Did The TSA and JetBlue Deny Travel For Looking Muslim During Ramadan? No

http://boardingarea.com/flyingwithfish/2013/08/26/did-the-tsa-jetblue-deny-travel-for-looking-muslim-during-ramadan-nope/

by mlm • 13 years ago

193 222 13 years ago

boardingarea.com

Anechoic• 13 years ago

Release the gate security video and we can make our own determinations.

Yver• 13 years ago

Mr. Mukerjee appears to have been flagged by the Behaviour Detection Officer (BDO) while in line for what appeared to be unusual behaviours.

Well I'm sold. Serves you right for looking suspicious in front of the Looking-suspicious Detection Officer!

ars2• 13 years ago

Every time people complain about the TSA and are asked how they should do security people say they should evaluate the person - look for signs of nervousness and things like that.

And now they do and you complain anyway. So - what's your preferred method of screening people?

stephen• 13 years ago

Not sure why you're getting down voted--I remember seeing at least 2 articles go by in the last few years about the Israeli airport security.

Both times it was portrayed as super amazing (low hassle plus high security) precisely because they used behavioral detection techniques.

elpool2• 13 years ago

How about you search the suspicious guy thoroughly, and then once it's clear he doesn't have any weapons you let him on the plane?

justin663• 13 years ago

Every time people complain about the TSA and are asked how they should do security people say they should evaluate the person - look for signs of nervousness and things like that.

Putting aside the obvious falsehood ("every time") there's obviously a little critical analysis required to differentiate between people who are nervous because they don't like getting airplanes, people who are nervous because they're about to miss their flight, people who are just generally anxious, and people who are nervous because they're about to blow up an airplane.

bcoates• 13 years ago

Bored minimum wage guy waving people through a metal detector and running bags through an x-ray machine without looking at the results? That worked fine for a few decades and did no worse than the gigantic TSA rigmarole.

eruditely• 13 years ago

I don't know, the one that is the most empirically effective in assessing somewhere for being a terrorist?

xtracto2• 13 years ago

As I put in another comment... I can believe that the BDO thought "That guy over there is behaving brown", which made him check him.

That's the problem with USA security, against say the one in Europe or the middle east (I think Israel has very good trained anti-terrorist immigration officers): In these other countries, there are a lot of darkish-skin people, so they really have to learn how to profile someone who is up to something. In the USA? I guess the majority of time they just use the skin color... and that's why they get a lot of false positive, and /very/ annoyed people.

ck2• 13 years ago

Sorry I am still taking his side.

This writeup is not only just nit-picking his story - it's using the TSA as witness against itself.

I am most certainly not going to the take TSA's word for what happened. That would be like taking the NSA's word to congress for example. What do you think happens by lesser agencies on non-sworn testimony when they see what their big-brother can get away with?

And the "behavior detection" has already been outed multiple times as a huge pile of poo. It's identical to the signals cops can give their dogs for false positives to search someone anyway just because they want to.

By the way, if he was so dangerous and already being watched YOU LET HIM GET INTO A CROWDED TERMINAL WITH LOTS AND LOTS OF PEOPLE WITH HIS LUGGAGE AND BACKPACK.

Morons. So someone is only dangerous if they get on the plane, not in the crowed terminal eh?

I feel so safe now at your crowded checkpoints.

Prove to me they didn't search his home without serving him a warrant and then we'll talk about the accuracy of this story.

neotek• 13 years ago

Prove to me they didn't search his home without serving him a warrant and then we'll talk about the accuracy of this story.

Can't really prove a negative - what would the evidence look like? The reasonable question to ask is "prove to me they did search his home without serving him a warrant."

InclinedPlane5• 13 years ago

Did you read the original article? If so re-read the very end of it to acquaint yourself with the evidence that his apartment was searched without a warrant.

Edit: P.S. note that I said evidence not proof.

P.P.S. I find it somewhat weird how people are so eager to jump to the defense of law enforcement with shouts of "that evidence proves nothing!" while at the same time supporting the idea that a now known to be false positive explosives test is more than sufficient to justify someone's ill-treatment for hours at the hands of law enforcement.

I'm not saying that Mukerjee's story of missing and tampered items in his apartment is sufficient to convict any law enforcement agent of wrong doing but maybe it's enough to justify an investigation (which could easily be rolled into the investigation into LEO behavior around the entire incident).

cpayne3• 13 years ago

Prove to me they didn't search his home without serving him a warrant and then we'll talk about the accuracy of this story.

How do you prove a negative. The key for me is that he got the NYPD & Port Authority mixed up. Innocent on its own, except the bit where the Port Authority has no jurisdiction outside airports.

sseveran2• 13 years ago

And all the other places they have jurisdiction over...It turns out there are more "ports" than just airports.

greendata• 13 years ago

This is one of the major problems with unregulated and unsupervised NSA activities (and other agencies). We've seen them blatantly lie about their actions, to the public and to congress. They've lied under oath without any repercussions.

I don't know if I can believe any official reports. They say the FBI wasn't involved, and I believe them but "they" have proved unreliable in the past. This is the fertile soil for conspiracy theories and it's the governments own fault.

We're left with Occam's razor. Mr. Mukerjee was probably feeling a little hot-headed that day and maybe he mouthed off to the first TSA guard who placed him on some list. He probably doesn't like or trust the TSA since he opted out of their preferred method of scanning. It's pretty believable that the agents don't know much about hinduism since they are not targeting potential hindu terrorist, but extremist muslim terrorist (if you consider terrorists true muslims which I don't). It seems likely that he set off multiple security alarms. Police TSA aren't going to know about venture capital or care about your job. They are just asking to see if you slip up or act nervous. Israeli security simply asks "how are you doing today" not b/c they care but b/c a persons reaction tells them a lot and they will drill down if you get agitated by their questions.

In the end, Mr. Mukerjee did nothing wrong. He got agitated by something that would anger all but the most patient individuals. That's actually the scary part. Al-Qaeda and other terror groups have shown again and again that they are VERY patient and persistent. One of their agents would probably have gone through the main scanner and if detected remain very affable and friendly with the TSA.

Amadou7• 13 years ago

This is one of the major problems with unregulated and unsupervised NSA activities (and other agencies). We've seen them blatantly lie about their actions, to the public and to congress.

I'd like to point out that the TSA's shining example of the effectiveness of their behavior-detection officers has itself turned out to be a sham.

http://www.clickorlando.com/news/TSA-exaggerates-claims-abou...

Man said to have 'explosives' in luggage actually had none, FBI lab report found

xdissent2• 13 years ago

Why does "keeping in mind that false positives with ETD are not uncommon" sound unsettling to me?

untog• 13 years ago

It's expected. Even in the most optimistic of circumstances, you have to believe that innocent people will get caught in an anti-terrorism net. Same as most things- innocent people get arrested far away from airports, too.

The question (and failure) is what happens after that. But false positives in themselves isn't surprising.

DannyBee2• 13 years ago

If you've got a better way to distinguish trace amounts of explosive chemicals, i'm sure they'd love to pay you millions for machines to test it :) http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/tcrp/tcrp_rpt_86v6.pdf looks relavent here.

Completely skimming it, the test sites had false positive rates of 0.6 - 1.8%.

I'd classify that as "not uncommon".

sseveran2• 13 years ago

And what is the false negative rate?

glenra9• 13 years ago

Completely skimming it, the test sites had false positive rates of 0.6 - 1.8%.

