6 ms·

I was always very confused/amused by the questions at the border: "Are you a terrorist or affiliate with a terrorist organization?" "Are you a secret spy" Why

I was always very confused/amused by the questions at the border: "Are you a terrorist or affiliate with a terrorist organization?" "Are you a secret spy" Why would anyone say yes? What's the purpose of this. Do they just need it to avoid arguments like "we dont even ask?" A friend of mine explained it to me: - let's say that they have the suspicion or evidence that you are affiliated w/ a terrorist organization. by US law they would need to prove this in front of a court before they could act on it. OR they could simply show that you lied at entry and use that to expel you from the country. Simple. Done. I am unsure what the deeper goal behind the social media accounts is but i assume it also connects to a similar strong arm argument like that.

ProfChronos 10y ago
It's not as simple as that: they would still need to make the case but you lying at the border just gives US authorities bigger evidence. Couple of years ago a French tourist answered "yes" to make fun of US borders and ended up in jail for a couple of days - not years as obviously he was more a dumb tourist than a real terrorist
- jacquesm 10y ago
  > Couple of years ago a French tourist answered "yes" to make fun of US borders and ended up in jail for a couple of days - not years as obviously he was more a dumb tourist than a real terrorist This must have made the USA so much safer.
  - peyton 10y ago
    I get the sarcasm, but given there are hundreds of millions of US border crossings annually, a policy of taking everything seriously regardless of size probably does make the US safer.
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      I'm sure that there are lines somewhere between 'taking things seriously', 'overreacting' and 'making examples of people'. Ask a stupid question, expect a stupid answer. It's a stupid question because nobody in their right mind would answer 'yes' to the question which just leaves people with a language barrier (which have a high incidence rate at borders), people that are nervous and/or tired (ditto, probably including some of the guards) and people that are trying to relieve the situation by attempting to be funny (stupid, but understandable since humor has been since time immemorial a natural release for tension).
      - peyton 10y ago
        You're completely right. There are serious downsides. However, I think this question (and a lot of the crappy things about the US) exist to deal with and automate problems at scale. Scaling is hard. Scaling solutions are overkill if you don't have a scaling problem. In this case, the problem is strong due process protections and allocating court resources. You might not hold a person without involving the courts if you suspect them of terrorist ties, but you can if they lie on a form or tell you they're a terrorist. I don't know the specifics, but one could imagine a concession of due process if, say, the person held for their answer on the entry card is guaranteed to appear before a judge within three days. Automate the process and you get silly situations like the one above. Don't automate the process and somebody eventually screws up and denies due process or lets a suspected terrorist through without scrutiny. And again, yeah, the entry questions could be handled better, but it's a serious juggling act scaling it up and fitting it into our legal framework.
      - vacri 10y ago
        Not to mention that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. "Are you a terrorist?" -> "No, but I'm a soldier for The Cause..."
      - balls187 10y ago
        I don't think it's necessarily a stupid question, because of the psychology involved with lying. This question would likely weed out any wanna-be small time people intent on causing harm to the US. Something similar to how many criminals in the US are arrested due to routine traffic stops. If asking this "stupid" question prevents 1 single undesirable person from entering the US, then it's served it's purpose.
- dempseye 10y ago
  He's not necessarily dumb because he made the mistake of thinking your border drones had a sense of humour. And given that English is probably not a native language for him, it's entirely possible that the sarcasm did not get through. Quaking in fear in front of authority figures might be the norm in the USA, but it is not the norm everywhere.
  - Kadin 10y ago
