Scissors, lighters, bottles of hand lotion, the Costitution of the United States...

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


The majority traveling under US passports or US drivers licenses, and caucasian. One looking Guatamalan or maybe southern Mexico/elsewhere in Central America with a lot of Mayan/influence, and looking like she'd never been on a plane before and was nervous. In other words, obvious candidate for scrutiny, albeit for other policy reasons.

Others too far away to see, or I didn't see them presenting ID, but still, vast majority caucasian, and by general appearance and demeanor, corn-fed Americans, although there could have been some sneaky Canuckistanians in there, which would have justified any extra security measures taken.

How exactly can you make the connection from caucasion to American? Im sure youre aware there are alot of white folks from outside the USA, some of them from heavily "brown" countries - Brazil, Israel, etc, not to mention a fairly wide range of coloration in Turkey, Leb, etc.

Youre also not being clear. Do you want profiling by passport nationality? If so, why do you keep mentioning race? Or do you want profiling by race? Do you want TSA employees judging the complexions of Brazilians, Greeks, Turks, Syrians, etc?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Why am I not amazed that this trash was debunked by LotM in post 21 and this thread continues in another vein.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


One would presume that the FBI (since they're primarily charged with domestic intelligence) would pay attention to the odd ramblings and musing of such groups. It's not like we had no indication in advance of AQ's obsession with airliner hijackings or with the WTC as a target. We just ignored good intel we already had, kind of like what you do when you "randomize" security to satisfy political correctness.

Prior to the attack on the Murragh building theyd never blown up a building with a truck bomb before either, AFAIK. Wonder where they got that idea from, huh? The muslims who did the first WTC attack, and truck bombings in the Mideast, maybe?

Again, do you want to only select named individuals? Cause if you go beyond that, and dont check 100% of a group, you are necessarily randomizing. And randomizing makes sense so the other guy cant figure out exactly what profile you ARE looking for.

You keep treating this like you were profiling for a disease - "youve been to Kenya, ah no blood donation from you". We have an adversary that does its own strategizing, that watches what we do. It makes sense to throw them off balance.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
No we cant trust them per se. But for all we know they could as easily be overweighting nationality as a factor as underweighting it. Your only evidence otherwise is the perceived changed from immediate post 9/11 practices, the methodological basis for which you dont know.

Over the years, there have been various policy announcements, press anouncements, and other responses to various complaints by political groups by the TSA and DHS, as well as intra-government (not public, but not classified) communications regarding policy changes which were communicated throughout GSA when I worked there in 2004-5 (they were distributed all throughout GSA, not just within PBS, which has operational and administrative charge over all Federal buildings and interfaces with DHS in relation to security)

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
Why am I not amazed that this trash was debunked by LotM in post 21 and this thread continues in another vein.

Glad you can count, at least to the limits of all your digits.

This is threadjack central. Just because the initial part of a thread isn't that useful doesn't mean it can't be recycled.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


As usual, you conflate nationality, age, gender, to create a stereotype. Were the folks you saw being searched really females over 70?

I created a single stereotype for fun. Yes, there was a reported incident in San Diego of a 70-odd year old caucasian woman (born in the US), going through a whole bunch of extra security hoopla.

I haven't personally seen anyone clearly over 70, but over 60, check. Pudgy middle-aged white midwestern tourists, check. Sisters of Mercy nun, check. Blonde self-absorbed yuppie business chick in late 30's, check. US Marine, check. Quite a bunch more. I haven't really kept count and descriptions, since I hadn't really thought of producing a database of it.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
How exactly can you make the connection from caucasion to American? Im sure youre aware there are alot of white folks from outside the USA, some of them from heavily "brown" countries - Brazil, Israel, etc, not to mention a fairly wide range of coloration in Turkey, Leb, etc.

I've also lived outside the USA for several years (and not just Mexico) plus travelled outside the US for a lot. In general, by skin tone, clothing, demeanor, accent, fluency of language including colloquialisms, appearance of accompanying family members, and other things a reasonably observant person can identify from 30-40 feet range or less, I'd say that better than 95% of the time, I wouldn't confuse somebody from Turkey or some chica from Brazil with a family of tourists from Kansas.

Youre also not being clear. Do you want profiling by passport nationality? If so, why do you keep mentioning race? Or do you want profiling by race? Do you want TSA employees judging the complexions of Brazilians, Greeks, Turks, Syrians, etc?

Profiling by any and all criteria which intelligence estimates and any other information available to law enforcement indicates might have a higher than average yield of results. Then throw in a few random Made-in-the-USA whiteys to make everyone feel better.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Which, AFAIK, has been the response of most American travelers since 9/11. Except for certain whiners. Which is what I think Kuci was getting at. I doubt that this guy was really concerned about a large scale cost-benefit analysis. Or itching to have more searches of brown foreigners. It was more a general disdain for security and its implications for him - the opposite of the attitude most folks at Ben Gurion airport had, or that most Americans have.

