
Don't Fly During Ramadan - chimeracoder
http://varnull.adityamukerjee.net/post/59021412512/dont-fly-during-ramadan
======
jwr
The land of the free.

As I read more and more of those stories I can't help but wonder at how things
changed. I am from a formerly-eastern-europe-soviet-bloc country (Poland) and
these kinds of oppressive techniques sound very familiar. The haziness of
procedures, lack of basic rights, intimidation, no accountability of state
officials -- we've seen all that until 1989. At the time, while the communist
regime was imposed on us, the USA seemed like heaven: transparency,
procedures, basic rights, free speech, accountable officials.

Look at where we are today. I can't even imagine being held captive without
arrest for hours, being questioned about the purpose of my trip, about my
religion and habits, all while travelling within my country. When entering the
country, the passport clerk has exactly two options: let me in, or call the
police and get me arrested on the spot. I feel free and I am happy to live in
a free country, together with people who because of the past oppressive Soviet
regime are quite sensitive to abuses of power.

At the same time, the U.S. is rapidly degenerating into something that isn't
quite the sinister oppressive regime, but getting close to the point where it
could become one, if a wrong leader gets elected. It's scary.

And the worst thing is -- American people got so used to the idea of living in
a free country, that they do not even admit the thought that things are going
the wrong way. Most people don't see the signs.

~~~
jrockway
I don't think this is that oppressive. He went through security and set off an
explosives detector. The cops showed up and asked some questions. Then he
left.

Nowhere in the Constitution does it say the government can't hamfistedly
accuse you of a crime. All it says is that they have to charge you or let you
go in 24 hours, give you a trial, and punish you in a consistent way. They did
that here; they asked some questions and they let him go.

You can argue about the techniques; religious questions, not giving him water,
but it's all a well-documented psychological game that they're trying to play.
If they make the suspect mad, the suspect is more likely to start yelling
hysterically without thinking, saving the taxpayer the cost of a long trial.
It's worth a try, right? (I think the correct answer to any question is, "my
lawyer will answer that. get me my lawyer.")

Anyway, I look at this like the lottery, but in reverse. Sometimes you lose
the reverse lottery and a day of your life gets fucked up. But ultimately,
life moves on and you have an interesting story. You can say that the
government is an oppressive regime that is out to get you for your political
views, or you can say you rolled the dice and lost.

Let me ask you this: say you want to check for guns and explosives before
people get on an airplane. How do _you_ do it?

~~~
enraged_camel
>>Anyway, I look at this like the lottery, but in reverse. Sometimes you lose
the reverse lottery and a day of your life gets fucked up. But ultimately,
life moves on and you have an interesting story. You can say that the
government is an oppressive regime that is out to get you for your political
views, or you can say you rolled the dice and lost.

The view you have expressed here demonstrates that you have literally no idea
what you are talking about.

It is not a "lottery" when the TSA and their goons are profiling people based
on race, religion, income, and a host of other criteria.

~~~
kareemm
The explosives detection machinery doesn't care what you look like or believe.

I don't know about you, but I want the TSA / FBI / NYPD to look into it so
that they're sufficiently convinced the individual is not a threat.

~~~
mark-r
Once they've determined he isn't carrying actual explosives he shouldn't be
considered a threat anymore. The detection machine might single you out for
additional searching, but once the search is complete you should be free to
go.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _Once they 've determined he isn't carrying actual explosives he shouldn't
> be considered a threat anymore._ //

Because people who handle explosives and cover it up when questioned, and
aren't involved in handling explosives in their day job, are completely to be
trusted?

Surely once they've determined he isn't carrying explosives they need to be
sure as possible, if he claims not to have been around any explosives, that
he's telling the truth; in order to reduce the risk that he's going to use
explosives in an illegal way and/or manner dangerous to life. Don't people
who're manufacturing explosives in secret deserve at least a passing glance to
see what they're doing with them.

It looks here like they checked his apartment to corroborate his statements.

Now if they've established there are no traces of explosive present - for
example they confirm the cause of a false-positive - that's different.

~~~
darklajid
Er.. No.

The problem with your line of thought is that you trust that machine to be
somewhat reliable. We don't _really_ learn what set off the machine, but the
author's guess is an over the counter spray..

If that's the high tech "You need to endure this process for the greater good,
since the machine claims you're a threat" world you like to live in, I .. opt
out. That thing is obviously next to useless and probably as effective as a
look in the eyes of the stranger, with your gut deciding if he's going to stay
put for the rest of the day or if he's allowed to move on.

IFF we had a reliable, working test with little to no false positive due to f
__*ing everyday stuff (or .. bad luck, being a 'random' match), THEN you might
have a point. Right now, you don't.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _your line of thought is that you trust that machine to be somewhat
> reliable_ //

And your problem is you assume the machine isn't reliable. So then if it's set
off, you just say "ah well, it's probably a false reading". At that point you
just obviated the purpose of the machine.

Yes we don't learn whether it was the permethrin (? can't certainly recall the
name) but the people who did the sweep of his apartment confirmed that there
were no other indications of explosives manufacture [or you can plump for the
slightly less cynical - 'the questioning confirmed he was not a threat'].

There's likely always going to be some false-positives: the needs of the many,
yadda, yadda.

> _IFF we had a reliable, working test with little to no false positive due to
> f_ ing everyday stuff* //

Can you post your source and the pertinent stats for the number of false-
positives for explosives detection at airports in the USA please.

~~~
bjourne
Our friend Bayes and his theorem can help us here. Suppose you have an HIV
test which is 95% accurate in detecting if you are HIV positive or not. The
HIV rate in the US is about 0.3%.

If you subject a random American to this HIV test and the test result is
positive, what is the probability that that person has HIV? I wont do the
math, but the right answer is about 2%. Since the prevalence of HIV is so low
it doesn't matter how accurate the test it, it will still generate many times
more false positives than true ones.

Same thing with bombs. The number of American air passengers/year is about 800
million/year and of them, at most 5 are carrying explosives. Even if the bomb
detector is 99.9% accurate it will generate thousands of false positives for
each real bomb it catches.

~~~
philwelch
It turns out when you actually get tested for HIV, they do two tests. One has
a high false positive rate but a low false negative rate. If that comes
positive, they do a second test that's the other way around.

~~~
taeric
It also turns out that we don't test everyone for HIV. In what I am sure is
some form of irony, we probably test more folks for carrying bombs than we do
for having HIV. When the numbers show there are more folks with HIV in America
than there are those carrying bombs.

------
magikarp
Everything about this story, right down to the questions, agents involved,
luggage inspections and the man's apartment being broken into and searched,
fits very well with my own experiences in 2012 with entering the United
States. I'm a recent Lebanese immigrant to Canada, male, in my early twenties,
and to top it off I work on encryption software. I imagine the only worse
thing I could be is an Iranian nuclear scientist.

I was asked questions ranging from whether I am affiliated with Hezbollah to
why I was developing encryption software (and one time there was even a
technician who asked me about its technical aspects), and specifically
detained for questioning more times than I can count.

I was never refused entry, but I just wanted to attest that this man's story
is completely credible to me, right down to the fine details he describes.

Possibly an interesting side-story for HN folks: By astronomical coincidence,
I bumped into David Petraeus at a strange social event in D.C., after being
harassed at the border every single time, and told him conversationally,
casually, about my background and what I work on, just to see how he would
react, if his reaction would line up with the knee-jerk reaction at the
border. He smiled, raised a glass of champagne, and said, "cheers."

~~~
javert
> I imagine the only worse thing I could be is an Iranian nuclear scientist.

I would like to think such a person would have no problem coming, but just
wouldn't be allowed to go back.

~~~
unhappyhippie
This is what I find surprising about security checks, don't quite understand.
When I entered Israel I was out hailing a cab within minutes of debarking my
flight. When I was leaving, they had me detained and searched thoroughly. I
couldn't understand why they let me enter in the first place if I was such a
suspect personality.

~~~
azernik
Travelling into/out of Israel the extra security checks are all about getting
on an airplane (due to historical attacks on air travel). Getting off the
plane at Ben Gurion Airport is always easy, but you probably went through
extra screening getting _on_ that plane at the other end (in my experience,
usually done by Israeli security guards at foreign airports).

------
lukeqsee
Most striking and appalling is the lack of common sense and basic empathy
throughout this whole ordeal. For example, he asked multiple times for _water_
, a basic necessity for life, and was denied multiple times. That can't be
rationalized in anyway—what did they expect, him to drown someone? His
requests as to the nature of his detention were denied. His rights to privacy
were utterly ignored. And it goes on…

We need to wake up and see that those that "protect" our safety have reduced
us to a state of fear worse than that which we are trying to prevent. We are
now being terrorized by our own terrorism prevention. Merely because we
happened to clean for bed-bugs and look Middle Eastern.

When will we say enough is enough and do something about it?

~~~
eshvk
The most popular argument against the TSA that I have heard? They spend too
much of their time searching the "wrong people". You know the kind that
wouldn't "hurt a fly"? Weasel phrases that in essence mean that the TSA should
do what Israel does. Racial profiling. Not that they don't do enough of it. At
least on paper, they try to mess up that by searching white grandmas from the
midwest and little blonde girls. Of course, the latter is what America
complains the most about really.

~~~
lukeqsee
I've heard the same arguments. Sadly, I have no good answer for _how_ the TSA
should do their job. However, treating someone rudely and, to an extent,
inhumanly, doesn't fit the bill.

~~~
eshvk
The point to realize that America is not fucking Israel. We are not under
threat the way Israel is. That is a country that is struggling for its
existence; in missile range from Iran; surrounded by hostile forces on all
sides.

In America, things are different. Sure the borders are porous; sure there is a
low probability that the muslim guy down the street is a terrorist, sure there
is a possibility that the war of 1812 could be repeated by the Canadians.

However, is the country really going to live its life based on insignificant
probabilities? It has been 12+ years since 9/11\. Surely, there is a time
limit after which this insanity can mellow down.

------
dictum
This is a manifestation of the US institutionalized xenophobia.

Good manners and taste should keep me from using this submission as another
soapbox against how the US views foreigners, but when you see foreigners as
enemies, a citizen who looks or acts vaguely "foreign"— I can't offer a
precise definition of what "looking foreign" entails, but it's a combination
of being a part of a small demographic group, and being a part of an ethnicity
that is regularly caricatured in the media and in public discourse—will be
treated with the same respect and care dispensed to a real foreigner.

~~~
ck2
It echos of rounding up everyone who is Japanese and throwing them into
concentration camps.

It's amazing how many people don't know we had concentration camps in the USA
in recent history.

We are just a hop skip and jump away from that again, all it would take is
another major nightmare.

~~~
lukeqsee
Link:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment)

I had never heard of this.

~~~
JackFr
Are you an American? I'm curious, because in my experience the American
interment of Japanese is fairly well known among Americans and Japanese, and
not well known by everyone else.

~~~
ck2
Internment is a revisionist word to make it sound less harsh. They were
concentration camps.

~~~
javajosh
"Concentration camp" has been used to describe Nazi death camps for a long
time, and has come to be more-or-less synonymous. None of the Japanese camps
systematically killed people, as far as I know. Manzanar was an atrocity, but
it was not in the same league as Dachau. To call them both by same name is
misleading.

That said, 'internment camp' sounds far too weak. From what I've read, every
piece of property they couldn't carry was taken, and they were rounded up and
forced to live in horse-stalls for the duration of the war. Every single
family, as far as I know, had to not only suffer the indignity of being held
without cause, but then had to rebuild from zero after the war. I can't think
of a better term, but it needs one.

~~~
tobiasu
Concentration camp (KZ) sounds about right. The term for places like Dachau
and Auschwitz is Vernichtungslager (extermination camp). A concentration camp
is not set up for industrial mass-murder of its prisoners.

~~~
jlgreco
In modern English the distinction is not consistently made. Sometimes you see
extermination camps and concentration camps talked about, but other times you
see both talked about just as 'concentration camps'.

