http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/12/30/flying-home/

Full text of my subpoena from the Department of Homeland Security

At least one other travel blogger, Steven Frischling, posted the text of the original SD plus a later revision, and says he received it directly from the TSA.

“If this document was intended to be secret why was a copy sent to me? ”

Effective? Would that catch the shoebomber Reid

of course, just add jamaican origin people to the list, mon.

Besides, if we decide not to grant visas to any Muslims, how are we going to replace the engineers in many tech companies?

Are there actually large numbers of such people? All the articles I have found say Chinese, Indians and Europeans form this group. While an Indian can be a Muslim, most are not.

As for tourism, the percentage of those billion Muslims who come to the US is only a small fraction.

I don’t think economics is much of an argument against travel bans and/or profiling.

Fen: 6) Static defenses are permeable. You cannot be strong in all places at all times. Attacks will still get through. Therefore, you must play offense and act pre-emptively.

Depending on how I read this, you are exactly right or exactly wrong. Perhaps this misunderstands the purpose of airport security. Once the terrorist is properly prepared and at the security check point it is too late to avert an attack. What you CAN hope to do is require enough preparation that law enforcement and or other means can pick up and disrupt plots before they get to that phase.

Though perhaps this is what you mean by playing offence and acting pre-emptively.

Profiling is an effective strategy when, as here, terrorists come from a small group of (relatively) easily identifiable people.

Effective? Would that catch the shoebomber Reid or any US citizen who converted to Islam? I doubt it. There is also the cost. Tourism is a big earner in many places. Ruling out more than a billion potential visitors is not going to help them any. Besides, if we decide not to grant visas to any Muslims, how are we going to replace the engineers in many tech companies? Given our declining manufacturing base, services and high tech is pretty much what we have left. Wouldn’t we rather these peaceful people work for and contribute US economy instead of work for competing foreign ones? Then of course there is the possibility of Muslim countries retaliating. More “bigoted” than “effective” is how I would describe it.

Malvolio: Terrorism resembles war: it is an act of violence intended to bend the victim towards the terrorist’s will. We are trying to prevent terrorism so that the US can remain a free and independent country, not so that everybody gets to live forever.

It would be a supreme irony if we throw out our privacy and hence liberty in order to remain a free country.

SG: I say you offer everyone a (complementary) pork rind on their way through security and give heightened screening to anyone who refuses to eat it. Sure, you’ll get some false positives on vegetarians, but I don’t trust them much either…

Just another conspiracy to isolate and harrass the JEWS, right? ;-)

I say you offer everyone a (complementary) pork rind on their way through security and give heightened screening to anyone who refuses to eat it. Sure, you’ll get some false positives on vegetarians, but I don’t trust them much either…

Malvolio: Even including them, that list shows that half of the US terrorist attacks are the work of the profiled group (young male Muslims), who represent 1% of the population.

Well, “half” isn’t quite right since I wasn’t trying to provide an exhaustive list, and you are right that it’s not exactly easy to distinguish between “terrorists” and “ordinary” mass murderers. I won’t dispute that however you define it terrorism in the U.S. has been disproportionately committed by young Muslim men (and even more disproportionately by male monotheists, who committed 100% of the attacks in question).

I’m still confused, though, as to how the TSA is supposed to profile Muslims, short of requiring all Muslims to wear little yellow crescents.

Malvolio: As Ann Coulter said, at some point it stops being a “profile” and starts being a “description of the suspect”.

Um, no. You can’t have a suspect until a crime has been committed.

Guy: Does it matter who “counts” as a terrorist or not? We’re trying to prevent deaths here, right? The only reason we’re trying to prevent terrorism is towards the goal of prevention of deaths.

What? No!

The number of deaths that has been, or even could be, caused by terrorism is negligible. Breast cancer has killed more American men in the last 10 years than terrorism and ask yourself how scared the average man is of breast cancer.

Terrorism resembles war: it is an act of violence intended to bend the victim towards the terrorist’s will. We are trying to prevent terrorism so that the US can remain a free and independent country, not so that everybody gets to live forever.

Guy: y reason we’

Well, now you are being entirely too rational. If we were really just concerned about preventing deaths, we probably could have prevented a lot more if we’d ignored terrorism altogether and spent all of the resources in the War on Terror on things like medical research or eradicating diseases like malaria.

