Don't talk about bombs in an airport. While the reaction from security staff is stupid you have to be a fucking idiot to think that hand-written flashcards with words like...
Must be a setup right? I've taken several years of French in college, never had a vocab set quite like that!
Another odd detail, TSA didn't randomly read a stack of paper in his carry-on. TFA says "handed cards to the agent" after being asked to empty pockets. How is a TSA lacky supposed to NOT alert a supervisor in that situation?
The only thing more ridiculous would be after handing the deck of flash cards directly to the agent is if the top cards were in the order "Bomb", "Touting", "Terrorist".
> I've taken several years of French in college, never had
> a vocab set quite like that!
I also did several years of French, and learned the phrases: "maladie de la vache folle" and "fièvre aphteuse". This allows you to place when I was learning French, because you could see when those were in the newspaper. If I was learning French now, I suspect I'd have a similar vocab set.
Don't you think it's more likely to want to have a conversation about terrorism with people that speak arabic, especially in the US where it must be a constant burden for the Arabs after 9/11? On a 80 words deck having 10 words related to a very relevant news and discussion topic strikes you as weird? You didn't learn how to say bomb, kill, kidnap etc after years of learning french?
I know a few people who speak Arabic as a first language.
Perhaps weirdly we don't chitchat about bombs and death and murder. We talk about the soccer and about the roadworks and about what they watched on telly and how their allotment-garden is doing.
Why, when you hear "Arabic", do you think a natural topic of concersation is "terrorism"?
Wow, what a disappointing response. Talking about bombs at the airport is not the same as having literature in your carry-on with the word "bomb" on it. The last novel I brought on a flight talked extensively about bombs, should I have tossed it in the garbage before going through security?
When people like you rationalize every individual curtailment on civil liberties without considering the bigger implications and precedents being set, that's how you wake up to discover you've completely lost freedoms that your parents took for granted.
And you go even further, talking about how citizens should have to consider how their actions are going to be perceived by low-paid, under-educated TSA agents, rather than giving a moment's pause to wonder why low-paid, under-educated TSA agents are handling security for our nation's airports.
Question nothing, blame the victim. Superb critical thinking.
Can you honestly not see the difference between having a book that has the word bomb in it and having a set of 80 hand-written cards with the words "bomb", “terrorist,” “explosion,” “attack,” “battle,” “kill,” “to target,” “to kidnap,” and “to wound" (among others) on them, and handing those cards to security agents?
Any reasonable person knows that those words will cause alarm in security agents. Why chose to handwrite those cards and then hand them over to those agents?
The ACLU articles all make it sound like Arabic language is the problem. But if he had French language flashcards with those words on he'd have got a similar result.
The ACLU does not mention the content of the flashcards in their articles. The ACLU has an illustration with words like "sun" and "dog". This is borderline deceptive. Arabic flashcards without words like "bomb" would have been fine. Any language flashcards with words like "bomb" would not have been fine.
> Question nothing, blame the victim. Superb critical thinking.
Interesting that you accept the ACLU story without question -it obviously appeals to your biases- and are affronted when someone presents the court case. Critical thinking indeed.
Not in carry-on. Passed a stack of cards directly to an agent. Almost comically stupid. TSA's job is to alert on oddities. A stack of cards with Arabic on one side and English words like "bomb" and "terrorist"... This takes the cake.
TSA alerts as they should, they are not qualified to do any more. The police should have called this guy an idiot and told him to get lost but it doesn't surprise me that it was beyond their pay grade and it took a few hours to call in a unit that could actual evaluate this guy.
Read Section I of the court doc and this is actually a reasonable edge-case [1]. Not to mention the recent travel to the middle east!
Is it your critical thinking that equates having a novel about a bomb in your carry-on with handing a stack of Arabic flash cards with "bomb", "to kidnap", and "kill" directly to a security agent? Because I'm not sure how you could possibly think those two are equivalent. Your actions do not happen in a vacuum, and it should be obvious why his actions would raise a red flag for TSA officers. The illegal arrest by the Philadelphia officers certainly wasn't justified, but the TSA officers' actions most definitely were.