    In that case, at least he received a gentle warning in the form of a few days in the cooler, as opposed to wandering into the US where his attitude could have easily (depending on his skin color and other factors) have gotten him a sucking chest wound for his trouble. Best to learn not to argue with people with guns at the border. (Somewhat tongue-in-cheek here but I actually do think this is the purpose of aggressive border authorities. As someone who traveled around old, pre-EU, pre-Schengen Europe, you used to see it quite a bit there as well. Hard to say if it was intentional or just the product of different training, though.)
    - lovich 10y ago
      I don't really have anything constructive to add to this, but the idea that the government is setting up bullys on the border to educate foreigners on how to deal with its citizens in a way that doesn't end in death, is beyond fucked up.
  - balls187 10y ago
    Border guards aren't supposed to have a sense of humor. Imagine how many non-resident/non-citizens enter the US daily. Now imagine if everyone of them were allowed to jokingly answer these questions. It would make doing their job that much harder. It's much easier to treat all declarations as serious, rather than try to weed out the jokes. And because of the nature involved investigating, anyone who willing makes false statements are punished.
agotterer 10y ago
The border agents are looking for you to slip up or provide a tell. Asking questions like that may sound silly, but that's the point. They want to try to catch people off guard with unexpected questions and see how they react. These agents are trained to read your reaction and body language. Your body language and voice levels can help reveal some truth or at least the fact that you're uncomfortable answering the question. And why would you be uncomfortable answering a question about whether your a terrorist or not?
- yaps8 10y ago
  I wonder how they are trained to differentiate between someone who is hiding something and someone who is uncomfortable because they have been in a 10 hours flight, barely slept, have not been speaking english for months and are anxious to be suspected for nothing.
  - throwawaysocks 10y ago
    Ostensibly facial ticks or whatever. Actually country of origin and maybe skin color / attire. That's the function of pseudo-science bullshit -- you can ignore civil liberties and pretend you're not.
- appleflaxen 10y ago
  they want you to think they are experts with domain specific secrets passed on through craft-lore passed down from the wizened sages of border security. But the reality is that this is no different than arson-lore (where firefighters testify based on superstitions regarding burn patterns) or leech-lore (where doctors recommend based on superstitions regarding your humoral balance) or polygraph-lore (where law enforcement interprets the squiggles of your heart to decide when you are lying). All non-scientifically validated "lore" is just a superstition, and should be treated as such. The reality is that DHS is unable to stop terrorist attacks. Full stop. They can't possibly, in a free society. That's ok, because that's one cost that a free society pays, but the benefits are worth it, so we carry on. The problem is that DHS believes their own superstitions, has defined their actions to be "good" because "we're the good guys", and thinks that the public thinks they are responsible for preventing all terrorism. This only stops when either the public demands change, or at totalitarianism. And you can't really tell, in full, when the first option disappears. You realize after you grasp for it and come up with wisps of smoke.
Spooky23 10y ago
Considering recent events, they are probably looking for evidence that you are reposting ISIS propaganda or whatever the boogeyman of the day is.
daemin 10y ago
Would there ever be a legitimate reason for answering yes to those questions? The closest thing that I can think of is if you were a member of a political party that had associations with a terrorist group (or that had been labelled as terrorists). So for example Sinn Fein in Ireland where they had links to the IRA.
mikeash 10y ago
Some people, very few but not zero, really are that dumb. But I believe the main reason is so that when they catch somebody and prosecute them for terrorism, they can add "making false statements" to the charges and get even more prison time.
nojvek 10y ago
This is one of the reasons why I'm really liking snapchat. Every message goes poof after reading and the network is very private. Unless of course snapchat is storing every message. In which case they'd have gigs of my silly selfies.