In other words, the test is almost completely useless. Given how low the base rate of terrorists sneaking through bombs is, a positive test result on one of these machines is >99.9% likely to be a false positive.

Let's do the math. We'll assume there are never any false negatives and just look at the positive results. Let's simplify "0.6-1.8%" and just call that "1%". Out of 100,000 bags, let's assume that ONE contains a bomb being snuck through by a terrorist. 1/100,000 is our postulated base rate of terrorism. 1/100 is our false positive rate on the test.

So let's put 100,000 bags through the machine. There will be 1,000 false positives and one true positive. which means that if some bag "tests positive for explosives" the odds are a-thousand-to-one against that being a valid result.

"But," I hear you cry, "we RUN IT THROUGH AGAIN when we get a positive result!"

Sure, that would work GREAT if false positive results were COMPLETELY RANDOM. But they're not. More likely than not, the false positive is being triggered by something that is or was actually in the bag. So when you run it again, there's a good chance that it'll trigger again. The "false" part of "false positive" is that the thing in the bag that it's triggering on...isn't an explosive. It's just some other chemical.

cjensen• 13 years ago

The double-negative is bad style, but the fact is actually reassuring. It means that the typical TSA agent sees a ton of positive results each week and has never seen a valid result. In other words, the agent is not fussed at all by the positive test outcome; they just have to double check to clear you.

Zaheer• 13 years ago

"Mr. Mukerjee appears to have been flagged by the Behaviour Detection Officer (BDO) while in line for what appeared to be unusual behaviours. [...] it is impossible to assess what caught the Officer’s attention, but the TSA source indicates Mr. Mukerjee was already on someone’s radar before he chose to opt-out."

What 'unusual behaviors' led to him getting flagged? While maybe Mr. Mukerjee had suspicious behavior I'm skeptical of saying that his looks did not contribute to the heightened harsh treatment. Would a Caucasian male get the same treatment?

dthunt3• 13 years ago

I call foul on behavioral detection.

I sincerely doubt there's a way to differentiate between someone who is ill and someone who is pale and has the jitters because they're about to do something bad. I moreover call foul on the notion that there are enough of the latter set to build an effective training program to create effective BDOs.

What's actually happening here is probably that BDOs are being used to justify retroactively special treatment given to people for invented reasons. It's sort of like a false alert from a drug dog - it's a claim that you can't really cross-examine, since the supposed microexpressions someone exhibits are too fast or too small to be picked up by a camera.

res0nat0r2• 13 years ago

Israel has been doing behavior profiling beginning at the moment you get out of your car at the airport, and run one of the most secure airports in the world. Even though the word profiling has a bad connotation in the USA, it works.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...

dthunt3• 13 years ago

(just as an addendum to the above, compare: drug dogs, in theory, and in practice, in light of recent disclosures about the DEA's 'parallel reconstruction' program.

nandemo• 13 years ago

There's some info about behaviour detection here:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_profiling

It's been used by Israeli airport security and, if done properly, isn't based on ethnics or appearance. I don't think it's a bad thing as long as it's just used for screening.

However, the original account indicates that the questioning went far beyond "non-intrusive questions".

joelrunyon• 13 years ago

The Department of Homeland Security simply is not organized enough to create one collaborative story.

Not withstanding the original article, the above statement alone should be enough for us to question the pervasive use of the TSA.

senthilnayagam2• 13 years ago

if the TSA want to screw you, you are screwed Period

please read yesterdays post Detained in the US for “Visiting Thailand Too Much” http://www.richardbarrow.com/2013/08/detained-in-the-us-for-... discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6276939

read the last couple of sentences

"Be careful about what you have on your laptop and memory card in your camera. They could search everything. The pictures of your kids taking a bath maybe interpreted in a different way by immigration officers. .... And certainly don’t buy any porno DVDs here in Thailand to take home. You have been warned. Don’t take this lightly."

edit: removed the context about pirated goods

ubernostrum2• 13 years ago

So... purchasing goods abroad which are illegal in the US, and then trying to import them into the US, may result in those goods being confiscated and you being made to pay a fine?

This is unprecedented in the history of everything!

senthilnayagam2• 13 years ago

hope you have read the article http://varnull.adityamukerjee.net/post/59021412512/dont-fly-...

TSA Officer “You can leave, but I’m keeping your bag.”

Aditha was speechless. My bag had both my work computer and my personal computer in it. The only way for me to get it back from him would be to snatch it back, at which point he could simply claim that I had assaulted him. I was trapped."

the issue faced by Adithya was not too different from what Miranda faced at UK airport last week

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23750289

slg3• 13 years ago

I know it won't happen, but I wish this blog post would go as viral as the original. Not that I accept this post as the complete truth, but because people deserve to hear two sides of the story. Often times all people will hear is the accusations of something like this and accept it as fact and the eventual acquittals (or explanations) never get as much publicity. Like Mark Twain said "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."

sanderjd• 13 years ago

I agree, but perhaps for different reasons. The authoritarian-apologist doublespeak it's full of is even more damning than the original story.

sker• 13 years ago

Agreed. I'm upvoting because everyone is calling out the author on his bias and BS.

Funny how if a stranger on the street infringes on your rights, you're allowed to get agitated and aggressive, but if the government does it, you're supposed to be submissive and cooperative.

Zigurd2• 13 years ago

This blog entry is a example of how cheaply one can buy sycophants. Someday he will write about how lovely his bottom bunk at the reeducation camp was.

EDIT: Oh man. After a bit of searching, it looks like Steven Frischling is exactly the man to represent the TSA's position. He was born to the task.

cup• 13 years ago

This reeks of the most cowardly pandering to proto fascist mission creep I've read in a long time. I mean take these key quotes for instance:

Mr. Mukerjee appears to have been flagged by the Behaviour Detection Officer (BDO)
Mr. Mukerjee became verbally aggressive
Mr. Mukerjee becoming further agitated and aggressive after testing positive for explosives, as well as him repeatedly reaching for his not-yet-manually-searched bag.

I know a lot of you HNs live in America and probably arnt familiar with dictatorial or cold war communist institutions but these kind of articles are classic examples of the publics refusal to acknowledge injustice perpetraded by a power hungry government institution. The sooner people realise that their government is not all good the better. In the meantime articles like these and those who write them continue to facilitate the decline of public freedoms and personal liberties.

Flying Fish should feel ashamed.

ballard3• 13 years ago

Interesting. Perhaps if there were a term to succinctly describe a zeitgeist where participants think they are doing good but actually causing great harm in retrospect, without invoking Godwin's law. Also, any lessons or warning signs for dark periods would be helpful.

iopq2• 13 years ago

I agree, it's easy to say that someone became verbally aggressive and agitated after the fact. It doesn't excuse poor treatment, and it's probably not even true, since it's a judgement call and impossible to disprove.

xtracto2• 13 years ago

Mukerjee appears to have been flagged by the Behaviour Detection Officer (BDO) while in line for what appeared to be unusual behaviours. As the official Incident Report makes no mention of the BDO’s involvement it is impossible to assess what caught the Officer’s attention, but the TSA source indicates Mr. Mukerjee was already on someone’s radar before he chose to opt-out.

As a Mexican, I laughed loud after reading this:

BDO Officer thinks: "Mhmm.. that guy on the line is behaving brown, better check him out".

