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Comment by balls187 | Hacker News Reader

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balls187

> As an American citizen who travelled extensively up until TSA made me too miserable to continue,

What happened?

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I've been patted down by the TSA. I've had a multi-tool (~$160) and beverages (~$20) confiscated.

I've since obtained TSA pre-check but this is fixing a problem that shouldn't exist.

Additionally, there's some question over TSA's ban on leaving the screening area, see [1] for a survey. For an argument on unreasonable seizures, see David Post's post [2].

[1]:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201... [2]:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

While I want to and could go for days on end about it, experience tells me that it's better to not poke the bear too much online.

And here is the chilling effect in action, folks.

Enjoy your freedom of speech.

To play devil's advocate, it's pretty easy to claim that the reason you don't want to detail something as personal as your treatment at the hands of the TSA after claiming it was so horrid that it discouraged you from traveling, is that the TSA will somehow find your online Hacker News profile and single you out next time you try and fly. But it's also possible that maybe the poster doesn't want to reveal something personal, or that the treatment might not be considered as severe as the first comment implied by others, or a myriad of reasons.

But he explicitly said it's better notbto poke the beat that much online, so your whole reply doesn't make any sense. Unless your whole point was to call GP a liar. Devils advocate my ass.

He or she isn't calling the GP a liar. The GP may legitimately have these fears, but if we don't know the story we can't tell anything about what they mean.

> somehow find your online Hacker News profile and single you out next time

pretty sure they don't know what hacker news is.

Pretty sure they don't have to. It's a big dragnet, and bots to analyse public text are cheap like dirt. But yes, I'm sure they know any place a hacker is likely to hang out quite well. Oops, used the h-word there. Hi bots!

Actually what I meant was the GP said it was an anonymous post, I don't think automatically correlating random usernames to real people is that cheap except in specific cases where username = real name.

Metadata includes the time. And for the internet (as opposed to phones) they trace the whole routing through the net of each message to be sure they have the real origin, and then store that. There's a reason NSA buildings are so big.

> , is that the TSA will somehow find your online Hacker News profile and single you out next time you try and fly.

Not hacker news, but my "anonymous" online postings that were anti-TSA most certainly affected my travel experience. And I'm not talking radical activist postings. Just real world bs postings about my continued bad experiences, and my personal opinions such as the one in my original post.

Really? How did they connect your "anonymous" postings to you at the border? Did they go through your web history?

So there is this thing called internet tracking, then there is this other thing called google or is it facebook or is it nsa ? well I don't really remember[1] but they are really good at it. One my friend was interviewed at the border, asked if she was coming to work, answered no, been show her private facebook message saying she would be looking for a job there, got denied entry and put on a special list.

[1]: was it carnivore? echelon? five eyes? man my memory is not so good.

I cannot believe it is possible to actually access private messages in social networks such as facebook in such a willy nilly manner - that is not to say I do not believe you, but can you give some form of proof?

Did they force her to open her account or did they have access beforehand? How did your friend react?

Well, you could tell the story of someone you knew who had such and such experience...

you ask that like you need something worse than being forced barefoot in a disgusting floor, going thru an xray machine that haven't been properly documented and having you carefully packed bagage all messed up.

things beyond that are just the icying on the cake.

Yes - I think you do need something more than that to become so defeated that you feel trapped and unable to travel.

I'm not saying that stuff isn't awful. Just that it's minor compared to other hardships that people routinely overcome.

So I should agree to go along with humiliation because other people do? Well that's some fucking logic.

I don't think most people feel humiliated taking off their shoes and going through an xray machine.

If anything, most people are just upset that they're stuck in hour long lines waiting to go through security.

When you visit a mosque or a hindu temple, you are required to remove your shoes.

Also being asian, when you visit my house, you are also required to remove your shoes.

I hope your house is cleaner than an airport security line.

^ probably doesn't wash hands before eating food.

Because you can't eat without touching the food with hands... Ler me introduce you to napkins, spoons, forma and knives. Great inventions, those

I feel humiliated when people strip me down with their xrays and then laugh at them for kicks

Have you ever been stripped at an airport and then had the x-rays laughed at?

No - I'm just pointing out that you have a choice - the humiliation is not stopping you from traveling. You are doing that to yourself, transforming humiliation into a more diminished life.

> going thru an xray machine that haven't been properly documented

Don't forget data retention. Those pseudo-nude pictures of all of us (including your children) are probably stored somewhere for perpetuity.

They stopped using high-fidelity pictures in 2013.

Next time you go through the back-scatter xray, turn around and look at the monitor. It's now a picture of a generic human that shows any area that the agent's should investigate.

Because what is displayed to the scanner agent is totally and definitely all the device will capture and retain...promise :D

they don't even claim that. they now advertise that the high res picture is only seen by specialists that are in a room without view to your face, so thet don't know who they see butt naked. this was explained on the posters in the line.

I guess it's two sides of the same coin.

I wear socks when I travel. In the summer, I run barefoot outside through our gravel parking lot to toughen up my feet.

I don't travel enough by plan to worry about the health effects of an xray machine, but I do drive my car daily.

And well, I don't spend a lot of time carefully packing my suitcase.

So if that's the worst you get from the TSA, well who cares, you're experiencing the same things everyone else who travels in the US.

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