Your Right to Travel Anonymously: Not Dead Yet 1353
ChiralSoftware writes "Remember John Gilmore's fight to be able to travel on commercial airlines without having to show ID? It has dropped out of the news for a while, but now it appears that the fight is continuing. I remember in the 80s we used to make jokes about Soviet citizens being asked "show me your papers" and needing internal passports to travel in their own country. Now we need internal passports to travel in our country. How did this happen? The requirement to show ID for flying on commercial passenger flights started in 1996, in response to the crash of TWA Flight 800. This crash was very likely caused by a mechanical failure. How showing ID to board a plane prevents mechanical failures is left as an exercise to the reader. How mandatory ID even prevents terrorist attacks is also not clear to me; all the 9/11 hijackers had valid government-issued ID. I hope the courts don't wimp out on this fight."
The horse is out of the barn for good..... (Score:4, Interesting)
However, a government can never take away your rights, they can only chose to not honor them.
Its not a conspiracy (Score:4, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sort of understandable (Score:1, Interesting)
And picture ID changes this how exactly? As stated in the blurb: "How mandatory ID even prevents terrorist attacks is also not clear to me; all the 9/11 hijackers had valid government-issued ID."
This is about victim identification, not crashes (Score:2, Interesting)
How many families will want to know for sure if a relative was on board or not? How many individuals may want to claim they, or a given relative, where on board to get a hefty life insurance payment?
Even if bodies are found and recovered, it really helps for any kind of forensics to have the IDs of all passengers.
I do not think that having to show an ID is such a problem. The issue I'd have is with the storage and centralization of ID information.
Re:simple solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Chicago's O'Hare airport is so overbooked that the FAA is threatening to cancel flights in advance simply because even if the condiditions are clear and perfect all day, there's no way all the planes can take off on time because of the schedule being too tight.
The current airline system just wasn't designed for the volume of users it currently has. The old-line airlines are failing, while new line airlines like JetBlue and Southwest are stepping forward with simpler flight schedules and pricing models. They appear to be the wave of the future there.
Re:UK domestic flights (Score:1, Interesting)
Sorry, I don't have a link to the story or its follow-ups. Check on the BBC and Daily Telegraph sites. (The aviation press should also have articles on the incident)
Not having valid driving license (I don't drive) passport (I don't travel outside the UK mainland) student ID (I joined the real world almost 20 years ago) or national ID (It's not compulsory
Get over it! (Score:3, Interesting)
The FAA has always be a bit on the over cautios side. But the result is the safest form of travel (if not the most cramped) in the world.
I don't know if having to flash ID is quite comprable to having to file with Moscow to travel between cities.
Re:simple solution (Score:2, Interesting)
Fly anonymously ? Named tickets (Score:2, Interesting)
Having to show an Id to proof that you really are the person you claim to be is only logical.
As other posters have already pointed out, identifying the bodies is another good reason, and while showing an ID will not stop terrorists, it can be a big help in tracing them after the fact (i.e. find their associates and chase them down) which was indeed what happened after 9/11
Figting for your rights and freedom is fine, but this sounds like fighting windmills to me
Re:Ho Hum (Score:4, Interesting)
That being said the fact that I just mentioned I am going on a plane today and mentioned the fact that it could crash-- that everything I just said is a red flag to them-- THAT is wrong. Yes personal security through obscurity (Who am I?) would protect you from that, but your own civic duty supersedes that which should not even be an issue.
What Right to Travel Anonymously? (Score:1, Interesting)
Nope, no Right to Travel Anonymously. Where did this right come from? Hrmmm...
It's sorta like your right to privacy, it DOES NOT EXIST once you leave your home. Your right to privacy only exists within the confines of your home, so get used to it.
This is honestly going TOO FAR, you don't have the right to do-anything-you-want. What's next?
Your right to miniature golf?
Your right to Six Flags?
Your right to drive slow in the left hand lane?
Guess what, some things are priviledges and not rights, and sometimes priviledges are taken away... like when children are bad and their mommy punishes them. Sure, maybe *we* weren't the bad ones, but all mommy knows is that one of the neighborhood kids is being naughty and needs to know who each kid's mother is before she lets them in the house.
Re:Ho Hum (Score:4, Interesting)
Sir, you should refer to the Yakolev-42 accident which caused the death of 62 spanish militars the 26th of May of 2003 (which surely were carrying identifications... being in the military)
One year later, the buried corpses had to undergo DNA tests to correctly identify them.
