Why we will not be visiting the US in the forseeable future

Gurdur said:
You're not being honest again, and very far from clever. Since a major part of Doubt's post was all about how some other places were worse, notably for him Russia, then I was pointing out to him that imitating the extremes of some nasty little authoritarian place is not a good idea nor a good excuse.
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Actually, that one trip to Canada was my worst experience. But that was due to one person rather than the government policy.

My bigger concern about security is that bureaucracys will screw up anything given enough time. And they will screw up sooner with a more complex system. All static security measures, such as fingerprinting everyone will be circumvented someday.
 
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Gurdur said:
So if you and Doubt want to cower in your gutless paranoia, expect to have it named for what it is.
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Well you seem to be big into guts and testicles. I'll take you at your word there Rambo. You don't have a case for "paranoia" though. When they're really out there trying to get you it's not paranoia. Ignoring the danger in a fit of mindless bravado would be a bit like Bush saying: "Bring it on!"

I'm all for bravery...but not when it's indistinguishable from stupidity.

-z
 
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Gurdur said:
You're neither being honest nor clever.
The alleged points raised by Doubt were actually raised far better by Steverino, and already replied to in depth previously in the thread. I note neither you nor he could actually answer in any substance to them.
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Whether you think I'm clever matters not. I don't know how saying "ditto" back to you is dishonest, but that's your opinion.

As I have said before, it is unfortunate that any time people try to have a discussion about issues of security balanced with civil liberties, someone comes out with accusations that we're all paranoid, cowards, and that we're on the path to tossing all of our freedoms away. Your response was too predictable in hitting on those themes once again.

Gurdur said:
So if you and Doubt want to cower in your gutless paranoia, expect to have it named for what it is.
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It is your characterization of our concerns as gutless paranoia that is unjustified. Your need to place us in polar opposite camps appears to have clouded your ability to discuss the topic in a rational manner. This is unfortunate.

Gurdur said:
You're not being honest again, and very far from clever. Since a major part of Doubt's post was all about how some other places were worse, notably for him Russia, then I was pointing out to him that imitating the extremes of some nasty little authoritarian place is not a good idea nor a good excuse.

But I guess you don't like the idea of growing a pair of testicles to handle that.
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And your doomsday scenario struck me as a tad melodramatic. No one in this thread is advocating the imitation of "the extremes of some nasty little authoritarian place", so why you thought it necessary to point out to him that that wouldn't be a good idea is anyone's guess.

And you seem to have over-looked his final comment:
Doubt said:
On the other hand, if you are concerned about some bureaucrat messing up and labeling you as something you are not, you have my sympathy. I am far more concerned about SNAFUS and mistakes than I am about intimidation. The more security measures that are taken the greater the opportunity for somebody to screw up. It is not as if the various governments of the world are geared towards customer service.
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At least he is capable of weighing the various dimensions of the issue. You could learn a lot from that approach.

But I guess you don't like the idea of supressing your testicles for a moment so that you might participate in a civil discussion.
 
FWIW, I sincerely hope that Katana (or at least Katana's avatar) does not grow any testicles at all.
 
Thousands of semi-literate Mexicans who know 2 words of English get across the US borders without problems.

But I'm sure the USDHS or whatever it is called nowadays will spot mr serial suicide bomber from his fingerprints if he tries to get in. It just can't fail!
 
I've recently started traveling from Canada to the US fairly regularly to visit my boyfriend. Over time, the screening has gotten more detailed as the officers notice my frequent travel. At first I was simply asked where I was staying and the nature of my travel. More recently, I was asked how I had met him and whether my patients would be cared for during my visit. Then I was asked if I intended to return to Canada. On my last trip, I was sent an email the day before my flight asking where I intended to stay. During the actual screening, I was asked when I had last traveled to the US. When I replied "thanksgiving" I was told to give the exact dates (very difficult for an absent-minded person like me). I am beginning to feel like I'm suspected of something and it is somewhat uncomfortable to know I am being watched. However, it is worth it given who I am visiting :blush:
 
Region Rat said:
Like somebody said previously, its a no-win situation. Given the current political climate in the US, whatever is done will either be a) too much, and therefore silly; b) not enough, and therefore negligent; or c) the wrong thing, and therefore ignorant.

You've got to believe that the guys who want to get us know what security measures we have in place. If not, then what are we worried about in the first place? Look, the airlines have checked for guns for a long time (albeit badly at times). But they have checked, and there has not been a gun hijacking in a very long time. So the bad guys used razor knives. So the airlines ban all sharp things to the point of silliness. So the bad guys tried a shoe bomb. So the airlines ban all lighters (even though matches were used in the attempt), and make us all take off our shoes. So the bad guys (supposedly) were going to try gel explosives. So the airlines make thousands of passengers throw out thousands of $$ worth of shampoo and toothpaste. So the (bad?) guys ask for seat belt extenders without needing them and find out the passengers are still watching. So what's next. Now we'll fingerprint everyone coming in. You can bet that the bad guys, if they are intending mayhem, will send a nobody who has never been on the grid to come over innocently with some perfectly verifiable identity and reason, to commit said mayhem. But, if the airlines (or US customs) did the same old same old that they ever did, another plane may have been taken over with box cutters, some shoe bomb may have exploded, or some verifiably trained and experienced bad guy may have come over to commit some mayhem. And the person in charge would rightly be charged with malfeasence.

So, like I said, its a no win situation.

