Did The TSA and JetBlue Deny Travel For Looking Muslim During Ramadan? No - <AUTHOR> http://boardingarea.com/flyingwithfish/2013/08/26/did-the-tsa-jetblue-deny-travel-for-looking-muslim-during-ramadan-nope/ <comment><USER2> Sorry I am still taking his side.

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

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

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

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

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

I feel so safe now at your crowded checkpoints.

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

<comment><USER3> >Prove to me they didn't search his home without serving him a warrant and then we'll talk about the accuracy of this story.

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

<comment><USER4> Did you read the original article? If so re-read the very end of it to acquaint yourself with the evidence that his apartment was searched without a warrant.

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

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

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

<comment><USER5> It does not seem unreasonable to me to believe that someone (other than law enforcement) broke into his apartment and, finding it nearly empty, rifled through his suitcase, and took the picture simply out of anger.

None of us on here know exactly what happened but the above seems (to me) just as likely as law enforcement breaking into his apartment. I would think they would also visit the apartment/residence he was vacating.

<comment><USER4> It's certainly far from proof, but it is very disconcerting.

Let's go through the lines of evidence here.

First off, there were apparently no visible signs that anyone had broken into his apartment. If the FBI or the police had picked the lock or if they had gotten the super to let them in and told him or her to remain silent about it then that would explain such an absence. A thief could also pick the lock but why would they bother if it is so easy to simply break through the door?

Second, this seems like exceptionally odd timing for a random act of thievery.

Third, why would anyone except law enforcement bother to put everything back almost exactly where it was before?

The most logical conclusion that I can come to is that a law enforcement agent searched Mukerjee's apartment and probably took the photo so that it could be scanned or for some other reason but accidentally forgot to put it back. It's certainly not a very high degree of proof that such a thing happened but I think it's the most likely possibility, though it's mostly just a side-show compared to the other more troubling issues in this case.

<comment><USER6> > The most logical conclusion that I can come to is that a law enforcement > agent searched Mukerjee's apartment and probably took the photo so that it > could be scanned or for some other reason but accidentally forgot to put it > back.

Have you ever considered that his landlord could have come into the apartment to make sure it had been cleaned up properly by the outgoing tenants (remember, he had moved in the night before his trip). If the landlord had found a poster that had fallen off the wall, he may have thought it was trash left by the other tenants and thrown it away. His landlord would not have had to break in.

I don't think it's impossible that law enforcement searched his apartment; but if they had, wouldn't his bags have been unpacked, rather than just one of them a little out of place?

But really, why doesn't he just ask his landlord or super? If the police came, they probably would have asked the landlord to let them in. I mentioned the landlord idea on the previous thread, but he never responded.

<comment><USER7> > Have you ever considered that his landlord could have come into the > apartment to make sure it had been cleaned up properly by the outgoing > tenants

If that's legal in the US, or something one might expect, that's almost more shocking to me than the original story. If any of my past landlords had entered my flat without permission, I would have called the police on them, with good cause.

<comment><USER6> The laws in the US vary by state (and sometimes by city within the state).

He was living in NYC, so I'll quote their rules. From [http://pubadvocate.nyc.gov/landlord-watchlist/tenant- rights](http://pubadvocate.nyc.gov/landlord-watchlist/tenant-rights):

> In general in New York City, a landlord may only enter a tenant's apartment > for three reasons: emergency repairs, non-emergency repairs or improvements, > and apartment inspections. Emergency repair requires no advance notice to > the tenant. However, access for non-emergency repairs and improvements > requires a minimum of one week's advance written notice, and access for > inspection requires a minimum of 24 hours advance written notice.

If he was on vacation, then 24 hours written notice for inspection could consist of putting the notice on or under his door, waiting 24 hours, then going in for the inspection and removing the notice.

I've had my landlady enter my apartment without permission or notice before, and it was a little bit creepy, but I let it slide since she was such a nice lady. She wasn't some owner of a big apartment complex or anything, just had a second house down the street that she rented out, I think mostly so she could store all of the extra furniture she picked up at flea markets and couldn't fit into her own house. In fact, the reason she had entered our house was to stash a few lamps that she did't want her sister to sell at a yard sale, so we came back one day and there were extra lamps sitting around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This reeks of the most cowardly pandering to proto fascist mission creep I've read in a long time. I mean take these key quotes for instance:

>Mr. Mukerjee appears to have been flagged by the Behaviour Detection Officer (BDO)

>Mr. Mukerjee became verbally aggressive

>Mr. Mukerjee becoming further agitated and aggressive after testing positive for explosives, as well as him repeatedly reaching for his not-yet-manually- searched bag.

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

Flying Fish should feel ashamed.

<comment><USER9> I agree, it's easy to say that someone became verbally aggressive and agitated after the fact. It doesn't excuse poor treatment, and it's probably not even true, since it's a judgement call and impossible to disprove.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Mr. Mukerjee contends he asked to leave the screening area and return to the pre-security section of the terminal, with the intention of simply stepping back in line and going through screening again, but was not allowed. This is absolutely correct, at this time he was in limbo, he was not being detained, but he could not leave. A person cannot simply leave the security area of any airport once they are on the airside but have not satisfactorily completed screening. Once a person has passed through security, but is not cleared to fly and then chooses to leave, such as Mr. Mukerjee, s/he must be escorted out of the secure area (and usually the terminal)."

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>----

Deciding if I am detained: a rule of thumb.

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

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

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

<comment><USER11> But that's like saying, every time you are going through security in any airport, you are detained, because - you could not - if you so wanted, simply go back through security again. But you sort of opt-in for this when you fly; you know you are going to go through security and they won't let you leave unless you are cleared.

Edit: etchalon said it better.

<comment><USER12> It's not a question of "going back through security", re-entrance has nothing to do with it. Going to a concert where they don't stamp your hand when you go through the door doesn't make you "detained".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> How I hate these stenographer-to-the-powerful articles.

