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With lax oversight, the FAA has enabled secrecy in the skies
- kevingadd 9y agoThis article is interesting but it's also completely unreadable in Firefox and Edge because they inexplicably decided to render black text on top of relatively dark photos. ??? What is with modern newspaper site design these days? Every time they update their designs it gets harder to read them, even though they're trying to convince me to pay for it.
- bogomipz 9y agoIt was also unreadable for me because before I was able to read a single word I was presented with a pop up to connect with them on Facebook. Thats my queue to hit the back button.
- a3n 9y agoCue.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- isostatic 9y agoYou could also sign up with an email address. I attempted "fuck@off.com", but it said "please use another email". Heh. Either way by the time I'd got past that level I'd forgotten why I was there in the first place so I'm off to youtube to watch kitten videos.
- vhartman 9y agoIt's not only that. I was unable to read any text even after the facebook-popup since scrolling did only sometimes lead to scrolling, and arrows did not do anything either. How was I supposed to view this website?
- matt4077 9y agoI ran into the same problem until I disabled ad blocking. Which I want to do anyway for high-quality journalism. It's unfortunate that there's no blacklist that explicitly tries to allow for quality content to be financed by non-intrusive advertisement such as here.
- jrockway 9y agoI couldn't read it in Chrome. I scrolled down with the mouse wheel, but then it stopped working, and I never saw any text.
- Thriptic 9y agoTry using the arrow keys, that worked for me. I also had to highlight the entire page because someone thought it was a good design decision to use black text on a dark background. Oh and also none of their real time stats work; they all show up as 0 -_-
- FabHK 9y agoSame in Safari on macOS, annoying (non-standard) scrolling (have to target the little text box with your mouse before you can scroll, can't scroll with keyboard, ...), and then black text over dark background picture. POS. EDIT: might be my adblocker, yeah. I'm just wondering what I like less - annoying nagging (Forbes, spiegel.de, ...), or reduced functionality...
- maxerickson 9y agoEdit: actually, no, it doesn't, it misses much of the text. Reader View in Firefox 55 works fine.
- godzillabrennus 9y agoVisit it from an archive: http://archive.is/uTdNq http://archive.is/uTdNq
- khedoros1 9y agoThank you! That makes it much more legible!
- IncRnd 9y agoThere is only a title page that I cannot scroll in chrome. I'm not willing to turn off ad blockers, debug this site, or use a different browser to read the story.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- xelxebar 9y agoFWIW, it's somewhat readable for my work JavaScript disabled.
- IncRnd 9y agoThanks! I can't read it in chrome with JS disabled, but I can read the first box if I go into dev tools. Then I can scroll when the mouse is over the text box.
- colonelxc 9y agoYou have the right to prevent your browser from downloading certain content, or running certain scripts (in this case ads). The site also has the right to prevent you from viewing their content without compensation (in this case, through ads). Of course it is probably not intentional on their part, they probably have never tested with an adblocker. Even if they were aware of the issue, I can't imagine it being very high priority.
- FabHK 9y ago> But it’s enough to give clients both anonymity and coveted US registration for their planes Well, a US registration is "coveted" because of fairly reasonable and light regulation for GA (general aviation) aircraft (and the pilots who fly them [1]). Other jurisdictions (EU) are cracking down on N-registered planes based in their territory, though. It's not like the US registration is prestigious or hard to get or anything. However, as it happens, only US persons may register a plane in the US (don't quote me on the exact terms, IANAL). That means that if you want to operate an N-registered airplane as a foreigner, you have to go through a trust (or some other legal construction, IANAL). That's why there's a cottage industry for those, and I suppose criminals tag along happily. [1]: The Chicago convention established (a long time ago, after WW II) that every country ("contracting party") would have a register of aircraft, and a register of pilots ("airmen"), and that a pilot of one country with an aircraft registered in the same country could fly in that country, of course, and also all other contracting parties. So, if there's an N-registered plane (i.e., an aircraft registered in the US) based in Europe or Asia, a pilot with an FAA license (i.e., an airman registered in the US) can fly it. A pilot from country A can fly a plane from country A in country A (of course) and B and C and all other countries (by Chicago convention), but can't fly a plane from country B in country A or B necessarily (there are exceptions) or country C or any other country. As FAA rules for pilots are fairly reasonable and benign, a good number of (non-commercial) pilots internationally likes to fly on a FAA license in N-registered planes.
- akanet 9y agoWhile this is true factually, the practical benefit of the US registration is the social benefit of being able to flout rules. For drug runners, they have an easier time just radio'ing down passport numbers if they have an american flag on the tail. You may recall the hubbub about an american plan in Tehran a few years ago (https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/world/middleeast/mystery-shrouds-american-plane-at-tehran-airport.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/world/middleeast/mystery-...). That was this scheme at work.
- sokoloff 9y agoMy understanding was that 2 out of 3 of the pilot certificate, the airplane registration, and the country had to match. Mine are N-registered and based in the US, but if I ever took one to Europe, you can be damn sure I'd keep it on a N-reg. Europe's regulations are positively insane where ours are just slightly daft.