~~~
tobiasu
I certainly agree. Concentration camp is an umbrella term, both in German and
English. However, if we're talking about the exact type of camps, it makes
sense use the proper words and inform readers of the distinction. It's only
fair to the victims to use appropriate language and not play down the severity
of their situation.

~~~
jlgreco
Yes, I agree. To be clear, I _do_ prefer using the term "concentration camps"
to refer to what the US did to the Japanese, but I understand that others
object to that and find their objections fairly reasonable.

~~~
icelancer
I wouldn't necessarily argue the use of "concentration camps," but as I said
in this thread, my grandparents and many of their family and friends were
interned and they all use "internment camp" as the preferred nomenclature.
They have generally avoided the use of "concentration camp."

------
eshvk
This makes me so angry. This was one of the reasons I got out of consulting.
Every fucking time, I would get an enhanced check. Surprisingly enough, it is
nothing new. This is something you face if you are a minority. Hell, I
remember a friend from back in Africa whose dad got blacklisted in the
nineties because he had a beard. Brown catholic guy with a beard got
blacklisted. The only difference now is that at least this guy is articulate
enough to vocalize organized discrimination.

And Fuck Jet Blue while we are at it.

~~~
chiph
If I were a consultant today, I'd look into buying an RV. No more dirty hotel
rooms or questionable restaurant food. And a much lower chance of a TSA
encounter.

~~~
rfnslyr
"Yeah can you give me about two weeks? I'm going to take my RV."

-1 client. How bout no.

~~~
chiph
Three possible replies to this.

#1. I have a MiFi device, so I can get started with the preliminaries as my
spouse drives. And of course, once I arrive I'll be on-site with your team.

#2. Because I provide my own living arrangements, my expenses will be much
lower. I'll charge you diesel from my current location instead of a round-trip
business-class airline ticket, and the RV park is $300 a month, vs. $150 a
night at a hotel. Since I tow my car, you won't be paying for a rental. And
you won't be billed for bi-weekly weekend trips home, as I bring my home with
me.

#3. (fudge it a bit...) I can be there as soon as I finish wrapping things up
with my current client. Probably on the 9th.

~~~
rfnslyr
When I pay someone $3000 for the day, I expect them to arrive in two hours in
a fucking G6.

~~~
chiph
Winston Wolfe arriving in an NSX. Gotcha.

------
rsingel
Do not try to talk your way out of anything. And you do NOT have to and should
not answer any questions from law enforcement or the TSA. Ask repeatedly: Am I
being detained? Am I free to go?

Cops can ask for ID (which you do have to provide, sadly) and can briefly
frisk you to look for weapons -- if they have reasonable suspicion to believe
a crime has or is about to happen.

One other thing of note and what makes this situation a bit odd is that once
you get into a TSA line (basically past the first TSA person), you legally
have to complete it. But the TSA is not law enforcement and they cannot detain
you.

This is different for foreign nationals trying to enter the country (you can
be turned away), but U.S. citizens have a right of return (though you can get
held for a long time if they make up some reason to suspect you for simply
refusing to answer questions.)

And the OP ought to file a complaint with TSA and FOIA the incident report. He
should also talk to CCR about a possible lawsuit. Being detained for 18 hours
without food or water is dangerous and illegal.

Also fuck JetBlue. Remember they voluntarily turned over their entire customer
database to the feds in 2002 to help with datamining. Sounds to me like
JetBlue also violated common carriage rules. A captain can refuse to transport
a passenger for any reason, but an airline cannot.

~~~
baddox
> Do not try to talk your way out of anything. And you do NOT have to and
> should not answer any questions from law enforcement or the TSA. Ask
> repeatedly: Am I being detained? Am I free to go?

Unfortunately, this is a pipe dream. At that point, they can do _whatever they
want to you_. Legally? Probably not. But they can still do it, because there
is simply nothing you can do except try to fight or escape physically (which
won't work). There's no cops to call, no lawyers to call, absolutely nothing
you can do. Unless you value your principles more than your time, or even your
safety/life, you will compromise those principles to placate your captors.

~~~
Cryode
And when do we finally decide that those principles are worth fighting for?
When do we decide that "absolutely nothing you can do" is unacceptable?

~~~
kylebrown
Of course you should fight for your principles, but don't do it in a situation
where you're guaranteed to lose. To pick a losing fight when there's no
attention, no context, and no message, is not martyrdom. Its just dumb.

To create a Rosa Parks moment, it takes a lot of strategy, planning, and
cooperation. Not spur-of-the-moment frustration.

------
SlyShy
This is pretty harrowing to read. I've been fortunate enough to never go
through any of this (but I don't _look_ like a 'terrorist'). I think America
needs to take a hard look at itself and the compromises it has made on civil
liberties in the name of this supposed 'safety' that we have now.

~~~
drivingmenuts
Sadly, I lack the faith that such re-examination of our country will happen
anytime soon. The inmates are in charge of the asylum and replacing them is
going to take decades.

~~~
at-fates-hands
The only way the people take this country back is to start a third party. A
REAL third party, somewhere between the moderate liberals and the
libertarians.

Without any outside competition, it's just recycling the same type of
candidates, with the same policies and with the same disregard for basic civil
liberties.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The only way the people take this country back is to start a third party.

If a party was started, it wouldn't be a third party, it'd be something like a
fortieth party, excluding strictly regional parties.

The reason additional parties aren't competitive is structural in the
electoral systems used in federal and state elections, and adding more parties
isn't going to change that.

~~~
waqf
Exactly. So you have to go back yet another step and look at who has power to
change the electoral system.

You might think the only answer is a constitutional amendment, which requires
a supermajority of Congress, but in fact there's a backdoor: if you have the
cooperation of a majority of state governments then you can certify any
electors you like. See
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact)
for an attempt to change the U.S. electoral system in this way.

~~~
twoodfin
I think that Wikipedia article is far too sanguine about the likelihood that
NPVIC would pass Constitutional muster.

First, it's not likely that the wording of Article II truly grants state
legislatures _unlimited_ discretion in the selection of electors. A state law
that required electors to be men or Methodists would surely be
unconstitutional today. And as a result, there's almost certainly an equal
protection argument to be made against NPVIC: Sure, each individual voter is
participating equally in a larger process to choose the President, but that's
not the process prescribed by the Constitution. The process demanded by the
Constitution is a state-by-state selection of electors, and if a state
legislature wants to have an election, it better be an election in which every
voter _of that state_ is participating equally. A thought experiment: Could
the state of California pass a law that counted every vote for the electoral
slate of the Democratic party twice? Surely not. So how can they pass a law
which discounts the vote of every voter except those that voted for the
nationwide popular winner?

Second, if this agreement doesn't trigger the Congressional approval
requirement of the Compact clause of Article I, I can't imagine what would.

~~~
waqf
Interesting comments, thanks. In fact this article seems to speak to NPVIC and
the compacts clause:
[http://www.columbia.edu/cu/jlsp/pdf/Summer2009/02Pincus.42.4...](http://www.columbia.edu/cu/jlsp/pdf/Summer2009/02Pincus.42.4.pdf)

~~~
twoodfin
Yes, something like that note is more or less exactly what I'd expect SCOTUS'
position to be. And I don't think it would be a close decision.

Then the question becomes, if Congress endorses the pact, could it go into
effect? The success of an equal protection claim against the agreement is a
little trickier to forecast, since the justices who typically support a broad
reading of equal protection are likely to be the most sympathetic to arguments
for eliminating the disparity between the popular vote and the EC. But I think
the Court would see NPVIC, rightly, as an "end run" around the amendment
process, and require that state elections remain _state elections_ : States do
not have the power to facilitate national or interstate plebiscites outside
the usual Constitutional order.

------
siculars
So my brother is a doctor. He told me a story about one of his colleagues,
also a doctor, one of the smartest doctors my brother knows (which is no light
praise), who happens to be a brown colored Muslim. My brother's brown colored
Muslim doctor colleague tells him that it is increasingly humiliating to be
constantly harassed by TSA when traveling and that he is thinking of leaving
the country. My brother follows up by telling me that one day someone is going
to need this brilliant, brown colored Muslim doctor and when that day comes
the brilliant doctor may not be here.

The bottom line is that we need to ask ourselves what kind of environment are
we creating for the country, it's citizens and it's visitors. At some point
very smart people, who happen to be non-white, are going to realize that they
would rather be somewhere else and we will be the lesser for it.

~~~
mhartl
*its citizens and its visitors

------
sheri
Last week I flew into SFO from Paris. I was called out at the Paris airport
with another person (of Muslim origin). The person at the counter started
asking me a few questions, and then asked me if we're colleagues. I said we
weren't, and that I don't know the guy. He let me go after that, but I was
then flagged for security at every single checkpoint after that. I was pulled
for a bag check after scanning my boarding pass. In SFO I was flagged for
'secondary screening' during immigration. The immigration officer took me in a
room and basically asked me to give details on pretty much my entire life and
activities for the past year. After I got out of there, I was then flagged at
the customs, where the officer rummaged through all my bags. I'm terrified now
that this will become a regular thing, and that was only because I was
accidentally associated with a young Muslim male. I now understand what they
must be going through pretty much every single time they fly.

------
Robin_Message
It really seems like "Flying While Brown" is this century's "Driving While
Black". These and similar stories are shocking and demeaning all involved.

Since the OP is here, and it wasn't totally clear in the story, I'm just
wondering: if and when did you point out you were a Hindu not a Muslim†, and
whether doing so and possibly additionally pointing out the historical enmity
between those two groups might have helped or hindered.

And it seems minor amongst everything else, but them making jokes about your
credit card in that situation really pisses me off. Its adding insult to
injury. However, it seems to me that people make jokes when they are
uncomfortable. That guard probably was uncomfortable with that he was doing,
and if he was, maybe he should complain to their bosses, stop doing their job
in that way and/or quit.

† Lest anyone get the wrong idea, I do not condone this intimidating, brown-
shirted bullshit for anyone; I'm just wondering if it is possible to get away
from being pigeon-holed.

~~~
chimeracoder
> Since the OP is here, and it wasn't totally clear in the story, I'm just
> wondering: if and when did you point out you were a Hindu not a Muslim†, and
> whether doing so and possibly additionally pointing out the historical
> enmity between those two groups might have helped or hindered.

A few of the officers did noticeably relax their body posture when I told them
I was Hindu (just as the man from Homeland Security relaxed when I told him I
didn't even speak Hindi).

I didn't point out the historical conflict between the two groups in India.
Given how little they seemed to know about Hinduism in general, I suspect that
wouldn't have helped, but who knows.

~~~
scotty79
I wonder how it would play out if you were an atheist. Would they assume that
you are actually a Muslim denying his faith to get through?

~~~
konradb
Being flippant - it probably wouldn't do you any harm to be carrying a bacon
sandwich.

------
fsckin
>In all my life, I have only felt that same chilling terror once before - on
one cold night in September twelve years ago, when I huddled in bed and tried
to forget the terrible events in the news that day, wondering why they they
had happened, wondering whether everything would be okay ever again.

Wow... just wow.

~~~
lukeqsee
Perhaps the terrorists knew this would happen all along. They knew our
paranoia would surpass any efforts they could ever hope accomplish. Instead of
terrorizing a few thousand, they could terrorize a whole nation—daily and
officially.

It's brilliant and pathetic at the same time.

~~~
munificent
There's no "perhaps" here. Of course they knew this would happen. That's the
_whole point_. It's right there in the name: they're _terrorists_ because they
_create terror_. The US is now terrified and burning piles of cash and lashing
out at its own citizens, which is exactly what the terrorists wanted to
happen.

~~~
skore
Sometimes I wonder. When Seal Team Six stormed his compound, an attack
launched from an occupied into a sovereign country and killed him although he
was unarmed. I wonder whether he felt dread or achievement.

------
marvin
The last part really got me thinking, when the author mentioned that his
apartment was probably searched by some agency. He would obviously have noted
if he had received some sort of notification that his apartment had been
legally searched.

Is it legal for the police, the DHS, FBI or any other agency to search your
apartment and belongings without notifying you? Are there warrants that will
let the authorities do this? What are the circumstances which allow them to do
this?

