[sargun]

What ethnicity are you? I went through an airport -- and nobody else got screened except me. What was special about me? I was the only non-white person in the airport. Upon complaining, this was the response:

> Random selection by our screening technology prevents terrorists from attempting to defeat the security system by learning how it operates. Leaving out any one group, such as senior citizens, persons with disabilities, or children, would remove the random element from the system and undermine security. We simply cannot assume that all terrorists will fit a particular profile.

[chaboud]

I used to have a Sikh manager who wore a turban. Whenever we traveled together, he would get "randomly" stopped. While they were patting him down, he would inevitably chuckle and say something like "So what are the odds of being 'randomly' selected 27 times in a row?"

I don't know the specifics of the process for selection, but I can confidently say that the process is bigoted.

[diblasio]

Same thing used to happen to me when I had dreadlocks. Made the same joke too. "what are the odds I'd get randomly selected 100% of the time I go through a checkpoint..."

[jackjeff]

Besides being racist this is kind of dumb. If you’re going to bring down the plane you’re defo not going to look like someone who gets randomly selected 100% of the time. Even the 9/11 terrorists knew this and shaved their beard instead of looking like the fundamentalists scumbags they were.

[lazide]

Just because it’s dumb doesn’t mean people won’t do it.

I mean TSA, but it also applies to other groups too.

[mapt]

Rastafarian hijackers are rampant.

[defrost]

In proper English usage it would only be a bigoted

  (obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, in particular prejudiced against or antagonistic towards a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group)

check if it was unreasonable to suspect a Sikh of carrying a Kirpan.

The Rehat Maryada would suggest that is in no way whatsoever an unreasonable suspicion.

Sure, your manager likely didn't carry one on airplanes .. but that still falls short of being an unreasonable check.

[noduerme]

As a white guy who was caught accidentally carrying a large knife once through security, at the bottom of a carry-on backpack I'd had since high school, I don't think it's in any way essential to use racial or ethnic markers to figure out whether someone is taking something dangerous onto a plane. I didn't even know I was trying to bring a knife onto a plane at a regional airport. There's no reason to think that Sikhs are explicitly going out of their way to hide something.

[542354234235]

Interesting that none of these comments seem to be questioning why we can’t just carry a small pocketknife on the plane. We used to be able to before 9/11. The 9/11 hijackings only worked because the policy was comply, land, and let the negotiators do their work. Suicide attacks using commercial airlines just wasn’t a thing. We now have armored locking cockpit doors and no airplane would give up control to hijackers anymore. United Flight 93 was already taken over and heard about the World Trade Center and they revolted.

Now, knives could only be used to commit a crime i.e. assaulting another passenger or crew. Banning liquids does more to prevent terrorists than banning knives. I can see banning them for the same reason concerts ban them, that it is a lot of people in a small space, but that is very different than “national security” or “preventing terrorism”.

[xxs]

it's still allowed across the EU (Mostly all of it)- up to 6cm blades are permitted in the cabin luggage.

[notamario]

A Sikh is far more likely to be carrying a little sword than the average population.

[noduerme]

And far less likely to stab someone than the general population.

It's not a great analogy, but the same applies to registered concealed carry gun owners. They're not the people who shoot people.

[K0balt]

Welcome to the club. I inadvertently traveled with not one, but two large box cutters in my carryon satchel for at least 20 flights before I discovered them while searching for some swag. I put them in there for a booth setup in Vegas years prior. Sent a completely calm, even sympathetic report to the powers that be, got put on the DNF list for my troubles.

Still screened and detained 100 percent of the time, sometimes for hours, sometimes having to surrender personal devices, decades later.

The message is very clear.

[ralferoo]

> Sent a completely calm, even sympathetic report to the powers that be, got put on the DNF list for my troubles.

What were you hoping to achieve by sending that report?

Most people would have just thought "wow, lucky I wasn't caught with that", taken it out of the bag so it didn't happen again and carried on with their lives.

Deviating from that normal response makes it look like you're just trying to cause trouble.

[ghaff]

Yeah, if I had a "Crap, what was that doing in there?" I'd be very quiet about it.

As I wrote in a very different thread, I avoid putting anything in baggage that I might carryon that is even marginally prohibited. I used to do a lot more travel and it's inevitable that knives and the like would inevitable get left in a pocket.

[thinkingemote]

You sent a report saying you were not searched for 20 times and now you are searched all the time? Has it been over 20 times that you have been searched?

[K0balt]

lol. No, I’m definitely winning the search transaction! I got way more than I paid for!

[noduerme]

So here's me at Burbank:

Officer: Look at this knife. You're trying to take this on the plane?

Me: Holy shit I didn't realize that was in my bag.

Officer: Well do you want it back? Or do you want to fly today?

Me: I don't want it.

Officer: Don't mind if I keep it?

Me: It's all yours.

[chaboud]

I had a TSA agent take my knife and hide it, carrying it over the X-ray belt and putting it in his bag in the secure area.

It was a $13 knife, but he liked it.

No doubt that was a security violation, but it's all security theatre.

[Ar-Curunir]

Isn’t that what the scanners are for? To find large metallic objects? Why do you need additional “random” screenings behind that? Or are you saying the scanners don’t work to find even obvious weapons? If so, we should get rid of the scanners.