- CryptoPunk 9y agoWhile many social evils, like the ones mentioned in the article, can be stopped when we end privacy, profound harm can be caused by doing so as well. In a democratic society, the end of privacy means we are all fully at the mercy of the majority. When the majority errs, our freedom and even our lives can be lost. Privacy is the check against that unimaginably large systemic risk. The piece doesn't even look at the other side of the privacy argument. That highly placed opinion makers like the authors of this article can write such a one sided article about privacy just goes to show that we could very well end up in a situation where the majority is steered in a terribly destructive direction.
- IncRnd 9y ago1) Plurality not majority. 2) The end of privacy means you are at the mercy of a minority not a majority, possibly a minority of one.
- CryptoPunk 9y agoI'm giving the anti-privacy camp the benefit of doubt and assuming we can create a democratic system in which the will of the majority is reflected. Even then, giving up almost all forms of meaningful privacy could end up being terribly dangerous.
- FabHK 9y ago> The FAA has a reputation for making change at a snail’s pace even when problems are clearly identified: The agency, for example, still doesn’t put a photo of the pilot on airman’s licenses 13 years after Congress called for it. Yeah, well, but you have to carry a valid photo ID with your pilot's license when you fly, so what's the big deal? (somebody with the same name and birth date and size could fly with your license?)
- bsder 9y agoI don't know, they seem to have moved relatively fast about drones. Perhaps the FAA moves slowly because A) they don't want to break things that people's lives depend upon and B) they react to actual problems rather than breathless prose.
- FabHK 9y agoExactly, they can move fast if they have to. All in all, my impression is that the FAA regulates with a light touch, yes, but quite sensibly. If I'm not mistaken, they actually also have a dual mandate, to 1) regulate and 2) promote aviation. [That's why accident investigations are handled independently by the NTSB.] However, the general aviation lobby in the US (AOPA = Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, NBAA = National Business Aviation Association, etc.) is pretty strong. It's great flying privately in the US, really - in socialist Europe, the you have to pay for ATC, landing fees, etc., while in the USA it's all paid for by the taxpayer :-) Finally, regarding "breathless prose": > the public urgently needs to know whether there are other potential terrorists among the thousands of unknown individuals who control US-registered planes. That seems ridiculous. I assume that Terrorists won't go buy a plane for their terrorism, they'll rent or hijack one, in particular if you want to fly it into something. Drug smugglers, on the other hand, as also mentioned in the piece, might want to have access to their own planes. However, they don't lend themselves quite so easily to breathless policy making ("urgently needs to know") as terrorists and "think about the children".
- sokoloff 9y agoThe FAA's dual mandate was dropped with the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act of 1996 after the ValueJet 592 crash. There is a federal aviation fuel tax that partially funds ATC, I pay a lot of landing fees out of pocket in the US, and there are fees added to airline tickets, some of which pay for regulatory items [though many of which are BS]. It's not all paid by the taxpayers. I agree that the US is a flyer's paradise compared to Europe. I suspect there might be more general aviation flights on a given day in Florida than there are GA flights in all of Europe on that day.
- jpatokal 9y agoThe FAA does, however, exercise very strict oversight in other areas... The FAA inspector looked at my random drug testing program to make sure that everything was in place. I [a one-man helicopter charter company] am subject to the same drug testing requirements as United Airlines. I am the drug testing coordinator for our company, so I am responsible for scheduling drug tests and surprising employees when it is their turn to be tested. As it happens, I’m also the only “safety-sensitive employee” subject to drug testing, so basically I’m responsible for periodically surprising myself with a random drug test. As a supervisor, I need to take training so that I can recognize when an employee is on drugs. But I’m also the only employee, so really this is training so that I can figure out if I myself am on drugs. As an employee, I need to take a second training course so that I learn about all of the ways that my employer might surprise me with a random drug test and find out about drug use. But I’m also the employer so really I’m learning about how I might trap myself. Five minutes after the FAA inspector left, I received a phone call. “I’m from the FAA and we’d like to schedule an audit of your drug testing program.” I remarked that a fully qualified FAA inspector was barely out of the driveway and had just gone through every document that I had on the subject. “He was from the FSDO (Flight Standards District Office)? That’s a completely different department. We’re going to send two inspectors up from Atlanta next month.” Why two? “We always send them in pairs.” What did they want? “We’re going to fax you a detailed list of all of the information that we need and you should immediately contact your drug testing provider (Lexis/Nexis) to tell them that you’re being audited. There is a bunch of information that you can get only from them. As soon as you get the fax, you should re-fax it to Lexis/Nexis.” I said that I didn’t have a fax machine, so he promised to send the information via U.S. mail. It could not be emailed. https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2011/06/16/revitalizing-the-u-s-economy-through-government-spending/ https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2011/06/16/revitalizing-the-...
- gruez 9y ago>The FAA does, however, exercise very strict oversight in other areas... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
- ubernostrum 9y ago
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- rbcgerard 9y agohow is this different from a the privacy afforded by a US license plate on a car?
- tim333 9y agoIt's pretty similar to that really.