~~~
jazzyb
I am not a lawyer, but this is how I understand it: Hypothetically if they had
issued a FISA warrant to the landlord, then the landlord could have let them
search the apartment and _additionally_ would not be legally allowed to inform
his tenet that a warrant had been issued [1], must less that his apartment had
been searched.

1\.
[http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1861](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1861)
see part (d) "Nondisclosure"

~~~
marvin
Would _any_ other measure than a FISA warrant allow for a search of an
apartment without notifying the owner and/or tenants?

~~~
msrpotus
I'm not a lawyer but I know if you rent an apartment, there are cases when
your landlord can let the police into your apartment without a warrant.

~~~
jevinskie
Why even bother notifying the landlord? I would imagine they wouldn't have
qualms about picking a lock.

------
sethbannon
How often does this happen and not get blogged about? If you want to help stop
this from happening again, I suggest donating to the ACLU:
[https://www.aclu.org/donate/join-renew-
give](https://www.aclu.org/donate/join-renew-give)

~~~
chimeracoder
This post was unbelievably painful to write.

I didn't want to relive the experience - I wanted to forget about it, but a
friend of mine convinced me that I needed to let people know that these things
happen, for that exact reason. That's why I wrote it.

~~~
coffeemug
I immigrated to the U.S., but I grew up here, it's my home, I love this
country (perhaps even more than some people that were born here), and I
consider myself an American.

So, from a fellow American, thank you for having the courage to set aside your
emotions and write about this experience. People _need_ to hear about these
incidents. Your post won't change the political system, but it changed, ever
so slightly, the consciousness of thousands of people that read it. It counts
for something, and it's important!

Thank you.

------
oinksoft
"You’ve got people from five different branches of government all in here - we
don’t do this just for fun."

Exactly. You do it because it's a secure, well-paying job; there's an infinite
budget to keep bullies like you working.

~~~
mason240
"\- we don’t do this just for fun - we have to justify our jobs."

------
htsh
To me one of the more troubling aspects of this is that in 2013 and after 12
years, the specialists we have fighting this "war" still have trouble
distinguishing between Hindu & Muslim (though obviously Muslims should not be
treated like this either). It might be easier for me b/c I'm Hindu but just
looking at a name is usually enough to at least get past that part.

~~~
chimeracoder
I know, my surname is _incredibly_ distinctive.

To anybody who's vaguely knowledgeable about these things, it not only points
out my nationality, but also which region of India I belong to, my religion,
and also my caste[0].

[0] Not that I pay attention to caste, but as you can see, Indian surnames
contain a lot if information, to anybody even remotely trained in reading
them.

~~~
blhack
You don't have to say _your_ name, for obvious reasons, but would you mind
giving an example of an Indian name, and how all of that information is
encoded in it? That's REALLY fascinating to me.

~~~
chimeracoder
Any name that ends in "-jee" or "-ji" is a British variant on an Indian
Bengali name[0]. Almost anybody who has it (Mukerjee, Banerjee, Chatterjee) is
originally from West Bengal, a state in India that borders Bangladesh.

Beyond that's, it's a Hindu name. Almost all Hindu names are specific to a
particular caste (the origins of the caste system are simply a precise
codification of socioeconomic status, so it's similar to someone being called
"a Trump" or "a Kennedy").

Priests can also tell further information from the name, such as the _gotra_ :
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotra](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotra) . In
layman's terms, this is a way of identifying one of your earliest known
ancestors.

The name even has a Wikipedia page:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukherjee](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukherjee)

[0] The British changed a lot of names of both people and places when they
were in power - ex., they changed "Mumbai" to "Bombay", although people are
now starting to use the original name again.

~~~
blhack
That's really interesting, thank you!

------
HorizonXP
I'm Canadian, Indian heritage, and I practice Hinduism. Based on Aditya's
article, I feel like we're probably similar with respect to our
"religiousness".

What happened to him is horrendous, and scary. I'm currently living in Palo
Alto for work, but every time I travel to and from the USA, I'm always in
fear. That said, I have never had an issue; mind you, I've never made the
explosives detector beep. I always elect for the pat down too.

While the TSA employees aren't always the friendliest, I haven't had any
memorable run-ins with them. On the contrary, they've been actually nice at
times. It helps that I always travel clean shaven, and speak to everyone as
politely as any Canadian can. :-)

As a counterpoint, the only instance of racial profiling that I encountered
while flying was actually in Sault Ste. Marie, ON, Canada. I was traveling
with some colleagues back to Toronto; they were Caucasian, and I was the only
non-Caucasian. The security agent at the airport decided to "randomly" select
me for explosives screening. She was the lone agent, and it's a tiny airport.
No one before or after me was "randomly" screened. No one else was non-
Caucasian.

I'm not saying that security agents should be fearful of choosing a non-
Caucasian for random screening, lest they be accused of profiling or racism.
I'm saying that random screenings should actually be random. Also, I can't
verify this hypothesis myself since I sucked at probability theory, but I'm
pretty sure that only selecting 1 person out of 250+ passengers traveling
through the airport is an insufficient sample size for actually detecting a
person who may be carrying explosives; you should probably be randomly
selecting more people.

TL;DR - USA yay, Canada nay!

~~~
Kronopath
That's interesting, because every Canadian airport that I've been to (and
admittedly I've been mainly to the larger ones) has had an electronic mat that
you stand on that lights up a sign with an arrow to the left or right, telling
you whether you should go to the standard metal detectors or the millimeter
wave scanners (or a patdown if you so choose). The idea presumably being that
when a machine is choosing, it leaves no room for profiling. I've never seen
those in any American airport I've been to.

------
moubarak
i was detained by airport security in SFO upon arrival for two hours without
setting off any alarms. Security kept asking me questions, disappearing into a
room, then coming back asking me the same questions. They basically took the
phone number of my entire contact list and told me they were calling them.

After i saw them take a few trips to that room, i started suspecting that they
are watching me from somewhere and trying to analyze my behavior. i don't know
why that idea came to me, but i realized i was extremely nervous and sweating.
So i decided to bluff that i am pissed and this is outrageous.

When the security guys came back i started bluffing a bad mood. i turned the
table by asking them questions instead. "is there something wrong?", "people
are waiting for me outside" were some things i started saying. One security
guy asked me to calm down but i kept on bluffing, i told them my flight was
twenty one hours long non stop and that they are wasting more of my time. at
this point i wasn't bluffing anymore i got really upset.

They disappeared one last time, i started huffing and puffing, and looking for
the cameras that were watching me since i was convinced that was the case.
When security came back, they simply told me you're good to go. They jokingly
asked if i'd rather stay there. i said yes. They both raised their eyebrows
and looked at me surprised as if they were about to interrogate me again. Then
i jokingly said, i'd love to stay and watch all these hostesses passing by, at
that point there was a team of hostesses passing by and we all laughed. They
told me that this helps them endure their night shifts!

But the funny part was when i reached home, and started calling my relatives
whom the security officers said they are calling. My relatives all said that
they received no call, and told me of course those guys always bluff. I don't
think i can take security seriously after that incident ever.

------
sneak
Do not talk to the police.

Do not talk to the police.

Do not talk to the police.

[http://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc](http://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc)

Police includes any federal agents, border patrol, CBP, et c.

Do not talk to the police. You cannot talk your way out of being arrested or
explain your way on to a flight. They record everything and even an accidental
misstatement is a felony.

You gave them address history, work configurations, business associate
information... why? Did you somehow think you could talk them out of being
afraid? This sort of breach of privacy (volunteering private corporate
information to cops) is a firing offense in my book.

Do not talk to the police.

~~~
lightcatcher
Umm, you definitely can explain your way on to a flight.

When a TSA agent asks if they can search your bag, saying "yes" has always
lead to me catching my flight, and I'm pretty sure saying "Let me talk to my
lawyer" would lead to me missing my flight. Also when they asked if there was
any reason you might have set off the bomb detectors, answering with a valid
reason can definitely lead to you catching your flight.

However, as soon as its clear you're going to miss your flight, I would agree
its the time to stop talking.

~~~
jcromartie
When they take you to a separate room, that's when you stop talking.

------
dodyg
This "We have some female flight attendants. Would you be able to follow their
instructions?"

They assume he was a Muslim and 'off course Muslims have problems following
instructions from women'.

------
gutsy
That's awful. I'm half-Mexican and look like a really tan Jewish man and the
treatment I received in the wake of 9/11 (having also been the first time I
decided to grow a beard) was awful. I had to show two forms of ID to deposit
money and the bank for some reason was rude and ended up refusing to let me
deposit my paycheck, several people threatened to beat me up and chased me out
of stores, and I wasn't able to make it through security at the airport
without a "random" patdown until last year. I'm not even Middle-Eastern, I
just KIND OF look it. I can only imagine what others go through.

------
judegomila
A few years ago, a US border official didn't even know about my visa type (O1)
and put me through secondary because he didn't know that the visa existed.

This also happened on the US/CA border to me - the official told me I had the
wrong visa to which I responded I had the correct visa. We went round 15 times
in a row back and forth, with me stating it was the correct visa until he gave
up and let me go.

A close friend of mine also had a gun put on the table to intimidate him in a
secondary screening when coming from the UK to the US.

So much for wanting to be an "immigration magnet" like the Google hangout
tomorrow with the CTO of the US.

[http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/08/21/we-immigrant-
geeks...](http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/08/21/we-immigrant-geeks-making-
us-geek-magnet)

------
jazzyb
The end of the story sounds suspiciously like Zersetzung:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi#Zersetzung](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi#Zersetzung)

~~~
skore
I recently read an article about the Stasi. I was strangely fascinated by
Zersetzung - as I understand it, one of the main objectives was to supply
other people with evidence against your own sanity. "[R]eplacing one variety
of tea with another" \- No really, that and other ridiculous things happened.
Agents of the Stasi went into homes and did that. It is designed to make you
seem like a lunatic when you try to explain yourself and get help. Imagine
that, being subject to a procedure designed to make you feel utterly helpless
and alone. You are right and everything is real, but everything real is now
designed to seem strange to other people.

I wonder why wikipedia translates it as "corrosion" or "undermining". The term
Zersetzung is more often used as meaning a biological process of degradation.
It's dissolution. It's being eaten away by acid.

------
tokenizer
The United States (Government) are a bunch of unenlightened, racist,
xenophobic people bent on oppressing people by treating every non
english/anglo-saxon as a terrorist. Please, someone tell me this isn't the
case in an absolute sense.

~~~
jgalt212
oh, Hi Noam Chomsky.

~~~
jgalt212
I lose points every time I criticize Noam Chomsky. Who are the other sacred
cows on HN that if you criticize you automatically lose Karma? I'll take a
stab:

Noam Chomsky Paul Graham Elon Musk Jeff Bezos

~~~
cynest
That wasn't a criticism. It was a short, sarcastic jeer with poor grammar.

~~~
jgalt212
and what tokenizer screamed from what was presumably his Mom's basement
between sessions of WoW was additive to the conversation?

------
the_rosentotter
It seems most commenters here are missing the fact that _somebody had been in
his home_. Without notifying him of the fact, he just noticed that things were
slightly off, picture missing, etc. Is this legal in America? I mean, don't
they have to tell him at some point if his private premises have been
breached? Or are there special rules when you say "terrorism!", like in the
London airport detention case?

------
genericresponse
Look at it from the TSA/Police/FBI perspective: Someone goes to the airport on
the first day of Ramadan, refuses the scan, sets off the chemical detectors,
then asks to leave. During further interview he indicates that he hasn't eaten
yet that day, is travelling for religious purposes, has just moved and is
travelling alone. This further investigation doesn't seem insane to me. In
fact if there was a clear profile for someone I would investigate it would be
him.

That said, it doesn't hurt to show basic human decency.

~~~
cefarix
I'm a religious American Muslim who fasts every day of Ramadan every year. So,
what you're saying is that if I am Muslim, it's Ramadan, I'm fasting, and I'm
traveling for religious purposes - that's suspicious? What your religion or
ethnicity is, or how religious you are, or what your specific religious
practices are - none of these should even be a factor to consider in security
to the TSA/police/FBI/etc. I find this view to be utterly disgusting.

