[csail-related] GSB Tonight: Law Enforcement.

[jamoozy at csail.mit.edu (Andrew "Jamoozy" Correa)]

A quick search produced this article:

http://www.cafemom.com/group/416/forums/read/12749554/TODDLER_screaming_during_TSA_pat_down

It tells the story of a 3-year-old girl who was patted down by security 
while having a bad day.  It all started when her teddy-bear had to go 
through the scanning machine, and ended with her father, who happened to 
be a reporter, filming the pat-down process with his camera phone.

This seems to be a theme in life.  There's a balance between security 
and this sort of thing: patting down screaming 3-year-olds while their 
parents are forced to watch (or worse, participate).

This story reminded me that I have not once had a good experience with 
an on-duty police officer.  I have no police record and have never been 
arrested (officially or otherwise), but I have been hassled at least 
once a year by some form of law enforcement ever since I started my 
undergraduate studies.

Some stories:

1) One time I was riding my bike home.  I was almost there, and a cop 
pulled me over.  He didn't get out of his car, just sort of pulled up 
next to my bike, and asked, "Bit late, isn't it?"
     "Yes, officer."
     "Where are you headed?"
     "Home."
     "Where's that?"
     I pointed to my housing complex, clearly visible from where we were 
(Irvine has hills, unlike Cambridge, and we were on top of one), and 
said "Over there."
     "AV?" he asked, before I could say it myself.
     "Yep.  Arroyo Vista."
     Here there was a pause, as though he wasn't quite sure what to say 
next, but after only a moment he asked, "Is that bike yours?"
     This came out of left field for me, so there was a pause on my 
part.  Maybe that's wasn't so great, but after a beat I said, "Yeah." 
with no particular emphasis.
     The officer looked me up and down and said, "Okay.  You go straight 
home."
     "Okay, thanks.", I said, not quite sure what I was thanking him 
for, and went home.

2) I started a laser tag club at UCI when I was there.  It was fun.  We 
were playing in the arts parking structure one time (so-named because it 
was near the arts campus of UCI) when a cop car pulled up next to us 
while we were configuring our taggers (that's right, they're called 
"taggers".  Not "guns".  And not just for political reasons, either?) 
and said, "What are you guys up to?"
     We explained ourselves and asked if there was a problem.  Perhaps 
there were noise complaints?
     "Oh, yeah." he said, in response to our prompt.  "We've been 
getting calls in for a few hours about 'People with guns in the parking 
structure.'"
     We were shocked, and the officer made us agree to stop for the 
night.  We went home disappointed.
     The next day, we called the UCI PD and asked what the nature of the 
calls were.  Just noise?  Fear that there was something terrible going 
on?  People shouting around with guns?
     Nothing.  Not one single call was made last night about anything to 
do with our activities.  However---since we brought it up---we should 
probably form an official club and ask for permission from the UCI PD 
each time we hold an event.
     On the bright side, the club was born.  On the downside, we didn't 
have any source of income (there was a quarterly fee), so the club 
dissolved after about a half a year and we stopped playing laser tag.

3) Irvine is close to Mexico---it's in the southern part of CA, which 
borders Mexico---and once upon a time, you needed nothing more than an 
American driver's license to get back into the country from Mexico.  
That, and you needed to "sound American".  I went with some friends one 
year, and we had a great time; no bad water was ingested, nothing was 
stolen, and an all-around good time was had by all.  On the way back 
into the good ol' US, we had to go through the border patrol.  They 
didn't like me.
     Everyone from our group was ahead of me in line.  They all got 
through with very few words exchanged.  When my turn came up, I was very 
relaxed.  I thought to myself _This shouldn't be too hard.  The others 
got straight through sans problem._
     The border officer mumbled something.  It sounded like "Is this 
your country of origin?"
     "Yes.", I replied, thinking _I guess this will be easier than I 
thought._
     The officer looked me up and down, suddenly in an extremely bad 
mood.  "Can you point out the country of 'Yes.' on a map?" he asked, 
suddenly not mumbling in the slightest.
     "Oh!  Uhh ... no."
     "Well, okay then.  What is your country of origin?"
     "America."
     At this point, I guess he figured it was time to play the 
smart-ass.  Perhaps border patrol officers are trained to do this, 
because only native speakers would be able to keep up with such a 
conversation?  Regardless of his reasons, he leaned over to the border 
officer in the booth next to him (who was handling the line next to 
ours), and said, "Y'know, Phil, there are many 'Americas' in the world."
     "Yeah," said the other border guard---apparently named 
Phil---chiming in immediately and started to list off a bunch of 
countries with "America" somewhere in the name.  Soon, my border guard 
(let's call him not-Phil) was adding some also.
     When these gentlemen finally tired of listing off these countries, 
not-Phil asked me, "So, when you say 'America', which America do you mean?"
     "Well, the United States of America." I said. "Of course."
     "Of course."  He said, looking at my CA license. "So where do you 
live?"
     "In Irvine, at the moment." I said.
     "Oh?  That's not what your license says."
     _Shit_, I immediately think. _Mom and Dad live in Moreno Valley ... 
"Well, that says [address here].  That's where my parents live and where 
I'm registered to vote."
     "Oh!  Well who did you vote for in the last election?"
     "I was too young to vote in the last election."
     He seemed satisfied with this (I guess that last one was a trick 
question), and let me through.
     As I left the line, I noticed my entire party of 3 other people 
were standing just after the line with worried looks on their faces, 
staring; I'm not sure they thought I'd be let through.  They had been 
watching the whole time.
     "What did he say?" asked my girlfriend.  And I relayed the story to 
my group as we started out return-trip from San Diego to Irvine.

With all these negative stories, I think I should mention a positive one:

One time on a "business trip", I was in an airport.  The security line 
was empty (Oh, Happy Day!) and a couple of the TSA folks were chatting 
by the podium where they check your ticket against your ID.  I was the 
only person in line, so they didn't mind holding up "the line" to finish 
their conversation.  It was about how John had committed some social 
faux pas, and how inappropriate it was.  They both seemed to be in 
agreement, and I wasn't sure what was going on, exactly, but when they 
looked at me, as though to say, "What do you think?" I nodded and said, 
"Well, y'know!  Some people!"
     Apparently this was the right thing to say, because they let me 
through the line pretty expeditiously.  I was barely checked.  I 
couldn't believe it.
     You don't want to know which airport this was.

So the moral of these stories is that nothing's perfect.  We should all 
strive to better ourselves and our society, but we will never find the 
optimal solution.  We'll merely get to "really good" and sort of level off.

The questions remaining are, "Where are we now?" and "How much further 
can we get?"  I don't have the answers (maybe no one does), but I can 
tell you this ...

Come to this week's:

           +-                                                  -+
              girl scout benefit -+-  5:30 pm  -+- 32-G9 lounge
           +-                                                  -+

               For those coming from elsewhere: Building 32 is
<http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?selection=32>
           Once you are in 32, just take the G-elevator to the 9th
       floor and we will be in the lounge that you will be looking at
<http://projects.csail.mit.edu/gsb>