Which points to another problem with treating a tactic like “terrorism” as an enemy that must be defeated–we have to spend a lot of time arguing about whether certain actions/actors are really terrorism/terrorists in order to understand whether our war is being won or lost.

Malvolio:
I don’t know if Cho is really a terrorist, so much as a nutbag in the Dylan/Eric mold, and if you have any proof that Ivins is guilty, the FBI would like to talk to you.Even including them, that list shows that half of the US terrorist attacks are the work of the profiled group (young male Muslims), who represent 1% of the population.As Ann Coulter said, at some point it stops being a “profile” and starts being a “description of the suspect”.I’m not sure exactly how that helps us, especially considering the difficulty of eyeballing Boyd, for example, as a young male Muslim (and not just some black kid), but the first step is always admitting that you have a problem.

Does it matter who “counts” as a terrorist or not? We’re trying to prevent deaths here, right? The only reason we’re trying to prevent terrorism is towards the goal of prevention of deaths.

Is Mr Posner suggesting that the lack of successful terrorism in America is a problem?
Conservatives really do hate America for its freedoms.

yankee:
Of course, there have also been plenty of terrorist attacks in the U.S. since 9/12/01, including:
… committed by American Roman Catholic Bruce Ivins.
… committed by American-born Muslim convert John Allen Muhammad and Jamaican Muslim convert(?) Lee Boyd Malvo.
… committed by Iranian-born American Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, who was Muslim …
… committed by South Korean national Seung-Hui Cho, who moved to the U.S. at 8.Cho was raised as a nondenominational Christian….
…committed by American Scott Roeder, an evangelical Christian.
… committed by American-born Muslim Nidal Malik Hasan.

Obviously, the problem is with monotheists. Screen the monotheists, and leave the atheists, pantheists & polytheists alone.

yankee: I assumed JK was referring to terrorist attacks in the U.S., so the Madrid, London, and Mumbai attacks you reference wouldn’t be included. Of course, there have also been plenty of terrorist attacks in the U.S. since 9/12/01,

I don’t know if Cho is really a terrorist, so much as a nutbag in the Dylan/Eric mold, and if you have any proof that Ivins is guilty, the FBI would like to talk to you.

Even including them, that list shows that half of the US terrorist attacks are the work of the profiled group (young male Muslims), who represent 1% of the population. As Ann Coulter said, at some point it stops being a “profile” and starts being a “description of the suspect”.

I’m not sure exactly how that helps us, especially considering the difficulty of eyeballing Boyd, for example, as a young male Muslim (and not just some black kid), but the first step is always admitting that you have a problem.

I’m a white native-born American female of Western European descent, coming up on 30. (Both sides of the family have been here since the 18th century.) I’ve been to a couple MLB games. However, my family are not (as commenter Hoosier once put it) Baseball-Americans. I’m lucky to be able to name the team that Babe Ruth played for in the majors. And, just for the record, I lack an interest in committing acts of terror.

Also: asking a woman if she has a boyfriend and wanting to know where he is raises all kinds of hackles, particularly if the questioner is male. If personal and intrusive questions must be asked, something a little less loaded like questions about “What do you do?” and “Tell me about your family” should suffice.

The boyfriend thing, BTW, is not just about not offending people’s delicate feelings. Men who ask out of the blue if you have a boyfriend are usually the kind of men who are about to hit on you in a clumsy way, generally in an inappropriate time or place. (In my experience, anyway.) Even if I managed to choke down a reflexive “That’s really none of your business” my demeanor would instantly shift to something that would probably be perceived as non-cooperative. i.e., face assuming a “What the hell is your problem” look, tone of voice sounding cold, body language becoming unfriendly. And tack on a “Where is he?” and I’m torn between wondering if the person asking thinks women shouldn’t travel alone and the activation of the “this person might be a physical danger to me” concerns.

In case the previous paragraph was too long: let’s avoid false positives by not asking stupid questions.

