When in the face of overwhelming evidence?

[MTUpower]

Why do we as a nation feel we cannot profile terrorists? Please be honest- we have never seen a white grandma in a wheelchair plot terrorist attacks, yet they are treated the same as the well known terrorist profile- (here's another brick in that formidable wall) I understand the slippery slope argument and it fails to hold water with me and millions of others. The Constitution is living document and subject to interpretation. When does common sense prevail? Please no inflaming comments; I'd like a civil discussion if you can.

[TheDon]

Doesn't Israel, Iran, UAE, etc.. profile?

[Darktech]

This is the United States of the Offended. Forbid that we piss off a few to save peace with the many. Piss them all off!

My stomach churned as I watched the vid of a 6 year old boy being strip searched in front of his father. This is quickly becoming a police state. WHAT happened to 'probable cause' and 'Illegal search and seizure'?

[MS Fowler]

I do not favor the humiliation that we, as US citizens are forced to undergo in order to fly. Having said that, let me make this observation....
Terrorists watch what we do. If we gave young boys, grandmothers and nuns a pass through security wouldn't that be an invitation for the terrorists to use, young children, grandmothers and nuns?
I rather doubt that airline passengers would allow any in-flight attempts. We always seem to be closing the proverbial barn door after the horse has escaped. The terrorists have won when we subject our own citizens to these demeaning searches. There is even evidence that these searches, as demeaning as they are, would not have stopped last year's Christmas day attempt. If that is true, then what is the benefit of these enhanced searches?

[compress ignite]

Safety First [ALWAYS]
(I'll Fly naked: in Tyveck with Flip Flops if necessary.)

Don't Wanna "Participate" in the TSA Circus?

1.Road.
2.Amtrack(Such as it is...).
3.Ocean Passenger Transport.

4.Find something substantive to Whine about.

[Chas H]

Originally Posted by Darktech

WHAT happened to 'probable cause' and 'Illegal search and seizure'?

That was done away with by the so-called Patriot Act -it's too late now to start quoting the Constitution.

[Skid Row Joe]

Originally Posted by TheDon

Doesn't Israel profile?

They only profile people.





















Not everything but people, as the TSA does.......

Originally Posted by MTUpower

I understand the slippery slope argument and it fails to hold water with me and millions of others.

Fortunately, neither you nor any of those millions of others sit on the supreme court. I understand your desire to be fully prepared to fight the last war, but violating the constitution is probably not the best way to go about it. Obviously, profiling wouldn't work because the terrorists would simply recruit people who don't meet the profile.

Personally, I avoid flying because it's become A PITA due to both security and the financial condition of the airlines. If you don't like the current security arrangements, vote with your wallet and don't fly.

[strelnik]

Originally Posted by Darktech

This is the United States of the Offended. Forbid that we piss off a few to save peace with the many. Piss them all off!

My stomach churned as I watched the vid of a 6 year old boy being strip searched in front of his father. This is quickly becoming a police state. WHAT happened to 'probable cause' and 'Illegal search and seizure'?

Since the 1940s there have been documented cases in the Middle East of men disguising themselves as women in some countries to avoid detection. There have been some recent ones in Africa, with Sudanese.

In the 1980s Brigate Rossi (The Red brigades) smuggled weaponse and machine gun magazines into the Rome airport, but when they were found out by a couple of diligent guards, they opened fire, killing 20 civilians . It's all in the papers-- read the stories about the attacks on the Rome airport 1978-1980

The Bader Meinhof Gang, aka the Rote Armee Faktion in Germany used to do the same thing to emplace guns and ammo, so if possible suspects were searched, they had no weapons, because someone else was stashing them at the end point. If the weapons did not arrive, the mission was cancelled. Oma (grandma) was actually a yonger fat woman who dyed her hair and wore old clothes. She got caught and did 8 years in German prisons, after Ulrike Meinhof hanged herself in her cell in 1982.

There are cases within Lebanon of families carrying ammo the same way in baby carriages.

There are other examples of Muslim "religious" organizations going to the Hajj in Saudi Arabia when there's a huge press and smuglling people out of the country or smuggling stuff into it.

