stop you and demand identification at any time, you have lost your Freedom. The police now have control over you.
Who do you think the police will be stopping more often?
a. Fat, ugly, old women
b. Attractive young women
Think about your answer to that. Then think about if your wife, sister, daughter was cute and young and whether you'd want her in that situation.
Re:Look up "FUD". (Score:5, Insightful)
You're walking down the street, just heading to the nearest Quik-E Mart. A cop car rolls by, turns around, and pulls up next to you. They ask you to stop. If you got your hands in your pockets, you can be sure they'll want you to pull 'em out slowly. Afterall, people have been shot pulling out wallets [wikipedia.org].
They ask who are you and what are you doing here. It's just a regular street. Sure, there's a few crummy neighbors around here but it's not like there's drive-bys every other day. Oh, you'll do as they say in a calm and orderly fashion. It could be cold and rainy or you were in a hurry. It doesn't matter. They got questions and they'll get answers. I mean, you're not a criminal, are you?
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Forget terrorism - how about credit card fraud? With E-tickets and Internet bookings, getting a "free" flight has never been easier for crooks.
Re:In Soviet Russia... too true... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why the flap about illegal immigration in the U.S. is so insidious. The only way to "secure the border" is to require all people on U.S. soil to carry ID all the time. Otherwise the border becomes a single point of failure, and once you're in you can get away with anything because in a free country everything that is not forbidden is permitted.
In the old Soviet Union everything that was not permited was forbidden, leaving people in a situation where they had to ask permission to do almost anything. I worked with a Soviet Georgian in the early '90's whom at first didn't understand that there was no form you had to fill out to make a long distance phone call. In the Soviet lab he'd worked in previously the procedure for making a long distance call was to file for permission, specifying who you were going to call and why, and then you were allowed access to the phone when (if) permission was granted.
This kind of routine intervention and restriction of citizen's lives is the eyes of some the only way to keep the country "safe". But others might ask: is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be bought at the price of chains and slavery? [thenation.com].
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Actually, it is the other way around. Habeas corpus has been suspended for "enemy combatants" not "unlawful enemy combatants", meaning terrorists might still have the right to habeas corpus challenges since they are not considered simply enemy combatants. The definition is a lot like that of Dwarf planets which aren't really planets.
The effect of this law is that now you simply have to prove t
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I have NEVER carried my paper unless I was going to travel by air or conducted business with bank or goverment agency. You didn't need your paper otherwise. Militia (police) didn't stop you at random. You didn't need paper to travel by train, tickets didn't have a names on it. All this shit about carry your identification started at beginning of 90th, when SU sease to exist.
So right now in USA we have more restricted movement then in Soviet Union,
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Or they intercept yoru phone records and correlate it with data from a commercial data mining outfit.
All the surveillance, none of the indignity. At least none of the awareness of the indignity.
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The war on terror is a farce (Score:5, Insightful)
Neither of them are supply-side problems, and attacking the supply side is utterly ludicrous, and just reduces our civil liberties. You know, those things that make America a great place?
If we really wanted to stop terrorism, we'd work on solving the problem from a social position. You have to understand why people hate you so much in order to fix the problem.
The war on terror isn't about being effective, it's about making people feel like we're doing something. Well, we're doing something alright, we're eroding our liberties until the terrorists have won.
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Re:The war on terror is a farce (Score:5, Informative)
I know it's not your position - but it is the position of many in the Mediaverse.
What you are describing is "collective punishment" - a war crime.
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No worries about war crimes (Score:4, Interesting)
BushCo have already pardoned themselves [youtube.com]. Or tried to anyway.
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I had plenty of friends who came to the US as economic refugees from Chile in the early '80's. Some were ethnic chinese, who had once prospered and were now bankrupt.
Check out the story of Milton Friedman's "Chicago Boys" [huppi.com], a tale of spin and deceit.
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By definition, most terrorists don't care about their own countrymen. Hell, they don't have any issue with BOMBING their own countrymen.