Every "brown" (Mexican, middle-easter, Indi or person with similar color) can confirm how they get "randomly selected" in a lot of checkpoints.

unalone• 13 years ago

Somebody got aggressive after being detained for hours on end and having their flight cancelled, at expense? Holy shit! Pack your bags, men: we found ourselves a terrorist.

vehementi5• 13 years ago

When you say aggressive, make sure to specify that you mean some blogger paraphrased an anonymous unsourced person claiming a month after the fact that the guy was aggressive with no supporting evidence.

tokenadult• 13 years ago

This is gripping reading for me, because "Mr. Mukerjee" is someone I know by first name, indeed nickname, even though I have never met him. (He was my son's roommate for most of the last year, and was the crucial connection for my son getting his job in New York City.)

I appreciate seeing someone else's perspective on the incident that has appalled all my Facebook friends who have seen Mr. Mukerjee's own account

http://varnull.adityamukerjee.net/post/59021412512/dont-fly-...

of his experience at the airport (which was a top post on Hacker News for about a full day). We can all learn something about any incident by hearing a second opinion on it.

That said, if Mr. Mukerjee’s behavior that day was "aggressive," my interpretation of that, never having met him, but knowing his roommate very well indeed, is that he was assertive about claiming the civil rights of an American. (I imagine he was also hungry, tired, and eager to travel to see his family.) It's too bad that people who assert their rights are taken to be acting suspiciously, but let's examine the incident and modify the system in a way that makes it easier, not harder, for a tired and hungry traveler to get straight answers and have factual misimpressions resolved, rather than assuming that every loyal American[1] is a terrorist.

After formal study of the law and work as a judicial clerk in a state supreme court, I find that my bottom line is that I still have to remind myself to be very deferential in the presence of law enforcement officers--especially armed law enforcement officers. Asserting my rights is not something the system makes easy to do, EVEN FOR A LAWYER, once the situational triggers of law-enforcement occur. But this is all the more reason to let the great majority of travelers who are neither terrorists nor lawyers, but just people trying to make a living and spend time with their families, enjoy efficient, friendly travel. Something went awry here, and being just one remove away from directly knowing the victim, I'm inclined not to blame the victim.

[1] I am sure that Mr. Mukerjee has a strong sense of being an American because he met my son in Ireland, where both were as part of a summer program. The Irish kids teased all the Americans in the program for their horrific accents in spoken English [smile]. My son and Mr. Mukerjee forged their friendship through their shared Americanness in a foreign land, and I think the United States ought to treat all its own citizens and all the foreigners who visit America better than current TSA procedures treat air travelers.

AFTER EDIT: Another comment in this thread reminded me to check the background of the author of the blog post kindly submitted here. Wired reported in 2009

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/dhs-threatens-blogg...

that the blogger was questioned by TSA agents after releasing a TSA document on his blog. It seems that at least some of the time he has been most interested in posting an interesting read for frequent travelers, and not necessarily trying to curry favor with TSA. I think he succeeded here, too, agree or disagree, in writing an interesting blog post (as did Mr. Mukerjee in his blog post).

mindslight2• 13 years ago

Asserting my rights is not something the system makes easy to do, EVEN FOR A LAWYER, once the situational triggers of law-enforcement occur

Since it's apparently impossible to prevent the abuse of our rights, it seems the simplest remedy is easy-to-claim compensation after the fact, right out of the department's budget. Unjustly detained for 3 hours? That's a payment of say $500 (professional hourly rate plus extra for emotional distress). Denied your usual food/water/bathroom/medication? Physical distress add-on. Laptop stolen by goons at the border? Replacement value of laptop plus several hundred dollars for setting it up. Court acquittal verdict? Reimbursement of all lawyer fees + payment for your time spent in court and/or jail.

Until these agencies are no longer able to externalize their damages onto the public, they have little reason to lower their false positive rate.

icelancer• 13 years ago

Until these agencies stop externalizing their damages to the public, they have no reason to lower their false positive rate.

Completely agree. This seems like a completely reasonable course of action (compensation for lost time) but instead they just aggressively search and detain people and the only punishment they get is if someone gets "uppity" and asserts their rights, at which point some low-level nobody will be suspended with pay. Wonderful.

nthj• 13 years ago

Replacement value of laptop plus several hundred dollars for setting it up

+ lost opportunity + swap out all existing passwords + missed deadlines => $5,000 +/- $500

T-hawk2• 13 years ago

That's a perspicacious line of thinking, but beware of perverse incentives. You've now created a market where people can try to get themselves unjustly detained and distressed in order to collect that payout. Money always attracts parasites.

unreal372• 13 years ago

I imagine 100 years ago, before terrorism, before the TSA, before the NSA snooped on our phone calls or Hacker News posts, before all of this... I imagine there was a guy who wanted to do something, got stopped by police for a couple of questions, and got agitated by the hassle and it turned into something bigger.

Now 100 years ago, that guy couldn't write a blog post about it and get worldwide attention. But then again, it's just always been true that when dealing with the authorities, if you rub someone the wrong way, if you act belligerent, if you want to run the other way as soon as the police ask you a question, if you test positive multiple times for explosives... well, it's always been true that you're going to have a bad day that day.

Mr Mukerjee had a bad day. But then again, he tested positive for explosives multiple times!

InclinedPlane5• 13 years ago

That's an extraordinarily shitty excuse.

moocowduckquack4• 13 years ago

I imagine 100 years ago, before terrorism,

Please read some history.

smsm426• 13 years ago

He tested positive for some chemicals that produce false positive on TSA explosives test, not for explosives. As the original article admits, this is a common occurrence. However, it became very clear very soon that he actually does not have any explosives on him. What were they doing once that was clear?

smsm426• 13 years ago

>> That said, if Mr. Mukerjee’s behavior that day was "aggressive,"

Once I've read about him being "aggressive", my BS detector went off immediately. If he'd indeed be aggressive, he's be tazed, handcuffed and detained. It's not like we haven't read what happens to people that law enforcement considers aggressive. I'm pretty sure "aggressive" here means "didn't kowtow to the TSA workers enough and mumbled something about him having some 'rights'".

wpietri8• 13 years ago

How I hate these stenographer-to-the-powerful articles.

The guy makes his money as a consultant to airlines; he here gives the official side of things under cover of perfect anonymity and official deniability. He does it while pretending to be a neutral arbiter of fact, showing no skepticism at all about official claims. And, naturally, he doesn't bother to follow up with the author of the blog post he responded to. I guess he was just too gosh-darned busy writing down what people with nice uniforms told him.

This just in: guy with hand in pocket of airlines believes airlines did just the right thing. What innovative reporting!

rdtsc3• 13 years ago

I suspect they just sent him the article prepared by DHS PR department interns along with a check.

etchalon15• 13 years ago

Yes, clearly it's impossible for the actual event to have transpired differently than what the person said. No one ever exaggerates things or misrepresents them on the internet.

jlgaddis2• 13 years ago

And, naturally, he doesn't bother to follow up with the author of the blog post he responded to.

FTA (the first paragraph, actually):

I was initially approached by his supporters, and put in touch with him, to help spread his story … however … once I began researching the story, his detailed blog post began to unravel.