Something that the ones incinerated by the wrong familiars couldn't do...
Half of the corpses were found to be misidentified in the first place.
It's even simpler than that: it's profitable. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you have to present ID that matches the name on the ticket then you cannot resell the ticket. It used to be the case that people would resell tickets they couldn't use. Now, depending on the type of ticket you didn't use, your money is either gone, locked in an airline account with one year to spend it on another ticket, back in your hands less 25%, or some other such "arrangement".
The airlines fight tooth and nail to prevent the expense of new "security" measures. If one is accepted it usually means that someone, somewhere is making solid profit on the scheme.
Re:Airline security is a sham anyway (Score:2, Interesting)
They even confiscated my 5cm nail scissors. On the way OUT of the airport.
When I flew back to the EU though, the attendant that checked in my luggage just asked "Do you have any weapons or bombs in your luggage?" and I replied "Nope!" and that was mostly that. Apparently, hijackers are only interrested in flights into or within the US.
Re:Ho Hum (Score:3, Interesting)
The government err twice on the smae flight.
Re:When the system fails, nothing works... (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't fall for their game. They want everyone to be afraid. Try and figure out what's really going on (clue: turn off Fox)
Re:Some questions (Score:4, Interesting)
You don't. Not even with a "simple ID check."
I'm sure lots of people here have similar stories, but once upon a time during my wild youth, my ID said my name was tuxina (as opposed to tuxette) and the year of birth indicated that I was old enough to buy alcoholic drinks. During a bust of a bar that was serving "minors," a cop looked at my tuxina ID and gave it back to me. So cops, bouncers, barkeeps, etc couldn't tell it was fake. I could have easily travelled on an airplane using that ID.
Re:simple solution (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't even give it five years, try two years maybe before it starts dropping off severely. And it's not only in terms of money, it's in terms of physics and energy conversion. Once it gets to the point that it takes a BTU to transfer another BTU, by drilling, pumping, shipping, refining, re shipping, then burning, you could have a lake of oil and it wouldn't matter. We've only had cheap flying "for the masses" from the phenomenon of really cheap energy conversion, and as fields peak and fall off it just ain't cheap no mo.
I honestly don't think many people or governments have bingoed to this yet. They just aren't finding exploitable fields at the same rate they used to, in fact, they have busted some oil companies for purposely over-estimating what they are currently sitting on. We are currently in the "good old days" of a semi robust global economy, it is unsustainable once demand quadruples-which it is with china and india and some others really modernizing- while available supplies are falling off.
I am a big proponent of alternative energy, and I'm also the first one to concede-and warn people-that there's no credible replacement for the really cheap (money + BTU conversion rate) oil of the 50s to the 70's which is the main reason for the planets manufacturing boom and wealth creation during that period.
Re:ID's (Score:1, Interesting)
But an ID is not a permission to travel. True loss of freedom starts when you need a specific permission to travel in your own country: i.e. an internal visa, not an internal passport.
Re:Why else? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.reason.com/hod/jb072604.shtml
Which reminds us that Kerry used the Patriot Act to enact numerous anti-privacy banking provisions that had failed a few years earlier. It also notes that Kerry was an advocate of encrytption export restrictions, while John Ashcroft and the ACLU led the fight against them. How quickly we forget.
Those who think that electing Kerry will usher in a new era of freedom are fooling themselves... it will continue to get worse, not better. Unfortunately, the level of political debate in the US has sunk to the level of totemism, so a lot of people will uncritically accept the notion that the Dems are somehow better on civil rights than Repubs. Only difference I can see is that the Dems are better at hiding what they do.
Saw a bumper sticker this weekend that said, "Two parties, zero choice, vote Libertarian." Not sure there's any value in casting my vote that way, but geez, it's getting ridiculous how the two parties are more similar than ever. Yet each continues to paint the other as the second coming of of totalitarianism, while supporting the same policies. Worse, people still fall for it.
If the stupid people are in power, you get Nazism.
If the smart people are in power, you get Communism.
If nobody's in power, you get America.
I know which I prefer.
Re:Why else? (Score:1, Interesting)
Showing ID to fly is not the issue (Score:4, Interesting)
Privacy is becoming much more important in the age of identity theft. I went around with a cell phone provider on a service quote because I wouldn't give them my social security number. I tried to explain to them if I'm not claiming income from them, they don't get my social security number. First they said it was the law but once I questioned them about which law they backed off to it being company policy. The dentist office tried to claim the insurance company requires it, but all they really need is your group policy number and employee ID.
