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What should you be subjected to in order to fly on airplane?

What should you be subjected to in order to fly on airplane?


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Does the government have the right to read your email, if they're providing the power that keeps the lights on at your internet service provider? No one is forcing you to use the internet or to have electricity, therefore your consent to this invasion of privacy is presumed. Right?

That analogy makes no sense. The government does have the ability to regulate internet service providers and e-mail companies, even mandating disclosure of all their files. That is between the company and the government, not the user and the government. As long as it is in the TOS when you sign up for the service, you're consenting to it.

The government can't just do that retroactively, because you have a reason expectation of privacy. That would be a violation of the fourth amendment. But as long as you knew the search was coming before you signed up, it is not a violation of your rights.

I don't even know what you're getting at with the electricity analogy.
 
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Good points. I guess this is why there are federal and state requirements that regulate who can drive, how they can drive, and whether they are required to use safety measures like seat belts. Do you consider those requirements to be an infringement on your constitutional rights?

Nope, not at all. But then, speed limits and driver's licenses are considerably less invasive than nudie booths and groin-touching.

Anyway, my point is that your concern about the body count / economic cost of another 9/11 type event is misplaced. Not only is an event on that scale simply not going to happen again, but there are far more effective ways for our government to be spending its resources to minimize lives lost and economic costs, such as automobile safety.

A 10% reduction in automobile accidents would be far more cost-effective than a 100% reduction in airline terrorism.

Catz Part Deux said:
It's not a fail. This is only a violation of your rights if the government is forcing you to submit to these searches. You aren't being forced, because taking an air flight is a purely voluntary act. /thread.

Stop saying it's a purely voluntary act, as though that means my consent to invasions of my privacy is automatic. Virtually everything people do is a purely voluntary act, yet no one would tolerate the government employing these kind of draconian security measures virtually anywhere other than an airport. Even the Pentagon doesn't do this kind of ****. Whenever I go to the Pentagon, I just pass through a couple metal detectors and answer a couple questions about my visit.
 
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I do like the current mindset that if some nut jumps up from his seat to rush the pilot's cabin that there are going to be some passengers jumping him and beating the crap out of him.

If someone attempted to take a plane down I was in I have a good feeling I would kill him and most likely have enough help in that endeavor.

I train in Krav Maga and know in a plane of 100 or more passengers the odds there will be an off duty police officer or someone involved in martial arts. When you attack the perp there is going to be someone else to help you.
 
That analogy makes no sense. The government does have the ability to regulate internet service providers and e-mail companies, even mandating disclosure of all their files. That is between the company and the government, not the user and the government. As long as it is in the TOS when you sign up for the service, you're consenting to it.

So as long as your internet service provider lets you know in the TOS that the government is requiring them to turn over all your emails, it's OK with you?

Guy Incognito said:
The government can't just do that retroactively, because you have a reason expectation of privacy. That would be a violation of the fourth amendment. But as long as you knew the search was coming before you signed up, it is not a violation of your rights.

OK, well suppose it's a condition for your continued service. You can drop your service immediately, or you can agree to let your ISP turn over all your emails to the government. And all the other ISPs in town will require the same thing, so no switching to a different one. That's cool with you?

Guy Incognito said:
I don't even know what you're getting at with the electricity analogy.

The ISP = the airline. The government, in both cases, provides them with a service. In one case, you believes that gives them a blank check to violate any civil liberties they want since the activity (just like almost any other activity) is voluntary, and its being channeled through some ostensibly private entity to the end user. I was just wondering if your views of government snooping into your email were the same, and if not, why not.

Hardly sounds very libertarian. Quite the opposite, actually.
 
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I think the people who are afraid of pat downs are the ones with irrational fears.

Why should I be treated like a criminal just because you're worried about the 0.0000002% (or less) chance that your plane will be bombed? Of all the things that could possibly kill you, this shouldn't be anywhere CLOSE to the top of the list of things to worry about.
 