Unless you mean that he should have shared with Aditya Mukerjee his article/accusations/assumptions/whatever and allowed him to respond to or rebut it prior to publishing it.

jaggederest• 13 years ago

Unless you mean that he should have shared with Aditya Mukerjee his article/accusations/assumptions/whatever and allowed him to respond to or rebut it prior to publishing it.

That's typically how journalists try to do things, and it's a reasonable thing to do - that's why you almost always see "We attempted to reach X but received no response" or "X was contacted, but had no comment".

The standard is relaxed somewhat for blog posts, I suppose, but at the very least the thing to do would be to send the original author a link to the post as soon as it was posted, asking for comment, and include a note to that effect in the post.

wpietri8• 13 years ago

That's exactly what I mean. He has quotes from sources contradicting the blog posts. He allegedly spend quite a bit of time talking with people. Any real reporter, and hopefully anybody with an interest in publishing a fair article would have called Mukerjee and said, "Hey, let me check some things." But this article treats airline and government claims as fact.

vowelless3• 13 years ago

In January of 2010, I was coming back from the Middle East and landed in JFK airport after a 20 hour flight. This was weeks after the underwear bombing incident and I was expecting heightened security. I went through the cotton swab test which came out to be positive and was detained for an hour at the airport. I complied with the TSA for any searches they wanted to do on me (I was tired and was frankly a little alarmed by the positive cotton swab test).

After an hour and a thorough search of my belonging, I was rescheduled on a different flight (for free) and I got back home.

Something about the original story did seem a little strange to me. I am a text book "random search" person - born in the middle east, Arabic sounding name, frequent trips to the middle east, etc. But I always tend to comply and be honest about what I have been doing. Besides that one detention and "random" screens, I've not been too bothered by the security personal (remember, they are people too). I guess I am just used to more intrusive searches in other countries.

Edit: For the record, I am not a citizen or permanent resident of the US (work visa).

unhappyhippie• 13 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

vowelless3• 13 years ago

I disagree because I knew the laws of the country before I came over in 2007. I am not a citizen and so cannot try to lobby for a change in laws. Actually, that might be illegal.

coffeemug• 13 years ago

With respect, I think you're accepting an unreasonably low standard of conduct on behalf of the TSA. Why should you just accept "random" searches because of dark skin or arabic sounding name? (Even if 90% of terrorists are arabs, which isn't true, but even if it were, that still means that only 0.0001% of arabs are terrorists, which makes the whole racial profiling strategy not only bad morals, but also but operations). More importantly, what would happen if you asserted your rights, even to the smallest degree? What if you asked for an explanation of procedures before they're being performed, would the agents then qualify you as "aggressive"? What if you refused some procedures and asked to leave? What if you asked to call your lawyer?

I also have an arabic-sounding last name (though I'm white as a snowflake, and ironically jewish), and I also have to go through "random" searches on occasion (I had four incidents like this in the airport in Israel). Yes, the agents are polite to me, but I don't do very much to assert my rights, mostly because I feel like it would be picking the wrong battle. However, I don't have the confidence that they'd remain polite and professional if I did assert my rights, and many, many people have the same trepidations when they go through border security.

When a U.S. citizen has to feel trepidation upon entering his country when he's done absolutely nothing wrong, there's something very wrong with our system. (At the very least, I'd expect them to post procedures for public scrutiny and allow going through the regular court system when something goes wrong; as of now the whole thing of "being in limbo" just seems completely backwards)

vowelless3• 13 years ago

I forgot to mention (now added), I am not a US citizen or resident. I was pretty aware of the situation in the US before I consciously decided to come here for university and then remain for a job.

The main point of my post was that I think the original poster could have cooperated a little better with the TSA. But, I take that view because I know I am a 'guest' in this country. I guess being an American would give you different expectations. The US border agent can refuse entry to me. But not to you under any circumstance. In that case, I think it is worth asserting your rights, like Mukherjee.

Amadou7• 13 years ago

If every textbook case got the worst treatment then the problems would be so obvious that they would have been fixed a long time ago. It is like "driving while black" - if cops pulled over black drivers every single time they were on the road the practice would have been stamped out long ago.

If tomorrow you got the same treatment as Mukergee did, then all of the tolerable experiences you've had up to that point wouldn't console you all that much.

mindslight2• 13 years ago

Well of course the ordeal seems perfectly justified when one repeats the useless bureaucratic procedure at every turn. There was clearly some reasons that these events happened, and that is the whole fucking problem.

And please do tell, why is it wrong for one to be agitated or aggressive when being hassled by goons? Any pretense of civilized interaction vanishes the minute they threaten you into complying with their theatre.

interpol_p• 13 years ago

However,multiple statements by TSA personnel reference Mr. Mukerjee repeatedly grabbing for his bag after he was told not to touch it. When someone is acting unusual, alarms for explosives and then starts grabbing for their bag against instruction by security personnel, security and law enforcement pays attention.

Seriously? If my bag has my expensive laptop, iPad and other stuff in it I'm gonna be likely to grab for it as well. I wouldn't want to leave it with the TSA — especially when there have been reports of theft and unprofessional behaviour.

How can they possibly classify his behaviour as "unusual"? It seems pretty normal to me.

xdissent2• 13 years ago

And who ever grabs an EXPLOSIVE bag in the first place?

cbhl• 13 years ago

A suicide bomber with nothing to lose.

jMyles• 13 years ago

How did this get voted to the top of HackerNews? It's shoddy journalism and less credible than the blog post it critiques.

manojlds• 13 years ago

Upvotes are not just "likes", but it is about bringing this discussion to the top.

tlrobinson• 13 years ago

Well, I can understand why he'd become "agitated" after being told his options were to leave without his bag or be subjected to an "obscene" screening.

Also, regarding:

"There are no independent sources within the TSA or Department of Homeland Security (DHS) who can find any record of NYPD involvement – let alone a search of his apartment by federal authorities – and there is no incident report referencing any further action involving Mr. Mukerjee."

Given what we know about NSLs and such, how could we possibly believe that the lack of unclassified records is proof that no search took place?

vehementi5• 13 years ago

Or that this random guy was able to conduct such a comprehensive search as to be able to conclude that no such documents exist.

wpietri8• 13 years ago

Yeah, what does that even mean? What are independent sources with TSA or DHS? And whatever they are, how did a random blogger contact them all?

molecule• 13 years ago

whether it was blogged about or not, it seems like this author obtaining and reporting so much internal detail about this incident is an incident unto itself.

also, his shilling herein for TSA and Jet Blue smells like a conflict of interest:

Steven Frischling, aka: Fish, is... airline emerging media consultant working with large global airlines...

moocowduckquack4• 13 years ago

I popped his name into google to see what else he did. Judging from the autocomplete he appears to have pissed off some people previously.

wpietri8• 13 years ago

Holy crap! There is even a blog where somebody disgruntled chronicles all his alleged misdeeds: http://fishfraud.blogspot.com/

Some articles that caught my eye: http://fishfraud.blogspot.com/p/about-fishfraud.html http://fishfraud.blogspot.com/2010/11/projectweddingcom-revi... http://fishfraud.blogspot.com/2010/11/warning-to-national-me... http://fishfraud.blogspot.com/2010/11/steven-frischling-in-c... http://fishfraud.blogspot.com/2010/11/yelpcom-reviews-in-all...

I've checked the news articles, and it seems like the guy was indeed arrested for forgery and fraud, and ended up in a pre-trial diversion program for first-time offenders.

