Airport Security

[DarthHookah]

[url="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060810/ap_on_re_eu/britain_terror_plot_glance"]read this article[/url] and tell me that the war on terror is going swell.this is the kind of shit that pisses me off. at what point do people say "ok, security is one thing, but this is bullshit!" this "terror alert" stuff is going to keep creeping up into our liberties (well, this is in the UK, but the situation is not much better here) until curfews are enacted, weapons are registered, and phone lines are tapped. did you see the part where purses and wallets had to be in plastic bags?am i the only one here who sees our liberty threatened? not by terrorism, but by the government protecting us from terrorism?

[nuschultz]

The most obvious counterpoint to this is better safe than sorry.

[Teh Owntt]

But that counter point is BS. Theres a difference between increasing saftey, and infringing on peoples rights. My friend Rashid, who is Iraqi, was checked 3 times before boarding a plane no more than a month ago. There's no way to justify having someone searched because the way they look. On a similar note, Saudi Arabia has the worlds safest airlines. This is because their versions of air marshels carry assualt rifles aboard the planes. Yet our planes get highjacked...

[nuschultz]

I got searched twice crossing the border today. Whats the big deal?

[Claytron]

The problem is that you can't stop individual people or small groups of people who want to hurt 'you' (and by you I mean their idealogical targets) if you don't know exactly what their doing.People will only put up with so much bullshit security. Security is an illusion. Anyone who tries hard enough can find a loophole. Motherfuc*#$s in supermax prisons in the US are able to communicate with the outside world - in fact this one guy continued to run a massive drug operation using piss-ink and 400 year old cyrptography. The idea that you can protect every eventually and still expect people to put up with the hassle is a lie.You can't charge hundreds of dollars for a ticket to fly on a plane and then expect your customers to recieve body cavity searches for the 'pleasure' of doing so. So you can't have drinks of anything non essential... so how do you stop somebody who puts semex up their ass? They're gonna die anyways, why should they care? There's only so much you can do.The only thing you can do is good old fashioned police work like what found the current plot - not rankling airline customers who just want to get where they need to go quickly.

[Sonthert]

I disagree with your counterpoint as well, Nuschultz. Thomas Jefferson said "Those who would trade freedom for security will have neither."Darth Hookah, you're on to something. I've heard that all these things were sitting on some dusty, authoritarian-American's shelves for a long time. When 9/11 occured, they were "Hot Damn! We can force a little more authoritarian crap down people's throats." I don't believe in conspiracies, much, but I remember the news reports on 9/11, live reporting that Camp David had been attacked as well, then they said, no Camp David hadn't been attacked, the plane that was going to attack Camp David had crashed in Western Pennsylvania. Camp David is at least 200 miles away from Western Pennsylvania. How could that be known unless there was indeed forewarning about it? They knew and did nothing, now they celebrate stopping this latest terror threat when they damn well should have done something 9/11.How can I prove Homeland Security is an expensive sham? How many illegal immigrants come into this country each day, almost completely unfettered? How many tons of illegal drugs come into this country? Enough for a dozen or so people to smuggle a WMD in? Yep. How can you stop them? How can you find them? It took about two years for Yousef to plan the World Trade Center Bombings in 1993. I would offer that he was a decoy pigeon, testing our defensive capabilities and responses for Al Queda. A truck bomb is going to knock over the World Trade Center Tower into the other one and destroy both. Yeah, right, duh. This from the same group who reasonably calculated both the vertical height range of the impact point, the impact speed (which was very close to stall speed, as I understand it) and the points of impact to maximize the effects in case one tower should fall, but the other not. One planned with sinister precision, the other with childish stupidity. I heard some guy point out, recently, why were there only 286 passengers between four planes. It is interesting.AA11 Boeing 767 88/181 (Boston->LA)UA175 Boeing 767 59/181 (Boston->LA)AA77 Boeing 757 59/428 (Washington->LA)UA93 Boeing 757 40/428 (Newark->SF)All large planes, nearly empty, long flights, shouldn't they be a little more crowded? Unless some people were warned...which leads to some sinister and chilling conclusions.

[ghostofdavid]

Sounds like a conspiracy to me. Why? Because you are basing information around the idea of lack of evidence rather than evidence themselves. However, I can't help but agree with most of what you say in regard to authoritarian tweaking. Take our friends in England, for example. They have given up a lot of freedoms for the "greater good of the people."I think it seems contradictory to my snap judgment to think that you are for gun control, but against authoritarianism.

[Claytron]

[url="http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/08/081006.html#"]http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/20...08/081006.html#[/url]F*ckin' a.

[Teh Owntt]

Nice...

[Sonthert]

[quote name='ghostofdavid']Sounds like a conspiracy to me. Why? Because you are basing information around the idea of lack of evidence rather than evidence themselves. However, I can't help but agree with most of what you say in regard to authoritarian tweaking.  Take our friends in England, for example. They have given up a lot of freedoms for the "greater good of the people."  I think it seems contradictory to my snap judgment to think that you are for gun control, but against authoritarianism.[/quote] It is information, it is information that is contradictory to a commonly accepted conclusion. Although it is conspiracy-minded. Note, I don't necessarily believe this stuff, but I'm just proposing to hear what other people have to think. Why is it contradictory to be for gun control but opposed to authoritarinism? Non-authoritarian countries need laws, too. One of them might as well be against crazy yahoos with guns. I have another point, but I will add it to the gun control thread.