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Nope, not at all. But then, speed limits and driver's licenses are considerably less invasive than nudie booths and groin-touching.

Are they less invasive than requiring a vision test and disclosure of sensitive medical conditions? I don't think so.

You know, no offense intended, but every time you use the term "nudie booth," you make it clear that you exist in the realm of hyperbole and don't have a logical foundation ot stand on.

Anyway, my point is that your concern about the body count / economic cost of another 9/11 type event is misplaced. Not only is an event on that scale simply not going to happen again, but there are far more effective ways for our government to be spending its resources to minimize lives lost and economic costs, such as automobile safety.

A 10% reduction in automobile accidents would be far more cost-effective than a 100% reduction in airline terrorism.

This is a false dichotomy. The "government" can and does do both. Your statements here also indicate a massive lack of understanding of "government." Regulating driving requirements is in the realm of the state and local governments. However, no single state and local government could effectively regulate air travel. There is not a single monolithic government, in the U.S. There are many sorts of governments.

Stop saying it's a purely voluntary act, as though that means my consent to invasions of my privacy is automatic.

If you don't wish to submit to the screening, don't fly.

Even the Pentagon doesn't do this kind of ****. Whenever I go to the Pentagon, I just pass through a couple metal detectors and answer a couple questions about my visit.

Have people often tried to smuggle bombs into the Pentagon in their underpants and shoes? The first time it happens, you'll be facing far more draconian security measures.
 
Why should I be treated like a criminal just because you're worried about the 0.0000002% (or less) chance that your plane will be bombed? Of all the things that could possibly kill you, this shouldn't be anywhere CLOSE to the top of the list of things to worry about.

If you don't want to be security screened, don't fly. Take a train. Or, rent your own private jet.
 
I do like the current mindset that if some nut jumps up from his seat to rush the pilot's cabin that there are going to be some passengers jumping him and beating the crap out of him.

If someone attempted to take a plane down I was in I have a good feeling I would kill him and most likely have enough help in that endeavor.

I train in Krav Maga and know in a plane of 100 or more passengers the odds there will be an off duty police officer or someone involved in martial arts. When you attack the perp there is going to be someone else to help you.

THis is great, but your greatest threat isn't going to come from some goon rushing the cockpit. It's going to come from some goon attempting to detonate a bomb on the flight.

Or, some female goon detonating her fake breasts.
 
I think the people who are afraid of pat downs are the ones with irrational fears.

Not to mention the people who use the term "nudie booth." Are they afraid their junk just won't stand up to the scrutiny? :D
 
Hardly sounds very libertarian. Quite the opposite, actually.

It's not libertarian, it's a fact. It doesn't matter whether you like it or not, it is not a violation of the fourth amendment. The fourth amendment only protects against unreasonable searches and seizures of person and papers by the government. This doesn't qualify. I don't understand why you can't see that.
 
I haven't been flying at all lately (which I consider to be a blessing), yet I believe my boss has plans to send me to Spain pretty soon. A Spanish Army contract has come our way for night vision mods on a fleet of Bell AB-212 aircraft.

I wanted to say this, before I forgot...you lucky bastard. I'd love to go to Spain.
 
don't carry **** in your pockets that will set off the metal detector. don't pack **** in your carry-on that looks like a bomb or a gun on x-ray. don't stroke out about someone seeing the blue outline of your tiny weiner on a body scanner screen.

Quoted, belatedly, for truth.
 
“It has nothing to do with being chicken****ted, and everything to do with the fact that racial profiling has largely been discredited as a law enforcement technique. It doesn't work.” - Catz Part Deux

Really? Ya know, you’re the first I’ve ever heard say this. Every critique I’ve ever heard against it is that it’s “racist”, etc.

The fact that it is used by law-enforcement is evidence that it does work.