I had just assumed that this guy was just writing down what officials told him, but if 1/10th of the allegations on the blog are true, then maybe he just made up all of his supposed statements.

MrMan• 13 years ago

Frischling's credibility is way below zero. He almost surely fabricated all the details about his TSA sources.

reso2• 13 years ago

Airport security is frequently humiliating. I myself have been nearly reduced to tears just by customs agents when crossing the border on business. However, this man set off a bomb detector. He set of the machine that detects bombs, repeatedly. After that event, nothing Mr. Mukerjee reported is particularly surprising, and I would expect to have a similar experience if I set off the same detector. I don't believe his race had nearly as much of an effect on his experience as is believed.

ferdo• 13 years ago

The problem here is that he was pre-selected by the Behaviour Detection Officer (BDO) while in line and then the TSA claimed he rang their bell for explosives.

We can't assume that government agents are on the up and up. Their word is open to question if they have no proof of their claims. Since they don't deny the story, I tend to lean to Mr. Mukerjee's perceptions as a more accurate account of the day.

late2part3• 13 years ago

There is ample evidence that local, county, and state law enforcement will trigger false positives to provide justification for searches. This behaviour by law enforcements makes me believe it plausible that the TSA and other "Agents" And "Officers" (I thought TSA were still neither) orchestrated all this to incite behavior they could use to justify further investigation.

justin663• 13 years ago

However, this man set off a bomb detector. He set of the machine that detects bombs, repeatedly.

It detects a lot more than bombs. Over the machine's lifetime it will detect hundreds of thousands of things but almost certainly not any bombs.

late2part3• 13 years ago

Hear hear! This is a chemical detector, not a bomb detector.

http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/225047/estimate-conf...

lesserknowndan• 13 years ago

Regardless of what chemical detectors he set off, and what suspicions they had, it was disgraceful that he was "detained" for such a long period without being provided with food and water.

Do you really think it is appropriate that such interrogation techniques are used on travellers after they have been cleared of carrying any sort of explosive device?

reso2• 13 years ago

No, the refusal of water is clearly inappropriate in this case.

vidarh6• 13 years ago

No, he set off a machine that detects a wide range of chemicals, some of which may be used to manufacture bombs. That's important to keep in mind: This staff needs to be able to handle false positives on a regular basis.

If they treat people like shit, it's a serious problem, as the vast majority of people who sets off these detectors will be entirely innocent, and will be frustrated and/or scared at being singled out and detained.

glenra9• 13 years ago

However, this man set off a bomb detector. He set of the machine that detects bombs, repeatedly. After that event, nothing Mr. Mukerjee reported is particularly surprising, and I would expect to have a similar experience if I set off the same detector.

I wouldn't. My bag often sets off the bomb detector repeatedly; when that happens they just search it and send me on my way. It's no big deal. If the bag sets off the bomb detector repeatedly, the most likely reason for it is that the bag was at one point in contact with some chemical that is related to an explosives precursor. And that's OKAY. It's no big deal. You check whether the bag has explosives in it RIGHT NOW, and if it doesn't, you send the guy on his way!

(FWIW, I think I've triggered due to (a) flash paper (a magician's supply), (b) fireworks (of the safe-and-sane variety). In both cases the offending material wasn't actually present, but it had been IN the bag or IN my clothes in the prior week)

artellectual• 13 years ago

Your not making your case at all. It's like saying "yeah we violated his rights, but we had our reasons" if the whole world ran on the reasoning of one person or organization it's usually considered authoritarian. Which is exactly what's happening in the US

InclinedPlane5• 13 years ago

Flagged due to behavioral traits, seen to exhibit assertive behavior, ratted out by a robotic terrorist detector, etc. These are not good reasons to detain someone for an extended period and to deny them the ability to travel. These are the hallmarks of a society slipping into statism and subjugation.

Where is the presumption of innocence? Where is the protection of the liberties and rights of the individual? Where is the responsibility and accountability of the agents of government and the officers of the law?

Nowhere to be seen here.

These are not the sorts of trends and behaviors on behalf of the state we should be defending.

ISL• 13 years ago

If you cannot leave, are you not detained?

"This is absolutely correct, at this time he was in limbo, he was not being detained, but he could not leave. A person cannot simply leave the security area of any airport once they are on the airside but have not satisfactorily completed screening. Once a person has passed through security, but is not cleared to fly and then chooses to leave, such as Mr. Mukerjee, s/he must be escorted out of the secure area (and usually the terminal)."

kyllo• 13 years ago

This is complete bullshit. "Limbo" is not a thing. Either you are being detained, or you are free to leave.

ars2• 13 years ago

No, there's a third option: You will be free to leave after some defined event occurs.

unreal372• 13 years ago

If you're in an airport security section, you're not free to go wherever you like. He wanted to go to the back of the line. They said he could leave the airport. But his bag still needed to be searched. He was free to leave, but he didn't want to leave. He wanted to go catch his flight.

etchalon15• 13 years ago

"Free to leave" and "free to roam about the airport" are two vastly different things.

He was free to leave the airport, if escorted, as the article states quite clearly.

MattyRad2• 13 years ago

The police force is holding you against your will for the purpose of determining if you are guilty of a crime. But no, you're not being detained.

If there is one line that discredits this entire article, that is it. I mean, why not just call it what it is? He was being detained, and given that there was some evidence (explosive readings) against him, then there was some probable cause to do so. I'm not saying the TSA is justified in that regard... only that the article is completely disingenuous by implying that he wasn't held against his will at the hands of law enforcement.

sehugg• 13 years ago

"After he was grilled for three hours by a dozen different officials, he got the time wrong by 20 minutes! He's definitely unreliable!"

corin_• 13 years ago

Reminds me of a scene from a West Wing episode in which the lesson is that good press control means not over-reacting to small points like this.

(One of my favourite scenes for their acting, though I can't find a video.)

  SAM
  Yes, I hired the guy, but that's not... Legitimate news organizations are going to cover 
  this to say nothing of the people who hate us who are going to run it over, over, over, 
  over, over...This guy was here for three minutes and he was fired. He is not credible. 
  I'm a lawyer, I'm telling you. That has to be made clear. Every time he makes a factual 
  mistake we got to come out with a press release. Every time he misquotes or misidentifies 
  anyone we need to have an affidavit swearing to the truth. If there's a comma in the 
  wrong place he needs to be killed until he is dead and he needs to be killed again or 
  he is going to keep biting at our ankles and I mean all through the campaign. He needs 
  to be a joke, or we're going to be. 
  
  C.J.
  [snapping fingers rhythmically] Boy, boy, crazy boy. Keep cool, boy... 
  
  SAM
  I'm not screwing around. 
  
  C.J.
  Me neither. Sit down. 
  
  SAM
  I'm not going to be a victim of this. 
  
  C.J.
  Let me tell you something I've learned in my years. There are victims of fires. There 
  are victims of car accidents. This kind of thing, there are no victims--just volunteers. 
  Of course we'll get in the game. I'll talk to the editors of the major papers but we're 
  not going to publicly refute every bogus charge. First of all, there are too many of them. 
  Second of all, I'm not going to give this guy and his book the weight of the White House. 
  As far as the press is concerned I've read the book because I had to. You have a vague 
  recollection of the guy but he wasn't here long enough to make a lasting impression. 
  Have you read the book? Of course not. You're too busy doing a job.