Of course it's much more intimate when it's your neighbourg bombing your ass instead of some napoleon-wannabe, but still...
The terrorists win when their target lives in fear. When their target changes it's way of thinking, living and being because of them. But above all, they win when their target becomes like them.
The terrorists have already won in the US.
Besides, iraq
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Osama bin Ladin seems to disagree with you about his intentions. Now I'm not sure who to believe.
By the way, the entire US doesn't pray to Allah, so we haven't become like them.
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I fear my point was more about americans having less and less liberties, and happily throwing any they still can find out of the window just because they're told it will help.
Besides, it's not like christian fundies are any better than islamic fundies.
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Brits Out
Perhaps if Al Quaeda had a similarly succinct slogan people would get it. They want Americans to stop meddling in the Middle East, but as long as there is oil under the sand America will be there, and terrorists will use Islam as an excuse to attack them.
Re:The war on terror is a farce (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree. It's about keeping enough people scared long enough to completely change what it means to be "free" in America. The government wants these changes and keeping us scared is the only way they can get them. Anyone can say tinfoil hat or whatever, but the evidence is so overwhelming that the powers that be want this, that I simply can not understand how anyone could not see it.
You listen to all the people backing the freedom stealing actions taken in the name of WOT and they are almost all cowards in that all their best arguments are nothing more than appeals to give up what were once cherished american rights and freedoms in the name of easing their fears. Then they have the nerve to play like they're the brave ones.
The fact that these cowards call themselves "patriots" and back actions taken to the point where it is now the EU and not the US complaining about too much information being collected about individuals speaks volumes about what continues to be wrong with the cowards thinking.
Stopping Terror -- A New Perspective on Freedom (Score:5, Interesting)
Just as creepy as 1984 seems, get a load of this.
I played this game as a teenager. It was cool then. It's still cool now.
Re:The war on terror is a farce (Score:4, Insightful)
Power trip? I doubt it. Power trips are very individual, and a huge conspiracy is needed to change the US.
It's called a "Cult of personality" and it's the crux of current United States politics. Get a large enough portion of the population (say, 49-51% of voters) to mindlessly follow a single leader and you don't even need a conspiracy. Said followers don't care if THEY don't get to go on a power trip, as long as it's "their guy" who does.
Money? Nope. Real barriers exist to prevent governments paying themselves whatever they want.
Yeah, like all those rigidly-enforced rules about conflicts of interest, right?
Deluded attempt to make USA great? I don't think so. If this is their motive, then they probably couldn't give a f**k about civil liberties (restricitng or protecting).
This one I'm inclined to agree with, but not for your reasoning. The US government is, quite simply, self-serving, self-regulating(ha!), and self-policing. Unless the USA being "great" has some tangible return for them, they're not interested.
And there's also the great difficulty in completely changing the US. Some parts of our liberties can be erroded slowly, but, for example, democracy must be destroyed in one fell swoop.
Mistaken assumptions like that one that are what make people keep quiet until it's too late.
One minute, you're voting, the next, you aren't. Not to mention the enormity of such a conspiricy required to do so.
Right, there's no way they can undermine the election process to destroy confidence in the system, with faulty/tainted computer voting data, spurious and drawn-out legal battles, and campaigns that are apparently being managed by the producers of Jerry Springer's show.
It's not like these zany hijinks could cause more and more people to not bother voting, leaving only the hardline on either side willing to put up with the farce, and of course, it's inconcievable that the currently-dominant side's hardline would marginalize and demonize the oppositions.
Never!
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Demand that your government respect human rights, international law, the Geneva Conventions and stop supporting dictatorships.
Do this to stop expanding the terrorists organizations pool of potential new members.
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Re:The war on terror is a farce (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh huh. Check out the apocalyptic Christians who are visiting the White House regularly. I am way, way more scared of those wackos. They're better funded.
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What if, from the "Home Front", the United States just stopped attacking non-terrorst countries. By not creating a terrorist factory, like the new Iraq, the supply would be choked off before it could take root.