You have also overlooked the fact that Israel uses profiling and is surrounded by people that want to kill them and yet they don’t have the same problems or burden their citizens the way that the TSA does.

“The security measures that would have prevented these attacks weren't in place because the threats weren't recognized at that point in time. Now, those security protocols are well-established, and we can assume, since similar strategies haven't taken place since, that they are working.” - Catz Part Deux

You assume they work since a terrorist has not found an opportunity and not that opportunities don’t exist. Those are two very different things and do not address the effectiveness of the “security practices”. You also fail to realize that these security measure all reactive.

“What that means is that we have a determined foe who will continue to search out holes in our system that they can exploit, like these…” - Catz Part Deux

Yes, and one day they will find such a hole and possibly kill thousands more people because our entire approach is all wrong.

Please consider this from Isaac Yeffet, the former head of security for El Al (Israel’s airline):

“In 2002, we had Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. This man gave the security people all the suspicious signs that any passenger could show. The man got a British passport in Belgium, not in England. Number Two: he flew to Paris, he bought a one-way ticket from Paris to Florida. He paid cash. He came to the airport with no luggage. What else do I need to know that this passenger is suspicious?

What did we learn from this? Just to tell the passenger from now on, you take off your shoes when you come to the airport? This I call a patch on top of a patch.

Now we face the story with [Umar Farouk] AbdulMutallab. We had all the information that we could dream the security people could get. He was on the list of people connected to al Qaeda. I don't need more to understand that when he comes, I am not looking for more evidence. He is suspicious; I have to take care of him.”

What he’s talking about is “profiling”…get it?

“Well, that's because he's a Muslim lover, per you.” - Catz Part Deux

The fact that Obama is a Muslim sympathizer is well documented but another debate.

“Except your posts are largely devoid of facts, and full of frothy rants about Obama, the Muslim lover.” - Catz Part Deux

And you’ve demonstrated that you wouldn’t know the truth if it fell from the sky, landed on your face and wiggled.

“As I said...a female agent searched her.” - Catz Part Deux

Nobody’s disputed that…so?

“Wrongdoing is always possible, I'm fairly certain that people make mistakes all the time…” - Catz Part Deux

This is simply pathetic.

When I or anyone else buys a plane ticket we do not give up our civil liberties simply because we have bought a plane ticket or because the TSA is a bunch of chicksh_ _s and incapable of implementing practices that focus on finding terrorist instead of forcing new mothers to drink their own breast milk.

Do you understand that if effective practices--such as the one’s that Israel utilizes--were used that our security would be proactive vs. reactive, that there would be fewer “unrecognized threats” (paraphrasing your words) and would also prevent the imbeciles of the TSA from perpetrating acts of sexual battery against additional people such as the act committed by the one female of the TSA against another female as referenced in the article linked in my last post?

Do you understand that?

“So, only Islamic males are suspect? As stated, racial profiling is not an effective law enforcement strategy.” - Catz Part Deux

Nope! I guess you don’t understand it.

“What do terrorists look like? You're bitching about the costs and problems associated with our current screening methods, without realizing that El Al only has to screen passengers for 40 planes, TOTAL. We do not have the manpower, or the budget, to screen using the Israeli methods. Our passenger load makes this completely impossible and absurd.” - Catz Part Deux

But we do have the manpower to check everyone’s belongings, shoes, inspect full-body imaging scanners and pat everyone down?

Really?
 
“You do know that profileing based on race is illegal and against the Constitution right?” - Kal’Stang

Really?

Do tell.
 
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I'm not sure what you think that word means, but you're wrong.

Let me explain what that meant for you, then. Your paradigms are indeed getting in the way of your understanding of the issue. You see an invasive search and you immediately think of the fourth amendment. But the trouble is that the fourth only applies to searches that performed by the government and are unconsented to. So your outrage over what your perceive as an invasion of privacy is preventing you from seeing that the fourth amendment, which usually protects privacy, doesn't help in this case.