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

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

<comment><USER5> > And, naturally, he doesn't bother to follow up with the author of the blog > post he responded to.

FTA (the first paragraph, actually):

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

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

<comment><USER14> > Unless you mean that he should have shared with Aditya Mukerjee his > article/accusations/assumptions/whatever and allowed him to respond to or > rebut it prior to publishing it.

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

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In January of 2010, I was coming back from the Middle East and landed in JFK airport after a 20 hour flight. This was weeks after the underwear bombing incident and I was expecting heightened security. I went through the cotton swab test which came out to be positive and was detained for an hour at the airport. I complied with the TSA for any searches they wanted to do on me (I was tired and was frankly a little alarmed by the positive cotton swab test).

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

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

Edit: For the record, I am _not_ a citizen or permanent resident of the US (work visa).

<comment><USER16> With respect, I think you're accepting an unreasonably low standard of conduct on behalf of the TSA. Why _should_ you just accept "random" searches because of dark skin or arabic sounding name? (Even if 90% of terrorists are arabs, which isn't true, but even if it were, that still means that only 0.0001% of arabs are terrorists, which makes the whole racial profiling strategy not only bad morals, but also but operations). More importantly, what would happen if you asserted your rights, even to the smallest degree? What if you asked for an explanation of procedures before they're being performed, would the agents then qualify you as "aggressive"? What if you refused some procedures and asked to leave? What if you asked to call your lawyer?

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

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

<comment><USER15> I forgot to mention (now added), I am _not_ a US citizen or resident. I was pretty aware of the situation in the US before I consciously decided to come here for university and then remain for a job.

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

<comment><USER17> While I acknowledge that in practical terms you are sure to get more hassle for asserting your rights, they are still your rights.

Under the law you are subject to the same laws and privileges as any citizen - you are expected to obey our criminal laws while on US soil and you are also expected to have the same civil rights while here too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This story is told from a perspective that rather than being a right, flying and travel is a privilege awarded to those who satisfy the TSA

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

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

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

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

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

<comment><USER19> Flying is not even remotely a right.

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

<comment><USER19> Ah, yes, the downvote.

For pointing out the actual, you know, law.

<comment><USER17> You'll note that the government is inserted here, that Jetblue's determination that he couldn't fly was the result of government action. The government has a lot more rules about what it can't do to people than private business does.

<comment><USER19> As was noted in the article, JetBlue made that determination on their own. You can chose to believe the government told him no, but you'd be ignoring the stated facts in and just making shit up.

<comment><USER17> No, according to the second article they made their decision based on his state of mind after the government singled him out and messed with him. The government is directly responsible for that chain of events.

<comment><USER19> But not the decision not to let him fly.

That he was agitated after the his ordeal is understandable, but so was JetBlue's decision not to let him board a plane.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Mr. Mukerjee appears to have been flagged by the Behaviour Detection Officer > (BDO) while in line for what appeared to be unusual behaviours.

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

<comment><USER21> Every time people complain about the TSA and are asked how they _should_ do security people say they should evaluate the person - look for signs of nervousness and things like that.

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

<comment><USER22> Not sure why you're getting down voted--I remember seeing at least 2 articles go by in the last few years about the Israeli airport security.

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

<comment><USER17> The US version of behavior detection isn't even in the same league. The Israelis have guys on the other side of cameras who monitor people from the point before they get out of their cars. Their system is so comprehensive that it would be cost-infeasible to implement here. It also sucks to end up on the wrong end of, over the years there have been a few reports by people who have had that unpleasant experience too.

The TSA version is a guy walking around the terminal engaging people in conversation and looking for things like "micro-expressions." (which are themselves a farce)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Well, I can understand why he'd become "agitated" after being told his options were to leave without his bag or be subjected to an "obscene" screening.

Also, regarding:

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

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

<comment><USER24> Or that this random guy was able to conduct such a comprehensive search as to be able to conclude that no such documents exist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> > However,multiple statements by TSA personnel reference Mr. Mukerjee > repeatedly grabbing for his bag after he was told not to touch it. When > someone is acting unusual, alarms for explosives and then starts grabbing > for their bag against instruction by security personnel, security and law > enforcement pays attention.

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

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

<comment><USER26> And who ever grabs an EXPLOSIVE bag in the first place?

<comment><USER27> A suicide bomber with nothing to lose.

<comment><USER24> Who leaves an explosive bag within arms reach of the guy who set off the bomb detector? Man this is just too easy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Very often, on social networking sites, we hear the pieces of contradictory advice "don't talk to the police", "be polite and considerate to the police", and "assert your rights". These are pair-wise contradictory:

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

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

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

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

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

<comment><USER29> One can be respectful and still refuse,

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

Or even to the TSA,

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

<comment><USER28> The latter is not asserting any rights since you cannot permit them with 'you may search me' while simultaneously claim you are not consenting. 'You may search me' is consent.

The former exchange may be followed by:

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

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

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

<comment><USER29> It is letting folks know you may be asserting it after the fact and you aren't waiving your right. What you are doing is establishing that the search isn't voluntary and that your cooperation is not consent.

I don't know how different circuits would look at it. My understanding is that this would not be effective in the 5th and 11th circuits since they hold that you consent to searches when you get in line and you can't revoke that consent. But other circuits haven't gone that far. That means that if they want to hold the search as lawful, they have to establish that it is a valid administrative search, and that consent is not required.

It would be clearer if "you may" was replaced by "I am aware you may" clarifying that this is not permission but a statement of possibilities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> If you cannot leave, are you not detained?

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

<comment><USER31> This is complete bullshit. "Limbo" is not a thing. Either you are being detained, or you are free to leave.

<comment><USER21> No, there's a third option: You will be free to leave after some defined event occurs.

