Liberty or security

[jdobbin]

deleted

[jbg]

That is what TSA is doing along with their observation training. It was on ABC News earlier this week.

Profile bahaviour, question passenger, search.

I think the amount of air flights per day answers that question. At Norad headquarters, they track passenger flights and there are thousands of red dots out there. How many marshals do you think might be? They already have 40,000+ TSA people.

Double post, Jdobin.

If that is what is needed to ensure safety, that might be better than crippling and lengthy pre-flight delays that do nothing other than inconvenience people in the name of making them feel safe. Hint, Mohamed is not going to meekly get pulled at an airport search.

[Charles Anthony]

No one has responded to my idea of other airlines doing what El Al does, which is asking random passengers to answer a series of questions rapidly about where they are going,

I will respond. I have no problem with it because it is not my airplane -- it is theirs. They can do whatever they want. Passengers who do not like it can grow wings and fly themselves.

Also, why not air marshals on every plane?

I see no reason why not.

How about full-body cavity search for every single passenger?

How about every single passenger must be hand-cuffed and shackled to the chair?

The whole premise behind the original question:

Which one would you give up, in order to have the other?

is a little unrealistic. It can not be an either or situation. On a private airline, both liberty and security are given up anyway. You are a guest in somebody else's house and you do not make the rules. If you do not like the rules, get out. Fly your own plane.

Furthermore, nobody can affordably provide much guarantee anyway. Demanding either full liberty or full security is impossible unless you are flying your own airplane.

[jdobbin]

If that is what is needed to ensure safety, that might be better than crippling and lengthy pre-flight delays that do nothing other than inconvenience people in the name of making them feel safe. Hint, Mohamed is not going to meekly get pulled at an airport search.

I suppose if Americans want that type of security, they will pay for it. I still think it is better to deal with people *before* they get on the plane.

Air marshals are the last resort measure and if you throw all your resources there with 20 to 30,000 highly paid experts, it may mean less money say for...protecting train and subway passengers.

[jbg]

Air marshals are the last resort measure and if you throw all your resources there with 20 to 30,000 highly paid experts, it may mean less money say for...protecting train and subway passengers.

My point is that the current system of metal checks, making people take off their shoes, now no liquids, is futile, and obviously so. We should not be taking useless measures that inconvenience law-abiding people in the name of the perception of safety.

[jdobbin]

My point is that the current system of metal checks, making people take off their shoes, now no liquids, is futile, and obviously so. We should not be taking useless measures that inconvenience law-abiding people in the name of the perception of safety.

Most of the experts say there is no way on earth to completely minimize the risk. The majority of the precautions have to come before entry to an aircraft. An air marshal is only good for a hijacking. Pretty darn useless for a lone bomber.

[geoffrey]

My point is that the current system of metal checks, making people take off their shoes, now no liquids, is futile, and obviously so. We should not be taking useless measures that inconvenience law-abiding people in the name of the perception of safety.

Well... those checks are all useless. No terrorist is going to use their shoe if they are all checked. That being said, as soon as you stop checking them, a neccessity to check them arises.

So really, you either got to check everything, or just risk it.

I feel safer on a plane the more security regulations there are. I don't care about inconvenience if my safety is protected.

[August1991]

The whole premise behind the original question:

Which one would you give up, in order to have the other?

is a little unrealistic. It can not be an either or situation. On a private airline, both liberty and security are given up anyway. You are a guest in somebody else's house and you do not make the rules. If you do not like the rules, get out. Fly your own plane.

Furthermore, nobody can affordably provide much guarantee anyway. Demanding either full liberty or full security is impossible unless you are flying your own airplane.

You miss the point, Charles Anthony.

Three of the four planes in 2001 crashed into buildings and killed people not involved in flying at all. In this latest UK plot, it is not clear how the explosives were to be used. This issue concerns people who don't fly.

Because of the risk caused by any plane, security measures will no doubt soon extend to private flights. (This will be an interesting development since many rich people/government people are now choosing to fly privately to avoid the inconvenience of security measures of commercial flights.)

----

When that guy tried to hide a bomb in his shoe, everyone had to take off their shoes at the X-ray machine. Now, with this latest plot, everyone has to empty out purses with face cream. In the future, maybe someone will hide chemicals in hair spray and they'll be taking hair samples. (Or a plot will involve a private plane with a bomb and then God knows what rich people/government people will do.) More likely, a plot will involve a box van and a dirty bomb, and then police will stop every box van entering a city.