[defrost]

To address all the questions you addressed to me.

> Isn’t that what the scanners are for?

Err, not that I know of, I generally use the OED to look up the various recorded uses of words.

> To find large metallic objects?

The OED is for finding words, "scanners" that I've used or made are for mapping background geological structures via seismic waves, gravitational waves, magnetic waves, gamma waves. Medical scanners I've worked with have generally not bee used for finding large metallic objects and some should not be used if a patient has large metal objects attached or within.

> Why do you need additional “random” screenings behind that?

In 40+ years of scanning things there's not been a single time I've needed an additioan "random" scan - a few times scans have been repeated due to various failures to save data.

> Or are you saying the scanners don’t work to find even obvious weapons?

In the comment you responded to I said that it is not unreasonable to think that a Sikh you meet, anywhere, might be carrying a knife, a comb, a bracelet, etc. I did not mention anything about scanners. No, seriously, go and recheck the comment.

> If so, we should get rid of the scanners.

We? All scanners? Okay, well, thanks for sharing that opinion.

I figure various groups of scanner users will want to keep using them, of course. I personally am in favour of scanners for exploration and medical work.

[happymellon]

I used to work with a Kevin and a Mohammed.

Whenever we travelled to offsite offices Mohammed 100% of the time was picked for bag check, while Kevin was not picked once.

Mohammed was white, and Kevin was black.

It was completely racist, and never random.

[tass]

A person can get mistakenly (or not) flagged for special screening and get it over and over again - it happened to me many years ago.

I fixed it by filling out a form requesting a review, after which I received a “redress number” which could be entered into my booking information. It reliably stopped after that.

[parineum]

Not defending the practice but the Mohammed thing has a possible origin that isn't directly racist. The common names among Muslims and their propensity to appear on various watch lists lead to a lot of false alarms on those with those names.

It may be a racist result but there is a pretty reasonable and understandable reason it happens, ignoring the legality and morality of that kind of tracking as well.

[johnisgood]

I hope you extend this understanding to other patterns people recognize and act upon. :)

[caseysoftware]

I'm brown, very brown. A Native American, in fact.

[BizarroLand]

Same. Every border crossing. Every flight. Every interaction with police. I always get checked. I always get flagged. I always have by bags opened and my car searched coming back from Canada with officers holding large powerful machine guns and rifles in case I twitch to hard.

I haven't so much as gotten a speeding ticket in nearly a decade but law enforcement and border guards break out the microscope every time they see me.

[wildzzz]

I am a white male and have TSA pre-check and after walking through the metal detector, maybe one out of several times I get randomly selected for the body scanner. I've never gotten the dreaded SSSS though. I've very rarely traveled alone not on a work trip and never alone on a one way ticket so maybe that helps.

[monksy]

I get it not infrequently when travelling from europe. It's annoying that they pretend that "oh this is random" .. I'm even going up to the airport employees at hte gate and telling them "I'm told I'm here to make new friends today"

[ZeWaka]

White male who always flies alone and on one-ways here, never gotten SSSS.

[mckckvkdnn]

Snowden leaked the criteria of when you get SSSS. It’s about 15 things that can trigger it. For example, flying business class with your family.

[noduerme]

It's screwed up that skin color is a marker that would lead an ignorant provincial quasi-cop to assume someone is of a particular ethnicity, and even more so that that ethnicity would lead them to believe an individual adheres to a belief system that might lead them to blow up an aircraft. Very poor set of assumptions and flawed tooling, to say the least.

[nashashmi]

I would never get randomly selected despite being brown. Then I grew out my beard. Now random selection loves to pick me.

[mlrtime]

When all you see is color, everything different is racism.

I'm the whitest white person you'll find, white bread and turkey sandwich. I get screened all the time. Most of the time the agents are not white, WTF would I blame the color of their skin?

[Ar-Curunir]

Are you seriously pretending that state-sponsored racism is not a thing? In today’s environment?

[int_19h]

Many ICE agents are Latino but it doesn't stop them racially profiling other Latinos.

When it comes to customs & border, it's more about being "ethnically terrorist", which is more so Middle Eastern than Black in US at this particular moment in time.

[mlrtime]

Not everything in the world is about ICE. It is a hot topic right now, but is like 0.001% of security/law enforcement, profiling etc..

[cpburns2009]

Generic WASP checking in. I flew regularly for several years until covid and I'd get screened all the time too (about 50% of the time).

[array_key_first]

This just in, white person thinks racism isn't real. "Well, I've never experienced it", he says.

More at 11.

[mpeg]

I once found myself in the "random extra screening" waiting room in LHR before boarding an El Al flight to Tel Aviv, everyone else in the room was Muslim. Random indeed...

[seg_lol]

I had like a +7 random screening hit streak once. Old and comfortable and that melts away as you become the system.

[ada1981]

I was so confused last time I traveled as I watched this brown skinned family getting shaken down for ID by TSA and they literally just waived me past and said didn't need ID. Mind you I've never not been asked to show ID to TSA before this.

[ada1981]

Curious about the downvotes here, it's 100% relevant to the conversation and is personal experience. I imagine it's tone policing to ensure we don't criticize the techo-facist edgelord take over?