[Bryan]

Woman strip-searched after 9/11 flight landed - CBS News

i'm not sure how to react to this. Did the authorities truly receive information that she was exhibiting suspicious behavior? Does suspicious behavior deserve a strip search? Don't they need a warrant to do a strip search? Lots of questions left unanswered here.

[TheProdigalModern]

Originally Posted by Bryan

Woman strip-searched after 9/11 flight landed - CBS News

i'm not sure how to react to this. Did the authorities truly receive information that she was exhibiting suspicious behavior? Does suspicious behavior deserve a strip search? Don't they need a warrant to do a strip search? Lots of questions left unanswered here.

Apparently one of the two men in the row with her took a long time in the toilet, and the second one also had to pee. Both of them being back there at the same time for a long time was considered suspicious behavior.

None of the three knew each other before the flight. All three were non-white, with the woman being half-Arab and the two men being Indians.

[Chinchilla of Doom]

I honestly don't know what to think about that. On one hand I want them taking action to insure safety of innocent lives. Think what would have happened 9/11/2001 if they were more strict, 3,000 lives could have been saved(but that is all in the past so not really anything we can do about that). At the same time, It seems like they do some major violation of rights over the stupidest thing. My mom had a metal knee brace when we landed in Portland, Oregon around 04, 05 maybe, and she was taken into another room and interrogated for about 25 mins before they realized why she set the metal detector off. It was a little drastic, but at the same time you are talking about the risk of hundreds, maybe thousands of people.

[bobthecockroach]

Originally Posted by Clasic/Rock_man

I honestly don't know what to think about that. On one hand I want them taking action to insure safety of innocent lives. Think what would have happened 9/11/2001 if they were more strict, 3,000 lives could have been saved(but that is all in the past so not really anything we can do about that). At the same time, It seems like they do some major violation of rights over the stupidest thing. My mom had a metal knee brace when we landed in Portland, Oregon around 04, 05 maybe, and she was taken into another room and interrogated for about 25 mins before they realized why she set the metal detector off. It was a little drastic, but at the same time you are talking about the risk of hundreds, maybe thousands of people.

Two facts:

1. No matter how strict your safety regulations are, they can be stricter.

2. No matter how strict your safety regulations are, they will fail.

Ignoring these facts leads to infinitely increasing safety regulations that still don't work in all cases.

You also have to contend with diminishing returns. Air travel is already safe something like 99.99% of the time. Adding a few more 9's to that number will take much more effort than getting the first two 9's did.

Of course, there's a third fact you need to deal with too:

3. No matter how lax your safety regulations are, someone will be mistreated by them.

As you've seen, even a metal detector can cause undue delay and distress. You can scale it back even further, and you'll still cause undue distress to some people. Heck, just asking for someone's name and gender can cause distress.

The only possible option is balance. You can't make your goal eliminating all danger. That's impossible. There are an infinite number of ways to blow up a plane, and you only have a finite amount of time to perform screening. There's no getting around that. But you also can't say you'll never mistreat someone, because that's impossible too. You have to do reasonable screening to make air travel reasonably safe.

That said, I think a strip search because the passenger next to you spends a long time in the bathroom is completely unreasonable. But I think the real problem is that security is being motivated by the goal of preventing all attacks, no matter the cost.

[ICallHimTurtle]

It makes me scared to ever fly again. I get safety regulations, etc. But I'd rather walk across the country than fly with the knowledge that I can be strip-searched at any time and have no right to refuse it.

[Art]

Originally Posted by ICallHimTurtle

It makes me scared to ever fly again. I get safety regulations, etc. But I'd rather walk across the country than fly with the knowledge that I can be strip-searched at any time and have no right to refuse it.

Of course, you do have the knowledge that you aren't of Middle Eastern descent, so you won't be strip-searched. That must be comforting.

[ICallHimTurtle]

I wasn't really looking at it on that level, but as a woman, or a person in general who doesn't want her civil rights violated?

And you don't know my ethnic background, more than you can suppose from the few pictures I've posted. Assuming so makes you no better than the airline employees from the article.