At the end of the day, nit-picking down to this level just makes you seem desperate to discredit, regardless of how true (or otherwise) your main arguments might be.

mabhatter• 13 years ago

The biggest problem with the story is the INSTITUTIONALIZED FEAR. From the account, you could tell just about every agent after the first was wondering who was wasting their time. That's why they kept going back to the test that failed (he didn't leave the room, so why would they get a different result... Institutional insanity)

Ts not enough for the agent to recognize his time was clearly wasted.. There it 0.0001% this guy might really be a terrorist because somebody else said so. They kept pouring resources into trying to prove him "wrong" rather than verifying a threat existed or not.

It's Kaffkaesque at its best... I'm scared of you because of my training, so it's your fault what you did to me that makes me scared. If it wasn't FOR REAL, it's so absurd to be a comedy skit.

codezero• 13 years ago

"I know many people want to believe in TSA and national security conspiracies."

No, I think most people just believe the TSA to be completely inept and operated without much oversight or coherence. Complaining about (repeated) bad treatment doesn't make it a conspiracy.

wpietri8• 13 years ago

Absolutely. Conspiracy is unnecessary. I hear nothing about the TSA that can't be explained through bureaucracy, politics, and the Stanford prison experiment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

rubiquity• 13 years ago

Insert Michael Jackson eating popcorn gif here

nikcub• 13 years ago

This story is told from a perspective that rather than being a right, flying and travel is a privilege awarded to those who satisfy the TSA

Who cares what the Behavior Detection Officer thought, he was wrong

Who cares what the screening machine thought he was carrying, it was wrong

Who cares what behavior the TSA officers and supervisors 'noted', they were also wrong

If a person cannot simply get up and leave the TSA area if they haven't been arrested, then the law is wrong.

If the TSA can't do their job without threatening the rights and freedom of movement of a large part of the population then they shouldn't be doing it at all. All this inconvenience for an organization that in its 12 years has yet to even catch a real terrorist.

etchalon15• 13 years ago

Flying is not even remotely a right.

Any airline, any airpot, any business period can refuse to provide you service for any non-protected reason (race, gender, etc.).

etchalon15• 13 years ago

Ah, yes, the downvote.

For pointing out the actual, you know, law.

asperous• 13 years ago

That's indeed correct. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 provides that service cannot be refused* on the "ground of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin", other than that it is really fair game.

In fact it is a right for businesses to choose who they want to serve. An airline that only flies costumed clients? 100% a right in this country. They can even decide who they consider costumed and who not.

* In research I discovered that it depends actually on the type of service. In California the Unruh Civil Rights Act catches all businesses; but federally only certain types of businesses must follow the discrimination rules. http://users.wfu.edu/zulick/341/civilrightsact1964.html

Airports are included in the Civil Rights Act because "it serves or offers to serve interstate travelers".

eksith• 13 years ago

Relevant (from his own bio):

  Steven Frischling, aka: Fish, is globe hopping professional 
  photographer, airline emerging media consultant working with large 
  global airlines and founder of The Travel Strategist.

LordHumungous• 13 years ago

"Passenger was acting aggressively" sounds like something the TSA would say to justify holding him for three hours.

late2part3• 13 years ago

It's complete doublespeak horseshit.

Either he did something illegal, at which point they would love to arrest him.

Or else what he did was legal, and they're spouting shite.

This is like when the media says "The suspect refused to cooperate with the law enforcement officer." Translation: The suspect asserted his rights.

v1tyaz• 13 years ago

Maybe it was the fact that he repeatedly tested positive for explosive residue? But lets ignore that little piece of information because it doesn't conform to the anti-TSA circle jerk that is this thread.

logn• 13 years ago

Who cares? I thought his blog post was written as a realistic fiction short story (he had way too many exact quotes and precise descriptions for it to be believed as some accurate retelling). Can we just appreciate it on a literary level? He's a great writer.

linuxhansl• 13 years ago

As a testament to maybe how we've come already I find myself believing Mr. Mukerjee story and that the TSA, PA, and various officials are just covering their collective aXXes.

I'm not known to be a conspiracy terrorist, and I do not believe there is one here. Just a bunch officers doing their (IMHO) misguided and useless jobs.

As a rational person I am not afraid of terrorist - the chances to be victim of an attack are minuscule compared to the risk of dying in car accident. I am afraid of getting into gear of law enforcement - for example by not simply behaving right in the eyes of the BDO, as in this story.

Lastly what is this "limbo" state the article refers to? Either I am being detained or I am free to go. There is nothing in between, if you are not allowed to leave you're not "free to go" and thus you're being detained.

Edit: Spelling.

rdtsc3• 13 years ago

I know many people want to believe in TSA and national security conspiracies. The idea of a government collective creating a single story to keep one person down is intriguing. People will believe what they want,

The fact that they need to build a straw man argument basically dismissing all those who might disagree as conspiracy nuts (a well known PR tactic) should make one scared and worried. This is a pretty good PR technique used by those that know what they are doing.

Fish, is globe hopping professional photographer, airline emerging media consultant working with large global airlines and founder of The Travel Strategist.

"airline emerging media consultant" does it mean airlines are basically paying him to PR on their behalf? What does that soup of words even mean.

wpietri8• 13 years ago

I'm pretty sure I know what "airline emerging media consultant" means: http://socialmediadouchebag.net/

morisy• 13 years ago

I filed a FOIA request, as the author suggested:

https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/tsa...

Given that involves a lot of personal information, I also asked for more general information sans personal details:

https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/sec...

I'd be surprised if either are fulfilled with any actual information.

rjvir• 13 years ago

As someone who has spent the Summer living on the same floor as Mr. Mukerjee and interacting with him often, I find it very hard to believe that he was overly aggressive at the security gate. This account seems wildly exaggerated.

chourobin• 13 years ago

I don't know Mr. Mukerjee personally but I've attended a few meetups where he gave a technical talk and he's always been very mild mannered and approachable. I just can't take this article seriously.

Sounds like the TSA/DHS is just trying to cover their asses. Shameful, no apology, no accountability.

beloch• 13 years ago

"Mr. Mukerjee contends he asked to leave the screening area and return to the pre-security section of the terminal, with the intention of simply stepping back in line and going through screening again, but was not allowed. This is absolutely correct, at this time he was in limbo, he was not being detained, but he could not leave. A person cannot simply leave the security area of any airport once they are on the airside but have not satisfactorily completed screening. Once a person has passed through security, but is not cleared to fly and then chooses to leave, such as Mr. Mukerjee, s/he must be escorted out of the secure area (and usually the terminal)."

----------------

Deciding if I am detained: a rule of thumb.

If I receive word about an urgent emergency, such as my wife being hit by a bus or about to give birth, can I immediately go to the hospital? If yes, I am free. If not, I am detained.

This rule breaks down a bit on amusement park rides, but one would assume the ride operators would immediately let you off if you could communicate with them and, in any case, you're only going to be stuck there for a couple of minutes at the most.

Mukerjee was not in "limbo". He was detained. When someone chooses to redefine words White-House-style I tend to view whatever else they say as though they are serving an agenda.

MattyRad2• 13 years ago

That's the same feeling I was getting from this article. It was completely disingenuous (or better put, an outright lie) to say that he was not detained. The police were keeping him against his will to determine if he was guilty of a crime. That pretty well fits the definition of detainment.

etchalon15• 13 years ago

The article makes it very clear what "detained" vs. "not detained" means, in this context.

