5 ms·

In a world where thousands of people annually travel to some "freedom fighter" camps in order to get combat training, I very much agree that it is necessary to

by bflesch 10y ago

In a world where thousands of people annually travel to some "freedom fighter" camps in order to get combat training, I very much agree that it is necessary to intensively screen travelers who return to their country of origin once they fit a certain heuristic. As one single returnee who is not caught might actually cause dozens or hundreds of citizen deaths, there shouldn't be a screening exception for smartphones or computers. We can all argue that the current heuristics / profiling methods are not good enough, but as an EU citizen I'd be glad if my government would actually be as straightforward about screening travellers as USCBP is. If travelers - citizens or not - want to return after learning to kill or taking part in some sort of criminal activities, or even announcing their support for such criminal activities in social media, they should be held accountable for their actions upon returning by strict border controls.

mikeash 10y ago
Why limit it to international travel? People can learn how to kill without leaving the country. We need random checkpoints set up on major highways (and occasionally on minor roads, just to ensure you can't reliably bypass them) to stop and search people to ensure they aren't up to anything nefarious. Actually, it needs to go ever further. You can get up to a lot of trouble without even leaving your home. The police should conduct random searches of people's dwellings in order to combat this. A lot of bad stuff is handled online, so of course we also need to search people's online activity as it happens. Since encryption gets in the way of this, we need to outlaw it, or at least mandate key escrow so the security services can observe the traffic.
- bflesch 10y ago
  I think this type of argument only comes from egocentric people. Nobody cares about what you are doing, and you will most likely not be screened. If you are arguing online about civil rights you are not exactly the type of person they are trying to catch at the border. In my country of origin there is no way to train with military weapons. People travel to other places and learn it there, all while being indoctrinated to perform acts of terrorism. When IT-driven heuristics determine that you fit that profile, society is better off when you are intensively screened and searched upon reentry.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    I bet people can train with trucks in your country, right? We've seen that those can be potent weapons. Why does your argument not apply to the other scenarios I listed? If I'm unlikely to be screened at the border, then surely I'm unlikely to be screened at an internal checkpoint, or to have my house searched. I'm not likely to suffer from government key escrow. The only thing that's ridiculous is making arguments for border searches that apply just as well inside the country, and then crying foul when I point that out.
    - bflesch 10y ago
      These kinds of searches are also needed within the country, but the profiling heuristics can be implemented much better at centralized border crossings. As I said, your profile obviously does not fit that of a terrorist, and I can tell that from two comments on hacker news. If someone with a criminal record travels a wartorn country for 8 weeks they better be thoroughly searched when they come back and monitored afterwards.
- purple-again 10y ago
  Ridiculous arguments don't foster rational debate. We know their are training camps abroad. We know there are no training camps within our borders. What if space aliens are controlling our leaders brains?
  - cr0sh 10y ago
    > We know there are no training camps within our borders. No training camps here: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/05/us/a-militia-gets-battle-ready-for-a-gun-grabbing-clinton-presidency.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/05/us/a-militia-gets-battle-...
  - mikeash 10y ago
    What's ridiculous about them? We've seen plenty of home-grown terrorism. I'm not sure if searching social media profiles would ever have prevented an attack in the US, for example, whereas internal checkpoints and random house searches certainly could have.
    - cr0sh 10y ago
      > whereas internal checkpoints and random house searches certainly could have. I upvoted your original comment because I am pretty sure it was meant as sarcasm. I certainly hope I am still correct on that assessment. There was a time, not long ago, certainly within my memory and the memories of many others - when we as a country (the USA as well as other countries) looked down upon such activities as being wholly un-American and against our values. We looked on in fear and concern as we heard about what went on in Eastern European countries behind the Iron Curtain - where people risked their lives and freedom braving bullets and who-knows-what-else attempting to cross that divide. Some even made it. And we cheered when the wall fell. WHAT THE FUCK HAS HAPPENED TO US?
      - krapp 10y ago
        >WHAT THE FUCK HAS HAPPENED TO US? We were attacked on 9/11, and our government succeeded in convincing many of us that the rights we were taking for granted were in fact making us vulnerable to an existential enemy within, and needed to be incrementally deconstructed in light of the "new normal."
- mjmsmith 10y ago
  Agreed. At the very least, we should be checking the Facebook account of anyone traveling to a state with a Planned Parenthood clinic in case there's evidence that they're a Fundamentalist Christian.
WildUtah 10y ago
Actual trained terrorists with experience at an organized training camp aren't going to have any actionable material on a laptop or cell phone. You have to be able to identify the dangerous citizens by other means.
- bflesch 10y ago
  Based on the practical anti-terrorism experience of the agencies involved it seems that a lot of people are actually bringing actionable material with themselves. The procedures performed by border agents give different puzzle pieces of the whole picture. When researching crime rings you always need to look at communication pathways, much of that information is stored on the smartphones. Why not pick it up when people are actually bringing it with them?
- jjawssd 10y ago
  False. It happens more often than you believe. https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/how-terrorists-use-encryption https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/how-terrorists-use-encryption