<comment><USER32> Does this "defined event" actually have any legal status? How long can it take until the defined event occurs? It's possible that this is an intentionally murky area of the law (i.e., a judge can decide that preventing a person from leaving for an hour in case X is okay but 1 minute in case Y is not). Even so, it seems like if there's a person in front of you with legal authority to let you out of a secured area and you are asking them to let you out, then either they have to let you out or you are being detained.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> "Mr. Mukerjee appears to have been flagged by the Behaviour Detection Officer (BDO) while in line for what appeared to be unusual behaviours. [...] it is impossible to assess what caught the Officer's attention, but the TSA source indicates Mr. Mukerjee was already on someone's radar before he chose to opt- out."

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

<comment><USER34> I call foul on behavioral detection.

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

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

<comment><USER35> Israel has been doing behavior profiling beginning at the moment you get out of your car at the airport, and run one of the most secure airports in the world. Even though the word profiling has a bad connotation in the USA, it works.

[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2011/01/whats_so_great_about_israeli_security.html)

<comment><USER34> Supposedly the Patriot Missile was protecting Israel during the first Gulf War, but there are as far as I know zero confirmed hits (IIRC the Pentagon generously thinks that a few scuds were deflected, but Israel thinks otherwise).

The point is that just because a program is thought of as 'famously effective' doesn't mean it actually is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Somebody got aggressive after being detained for hours on end and having their flight cancelled, at expense? Holy shit! Pack your bags, men: we found ourselves a terrorist.

<comment><USER24> When you say aggressive, make sure to specify that you mean some blogger paraphrased an anonymous unsourced person claiming a month after the fact that the guy was aggressive with no supporting evidence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> > I know many people want to believe in TSA and national security > conspiracies. The idea of a government collective creating a single story to > keep one person down is intriguing. People will believe what they want,

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

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

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

<comment><USER13> I'm pretty sure I know what "airline emerging media consultant" means: [http://socialmediadouchebag.net/](http://socialmediadouchebag.net/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> The biggest problem with the story is the INSTITUTIONALIZED FEAR. From the account, you could tell just about every agent after the first was wondering who was wasting their time. That's why they kept going back to the test that failed (he didn't leave the room, so why would they get a different result... Institutional insanity)

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

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

</comment><comment><USER39> "I know many people want to believe in TSA and national security conspiracies."

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

<comment><USER13> Absolutely. Conspiracy is unnecessary. I hear nothing about the TSA that can't be explained through bureaucracy, politics, and the Stanford prison experiment: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Flagged due to behavioral traits, seen to exhibit assertive behavior, ratted out by a robotic terrorist detector, etc. These are not good reasons to detain someone for an extended period and to deny them the ability to travel. These are the hallmarks of a society slipping into statism and subjugation.

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

Nowhere to be seen here.

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

</comment><comment><USER40> I know it won't happen, but I wish this blog post would go as viral as the original. Not that I accept this post as the complete truth, but because people deserve to hear two sides of the story. Often times all people will hear is the accusations of something like this and accept it as fact and the eventual acquittals (or explanations) never get as much publicity. Like Mark Twain said "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."

<comment><USER41> I agree, but perhaps for different reasons. The authoritarian-apologist doublespeak it's full of is even more damning than the original story.

<comment><USER42> Agreed. I'm upvoting because everyone is calling out the author on his bias and BS.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Release the gate security video and we can make our own determinations.

</comment><comment><USER44> whether it was blogged about or not, it seems like this author obtaining and reporting so much internal detail about this incident is an incident unto itself.

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

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

<comment><USER45> I popped his name into google to see what else he did. Judging from the autocomplete he appears to have pissed off some people previously.

<comment><USER13> Holy crap! There is even a blog where somebody disgruntled chronicles all his alleged misdeeds: [http://fishfraud.blogspot.com/](http://fishfraud.blogspot.com/)

Some articles that caught my eye: [http://fishfraud.blogspot.com/p/about- fishfraud.html](http://fishfraud.blogspot.com/p/about-fishfraud.html) [http://fishfraud.blogspot.com/2010/11/projectweddingcom- revi...](http://fishfraud.blogspot.com/2010/11/projectweddingcom-reviews.html) [http://fishfraud.blogspot.com/2010/11/warning-to-national- me...](http://fishfraud.blogspot.com/2010/11/warning-to-national-media- regarding.html) [http://fishfraud.blogspot.com/2010/11/steven-frischling- in-c...](http://fishfraud.blogspot.com/2010/11/steven-frischling-in-ct-small- claims.html) [http://fishfraud.blogspot.com/2010/11/yelpcom-reviews-in- all...](http://fishfraud.blogspot.com/2010/11/yelpcom-reviews-in-all-their- glory.htmlhttp://fishfraud.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-article-on-frischlings- arrest.html)

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

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

<comment><USER46> Good work.

Great claims require great evidence. It could be a jilted lover or frmr business partner.... Who knows. Are there any public records which support this counter-blogger's claims?

The other thought is: does the original blogger have any hard evidence beyond nitpicking and counter-claims provided by JetBlue to trash our traveler?

<comment><USER13> There are public records about how many times the guy has been sued that are linked. And the news articles about the fraud case seem real enough.

<comment><USER46> Second link from the bottom. I looked around at the others but didn't see much support material.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> As someone who has spent the Summer living on the same floor as Mr. Mukerjee and interacting with him often, I find it very hard to believe that he was overly aggressive at the security gate. This account seems wildly exaggerated.

<comment><USER48> I don't know Mr. Mukerjee personally but I've attended a few meetups where he gave a technical talk and he's always been very mild mannered and approachable. I just can't take this article seriously.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> What I want to know is how he got access to the reports from all these agencies and interviews from many individuals involved with this incident. Isn't that information privileged? Did he have to file a FOIA request like morisy[0]? You want me to believe he tracked down all these documents and the very people involved in this incident in four days? Government bureaucracy works that efficiently? Who is this guy?

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

</comment><comment><USER50> "After he was grilled for three hours by a dozen different officials, he got the time wrong by 20 minutes! He's definitely unreliable!"

<comment><USER51> Reminds me of a scene from a West Wing episode in which the lesson is that good press control means not over-reacting to small points like this.