Re:The war on terror is a farce (Score:5, Insightful)
There's an easy way to solve the drug problem on the demand side: Make them available legally in controlled circumstances. Not sure about crack and meth, but heroin is medically safe to take as long as a) it's not mixed with crap b) you know the dose you're taking - which is why it's used as a painkiller in hospitals. Yes, it is addictive, but it is quite safe to take, and - unlike e.g. alcohol - doesn't even cause birth defects. Giving legal access takes out a huge chunk of the profits of organised crime, and allows junkies to become productive members of society again. Idealistic claptrap, I hear you say? No, pilot studies in CH and NL show that it works.
> 2) There is no way to "solve" the terrorist problem on the home front either.
Agreed.
> These are people that for the most part are religiously motivated.
Disagree, to a large extent the anger is political rather than what we'd call religious in the west. Admittedly the boundaries blur.
> Ever tried arguing with someone about religion?
Fun, innit?
> Those who buy into the extreme version of Islam will not stop until the world converts to their expectations. If the U.S. was to become a muslim nation, they would simply direct their actions towards the next target because their whole philosophy hinges on there being someone to blame and fight.
Whoa. They do, quite fairly, have quite a bit to blame the west for. The installation of Shah in Iran (overthrowing a democracy, btw). Propping up the Saudi Kingdom plus associated other mini-monarchs. Supporting Saddam Hussein all the way (cheerfully ignoring the genocide he's on trial for, or the war he started against Iran, or his use of poisan gas in that war, or
You can see why People might take some convincing that now we're actually serious about that whole democracy and human rights stuff. Guantanamo does't help.
Just to point out that there's more to this than merely "evil islam wanting to conquer the world". Oh dear, that's probably earned me a fatwah now
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You don't seriously believe that they are more worried about the fact that Americans are eating pig and drinking beer than:
What things make America great? (Score:4, Insightful)
Pardon? Have you that little background of our nation's history? "Civil rights" is hardly something that America has gotten right.
Take slavery, for instance. The first 80 to 100 or so years of American history were about completely denying certain racial groups any significant rights in large portions of the nation. Even after the Civil War started to change the status quo, things took many decades to improve. It wasn't until the 1950s and 1960s, nearly 200 years after the founding of America, that such groups started to get the rights they deserved from the very onset.
Women weren't in much better of a situation. They weren't allowed to vote from the early 1800s until 1920. South Carolina didn't ratify the 19th Amendment until 1969!
Of course, we can't forget the Japanese-American internment camps run by the US during WWII. I'll let you do your own research on those camps, since the whole subject is far too massive to describe adequately here.
Today we still see much antagonism directed towards homosexuals.
What we're seeing now just follows with the trends we have witnessed over all of America's history. A lot of people brag about how great their civil liberties are, but a quick analysis of the situation shows that what they say just isn't the case. Again and again over the entire history of the US, various groups have had their civil liberties stripped or not even granted.
Sure, America is far better than many nations. But it's very naive to think that America's history with respect to civil liberties is special in any way. More often than not we find that other nations offered various civil liberties far before America did, and often in a manner that was far more inclusive.
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The United States has never claimed to have the most effective or practical or pragmatic system. That has never been our strength (indeed, most of our major errors were due to overzealous pragmatism). What we got right was saying that people, by virtue of existing, have civil liberties that are not at the pleasure of government or society at large, even if it the exercise of those rights is not in the best
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Except for the UK (Score:5, Informative)
This is all fine, unless you're in the UK, in which case the government has conveniently made an arrangement for airlines to give the US all the information they want legally, circumventing the EU law on a technicality. It's good to know that Tony is independent of George's dog-handler these days, isn't it?
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(although it could've been the other way round =)
Let them have it at a price: 1 million per person (Score:2)
Next problem please.
Email address? (Score:2)
Re:Email address? (Score:4, Insightful)
The only really major terrorists in the world right now are the USA's three letter agencies (yeah, the WTC attacks were impressive-looking and very big-media-friendly (see recent Hollywood self-pitying wank-fest of a film.). But more people are killed in traffic accidents in a month. Where's the War on Dangerous Driving, eh?). Most other terrorists are _somebody's_ freedom fighters, for fuck's sake, the only "people" that the USA's terrorists seem to be fighting for the freedom of are those artificial legal entities called "corporations" that are apparently considered people in the USA.
