Man removed from UK flight over 'prayer' message on phone

[crazy canuck]

I regularly talk about Odin on airplanes and I have yet to be thrown out.

People probably assume you are talking about Marvel comics.

[crazy canuck]

Which would you prefer, a system where there is 1 false positive and 1 false negative over 1 million passengers, or one where there are 10 false positives and 0 false negatives over the same span? If you pick the second, isn't that implying the false positive is categorically better?

Not at all; that just implies that in this particular data set the outcome is the same. To say that more false positives are always better is to say that an optimal solution is to classify everything is positive.

A single false positive is always better than a single false negative.

The wrongfully convicted will likely disagree with that broad statement.

[Eddie Teach]

I was talking about suspected terrorists on planes.

[crazy canuck]

I was talking about suspected terrorists on planes.

Yes.  Don't you think it would be better for a false positive to occur in the case of serious crimes?  You would risk a mass murderer going free?   

The point is your logic is a very old excuse for extreme, disproportionate responses to perceived risks. 

[Eddie Teach]

Sure, once you divorce it from the context and alter the meaning it could be used that way.

[Berkut]

The point is your logic is a very old excuse for extreme, disproportionate responses to perceived risks. 

If this were an example of an extreme, disproportionate response to a perceived risk, then that would be a reasonable point.

And when someone uses the excuse of terrorism to engage in activities that are clearly NOT about terrorism, then it would be perfectly reasonable for people to point that out - but the details actually matter. Just because it it possible that something might be mis-used, is not an argument that a particular case is an example of something being mis-used.

[Martinus]

I am conflicted on this. On one hand it's an overreaction and an inconvenience for the passenger, clearly. On the other hand I can see how "better safe than sorry" is a policy one would employ when dealing with dozens of people potentially getting killed.

You mean like prohibiting gays from working in a hospital because they have a significantly higher chance of having AIDs?

...Which can be checked with an easy medical test (I assume people who work at a hospital get those regularly). On the other hand, I am fine with prohibiting gays from donating blood.

By the way, it's AIDS, not AIDs (it's not a plural of AID).

[Martinus]

I was talking about suspected terrorists on planes.

Yes.  Don't you think it would be better for a false positive to occur in the case of serious crimes?  You would risk a mass murderer going free?   

The point is your logic is a very old excuse for extreme, disproportionate responses to perceived risks.

That's like arguing whether "the end justifies the means" is always right or wrong in abstracto. Outside of a high school debate class, it is rarely a fruitful way to spend time.

[Razgovory]

I am conflicted on this. On one hand it's an overreaction and an inconvenience for the passenger, clearly. On the other hand I can see how "better safe than sorry" is a policy one would employ when dealing with dozens of people potentially getting killed.

You mean like prohibiting gays from working in a hospital because they have a significantly higher chance of having AIDs?

...Which can be checked with an easy medical test (I assume people who work at a hospital get those regularly). On the other hand, I am fine with prohibiting gays from donating blood.

By the way, it's AIDS, not AIDs (it's not a plural of AID).

That's not an answer.  If people are more at risk by having gays work in a hospital, should gays be allowed to work in hospitals?

[Martinus]

But that's not a comparable analogy - noone is arguing that people who speak Arabic should not be allowed on planes. Instead, we are arguing whether the airport staff have acted reasonably by wanting to check a man who was heard saying a popular terrorist catch phrase before allowing him back on a plane.

So, in your analogy, if a very thin gay man, with sunken eyes, and weird leshions applies to work at a hospital, it is not unreasonable for the hospital staff to first run some blood tests before letting him assist with surgery. And even after they have run such tests, it is not out of the realm of possibility that some patients may be alarmed without being homophobic.

[Eddie Teach]

It's not a catch phrase, it's a common expression.

[Martinus]

It's not a catch phrase, it's a common expression.

Yeah but it is one that terrorists often use. It does not mean anyone who uses the phrase is a terrorist but is a red flag.

[grumbler]

It's not a catch phrase, it's a common expression.

Yeah but it is one that terrorists often use. It does not mean anyone who uses the phrase is a terrorist but is a red flag.

Terrorists also often use "you," "the" and "maybe."  Should everyone who says those words in Arabic on airplanes be removed?  Inshallah is not a red flag.  It can't be.  It is way too common.

[Richard Hakluyt]

It's not a catch phrase, it's a common expression.

Yeah but it is one that terrorists often use. It does not mean anyone who uses the phrase is a terrorist but is a red flag.

Terrorists also often use "you," "the" and "maybe."  Should everyone who says those words in Arabic on airplanes be removed?  Inshallah is not a red flag.  It can't be.  It is way too common.

Agreed, it is almost the same as saying that speaking Arabic is a red flag.

[Berkut]

It's not a catch phrase, it's a common expression.

Yeah but it is one that terrorists often use. It does not mean anyone who uses the phrase is a terrorist but is a red flag.

That is nuts. It is a common one that Muslims use all the time.

Now, it isn't terribly surprising that someone might not know that, and react totally incorrectly to hearing it, and go and say something to the flight attendant.

*In general* we probably want the public to be willing to say something when they see something they think is concerning. However, that means we are going to see a LOT of false alarms.

The question is, what should the people in the "first line of defense" do when someone comes up to them and says "I heard that person over there say something in Arabic, and I think it might have had something to do with terrorism..."?

This is not an easy question to answer. If we ask the public to "see something, say something" then we know that most the time they say something, it is likely because they saw something that is completely harmless. So how do we apply reasonable filters so that we aren't yanking people off of planes for no good reason?

Now, this is a particular example, and we don't even know at all whether this was the system working as intended, or actually a mistake. Perhaps stuff like this happens all the time, and a competent flight attendant would say "Thanks for your letting me know, but that term is really not indicative of a problem - I will go chat with them though. Thanks!". Then they go have a quick innocuous chat with the person, realize it is nothing, and everyone goes about their day. Maybe this happens 50 times, and this is the 1 time that the flight attendant was new, or uncomfortable, or whatever, so it escalated further than it should have...? Who knows?

Maybe this happens all the time, and it is a serious problem with people being needlessly harassed. I suspect if that was the case, there would be a lot more stories like this - instead we get one offs everyone once in a great while.

Whatever system we have, there will be cases where the system works as intended, but we get a result we don't want, in which case the system needs to be tweaked. But how do you tell if a particular story is the system working as intended, or the system NOT working properly? Especially given the media's known dishonesty in how they often report this kind of thing?