Look, I’m pregnant. I need to eat and drink and go to the bathroom. I’m also currently diabetic. I have to eat and drink and test my blood. I have 2 kids — can you make a 3 year old pee on command and then hold it for an hour? Yeah, me neither. After the baby is born — how do you keep an infant from needing to be held, change,d or fed for an hour? Short of drugging it into unconsciousness?

People have to move around on a plane, or get “deep vein thrombosis” (oh, also more likely if you’re pregnant or diabetic, I’ll add).

These requirements by TSA are not just annoying — they are *unhealthy* for a large portion of the population! So, it’s “just an hour”. Sorry, that doesn’t cut it. It’s theater of the absurd.

Mark Field: Do you have some numbers on this? I have no idea how you could, since “Muslim” isn’t an easily identifiable category. At a guess, I’d say tens of thousands per day still fit. Plus, as others have noted, there are easy ways to avoid the profile.

I would also be willing to bet that Israel sees “Islam” as fitting a somewhat more narrow definition than any US response would. For example, iirc, under Israeli categories, Druze are not considered Muslims and there seems to be an open questions whether Sabbateans/Donmeh are Jews or Muslims under Israeli law.

Malvolio: Clueless much? You really think there’s only been one terrorist attack in the last nine years?

I assumed JK was referring to terrorist attacks in the U.S., so the Madrid, London, and Mumbai attacks you reference wouldn’t be included. Of course, there have also been plenty of terrorist attacks in the U.S. since 9/12/01, including:

The 2001 anthrax attacks, committed by American Roman Catholic Bruce Ivins.

The 2002 Beltway sniper attacks, committed by American-born Muslim convert John Allen Muhammad and Jamaican Muslim convert(?) Lee Boyd Malvo.

The 2006 UNC SUV attack, committed by Iranian-born American Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, who was Muslim but seems not to have been particularly devout.

The 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, committed by South Korean national Seung-Hui Cho, who moved to the U.S. at 8. Cho was raised as a nondenominational Christian but personally seems not to have had any coherent religious beliefs.

The May 2009 assasination of George Tiller, committed by American Scott Roeder, an evangelical Christian.

Last month’s Ford Hood attack, committed by American-born Muslim Nidal Malik Hasan.

If all Arab Males between 18–35 suddenly went incorrigibly catatonic, the rate of terror attacks (on planes, trains, night clubs, what-have-you), could be expected to …

actually, post 9/11, the rate of terror attacks on planes, at least, would be the same. i am not aware of any terror attacks on trains and night clubs in the u.s, so i will say the rate of terror attacks on those would be the same too.

They may be a large number in the world, but in the US and in the US transportation system they are a very small number.

Do you have some numbers on this? I have no idea how you could, since “Muslim” isn’t an easily identifiable category. At a guess, I’d say tens of thousands per day still fit. Plus, as others have noted, there are easy ways to avoid the profile.

All in all, profiling is a waste of time and money. It’s both overinclusive — the 20-odd “recent” hijackers represent about 1/200,000th of a percent of male Muslims in the world, which means we’d have to anger tens of thousands daily in order to catch a single hijacker (and probably create another hijacker in so doing) — and underinclusive, since a known profile will simply be avoided on the next hijack.

JK:
Oh, so now we’re talking about Terrorism worldwide! And we’re no longer limited to Airline attacks! So on top of getting Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, Ted Kazinski, the guy who shot up the Holocaust museum, and anti-abortion terrorists back in the “terrorist” set, we can also include Basque, Chechnyan, FARC (and other south american militant groups), IRA, etc, etc, etc terrorism?So by expanding the set you’ve added three attacks that fit your profile, but added hundreds (Thousands?) of attacks that don’t.That doesn’t seem to help your case.

I think it’s time to ask Eugene to institute a system of commenting estoppel.

Clueless much? You really think there’s only been one terrorist attack in the last nine years?

Oh, so now we’re talking about Terrorism worldwide! And we’re no longer limited to Airline attacks! So on top of getting Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, Ted Kazinski, the guy who shot up the Holocaust museum, and anti-abortion terrorists back in the “terrorist” set, we can also include Basque, Chechnyan, FARC (and other south american militant groups), IRA, etc, etc, etc terrorism? So by expanding the set you’ve added three attacks that fit your profile, but added hundreds (Thousands?) of attacks that don’t. That doesn’t seem to help your case.