It is fairly interesting that the rest of the people replying to you find it suspicious that somebody is carrying flash cards with the words "terrorist" and "bomb". They make no mention that there was no specific threat, and no bomb or other actually illegal possessions. There is no way you cannot criticize their faculties for judgement.
Technically I think he was never arrested. He was detained until the unit arrived to evaluate him. After that it took 30 minutes to release him with no charges. Part of the time he was handcuffed. The handcuffing was absolutely unnecessary but not sure if it's mandatory protocol when making the detention? $25k and a good story later I think Nick made out.
Edit: $25k went straight to the ACLU. I apologize, Nick did not "make out". @goodcanadian is right, he was arrested, but not charged.
As I just commented elsewhere, from a legal stand point, if they detain you for even a moment where you are not free to go, you have been arrested. For example, technically, a traffic stop is an arrest.
I wouldn't chalk it all off to "low-pay" and "little-training". Those things wouldn't necessarily be a problem, even if they were the cause, if adequate repercussions were in place for such behavior.
Everything else aside, how are we to expect them to behave accordingly and justly if we do not punish/reprimand them for doing the opposite?
I don't think that those two words
had anything to do with the situation! Sorry 'bout that!
And, in an important sense, the training was
right on target! Again, sorry 'bout that!
It's called CYA or cover your ass. Or, what would,
could it look like to a higher up who worried what
it could, would look like to a reporter and what
it would, could look like to someone who wanted to
make a big stink, create a gotcha that later
they might be able to use, etc.
Or, the poor, lowly TSA agent
had to think:
"My supervisor is under a lot of
pressure and has me under a lot of pressure.
If he hears that I didn't regard that
passenger as suspicious, then it could be
my job. Letting the passenger board the plane
had no good
upside for me and possibly a big downside.
Calling the cops had a big upside for me,
took the hot potato out of my hands, and
had no downside for me. So, dirt simple
decision: Call the cops, get rid of the
issue and threat to my job, and get back to
inspecting swag some 4 year old girl
got from her trip to Disneyland."
Or, it's
all a stage play, commonly called security
theater. The passengers have to play along,
look like middle America tourists to Disneyland,
a salesman going to a sales convention where
he will eat and drink too much, or other
cases of a common man in the streets. Or,
first rule of such a sick, paranoid social
situation -- don't stick out. Instead, fit in,
conform, go along with the crowd. Else will
need someone with a lot of authority, power,
rationality, integrity, etc. to bail out your
poor, suffering back side, and that can take
a long time.
Did the SCOTUS ever pass out such advice?
Likely not.
Is that what the US Constitution says? Nope.
Is there a gap between reality and formality?
Yup, wider than the Grand Canyon.
Or, to paraphrase a common statement:
"It's not good enough to be innocent.
You also have to look innocent."
Have to understand that TSA, police, etc.
can get away with total nonsense behavior
at least occasionally and can say
"My long experience has taught me that
he was suspicious" and get away with that.
Is such nonsense TSA, police behavior
fair, just, reasonable, constitutional,
objective,
etc.? Nope. Real? Yup. Do I like it?
Nope. Can I do anything about it? Not much.
What can someone do? Try to stay
out of airports. Try to stay out of neighborhoods
where the police like to beat up on people.
Fit in.
The training? The TSA agents and police
likely do understand such things. One of the
little social secrets in the US, call it
social intelligence or understanding of
Organizational Behavior 101,
is that the citizens
have to understand such things also.
Yup, my blood boils, too. But I haven't been
to an airport since 9/11, and I'm not
eager to go again.
I've been getting a kick out of watching the parent post go to -1 to +1 over and over again. seems like lots of people disagree whether or not the above comment was worth it.
> “bomb,” “terrorist,” “explosion,” “attack,” “battle,” “kill,” “to target,” “to kidnap,” and “to wound.”
...are not going to arouse suspicion, especially among low-paid staff with little training.
https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/george-v-reh...