Re:Why else? (Score:4, Interesting)
People without weapons are no match for two people trained in the use of a high-powered sub machine gun, especially along a narrow point of entry (cockpit door).
Re:Why else? (Score:5, Interesting)
The soap box is buried in the "Society of the Spectacle", the ballot box is rigged by the two-party system, the jury box is rigged by definition - it IS the fucking state, for Christ's sake - and the ammo box is only useful if you can get enough people to take it up - which you can't because the soap box is buried, etc.
Wait for nanotech and do the job right.
My prediction: Gilmore is going to LOSE - big time.
Re:What Right to Travel Anonymously? (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh look right here in the preamble... "secure the Blessings of Liberty...". What do you think that means?
It means that Liberty is a natural right that should not be interfered with by any-body. Be that corporate or Government.
And what about that beautiful document called the Declaration of Independance... "they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty...".
Stop being a corporate toady and stand up for your rights!! You are not a number, or a machine, you are a free man!!
Re:What Right to Travel Anonymously? (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, a lot is implied by the constitution, rather than made explicit. This is pretty fundamental to constitutional law. The country would be a radically different place if we stuck to only strict interpretation of the constitution, without ever inferring a deeper meaning. (I tend to think that approach would be completely untenable unless we were willing to give up our hesitence to amend the constitution, which would of course bring its own set of problems...)
Sorry, but WTF? (Score:3, Interesting)
Excuse me, but WTF d00d?
Rights are set forth in laws. Those in power are born to it, or lobby for it, and like the tribe's betas for a Silverback, we vote to show our approval.
The only rights we are born with, or evolved with is the right to thump our chests in approval (or rage) for the Silverbacks we like (or who come from the opposing tribe), and to try to scrabble out a bit of advantage for ourselves when the Silverbacks aren't paying too much attention.
> We are born free, and from there our rights can only be limited.
We are born to our position in society, and from there we have only the rights our leaders see fit to grant us. Next thing you know, you'll be spouting poppycock like "all mans are equal", provably untrue by even the most cursory observation.
P.S. Whatever it is you've been smoking, lay off it for a bit. The silverbacks of both tribes disapprove.
Re:Why else? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, you ARE naive. A perfect example is the CAPSII system of profiling suspects to search at the airport instead of a blanket random search. It's mathematically provable that the CAPS2 system is LESS secure and has a gaping fundamental loophole that terrorists can exploit that random sampling does not. But, to the ignorant, profiling SOUNDS much safer, since all the dark-skinned poor people can be pulled out of line and harassed, so it was enacted by the government.
(For mor information go look here [mit.edu])
And a personal anecdote: I was flying home from Japan once, and was searched 6 times during that adventure. The entire time I had a hermetically sealed biohazard box given to me by a hospital worker to put my home-made super-hot hot-sauce in, complete with all sorts of biohazard flowers and warnings that the content was amazingly dangerous. It wasn't some joke box, it was the real deal from a real AIDS hospital that a friend nursed at. This was looked at and passed over by not less than 15 different people who did not open it or even look twice.
They did take away my Korean chopsticks (made of metal, but not sharp or anything).
Your government is not trying to protect you at all. They ARE trying to offer you the slight illusion of protection and betting on the fact that the 9/11 events were a fluke.
Re:Why else? (Score:3, Interesting)
How does X-raying luggage violate your privacy - unless your wife (or you) has a collection of steel dildoes in there? X-raying and magnetic and chemical detectors just show the shape and composition of things and only things that look like weapons or explosives will be of significance. Nobody's going to record anything else they see in there and connect it to your name - unless they HAVE your name.
Your identity is irrelevant unless you HAVE such things in your possession. Then somebody might want to know who you REALLY are - and looking at your papers isn't likely to tell them that.
You do know that cops take fingerprints, right? They don't rely on identity papers to establish who a criminal suspect is?
There's a reason for that which our morons in Washington seem to forget - or don't care to remember.
Re:Why else? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's nonsense... Also - depending on what people do, you might flag them for totally harmless things (i.e. what do you do if Hassan Al Brahimi is actually a consultant often flying between different cities staying at those for sometimes and afternoon, sometimes a couple of weeks.
Flagging people is just bound to cause a major fuck up sooner or later.
Also, for a while, the Department for Homeland security was apparently contemplating on whether they should color-code passengers according to their threat potential. One of their ideas was that (non-US) people known to have had training on automatic weapons should be chained to their seats for the duration of the flight...