Exactly. He couldn't be a terrorist, therefore they shouldn't have searched him. After all, he's special.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Prior to the attack on the Murragh building theyd never blown up a building with a truck bomb before either, AFAIK. Wonder where they got that idea from, huh? The muslims who did the first WTC attack, and truck bombings in the Mideast, maybe?

There was also significant chatter about taking out the BATF people involved in Waco, the usual whining about Ruby Ridge (which was an unjustied excessive use of force, but not quite the ZOG conspiracy made out to be by some folks), and a lot more stuff which usually amount to nothing other than stains you don't want to think about on the pages of SOF magazine.

The difference with McVeigh and Nichols is you have a disconnected criminal act on a big scale by a couple of isolated nutjobs, compared to active groups engaged in their version of warfare, with an ongoing agenda, ongoing fundraising and recruiting efforts, and a more or less cohesive strategy to attempt certain types of operations against a specific range of targets.

Random security isn't going to be any more successful than "profiling" (i.e. targeted security efforts based solely on intelligence and law enforcement considerations, not political or publicity considerations) at intercepting McVeigh type nutjobs unless they make visible mistakes.

Again, do you want to only select named individuals? Cause if you go beyond that, and dont check 100% of a group, you are necessarily randomizing. And randomizing makes sense so the other guy cant figure out exactly what profile you ARE looking for.

I don't have a problem with a much stricter, across-the-board security system. It just impacts people's desire to fly conveniently and the airline industry, so what we have now, after all sorts of lobbying and PR games, is far more security illusion than reality.

We screen every pair of shoes that go on an airplane because one half-retarded moron tried, very unsucessfully, to flick his bic and light off his shoes, but other common items which are potentially much more adaptable to initiating attacks are allowed to be taken onboard without significant inspection? It's just for show.

Selecting less than 100% of all travelers is not the same as randomizing.

You keep treating this like you were profiling for a disease - "youve been to Kenya, ah no blood donation from you". We have an adversary that does its own strategizing, that watches what we do. It makes sense to throw them off balance.

You act like this adversary has a random and open playing field in which to work. Sorry, but al-Qutb and jihad ain't gonna play well in Peoria.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Exactly. He couldn't be a terrorist, therefore they shouldn't have searched him. After all, he's special.

Just like you. Now here's a gold star and a lollipop. Run along now, dear.

[Kuciwalker]

I'm not special. lotm also see's the obvious truth.

[lord of the mark]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat

Selecting less than 100% of all travelers is not the same as randomizing.

Selecting less than 100% of any given grouping IS random. If you select 50% of all 25 YO saudi males who bought round trip tickets with a credit card, thats random. If you select 1% of 20 YO white Americans who look nervous, thats random. If you select 10% of 30 YO brown americans with typically muslim names, thats random.

You act like this adversary has a random and open playing field in which to work. Sorry, but al-Qutb and jihad ain't gonna play well in Peoria.

They dont need a division. they need at most a cell of 4 or 5, and can probably pull off something big with one.

[Kuciwalker]

Why are you still arguing, lotm? MtG already conceded to me.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Selecting less than 100% of any given grouping IS random. If you select 50% of all 25 YO saudi males who bought round trip tickets with a credit card, thats random. If you select 1% of 20 YO white Americans who look nervous, thats random. If you select 10% of 30 YO brown americans with typically muslim names, thats random.

ran·dom
–adjective 1. proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern: the random selection of numbers.
2. Statistics. of or characterizing a process of selection in which each item of a set has an equal probability of being chosen.

Ok, so after you apply several layers of targeting criteria, the whole thing is "random" because you don't necessarily select every single one every single time.

No problem, profiling is "random" too, so there's no argument. If you're from the ME, any other country on a targeted list, have an arabic or typically Islamic name, act nervous or weird, we'll "randomly" screen all of you, and if there's time left over and not too much of a security jam, we'll "randomly" screen a few more people just to share the joy.

No problem - profiling can't exist, because if you check out everyone, you're obviously not profiling, and if you don't check out everyone, it's obviously "random."

You act like this adversary has a random and open playing field in which to work. Sorry, but al-Qutb and jihad ain't gonna play well in Peoria.

They dont need a division. they need at most a cell of 4 or 5, and can probably pull off something big with one.

Assuming those people are either (a) trained, indoctrinated and given financial and logistical support, or (b) already have relevant training, are indoctrinated, and have their own internal resources.

Again, given the total lack of success in producing more than the sad-sack amateurs who've gotten themselves arrested promptly (e.g. the truck driver, those clowns in Buffalo), or the wunderkind such as Padilla, Azzam the Amurkin and little Johnnie Walker, it's a little far-fetched to think we're going to have a cell of AQ jihadists emerging from corn-fed, blonde haired, blue eyed Peoria stock.

There might be a Red under every bed, but it's a hell of a lot less likely that we're going to find a home grown jihadi under there too.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Why are you still arguing, lotm? MtG already conceded to me.

Whatever gets you through the night. How can one "concede" to random one-liners?