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You know, besides pull you out of line, stick you in room 101....
Still not enough information (Score:3, Funny)
[arnold]
"Who is your daddy, and what does he do?"
[/arnold]
For fuck's sake! (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe we will be able to return the favour, if things get too bad over there, but I wouldn't count on it. Anyway, you didn't step in in europe until the situation had already degenerated into bloody war, and I suspect if we even tried to step in militarily before that point, all we'd do is make you fight the wrong enemy - i.e. us!
Well, I guess this particular move doesn't matter to me much, because until there's "regime change" in the USA, there's no way in hell I'm going there again anyway!
Land of the "free"? Don't make me laugh.
No now! NASCAR is on! (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, imagine these knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers scared out of their puny, defective little minds and you have some idea of the average American. Too scared and stupid to think straight.
Makes me want to vomit.
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This is not only wrong, it is the sort of fallacy that keeps the ruthless in power. Gandhi's hunger strike was successful because it caused mass riots. Similarily, Martin Luther King is a pretty face that we put on the fact suppression of the blacks was becoming too expensive. For a more recent example, look at the Paris suburb riots of last year. Those people had asked for better standards of living for a long time, through
Realllllly (Score:5, Informative)
That doesn't sound right at all!
More seriously, here's some of the data they're talking about (from the article)
I also found this passage interesting:
I'm not exactly a friend of the airlines, but it seems like they're screwed either way.
Re:Realllllly (Score:5, Insightful)
Only if they continue to fly to the US.
Look at the mass disruption and consequent political fall-out recently caused in the UK just by inconveniencing passengers with over-zealous security checks. Those lasted a few weeks before the policy was softened back to almost its original level, and the government is now being sued, or likely to be sued imminently, left, right and centre. On this experience, I imagine the US administration would cave in about three seconds if every major European airline refused go fly there until their information-hording policy was backed down to more reasonable levels. The damage to the US, for which the administration will inevitably be held responsible by the electorate, would be far greater than the damage to most airline companies.
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Too much Coffee Man - If have not done anything... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok you convinced me, I won't fly to the USA. I don't see any reason why a goverment should be allowed snoop in my private life "just to make sure I'm not a terrorist". Do they think terrorists are dumb enough to say "No, please only one way tickets and I don't need a method of leaving the airport. And please only a light meal, I don't want to blow myself up with a full stomach. But first I'll clear out my account and donate everything to a well-know extremist organistion." *sigh*
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They hardly have to purchase it from others - for years, French intelligence routinely bugged first-class seats on Air France, to record the conversations of traveling (foreign) executi
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Didn't you ever hear the expression, "Two wrongs do not make a right"?
Glad to see the EU standing up for its laws (Score:5, Insightful)
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As far as I'm aware, all airlines are deciding to possibility violate EU laws, rather than infringe US laws. They have said they plan to continue to hand over data.
Presumably this is because the US has a functioning government, which can realisticaly threaten immediate action. Ths EU doesn't, so the airlines know that if the violate EU agreements it will be a long time before it has any consequences for
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Yeah, the US is always quick to punish corporate offenders, while the EU hangs around and does nothing forever. How is Microsoft doing these days, by the way?
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Well... I don't see a problem from the view of the airlines. It will be a personal issue for the passengers. The airlines will have to tell passengers going from the EU to the US that they must "opt-in" to giving up the data to fly to the US, since the US can bar people who do not provide it. It's not really an airline issue, it's more like saying you can't come to the US with
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The problem with that line of thinking is that we generally think it's a good thing for Americans to be able to travel freely. So we really can't demand any more from foreign nationals than we expect our people to go through when visiting other countries. Tourists and business visitors are generally con
Ask US to return the favor (Score:2, Interesting)
Symmetricality should should be a precondition for such a measure.