This isn't a Constitutional issue. Don't make it one, it doesn't help your side.
 
Let me explain what that meant for you, then. Your paradigms are indeed getting in the way of your understanding of the issue. You see an invasive search and you immediately think of the fourth amendment. But the trouble is that the fourth only applies to searches that performed by the government and are unconsented to. So your outrage over what your perceive as an invasion of privacy is preventing you from seeing that the fourth amendment, which usually protects privacy, doesn't help in this case.

This isn't a Constitutional issue. Don't make it one, it doesn't help your side.

I think you're failing to communicate that this is YOUR evaluation. This will be challenged in a court of law, and in appellate courts - and perhaps higher. That is how our government works and this is definitely a matter that requires judicial review.
 
I think you're failing to communicate that this is YOUR evaluation. This will be challenged in a court of law, and in appellate courts - and perhaps higher. That is how our government works and this is definitely a matter that requires judicial review.

It really isn't my interpretation. This is pretty cut and dry stuff, taking it to court over a violation of passengers' fourth amendment rights would be frivolous.

Like I have repeatedly said, it's between the government and the airline. Maybe the airlines have a case, but it doesn't look like they are going to pursue it. Passengers have got squat for a case.
 
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The government does have the ability to regulate internet service providers and e-mail companies, even mandating disclosure of all their files.

No, it doesn't. Not in any general sense.

Is your copy of the Constitution on the back of a cereal box? Have you read the history of this stuff in comic book form? Seriously, where do you get all this crap?
 
No, it doesn't. Not in any general sense.

Is your copy of the Constitution on the back of a cereal box? Have you read the history of this stuff in comic book form? Seriously, where do you get all this crap?

Do you always go straight to ad hominems without making an argument? Have you actually got any reason to think I'm wrong? Do you know what the fourth amendment says?

If the government mandated an ISP disclose all its files, that is between the ISP and the goverment, precisely analogous to the situation here between the airlines and the government. The user of the ISP and the airline passenger have no standing. Anything else I can clear up for you?
 
It really isn't my interpretation. This is pretty cut and dry stuff, taking it to court over a violation of passengers' fourth amendment rights would be frivolous.

Like I have repeatedly said, it's between the government and the airline. Maybe the airlines have a case, but it doesn't look like they are going to pursue it. Passengers have got squat for a case.

Protecting our civil rights and establishing where government can and can-not infringe on those rights is anything but frivolous. Over 25,000 Americans died so we could have a Bill of Rights, it's worth the effort to insure we are properly maintaining those rights.
 
Do you always go straight to ad hominems without making an argument? Have you actually got any reason to think I'm wrong? Do you know what the fourth amendment says?

If the government mandated an ISP disclose all its files, that is between the ISP and the goverment, precisely analogous to the situation here between the airlines and the government. The user of the ISP and the airline passenger have no standing. Anything else I can clear up for you?

Tell you what -- you get into the 4th Amendment and all of its jurisprudence and explain exactly how the government can mandate such a thing. Cite established principles, rulings, cases, the whole gamut. It's YOU who has to make the case here, so do it.

If you further want to claim that people waive their rights by contracting, show the terms within the contracts which do this. Specific wording is necessary if you wish to make your case.

And then further explain how, in the case of airline searches, that wording would rob a person of standing to claim that their rights had been violated by too invasive of a search. Be sure to cite relevant rules on standing when you do.

Go. It's all you, dude, so dazzle me.
 
Protecting our civil rights and establishing where government can and can-not infringe on those rights is anything but frivolous.

It is frivolous when there is no civil rights infringement going on in the first place. For example, a case by the airline companies against the TSA is not frivilous. A case on behalf of passengers who meet the legal definition of consent to the search is very frivolous indeed.

Over 25,000 Americans died so we could have a Bill of Rights, it's worth the effort to insure we are properly maintaining those rights.

Get off your soap box, there is no civil rights issue here.
 
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