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

      SAM
      Yes, I hired the guy, but that's not... Legitimate news organizations are going to cover
      this to say nothing of the people who hate us who are going to run it over, over, over,
      over, over...This guy was here for three minutes and he was fired. He is not credible.
      I'm a lawyer, I'm telling you. That has to be made clear. Every time he makes a factual
      mistake we got to come out with a press release. Every time he misquotes or misidentifies
      anyone we need to have an affidavit swearing to the truth. If there's a comma in the
      wrong place he needs to be killed until he is dead and he needs to be killed again or
      he is going to keep biting at our ankles and I mean all through the campaign. He needs
      to be a joke, or we're going to be.

      C.J.
      [snapping fingers rhythmically] Boy, boy, crazy boy. Keep cool, boy...

      SAM
      I'm not screwing around.

      C.J.
      Me neither. Sit down.

      SAM
      I'm not going to be a victim of this.

      C.J.
      Let me tell you something I've learned in my years. There are victims of fires. There
      are victims of car accidents. This kind of thing, there are no victims--just volunteers.
      Of course we'll get in the game. I'll talk to the editors of the major papers but we're
      not going to publicly refute every bogus charge. First of all, there are too many of them.
      Second of all, I'm not going to give this guy and his book the weight of the White House.
      As far as the press is concerned I've read the book because I had to. You have a vague
      recollection of the guy but he wasn't here long enough to make a lasting impression.
      Have you read the book? Of course not. You're too busy doing a job.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> if the TSA want to screw you, you are screwed Period

please read yesterdays post Detained in the US for "Visiting Thailand Too Much" [http://www.richardbarrow.com/2013/08/detained-in-the-us- for-...](http://www.richardbarrow.com/2013/08/detained-in-the-us-for-visiting- thailand-too-much/) discussion [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6276939](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6276939)

read the last couple of sentences

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

edit: removed the context about pirated goods

<comment><USER53> So... purchasing goods abroad which are illegal in the US, and then trying to import them into the US, may result in those goods being confiscated and you being made to pay a fine?

This is unprecedented in the history of everything!

<comment><USER52> hope you have read the article [http://varnull.adityamukerjee.net/post/59021412512/dont- fly-...](http://varnull.adityamukerjee.net/post/59021412512/dont-fly-during- ramadan)

TSA Officer "You can leave, but I'm keeping your bag."

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

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

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin- america-23750289](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23750289)

<comment><USER53> Quoting your comment, to which I was replying:

 _" Be careful about what you have on your laptop and memory card in your camera. They could search everything. The pictures of your kids taking a bath maybe interpreted in a different way by immigration officers. The same goes for buying fake goods or pirated DVDs while on holiday in Thailand. Many people have said that in America and Europe these items have been confiscated and they were given a big fine. It's not worth it so don't buy any fake goods while on holiday in Thailand. And don't copy any pirated movies onto your laptop. And certainly don't buy any porno DVDs here in Thailand to take home. You have been warned. Don't take this lightly."_

If your intent was to bait-and-switch from "trying to bring pirated DVDs from Thailand gets you in trouble" (obvious) into this, perhaps you should have been less obvious about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Airport security is frequently humiliating. I myself have been nearly reduced to tears just by customs agents when crossing the border on business. However, this man set off a bomb detector. He set of the machine that detects bombs, repeatedly. After that event, nothing Mr. Mukerjee reported is particularly surprising, and I would expect to have a similar experience if I set off the same detector. I don't believe his race had nearly as much of an effect on his experience as is believed.

<comment><USER55> The problem here is that he was pre-selected by the Behaviour Detection Officer (BDO) while in line and then the TSA claimed he rang their bell for explosives.

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

<comment><USER56> There is ample evidence that local, county, and state law enforcement will trigger false positives to provide justification for searches. This behaviour by law enforcements makes me believe it plausible that the TSA and other "Agents" And "Officers" (I thought TSA were still neither) orchestrated all this to incite behavior they could use to justify further investigation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I filed a FOIA request, as the author suggested:

[https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of- america-10/tsa...](https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of- america-10/tsa-incident-response-reports-regarding-aditya-mukerjee-6558/)

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

[https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of- america-10/sec...](https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of- america-10/security-incident-reports-from-jfk-airport-august-5-6559/)

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

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm glad to see this posted, if only to provide another perspective.

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

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

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

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

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

<comment><USER58> The agents should be trained not only to look for something, but to handle false positives - which given how few terrorists are out there would be the vast majority of cases they will ever encounter. Moreover, for a random TSA agent false positives are probably _all_ he'd ever encounter. Unlike the police, TSA deals in vastly overwhelming majority with innocent people who they are meant to _protect_ , not harass. They are trained to look for very rare exceptions, but they must know these exceptions are very rare and most their suspicions will be proven unfounded.

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

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

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

<comment><USER19> Because the "abuse" in this case was utterly reasonable given the circumstances and the person's behavior.

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

<comment><USER58> How is it reasonable? They knew or should have known he's not a terrorist in first 15 minutes. What were they doing for three and a half hours? Why did they ask him about praying and problems with female attendants and such?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> > The Department of Homeland Security simply is not organized enough to create > one collaborative story.

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

</comment><comment><USER60> This is gripping reading for me, because "Mr. Mukerjee" is someone I know by first name, indeed nickname, even though I have never met him. (He was my son's roommate for most of the last year, and was the crucial connection for my son getting his job in New York City.)

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

[http://varnull.adityamukerjee.net/post/59021412512/dont- fly-...](http://varnull.adityamukerjee.net/post/59021412512/dont-fly-during- ramadan)

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

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

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

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

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

[http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/dhs-threatens- blogg...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/dhs-threatens-blogger/)

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

<comment><USER61> > _Asserting my rights is not something the system makes easy to do, EVEN FOR > A LAWYER, once the situational triggers of law-enforcement occur_

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

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

<comment><USER62> >Until these agencies stop externalizing their damages to the public, they have no reason to lower their false positive rate.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Well of course the ordeal seems perfectly justified when one repeats the useless bureaucratic procedure at every turn. There was clearly _some_ reasons that these events happened, and that is the whole fucking problem.

