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I do not feel comfortable about expressing my views about American security policy. Sure I say whatever here, but I planned on demonstrating outside the America
by jernfrost 11y ago
I do not feel comfortable about expressing my views about American security policy. Sure I say whatever here, but I planned on demonstrating outside the American embassy here in Norway, but I decided it was too risky. It has been uncovered that the American embassy films and photographs all demonstrators. I travel frequently to the US because I am married to an American and because of work. I don't want to risk getting on some secret list and getting problems when visiting the US.
And let me tell you there is nothing I dread more than American border authorities. They are the worst of any country I have visited. My university or american authorities made some mistake when I left the US after a masters study. I got all sorts of shit because of that years afterwards on every visit. I got interrogated for probably an hour with all the same stupid questions repeated again and again. It didn't matter that I thought the issue got cleared up the first time. It was back to square one the next visit, while my wife and kids had to wait a long time not knowing what was going on.
And that is just me, but I have so many friends and acquaintances with horror stories, some who swear they will never come back to the US due to their treatment. One guy was dragged into interrogation because he didn't keep his finger too long on the fingerprint reader.
I got a friend in the neighborhood who happens to be brown. That is not a safe color in the US, because that is the terrorist color. He isn't a muslim and have been living in Norway the last 15 years. But no the border guards just started hurling accusations of him being a terrorist and that he was plotting something in the US, seemingly just throwing anything at him to see what would stick or get him off his balance.
Like most Norwegians he travels on vacation all over the world a lot. Yet somehow this kind of shit only seems to happen in the US.
You know how they operate in the US. As a foreigner I have no rights in the US, as is also evident from how they view collection about data about non-americans. So I don't want to risk anything that will get me in serious trouble.
I can tell Americans are affected to. When my wife talks about Snowden with her family in America they get all nervous. They think it isn't something one should talk about. They got very upset when she used encrypted email and said that would get her targeted by NSA.
It is all sad because I would have liked to live some years with the family in the US. It is a country which has a lot to offer. But police state feeling of the US is just creepy. It puzzles me that American are not more aware of the problem. How can so many be so convinced that America is a country with so much freedom. People kept parroting this to me when I lived there, but it was the lack of freedom that made me leave.
- riprowan 11y ago> It puzzles me that American are not more aware of the problem. Most Americans do not travel outside the USA extensively. They have no basis of comparison. > How can so many be so convinced that America is a country with so much freedom. Americans watch TV, and it tells them that they are free.