ProfChronos 10y ago

It's not as simple as that: they would still need to make the case but you lying at the border just gives US authorities bigger evidence. Couple of years ago a French tourist answered "yes" to make fun of US borders and ended up in jail for a couple of days - not years as obviously he was more a dumb tourist than a real terrorist

jacquesm 10y ago
> Couple of years ago a French tourist answered "yes" to make fun of US borders and ended up in jail for a couple of days - not years as obviously he was more a dumb tourist than a real terrorist This must have made the USA so much safer.
- peyton 10y ago
  I get the sarcasm, but given there are hundreds of millions of US border crossings annually, a policy of taking everything seriously regardless of size probably does make the US safer.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    I'm sure that there are lines somewhere between 'taking things seriously', 'overreacting' and 'making examples of people'. Ask a stupid question, expect a stupid answer. It's a stupid question because nobody in their right mind would answer 'yes' to the question which just leaves people with a language barrier (which have a high incidence rate at borders), people that are nervous and/or tired (ditto, probably including some of the guards) and people that are trying to relieve the situation by attempting to be funny (stupid, but understandable since humor has been since time immemorial a natural release for tension).
    - peyton 10y ago
      You're completely right. There are serious downsides. However, I think this question (and a lot of the crappy things about the US) exist to deal with and automate problems at scale. Scaling is hard. Scaling solutions are overkill if you don't have a scaling problem. In this case, the problem is strong due process protections and allocating court resources. You might not hold a person without involving the courts if you suspect them of terrorist ties, but you can if they lie on a form or tell you they're a terrorist. I don't know the specifics, but one could imagine a concession of due process if, say, the person held for their answer on the entry card is guaranteed to appear before a judge within three days. Automate the process and you get silly situations like the one above. Don't automate the process and somebody eventually screws up and denies due process or lets a suspected terrorist through without scrutiny. And again, yeah, the entry questions could be handled better, but it's a serious juggling act scaling it up and fitting it into our legal framework.
    - vacri 10y ago
      Not to mention that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. "Are you a terrorist?" -> "No, but I'm a soldier for The Cause..."
    - balls187 10y ago
      I don't think it's necessarily a stupid question, because of the psychology involved with lying. This question would likely weed out any wanna-be small time people intent on causing harm to the US. Something similar to how many criminals in the US are arrested due to routine traffic stops. If asking this "stupid" question prevents 1 single undesirable person from entering the US, then it's served it's purpose.
dempseye 10y ago
He's not necessarily dumb because he made the mistake of thinking your border drones had a sense of humour. And given that English is probably not a native language for him, it's entirely possible that the sarcasm did not get through. Quaking in fear in front of authority figures might be the norm in the USA, but it is not the norm everywhere.
- Kadin 10y ago
  In that case, at least he received a gentle warning in the form of a few days in the cooler, as opposed to wandering into the US where his attitude could have easily (depending on his skin color and other factors) have gotten him a sucking chest wound for his trouble. Best to learn not to argue with people with guns at the border. (Somewhat tongue-in-cheek here but I actually do think this is the purpose of aggressive border authorities. As someone who traveled around old, pre-EU, pre-Schengen Europe, you used to see it quite a bit there as well. Hard to say if it was intentional or just the product of different training, though.)
  - lovich 10y ago
    I don't really have anything constructive to add to this, but the idea that the government is setting up bullys on the border to educate foreigners on how to deal with its citizens in a way that doesn't end in death, is beyond fucked up.
- balls187 10y ago
  Border guards aren't supposed to have a sense of humor. Imagine how many non-resident/non-citizens enter the US daily. Now imagine if everyone of them were allowed to jokingly answer these questions. It would make doing their job that much harder. It's much easier to treat all declarations as serious, rather than try to weed out the jokes. And because of the nature involved investigating, anyone who willing makes false statements are punished.

agotterer 10y ago

The border agents are looking for you to slip up or provide a tell. Asking questions like that may sound silly, but that's the point. They want to try to catch people off guard with unexpected questions and see how they react. These agents are trained to read your reaction and body language. Your body language and voice levels can help reveal some truth or at least the fact that you're uncomfortable answering the question. And why would you be uncomfortable answering a question about whether your a terrorist or not?

yaps8 10y ago
I wonder how they are trained to differentiate between someone who is hiding something and someone who is uncomfortable because they have been in a 10 hours flight, barely slept, have not been speaking english for months and are anxious to be suspected for nothing.
- throwawaysocks 10y ago
  Ostensibly facial ticks or whatever. Actually country of origin and maybe skin color / attire. That's the function of pseudo-science bullshit -- you can ignore civil liberties and pretend you're not.
appleflaxen 10y ago
they want you to think they are experts with domain specific secrets passed on through craft-lore passed down from the wizened sages of border security. But the reality is that this is no different than arson-lore (where firefighters testify based on superstitions regarding burn patterns) or leech-lore (where doctors recommend based on superstitions regarding your humoral balance) or polygraph-lore (where law enforcement interprets the squiggles of your heart to decide when you are lying). All non-scientifically validated "lore" is just a superstition, and should be treated as such. The reality is that DHS is unable to stop terrorist attacks. Full stop. They can't possibly, in a free society. That's ok, because that's one cost that a free society pays, but the benefits are worth it, so we carry on. The problem is that DHS believes their own superstitions, has defined their actions to be "good" because "we're the good guys", and thinks that the public thinks they are responsible for preventing all terrorism. This only stops when either the public demands change, or at totalitarianism. And you can't really tell, in full, when the first option disappears. You realize after you grasp for it and come up with wisps of smoke.

Spooky23 10y ago

Considering recent events, they are probably looking for evidence that you are reposting ISIS propaganda or whatever the boogeyman of the day is.

daemin 10y ago

Would there ever be a legitimate reason for answering yes to those questions? The closest thing that I can think of is if you were a member of a political party that had associations with a terrorist group (or that had been labelled as terrorists). So for example Sinn Fein in Ireland where they had links to the IRA.

mikeash 10y ago

Some people, very few but not zero, really are that dumb. But I believe the main reason is so that when they catch somebody and prosecute them for terrorism, they can add "making false statements" to the charges and get even more prison time.

nojvek 10y ago

This is one of the reasons why I'm really liking snapchat. Every message goes poof after reading and the network is very private. Unless of course snapchat is storing every message. In which case they'd have gigs of my silly selfies.