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

</comment><comment><USER63> The "Fishiest" part of this response is how many people he was able to interview about exactly what happened, and the speed at which he was able to get source interviews.

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

It didn't happen.

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

</comment><comment><USER64> Your not making your case at all. It's like saying "yeah we violated his rights, but we had our reasons" if the whole world ran on the reasoning of one person or organization it's usually considered authoritarian. Which is exactly what's happening in the US

</comment><comment><USER65> How did this get voted to the top of HackerNews? It's shoddy journalism and less credible than the blog post it critiques.

<comment><USER66> Upvotes are not just "likes", but it is about bringing this discussion to the top.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> "Mr. Mukerjee refused additional screening"

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

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

That is completely unacceptable.

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

</comment><comment><USER68> I have a hard time taking this article seriously. All the references to anonymous sources with important-sounding titles just smacks of an argument based on an appeal to authority.

</comment><comment><USER69> Chiming in late here:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

</comment><comment><USER70> As a testament to maybe how we've come already I find myself believing Mr. Mukerjee story and that the TSA, PA, and various officials are just covering their collective aXXes.

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

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

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

Edit: Spelling.

</comment><comment><USER71> "Passenger was acting aggressively" sounds like something the TSA would say to justify holding him for three hours.

<comment><USER56> It's complete doublespeak horseshit.

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

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

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Relevant (from his own bio):

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

</comment><comment><USER73> A "highly agitated demeanor" is EXTREMELY APPROPRIATE when TSA goons have denied you food and water and you're late to board a flight and these nitwits are preventing you from traveling to meet your family for no reason other than a hunch and a false-positive test reading on a test that's not worth doing. (My bags also often generate a positive result on these tests - the chance of a positive result being meaningful is so vanishingly small as to make the test pointless - it's security theater.)

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

It is REALLY HARD to defend one's rights against the morons of the TSA without getting angry at them. Any interaction with them raises blood pressure. If anything, it ought to be deemed "suspicious" if somebody _doesn 't_ get "agitated" when their trip is pointlessly interrupted by TSA agents demanding you bow and scrape before their authority.

</comment><comment><USER74> This is the entirety of the response to the incidents mentioned in the Blog post. Even though this is being routed via some semi-anonymous blogger, this is the Official TSA speaking.

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

Figures.

</comment><comment><USER26> Why does "keeping in mind that false positives with ETD are not uncommon" sound unsettling to me?

<comment><USER75> If you've got a better way to distinguish trace amounts of explosive chemicals, i'm sure they'd love to pay you millions for machines to test it :) [http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/tcrp/tcrp_rpt_86v6.pdf](http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/tcrp/tcrp_rpt_86v6.pdf) looks relavent here.

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

I'd classify that as "not uncommon".

<comment><USER73> > Completely skimming it, the test sites had false positive rates of 0.6 - > 1.8%.

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

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

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

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

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

<comment><USER69> Just a nit: a high false positive rate makes the test _operationally expensive_ , but not _useless_.

<comment><USER73> It's not just the high false positive rate, it's the _combination_ of a high false positive rate with a really low base rate. (If there were a lot more terrorists, the test might be worth doing!)

The _combination_ of those two facts means that getting a hit on explosives gives you _almost no increase in information_. Any look at plausible numbers makes the test nearly useless at _finding_ explosives, though it's still at least theoretically possible the test could serve as a sort of _deterrent_ , albeit primarily a deterrent against movie-plot threats.

My guess is that the true purpose of this test is to make the people who sell explosives-testing equipment comfortably well off. Any other purpose would be served roughly as well with a box that triggered based on random number selection.

<comment><USER69> I am extremely, bitterly familiar with the base rate fallacy (I was an intrusion detection researcher, and spend 4+ years working on statistical anomaly detection the Internet backbone).

The fallacy doesn't make a value judgement. It points out something counterintuitive about the accuracy of a filter or test. That thing is important, but not dispositive. If the base rate is low and the false positive rate is percentagewise high but the overall number of hits is manageable, low- power statistical tests can have utility as pre-filters.

I have the same thought every time I go through airport security ("whoever designed this probably doesn't know about the base rate fallacy"), but if the system is only ejecting 1-2 candidates per station per hour for expensive "offline" screening, it's not untenable.

<comment><USER73> It's not untenable in the sense that it's possible to get that amount of work done, but that doesn't make it worth doing. TSA is fundamentally trying to solve an unsolvable problem. No matter how many resources they throw at it, there will always be ways to evade their checks. A _smart_ terrorist will find a way to get through undetected, find a way to avoid the check entirely (say, by bribing a TSA employee or airport employee), or will just bomb the next available target of opportunity - perhaps the security line itself. There is simply no plausible scenario in which the TSA's checks actually _prevent_ terrorism.

(Yes, one could postulate _really stupid_ terrorists who somehow don't realize they'll get caught going through security, but terrorists who are _that_ stupid are likely to have their plans fail without the TSA's help. See also: the shoe bomber.)

<comment><USER69> Don't get me wrong: I think the whole enterprise of airport security is a farce.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Most of this post seems to be semantic. Aggressive versus perhaps irritated. A Homeland Security Special Agent versus what he may be recalling as an FBI agent, or Port Police versus local Police. I think the only really divergent point is the apartment search. Either he made that up, or it happened and it was covered up.

</comment><comment><USER77> > Not just safe from terrorism, but safe from people who may be belligerent to > staff, who may be loud and disruptive, someone who may not be fully in > control of their emotions and their judgment call is the final word on > whether or not a passenger boards a flight.

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

</comment><comment><USER78> Tl;dr: Airline consultant writes long justification for bad air travel experience.

