Re: What are the little things that would give ETs amongst us away?

Erik Max Francis <max@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Michael Ash wrote:

"Dying in thirty minutes" isn't even a threat, much less a specific
threat. Maybe the guy is just afraid of flying. Oh right, but if an Arab
says it, it must be a threat.

A statement doesn't have to be an explicit threat to be so completely
unwise that any fool would realize that they would get in massive
amounts of trouble for it. Especially if they were apparently already
under suspicion, for whatever reason.

The fact is, no one at the time knows the motivation of anyone sitting
around then in an airplane. Maybe it's a harmless joke, maybe it's not.
However, it's so incredibly suspicious a comment to make that
passengers nearby would be _stupid_ not to become alarmed by such a
comment, whether the passengers saying it is Middle Eastern or not.

Nobody knows the motivation of a random stranger sitting in a restaurant
either. And in fact it's vastly easier for that random restaurant stranger
to kill you than for a random aircraft passenger to do the same. Not only
easier, but more likely. So why is it _stupid_ not to become alarmed by
such a comment, when the chances of it being a true threat are vastly less
than my chances of being hit by lightning?

Sitting on a passenger airplane is one of the safest places a healthy
human being can be. There's a great deal of hysteria built up because of
high-profile events involving them, but the fact remains that more people
die in a month from poorly-driven automobiles than die in a decade from
anything related to civilian airplanes. But just because there's a huge
amount of hysteria doesn't mean I'm stupid for not becoming alarmed.

Also, I can and have made specific threats against people's lives in a
joking manner in public and never gotten so much as a funny look for it.
But translate the same thing into an airplane, where it is both much
harder to carry out a threat and much safer overall, and suddenly I lose
my right to joke.

You don't lose your right to joke. Freedom of speech, like all the
other rights granted under the Bill of Rights, also carry with them
responsibilities. I've already given another example of where the
security and concern of others trumps someone's abstract right to say
whatever they want, namely yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Yes,
in some abstract sense you have the right to say whatever you want. But
there are consequences. All the First Amendment guarantees is that
Congress can't make laws forbidding speech. It doesn't mean anything
you ever say is free from consequences.

Interestingly, the classic example of "Fire!" comes from a court decision
which was overturned.

The current test for free speech in the United States is causing "imminent
lawless action". This is why inciting a riot is illegal. I don't know how
the theater example would stand. Talking about a bomb (as opposed to
encouraging people to set one off) would not be illegal under this test as
I understand it.

But apparently the constitution goes out the window when air travel is
involved, as I have personally witnessed repeatedly.

It's all about context. If you're sitting at home watching television
with friends and make a joke about dying in thirty minutes because the
television show your friend is making you watch sucks, obviously, no,
nobody's going to take that seriously as a threat. If you're in a
situation with heightened security, increased adrenaline and concern
from the people around you that people might be trying to blow up the
plane and themselves in the process, comments like that are stupid. You
say it's not a threat, but who really knows what it is. Maybe they're
talking about their plans to blow up the plane after takeoff.

And yet, you are safer on the airplane than you are at home watching TV
with your friends. Why should the safer situation warrant hair-trigger
responses?

Really, this isn't even specific to planes -- although obviously after
9/11 and the most recently uncovered plot against transatlantic flights,
planes would reasonably the most hot-button issue which people are
immediately concerned about. If you're pulled over in a routine traffic
stop, there are all manner of things you could say in a joking way that
would not be interpreted as a joke and which it would be incredibly
stupid for you to say. If you're walking down the street and there is
some manner of mistaken identity (you match a some generic description
of some suspect in a reported crime nearby) and an office approaches you
with gun drawn demanding you comply, there are even more things that you
could say in a joking way that it would be incredibly stupid for you to
say. Or walking through South Central shouting racial epithets is also
protected by free speech, but you'd be an idiot if you didn't think that
the chances were roughly 100% that you would end up in a hospital, or worse.

There are signs posted at most airport security checkpoints that make it
clear that no jokes about bombs or threatening behavior are to be made.
This is just common sense. Anybody doing such a thing deserves what
he gets.

I realize that this sort of thing *is* stupid. However, I will argue
strongly that it *should not be* stupid. Yes, in the current state of
affairs, making jokes about bombs in an airport is a very idiotic thing to
do. I certainly hold my tongue in that environment. But these restrictions
don't make me safer. They don't help anything, except to make people more
pacified and increase the power of those who don't deserve it. They're
also insanely unconstitutional. As such, these restrictions should not be
present.

As is routinely mentioned in the legal profession, the Constitution is
not a suicide pact.

First, why do you even bring it up? Do you believe that arresting people
for making these comments is vital to national security? Or does the
"suicide pact" refer to individual citizens, in which case does it mean
that the safety of any one person trumps the whole Constitution? I don't
find either one to be plausible, so it seems there's either a third way
that I'm missing or this comment is completely irrelevant.

Second, people say that a lot, but I don't believe it. Certainly the
people who wrote it were willing to die for their cause, and demonstrated
it by willingly putting themselves in positions to do so over the course
of many years.

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software
.

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