On Sat, 28 Dec 2013 22:14:30 +0000, Doctor John wrote:

> On 28/12/13 21:31, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> 
>> Millions of people travel by air in the US every day, and this doesn't
>> happen every time, or even close to every time.  It might be
>> interesting to see what percentage of travelers actually have problems
>> like this going through security checkpoints at US airports.  I'd wager
>> it's significantly less than 1%, and probably significantly fewer than
>> 1 in 100,000.
>> 
>> Jim
>> 
>> 
> You are, of course, absolutely correct. However, let's put your estimate
> down at the low end - say 1 in 1,000,000. There are approximately 1.5
> million passenger flights per day in the US, therefore there may be 550
> such incidents every year ... and (realises that there are 150
> murders/day in the US) <stops>
> 
> Anecdotal evidence is a bitch to deal with. Gimme hard stats.

That it is - and I agree, hard numbers are much better to deal with.  As 
Darren likes to say, "The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'." - and this 
demonstrates why that's the case.

> Still a little bit of training and better selection (not in that order)
> wouldn't go amiss.

Absolutely agreed. :)

Jim

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Doctor John <j.g### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> Still a little bit of training and better selection (not in that order)
> wouldn't go amiss.

Or how about doing what every other western country is doing, and not
being such a police state?

I know that public transportation in the US (other than air traffic)
generally sucks, but the way that Americans could do something about
the TSA is to vote with their feet, so-to-speak. The bus or the train
might take a longer time, but at least you are not treated like a
potential criminal and possibly subjected to humiliation and agression.
It might even be cheaper.

Imagine almost empty airports and airplanes... I'm pretty sure things
would change quite rapidly when airlines start going bankrupt one after
another...

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Sun, 29 Dec 2013 04:48:57 -0500, Warp wrote:

> Doctor John <j.g### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>> Still a little bit of training and better selection (not in that order)
>> wouldn't go amiss.
> 
> Or how about doing what every other western country is doing, and not
> being such a police state?
> 
> I know that public transportation in the US (other than air traffic)
> generally sucks, but the way that Americans could do something about the
> TSA is to vote with their feet, so-to-speak. The bus or the train might
> take a longer time, but at least you are not treated like a potential
> criminal and possibly subjected to humiliation and agression.
> It might even be cheaper.

You forget that *most* Americans are generally happy with the state of 
things, or at least aren't angry enough to do anything about it.  Many 
feel powerless to effect any change, so why bother?

But again, to call the US a "police state" is really like calling us a 
"socialist state" because we now have affordable health care.  It's 
hyperbole at the best.

I've been in US airports (recently), and I've been in European airports.  
Trust me, security here is not so different compared to some of the 
European airports.  I haven't seen cops inside our terminals carrying 
fully automatic weapons, as I did in Germany and Russia in the late 80's, 
or in the UK (OK, in the UK I don't know if they're *fully* automatic, 
but they weren't just pistols) in the early 2000's.

We have security theater.  It's an inconvenience to many, and there are a 
few high-profile abuses that make the news, but the airports in Europe 
have more actual security than we do at most of ours, and a lot of it is 
much more visible armaments.

> Imagine almost empty airports and airplanes... I'm pretty sure things
> would change quite rapidly when airlines start going bankrupt one after
> another...

That's actually been going on for years - only Southwest (and some of the 
smaller carriers) actually turn a profit.

Jim

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> But again, to call the US a "police state" is really like calling us a 
> "socialist state" because we now have affordable health care.  It's 
> hyperbole at the best.

The TSA all in itself doesn't make the US police-state-like, but it
adds up to everything else.

It seems to be that, at least at some places, there's a strong "us vs them"
mentality among the police force, and they act as if they were a military
force within a foreign and potentially hostile land.

They are extremely trigger-happy and will pull out guns and tasers at
the slightest of provocation, or even without, but just if they feel
like it. They can legally lie to people, and trick people into
implicating themselves. They regularly abuse people with impunity.