For some reason I doubt that would deter (Score:2, Insightful)
double standards? (Score:2, Funny)
an end to the insanity of frivolous datacollection (Score:5, Insightful)
How come it appears to be a very one sided transfer of data, after all we don't get the same information about americans travelling to Europe as we are expected to send over, do we?. Which is odd since we have had way more terrorist attacks on european soil then have ever taken place in the USA.
Since this is all carried out in the cause of preventing terrorism I do wonder if this will really stop any terrorist? Doubtful, if anything they have just given them a list of things to stay clear off if you want to slide under the digital radar. I'll eat porkchops or fish, buy a return ticket (even thou there will be no return), i'll pay via creditcard and generally provide the system with non suspicious information.
But if it stopped just one terrorist wouldn't it be worth it? When the violation of millions is justified for a single success I don't wanna play no more. I haven't been to America since pre 9-11 and quite frankly I don't feel any great urgency to return either, not for biz or pleasure.
If the EU can just stand firm and hold its ground I think we'll be the winner here, after all we'll loose far less economically then the USA will when others realise the same.
We won't miss privacy until its gone and then its to late cause it's just to easy to take away but very hard (if not impossible) to reclaim.
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Re:Dominate. Intimidate. Control. (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey, that was a great read. Are you from the USA? if you are, then accept my pitty. Really, if all of what is written there is true then there is no doubt that you have already lost your "war on terror".
Really, when this kind of things happen:
Or this:
or this:
They are clear signals that people in your country are completely terrorized. You have been terrorized by your own goverment. As other people already wrote, I avoid at all costs to pass have anything to do with USA. I travel from UK to Mexico quite often. The first time I went to UK was with KLM. I do not have an USA Visa and really I am not eager to get it. Next christmas I will flight to Mexico, I was looking at the prices and it is quite cheap to flight UK - Mexico via Chicago, but there is no way I will go trough all the hassle of getting a Visa to let the USA government get my profile.
Just as a side comment. Long ago, I believe it was between 1990 and 1995, an aunt went to USA for whatever reason, when was returning, they stopped her before boarding her plain because my grandmother, who had traveled to USA 10 years ago or something, appeared as if she had never left the USA. They were trying to make my aunt say were was my grandmother "hiding" in the USA. After several hours of questions I believe they let her go.
It turns out (after some famility talk) that when my grandmother flew to USA, she forgot to hand a paper she had to give to in the USA to mark her leave.
One of the things I learnt from that is the amount of information they DO have about you and me. I mean, we (our familiy) is in no way notable. We are middle class Mexicans. My grandmother was also a typical Juana Seis-Pack, nothing fancy. We were surprised to know how did they know my aunt was related to my grandmother (they did know before they started asking her).
It is because of that among lots of things that I dont want to put a foot in USA. If you see my comments I really have said harsh things against your government, and I am sure that if I put a foot in USA they will get me thinking I am some kind of terrorist for whatever reason and you know what? I wont give them that joy.
I am an American, looking for work. (Score:2)
I have 10 years of experience as a UNIX sysadmin, some contributory authership cred, and I do some other neat webby things on the side. I can prolly relearn German most easily, but will be happy to learn almost any other language as needed.
I'm looking to earn a modest living in or near a City, without the threat of anal probes, or arbitrary in
Europe and Privacy (Score:3, Insightful)
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That's not the same as having to provide him my passport, birth certificate, credit card, telephone, email and meal prefernces just because he wants to know.
Does that answer your question?
Camereras in the UK generally come in two flavours:
1. put up by property owners to cover their property - I'm fairly sure that's commonplace all over the world.