This kind of foolish, reactive policing can't continue.

I was recently at the airport (a place I now utterly loathe in practice, while I still love in principle) and I was appalled as I watched officials force older white, Christian women with outrageous accents empty their purses of various bottles. That's absurd. These women were no threat to anyone.

This simplistic, modern Leftist PC sense of fairness will do us in. The police must discriminate. You can be fairly certain that CSIS is not seeking recruits to infiltrate Jehovah's Witness temples (however much they may be an intellectual threat to western civilization). CSIS' efforts are more focussed, as they should be.

Certain people represent a greater threat than others. And of course the police must approach this problem carefully. If it becomes known that police don't search old white men with canes, then that becomes the target. Anyone plotting in Canada now doesn't organize their affairs in a nearby mosque.

There's a choice between liberty and security. The choice exists for individuals, and for society. I have no simple answer to what is the best choice. I'm not even certain this Islamofascist threat to liberty is as great as threats in the past.

If the past is a guide, western liberals are slow to respond but they eventually do and then they voluntarily coordinate their efforts better than any society that threatens freedom.

----

Hard to profile when they look like white.

Abdul Waheed (formerly Don Stewart-Whyte) , born ca. 1986. Son of a former Tory agent, half brother of model Heather Stewart-Whyte, a successful model who lives in North London. She has said that she has never met her half-brother.

Umar Islam (formerly Brian Young), born 23 April 1978 was a ticket inspector on London buses durring the 7 July 2005 London bombings when he helped search for bombs on other buses and assisted victims of the Tavistock Square bus bomb to safety.

Ibrahim Savant (formerly Oliver Savant), born 19 December 1980, (Walthamstow)

On the contrary. Those young white men are easy to profile. But Dobbin, you raise an interesting point. Why do these young white men exist? Do they aspire to be John Reed or Wilfred Burchett?

[Charles Anthony]

This issue concerns people who don't fly.

Thanks for pointing that out. I will venture out and say that there is no practical solution.

Are we willing to shoot down unidentifed airborne threats even if they contain innocent passengers? From the ground, we have little choice but to be ready to treat the airplanes as we would treat a dangerous flying animal or as we suppose the Soviets treated a Korean passenger airline in 1983.

What should have been done if the rogue airplanes on September 11, 2001 were identified with sufficient time to shoot them down in the air? If we are not willing to shoot them down, we are asking for liberty or security that is physically impossible to provide.

[jbg]

Certain people represent a greater threat than others. And of course the police must approach this problem carefully. If it becomes known that police don't search old white men with canes, then that becomes the target. Anyone plotting in Canada now doesn't organize their affairs in a nearby mosque.

There's a choice between liberty and security. The choice exists for individuals, and for society. I have no simple answer to what is the best choice. I'm not even certain this Islamofascist threat to liberty is as great as threats in the past.

The choice should be made very simple for the so-called "decent" among Islam; either start turning people over or face intolerable profiling and restrictions.

[Melanie_]

The choice should be made very simple for the so-called "decent" among Islam; either start turning people over or face intolerable profiling and restrictions.

You assume that every Muslim knows who is involved in plotting terrorism. Why should they be held responsible for the actions of the lunatic fringe among them? It would be like saying every Christian in Texas is responsible for David Kordesh and the Waco standoff - why didn't those Texas Christians turn him over? Since they didn't, we can assume they were protecting him and sympathized with his cause. Of course that sounds ridiculous when put into that context, but it is the same thing.

[jdobbin]

Hard to profile when they look like white.

Abdul Waheed (formerly Don Stewart-Whyte) , born ca. 1986. Son of a former Tory agent, half brother of model Heather Stewart-Whyte, a successful model who lives in North London. She has said that she has never met her half-brother.

Umar Islam (formerly Brian Young), born 23 April 1978 was a ticket inspector on London buses durring the 7 July 2005 London bombings when he helped search for bombs on other buses and assisted victims of the Tavistock Square bus bomb to safety.

Ibrahim Savant (formerly Oliver Savant), born 19 December 1980, (Walthamstow)

On the contrary. Those young white men are easy to profile. But Dobbin, you raise an interesting point. Why do these young white men exist? Do they aspire to be John Reed or Wilfred Burchett?

They are not journalist recording an event, they are converts to the religion.