by bflesch 10y ago

mikeash 10y ago

Why limit it to international travel? People can learn how to kill without leaving the country. We need random checkpoints set up on major highways (and occasionally on minor roads, just to ensure you can't reliably bypass them) to stop and search people to ensure they aren't up to anything nefarious. Actually, it needs to go ever further. You can get up to a lot of trouble without even leaving your home. The police should conduct random searches of people's dwellings in order to combat this. A lot of bad stuff is handled online, so of course we also need to search people's online activity as it happens. Since encryption gets in the way of this, we need to outlaw it, or at least mandate key escrow so the security services can observe the traffic.

bflesch 10y ago
I think this type of argument only comes from egocentric people. Nobody cares about what you are doing, and you will most likely not be screened. If you are arguing online about civil rights you are not exactly the type of person they are trying to catch at the border. In my country of origin there is no way to train with military weapons. People travel to other places and learn it there, all while being indoctrinated to perform acts of terrorism. When IT-driven heuristics determine that you fit that profile, society is better off when you are intensively screened and searched upon reentry.
- mikeash 10y ago
  I bet people can train with trucks in your country, right? We've seen that those can be potent weapons. Why does your argument not apply to the other scenarios I listed? If I'm unlikely to be screened at the border, then surely I'm unlikely to be screened at an internal checkpoint, or to have my house searched. I'm not likely to suffer from government key escrow. The only thing that's ridiculous is making arguments for border searches that apply just as well inside the country, and then crying foul when I point that out.
  - bflesch 10y ago
    These kinds of searches are also needed within the country, but the profiling heuristics can be implemented much better at centralized border crossings. As I said, your profile obviously does not fit that of a terrorist, and I can tell that from two comments on hacker news. If someone with a criminal record travels a wartorn country for 8 weeks they better be thoroughly searched when they come back and monitored afterwards.
purple-again 10y ago
Ridiculous arguments don't foster rational debate. We know their are training camps abroad. We know there are no training camps within our borders. What if space aliens are controlling our leaders brains?
- cr0sh 10y ago
  > We know there are no training camps within our borders. No training camps here: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/05/us/a-militia-gets-battle-ready-for-a-gun-grabbing-clinton-presidency.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/05/us/a-militia-gets-battle-...
- mikeash 10y ago
  What's ridiculous about them? We've seen plenty of home-grown terrorism. I'm not sure if searching social media profiles would ever have prevented an attack in the US, for example, whereas internal checkpoints and random house searches certainly could have.
  - cr0sh 10y ago
    > whereas internal checkpoints and random house searches certainly could have. I upvoted your original comment because I am pretty sure it was meant as sarcasm. I certainly hope I am still correct on that assessment. There was a time, not long ago, certainly within my memory and the memories of many others - when we as a country (the USA as well as other countries) looked down upon such activities as being wholly un-American and against our values. We looked on in fear and concern as we heard about what went on in Eastern European countries behind the Iron Curtain - where people risked their lives and freedom braving bullets and who-knows-what-else attempting to cross that divide. Some even made it. And we cheered when the wall fell. WHAT THE FUCK HAS HAPPENED TO US?
    - krapp 10y ago
      >WHAT THE FUCK HAS HAPPENED TO US? We were attacked on 9/11, and our government succeeded in convincing many of us that the rights we were taking for granted were in fact making us vulnerable to an existential enemy within, and needed to be incrementally deconstructed in light of the "new normal."
mjmsmith 10y ago
Agreed. At the very least, we should be checking the Facebook account of anyone traveling to a state with a Planned Parenthood clinic in case there's evidence that they're a Fundamentalist Christian.

WildUtah 10y ago

Actual trained terrorists with experience at an organized training camp aren't going to have any actionable material on a laptop or cell phone. You have to be able to identify the dangerous citizens by other means.

bflesch 10y ago
Based on the practical anti-terrorism experience of the agencies involved it seems that a lot of people are actually bringing actionable material with themselves. The procedures performed by border agents give different puzzle pieces of the whole picture. When researching crime rings you always need to look at communication pathways, much of that information is stored on the smartphones. Why not pick it up when people are actually bringing it with them?
jjawssd 10y ago
False. It happens more often than you believe. https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/how-terrorists-use-encryption https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/how-terrorists-use-encryption