WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK!?

[piranha]

peter watts, canadian science fiction writer, was beaten and jailed at a US border crossing, according to him without provocation or reason.

peter's blog entry does not shed any more light on what exactly happened.

dear US of fucking A:

occasionally friends of mine in the US wonder why i no longer travel there. and when i explain, i am sure -- even though nobody has said it out loud -- that they think i'm probably a little paranoid.

i'm not. your damn country is a loose cannon. crossing your borders is not safe for foreigners. yes, thousands cross without incident. but the incidents are many more now than they used to be, and the guards are more petty and vindictive, and more filled with righteous POWER because hey, there's terr'ists out there.

no way am i visiting the US again while this sort of shit goes on. i had great hopes for the obama administration, but obama clearly isn't willing to fix many of the problems introduced by the abominable shrub.

my canadian dollars won't go into your tourist industry. they'll go to a legal defense fund for peter watts.

Comments

[highlander_ii]

I don't think it's that Obama isn't willing to fix things, but that it takes time to do so. The US government is complex when trying to get things done - it's also notoriously slow, given the bi-partisan make-up of nearly every piece of it that tries to do anything. The one party won't let the other party push their thing through b/c it might hurt partyA, so partyB does 15 re-writes that each get argued over and blah blah blah until the final version doesn't look anything like what was originally proposed.

And if the border guards acted w/o provocation - they are wrong, no matter who they were 'arresting'. Though this makes me wonder how many other folks crossing the border are detained on trumped up charges that we never hear about - which makes me sad... and angry.

Provocation is irrelevant

[(Anonymous)]

If the description of the event is even remotely correct, it makes no difference whatsoever whether they were provoked or not. Those actions are completely and unconditionally unacceptable regardless of what provocation a sole, unarmed SF author could have possibly offered an entire squad of border patrol agents.

I will be contacting my US Congressional representatives and ensuring that they're aware of this absolutely unacceptable and criminal treatment of a Canadian citizen and asking them to follow this case and seriously consider whether a Congressional investigation of the behavior of Homeland Security is warranted.

Re: Provocation is irrelevant

[piranha]

well, if he went berserk on them, i'd consider that enough provocation to use pepper spray on him.

but i seriously doubt peter watts would go berserk on anyone. from what he says he got out of the car. i don't know whether they asked him to do so, but IME that's not their first action, they usually want you to stay inside until they ask you to come out explicitly (which is quite different from what law enforcement in other countries wants from you).

so could be watts got out of his car without being asked. and they could perceive that as threatening. i sympathize with cops to some degree; the unpredictability of people makes it tough to analyze a situation in a split second, and determine whether the person is a threat. but even if some cluless civilian gets out when he's expected to stay in, that's not provocation sufficient to lead to beating him up and jailing him (nevermind confiscating all his belongings and tossing him out into the cold without protection!).

that sounds like a serious overreaction, and to me it feels like behaviour of people abusing their powers (and then adding insult to injury by slapping him with charges, which is of course done to protect themselves, so if he sues them, they can make a deal). bastards.

and yes, this happens all the time, but there is rarely any uproar, because they do it to people without voices. good on you for contacting your reps!

[piranha]

sure, it takes time, but i'd like to see moves in the right direction at least. and they're not happening. i don't think any of the crappy border stuff will get rolled back, simply because that sort of thing generally doesn't happen. once a government has acquired new power, it is loathe to relinquish it, and switching parties is often not enough.

in the fall the patriot act was extended on obama's watch. it expires in 3 weeks, and again there is talk of extension, even from dem opponents. it should fucking expire; it's been abused out the wazoo. but even with a dem president and dem congress, nope, there it is, getting extended, to be debated anew, and then nobody will want to look "soft on terrorism", and the security theatre will continue..

i am not surprised progressive dems in the US are furious.

[highlander_ii]

Oh good - the Patriot Act will start to look like the Cuba ban - there for 'looks' and enforced on principle, but it doesn't really need to be there anymore. I mean, when was the last time Cuba was actually a viable threat on North America? Militarily. Cold War? And that was 20 years ago? I can see the Patriot Act being kind of like that - in place and enforced just b/c it's there. Boo.

I love my country most of the time, but damn if the government doesn't need to get it's head out of its collective ass already.

[piranha]

the only reason cuba ever was a threat was because the US fucked up so badly in cuba that the USSR could eventually gain a foothold. that happened IMO only because the US would not stop trying to undermine the castro government.

there is a lot of slimy politics involved in the continuing bad treatment of cuba, and it all reeks to high heaven of corrupt capitalism holding a grudge because a country had a revolution and kicked them out.

obama has moved a little towards a more conciliatory attitude, but there's no sign that the trade embargo will be lifted, or travel to cuba for regular americans be allowed.

[highlander_ii]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure we won't see any true movement toward lifting the embargo for quite some time. It's one of those things that some of the American public 'takes for granted' b/c it's 'always been that way' for a lot of them. Most people have no idea why it was put in place or what the politics behind it were. And Congress has weird positions on which it maintains the status quo and, for some reason, Cuba is one of them.

[dragonwolf]

Gotta love the American view of justice -- "let's isolate them from the rest of the world and put a stigma on them! (And later, wonder why they stay pissed off...)"

I love my country, but loving my country and loving (or even liking) my government are two different things.

[vrisanfra]

And this...would be why most of us in here are not proud of this country. Or rather, one of many reasons. We don't live here because we enjoy it...>.>

Body would love to retire to Ireland. I think it wants to bring people with it. *hehe*

-Kaelaren

[boxofdelights]

Holy shit.

Thanks for the info.

[jassanja]

do you have to give your fingerprints too when crossing into the USA??
Or is just everyone in Europe a terrorist who needs to go into the database?!?

[piranha]

if you go by air, yes. or if you want to cross the border with less hassle, through NEXUS and FAST programs, then they take your biometric data.

but it might be coming for land crossings as well. bush/chertoff tried to make it happen at the peace bridge crossing in 2007, and i gotta say, i was impressed the canadian (conservative) government did not cave in.

[wild_irises]

As an American citizen and resident, I completely understand and support everyone who doesn't want to come into this country. Heck, if I wasn't here, I probably wouldn't come here. It's repulsive.

[piranha]

it sucks extra hard because i know so many excellent americans -- but y'all don't run your country.

not like we run ours either, but so far at least we're holding the wolves at bay in a minority government.

[gam0ra.blogspot.com]

Nope, don't blame you a bit. I don't cross US borders unless I absolutely have to and am in a large group of people. And when I do, I don't take anything even vaguely questionable.