Personally, I've struck the US off my list of potential holiday destinations, until the whole patridiot act mess has been resolved (and removed). In the meantime, I will not even entertain job offers that might require me to go to the US - I'm simply sick of the kind of paranoia the Bush government is celebrating...
Re:The horse is out of the barn for good..... (Score:5, Interesting)
As expressed by Utah Phillips:
"Freedom is something you assume, then you wait for someone to try to take it away. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free."
...not as much as... (Score:1, Interesting)
examples you requested ... (Score:2, Interesting)
New York City's "Sullivan Laws" were eventually used to confiscate ordinary rifles, and threaten with arrest anyone who didn't hand 'em over.
More recently, in the Peoples' Republic of California, a court case held that the DOJ was wrong to continue accepting "assault weapon" registrations, and that all weapons registered between 1993 and 1999 were illegal. The county sheriffs then proceeded to make house visits.
Only a few months ago, a deputy mis-interpreted the PRC's "assault weapon" laws, saw a perfectly legal rifle for sale at a gun store in Orange County, and went ape-shit. The store's records of purchases were reviewed, and the sheriff made middle-of-the-night visits to the homes of purchasers. The California Rifle and Pistol Association came to the rescue with documents from the CA DOJ - the very people that are supposed to enforce the law - showing that this particular rifle was quite legal. After much wrangling, the rifles were returned to their lawful owners.
I won't even get into how ridiculous the "assault weapons" laws in the PRC are, compared to the federal law; that's a post for another time.
-paul
Re:Why else? (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, then you'll be a dead terrorist. You're not going to make an armed resistance against the US Government and live.
You know, I was having a conversation with my friend from the UK last week and we were discussing the difference between US and the UK, primarily gun law. I asked him, "What can you do if the government becomes corrupt?" He had a very interesting response:
"There are other ways you can overthrow a corrupt government besides violence. Imagine what would happen if all of the citizens simply refused to go to work. The government would have to agree with their demands because they don't have enough soldiers to point guns at everyone and force them to do their jobs. The economy would grind to a halt and the government would be thrown out on their ass in a moment's time."
This got me thinking: Suppose Bush decides to steal the election again in 2004... If this happens, I think one of the safest and best ways we could protest would be to stop going to work for a few weeks. Imagine what would happen...
Re:A remarkable right (Score:5, Interesting)
It's nothing of the sort. The purpose of a driver's license is not track your whereabouts, it's a license to drive. When you pull out of your driveway and go to work, is there somebody waiting there to check your ID and ask where you are going?
Then again, this could come in handy. I think I'm going to tell my boss that I have a right to make over $200,000 a year.
I love this type of argument -- I call it the "Hey, let's draw a completely stupid and unjustified analogy and hope the other guy just doesn't notice" method.
Re:WTF? Are you people just stupid? (Score:5, Interesting)
Think of it like pain. Each person has a different threshold for pain. There are some things which one person barely feels at all, which another person would experience as terrible pain.
Tolerance for intrusions into our private lives is also a variable, like tolerance for pain. Some of us guard our privacy quite closely, while others seem willing to publish all the details of their most private thoughts right out in public (witness LiveJournal).
You're simply one of the people with a very high tolerance for privacy intrusion. The problem is, right now the entire country is on Privacy Morphine from the 9/11 attacks and the events in Iraq. It's much easier to buy the line of bullshit that we must give up more and more rights in exchange for protection against threats like that.
As any drug user can tell you, it's really stupid to make important decisions while doped, and here we are, the United States, making the decision to toss away all the things we enjoy about our lives in exchange for barely any real security at all. And one day I think you'll hit that threshold where you suddenly realize "I can't tolerate this level of government intrusion," but by then it will be too late. The drugs the United States is taking are some strong ones, and the kinds of decisions that are being made are not the kind that can easily be backed out of.
Re:Sorry, but WTF? (Score:3, Interesting)
On the contrary, I believe that we are already acting this way, just with fancy costumes on, and plenty of shiny things to distract us from the cold hard truth.
I also take issue with your characterization of "ape-like interaction," specifically the part where "nobody questions it." What you've described is more of a hive mentality where all worker bees are loyal to the queen (though some research even casts that blind loyalty into doubt).
Now, when two individuals outside their tribe meet, it is usually (but not always) mutually beneficial for them to behave civilly. There is little risk in being nice, and much greater risk in trying to steal someone's wallet.