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

</comment><comment><USER79> I don't mean to be too meta, but did anyone else notice this article dropping from #1 to #19 in a matter of minutes? It feels like one of the powers that be is trying to censor the article. I know that the ranking algorithm isn't directly tied to points and time, but there's an article an hour older with only 31 points (vs over 130) that's in position 5: [http://i.imgur.com/RBLM2K7.png](http://i.imgur.com/RBLM2K7.png).

<comment><USER13> There is also flagging, which allows people to artificially force articles down.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Who cares? I thought his blog post was written as a realistic fiction short story (he had way too many exact quotes and precise descriptions for it to be believed as some accurate retelling). Can we just appreciate it on a literary level? He's a great writer.

</comment><comment><USER81> They should require putting cameras/microphones on all TSA employees and in all TSA inspection/interrogation rooms. I for one would pay an extra $5 per flight to pay for this. Put the review of all of this footage in the hands of an accountability/oversight agency to review whenever there is a complaint, also make the footage available on request to the public.

</comment><comment><USER82> Insert Michael Jackson eating popcorn gif here</comment>


Lrn – Learn to code at your convenience - <AUTHOR> http://lrnapp.com

<comment><USER2> [http://www.producthunt.com/tech/lrn](http://www.producthunt.com/tech/lrn)

Wanted to share the PH link also, we just launched this morning!</comment>


Available .io domains of high frequency words - <AUTHOR> http://iodomains.nickmcnutt.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm... I thought this would be a little more viewed. This site got a decent amount of attention a while ago on here <http://www.coreyballou.com/five- character-domain-names>

Are .io domain names not as popular as I was thinking? Should I add the ability to search .com as well?</comment>


Show HN: Connect your redux app to an API without the pain - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kayak/redux-superapi <comment><AUTHOR> Found alternative libraries unnecessarily complex. This one is based on the Axios promise library and does the strict minimum -- most functionality can be achieved simply by passing extra parameters on to Axios.</comment>


Ask HN: What am I doing wrong here? (PR/Marketing an app) - <AUTHOR> Bit of a head-scratcher here.
I run a social news site for Chicago over at WindyCitizen.com.  Since a massive redesign back in January, I've seen its traffic, activity, and influence grow steadily.
Problem: I've been really successful so far in working WITH the local media.  But completely unsuccessful in getting any coverage FROM the local media that I could show to advertisers to let them know we're legit.  I knew it would be tough to launch something aimed at a market without a "Techcrunch" to speak to early adopters, but this is getting ridiculous.
Here's what I mean:
1. I've hammered out partnerships to have our submission/voting buttons on the local alt. weekly site and all major local blogs. This was a nontrivial feat.
2. The local CBS affiliate has added our top stories widget to its site.  Also nontrivial.
3. Journalists from every local publication have glommed on to us and are posting their stories to the Citizen on a daily basis.  Of our 2000 members, I estimate we have at least 50 Chicago journalists among them, including editors and deputy editors who are posting stories and leaving comments on our site on a regular basis.
4. Last month we had over 4000 stories and events posted and reached about 80,000 people.
So these journalists are all using the Citizen and these publications all want our traffic (because it's local), but no one's ever run a "hey, check out this cool site!" story on us.
I'm beginning to think the statute of limitations for that happening is running out.
I've also had zero luck getting coverage from tech blogs.  I've assumed that's because the site's aimed at Chicago.
I think part of my problem is that I have a background in journalism.  The idea of aggressively wining and dining reporters at local papers, courting them and calling them up all the time to tell them what's new is pretty gross to me.  I e-mail a good number of folks when we have news and have made friends with a lot of local media, but no dice on the coverage front.  It's very humbling.
Clearly, I'm doing something wrong here.  What? <comment><USER2> I don't know that I would even _want_ coverage from Techcrunch, for either myself or you. It warps your perception of what provides value and what your goals are. For example, you might spend months worrying about getting featured by fickle tech publications when you could be providing news to Chicagoans.

It is wonderful that you've got a site which journalists are using as self- promotion engines. Now you have to figure out a way to get their core use of the site to be a you-promotion engine. The traditional way to do that in journalism is original reporting, which means they have to cite you. They probably won't appreciate that -- you'd be competing with them, after all.

On the other hand, if you had some sort of scoreboard of the most influential reporters in Chicago, I guarantee you they would fall over themselves to cite _that_ , particularly for the ones who ended up winning.

(Note that this puts them in exactly the position you are vis-a-vis Techcrunch right now. "Dang, if they would only cover me I'd finally get the respect I deserve from my editor! Please cover me! I wonder why he won't cover me? Is it something I said? Can I call him or would that be forward?" I know which side of the unrequited obsession I'd prefer to be on.)

Tell me, Windy Citizen, who is the most influential columnist in Chicago right now? You are, after all, the paper of record for the papers of record. You can take a page out of your customers' books and give them a nice little plaque (or badge for their site, focused again on promoting them, not you) for it if you want -- is there a single hotdog stand in Chicago which does not have a "Voted Best Chicago Hot Dog 1992 by the Reader" in it?

Ideally you'd be using the highly competitive journalistic impulses to provide more, better news to Chicagoans rather than just playing inside baseball with local media.

<comment><USER3> Exactly.

People will always promote themselves.

Give them a page like _windycitizen.com/username_ to aggregate their stuff and they will start promoting that page.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have that.....but the profile pages need an overhaul to look more Twitter- ish I think. Good to hear someone else agrees. Thanks.

Example: <http://www.windycitizen.com/kristenthometz>

<comment><USER4> I like the way it works now. But I like the ranking idea a lot-- giving awards to top journalistic reporting.

You could even have a People's Choice voting for different areas each year and perhaps those journals/editorials/etc will ask people to come to your site to vote for their paper/publication.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You need a more compelling story. "Cool new website" isn't a story that works on traditional media. Try to find a way that the Windy Citizen is helping the people of Chicago's real lives.

Consider these headlines:

Local Website Rallies Community In Search For Missing Boy

Mayoral Scandal Galvanizes Citizens Against Corruption

School Redistricting Plan Draws Fervor, Online and Off

All of these stories could be largely or entirely about WindyCitizen.com, but are interesting to a larger demographic.

