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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
> As long as the threat profile is reasonably specific and based on sound policy,
Which is what I favor. And what I think Buckley favors too, although it would
surely be harder to convince you of that than me. He's a knee jerk old school
conservative but even stopped clocks are right twice a day (well, once a day if
they're military clocks... there's a moral there somewhere to be sure).
> rather than "I think that guy looks Arabish/let's frisk him," which is what
> Buckley's describing. Here's the part where he plays his hand:
>
> "The point is not dismissed by simply finding some 75-year-old who once tried to
> blow up an airplane. We are talking about likelihood. "
>
> Okay, how likely is it that any random Arab is going to blow up a plane?
> Not
> much greater than the likelihood that any random 75-year-old is going to try,
> I'll bet.
Expressed as a percentage of the overall population? to 2-3 significant figures,
they are identical, both are way less than 1%. BUT, I'd argue that the
likelihood of a random 75 year old is several orders of magnitude less than the
likelihood of a random Saudi. So I'd take that bet.
> Yet Buckley is satisfied to call for strict review of Arab,
> Arab-looking, and Arab-name-sounding passengers simply because 19 Arabs hijacked
> four planes and because 21 men on a list of 22 bad men have olive skin.
>
> He's actually calling for a national database, isn't he? He proposes that job
> history, employment, family status, and police record be reviewed and profiled;
> is it your desire that this information be subject to unaccountable review?
No. But that's a false dichotomy. This information already is collected whether
I desire it or not. Given that I can't have an ideal world, I'd rather see it
used in a useful way.
> > Quoting from the part you dismissed:
> >
> > "The secretary of transportation said, 'No.' In fact, Mineta was mystified by
> > Kroft's question"
> >
> > Precisely. Mystified by it.
>
> I'm afraid I need to dismiss "mystified" as a subjective term that Buckley
> apparently applied during his analysis of Ms. Coulter's description of the
> conversation to which she was not a witness. That's several times removed from
> the event, and it's filtered through at least two people who probably aren't
> going out of their to maintain objectivity on the subject. So at most we're
> left with something like "Mr. Mineta didn't did not support a plan to screen
> people based upon their names." There may certainly be more to Mr. Mineta's
> response than that, but I don't see it in the text at hand and therefore can't
> comment on it. And, honestly, neither can anyone else who only read Buckley's
> account of Coulter's account of Kroft's account of it.
Point taken but I think you are one level of indirection off, he's quoting her
not paraphrasing, unless I misread. But it is a fair cop.
> Your argument that closer attention should be paid to more likely candidates
> isn't necessarily wrong, but the methodology has to be a little more stringent
> than, for example, relying on a cop's "blue sense."
Sure. But what I get from the TSA rank and file (and this ISN'T hearsay, it's
direct personal testimony) is "we have no way whatever to decide if anyone is
more or less of a risk than anyone else, and have no plans to introduce any such
way, or interest in doing so". Bullfeathers. Jack booted thugs.
> > Stopping weapons introduction is in itself a flawed idea since short of forcing
> > everyone to fly naked, or strapped into seats that one cannot get unstrapped
> > from until after landing, there is no way to prevent a passenger from contriving
> > a threat with material that is routinely passed. (3)
>
> I've elsewhere endorsed the "fly naked" protocol, under which weapon concealment
> becomes a somewhat lessened (though not eliminated, I grant you) risk.
>
> But all kidding aside, how long is it before passengers are subjected to
> full-cavity searches prior to boarding? Is it inconceivable that someone,
> somewhere might try to smuggle some kind of device aboard internally? If so,
> then the TSA *must* implement a BCS policy to be consistent with its current "a
> woman in Russia might have smuggled a bomb aboard, so we have to grope every
> woman boarding a US flight."
OR, INSTEAD, change their current policy to be consistent with reality, taking
threat assessment into account. Which I vastly prefer to full body cavity
searches, but of course I can't speak for you on that matter, maybe you don't
feel the same way.
> > If, by the way, you feel that there is no point in using risk assessment or
> > other measures of predicting outcomes when deciding how to allocate scarce
> > resources, then I suggest that you are confused, and you likely oppose
> > battlefield triage as well.
>
> I don't oppose risk assessment, but I *do* oppose the bogus methodology
> currently employed in the form of racial profiling, and in any case your example
> isn't really applicable. Sure, a paper-cut takes a lower priority than a
> sucking chest wound, but there are tangible elements to be assessed in that
> case, aren't there? Where is the tangible equivalent in assessing a man's
> likelihood to blow up a plane?
Police record, credit history, driving record, weapons registrations, employment
history, background checks, frequency and pattern of travel, and a host of other
info already in the public record, as well as nationality and citizenship. (all
of which are anathema to me usagewise but I'm being pragmatic here, I would
prefer a purely voluntary system where you can opt out (and pay higher fares
since the airlines have to pay a lot higher anti blowup premiums)...)
> It's a toilet-paper roll, right? You stuff your cocktail peanuts in one end and
> blow really hard in the other, producing a deadly and delicious shotgun effect.
When I said "lethal" I wasn't referring to "dying laughing" but I'm not going to
play 20 questions about it, so maybe that actually IS the weapon I had in mind.
PS I didn't comment on your disparagement of the Saudis and our long term
relationship with them because I agree...
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Just say no
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| (...) Okay, now that *is* pretty ridiculous, and they're succumbing in real, large-scale terms to the false dichotomy you identified. Outside of your direct experience, most of what I've heard has defaulted to "we have rules that apply to everyone (...) (20 years ago, 17-Dec-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Just say no
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| (...) As long as the threat profile is reasonably specific and based on sound policy, rather than "I think that guy looks Arabish/let's frisk him," which is what Buckley's describing. Here's the part where he plays his hand: "The point is not (...) (20 years ago, 17-Dec-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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