Big Brother or Minority Report?

[smokey the elder]

I saw a very interesting article on new techniques of behavioral screening being developed, which also include some biometrics. http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/12/02/a...ity/index.html . I'm not sure if this is more like 1984 or the movie Minority Report, in which people are arrested based on predicted criminal behavior. Things that make you go...hmmm.

[blue]

Its a bit of all 3 movies aint it.

[WHITEPOST]Tinfoil hat time.[/WHITEPOST]

[DJFyrewolf36]

Its a bit of all 3 movies aint it.

[WHITEPOST]Tinfoil hat time.[/WHITEPOST]

I'll be in line for a tin-foil hat...this just seems way too creepy and I'm a security guard! People are stressed at airports normally, I don't see how this will make anyone feel safer.

[smokey the elder]

Yeah, who ISN'T stressed when traveling? Maybe they use "indirect detection"; the people who AREN'T stressed stand out? They are going to use tools like flashing Bin Laden's face subliminally. I don't know about you, but if I got a glimpse at that dude in an airport I'd either freak out or try to tackle him!

[jennielynn1970]

I dated a guy who was originally from Egypt. He'd travel back to see his mom and his sisters from time to time, sometimes he flew to California to visit another sister or brother, and I'd drop him off at the airport (sometimes JFK, sometimes Philly, just depended on good flight deals and where he was going).

Each and every time he went, he was "randomly selected" to go through further screening. Random... yeah.... He was middle eastern, going to a middle eastern country, or flying across the country from NY/PA to California. It was so NOT random every darn time, it got to really piss me off.

[Laura's Babies]

I work with a guy that is 100% pure Cajun so he talks "different" and is dark complected with wirey bushy hair. Things always seem to happen to him no matter where he goes. Crew change day, we all stay in touch with each other as we are traveing to the boat and this one trip, he was flying up to the boat. I didn't get my usual call from him on my way and when I picked up my Captain, he asked if I had heard from the guy and I told him I hadn't. He hadn't either. We get to the boat and STILL have not heard from him and we were worried! Not even the office had heard anything from him. This was so unusual...

He finally gets to the boat (late evening) and has a story to tell. He had a carry on bag and it set off an alarm at the airport so they pulled him out of the line. He had no idea how serious the situation was until some men with guns showed up. They took his cell phone away from him and he was not allowed to make any calls to anybody and he was detained while they searched and researched his bag but they couldn't find anything in the bag although it kept setting off an alarm. They detained and questioned him for hours before they finally released him and allowed him to continue his trip. However, they took his bag away from him and put that on a different plane. When he got to his final destination, security was there waiting for him to escort him and watch him while he waited for his bag to arrive on a later flight.

All we could figure was he had a bottle of cheap cologne and it cracked and leaked into his bag. It was enough to set off the alarms. It was a nice bag so he tied it to the railing outside the wheelhouse and left it there for the whole 28 day trip during all kinds of weather. When time came to get off, he had to fly back home and was scared to death to take that bag on the plane again so he threw it away.

When he got home, he had a official letter telling him he was now on the watch list.

HOWEVER, we are transportation workers and are now required to have TWIC cards issued by the government where they have to do background checks, fingerprints and really check you out and he has his TWIC card now. I can figure out how he can be on the terriost watch list and have passed the background check to get a TWIC card.