You: “what do you mean by that?”
CBP thug: “you’re being uncooperative, pull down your pants and spread your buttcheeks, because I think you have a WMD in your rectum and so does every other officer here.”
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um… sort of the point? CPB admits to killing kids if they want to call him a propagandist.
Man, you could keep the “karma.” I would hate to be detained by an armed officer until I satisfied his perverse desire to make me insult my own profession. That’s evil. It’s an abuse of power. It shows someone utterly unfit to wield authority.
And (re: other comments), I don’t think it matters who this journalist is or what he’s written. It’s not like the officer had read his work and made a reasoned judgment. He just heard “journalist” and decided to abuse his power. It might as well have been any journalist.
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Well, now I can’t not go read them… jeezus… I saw the article when it was just put up, and the comments weren’t that bad (but there weren’t many), and now…
The CBP have been at the forefront of several scandals related to unethical, xenophobic and lawless behavior since Trump took office
But, really, hasn’t that always been their MO? Did it really start with Rump? Haven’t they always been this way? I mean, it’s kind of in the name - Border Protection. Doesn’t that alone just shout xenophobia, racism, and repression of “the other?”
Why are people surprised by this behavior from an organization whose mission is the exclusion of others, and who are guaranteed to look on and judge others from the nastiest and most suspicious point of view possible?
This isn’t Canada, in this timeline. I remember crossing the Canadian border near Lake Champlain on this little two lane road once. This was back in the Seventies. There was a little hut on the Canadian side. A guy stepped out of it and looked at the two American hippies in their station wagon and said, “Hi, nice day. Business or pleasure?” We told him we were headed to Montreal. He recommended a restaurant and waved us in. When we came back, from Windsor to Detroit, Customs literally took the car apart. Nothing has changed for the better.
We have become a nasty, irritable, punitive, arrogant, bunch of pricks. CPB has always been worthy of that description. Of course we are going to hassle people at the border. Soon it will be worse.
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Man I remember crossing into Canada at the Blaine checkpoint in Washington. In 1997 the canadian boys were super chill.
“you boys going fishing? Have a good time, don’t get sunburnt.”
Coming back into the US:
“we’re going to indefinitely detain you and argue about your original birth certificates.”
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“We’ll get back to you.” Never.
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It hasn’t gotten to the point that I am too worried about a BoingBoing post with a few suggestions for data security. My steps to cover my digital tracks go beyond the things mentioned here. These are just some basics. If I ever suspect that there is some kind of state interest in my activity, there are more inconvenient but secure methods of communication but at this point my activity would bore most people to tears.
Yeah I was pretty amazed at how thoroughly the brownshirts brigaded that comment section. Good thing its hidden by default.
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A during the harassment you can’t enter the country.
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When I came into the US in 1998, CBP decided to detain me for two hours to mock me for my grades in school not being high enough, rather than rubber stamp my already-approved TN work visa as they are supposed to do. Luckily the airline was kind enough to hold the plane for me or I would have missed it. If I had, this would have been defacto barring of entry, because this was at a US pre-clearance zone in a Canadian airport. The takeaways are (a) CBP harassment is not new and (b) nobody is checking their power, regardless of what the rule book says.
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“I’m asking the questions here.”
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Somehow I think the people that would minimize the importance of this interaction would shout “slippery slope!” as soon as it was about something they cared about.
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Horrifying movie.
And what’s really horrifying aren’t the allegorical monsters like this one:
But the real, human monsters who bootlicked for Franco in the Spanish Civil War.
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Yikes is right, for god’s sake. There is blood in that street, and they enjoy the letting of it.
Yeah. That part was far scarier. Especially knowing that the movie toned things down.
When it comes to humsnity’s inhumanity, reality is always worse than what we can imagine.
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“But I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
But if he hadn’t written for Fox News then can be convicted for lying to a federal agent? Inquiring minds and all… 