Mukerjee wasn't being detained, or kept, beyond the basic protocol of "unscreened passengers have to be escorted out of the terminal."

Mukerjee was free to leave, he simple had to leave the building entirely. He could not just leave and then step back into line, as was his intention, for numerous utterly sane reasons.

Svip• 13 years ago

But that's like saying, every time you are going through security in any airport, you are detained, because - you could not - if you so wanted, simply go back through security again. But you sort of opt-in for this when you fly; you know you are going to go through security and they won't let you leave unless you are cleared.

Edit: etchalon said it better.

pseudonym• 13 years ago

It's not a question of "going back through security", re-entrance has nothing to do with it. Going to a concert where they don't stamp your hand when you go through the door doesn't make you "detained".

einhverfr10• 13 years ago

But that's like saying, every time you are going through security in any airport, you are detained, because - you could not - if you so wanted, simply go back through security again

I am not a lawyer but I think that the line drawn at detention is whether one is effectively told, under the color of law, that one is not free to go. By this standard, I think it is pretty clear that everyone is briefly detained when going through airport security, and that all bags are briefly seized.

If this isn't a detention or a seizure, then you are free not to put your bags on the conveyor and walk back out and the most they can do is say "you can't go further in." But if there are threats of fines, etc. then it is a detention.

slg3• 13 years ago

Right at the end of the section you quoted states he would have been able to leave in such a case. He would have been allowed to leave the airport if he was willing to "be escorted out of the secure area (and usually the terminal)." The problem is that Mukerjee wanted to leave the interrogation area and immediately reenter the security line. Don't you think it would have been a little pointless for the TSA (ok, more pointless than the TSA usually is) to allow people who were stopped in security to simply restart the process again in hopes they wouldn't be stopped a second time?

wavesounds• 13 years ago

I was told by a TSA agent you have a right to go through the scanner again to check for false positives. So yes you are simply allowed to restart the process.

arjie3• 13 years ago

Very often, on social networking sites, we hear the pieces of contradictory advice "don't talk to the police", "be polite and considerate to the police", and "assert your rights". These are pair-wise contradictory:

1. Don't talk to the police: You are being impolite, and you will be unable to assert your rights.

2. Be polite: Obviously violates "don't talk..." but also if you say, even politely, that you refuse certain police requests which you have a right to, then "they're just trying to help you out" and you're rude to refuse.

3. Assert your rights: "May I search your vehicle?" "No, officer." "Listen, man, there's no reason to be suspicious, I'm just trying to make sure there's no trouble. We're here to protect you. Why not just do it?" "I'm asserting my right to refuse a search, officer." That last line is perceived as rude by hundreds of people on social networking sites and is likely to be perceived as 'suspicious', 'rude', or 'aggressive' by the officers themselves.

The thing is, no matter what you do, if you catch a police officer on a bad day you will be in trouble. This is because you are always violating the law in America. For instance, I've noticed that driving the speed limit is something no one does and doing so in some places will lead to your being honked at at best and being cut off rudely to "teach you a lesson" at worst. This means the authorities can always catch you on something because it is socially unacceptable to follow the law.

Personally, I have the feeling that Aditya Mukherjee was just doing exactly what any of us would have done if we had opted out and been treated as disgracefully as that.

einhverfr10• 13 years ago

One can be respectful and still refuse,

"Officer, I know you are just doing your job, but I don't consent to searches."

Or even to the TSA,

"I believe my person is seized and detained. You may search me and let me fly, but just be aware I am not consenting to it."

arjie3• 13 years ago

The latter is not asserting any rights since you cannot permit them with 'you may search me' while simultaneously claim you are not consenting. 'You may search me' is consent.

The former exchange may be followed by:

1. The officer reaching for your vehicle, you instinctively reacting to block him, and we have our aggression.

2. The officer asking why not, telling you he is now going to have to throw the book at you and every minor violation that everyone does will now come up (the easiest? Speeding violation for 5 over).

3. The officer coaxes you. You stand your ground in the same manner. You are being bullheaded. Try to convince your fellow man after an encounter like this. Almost certainly you'll be told that you should 'pick your battles'. This will certainly be followed by #2.

iopq2• 13 years ago

You would be surprised, but if you're going slower than 85% of the traffic on average, you are not violating the speed limit.

Even if the sign says 30 mph, if the 85th percentile is 36 mph, they cannot post a lower speed limit than 35 mph unless there are hidden hazards. Furthermore, if the survey has not been done in the last 7 years, even if they give you the ticket you can contest it because there can not be a speed limit on a road that hasn't been surveyed recently.

That's how it is here in California, anyway.

etchalon15• 13 years ago

I'm glad to see this posted, if only to provide another perspective.

What's most interesting to me is this line: "However on any given day, the TSA and Port Authority Police at JFK interact with passengers departing on non-stop flights to and from Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait City, Lagos, Istanbul, Jeddah, Riyadh, Casablanca, Amman, Riga and Tashkent."

Mukerjee’s entire account, and virality, is predicated upon implied racism. And yet, the numbers stack against him pretty heavily. He was not the only "muslim-looking" person to go through the airport that day. Not even close.

He was not singled out just because he was Muslim-looking. He was singled out because, if for no other reason, the dude tested positive for explosives, and, according to both accounts, was clearly agitated about it.

Now, yes, there's a completely logical reason for that. Yes, he has every right to be agitated when falsely accused. But no, it is not unreasonable for any security personal anywhere to throw up massive red flags about a guy who TESTED POSITIVE FOR EXPLOSIVES and was acted incredibly suspicious. Mukerjee is literally case example of what agents are trained to look for.

Everyone is up in arms about this, not because Mukerjee is even remotely worth being up in arms about, but because people just like bashing the TSA, regardless of the facts.

throwaway_yy2Di• 13 years ago

That line also interested me: why did the the author seemingly think Riga (Latvia) is in the Islamic world?

(Possible answer: JFK-Riga is operated by an Uzbek airline. Which is a question of its own.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_International_...

smsm426• 13 years ago

Thought the same thing. However, assuming if it's Uzbek airline then people flying it to Riga must be Muslims sounds strange. I'm sure there are some Muslims in Riga, but so are in any other random major city.

I just assume whoever wrote this article had little idea of what Riga is and didn't care to check.

gnoway2• 13 years ago

Do you know what the explosives tests are looking for? It occurs to me that people make explosives out of fertilizer, which I think means that almost anything with an ammonia component could cause a positive result.

I also wonder how the tests are typically interpreted. Several 'test strip' type chemical tests require the tester to evaluate a color against a sample spectrum, where different intensity or hue identifies the strength of the result. Is this the kind of testing performed or do they have some sort of machine on site or what?

Edit: there is a link to a sample machine in the rebuttal post. It's this:

http://www.sds.l-3com.com/etd/opt-ex.htm

I don't know anything about these, but my first reaction is skepticism. It has reusable wipes for lower TCO, but the test involves using a wipe and then testing the wipe. Unless the test self-sterilizes or something then it seems like it would be easy to have false positives due to contaminated wipes. Hopefully this machine, if it's the one being used, is just for indicating whether further followup by the "Transportation Security Specialist - Explosives (TSS-E)" is required.

smsm426• 13 years ago

The agents should be trained not only to look for something, but to handle false positives - which given how few terrorists are out there would be the vast majority of cases they will ever encounter. Moreover, for a random TSA agent false positives are probably all he'd ever encounter. Unlike the police, TSA deals in vastly overwhelming majority with innocent people who they are meant to protect, not harass. They are trained to look for very rare exceptions, but they must know these exceptions are very rare and most their suspicions will be proven unfounded.