[Art]

Originally Posted by ICallHimTurtle

I wasn't really looking at it on that level, but as a woman, or a person in general who doesn't want her civil rights violated?

And you don't know my ethnic background, more than you can suppose from the few pictures I've posted. Assuming so makes you no better than the airline employees from the article.

Yeah, I guess the face didn't really share the point I was apparently far too subtle in making.

I agree with you. I'm going to fly anyhow, but I'm kind of stupid like that.

[ICallHimTurtle]

It looked like you were trying to say that because I am white, I am safe. I disagreed with you. Was that about it?

[Art]

Originally Posted by ICallHimTurtle

It looked like you were trying to say that because I am white, I am safe. I disagreed with you. Was that about it?

Well. I was saying that, but sarcastically. But at the same time I was hatin' on some racial profiling. Does that clear it up?

[beanbag]

while i understand that whites could also be chosen for random searches and i do understand where you are coming from christy, i do have to say it is different for us middle easterners. the fact is, while anyone could potentially be chosen, you are much more likely if you are obviously of middle eastern or south asian descent. i have to be on guard every second, and God forbid i accidentally let a hard h slip or pick up a call from my grandmother. and i am one of the lucky ones, because unless i carry on a conversation on my cell or show my passport, i look like your average white girl. (i did get held up before a flight from austin to sac last year though.) my dad hasn't flown in years, but he used to allot a couple of extra hours for the "random" searches that stopped him every single time.

in theory everyone has the right to feel uncomfortable and angry, but in practice it is the middle eastern and near asian populations that actually get targeted.

[ICallHimTurtle]

While I would agree that in the case of the airline strip search situation middle easterners would be targeted far more often, and that I'm angry about how that woman was treated, I have to disagree that they are the only people targeted for profiling, ever. Just based on my own experience though, so I could be wrong as far as the general outlook in the world, but I've had some pretty messed up stuff happen to me because I am a white woman.

[DaGeek]

So maybe this is actually a better topic for a new thread, but this idea has been nagging at me for a little and I figured I'd throw it out there.

Why is it wrong to search a certain demographic more often than others? Here's what I'm thinking: If ants are constantly invading my kitchen, I'm going to use ant poison, sure, but I'm also going to target things in my kitchen that commonly attract ants, AKA sealing tiny holes, cleaning up sweet food that spills, etc. I'm going to specifically target the threat that's coming into my kitchen. Likewise, if most terrorism attempts are caused by a certain ethnic group, would it not be wisest to focus our limited resources there? Obviously it's different from this ant example because each person is just that: A real, living, breathing person with a life, feelings, and deserving of respect. But I'm not convinced it's profiling, when deciding who should get "randomly" searched on Flight XYZ, to choose Abdullah Farheed Hussein over Kim Johnson.

It sucks a lot to say this, because frankly, I am vehemently against racial profiling. I hate it. But, when faced with never actually being able to have 100% security, I know you have to do the best with what you've got, and that means focusing on what's most "likely" to be a threat. It's gonna fall flat on its face one day, and security will have to readjust, but if the threats are coming from X or Y ethnicity, that's where I think it's wise to put our resources.

Hopefully I'm coming across as I intend to. Thoughts?

[jthomas1600]

Profiling is good police work. Pure and simple it's the best use of resources. If you lived in a small town in the south and there were a string of crimes where white men were beating blacks and it was fairly evident there was some kind of skin head or KKK thing going on in town I think you would expect the cops to be doing what the could to find the guilty persons and anyone involved. Probably the most effective first step the cops could take would be to pay very close attention to white males driving 4x4 trucks with rebel flags and pitbulls. That fits the definition of profiling for sure, but it's exactly what I would expect the cops to do.

That doesn't mean all profiling is good or right. Certainly some of it has been motivated by bias and or racism. Some of it is done out of ignorance. It can be bad police work. But in general if it's done right and based on real statistics it can be the most effective means of policing.

I'm not saying airport security and profiling at the airport is good security. I'm just saying that profiling in and of it's self is effective police work.

[adamwagg]

My understanding is that racial profiling has been shown to be ineffective, where as behavioural and other profiling has been a lot more effective. Unfortunately can't remember where that was.