~~~
gngeal
_who fasts every day of Ramadan every year_

Muslims calling Ramadan "a fasting month" is a serious devaluation of the word
"fasting". It's not actual fasting if you only eat at night. It's fasting if
you don't eat for at least full day. Say, eating once or twice only every
other day.

Also, doing this for one month in a year is another sham. How very useful!

~~~
mhassankhan
Dear gngeal, I represent "the Muslims", yes all 1.6 billion of them. Upon
receiving your comment we immediately held an emergency meeting (because we
care) and decided to apologize for carrying out this sham for the last 14
centuries. What would you have us call it instead? I'm sure it'll make a huge
difference.

------
danso
On an offbeat note, this reminds me of the only time I've ever been thoroughly
patted down at an airport. It was in Shreveport and during a weekday, with
very little foot traffic. I was with a friend who looks like the classical
all-American girl and me, well, I'm a minority but a "Golden Minority" (being
facetious about that term, not serious...). Anyway, the TSA people were very
nice about pulling us aside and patting us down and nominally going through
our stuff. I thought it was weird but then I looked behind us and saw a woman
and child, both dressed in hijab, who subsequently also received the full pat-
and-search routine.

~~~
unhappyhippie
Pardon my ignorance, but what is a "Golden Minority?"

~~~
danso
I was going to joke about how you must not have grown up in the 80s-90s, but
doing a Google search just now, I see that I might have used the wrong term...

The better known term is "model minority," in which Asians, in America, were
held up as what minorities _should_ be like: smart, hard-working, non-
confrontational to the status quo:

[http://www.nationaljournal.com/thenextamerica/education/asia...](http://www.nationaljournal.com/thenextamerica/education/asians-
often-burdened-as-model-minority-20120511)

I swear "golden minority" was also a common term, because Asian-Americans were
perceived as achieving toward high-pay professions (doctors, engineers, etc)
and, well, we're also referred to as "yellow"...but there seem to be very
usages of "golden minority" and Asian

------
m0skit0
Don't fly in Ramadan? I would rather say: don't fly to USA. I'm from a muslim
country but I'm not muslim, but I would never ever fly to the US.

------
atmosx
I'm European, I think I'll never go to the USA. They are just too
aggressive/paranoid with security. Of course, I have no rights there.

~~~
coldshot
Well, you are still kind of lucky. If you come from so-called "developing
countries" or middle east don't even think about going to Europe or USA. The
attitudes are almost the same besides US having better devices and more
officers.

~~~
moubarak
i'm form the middle east. i go to europe and USA often. although i was patted
down twice in the US, one random check and the other for no apparent reason
that i describe in another comment here (which was hilarious by the way), the
worst experience was going to Netherlands, at the final check point the
officer looked at my passport, asked me what i was coming for, and then gave
me a disgusted look and handed me the passport back. That was really awful. I
had so much fun there though the people were exceptionally welcoming. i would
highly recommend middle easterners to travel as much as they can, safely of
course.

------
CoachRufus87
When the TSA Agent said he wasn't detained yet refused to return his stuff,
was that not theft?

~~~
chimeracoder
IANAL, and I would love to know this.

But at the time, what else could I do, besides wait for the police to show up?

~~~
marvin
For the lawyers out there, this sounds like an excellent business opportunity.
20-minute legal emergency response to people in trouble at the security
checkpoint. Could assist directly with regards to asserting rights, filing
suits if the passengers' rights have been violated and extracting every dime
that can legally be extracted from airlines that involuntarily re-book
passengers.

Sorry that you had to go through this, and thank you for the very well-written
account of how this ordeal looked first-hand.

~~~
BlackDeath3
It would be nice if there were some sort of dead man's switch functionality
in-case phone access was denied. I'm not sure exactly how this would work, but
I think it's an interesting idea.

~~~
Sprint
Use GPS and cell tower tracking to determine if you are inside an airport. If
you are inside for longer than X minutes, send a message to selected people
stating that.

~~~
BlackDeath3
People sometimes spend much more time in airports than they'd like to for
legitimate, non-interrogative reasons.

Perhaps take into account authenticated activity, or lack thereof? Activate
this special functionality when you anticipate possible issues (e.g. going
through airport security) and you've got a timer waiting on some element from
Action Set Y to occur every X minutes before notifying emergency contact(s) Z,
specified previously.

Sounds like an idea...

------
peterkelly
Wow. I'm really not sure how to respond to this.

I think the best thing might be that the statue of liberty is dismantled for
now and put away in storage, just in case it's ever needed again.

------
Balgair
[http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/](http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/)

Call your representative today and talk to them about this story if you are
disturbed by it. Please, you have to speak to have a voice.

~~~
eruditely
They have to be listening for you to be heard.

~~~
Balgair
Not true at all! My rep. is very kind and does actually listen to her
constituents. I won't say the same for my senators but my rep is pretty level
headed and listens to her constituents.

Also, your apathy is what is causing the problem! Get out there! VOTE! Talk to
your elected officials. Absent you, the lobbyists and mountebanks out there
sure will. Monopolize your rep.'s time. You matter! You count! Act like it!

------
dr_
Sad but lets not make the mistake of thinking this is limited to the United
States. It's how most governments respond to what they feel, correctly or not,
are security threats. I'm of indian origin as well and was traveling in India
a few years ago. At the time, in response to the Mumbai attacks, the
government had instituted a requirement for non Indian nationals to require
permission to re enter the country should they leave within 2 months. I found
this out when I arrived, as I was scheduled to travel to another Asian country
and return within a week. While traveling, I visited the Indian embassy and
sat in the commissioners office while he was on the phone and, later, while he
was purchasing bananas from a vendor visiting his office. He took my passport
and told me to return the next day- which screwed up my trip- but I did it.
After my visit was complete I went back to India. When leaving India for the
US, they noticed I had left the country within 2 months. I pointed out I
received permission from the local embassy. They then claimed upon return to
India I should have registered with a local government agency. I explained I
didn't know this, no one had told me. They removed me from my flight. I
checked into a hotel and the following business day went to the agency. When
it was my turn, they asked for copies of where I was staying, who my local
relatives were, copies of their passports, copies of their electric bills -
fortunately I had a uncle who helped me and sweet talked them a bit. I got a
permission booklet, that night tried to rebook my flight, but nothing was
available on my airline all week. I had to return to work, so i spent $800 and
bought a one way ticket on another airline.

Maybe not as humiliating as what this poor guy had to go through, but my point
is, governments can act incredibly irrationally in response to security
threats. I realize the need to keep its citizens secure - but when they claim
they don't want the terrorists to win, one has to wonder if they haven't, in
fact, actually won already by slowly decimating our democracy.

~~~
statictype
I went through the same BS about not registering myself. The system is
incredibly bureaucratic and frustrating. But on the other hand, you never
really threatened.

------
JacksonGariety
I am a US resident.

Flying from France back into the states through customs in Dallas/Fort Worth
International Airport was the worst experience I've had with TSA.

First of all, a woman who was supposed to be managing the maze of lines tried
to take my passport from my hand when I wasn't looking. I held it tight as she
attempted to pull it away from me and she was clearly mad, yelling "I'm trying
to help you!"

In line for the body scanner I was pulled aside for one of the random pat-
downs. I didn't think about it at the time but it could've easily been the TSA
employee who tried to take my passport form my hand.

The employee who was supposed to be giving the pat down was obviously
reluctant to do it and asked me 4 times if I was okay with being touched
inappropriately. I agreed 4 times, it took him 10 minutes to actually start
giving me the pat down.

While I was being patted down another employee asked me if the bag that went
through the scanner was mine. I said yes.

He began removing my clothes and charge cords and a few items I had purchased
in France, and spreading them out on a table away from me.

I told him to stop and he asked why. I said I didn't want him to go through my
belonging while I wasn't there and he didn't respond, but stepped away from
the table.

After the pat down I re-assembled my luggage and continued boarding the plane.
Just as I was about to leave security the officer came and put his hand on my
shoulder and said that I "wasn't done with the security procedure yet."

He said I had to stand back from the table while he removed the items from my
bag which I had just put back in. Apparently he removed my laptop and set it
in one of the item-scanner bins at the end of the conveyor belt. He took 15
minutes to go through my bag, put everything back inside and sent me on my
way.

Just before boarding I noticed my laptop had not been placed back in my bag. I
darted back to security where the previous staff had been replaced by all-new
employees. I spent the next 30 minutes trying to get them to dig through bins
to find my MacBook, which was buried in a stack on the other side of security.

I made my flight by minutes.

------
dccoolgai
Wow this is shocking... I think a lot of this is probably related to the
issues that the "bullshit jobs" article that was up on HN earlier this week (
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6236478](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6236478)
) covered. A pithy quote I heard from someone earlier this week seems to ring
true here: If Al Qaeda’s plan was to cause a massive overreaction that would
destroy the very idea of America from within: wow, good plan.

------
alphakappa
I couldn't even finish reading it - The fact that someone is being questioned
about what their religion is, is not something I would expect in the land of
the free. I'm not religious at all, but if someone in authority asked me my
religion just to make sure that I'm not one of 'those people', it would piss
me off to no end.

------
Aloisius
The problem here is that he set off the explosives detectors. Regardless of
what color skin he had or what religion they thought he was, the second he did
that, repeatedly, he was in for a lot of questioning.

~~~
andy_ppp
I'm sure that there is a common way to make explosives with pesticides, but
it's more common to use pesticides to kill pests. Right? The sensors obviously
create false positives in most cases I'd expect.

Giving people water should be a bare minimum requirement in any interrogation.

~~~
bitwize
_Giving people water should be a bare minimum requirement in any
interrogation._

They could be a member of Cobra, who have devised a way to make explosives out
of water so they can turn the world's oceans into bombs.

You never know.

------
ranman
My plan:

1\. Dress in ethnically ambiguous clothing.

2\. Coat myself in insecticide before heading to the airport.

3\. Look shifty.

4\. Refuse the millimeter wave machine.

5\. Get Detained.

6\. Take off ethnically ambiguous clothes.

7\. Scream: "I'm a white male... what now bitches!"

~~~
protomyth
If you're going to go through that much trouble, the Colorado School of Mines
does a high-speed photography workshop every so often. You are photographing
explosives of various types. I would imagine clothes worn during the workshop
would be very interesting to airport scanners with a bonus of learning about
high-speed photography.

~~~
ranman
I have been wanting to book a flight to Colorado.

------
webwanderings
This story had nothing to do with Islam/Muslims/Ramadan, but for reasons only
known to the author, he has implicated every bit of his story and ordeal to
Muslims. This is just amazing.

------
kghose
If they denied you water for 18 hours, you have a lawsuit. Get hold of a
lawyer.

What I can't understand is why they were so motivated that they had people
doing leg work - they had field agents check you out, go to your apartment.
That's a lot of effort in contrast to an electronic trawl of your records.

You must have really scared them. I really wonder what chemical it was that
showed up on the sensor...

~~~
JshWright
They didn't deny him water for 18 hours. The '18 hour' clock started when he
ate dinner the night before.

------
ryderm
Hey chimeracoder,

I went to school with you and saw you at some ADI events and hackathons from
time to time. Even if I dont know you more than in passing, hearing something
like this about somebody I know hits much closer to home than hearing it on
the news. There isn't much I can say that hasn't already been said here, and
you probably won't read through these hundreds and hundreds of comments, but
if you read this, I just want to say that I'm so sorry. This is disgusting,
and I hope that you never have to deal with a clear violation of rights like
this again.

~~~
chimeracoder
Thank you thank you thank you thank you so much for writing this comment.

I had no idea that this blog post would blow up the way it has, reaching far
more people than I ever thought. I originally wrote it with people like you in
mind - people who know me personally, and otherwise would never have realized
that someone they know personally was affected by our policies like this.

The post was really difficult to write - I didn't want to have to relive that
experience again just to put it onto the page - but seeing a comment like this
makes it worth it.

~~~
ryderm
I saw the title earlier today and didn't read it, but then when it later had
so many comments I figured it was important. I was pretty shocked when I
recognized the picture and github username. I'm really glad that you did write
it, and I'm glad that I could make it worthwhile for you :)

Safe travels,

Ryder

------
rokhayakebe
I am a Muslim, and I share openly my thoughts on religion, faith, and related
subjects. I frankly do not mind being singled out (once in a while) because I
am Muslim as long as it is it is not assumed from the beginning that I am
guilty.