Time and again we get news about new cases of police brutality. While
that alone doesn't yet make it a police state, what does is that they
usually get scot-free. Their buddies will support them and lie for them,
even under oath, and their superiors are not eager to start internal
investigations. Such investigations are generally started only if the
event gets wide publicity, and even then the punishments are often
extremely lenient or even non-existent.

The cases that get publicity are probably just the tip of the iceberg.
There just *happened* to be a camera pointing that way, or someone with
a camera who didn't have it immediately confiscated afterward. How many
such cases are happening where there are no cameras and no credible
witnesses? In these cases it's usually the word of the victim vs. the
word of a half-dozen police officers (all of who, naturally, agree that
no abuse happened, of course.)

If the government just watches by while all this is happening, rather
than taking stern actions to eradicate these abuses, what else is that
other than being police-state-like?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Mon, 30 Dec 2013 10:37:45 -0500, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> But again, to call the US a "police state" is really like calling us a
>> "socialist state" because we now have affordable health care.  It's
>> hyperbole at the best.
> 
> The TSA all in itself doesn't make the US police-state-like, but it adds
> up to everything else.

Sure, but at the same time, I actually live in the US; you don't.  During 
the lead-up to the 2002 Winter Olympics, Salt Lake City felt like a 
police state - we had armed personnel on high structures around the 
Olympic venues.  We don't have that now.

I'm not saying that there aren't problems, but I'm saying we're far from 
being a police state - and reports that that is the case are pretty 
skewed and show the worst of the worst rather than the status quo.

I will, however, grant that as a white male in the US, I am not subject 
to "stop and frisk," being asked to provide documentation of citizenship, 
etc.  My view certainly isn't the only one here, and I'm sure if you 
asked a black 19-year-old in New York City if it was a police state, they 
might have a different view.

> It seems to be that, at least at some places, there's a strong "us vs
> them"
> mentality among the police force, and they act as if they were a
> military force within a foreign and potentially hostile land.

Again, reports of the worst of the worst - not the norm.  Boston after 
the Boston bombing, for example - way over the top, but not the state of 
affairs in any city on a daily basis.

> They are extremely trigger-happy and will pull out guns and tasers at
> the slightest of provocation, or even without, but just if they feel
> like it. They can legally lie to people, and trick people into
> implicating themselves. They regularly abuse people with impunity.

*Again,* this is the exception that you see in the news.  Cops behaving 
themselves aren't newsworthy.  Cops tasing a grandmother are, so that's 
what you hear about on the news.

> Time and again we get news about new cases of police brutality. While
> that alone doesn't yet make it a police state, what does is that they
> usually get scot-free. Their buddies will support them and lie for them,
> even under oath, and their superiors are not eager to start internal
> investigations. Such investigations are generally started only if the
> event gets wide publicity, and even then the punishments are often
> extremely lenient or even non-existent.

*Again* - the exception and not the rule.  I'm not saying there aren't 
bad actors, but most cops (like most citizens) do their job admirably.  A 
few bad apples give all cops a bad name.

> The cases that get publicity are probably just the tip of the iceberg.
> There just *happened* to be a camera pointing that way, or someone with
> a camera who didn't have it immediately confiscated afterward. How many
> such cases are happening where there are no cameras and no credible
> witnesses? In these cases it's usually the word of the victim vs. the
> word of a half-dozen police officers (all of who, naturally, agree that
> no abuse happened, of course.)
> 
> If the government just watches by while all this is happening, rather
> than taking stern actions to eradicate these abuses, what else is that
> other than being police-state-like?

Your view is skewed because it's based entirely on news media reports and 
not actually being here.

Jim

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> I will, however, grant that as a white male in the US, I am not subject 
> to "stop and frisk," being asked to provide documentation of citizenship, 
> etc.

OTOH, you *are* subject to the countrywide surveillance by the NSA
of a scale that even the former Stasi would have been jealous of...

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Mon, 30 Dec 2013 14:58:08 -0500, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> I will, however, grant that as a white male in the US, I am not subject
>> to "stop and frisk," being asked to provide documentation of
>> citizenship,
>> etc.
> 
> OTOH, you *are* subject to the countrywide surveillance by the NSA of a
> scale that even the former Stasi would have been jealous of...