And visually, they *are* hard to profile. Like it or not, passengers and cabin crew are still looking for brown skin. Trained staff on the ground might be looking for other things but that white skin is the key to reducing the threat level some people feel.

[jbg]

You assume that every Muslim knows who is involved in plotting terrorism. Why should they be held responsible for the actions of the lunatic fringe among them? It would be like saying every Christian in Texas is responsible for David Kordesh and the Waco standoff - why didn't those Texas Christians turn him over? Since they didn't, we can assume they were protecting him and sympathized with his cause. Of course that sounds ridiculous when put into that context, but it is the same thing.

These are much more insular communities than Christian ones. Muslim communities are still isolated, relatively tight-knit and small communities within the West, and I assume a great deal of knowledge.

[Melanie_]

Here's some numbers from StatsCan's 2001 census. While I agree that there are smaller numbers of Muslims than Christians, I doubt they all know each other, or are responsible for other people's fanaticism.

http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/P...nion/rel/on.cfm

The number of Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs grew substantially in Ontario. The census enumerated more than 352,500 Muslims, well over double the total of 145,600 a decade earlier. Muslims in Ontario accounted for 61% of all Muslims in Canada.

The vast majority of Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs lived in the census metropolitan area of Toronto. Its Muslim population more than doubled during the decade to more than 254,100. They accounted for just over 5% of Toronto’s population, up from about 3%.

[Leafless]

The choice should be made very simple for the so-called "decent" among Islam; either start turning people over or face intolerable profiling and restrictions.

You assume that every Muslim knows who is involved in plotting terrorism. Why should they be held responsible for the actions of the lunatic fringe among them? It would be like saying every Christian in Texas is responsible for David Kordesh and the Waco standoff - why didn't those Texas Christians turn him over? Since they didn't, we can assume they were protecting him and sympathized with his cause. Of course that sounds ridiculous when put into that context, but it is the same thing.

It doesn't only sound ridiculous it IS totally ridiculous.

David Koresh led an armed cult, a schism of the Seven Day Adventists making a mockery of main Christian religious groups and really had nothing to do with mainstream Christianity.

[Melanie_]

David Koresh led an armed cult, a schism of the Seven Day Adventists making a mockery of main Christian religious groups and really had nothing to do with mainstream Christianity.

Mainstream Muslims would make the same argument about terrorists.

[Leafless]

David Koresh led an armed cult, a schism of the Seven Day Adventists making a mockery of main Christian religious groups and really had nothing to do with mainstream Christianity.

Mainstream Muslims would make the same argument about terrorists.

Then have your Muslim society do something with your Islamic terrorist groups like what U.S. authorities did Koresh's armed cult.

[Melanie_]

Then have your Muslim society do something with your Islamic terrorist groups like what U.S. authorities did Koresh's armed cult.

Why would it be the responsibility of Muslims to do the job of the police? Or are the authorities only expected to deal with Christian crazies? Your suggestion is vigilante action, which can go really bad, really fast.

[Leafless]

Then have your Muslim society do something with your Islamic terrorist groups like what U.S. authorities did Koresh's armed cult.

Why would it be the responsibility of Muslims to do the job of the police? Or are the authorities only expected to deal with Christian crazies? Your suggestion is vigilante action, which can go really bad, really fast.

Iam not putting the emphasis on individual Muslims outside of publicly denouncing all Muslim terrorist organizations but also reporting to Canadian authorities terrorist suspects within your own community.

This is why Muslims have a bad name everywhere they cannot even among themselves in their own communities determine who the troublemakers are or are unwilling to report them.

In all the Arab countries these Muslim terrorist come from there is no serious sense of Arab governments to hunt down and destroy the many Muslim terrorist organizations and you want Liberty over SECURITY.

If this is the case in Muslim land you do what you do with an uncontrollable contagious disease you quarantine all of them or send them back to the country of origin.

This is a Muslims problem.

What's your practical answer.

[Melanie_]

Iam not putting the emphasis on individual Muslims outside of publicly denouncing all Muslim terrorist organizations but also reporting to Canadian authorities terrorist suspects within your own community.

This is why Muslims have a bad name everywhere they cannot even among themselves in their own communities determine who the troublemakers are or are unwilling to report them.

In all the Arab countries these Muslim terrorist come from there is no serious sense of Arab governments to hunt down and destroy the many Muslim terrorist organizations and you want Liberty over SECURITY.