What I have a problem with is people assuming someone is already guilty
because they are Muslim, or Black, or White, or Hindu, or short, or Blonde.
When you are start there it becomes a struggle for one person to prove they
are innocent and it rarely ends well because from the get go it is set for
someone to be wrong as opposed to both parties getting to the truth.

I was once asked by a FBI agent to meet and answer questions, which I did
happily and readily. He was very polite, and more importantly, he started with
an explanation of the situation and why he had to ask questions, we had a
chat, and that was the last time I heard about it.

------
andy_ppp
This is one of the best written accounts I have read in a very long time, the
ending is just beyond belief, but in this climate I'd say totally believable.
It says to me one thing so clearly that has been somewhat lost in all of this:

WE MAY HAVE STOPPED TERRORIST ATTACKS BUT THE TERRORISTS DEFINITELY WON.

------
ChuckMcM
I realized on the drive home that if we could sneak a sed script into the
tools used to write appropriation bills in Congress, and had it swap budget
allocation for NSA and NASA (only one letter difference!) next year we could
be looking at half a dozen space stations and a base on the moon!

------
mindslight
Just reading this raised my hackles.

The only thing I really feel like saying is "I'm sorry", as you'll never get
any sympathy from this system's enablers.

~~~
chimeracoder
Thanks. Even though it's not coming from the TSA/FBI/et al., it means a lot.

~~~
rooshdi
Brave of you to share. Hope you get your photo back soon and some free flyer
miles or something. You deserve better. We all do.

------
lotsofpulp
I couldn't even make it to the end. Land of the free, home of the brave.

~~~
chimeracoder
Author here. I'd recommend reading until the end - unfortunately, it didn't
end when I was released from airport.

~~~
quantumpotato_
Have you considered filing a FOIA for raids on your apartment & the painting?

~~~
chimeracoder
I didn't. I've never actually had to file a FOIA request before - is this
something that would be available through one?

~~~
foiame
I would file one on yourself with all relevant agencies. It's a painless
process (I emailed mine to the FBI), albeit a slow one.

~~~
quantumpotato_
What did you get back? Anything redacted?

------
ck2
Holy hell. For what little it's worth, I am so sorry you had to go through
that.

There is so much horrifying with that story it makes me shudder.

------
dgudkov
Every time I visited the US I was subject to so called "secondary" checks that
looked more like interrogation, so I understand the author's feeling very
well. Last time I was denied entry at all. I'm just a regular remote IT
contractor living in Canada who happened to have a passport of an Eastern
European country. I don't want to come to the US anymore because of this
humiliating experience of crossing the US border. I'd better focus on serving
customers in Canada. Canada feels much more like a _country for people_ .

------
mohamabid
what does this have to do with Ramadan? The title should more be around bug
sprays, insecticides and wanting a pat down.

Only because he was asked if he was fasting and wanted special prayer
arrangement doesn't justify the use of Ramadan here.

I wish it would have not happened to him, but I feel certain things gave rise
to the situation which could happen to anyone during any time.

------
rechjr
What do we do?

For at least a decade, but more markedly so in the last eighteen months or so,
I can't get on the Internet without seeing a story like this. Authorities of
all sorts ignore any laws they feel like to provide the appearance of security
against threats that usually don't exist in the first place. Revelations in
technology that show absolutely nothing is secure unless you are manually
rolling dice to construct one-time pad keys, and god help you if you try to
store them on a post-2000 PC. I'm coming steadily closer to panic, as a
citizen, as a technology professional, and as a human being. What can we do?
No rational discussion of this ever takes place, both online and off, because
of the hordes of comments insisting that the US will NEVER be as bad as a real
authoritarian regime NO MATTER WHAT, and the equally radical comments that we
are already WORSE than the USSR. So far as I am convinced, there is nothing an
individual can do. This is a Big Problem, and going back over history texts,
political activism only solves about one Big Problem per decade. So, for the
sake of argument, I ask we suspend whatever structural beliefs we have.
Assume, for this comment thread, that the current decline into a rightless
police state will continue unabated, only stopped by the random sudden social
upheaval that, without fail, takes place sooner or later. What can an
individual do to be safe, or feel safe? Anything? Or is the only option to
shut up, take our Xanax, and live with the Cold War-esque existential fear
that you could be violated or killed at any time just because an agent doesn't
like your ethnicity/choice of cleaning supplies/fact that you work in
technology?

~~~
yafujifide
Personally, I'm making plans to leave the US. Since few people will listen to
me when I explain how bad things are, I do not believe effecting change is a
reasonable course of action. Instead, I will try to internationalize my
business and my life so that I can interact with pleasant people and escape
tyranny.

~~~
clebio
What other countries are better options?

~~~
yafujifide
Countries I'm researching: Panama, Chile, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam. All
have ups and downs. Read the works of Doug Casey, Andrew Henderson (Nomad
Capitalist), and Simon Black (sovereignman.com) for information on how to get
offshore corporations and bank accounts so you can do business overseas, and
second passports so you can optionally be unaffiliated with the US and don't
have to worry about having your passport revoked by the US.

------
po
_I took a look at the ID and calmly pointed out that it said “August 2013” in
big letters on the ID, and that the numbers “8 /10” meant “August 10th, 2013”,
not “August, 2010”. I added, “See, even the expiration sticker says 2013 on it
above the date”. He studied the ID again for a moment, then walked out of the
room again, looking a little embarrassed._

ISO-8601 date format people!

[http://xkcd.com/1179/](http://xkcd.com/1179/)

------
justin66
People have some funny ideas about the "explosive detector" machine. It can
rightly be called an "explosive detector" in exactly the same sense that the
TSA clown who takes everyone's regular-sized liquid containers and throws them
away can be called an "explosive detector."

There might be an explosive there, but there almost always isn't, and the
whole thing is for show.

------
pmorici
"Ironically, when I went to the other terminal, I was able to get through
security (by walking through the millimeter wave machines) with no problem."

Why go through all of that only to give into the body scanners!

~~~
enneff
Presumably at that point he just wanted to get on with his trip.

~~~
pmorici
Why opt out in the first place then? Isn't that like boycotting the bus up
until the point where you realize you have to get to work and then deciding it
is too much trouble to walk so you take it anyways?

------
mherdeg
I asked JetBlue about this (via Twitter…) and they said (
[https://twitter.com/JetBlue/status/370659852546109441](https://twitter.com/JetBlue/status/370659852546109441)
)

""@mherdeg The govt agencies can speak for themselves. We stand by our
crewmember's decision, and regret the inconvenience this caused.""

Interesting.

~~~
chimeracoder
In another tweet, they claim that the responsibility lies with the government
agencies who screened me:
[https://twitter.com/chimeracoder/status/370663486470103040](https://twitter.com/chimeracoder/status/370663486470103040)

(which seems to contradict your tweet:
[https://twitter.com/cgervasi/status/370675125244284928](https://twitter.com/cgervasi/status/370675125244284928))

If that's the case, I'm not sure why the person who denied me boarding was the
JetBlue agent, not a TSA agent.

------
par
Hindu guy here. I'm sure I'll be buried but the last time I opted out of a
millimeter wave scan, I was also tested for explosives. I did set it off
multiple times and was taken to the back room for a private screening. I was
held in there, questioned for ten minutes, then I was on my way. I have not
opted out since.

------
sq1020
As others have said, horribly misleading title. It has nothing to do with
Ramadan! How about don't fly when you have some weird chemical on you that
sets off airport security.

------
tomp
What's happening? Where is the Hacker News I knew? I have up-voted at least 4
grayed-out comments that were opposing the prevalent view (that TSA is pure
tyranny, an US government by extension) but nothing our of the ordinary -
people contributing their opinion to the conversation.

Don't downvote if you disagree!

~~~
Lifebot
While I personally don't agree with some of those who were grayed-out, I agree
with this sentiment.

Thing is, I sometimes want to know how many people disagree with a comment. I
almost wish there were thumbs up/down icons to signify how many people agree
with a comment, separate from the downvote/up system that indicates if a
comment is off-topic or has no content.

------
pearjuice
So what does the Ramadan have to do with this? It could have happened any
month.

~~~
rdtsc
It has. They suspected he was somehow Muslim because ... wait for it .. he has
brown skin. They suspected he was a terrorist ... because they wrongly
suspected he was Muslim ... because they think most terrorist are Muslim. They
suspected he was going to blow up a plane as a "celebration" or somehow
connected with Ramadan.

~~~
pearjuice
By making those assumptions you are just as bad as them.

~~~
rdtsc
I didn't make the assumptions I am guessing what assumptions they made and
what assumption he thinks they made about him.

Read the blog again and then my comment what show which one of those horrible
assumptions I made. Those are guess of why he was profiled more than he should
have been. If you look closely all the sentences start with "They suspected"
not "I think he has brown skin and thus is a terrorist".

------
mech4bg
I've had this happen to me before as well, but in Australia, and the
similarities and differences are interesting.

I set off the explosive scanner for TNT when flying to see my family at
Christmas (and was told straight away what I was found positive for). Was
immediately taken into another room with my carry-on, and had my checked-in
luggage located and brought in as well.

A lot of things were very similar - I had the full pat down, the numerous
questions, and everything was looked over. However they did it all just once.
They took everything out of my bag and it was full of Christmas presents,
which they then wanted to open, but I persuaded them to put them through the
X-ray scanner still wrapped.

I also had a 'guard' watching over me and making sure I didn't leave, and
multiple people coming in to ask me questions and verify my answers.

In the end they were able to X-ray all my stuff to their satisfaction, re-
checked my bag, and I was was on my way in about 20-30 minutes.

They never did figure out why I set it off btw, and it's never happened again.
Very strange.

The thing that sticks out to me from the experience, was how on alert everyone
got once the explosive detector went off. Suddenly everyone was _very_ uneasy
and wary of me, especially when it came up positive a second time.

So although I think the recent incident was poorly handled, I do understand to
some extent the measures in place - i.e. being taken away to another room to
be checked, having all their stuff looked over, etc.

And although it seems nuts they didn't let him leave, if he did show positive
for explosives then what else should they have done? It's a difficult problem
- surely they are compelled to investigate him if that happens?

Does anyone know if it would even be legal to search his place while he was
away btw? Surely not, since he checked out and they were happy to let him go.

And how ridiculous Jet Blue denied him boarding (and yet were happy to let him
board the next day!)

------
malandrew
I get the feeling that we need public defenders in all airports and at
borders. The complete lack of an adversarial process there is downright
dangerous.

~~~
chimeracoder
I can't decide whether I love or hate the idea of this generation's "amublance
chasers" being the "airport security line chasers".

------
seiji
Initial thoughts:

It sounds like the phone was nearby during this entire inexcusable ordeal. Too
bad it wasn't recording the entire time.

The names of everybody involved in detaining or interviewing or interrogating
should be released and they should explain from their point of view.

How can we stop the TSA from thinking religious boom boom terrorism is a real
thing in the US when it obviously isn't?

[Sidenote: I've had the "uncontrollable shaking without being cold" thing
before too (due to lack of food). It's really bad. Only solution is to eat
something immediately. The shakes should go away within 30 seconds. I imagine
if you let them continue for more than a few minutes, you'll
collapse/blackout/seize/Something Bad™.]

~~~
throwaway9848
Oh for crying out loud. A well-nourished human body can go for between a week
and a month without food. Nothing bad would have happened to his health (he
stated he is not diabetic) after a day or so without eating.

It was probably because of the inexcusable treatment and stress that he
received. That is more than enough to be angry about, no need to make stuff
up.

------
esalman
I find similarities between this incident and the interrogation technique of
the secret police in East Berlin. I learned about this in a movie I watched a
few days back- "The Lives of Others" or "Das Leben der Anderen" (2006). The
secret police used to detain people and question them repeatedly for many
hours while forcing them to sit on lie detectors with their palm faced down
under their thigh. Under pressure, innocent people would start to answer
different versions to the same questions, while suspected revolutionists would
keep narrating the same 'stories'. I think sooner or later every government
starts acting the same way. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

~~~
rdtsc
Great movie! But those were not lie detectors they were pads to collect sweat.