2. put up by the (usually local) government as a way to curb / displace crime. Of somewhat dubio
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There is a slightly different focus on privacy preferences in Europe than in the United States. It's also rooted in the fact that each country has comfort zones due to cultural issues (as far as I can tell, Germans are less camera friendly, French less ID card friendly; but the Germans are ok with ID cards because they're comfor
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I wouldn't say we're totally clueless... in the sense of geography, I can point
Pshaw (Score:5, Insightful)
Erm... (Score:3, Interesting)
What's my point? Since it's impossible to protect against even a significant number of ways that a person who wants to die can destroy an aircraft, isn't it better to just scale back to rational, sensible security measures, and give people back their freedom to travel as they please, forced to deal with the fact that with freedom comes the possiblity of death?
I don't fly anymore. The thought of being treated like a prison inmate just isn't appealing. I'd rather die from a rubidium bomb than life treated like a terrorist suspect for the grand offense of wanting to fly from one unspectacular city to another.
Retarded (Score:3, Insightful)
Terrorist: Yes/No?
No wonder things are so fucked up. All this innuendo and inference. Just ask the damn question. Here's an example: "Do you believe in killing people for the glory of your God?" If the answer is, "yes", that person goes in the terrorist category, and we put "Yes" in the Terrorist data field.
<napoleon>Well, Duh.</napoleon>
Funny you should say that..... (Score:3, Funny)
But the best one is...
"Do you intend to partake in any illegal or immoral activities while in the United States? (y/n)"
What counts as immoral anyway? And where's the "hopefully" option?
paranoia (Score:3, Insightful)
Pushing innocent people around does not phase a terrorist. I doubt a layman threatening a lawyer with a law suit has much of an effect on the lawyer either. I'm sure some measures are effective and will serve to protect the public. However the question is with regard to the measures that are clearly not effective and serve only to harm innocent bystanders.
Every time I have come from overseas, through an airport here in Canada, I feel like I am treated like a cow. Frankly I find it an insult. Frankly for international traffic between Canada and the USA I feel an open boarder is appropriate. How is it that 300+ million Americans can travel within the USA without this bullshit and 30+ million Canadians can travel within Canada without this bullshit, yet if a Canadian happens to visit the USA we are threatened by our boarder guards? And it happens on BOTH sides? The answer is very simple. This has almost NOTHING to do with security. Its all about collecting taxes... customes taxes.
Canadian customs officials are far more interested in asserting their authority over Canadians than they are over Americans. I'm sure Americans will say the same thing.
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The desire to control and assert "authority" reminds me of many years ago when I did programming in a small company of about 40 employees. We had 3 departments who used the computer. There was a terribly under-employed operator who felt it was his job to guard the printer. Well - he didn't call it that... he called it distributing the printouts. To put this into context... the company owned one (1) 300 line per minute printer and ran a mini computer with some terminals hooked up and did a daily backup. Who here would think this would require a staff of three (3) people? A systems programmer and two (2) operators? Anyone? Lord - what a joke!
Any well managed company would have fired the bloke and told the systems programmer to do the backups... because there was NO NEED for a systems programmer... Besides the guy didn't know how to program, and there was no systems programming required anyways. He was a glorified and over paid systems administrator and not a very good one at that... but I digress.
Our computer operator guarded the printer. Programmers had to routinely wait for hours for him to get off his ass and put a printout in the tray. User's had to wait also, but not as long. Once the printout was retrived from the tray we could confer with the user's if necessary and user's could confer with us. But we all had to wait while this guy took his sweet time. And of course for "security" reasons, programmers were not allowed to touch the printer. Programmers could write the code that ran all of the company's business interests... but we couldn't touch the printer.
I did take over the administration of that mess. I got rid of the systems programmer and the operators and promoted the secretary and she did a fine job. Programers got their own printouts and were more than happy to put user's printouts in the proper bin! Wow! over $100,000 per year in salvaged salaries and no complaints after that.
Just like the under-employed systems programmer and the two subordinate operators, customs officials will also strive to create a justification for their jobs. But does it really stand up to scrutiny?
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Analogy to the boarder guards? Once you are in the USA you can travel without being treated like a cow. Once Americans are in Canada they can travel without being treated like a cow. But from one stockyard to the other... we get treated like cows.
