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It's not binary. You may have enough evidence to suspect someone may be planning a crime, but not enough to go to court, or enough to go to court but not enough

It's not binary. You may have enough evidence to suspect someone may be planning a crime, but not enough to go to court, or enough to go to court but not enough to get a conviction with any degree of certainty. In this case it might make sense to perform a more detailed security check. It makes sense for a minor inconvenience at the airport to require a different standard of proof from sending the person to prison. Of course with TSA watch lists "your name sounds fishy" appears to be a sufficient standard of proof, but that's a problem with the implementation, not with the concept itself.

jrockway 17y ago
You may have enough evidence to suspect someone may be planning a crime, but not enough to go to court, or enough to go to court but not enough to get a conviction with any degree of certainty. So the solution is to create a secondary judicial system with no oversight so that anyone the government doesn't like can be punished for something they haven't actually done? Sign me up! It makes sense for a minor inconvenience at the airport to require a different standard of proof from sending the person to prison. Why wouldn't someone on the watchlist not just pay someone not on the watchlist to carry the bomb through security then? For enough money, this would be very easy to do. (It's easier if you ask, "can you smuggle these drugs in for me", though, instead of "can you help me murder 300 people".) Everyone criminal commits their first crime. For someone, that's going to be blowing up a plane. A watchlist does not handle this case.
- waterlesscloud 17y ago
  The simple, clear, undeniable fact (not theory of what could happen, but fact) is that in this case, placing extra attention on this person who was on the watch list would have kept him and his bomb off an airplane full of people.
  - jrockway 17y ago
    His leader would have gotten someone else. This guy on Flight 253 was not the planner of the attack, he was just one of many people that wanted his 69 virgins or whatever.
- coffeemug 17y ago
  So the solution is to create a secondary judicial system with no oversight so that anyone the government doesn't like can be punished for something they haven't actually done? Look, you're reducing a very complicated issue with a huge amount of nuances and details to an easily refutable straw man argument. Life in a modern society requires recognition of different types of law violations, different types of punishments, and different acceptable response times. In order to operate in fair and effective manner, all of these require a different standard of proof. Putting a person in prison requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Having a person compensate someone financially requires 50% + 1 of the jury. A parking ticket requires a quick decision from a bench judge. You could set up a system where a parking ticket could be contested by a trial by jury, but this cannot be practically implemented without a huge strain on the legal system. TSA agents have to make a simple decision - whether to do a detailed search or not. This cannot be done to every passenger, the decision must be made fast, and it can affect other people's lives. It is not in any way a "punishment", only a minor inconvenience. In this case suspicious activity is a reasonable standard of proof for a detailed search. If you want off the watchlist, you should be able to have a hearing to clear your name, you should be notified that you've been added to such a list (barring some exceptions that should require judicial oversight), etc. Nobody is talking about a secondary judicial system with no oversight. You're picking the worst possible implementation and shooting it down - this really isn't productive. Why wouldn't someone on the watchlist not just pay someone not on the watchlist to carry the bomb through security then? For any possible security measure you could come up with a countermeasure that would theoretically render it ineffective, but that doesn't mean that we should sit back and do nothing. It does mean that we should attempt to find a systematic, scientific way of measuring cost vs. benefit of any proposed measure, but this is a difficult, time consuming problem. Until we do, we should implement security measures that appear reasonable. To give a counterargument to your specific complaint, a watchlist significantly complicates the job of a potential terrorist. The more people know about the job, the higher the probability of a leak. I will conjecture that the probability of a leak with respect to the number of people that know about the job isn't a linear function, it's likely closer to exponential, which means forcing a potential terrorist to recruit someone not on the watchlist might be a cheap and effective way to ensure that a leak happens. I don't know how effective it is in practice (I'd be interested in seeing large scale studies), but until we find out, intuitively it seems like a good idea.

jrockway 17y ago

You may have enough evidence to suspect someone may be planning a crime, but not enough to go to court, or enough to go to court but not enough to get a conviction with any degree of certainty. So the solution is to create a secondary judicial system with no oversight so that anyone the government doesn't like can be punished for something they haven't actually done? Sign me up! It makes sense for a minor inconvenience at the airport to require a different standard of proof from sending the person to prison. Why wouldn't someone on the watchlist not just pay someone not on the watchlist to carry the bomb through security then? For enough money, this would be very easy to do. (It's easier if you ask, "can you smuggle these drugs in for me", though, instead of "can you help me murder 300 people".) Everyone criminal commits their first crime. For someone, that's going to be blowing up a plane. A watchlist does not handle this case.

waterlesscloud 17y ago
The simple, clear, undeniable fact (not theory of what could happen, but fact) is that in this case, placing extra attention on this person who was on the watch list would have kept him and his bomb off an airplane full of people.
- jrockway 17y ago
  His leader would have gotten someone else. This guy on Flight 253 was not the planner of the attack, he was just one of many people that wanted his 69 virgins or whatever.
coffeemug 17y ago
So the solution is to create a secondary judicial system with no oversight so that anyone the government doesn't like can be punished for something they haven't actually done? Look, you're reducing a very complicated issue with a huge amount of nuances and details to an easily refutable straw man argument. Life in a modern society requires recognition of different types of law violations, different types of punishments, and different acceptable response times. In order to operate in fair and effective manner, all of these require a different standard of proof. Putting a person in prison requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Having a person compensate someone financially requires 50% + 1 of the jury. A parking ticket requires a quick decision from a bench judge. You could set up a system where a parking ticket could be contested by a trial by jury, but this cannot be practically implemented without a huge strain on the legal system. TSA agents have to make a simple decision - whether to do a detailed search or not. This cannot be done to every passenger, the decision must be made fast, and it can affect other people's lives. It is not in any way a "punishment", only a minor inconvenience. In this case suspicious activity is a reasonable standard of proof for a detailed search. If you want off the watchlist, you should be able to have a hearing to clear your name, you should be notified that you've been added to such a list (barring some exceptions that should require judicial oversight), etc. Nobody is talking about a secondary judicial system with no oversight. You're picking the worst possible implementation and shooting it down - this really isn't productive. Why wouldn't someone on the watchlist not just pay someone not on the watchlist to carry the bomb through security then? For any possible security measure you could come up with a countermeasure that would theoretically render it ineffective, but that doesn't mean that we should sit back and do nothing. It does mean that we should attempt to find a systematic, scientific way of measuring cost vs. benefit of any proposed measure, but this is a difficult, time consuming problem. Until we do, we should implement security measures that appear reasonable. To give a counterargument to your specific complaint, a watchlist significantly complicates the job of a potential terrorist. The more people know about the job, the higher the probability of a leak. I will conjecture that the probability of a leak with respect to the number of people that know about the job isn't a linear function, it's likely closer to exponential, which means forcing a potential terrorist to recruit someone not on the watchlist might be a cheap and effective way to ensure that a leak happens. I don't know how effective it is in practice (I'd be interested in seeing large scale studies), but until we find out, intuitively it seems like a good idea.