They have completely and miserably failed at that. They wasted a lot of time on abusing clearly innocent man, whose innocence could be established much faster with much less inconvenience and much less waste of time.

>> not because Mukerjee is even remotely worth being up in arms about

Tell me please, why abuse of a citizen is not worth being up in arms about? What makes one worth the concern about being abused?

etchalon15• 13 years ago

Because the "abuse" in this case was utterly reasonable given the circumstances and the person's behavior.

This is pretty rare for the TSA (the number of stories where they had no cause to be idiots is much MUCH higher than cases where they did).

pcl• 13 years ago

I have a hard time taking this article seriously. All the references to anonymous sources with important-sounding titles just smacks of an argument based on an appeal to authority.

jonah• 13 years ago

What I want to know is how he got access to the reports from all these agencies and interviews from many individuals involved with this incident. Isn't that information privileged? Did he have to file a FOIA request like morisy[0]? You want me to believe he tracked down all these documents and the very people involved in this incident in four days? Government bureaucracy works that efficiently? Who is this guy?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6281604

dendory• 13 years ago

Most of this post seems to be semantic. Aggressive versus perhaps irritated. A Homeland Security Special Agent versus what he may be recalling as an FBI agent, or Port Police versus local Police. I think the only really divergent point is the apartment search. Either he made that up, or it happened and it was covered up.

sinkasapa• 13 years ago

Not just safe from terrorism, but safe from people who may be belligerent to staff, who may be loud and disruptive, someone who may not be fully in control of their emotions and their judgment call is the final word on whether or not a passenger boards a flight.

Why do they allow children to fly then? :-)

mdasen• 13 years ago

I don't mean to be too meta, but did anyone else notice this article dropping from #1 to #19 in a matter of minutes? It feels like one of the powers that be is trying to censor the article. I know that the ranking algorithm isn't directly tied to points and time, but there's an article an hour older with only 31 points (vs over 130) that's in position 5: http://i.imgur.com/RBLM2K7.png.

wpietri8• 13 years ago

There is also flagging, which allows people to artificially force articles down.

It happens all the time on sexism-in-tech articles.

slg3• 13 years ago

This is completely off the front page now. On a quick count, there are now 11 articles that are on the front page that are all older, have less points, and have less comments than this post. I would be pretty curious to hear an explanation.

lessnonymous2• 13 years ago

The "Fishiest" part of this response is how many people he was able to interview about exactly what happened, and the speed at which he was able to get source interviews.

I mean he's a blogger, so just like you and me, he'd have to put in requests to all those agencies for information, and then have to re apply when they lost his paperwork. Then they'd say no in a hundred different ways. And about five years later everyone would have lost interest.

It didn't happen.

There's only two possibilities: 1. He made it all up, or 2. They gave him the story

suprgeek• 13 years ago

This is the entirety of the response to the incidents mentioned in the Blog post. Even though this is being routed via some semi-anonymous blogger, this is the Official TSA speaking.

This blog post is their way of saying "Fuck you..we will not change anything"

Figures.

goggles99• 13 years ago

They should require putting cameras/microphones on all TSA employees and in all TSA inspection/interrogation rooms. I for one would pay an extra $5 per flight to pay for this. Put the review of all of this footage in the hands of an accountability/oversight agency to review whenever there is a complaint, also make the footage available on request to the public.

dnautics• 13 years ago

"Mr. Mukerjee refused additional screening"

No. Mr. Mukherjee refused screening in private. It's unacceptable to be unconsensually screened in private without a third party (I.E. not TSA officer) witness. I've refused to be screened in private, the TSA makes it VERY hard for you to do that, and I definitely got verbally agitated. How would you feel if there you were exposed to a significant risk of being sexually assaulted with no witnesses present?

"This is absolutely correct, at this time he was in limbo, he was not being detained, but he could not leave."

That is completely unacceptable.

Once you are threatened with sexual assault, it is unreasonable to expect to be anything besides "aggressive evasive".

Zigurd2• 13 years ago

Tl;dr: Airline consultant writes long justification for bad air travel experience.

Let's get those self-driving cars soon, so we can give the airlines what they deserve for not pushing back on behalf of their customers.

glenra9• 13 years ago

A "highly agitated demeanor" is EXTREMELY APPROPRIATE when TSA goons have denied you food and water and you're late to board a flight and these nitwits are preventing you from traveling to meet your family for no reason other than a hunch and a false-positive test reading on a test that's not worth doing. (My bags also often generate a positive result on these tests - the chance of a positive result being meaningful is so vanishingly small as to make the test pointless - it's security theater.)

Near as I can tell, this post confirms the original account. The differences between what he saw and what is being reported are trivial minutia. But if anyone actually cares to be able to find the truth in such cases, the thing to do is record all such searches. (And encourage the people being searched to do the same, and make the official tapes available to the searchee on request.)

It is REALLY HARD to defend one's rights against the morons of the TSA without getting angry at them. Any interaction with them raises blood pressure. If anything, it ought to be deemed "suspicious" if somebody doesn't get "agitated" when their trip is pointlessly interrupted by TSA agents demanding you bow and scrape before their authority.

tptacek4• 13 years ago

Chiming in late here:

My take is that this is a facile analysis that harms the credibility of its source; I am less likely to take this person seriously in the future after reading this.

I appreciate that they took the time to do actual "reporting" by contacting officials involved with the story.

However, a couple things worth keeping in mind as you read it:

* We can reasonably be convinced that Mukerjee wasn't hiding anything. The concern evinced by TSA, NY PAPD, and JetBlue was that Mukerjee was a danger to the flight he was trying to board. We know he wasn't! This article routinely supplies innuendo about Mukerjee's evasiveness during screening. But we know he had nothing to be evasive about, and thus that the signals TSA picked up on were false; the article's framing puts the onus for that on Mukerjee, incorrectly.

* TSA's rationale for detaining Mukerjee doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. The reasoning supplied by this article could be applied just as effectively to an 85 year old grandmother or a 10 year old boy. It's not falsifiable and not relevant to what happened.

* The analysis glosses over the pivotal moment in the story. The problem wasn't that Mukerjee was denied water or questioned by people that don't know anything about the world's third largest religion. The problem happened when TSA refused to escort Mukerjee, with his carryon, out of the airport, as they are required to do when a passenger refuses screening. Mukerjee's own account has him trying to leave, but put in a position where doing so would cost him his bag and computer. That's the problem here.

There's a worthwhile case to be made for skepticism about some elements of Mukerjee's story. I agree with the article that it seems unlikely for PAPD to have searched his house. It's interesting that Mukerjee claims he was interviewed by an FBI agent when no record seems to have existed of that. I buy the analysis that says that a coherent rebuttal to Mukerjee's story could not easily have self-assembled from 3 different security agencies in the span of a couple days.

Unfortunately, it's hard to take skepticism seriously when it's framed in an article that seems hellbent on taking TSA's claims at face value.

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