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Comment by apexalpha | Hacker News Reader

GF traveled to the US for work, a conference in Houston. Everyone that looked Arab of Muslim was 'randomly' picked out of line. Some of the employees had to undress and squat in front of the TSA and one had to undergo cavity searches.

These were regular European citizens. Let's just say conferences will be help in Europe or Canada in the future...

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They seem to get the racial/sexual/agist profiling right at Schiphol (Amsterdam). I'm a white male in my twenties, and consistently get the patdown. Half the time that includes my inner thighs and the side of some guy's hand touching my balls.

I've come to dislike flying for the humiliating and demeaning security theater I have to go through for it. No way I would risk going through that in the U.S., where it's presumably worse and where I'm not a citizen.

I can barely convince myself to go to family weddings if I have to pass through Schiphol for them. At least with Schiphol I don't have the risk of being detained (or marked a terrorist for having encrypted data/voicing anti-authoritarian opinions/having contact with Muslims, "no rights applicable"), and if I were anyway I could defend myself well as I'm a somewhat savvy citizen.

I already go through great lengths to fly via small German airports, where the security measurers aren't dehumanizing. Perhaps I'll visit the U.S. by boat sometime.

Are you serious? Strip and cavity searches? This needs to be on the media.

Guessing you've never entered England (Or are english yourself)? English customs are way worse than American ones, in my opinion.

it's not that uncommon even in Europe to be honest, if you will find German policeman who had bad day and you drive car with foreign (PL, CZ mostly) license plate you can be searched same way under suspicion of carrying drugs and you can do nothing about it and it's happening occasionally

do we have the same definition of "cavity search"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_cavity_search

yes but you won't find articles about this in international media, because it's just lowly Eastern Europeans

What would it change?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWdD206eSv0&hl=en-GB&gl=GB

it's not random check, it's called profiling

i don't see why people have problem with this, what would be point randomly search old (white) retired woman, what risk she present? pretty much same goes for Eastern Asians, etc.

if you have biggest odds finding terrorist between dark skinned Muslims, then you will search them the most, nothing random or racist about that, it's like saying i won't take umbrella outside when there is 90% chance of rain because there is 10%chance it will be sunny

If you're going to profile and be proud... At least profile the correct demographic.

http://time.com/3934980/right-wing-extremists-white-terroris...

The study linked in your article has been updated (Spoiler alert: Radical Islam has retaken the lead by 2x)

https://www.newamerica.org/in-depth/terrorism-in-america/wha...

How would it look if we factored in the relative population?

> B-but you are more likely to be killed by white trucker driver falling asleep than a jihadist truck hijacker.

Misleading much?

Only in the past two years have there been more jihadist deaths. Not sure where you got 2x from? Unless you mean one particular year? You may want to re-read.

In reality the KKK has killed more people than all jihadists combined. That is one group.

The page states the following body counts: 95 Jihadist 51 Far Right Wing.

(bottom of the page)

So not quite 2x.

> Only in the past two years have there been more jihadist deaths. > In reality the KKK has killed more people than all jihadists combined. That is one group.

I am not familiar with the history of the KKK, but are they still a threat?

If you consider the recent incidents: Paris (how many times!?), Stockholm, St. Petersburg and Nice, do you really believe Right Wing groups poses a greater threat?

The KKK is like some mythical beast brought out every couple years to scare people.

It is almost non existent.

domestic right wing terrorist don't pass through immigration officers at airports

I suggest you look up the statistics on percentages of extremists who are/were white males.

Yes, but these extremists don't pose a thread to air security at the moment. Or as foreigners travelling to the US with bad intentions.

While it's certainly unfair for a large innocent group, it still avoids extensive checks for the rest.

they don't cross border so it's no point check for them at borders, most likely these guys don't even have passport

I'm calling bullshit on this story. I can't find any reports of TSA conducting these types of cavity searches. Ever.

I couldn't find the story I was looking for but here are a few. Both TSA and CBP represented here; the CBP stories are closer to what the grandparent post describes.

These stories describe sexual assault graphically (to various degrees).

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110906/11065015824/tsa-a...

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/06/woman-sues-borde...

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/immigration/201...

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/07/21/cbp-awards-us-citize...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cnns-angela-rye-was-subj...

Reading these reports do you find the story 1) more likely or 2) less likely to have occurred?

Remember, he (or rather his GF) claimed the Houston TSA were routinely performing prison type cavity searches, i.e., strip, squat (and cough).

Perhaps they are confusing TSA with CBP?

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