Once you've found your story, write the article yourself, then break it down into bullet points, anecdotes, facts, and statistics to send to reporters. Writing this article should be as easy for them as paraphrasing a Wikipedia page.

Be direct in your request, and make sure they know that other news outlets are interested in the story. Local news won't want to miss anything their competitors will be covering, even if its a dog show.

Good Luck!

</comment><comment><USER6> A few ideas:

\- Find a local journalist that does mainstream-tech stories (i.e. the guy that wrote the "Facebook owns your photos" story about half a year ago), and pitch your site as a sort of Facebook for Chicagoans (-ians? -ers? -aks?)

\- Make yourself the story. Pitch how you put you career and your home on the line (or whatever you did, but dramatize it. Whatever it was, it wasn't a few boring sunday afternoons and evenings, it was _hard_ ) to bring relevant local news and commentary to the people of Chicago, and get a human interest story. Maybe a morning TV show?

\- Swallow your pride. You colleagues make a good salary drowning you in shallow, cute stories, that's mostly copy-pasted anyway. Make them make one of them about you.

</comment><comment><USER7> First off, congrats on building a site that a lot of people use and respect. I've definitely heard of it and I'm not from Chicago, so it must have gotten coverage _somewhere._

The first question is probably a dumb one: Have you actually asked any of the journalists you work with to get you some coverage?

Also, you may have some success following up with the many reporters and bloggers who are covering the whole "new journalism" and "death of newspapers" beat. Talk to Dave Winer (<http://www.scripting.com>).

You're in Chicago. Do you have any contacts at Medill? Reach out to them and do a partnership ... you should definitely get some coverage that way.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. You've probably heard about me on Hacker News. I post here way too often.

A few notes:

1\. I've asked a few times, and sent out press releases now and then. It's an intellectual challenge though for me to pitch people I consider my friends. Frankly, I think it's unethical and it puts them in a really tough spot where I'm just another person asking them to write about them.

2\. Funny you should mention those cats. I've sent a few of those guys updates on a regular basis over the last 16 months, after all, I'm trying something new and seeing some results, but I've never heard back from any of them. I've not tried Mr. Winer and will send him a note, but I've grown pretty skeptical as to whether the "death of newspaper" guys are actually interested in new ideas, or just ideas that conform to their own. Part of the reason I spend so much time on Hacker News is because the journalism community isn't so interested in startups, but in saving their existing brands in my opinion. I don't really fit into that. I've got more in common with the Bingo Card guy then with someone starting a non-profit news organization supported by rich friends of his and foundations.

3\. I went to Medill and consult for them on occasion. For this reason, they've more or less said their student reporters can't write about me, though I guess I made the alumni magazine this month (LOL). The school's had me in to speak to students pretty regularly, which has been a great source of interns.

<comment><USER8> Try some more to get a story in the Northwestern paper (or UChicago, UIC, etc.). You probably know some people who go there--get them to contact their friends who work at the paper.

I've seen lots of stories that originally got picked up by college newspapers and then appeared in the NYT, SJ Mercury News, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hm. Well, the domain/site name is fantastic. But I don't feel any attraction to the place; it's like Digg with a filter that the stories have to mention Chicago. There is no consistency. The top 10 items go from sport, political gossip, and food reviews to tech CEO arrests and an article about an upcoming museum exhibit. Is there anyone who would be interested in more than one of those things? Who is the target user? There is no focus; it's just random noise to me.

I have one suggestion, even if it's a bit evil: decide the kind of articles your target user is interested in, and then once in a while, go in and vote the crap out of them. Yes it's cheating. But you need momentum and you need to create a positive feedback loop. Seeing a whole page of near-random articles all with 3 or 4 votes is a turn-off and a self-fulfilling prophecy.

<comment><USER10> Instead of cheating, maybe an "Editor's pick" above the number 1 would do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> You won't get actual users by having TC write about how "you're a cool website." That's not what you want. Why? Because there's no real value there. The real value is to be found in stories where The Windy Citizen's name is attached. Let me explain. If I was someone interested in Chicago news and was reading a blog post or an article in the newspaper and read "Windycitizen.com broke the story about the government scandal," I would either consciously or subconsciously realize that Windycitizen.com is something of value. They broke the story that I read. The traffic you'll get from this sort of marketing will be slower and more gradual, sure, but it'll be REAL traffic, not a traffic spike from TC because they said you were cool. Also, a site like Digg got its initial traffic because of Kevin Rose's celebrity. You don't have that, so don't look at Digg, if you are, as a metric since you two seem to be user generated social news sites.

As to actual marketing tactics, you need to create a story. Support a cause that stirs up lots of emotions. 'Support Protest Against Blah - Upvote!' Be known as the site that rallied individuals for a specific cause. If you can generate enough buzz about that, local blogs and even national outlets will write about you, not as a cool site, but as the site that helped facilitate a specific situation. Create a specific story.

Also, I'm not quite sure why you're after press from TC, or national/global press in general. It would seem that the traffic you'd get from them would be of no worth as someone like me in southern California wouldn't be at all interested in Chicago news.

<comment><AUTHOR> These are all good points. I never said I want TC coverage, just that I'm in a space where there is no TC, i.e. a relevant site that can send me lots of relevant traffic and that isn't afraid to link to me. People like to gripe about TC all the time, but it's done a lot of people a lot of good.

Your points about having a story are well-taken, too.

The reason why I'd like some coverage is because I spend my days calling up local businesses to talk about sponsoring us. None of them have heard of us. They don't care how many readers I have or don't have. If they haven't heard of me, it's not something they're interested in. Getting a write-up in the press would give me something to point to in that regard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> That's not a headscratcher. Get into their heads and ask yourself, "Why would I write/report on these guys?" I can think of one HUGE reason why you wouldn't-- because it's a better source of news with a bunch of links to stories from OTHER news entities. You don't see people reporting on Google News except to say how evil and unfair they are. Not many news outlets do the "hey look, it's a great new way to get news!" stories on Google News.