Those were put in jars, cataloged, and saved for later. They would be used in
hunting someone down using dogs. It basically saved their scent and then years
later if they want to find you and you are running way they could bring in the
K-9 unit.

~~~
esalman
Thank you for correction, I missed those details.

------
shanselman
I'm a random American white guy with an insulin pump. I (my pump) set off the
explosives detector once. They took me into a back room, closed the door,
patted me down twice, took all my bags apart and swabbed EVERY single item
(like 60+ things) and ran them through the detector. After none of them set it
off, the guy say "That was weird, go ahead" and I left.

Given my anecdote and the OP's anecdote the racial and religious profiling
aspect of things is clear. Also, the TSA's willful ignorance of just a few
basic religious details that I (and presumably any other educated person)
learned by simply paying attention and reading, is chilling.

~~~
shabble
slightly tangential, but I wonder how they would/could treat sterile medical
equipment (insulin vials, syringes, epi-pens, etc).

It's not something that's exactly conducive to hasty disassembly and swab
analysis.

I suppose the paranoid approach would be to confiscate it on any suspicion,
and require you to purchase/be credited with 'certified' replacements post-
security, although I'm sure there are exotic things that would be tricky to
get everywhere.

------
knodi
The TSA is to brown men as what cops are to black men.

------
keerthiko
Sigh, it's this hard even being a citizen and resident of the country. As a
former international student, and now just living here and working (and soon
to be booted because...immigration laws), this experience is so commonplace
whenever interacting with the government it's not even funny. These topics on
HN are commonly discussions about curbed American freedom under the
government.

But there's a significant topic of interest for people all around the world
when the (arguably) most powerful nation decided to stop playing Mr. Nice Guy
with even its own citizens, and what that could mean for the rest of us.

I have pretty much stopped traveling except out of necessity (I cut down from
12 flights a year till 2011 to 1 flight in 2 years since) because of the huge
hassle and strain security can become. Imagine what it was like when my
(Indian) passport had Arabic stamps on it because it was issued in Oman (where
I lived before I came here). I'm not even religious, but I was so often picked
for "random checking" the booth probably knew me by name.

What bothers me more than the inconvenience and trauma this causes for people
like me and the OP (although that bothers me a lot), is the _massive waste of
resources_ this form of civilian harassment is -- at least 7 officers were
involved shuttling documents of some guy going on vacation for 4+ hours. All
because of their (grossly incorrect, at that) racial profiling, lack of
cultural knowledge, and general fear of people who don't look like themselves.
Geez.

------
smutticus
This is just disgusting. I feel terrible just reading it. Like I'm invading
this person's privacy simply by bearing witness to his pain at the hands of
these imbeciles.

------
onli
What I don't understand: If you are detained for several hours, why don't
people call a lawyer? Why did he speak to the police (end even the FBI!)
without legal counsel?

~~~
chimeracoder
As I mentioned in the post, they claimed I "wasn't being detained". I asked
more than once to use my phone; they denied me.

Maybe I could make that more clear.

~~~
swalkergibson
It sounds like the best course of action is to just have an attorney present
if a situation like this happens again. You knew you were being detained, no
matter what the authorities said. As far as I know, there are no provisions
anywhere that forbid you from having a lawyer present when and wherever you
want.

~~~
geoka9
I often see "have an attorney present" arguments, but they make me wonder -
can you really afford to have an attorney on retainer if you're not
independently wealthy? Or is it as simple as calling a plumber and asking them
to come over?

Should I shop for an attorney and keep their contact information with me just
in case I might need one?

Will the attorney be willing to come over at a moment's notice if I've never
used their services before?

~~~
swalkergibson
I suspect it is like any market. Some will be there within the hour, some will
need ramp-up time. However, regardless of the attorney, I would suspect that
any criminal defense lawyer would be able to effectively navigate the
particular situation at hand. If it were me, I would tell them they can arrest
me and charge me, or let me on my way. I would be shocked if the results of
this finicky machine are admissible in court (given that polygraph results are
not). Does anyone know whether or not that is the case?

Come get me, coppers!

------
niuzeta
I'm boycotting Jet Blue.

~~~
throwaway9848
What is the superior airline that you will be transferring your business to?
Let us all know :P

~~~
niuzeta
Seeing where the airline operates and since I'm not in US, I won't have a
chance to boycott the airline. However, if I ever get a chance to travel
to/out of US(which is bound to happen), Jet Blue will not be my airline of
choice.

If my friends happen to have to use an airline, I will let them know what I've
heard of the airline, and suggest them to find an alternative. That's pretty
much it. It's not much, but I won't forget the name Jet Blue.

~~~
throwaway9848
You will be disappointed with the alternatives. I think you are not allocating
blame correctly.

------
mark-r
I'm sure this isn't the end of the story either. He'll be on the watch list
now, and subject to additional scrutiny for every flight forevermore.

------
tn13
As a TSA officer if a person/his baggage sets off an explosive detector alarm,
I think I wont let him fly until I am fully convinced that he is traveling
with no malicious intent. How soon and how well I get convinced will depend on
how competent I am at my job. Clearly the officers that handled this person
were incompetent, unsympathetic and ignorant. That is a different problem
altogether nothing related to freedom.

------
girvo
I've wanted to move from Australia to Silicon Valley for a few years now. I
mean, I'm an entreprenurial software engineer: it's where I'm _supposed_ to
be, right?

But, over the past few years, I've learnt more and more about the US of A. And
I don't like how things are done over there.

Sure, Australia isn't perfect (if I hear anyone say "Boat People" once more,
I'm going to punch them right in the face), and I'm a young, single upper
middle class White male: I shouldn't have any issues, right?

But that's not the point. The fact that the US and even the UK have ended up
this paranoid...

I no longer want to move. Hell, I want to move back to New Zealand to be
honest, if it gets any worse here in Aus.

And that's a loss for me personally, and for your country as well.

:(

\----

EDIT

Please convince me that it's not all that bad... that rights aren't being
eroded, and that I wouldn't have to turn a blind eye to prejudiced treatment
against my neighbours. Convince me that I should still come...

I really want to, but I'm honestly frightened of what might happen to me if I
do.

~~~
hhandoko
Canada seems to be opening doors for tech entrepreneurs. If I have the chance,
that's probably where I'd like to go.

------
j2d3
The greatest damage done by 9/11 was not the actual destruction of the towers
and the deaths of all those people, but the (sadly predictable) _reaction_ of
our government, particularly the Patriot Act, the creation of the TSA and the
Dept. of Homeland Security, and the emboldening of the NSA, CIA, FBI, and the
NYPD.

------
jonheller
Extremely disturbing.

This was well written and very interesting to read, but I do wonder how one
could recall the details so specifically?

~~~
foobarbazqux
Traumatic events can leave much stronger memories, almost like they're burned
in.

~~~
a-priori
Yes, they're called flashbulb memories and they feel 'stronger' and more
detailed than other memories. People assume that they're therefore accurate,
but really, they're no more accurate than other memories.

In fact, the repeated recall can cause them to become distorted over time.

If you want to preserve a memory, write it down immediately while it is fresh.
Don't trust that an old memory is accurate.

~~~
foobarbazqux
Wikipedia says the difference between flashbulb memories and traumatic
memories is stress, and that there is "a shortage on studies regarding
personal events such as accidents or trauma".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashbulb_memory#Flashbulb_mem...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashbulb_memory#Flashbulb_memories_compared_to_traumatic_memories)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashbulb_memory#Critique_of_f...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashbulb_memory#Critique_of_flashbulb_memory_research)

------
khaylindris
"Oh Beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain..."

What has happened to my beautiful country? The one that I learned about in 2nd
grade, the one that always gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling, the one that I
was proud of even before I knew what 'proud' meant. Where is that dreamy land?

In a way, we do it to ourselves. We elect officials that are 'tough on crime'
that support enormous police forces. We empower the police state (not just the
police but the gov't at large) out of fear. People in this country need to
grow a pair. One of my friends actually said something to the effect of, "No,
I don't care if the NSA searches through my private stuff, so long as it makes
me safer." Mr. Franklin would've had a word with that young lady.
Unfortunately that sentiment prevails a large number of people.

------
C1D
The way they treated him is appalling. Even if he was Muslim, this shouldn't
have happened! I travel a lot and have seen things like this happen before my
eyes in the UK and Australia. People that look slightly ethnic and taken aside
and "randomly" stopped. EDIT: Sorry for the typo.

~~~
wutbrodo
Did you mean appalling?

~~~
C1D
Yes, I've fixed the mistake.

~~~
codezero
What would we do without HN's built in spell-checking auto-commenters :)

~~~
foobarbazqux
Apparently this sophisticated new AI still fails the Turing Test... for now.

~~~
solistice
I actually tried turing testing chatbots a while ago (chatterbot, jabberwacky,
etc.) to see if they've improved. No, they don't pass even remotely, and they
all get very offended when you suggest they've failed (Chatterbot quote "Are
you insulting me?"). Chatbots have a terrible temper.

~~~
C1D
Agreed. I tried having a conversation with Chatterbot, I asked it a question
and it replied "Do you listen to the sounds", then I said what sounds and it
replied "I am not a guy". Chatterbot basically spouts random responses its
gotten, from a database.

------
honzzz
The fact that they refused to give him any water stuns me the most. Is this
really not illegal in the US? Is this not considered a torture? Is this not so
obvious abuse of power that the huge media scandal is assured? Is this not the
thing that officials who do that to the detained person lose their job or even
go to jail for? Because I believe that in my country all of those would be
true. How can any country in which all of those are not true call itself "the
land of free"?

EDIT: People are discussing here whether or not the US is on their way to
became an oppressive regime. I don't understand that. In my book if the
country allows this kind of behaviour of their officials and if I understand
the word 'oppression' correctly... it already is an oppressive regime. Simple
as that.

------
quicksilver
It's sickening to hear that you had to go through such experiences. Funny that
the 'default' scanner technology didn't set off any alarms. Many of these
policies just seem to provide the sense that we're safer, rather than actually
do anything to remove real dangers.

------
baddox
The fact that there are even people in this thread defending this procedure is
incomprehensibly disgusting.

------
3327
1984 is here and we all look the other way. 1984 is today.

------
melito
Aditya, if you're reading this: the next time a TSA agent threatens to call
the cops, let them. If you hadn't made any outbursts, you haven't broken any
laws.

Plus they'd be calling REAL cops. Ones that have to enforce and abide by real
laws or actually face consequences.

------
rafeed
I think it's pretty clear that this whole thing could've been avoided if you
went through the normal security screening process that everyone else normally
obliges to do. On the other hand, what happened to you is sick and disturbing.
I really found the way they treated you disgusting and I'm sorry you had to go
through that.

I also think that your title is misleading and mildly offensive. Ramadan is a
holy month, and more so a time of peace (although it's a time of peace every
part of the year). I doubt this wouldn't have happened to you if it had been a
few weeks earlier or later. I don't think it's right of you to say this only
happened because it was during Ramadan that you coincidentally decided to fly.

------
nightcomer
Clearly misleading title. What does it have to do with Ramadan/Muslims. You
are just trying to create a bad effect. I think clearly this is a publicity
stunt. What did you get from writing this? Happiness? Stop hurting other's
sentiments.

------
Confusion
This story seems at odds with the idea that the NSA collects massive amounts
of data about everyone, or at least with the idea that it is capable of making
use of that data, by sorting and qualifying it properly.

If the NSA needs to know so much about people to protect us from terrorists,
why did the TSA, NYPD and FBI have to ask this guy these questions? Shouldn't
one telephone call to the NSA have resulted in 'no known risks'?

Of course, putting on my tinfoil hat, this may be on purpose. A few such
incidents may be necessary to give us the idea that they are in the dark. The
entire thing may have been a charade, caused by the 'telephone call' not
helping out.

------
petilon
Bin Laden promised us that "America will not be able to dream of security
until we live in security in Palestine." The TSA and NSA are making Bin
Laden's dream come true. Our overreaction to Bin Laden is causing more harm
than Bin Laden did. Bin Laden killed 3000 Americans, but more Americans --
over 4000 -- were killed in the Iraq war. We also did ourselves a lot of
economic harm, having spent close to a trillion dollars on the Iraq war alone.
Spurred by Bin Laden, we are doing this to ourselves. And I am not even
counting the over 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed in the war and the damage to
goodwill towards Americans.

------
jcromartie
In case you had any doubt that the TSA wasn't staffed by incompetent racist
idiots.

------
krelian
I felt so angry while reading this. It's clear to say that the terrorists have
won.