Sad to say it is true.

[pj67coll]

Originally Posted by MTUpower

Why do we as a nation feel we cannot profile terrorists?

Because they're non white.

- Peter.

[Pooka]

The boy who was 'stripped search' had his shirt pulled off by his Father. The TSA had nothing to do with it.

Tim McVeigh is all you have to say in Oklahoma to shoot down the profiling argument.

McVeigh was a clean cut hardworking vet who looked like everyone else. Then he blew up one city block of OKC and he still looked the same way.

The cop that pulled McVeigh over did so because the car McVeigh was driving did not have a rear plate, and he arrested him because he discovered a gun in the car that was not being transported correctly.

When the cop got to the jail he heard the news about the bombing. While other cops were looking for Middle-Eastern men McVeigh was sitting in a cell.

You can't tell a book by its' cover.

[Chas H]

Originally Posted by pj67coll

Because they're non white.

- Peter.

As mentioned already, the enemy will simply switch to agents that pass through profiling nets.
http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/AlQaeda39s-white-army-of-terror.3667425.jp

[Pavka007]

Originally Posted by MS Fowler

........ The terrorists have won when we subject our own citizens to these demeaning searches. .....

Yes they have won long time ago. Sad but true... We are the one looking over our shoulders every minute of every day. Few months back I've read an interview with some leader of the Taliban in Afghanistan. (I think it was on CNN website) After they have asked him what are his plans for the future he just answered something like: "I don't have any, I am just waiting for you (US) to exit the country soon so we can go undisturbed our own way"
The facts are that in the last NATO meeting in Portugal last week this is exactly what happen. The NATO country have agreed to exit the country by 2014.
What else is to comment, billion of dollars wasted for no reason.

[mgburg]

You have the crackpots that claim 5 milli-seconds of RF will fry your chestnuts off your frame...

Then you have the old maids that wouldn't know what something "up there" felt like if it had been rammed home attached to the front end of Mac Truck claiming they were molested by a blue-handed crew of minimum wage public servants (or contract playas) that are too stupid to get a job at Mickey Ds'...

And your lost luggage gets to its destination first, while you're still putting your under-roos back on after the full-body cav-search you had to go through 'cause you just decided that you to have a "humorous moment" with the undercover TSA agent that was standing in line behind you...

Hell, I'll drive or ride the AmTrack. I'd rather dodge some 20-something trying to text or take a chance that the train will stay on the track than get probed, poked, smoked, rammed, jammed or slammed in a small room of an overly-priced, glasss-encased, petri-dish of an airport. Hell, driving into that place should have given you the idea that you were going for the "Hershey-Highway Bend-Forward" dance when you first saw the pricing on the Hourly/Daily/Weekly Parking Rates...assuming of course, they were posted in an area where you had more that few milliseconds to actually READ what they were.

Really, the only way I'm flying is charter/private and someone else is paying. Otherwise, I choose my own level of discomfort.

And when you get right down to it, isn't THAT what it's all about?

[MTUpower]

Originally Posted by Pooka

The boy who was 'stripped search' had his shirt pulled off by his Father. The TSA had nothing to do with it.

Tim McVeigh is all you have to say in Oklahoma to shoot down the profiling argument.

McVeigh was a clean cut hardworking vet who looked like everyone else. Then he blew up one city block of OKC and he still looked the same way.

The cop that pulled McVeigh over did so because the car McVeigh was driving did not have a rear plate, and he arrested him because he discovered a gun in the car that was not being transported correctly.

When the cop got to the jail he heard the news about the bombing. While other cops were looking for Middle-Eastern men McVeigh was sitting in a cell.

You can't tell a book by its' cover.

TMcV is one example that makes a good exception, but certainly does not overturn the other evidence, nor does it stop common sense from seeing the patterns that are obvious. While I disagree with many of Israels policies, they is no doubt they have the best intelligence in the world regarding airline terrorism. We need to emulate them to beat the terrorists in in airports. Other places also, while continuing to look for the exceptions.