If you want legitimacy, I'd do this. Create a "submit this" widget for your site and promote it to the news folks using your site. Add a "Leading Chicago News Outlets" block somewhere on your site (prominently for now, you can fade it away later) and say you'll give people who install that widget placement in that block. Send any "partner" site who installs the widget a weekly report of the traffic you're sending them.

Then, when you talk with advertisers, call these people your "news partners" and describe the widget relationship. It'll seem pretty legit. Toss in a anchor link to your site within the widget code (outside of any javascript) with the right anchor text ("Chicago News") and you'll rank #1 for the search phrase chicago news before you know it (bonus!).

</comment><comment><USER13> Don't know what you're doing wrong (if anything), but a suggestion:

1\. As a journalist, think back to the stories that were compelling to you, that you wanted to write about, that you knew were the great, newsworthy stories, professionally.

2\. Next, find a story like that, _that WindyCitizen is somehow an essential part of it_. (it's great if WC can be the centre of the story, but it doesn't sound like you are there yet; instead, make it part of the story. Also, choose a story that you would want to be associated with, that puts WC in a role that you want it to have).

3\. Now, write up that story, and give it to your journalists. This basically a press release, and it saves journalists a lot of time _if it really is a genuinely newsworthy story_. That is, do their work for them.

(If you haven't already done this, it means either that I am totally off- base.... or that you are simply too close to the business to see it from an outsider's point of view.)

</comment><comment><USER14> Just a few ideas off the top of my head, have you tried submitting to masshable, I sent one email and got covered. Traffic was nice, but did die down, but the amount of people that recycle(copy) thier posts has a nice trailing effect. They are more keen to mention sites with more 'social' aspects.

Have you tried getting onto nbc5 news segments were they talk about websites, I forget what they call it, but I think that might be something worthwhile because it could open your site up to new audience of people who don't read the tech blog and people who consume more tradional media.

Either way greetings from the suburbs and keep the good work up!

</comment><comment><USER15> Maybe because you're competition (either real or perceived)? Local media doesn't typically cover other local media in a positive light.

<comment><AUTHOR> This isn't local media. It's a web site that lets people share and rate neat local stuff.

This was why I went the social news route. My first idea was a local blog network. I realized that would never get covered, so I went with something that would help and be useful to local news orgs so we could have partnerships like the ones I mentioned.

We're no more competition than Twitter of Facebook is.

<comment><USER16> > We're no more competition than Twitter of Facebook is.

If you're running advertising or have viewers, you're competition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I didn't find the essay on a quick google but I remember a classic pg discussion that hiring a publicist was their best investment. Largest expensive also, but the right one knows how to get the mentions in the media. But don't worry about competition, traditional journalists will happily dig their own grave for another byline.

</comment><comment><USER18> This might or might not help you, but I think Chris Brogan might appreciate your thoughts on his latest post, [http://www.chrisbrogan.com/wiring-a-city- and-the-internet-of...](http://www.chrisbrogan.com/wiring-a-city-and-the- internet-of-place/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Just left a comment on his post. Thanks!

<comment><USER18> Double-posted

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm. Odd. I blame Discus. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Splash a convincing photoshopped picture of Mayor Daley having sex with Mrs. Blagojevich across your front page. Problem solved.

<comment><AUTHOR> Have you seen our Daily Daley blog? <http://dailydaley.windycitizen.com>

Enjoy!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Did you ask any of them to write about you?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have, yes. Though I've tried not to be annoying about it because I see these people fairly often and they post their stories to the site pretty frequently. I can't stand people trying to sell me stuff every time I see them. I don't want to be that guy. Again, maybe this is the problem.

<comment><USER21> Is your story actually interesting? I know in New Orleans, local successes make the news all the time because there is an interesting story to back it up. If your pitch is just that you made a website about Chicago and not much more, it wouldn't interest me much either.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question.

So back in April, I was running out of cash after an advertiser bailed on a payment. I appealed to our members to chip in and become Micropatrons a la Kottke.org, and they sent me $1200 in 10s and 20s in about 48 hours. I was stunned. That's also when I realized that I had something that some people were really jazzed about.

I wrote my "story" out here for that effort: <http://www.windycitizen.com/sponsors/micropatron> If you're bored at work, give it a look and tell me if you think it's interesting or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Your site has to become cool before anyone is going to bother reporting on it. You don't get automatic reporter points just because you feel strongly that you should, or even because you work hard at it. As it stands, your site is Yet Another Portal or News Aggregator or whatever and it's just not a particularly compelling... thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Duly noted. This sort of reaction is helpful. Of course I think what I'm doing is unique (first local social news site), but if others don't get that from a quick visit, or they think that's a pretty "meh" idea, then that's good to hear.

<comment><USER23> Take a look at EveryBlock.com. They do a lot of location-specific stuff right. Might be some concepts you could adopt for your site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Everyblock's a great site, but they're addressing a different problem in a different way. They're scraping rather than letting people post to the site, and they're not interested in what's interesting in Chicago, but what's happening near you. It's a little different. My goal with the Citizen is to have a front page that represents everything you should read right now to know what's cool and relevant in Chicago.

<comment><USER16> > My goal with the Citizen is to have a front page that represents everything > you should read right now to know what's cool and relevant in Chicago.

Umm, what was it you wrote above about not being competition for local media?

<comment><AUTHOR> Like every other web site, yes, we're competing for people's time and attention. This isn't an editorial-driven magazine or online newspaper. It's a service that lets people share and rate local stuff with their friends.

<comment><USER16> > This isn't an editorial-driven magazine or online newspaper.

So what? Your stated goal "a front page that represents everything you should read right now to know what's cool and relevant in Chicago." is direct competition for every general-purpose news outlet in Chicago.

They don't think "he has no editors" or "he's not calling it a newspaper". They see "he's trying to be the place people go to find out what's cool and relevant" because that's what they're doing.

You're competition.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>