If this is the case in Muslim land you do what you do with an uncontrollable contagious disease you quarantine all of them or send them back to the country of origin.

This is a Muslims problem.

What's your practical answer.

You are putting the emphasis on individual Muslims when you say that they should know who is a troublemaker based solely on sharing a religion with that person, and then hold them accountable for the actions of people they don't even know. At the same time, there could be people you associate with every day who are plotting something terrible, and you could have no idea that is going on.

My practical answer is to look at people as people, and base our accusations on their actions, not on the actions of others who may look like them or share a religion.

[jbg]

It doesn't only sound ridiculous it IS totally ridiculous.

David Koresh led an armed cult, a schism of the Seven Day Adventists making a mockery of main Christian religious groups and really had nothing to do with mainstream Christianity.

My point of course is militant Islam has much more to do with "mainstream" Islaim than Koresh's cult had to do with "mainstream" Christianity.

[Leafless]

My practical answer is to look at people as people, and base our accusations on their actions, not on the actions of others who may look like them or share a religion.

Muslim communities are generally tight knit communities paying strict adherence to Islam a monotheistic religion that contains a political system.

Muslim countries that harbour many Muslim terrorist organizations have failed to contain or prevent the actions of radical Muslims with their ideologies exported throughout world countries causing great harm.

How can you possibly suggest that Muslims who are shrouded within a veil of secrecy within their own communities and with their own source countries unable to deal with the problem shift the emphasis to local Canadian police departments to solve the problem no one from Muslim land wants to contend with.

It is very condescending of you to suggest that actions of radical Muslims are on the same level as common crime or criminal acts in Canada and it is up to police departments to simply treat Muslim radicals the same way as common Canadian criminals.

This of course in many cases is time consuming and uses a tremendous amount of police resources to obtain a conviction if that is even possible in certain cases.

This is a Muslim problem that Muslims themselves are not addressing and I think it's time our politicians take direct action of one sort or another to combat criminal actions imported from other lands.

[Melanie_]

If a criminal act takes place in Canada, it is up to the Canadian police to deal with it, not vigilantes from whatever community it took place in. You can't hold entire communities responsible for the actions of the lunatic fringe within them. Of the 352,000 Muslims in the Toronto area (according to StatsCan 2001), do you really think they all know each other, or are familiar with each others' plans?

The doctor in the original article of this thread was unjustly accused, humiliated, and financially inconvenienced, because he was Muslim. Your argument is that this is what he can expect, because other Muslims have been terrorists and it is up to him to stop them. That is unfair and illogical.

[August1991]

The doctor in the original article of this thread was unjustly accused, humiliated, and financially inconvenienced, because he was Muslim. Your argument is that this is what he can expect, because other Muslims have been terrorists and it is up to him to stop them. That is unfair and illogical.

The Muslim passenger did not suffer this indignity because he failed to help in finding guilty parties; he was humiliated because he happened to be Muslim.

If the police have reports that a blonde-haired woman stole a watch, it makes sense that they will stop blonde-haired women. Is that fair to the innocent blondes who are stopped? Would it be better for the police to stop also brunettes just to be fair?

Fairness is rarely a good guide in public policy decisions. And here's a suggestion to highlight that point. Let the police stop whomever they want for a security check but if the person is found to be innocent, let's compensate them with $50.

We want public places to be as safe as possible and stopping old Christian women and making them empty their handbags is silly. This imposes a great cost on many people and accomplishes absolutely nothing. It may be unfair that young Arabic-looking men are going to suffer a greater cost than others, but life is sometimes unfair.

In my mind, the question is not whether the police should use race or age or religion to profile, but rather how intrusive should we allow the police to be. Our constitution refers to "peace, order and good government" and this implies that Canadians have traditionally sided on allowing government intrusion (less liberty) if it means ensuring security.

In effect, some innocent people are going to suffer indignities. How severe can these indignities be?

[geoffrey]

Wasn't that person with the explosives on the plane in the states a woman? Or was it in the states?

Or does anyone have any information on that story, I can't find anything. What the hey.

My point is, it doesn't matter what they look like. Any coloured (EDIT: should be a person of any colour, white, black, purple... any coloured person sounds psuedo-south slave talk, mistype) person can be swept into Islamic extremism, who knows. Lets check everyone, I'd feel better flying if we did.