~~~
pearjuice
>terrorists

You mean the government?

~~~
m0skit0
He/she most likely means 9/11 ones

~~~
pearjuice
Yep, I also meant the government. Or are you still convinced 9/11 was not a
false flag?

------
emmett9001
Aditya - amazing writing, horrible story. I'm so sorry you had to go through
that

------
justsomeguynpdx
Not that anyone should be treated like this, but I suspect they literally
don't even know the difference (or even that there is) between Hinduism and
Islam. If you're gonna profile, at least know your freaking religions!

------
sologoub
Sounds like it's a good idea to invest in a good alarm system and video tape
entrance. This way you'd at least know if they had entered without a warrant.

Camera would need to back-up to something remote though, and notify you
quickly.

------
thehme
I feel terrible that this happened to the author and his experience clearly
shows the incompetence of the government bureaucratic agencies - no water?!
that is outrageous! I wish I could say that this will not happen again (to him
or others), but the truth is that it probably will. Perhaps one positive
aspect of this horror story is that the author has shared this with everyone
and hopefully this can help educate people for positive change. I felt chills
reading the author's anecdote and I am astonished by his courage and
composure; I don't know if I'd be able to handle it myself.

------
marshray
He reliably set off the chemical detectors. We can assume that earns anyone
additional scrutiny.

So the claim here seems to be that he received _too much_ additional scrutiny
because of his background. This certainly seems plausible, but he's not the
first person to miss their plane due to the TSA either.

But unless we know how people of other backgrounds are scrutinized after they
set off the chemical detectors are traveling alone, we can't conclude that he
was racially or religiously profiled.

Even still, this is a substantially reduced claim and none of it really
supports the conclusion "Don't fly during Ramadan".

------
eternalsunshine
...and what does this have to do with Ramadan?

~~~
83457
My guess is... Ramadan is a holy month for Muslims. Many terrorists are
muslim. Terrorism increases around Ramadan. He is brown, many Muslims are
brown, TSA on high alert for Muslims. He is setting off an explosives residue
detector. Many terrorists use explosives.

~~~
catnaroek
That is some really weird logic. If I were a terrorist planning an attack, I
would carry it out as soon as all the preparations are ready, not wait until
some specific date or month or whatever.

~~~
lucozade
You may be underestimating the logical accuity of airport security.

Some years ago I used to regularly fly from London to Boston, see clients,
take the Delta shuttle down to New York see more clients, then fly back from
there to London.

Every single time I would be chosen for the "random" extra search going
through security for the shuttle. And due to the sensitivity of the Boston-New
York flight only a few years after 9/11, the extra checks were pretty
thorough.

One time, while chatting to the security chap as he was metal-detecting my
belt, I asked why I was stopped so often. He told me that it was a combination
of my being foreign (British but fair enough) and the fact that I was taking a
one way trip. Apparently they had concluded that suicide bombers only buy
singles. I did point out that, under the circumstances, they probably wouldn't
be overly concerned about the money wasted on the return portion. However, my
application of reason didn't prevent me from being searched on all subsequent
flights.

As an aside, I never experienced anything like the trauma of the OP. The
security people were always very polite and friendly. I'd like to think it's
due to the bonhomie of the Bostonians. I suspect though that it's because I
don't look archetypically Muslim.

------
blablabla123
I once moved into an apartment with bed bugs. So this is what I learned:

\- at least in Germany you cannot buy bed bug spray in a regular store

\- if you have bed bugs, it's recommended to contact an exterminator that will
cost you hundreds (or even thousands)

\- you can still buy spray against bed bugs. The warning sign on the spray is
one level below "explosive". As you can imagine, the stuff you get in the
store says that you mustn't use it indoors.

Sorry mate, not sure which Spray Brand you used, but using bed bug spray is
really dangerous.

You say that the TSA, FBI etc. are ignorant. You are ignorant too by not
reading the spray bottles you use.

------
downandout
Whether it's the NSA or the TSA, the American public is finally getting a
glimpse at how shockingly little freedom our laws actually afford us. For
every protection we think we have, there is a gaping exception that can be
invoked by virtually any government employee that feels like it. The US
government of 2013 essentially can and will do anything it wants, when it
wants, with very little resistance from the courts, the public, or
politicians. Sadly, I'm not sure that the political will exists to fix any of
it.

------
IanDrake
That sucks.

First of all don't speak besides identifying yourself by name. Then the only
thing to say is "Am I free to go?". If the answer is no, then ask "Am I being
detained?". If no, then ask "Then I'm free to go, yes?".

Back and forth. Personally, upon hearing I'm not being detained, then I'd
leave.

Second, you can't be refused medical attention. "I feel nauseous, perhaps
because I've been refused water and now I feel faint. I need medical
attention".

The more you say, the worse you make it for yourself.

------
auctiontheory
At least 2 billion people in the world would instantly know that "Mukerjee" is
not remotely a Muslim name. And yet the FBI doesn't.

That's our problem right there, at home and abroad: Total and complete lack of
cultural knowledge among the (US-born, mostly white) folks in our security and
military forces.

Of course, in this individual case (which does not excuse their behavior) he
could have made everyone's life easier by just saying "I am not Muslim, I want
a BLT" since that was obviously their suspicion.

------
RivieraKid
This is the first time I hear about the TSA but how could this be legal? How
can a private entity force someone to stay in some room?

It's really disgusting, I hope it gets lot of attention.

------
honzzz
I feel so sorry for this guy and I just think that I would rather 'risk' dying
in a terrorist attack while flying with him than live in a society that needs
do this to some random guy in order to feel safe. I get that they need to be
careful when something triggers explosive detector alarm... but this?
Pressuring the guy for hours without water which I would not be afraid to call
a torture? Is that really necessary?

At what point does reasonable safety turn into cowardly society?

------
rayiner
I was reading that whole story waiting for a punchline. He repeatedly set off
the explosives sniffer while trying to go through airport security, and
speculates that someone searched his place while he was away.

And?

I'd imagine that repeatedly setting off a bomb detector would be probable
cause for a warrant to search his place. I'm not sure what the "is" is here,
other than it's a major hassle caused by a screening machine throwing a false
positive, which machines inevitably do.

~~~
curiousDog
Really? Are you serious? Even if he set off those detectors, which are
evidently broken, doesn't he have to be treated with minimal courtesy as a
human? They could've even just started off with listing some household items
that could set it off. Does a broken machine warrant psychological warfare
techniques? And if you're even able to justify that, where do these techniques
stop? Should he have also been waterboarded and forced to drink crude oil, you
know just to see if he'll break? All this despite being 'American'. The pain
and mental anguish one goes through when this happens will only be apparent
once it happens to you.

------
Simple1234
Prove you are not fasting for Ramadan by eating this hamburger.

------
leke
A tech company I worked for a while back wanted to send me to the States, and
also China to do some work. I refused on both requests because of stories like
this I've heard. I just tell them it's because of family commitments, which is
always a handy excuse. Other countries I would never go to are Russia, Saudi
Arabia, UAE and pretty much anywhere in Africa. It's pretty sad actually, but
I guess I'm way too paranoid.

~~~
laxk
Where are you from?

------
mansr
About 6 months ago, I had the explosives detector at SFO flag me as suspect
after a random pat-down. What followed was a second, slightly more thorough,
pat-down and a very thorough search of my carry-on. It all took about 15
minutes, and the TSA staff were nothing but friendly throughout the procedure.

Whenever you fly, keep two things in mind: 1) the TSA staff are mostly just
doing their job, and 2) not all of them are assholes.

~~~
noisy_boy
Those two arguments can be applied for practically any profession.

If you are mentioning them as offset to the issue at hand, they are no comfort
to people who are subject to racial profiling/harassment (or to people who
condemn such actions).

Otherwise they are just redundant statements.

------
npcomplexity1
There is already an A/B experiment of sort being run on ability of the
"chemical detectors". There are lots of airports outside of US that do not
have these capabilities. If there is no statistical difference between the
terrorist attack incidence directly from the said chemicals then it would be
an interesting data point to add to the study of security theatre.

------
eaxitect
Although the author had a horrible experience, it has nothing to do it with
Ramadan. Beside, there is no mention of Ramadan by TSA agent to him except a
silly question/example about Hinduism. So the title is very presumptuous:
"this happened to me because I've tried to fly in Ramadan" which is as bad as
TSA agent's state of mind.

------
aasarava
Can anyone point to a good reference explaining what your rights are and what
to do if questioned and/or detained by the TSA?

~~~
chimeracoder
I linked to Flex Your Rights[0] in the blog post. They have two great videos
(both available for free on Youtube) about dealing with police encounters.

Unfortunately, the TSA are _not_ police officers, and so you don't have the
same rights as you do when dealing with police officers. (Notice how the
police officers refused to be present during the pat-down - I didn't mention
this in the article, but the cops stepped out of the room every time the TSA
officers patted me down).

If anybody has a good, analogous resource for dealing with TSA and the FBI, I
would love to know.

[0][http://www.flexyourrights.org/](http://www.flexyourrights.org/)

~~~
aasarava
Yes, that's a very helpful link. Will keep an eye out for a TSA-related
version of this and speak with some lawyer friends.

Thanks for the excellent writeup of your experience, though I'm sorry you had
to go through it in the first place. As someone who is also brown-skinned and
from a Hindu family and who has been singled out for many "random" screenings,
I've dreaded the chance of this sort of interrogation happening, every time
I've flown since 9/11.

------
moheeb
I've never had my flight cancelled...but the rest of it sounds pretty par for
the course, even for white people.

------
logn
Regarding this line: "The shaking motion was entirely involuntary, and I
couldn’t force my limbs to be still, no matter how hard I concentrated."

... I think that's adrenaline. Fight or flight instinct. Next time, ask your
doctor about beta blockers, or ask your bartender about a double-shot of
liquor.

------
Fuxy
Well this story vaguely reminds me of post communist Romania where all newly
freed government agencies were fucking with people however they wanted. And I
can tell you now it wasn't any ordinary governmental agency that searched his
apartment it was the CIA or NSA.

------
bdunbar
My take away isn't 'don't fly during x' but 'don't fly at all'.

------
ballard
As a critical issue: there needs to be a mobile app, which upon opening,
immediately begins live recording of video and audio to a remote server/s and
posts them on vimeo/YouTube/etc.

If this already happens to exist, I'm interested.

------
thomaslangston
Sincerely, what can I, someone not involved directly in this incident, do to
prevent incidents like this one from happening to other people?

Sending messages to airlines and congresspeople seems ineffectual. What are my
other options?

------
lnanek2
It's unfortunate he went through that, but I thought it was common sense that
if you opt out of the scanner they are going to put your through the wringer.
So I wouldn't call what happened unexpected.