Human rights -- I just don't get it. Humans are animals, right? By extension, are there animal rights? Why or why not?
What you call human rights I call an ethical salad with a few moral croutons thrown in. Instead of oil and vinegar, today's salad is dressed with oil and blood.
Re:simple solution (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not the volume of users that's the problem; it's the volume of aircrafts.
I remember taking airline trips from Newark to St. Louis twenty years ago, and the plane would be a 747 or some other jumbo jet, seating maybe nine people across, with two aisles splitting the seats up.
If I make that same trip today, I'd probably be flying on the jet equivalent of a puddle-jumper -- a tiny craft with fewer seats than a Greyhound bus
and a single narrow aisle.
People want the option to catch a flight to their destination at 5:30 AM, or 11:30PM, or at any two-hour interval in between. So the airlines have moved towards more frequent flights on smaller aircraft... and this has come to create an air traffic nightmare over time.
Re:The soap box and ballot box are nearly dead (Score:5, Interesting)
Dean was screaming to be heard above the noise of the crowd. Unfortunately, the microphone he was screaming into had a filter for ambient noise. It was impossible to hear anyone else but Dean.
When the sound of the crowd was mixed back into the recording, recreating what actually could be heard, Dean was barely audible.
It would have been the work of minutes for any network reporter to get the correctly mixed version of the audio. But they didn't. Only Diane Sawyer ever apologized for the lynching after she heard the corrected track.
It was too much fun for the networks, the rightwing cable pundits, the network executives threatened by Dean's pledge to break up their growing empires, the late night comedians- even John Stewart: come on, John you're smarter than this! - to slaughter Dean, whom the majority of the pundits disliked because he said things that caused massive cognitive dissonance in their unbelieveably uninformed minds.
Now we've Kerry, who won't even condemn Bush's straight-out lying about WMD's. Dean had the balls to tell the truth. Now he's been Gored, reduced to a joke because reporters simply would not be bothered to find out about filtering mics. Immense momentum killed by laziness and a willingness to kill the messenger.
Too true! (Score:1, Interesting)
But once I'm through all the security checks, I can buy a glass bottle of wine, whiskey or whatever and carry it on the plane with me. Ask anyone who's been in a bar fight how dangerous a broken bottle is....
You can check my shoes all you like, confiscate my belt for x-raying (this has happened) but you can't stop me breaking a Vodka bottle on a bulkhead and attacking anyone I want.
I can also take matches on board, even though you can't smoke on the plane. I bet you can start a great fire with a box of matches and an air-sickness bag full of torn up in-flight magazine pages.
If they were serious about security they'd banish all those things too - but they'd have a revolt on their hands. Not just from the public ("I can't buy duty free any more! Now I'll have to pay 50p more for a litre of Gin when I get there!") but from the shops and airports who make a fortune off the captive audience.
Anon.
PS Only posting anonymously so I don't get 'grounded' - for what it's worth, I'm not the first to point this out, I won't ever be doing it, so when the gummint tries to blame me to 'giving the terrorists a blueprint' they can bite me. I'm sure the terorrists have already figured this out, and will use their legally purchased traveller's checks to buy cheap liquor in the airport before they board the next time...
Legitimate Needs for Privacy, Obscurity (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem with privacy is that 90% of the people will never have an issue with it.
True enough. But as an individual it might be harder to guarantee that you'll never be victimized by a stalker [slashdot.org], which happens to about 10% of the population at some point in their lives.
I've known a couple of people that have been victimized by stalkers. If you've ever been subject to that kind of stress, all of sudden you become keenly aware of just how much information about you is easily available.
It's not just John Gilmore exercising a principle here, as vaunted an ideal as that might be. There are loads of current and former stalking victims intently making choices to minimize their exposure to the realm of publicly-accessible data.
Unlisted phone numbers, using post office boxes instead of getting mail at a residence, paying cash, giving fake names and phone numbers for people without a legally-mandated need to known but only a direct marketer's desire to know.
One of the people I knew was stalked by someone that worked in the health care industry, so suddenly it was in her interest not to provide complete and accurate information to certain health care providers for fear of providing her new address and phone number to the loonie.
Re:a convenient excuse (Score:3, Interesting)
Why should a documentry be fair? Who judges fair?
I don't know why so many people have this altruistic view about documentries. No film can be objective. Think about "When Animals Attack" in comparison to a hypothetical documentry from Sea World showing Shamoo and her relationship with her trainer. Each shows killer wales, but in a different light.