The thing is that if we try to gain select country priviledges with regard to boarder travel then we get accused of things that boarder on racizm. This simply leads to a police state. Frankly I do not think a "war on TERROR" justifies our authorities terrorizing innocent travelers to the extent that they do. Very little of what they have done in the past can be justified and its getting worse.
Stupidity. (Score:3)
For example:
- They collect info on if you have a return-fligth or only one-way. So, you make sure to book a return-fligth.
- They want to know your email-adress, so you make sure to use an average-looking one never associated with anything fishy.
- They specifically want to know if the ticket was paid for in cash. So you don't do that.
- They want to know if you have a history of booking and then not-showing for fligths. So you make sure not to have such a history. (and if you do, you establish a new fake identity that doesn't.)
The list is longer, infact the list is 31 points long. But literally 25 or so of the 31 datas are easy to manipulate by the determined flyer, and it's a near *certanity* that exactly that will be done. This means that even *if* profiling based on these data could bring something (which I doubt) it now *certainly* doesn't bring anything, since any data you do get on a terrorist is virtually guaranteed to be manipulated.Profiling works sorta, some of the time. It does however *NOT* work when used against an extremely small, but extremely determined group of people who:
Lets return the favour to USians (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
So will any mass-transport system, any crowded shopping area, any essential infrastructure such as water, gas, and electricity supply, any government office...
You can never protect all the targets forcibly. There's just too much opportunity, and even if you had the resources to do it, you'd have so many security assets that you'd have problems with inside jobs.
IMHO, any response to terrorism has to be based on not caving on princ
Re: (Score:2)
Are you suggesting that they make security tighter so that things aren't quite so loose?
Re: (Score:2)
What you you mean, `if'? Anything on this scale is bound to have leaks. This isn't even a slur on whatever people are handling the data (sorry, this European can't come up with the right three letters from the alphabet soup), it's just a natural consequence of the huge scale of the operation and human nature.
You won't have problems giving your data to Russia (Score:5, Interesting)
So you won't object too much then when the Russian officials demand all your data then? You do know that they've had a bit of a terrorist problem there for quite some time, right?
Or China. See, they claim the same thing. Falun Gong, all those Tibetan monks and any other organization fighting to topple the Communists. All terrorists. And that's why the Chinese Government needs to know the addresses of all the Taiwanese people you've ever been in contact with. Funny how the ones living in China keep dissappearing right after you flew in...
I have a better solution.
In Soviet US you belong to the Government.
US, Russia, China... it does not matter (Score:2)
France, Israel, Nigeria, North Korea, Iceland... it does not matter. Trust or do not trust, but never whine about it.
Your prez is trying to make you scared (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't bother the Prezident with the Constitution! (Score:2)
Re:Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
How about a rational one? Terrorists are not an army-they are an international organized crime syndicate. Those have been, and would be, handled perfectly well through good intelligence and police work. Just like always.
Oh, and (mod away!) I don't particularly care that they blew up the WTC's. 3000 people? Look at the annual death toll from cancer, heart disease, diabetes, or auto accidents sometime. Where would all that money really be better spent?
Finally, not everyone who hates the Republicans loves the Democrats. We'd not have political parties at all if I had my way.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
3000 people? Look at the annual death toll from cancer, heart disease, diabetes, or auto accidents sometime. Where would all that money really be better spent?
An excellent point, and one I've made repeatedly. If one tenth of the money (probably a lot less, but never mind) spent in Iraq was instead spent on improving, say, the 1% most dangerous traffic intersections in the country (okay, roads are a state issue, not federal, but work with me here), then we would be saving 3000 lives every single year, eas
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Agreed, as an individual that's all the rights you have.
What's irritating is that governments don't have the guts to insist on reciprocity with the US.
Brazil did - and started fingerprinting Americans coming in.
Britain, on the other hand, instead enforced a law that let's you be extradited to the US for 'crimes' that were committed in the UK and aren't even crimes here.... reciprocity?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Call me a Troll, but I feel safer going for a vacation in Turkey than I do visiting a conference in the US.
-- Your Friendly Euro-trash neighbour