Fuckin’ A; it’s totally possible to do one’s job correctly, without being a dick about it.
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As someone who lives in a state that used to have quarantine area signs up for apple maggots… I gotta say THIS!
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What speculation? When you enter the US you need to fill out and sign a customs declaration where you state you are not bringing in fruit. There are signs reminding you of the law at every international airport I’ve ever arrived. I’m not sure what you are getting at with your reptilian nonsense.
My point is that people are so easily outraged, that the story could have been easily written to push the opposite outrage buttons.
I wasn’t there to hear the whole exchange. Maybe the officer was being a jerk and unprofessional when writing the ticket, but guess what? If you park illegally, and the officer makes some stupid joke while writing you the ticket, you still have to pay it. I have no problem with that.
She knew the law. She broke that law. She paid a fine. I don’t see why this is a big deal or worthy of outrage.
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The speculation where you suggest “framing this story about an entitled one-percenter who lied on her customs declaration form, ignored multiple signs, lied to the agent when asked if she had any fruit with her” to prove that “people’s” outrage is unwarranted. I just suggested punching it up with more aspects that were not really present in this case.
Here’s what we know did happen: she was given a snack apple on an American-based airline’s international flight and saved it for later on; Delta didn’t announce that the apple had to be eaten in-flight or discarded; the customs form is not clear and a traveller might erroneously assume that a fruit only needs to be declared if it was acquired directly in the origin country; the border control’s signs and warnings were not close to the alarming gauntlet you have to run in Australia before reaching the control; the person had no previous offenses or history of smuggling.
It adds up to an honest mistake on her part, one that a well-trained officer will usually respond to with a warning and a note in her record. Or at least a professional interaction if the inspector felt obliged to write her a citation.
Your point is pointless, especially since you don’t specify who these easily outraged people you’re discussing are.
Then use the information available to you from the article.
I have no problem with someone paying a fine on a legit ticket, nor does anyone else. I have a big problem with law enforcement officers who are unprofessional jerks. Apparently, you’re willing to accept that kind of behaviour from public servants (or perhaps just from LEOs).
As a privileged white male whose superficial appearance screams “lawyer” (IANAL) they don’t pull that stuff with me, but that doesn’t make it any more acceptable to me when they pull it on others. Truly supporting law and order means insisting the cops and justice system treat every citizen with (to use the NYPD’s unfulfilled ideals as an example credo) compassion, courtesy, professionalism, and respect.
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*sighs
You seem to really like that word.
(Hyperbole; the internet was made for thee.)
Where on this post do you see people so very “outraged” as you describe; as opposed to merely expressing a variety of opinions, which range from sympathetic to apathetic?
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For example that posts railing against the imagined “malicious smugness” of the officer.
I have no problem with the sympathetic posts (i.e. “Wow. That sucks.”) or the apathetic ones. (“Who cares This happens every day.”) Both seem like a normal reaction to these kinds of stories.
This is the kind of dog bites man story that happens hundreds of times a day. I don’t see any reason to assume that either the officer or the woman in question were acting maliciously or are bad people.
The emotional response to this vanilla event was generated due to the misleading headline and spin of the article. Don’t you see how with a few tweaks the emotions could have been directed in the other direction?
I find that interesting and worthy of comment and/or discussion. If you don’t, that’s cool too.
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Well, you for example. You are bending over backward making excuses for the traveler and imagining all kinds of things about the officers’ motivations and actions.
Three paragraphs ago you literally said she should not have had to pay the ticket because it was the fault of Delta/the customs form/ the customs agent/she only broke the law once.
This article clearly elicited a strong emotional reaction in you. That’s fine. It was designed to.
The event itself is the kind of thing that happens every day. Yeah, some people are jerks and in a perfect world we wouldn’t have any jerks, but it would have been just as easy to spin exactly the same facts to focus the negative emotions on the traveler rather than the officer.
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That’s one way of characterising my citing the facts in the story.
I can only judge the actions based on the facts in the story. Others are doing the same. You have different standards of expected professionalism, courtesy and respect than others here do.
No, I said that a well-trained courteous and compassionate officer would have taken those things into account or at least behaved professionally and respectfully if he felt obliged to issue the citation.