Everyone has a bias, and it shows up in much more subtle ways that the filmaker's direct naration over images.
Re:Why else? (Score:3, Interesting)
As the doctor said: 'The operation went perfect, but the patient died.'
I hate to break the news to 'ya, but we don't care too much about the passengers anymore.
If the pilot/marshalls/passengers can't stop the hijackers they're getting shot down but an air-to-air missile anyway.
Now, reconsider the options in the harsh light of today's reality.
Re:The soap box and ballot box are nearly dead (Score:2, Interesting)
Ah, yes. Like in "Bowling for Columbine", where he 'factually' represented his acquisition of a rifle by opening a bank account? Conveniently forgetting to film all of the steps inbetween, and failing to mention he had set the entire thing up with the bank months beforehand under the guise of a promo? And that in fact the bank never handed out firearms on the premises, but did so *in this one instance* for the purposes of that promo?
Michael Moore is no better than any of the politicians he lambasts. He presents tiny slices of the truth, twisted to fit his own agenda and push his own view regardless of the actual facts at hand. And in the case of the bank in question, he outright lied - yet, not surprisingly, the truth of the matter is rejected by his worshippers, er, supporters out of hand.
Max
Re:Doc U (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, some of Kopel's quibbles, and even some of Fred's quibbles with the quibbles, are inaccurate. The map is not the territory - it's necessarily an oversimplification. For viewers, the question isn't just the difference between F9/11's story and the perfect truth. It's the difference between F9/11's story, and the Bush administration's story. Wildly different, in extremely important ways. And even the "media consensus" story is extremely different from F9/11's. Of them all, F9/11 is the closest story yet, while those others are much more wrong. Adults work from ambiguous, contradictory sources of info. The F/911 picture is a better package of important national info than adult Americans have had in at least a generation, maybe ever. And this time, it's not convenient hindsight on Watergate or Vietnam or even Iran/Contra. It's the prologue to the possible reelection of a lying corporate tyranny that we'll have a chance to depose, American style, in November.
Re:Why else? (Score:4, Interesting)
About 10 years ago, I did some work for a city (~30,000 pop) police station. They'd record "suspicious" persons on note cards.
A suspicious person could be, and often was, nothing more than a group of teenagers walking around the strip mall that the movie theater was in at night. They would be stopped, ID'd, and recorded on a note card. You could also get a card filled out for you if someone called in and filed a "suspicious" report on you (the caller would have to ID you by name).
Eventually, all those cards would end up in a database. So, don't worry...it's not a possibilty, it's been done for at least 10 years. ;)
Re:Step AWAY from the tinfoil hat... (Score:3, Interesting)
And you're gonna show your id the SECOND you get to Europe anyway, they're not letting you in without a passport.
Not in the real world (Score:1, Interesting)
> manner will be enough to scare most anyone out of any action, especially your average tourist-types on
> a crowded, stressful and uncomfortable place like an airplane
Tell that to the guys who rushed the cockpit and brought their hijacked airplane down in a Pennsylvania field on Sept 11.
Fact is, the mindset now is "I stop the hijacker, or I die". People believe their best chance of survival is to overcome hijackers or other violent types on airplanes, a belief that has led to several thwarted hijackings/attacks (shoe bomber, also Canadian ex-mil on Aussie flight) as well as several beat-downs of violent travellers.
> Most hijacked airplanes land safely with few or no casualties
That's not what passengers believe anymore. True or not, hijacking an airplane from the West is currently a recipe for getting your ass kicked by a terrified mob.
People act like sheep, but even terrified sheep with no alternative will stampede. We've now been socially engineered to believe "hijacking = death", and will react accordingly. That may be an abberation to normal psychology, but it's also true.
What are you saying? (Score:3, Interesting)
Dean got his ass handed to him in the Iowa caucuses, and his "concession" speech congratulating Kerry on his win was the infamus "scream" speech. Totally ignoring the screaming bit (which, as you correctly point out, is not his fault), what kind of a fucked-up, tasteless, unprofessional concession speech was that?
I've listened to the correctly-mixed version of the Iowa speech, and I agree with you that the media really dropped the ball on that one (of course if Dean would have had better sound engineers, none of this would have happened...). But the truth of the matter is that the real reason Howard Dean lost because he was, is, and probably always will be, a total jackass.
Courts Contemptuous of the Right to Trial by Jury (Score:3, Interesting)