So what do you do? Complain when it's too much or silly because they won't try the old tricks again, or complain when its not enough and they repeat what worked before?
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Excellent post. Yep both Americans and unAmericans ;) alike will "biatch" no matter what. We appear to have more in common then either might care to admit eh?

Basically BPSCG has saved me a lot of keystrokes - was a bit harsh at times but generally I agree with what he/she said. The checks in place are hardly perfect but that doesn't mean we should just eliminate them. As for the "well why didn't why scope out the guys in flight school who didn't want to learn to land"......hindsight is 20/20. I bet most of us (at least) on hearing that BEFORE 9/11 would have just said "hm that's odd" and moved on as well. We just didn't see it coming.

To the "OP" sorry for any offense but to not visit family who you rarely see because you're offended by rude airline employees or at giving your credit card info or an email address - ie info which you have probably given out freely elsewhere is frankly pretty ridiculous, esp if you're close to them.

It's a changing world folks. And PS I don't like the idea of giving out my CC info, waiting forever at the airport while some fast food schmuck examines my bags (and so on) either, but while hardly a foolproof or panacea-type answer, it can help. Course that doesn't mean the methods shouldn't be continually looked and improved/changed/etc but remember this is the gov't we're talking about :) (PS and oh btw it might help catch people OTHER than terrorists too, eg smugglers etc) There may be better answers, but frankly I haven't heard many (if any) here, ie SPECIFIC things to do...just stuff like "good old fashioned police work." And seems to me getting fingerprints kinda fits in that category....



(PS - LOL @ rambo)
 
boooeee said:
Is that necessarily the case? I couldn't determine that from the link.

Does a 99.9% accuracy rate mean that one in a thousand will be identified as a terrorist? Or that one in a thousand will be mis-identified? In other words, they read my fingerprint and mis-identify me as drkitten. However, since drkitten isn't on a terrorist watchlist (I'm assuming), then I can fly without a problem.

I'm not completely sure how the system works, but it doesn't seem you can take the 99.9% success rate and directly apply that to the situation being discussed.
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Since I didn't see it addressed by anyone, I'd like to bump this reply.

Perhaps its better placed in the Puzzles forum though, as it does not seem to be a simple question, and seems by gut to make the concerns over misidentifying a fingerprint a complete non-concern.

For argument's sake, let's just stick with a single fingerprint, not multiple.

What is the probability that my given fingerprint will be machine-matched with any other given person (odds stated were...I forget...something like .05?).

Multiply by the probability that my given fingerprint will match that of a known criminal/terrorist for whom a fingerprint is also available?

Multiply by the probability that the match is not easily cleared up by human, rather than machine comparison (which I believe is the source of the error).

Multiply by the probability that the match is not easily cleared up by obvious differences (male/female, kid/adult, etc).

Multiply by the probability that no absolutely airtight alibi exists for the innocent person.

My gut tells me we're in to a pretty damn small probability of being misidentified. Something approaching zero...for very small values of zero.
 
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drkitten said:
I try not to do mathematics with my gut.
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Doing it at all in the politics forum is generally frowned upon. Nevertheless, while I can't do the exact math, the likelihood of being misidentified as a criminal/terrorist appears to be so small as to be not only NOT a concern, but almost an impossibility.

Given that, I think the point about machine-misidentification of fingerprints is a complete non-point. I'll leave it up to your non-gut mathematical skills to prove me wrong.
 
Rob Lister said:
Given that, I think the point about machine-misidentification of fingerprints is a complete non-point. I'll leave it up to your non-gut mathematical skills to prove me wrong.
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Certainly. You make the assumption that each of the factors you lists reduces the probability of a mis-identification. But one of them actually increases it.

You suggested a 0.05 probability that "my given fingerprint will be machine-matched with any other given person" -- or equivalently for any two people (A and B), the probabiliy that A will not be misidentfied is 0.95. (That's an unreasonably high probabiliy of misidentification --- but that makes the math easier to work with).

Now, let's look at three people -- A, B, and C. What is the probability that A will not be misidentified as B and will not be misidentified as C? The probability that A will be correctly identified is actually 0.95 * 0.95, or only 0.9025! For four people (A,B,C,D), the probability that A will be correctly identified drops to about 86%, and so forth.

In fact, under this set of assumptions, if there are twenty "terrorists" in the database, then the probability that a person will be falsely identified as a terrorist is nearly two out of three (64%). If there are 100 terrorists in the database, then the chances of making it through a terrorist screening unflagged are about one in two hundred. To put it another way, if a 777 full of people arrived at immigration, we would expect two of the passengers to not show up as "terrorists" in this database.
 
steverino said:
You do not fear terrorism in England?
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No, of course we don't fear terrorism, don't be stupid.

And are you saying we in America SHOULD NOT fear terrorism simply because Bush says we SHOULD?
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No, of course that is not what we're saying, don't be stupid.

Also, Godmode declares on her thread that "I AM NOT A SECURITY RISK!"

Does such a declaration exonerate her (or him)? Is such a declaration in your opinion as trustworthy as, say, finger-printing?
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No, of course that is not our opinion, don't be stupid.
 
Dr Adequate said:
No, of course we don't fear terrorism, don't be stupid.

No, of course that is not what we're saying, don't be stupid.

No, of course that is not our opinion, don't be stupid.
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Is this one of your quaint poems? (I know, I know. Don't be stupid.:D )
 
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