Well, allegedly, I am - but the amount of data in that database is 
staggering, and mining databases of that size isn't a trivial task, even 
with the kind of computing power available to the NSA.  But yes, that 
certainly *is* a valid point.

My larger concern (though certainly the surveillance is problematic) is 
that by casting such a wide net, these agencies will actually learn about 
threats too late.  Allegedly just like 9/11 - the reports say that the 
attack was known about and predicted, and there was advance knowledge for 
it, but the analysis wasn't complete until after the event was done.

You can only scale up computing power so much to mine that amount of data 
- and processing power isn't the limitation, bus speed and storage device 
speed are.  By being less discerning, these agencies (IMHO) make us less 
safe rather than more safe - but they're really good at telling us about 
stuff that's already happened.

But that's really a different topic than the supposed "police state" we 
live in because of abuses by a minority of TSA personnel and cops.  Like 
I said, I live here, you don't.  My experiences are more relevant than 
the tidbits you pick up in the news, which only call out the worst 
exceptions to the rule.  It's not like every cop in the US is walking 
around looking for someone to tase or shoot, which is what it seems your 
impression of life in the US is like.

Most cops are decent, hard-working people just trying to make their part 
of the country a little safer - while not having to take on doing too 
much paperwork.  The same is true for most TSA personnel.

But ho-hum experiences with the vast majority of cops and TSA personnel 
aren't newsworthy, so nobody hears about them.

It's like going to a support forum and then saying "this product sucks" 
based solely on reading about people who have problems, and not taking a 
sample of those who never have a problem at all.

Jim

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Am 30.12.2013 20:58, schrieb Warp:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> I will, however, grant that as a white male in the US, I am not subject
>> to "stop and frisk," being asked to provide documentation of citizenship,
>> etc.
>
> OTOH, you *are* subject to the countrywide surveillance by the NSA
> of a scale that even the former Stasi would have been jealous of...

No, certainly not. They'd be jealous of the technology, but as for scale 
the Stasi surveillance is probably still unsurpassed. After all, they 
had a significant percentage of the entire population as information 
sources.

Oh, and from what I've heard the NSA is far more active outside the USA 
than inside.

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On Mon, 30 Dec 2013 23:12:05 +0100, clipka wrote:

> Am 30.12.2013 20:58, schrieb Warp:
>> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>>> I will, however, grant that as a white male in the US, I am not
>>> subject to "stop and frisk," being asked to provide documentation of
>>> citizenship,
>>> etc.
>>
>> OTOH, you *are* subject to the countrywide surveillance by the NSA of a
>> scale that even the former Stasi would have been jealous of...
> 
> No, certainly not. They'd be jealous of the technology, but as for scale
> the Stasi surveillance is probably still unsurpassed. After all, they
> had a significant percentage of the entire population as information
> sources.
> 
> Oh, and from what I've heard the NSA is far more active outside the USA
> than inside.

What's more, the Stasi actually were locking people up for what they say 
and think.  We're not at that point in the US.  Yet.  I am something of 
an idealist in this regard as well, and think that should the abuses 
actually lead to jailing political opponents, the populace would react 
quite strongly.

So right now, we're at the point of comparing the NSA to the Stasi, and 
that's kinda like saying Christians are actually persecuted in the US.  
No Christian in the US (that I've heard of) has actually experienced 
*real* persecution within the borders of this country.

The Stasi - now there's an organisation that was involved in systematic 
persecution of religious (and other) minorities.

That's the sort of hyperbole I expect from members of the fringes of the 
Tea Party.  Not someone who lives in a country that actually experienced 
the effects of persecution firsthand.  Then again, Finnish Jews were 
reportedly not persecuted, since Finland fought with Germany against the 
USSR, as I understand it.

Jim

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> What's more, the Stasi actually were locking people up for what they say 
> and think.  We're not at that point in the US.  Yet.

Yeah. So far you have to do something really heinous like make a joke in
order to get in jail.

http://www.change.org/petitions/release-my-son-justin-carter-being-prosecuted-for-a-facebook-comment

If that were just a single, isolated incident...

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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