------
cranefly
We are only getting one side of the story here. Would love to hear it from the
other side. I think if one swabbed positive for explosives in a triage you
could expect something like this in or out of Ramadan.

~~~
SplrrtFlll
Much of the misunderstanding, I imagine, is that people who have never worked
in a lab, such as these TSA employees, think that 'swabbed positive' means
'touched explosives'.

These quick tests just use a reagent that reacts with a part of a molecule. In
the case of an explosives test, I imagine it responds to molecules with a -NO2
group. That could be TNT or any of a thousand perfectly innocent, harmless
substances. A test that tests for the whole molecule, with a smaller (but
still non zero) chance of a false positive, would be too expensive and take
too long for a situation like this.

If you're just testing average people, the chance of a false positive is
orders of magnitude more likely than a real positive.

------
benmorris
This is disgusting to read, can't imagine going through that.

------
theklub
Ugh, honestly we as a country should boycott flying until they straighten this
shit out. I can't believe people are payed to harass others like this.

------
pknerd
I don't know whether I laugh or feel pity about these people.

TSA and other agencies have created more fear and panic among Americans than
Osama or anyone else.

------
vikas5678
I've been through special security checks, inspections, etc. Last year I was
carrying something my parents sent me, TSA asked me to take it out, and ran
chemical tests on it. I said do whatever you want with it, and was nice to
them. They in turn were nice to me, and allowed me to carry it on the plane,
while I was ready to throw it away if they didn't want it on the plane. Maybe
its just me, but this guy just had the wrong attitude through the initial part
of the process. I feel sorry for what happened to him later.

~~~
kunil
If only everyone as submissive as you are! Perfect citizen that every police
state needs

------
sfguy
For the record India has the second largest number of Muslims in the world. So
just because you are from india doesn't mean you are Hindu.

------
fayyazkl
things like these and also those similar to having googled words such as
"pressure cooker" and "bomb" at some point on my machine in the US and being
thwarted by a SWAT team at some point, really scares some one to even be in
the US because he would have all the convincing signs like a beard, being a
Muslim and might actually have to fast.

------
Jugurtha
Try this:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niaGh5Jx_Oo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niaGh5Jx_Oo)

------
tbarbugli
A better title: Don't live in the USA

------
w_t_payne
Did it occur to anybody else that these laws are being used to legitimize
racial discrimination and harassment?

------
ffn
Maybe I'm just neurotic and work is getting to me, but the tone of the article
felt oddly erotic to me...

------
bickfordb
Alternatively, fire government workers who abuse their power or are
incompetent.

------
coofluence
Reminds me of "Darkness at Noon" by Arthur Koestler

------
thewarrior
As a muslim this makes me scared of ever going to the USA.

------
pknerd
Atleast someone should tell these guys how to read Dates!!

------
Tichy
I must admit the questions of the JetBlue assistant also made me wonder how
often they have problems with religious fanatics.

I don't envy the people on either side of that story.

------
zmonkeyz
Well i for one feel a lot safer now.

------
dutchbrit
Great read!

------
hello_some
Why is this story not as big as the Brazilian guy held at Heathrow? that was
for 'only' 9 hours!

~~~
_ainsoph_
Perhaps because that guy is the partner of the journalist that first revealed
all the things NSA has being doing

------
blisterpeanuts
Gosh, I feel safer already.

------
hello_some
The West becomes the East, East becomes West

------
fatjokes
> Don't Fly During Ramadan if you're brown

FTFY.

------
flippyhead
Good god!

------
corresation
It is a terrible ordeal, but for all of the other factors brought up the
critical factor is that he set off an explosion detector (and clearly it
doesn't get false positives often given the response they showed). Everything
else (about Ramadan, being Hindi, the color of one's skin, etc) may be nothing
more than decorations, and no one here knows what would happen if John Smith
Anglosaxon set off the same detector in the same situation.

Yes, they talked about Ramadan and his situation, and where the parking lot is
around his house, and none of this should be surprising to anyone. They're
using conversation to try to determine whether he's lying, gaps in his story,
nervousness, and so on. Any single person they talk to will get a conversation
that is individualized to the person. Reading too much into it may be
misleading.

This isn't intended to defend the TSA (universally reviled), or any of the
other agencies, but repeatedly setting off an explosion detector is 95% of
this story. The rest is just surrounding decorations.

~~~
steven777400
My bags have set off the explosives detector before, twice. (In both cases,
due a heart medication that apparently triggers false positives). I was not
taken into a back room or interrogated for hours. They searched me and my bags
in more detail, asked some questions, and concluded it must have been a false
positive. The experience took about 15 minutes each time.

This was a few years back, but I don't recall if it was post-9/11 or not. It
seems like even setting off a detector doesn't, alone, justify the extreme
reaction the authorities took in the author's case.

~~~
Tloewald
If you set off a gas chromatograph for nitroglycerine and then say you have
heart tablets then you'll be fine. He obviously set off a specific trigger AND
couldn't account for it (although they clearly tried to get him to).

Back in the 70s or 80s a group of friends in Britain were sentenced for
participating in a terrorist act because they set off an explosive test. They
spent years in prison before it was determined that it was a false positive
caused by the coating of a popular brand of playing card.

~~~
cdonnellytx
Too bad they couldn't even tell him what set it off, since he clearly did not
remember:

    
    
      "I can’t think of anything. What does it say is triggering the alarm?" I asked.
    
      "I’m not going to tell you! It’s right here on my sheet, but I don’t have to tell you what it is!" he exclaimed, pointing at his clipboard.
    
    

''EDIT: formatting''

~~~
Tloewald
Not letting him drink water or whatever is simply inhumane. Not giving him
information is simply a judgment call or policy decision. Perhaps it is
against policy to reveal which exact molecules their machines react to.

------
sunyl
bad day

------
pinaceae
Contrarian perspective: He fits a certain profile. Triggered a bunch of
attributes (address move, chemicals on him, etc.).

The 9/11 attackers walked through the scanners with knifes.

The Boston bombers were flagged, but still traveled freely.

After both attacks people were laughing at the stupidity of the enforcement
agencies, uselessness of the TSA, etc.

Here, the process worked.

His account is subjective, everyone else is an idiot, he's way smarter than
them, gets offended by simple questions about religion, etc. OK, good for him.
The more you push back, the more self righteous and arrogant you are during
security checks, the deeper you're digging yourself in. Those people are doing
their jobs. Same with how you should be treating waiters, etc.

JetBlue has the right to deny you a flight. ElAl does this all the time, incl.
racial profiling. Good security track record.

~~~
jlgreco
> _Here, the process worked._

So a false negative is it "not working" but a false positive _is_ it working?
How about no.

~~~
pinaceae
at the end they let him go. he triggered alarms, they checked, determined him
not a threat, let him go.

false positive would be him charged with terrorism.

~~~
jlgreco
That is an absurd redefinition of failure that serves no purpose but to make
the TSA look better.

If he _were_ charged you'd undoubtedly just redefine "false positive" to be
falsely _convicted_ , not 'merely' charged.

~~~
alexwright
And if convicted it would move onto "at least he wasn't summarily executed,
_he can appeal_ "

"The system working" here in the UK unfortunately can mean serving _only_ 16
years in prsion before a conviction is overturned:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Six](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Six)

    
    
        Relevent bit is under the Trail section:
        "On 12 May 1975 the six men were charged with murder and conspiracy to cause explosions."
        "Forensic scientist Dr Frank Skuse used positive Griess test results to claim that Hill and Power had handled explosives"

------
monsterix
Thank you for posting this. I was about to book a ticket on Jetblue for next
week but I am now decided not to fly with them or recommend them to anyone.

While we can fix private airlines and businesses for their stupid attitude
there is, of course, no way for people to fix NSA/TSA and all those inverted
bullshitters living on taxpayer's money.

~~~
gk1
Most airlines reserve the right to remove passengers from a flight if they
feel it is safer to do so. This happens all the time, and I'm sure from the
perspective of the expelled passenger it's always "unfair." I trust you will
follow your own principle and boycott every airline.

~~~
monsterix
For that matter every restaurant, home owner, bus driver, taxi, parkway,
condominium, hospital, school, university or business has the right to remove
a _person_ from their premises. That doesn't mean people do or have to do it
illustriously and then come back and say: we'll fly with you tomorrow - we'll
let you travel on our airline only tomorrow because you're not "safe" today.

When the TSA circus cleared the person in question there is absolutely no
reason for him to be prevented from travel.

> I trust you will follow your own principle and boycott every airline.

I hope you'll find someone who buys your ad hominem/bait elsewhere. On hacker
news you might want to read up the guidelines [1] on quality of discussions
and disagreements.

[1]
[http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
unz
People like to blame the US government for this, though I think the real
culprit is that often the dumber, more xenophobic members of society are
usually hired for these kinds of positions. As in the case of police
brutality, cameras need to be recording all encounters between travelers and
airport security, and extensive quality control performed. This is an issue
that is tarnishing the United States's reputation everywhere. Travelers are
often the elite from their respective countries and the US is digging itself
into a hole with this.

There's a big opportunity for startups to provide the backend for this quality
control. A hosted webapp that allows teams of inspectors to seamlessly
collaborate on monitoring the quality of TSA agents from anywhere.

~~~
seehafer
But who hires and tolerates the dumber, more xenophobic members of society for
these positions?

The biggest impediment to fixing or eliminating the TSA is that the decision
makers don't eat their own dogfood. If every Congressperson had to endure the
inhumane treatment that passes for airport security these days instead of
being whisked through VIP lines the TSA would be fixed within months.

~~~
unz
The thing is, senior people don't eat their dogfood in anything. The CEO of
Ford probably drives a Benz. What has worked in all industries is quality
control. Government has always had a problem in doing this (the DMV) but
that's where startups should step into to educate the politician that it's
good for both public and for the politician's future elections (using said
startup's product).

------
marccuban
This article has very little to do with Ramadan...Muslims don't fly more often
during Ramadan than the rest of the year, do they? 9/11 didn't happen during
Ramadan.

Take a look at this objectively.

A brown guy, traveling alone, tested positive for explosive residue while
going through a TSA checkpoint. After some brief questioning, they determined
that there was a 99% chance that he wasn't a terrorist.

How stupid would we as Americans have felt had we allowed someone to fly on
the same day as having a 1% chance that he was a terrorist?

~~~
bobsil1
"Traveling alone" = half the business travelers at the airport. "Brown" = most
of the world. "Explosive residue" = hand lotion or bug spray. "Brief
questioning" = 4 hours, ticket canceled, $700 new ticket cost and apartment
search.

This is racial profiling, straight up, and ineffective security. How about you
go through this and tell me it's all good.

I (of brown skin) was once taken aside INSIDE a jetway, after clearing all
security, and quizzed: how much cash was I carrying? Where did I go to school?
And this bizarre national origin totem: who won the World Series last year?
I'd have had a better chance of telling them what RSA stood for or who
Stallman was than baseball.

------
enupten
This is outrageous, aren't there laws to prevent people like him from speaking
about this! (That was sarcasm, by the way).

------
vithlani
LOL!

Don't be fooled by this post, the dude comes from a country where rape is a
regular no-comment thing.

Where a minister cost the exchequer $50 billion by giving away spectrum.

Where the state army regularly massacres its own citizens in the name of
progress (forced land seizures), citizens who have no political options and
have turned to Naxalism out of desperation.

Look, brown man travels for 10 years in the US and gets hassled once -- with
some justification it seems (the chemical tests came back positive). I can
guarantee that and average American travelling to India would face a much
harsher ordeal at the hands of the locals. Just ask any white woman tourist.

Yo...Aggrieved Bong! Karma is a bitch and somehow all the hassling of Whitey
when he is in Calcutta had to come around. In this case it landed on your ass.
Move along and stop pretending to be a hipster with your "virtual
corporations" and shit. Or would you prefer going back to the motherland and
working for Didi?

I for one would be happy to be subjected to such a process IF it also had the
effect of catching the REAL terrorists. The fact that it does not is the real
tragedy here.

------
o0-0o
This happened to me - because of incense. Specifically, the Nag Champa in the
Red box (not the blue box). It is super good stuff, but the machine does not
like it too much.

------
FridayWithJohn
I honestly used to think America was the best country in the world... but
lately I've been seeing more and more shocking things. Very sad indeed. I
would have been terrified if that happened to me.

------
diminoten
Oh man, I would _not_ handle that situation well. I'm quite sure I'd have
clammed up as soon as I found out I wasn't making my flight.

------
meapix
How did you remember all that stuff you wrote. The they said and you said.
Either you recorded, you had a pen and paper. Or this article is full of lies.

~~~
u2328
It's obviously meant as an approximation.

Look, you can believe it or not, but that's just your opinion. Everybody gets
to make up their mind for themselves.

~~~
meapix
approximation? dude, that's some serious business.