I do take the professionalism of law enforcement officers toward all citizens seriously, yes. Clearly you don’t.
I also have a healthy distrust of uniformed authorities and the justice syem, even though I’m one of the last people they’ll mess around with under normal circumstances. When I see a story where live up to my worst expectations I find it upsetting as a citizen.
African-American male teenagers get shot by law enforcement if not every day than every week, frequently for no other crime than walking or driving while black. Do you shrug that off, too?
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Sorry, but it’s really not up to you to decide what other people can care about, or not; or what others deem worthy of their interest.
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Yep. I haven’t been dinged by CBP but I know someone who had something very similar happen with a banana (just look at it!). Also coming back from France, come to think of it.
After sheepishly apologizing she got off with a warning, but the note on her record almost cost her her Global Entry. Difference? Being an ex-FBI analyst, she didn’t give the CBP officer any attitude.
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A customs officer making a snarky remark is your “worst expectations”? Really? It’s not professional, but your comments seem to lack perspective.
Sure, because obviously, a customs officer making a snarky remark to a woman trying to illegally bring fruit into the county is exactly the same as police shooting unarmed black teenagers. /s
One of them, yes, since it’s (as you acknowledge) not professional. You just take the lack of professionalism in LEOs (especially in 4th Amendment grey ones) less seriously than I do.
You brushed off a LEO-involved situation that occurs “every day.” I provided you with another example of a lack of professionalism.
If you think there’s no connection between a lack of true LEO “compassion, courtesy, professionalism and respect” toward civilians in general on an everyday basis and the shootings of unarmed African-American teenagers by LEOs on an everyday basis then you haven’t been paying attention.
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If you ever want to have a long day, drive a car from Massachusetts into CA.
Gypsy Moths are the devil
Man, that would be some Gumball Rally, MA to CA in a day. 
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The customs form says: “I am bringing (We are bringing): (a) fruits, vegetables, plants, seeds, insects,” followed by a simple yes/no checkbox. What is so unclear about that? There are no qualifiers about where the items come from, how you obtained them, or how much you paid for them. The question is DO YOU HAVE THEM, period, full stop, end of story. There is zero room for interpretation here, and as somebody who enters the US at various airports about 10 times/year (and I do it without Global Entry) I’m shocked that a person who went to the trouble to get Global Entry status would not understand this.
The article screams of the woman going to the press to try to get bad publicity for CBP so they will fix her mistake. Notice that the entire story is told from her point of view. CBP refused comment and Delta issued only a standard press release. We have no idea whether she was nasty with the agent, what she said to him, or how the agent perceived her, because we only have her side of the story, and she of course is not going to make herself look bad when her whole purpose is to get sympathy from the public.
At a minimum, had she simply declared the apple she would have avoided the fine and kept her Global Entry status – penalties are for not declaring, not for bringing prohibited items to the border (unless, of course, simple possession of those items is illegal under federal law, like cocaine).
Yeah we get than one in Melbourne, as well as the Australian version. I always look forward to getting my shoes cleaned for free when I go to Christchurch. The “to declare” lines usually give faster service in most places so its actually better to declare something, even if it is innocuous.
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No sympathy for the woman here. I fly frequently and yeah, sometimes I often don’t hear all the PA announcements on the flights, or pay attention to all the signs in the airport, or seriously consider all the questions on the entry cards, but if I may a mistake, that’s on me. $500 is a small fine, considering the number of warnings and potential damage. (I think Canada’s signs say, "up to $25,000)
This was not her first time flying. She should know better. Now she will.
Ha, I did do that in 3 1/2 days once. It WAS a heck of a day.
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Whilst I agree with the thrust of your post and, further, suspect that both traveller and agent were being aresholes, I note that what you claim to be the question (above) and what you quote as evidence of the question (in your post, key verb = ‘bringing’) are in fact different. For many varieties of English, bringing and having are not the same. One may imply the other, but whilst I may HAVE an apple I did not BRING it here (to this port of entry) as far as my personal use of those verbs is concerned. So perhaps I might legitimately answer ‘yes I have’ but ‘no I am not bringing’, in some circumstances, I guess. Maybe the US customs should revert to the simple “do you have any…” form of the question.
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