Smooth, like a Rhapsody: In a world with finite resources, time and patience, I would argue that “most” most certainly does “cut it”.

Assuming we only look at plots against airliners bound for the US, you have one out of three not fitting your profile though. That isn’t high enough for my standards.

Blue: A convert Muslim, you mean? Western converts actually should be one of the profile categories, actually.

How do you propose to have the TSA do this? Do the REAL ID’s we were all supposed to need starting Friday also include your religion and conversion history in addition to full legal name, signature, date of birth, gender, photograph, and address of principal residence?

Blue:
Again, that is a far more difficult job from AQ or whoever than you make it out to be.

Is it? I can think of three high profile AQ operatives who would not, on casual inspection, fit the ‘profile’ that people here seem to be pushing (male, young and Arab): Jose Padilla, Richard Reid and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Even if we include “apparently Muslim” or “passported in a state with a large Muslim population” into the profile, we only grab one of the preceding people.

Now, that isn’t to say that I think all profiling is counter-productive. Young men (or women) of any citizenship traveling alone with little or no luggage on flights to the United States might be a good category to take a harder look at, and certainly those people who’ve been identified to the USG as potential terrorists should be subject to higher scrutiny. But those are very different categories than the kind of broad-brush ethno-religious groups that have been discussed here, which are both under- and over-inclusive enough to make them unusable.

JK: Well since 9/12/2001 it would have remained completely static, right? If we go with “Arab” rather than “Muslim” (which I reject as an usable profiling category), we’re really talking about one terrorist attack (9/11).

Clueless much? You really think there’s only been one terrorist attack in the last nine years?

And yes, all the of the attackers in all of the attacks would have exactly fit the most naive, racist profile you could have made from the 9/11 attackers. Yes, there are a hundred million or so innocent men who would also fit the profile but on any given flight, there will only be one or two, so yes, why not detail some guy to have a friend chat, see what’s up?

Especially if his dad has already mentioned that, yes, he’s a murderous lunatic.

Bruce Hayden: So, why not use obviously Muslim? Sure, Richard Reid traveling under his orignal name might pass.

So now Western Muslim converts will be encouraged not to use assumed names. On the other hand, if Mohammed Ali decides to travel, he had better show up at the airport twelve hours in advance….

Blue: A convert Muslim, you mean? Western converts actually should be one of the profile categories, actually.

Cool, so put Farrakhan on the no-fly-list?

So, why not use obviously Muslim? Sure, Richard Reid traveling under his orignal name might pass. But most of the rest, including this guy, would have been noticeable (and thus profileable) as a Moslem based on his name.

To be clear by “most of the rest” you mean the 9/11 guys and this current bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab? So you managed to get to n=2 from the original claim of “95% of the terrorists who have attacked America.” Additionally, now that we’ve eliminated the mystical Muslim identifier it’s apparent that a forged passport would be an almost certain evasion to the whole system.

I’ll also note again, as I did in my first post, that I’m not really against profiling per se. It’s just not nearly as simple or effective as advocates seem to suggest. It’s not simple because it’s harder to objectively define the categories then is suggested, and it’s not terribly effective because it can be evaded like any other known security system.

Chris Travers: Most doesn’t cut it. What about Richard Reid?

A convert Muslim, you mean? Western converts actually should be one of the profile categories, actually.

JK: Well since 9/12/2001 it would have remained completely static, right? If we go with “Arab” rather than “Muslim” (which I reject as an usable profiling category), we’re really talking about one terrorist attack (9/11). Yes, it was “the big one” but n=1 doesn’t make a pattern no matter how big that example is.

So, why not use obviously Muslim? Sure, Richard Reid traveling under his orignal name might pass. But most of the rest, including this guy, would have been noticeable (and thus profileable) as a Moslem based on his name. Add in coming from Yemen (and originally Nigeria).

Remember, with profiling, what we would be doing is applying heightened scrutiny to those who are more likely terrorists than those who aren’t. So, there would be nothing wrong with giving someone profiling points for being from an Arab country, for having a Moslem name, being male, between 18 and 35 or so, etc. And subtracting points for being from a small town in the U.S., older than 65, female, etc. Then, multiplying this by some random number function to determine who should get increased screening.