3 ms·

This is part of the problem, not the questions but the attitude. I can understand them asking questions, they have a short time to figure out if the traveler mi

by bruceb 10y ago

This is part of the problem, not the questions but the attitude. I can understand them asking questions, they have a short time to figure out if the traveler might be "up to no good". That is no reason to ask questions in way that attacks a person. Ask all the questions you want just don't be terrorizing jerk about it. Now one instance can be chalked up to a bad apple but over and over again I have heard stories like this and experienced on multiple occasions. Canadian customs officers may ask questions but they are generally not in a abusive tone.

KineticLensman 10y ago
> Canadian customs officers may ask questions but they are generally not in a abusive tone. Brit here, anecdata. I once entered Canada for business reasons and (long story short) my employer hadn't given me the correct visa paperwork. The Canadian border guys let me leave the airport and gave me 24 hours to come back with the correct paperwork (and threatened arrest if I didn't return). It was stressful but the guards were professional and relatively courteous. The guy I spoke to the next day basically said "we get this all the time, we know it's your company and not you".
tempestn 10y ago
Apparently they do it intentionally to throw people off, supposedly making it easier to spot if they're hiding something. It doesn't really hold water with me, but that's the rationalization I've heard fwiw.
- moftz 10y ago
  I was on a school trip flying out of IAD and the TSA guy standing near security looks at me and asks me if I'm feeling ok because I look nervous. I've flown probably over a dozen times in my life at that point and everything up until that question had been a very routine day at the airport so I wouldn't have had any reason to be so. I just looked at him and said no, and he replies back that he was just checking. I think he had just recently sat through a powerpoint on detecting suspicious people by confronting them. I'm guessing the thinking is if they ask someone if they are nervous, the less experienced smugglers and terrorists are going to react even more nervously to that kind of question. But you are at an airport. There are plenty of people flying for the first time and those that are just always apprehensive about flying. Little questions like that can surely help when trying to determine the mood or emotional state of someone (like the Israelis do) but it was a dumb question. Expecting your average, uneducated TSA officer to be able to pull off those sly interrogation techniques is asking a bit much from them.
  - coldpie 10y ago
    Probably part of the "behavior detection" program that costs $200M per year and has exactly zero effectiveness: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/tsa-spent-900-million-behavior-detection-officers-who-detected-0 http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/tsa-sp...
techdragon 10y ago
Isn't the point of the giant world wide surveillance apparatus run by the NSA, etc. meant to let them know this sort of thing before they even buy a ticket for a plane trip? I know I'm being purposefully naive in saying this, but why pay for something that's not working?
- smsm42 10y ago
  You can't really find out in advance if someone intends to overstay their visa by surveillance. Surveillance is not magic, and mass surveillance has a problem of collecting huge mass of junk, and no agency, even NSA, would have resources to sift through this junk enough to find trivial matters like intent to overstay visa, even if that information actually was there. Surveillance may be useful to detect highly anomalous behavior, or to detect connections between people (e.g. is Mr. X connected to known terrorist Mr. Z?) but I don't see how it can be useful in trivial matters like immigration enforcement.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  > but why pay for something that's not working? Because it's The American Way! We spend so much money on programs that are proven not to work, it's embarrassing.
misingnoglic 10y ago
One time I was going to Canada for a Hackathon, and I had to explain for a bus full of people what that means. Their only reply was "you do that for fun?"
refurb 10y ago
Canadian customs officers may ask questions but they are generally not in a abusive tone. Going to disagree with this statement. I've had 3 instances where Canadian border police were very aggressive and basically accused me of breaking the law without any evidence. The US? 1 instance.
jliptzin 10y ago
I went through Canadian Border Patrol and I had to deal with possibly the most aggressive power hungry person I ever have. I am a US citizen and was just going there with my boyfriend for a weekend trip.

by bruceb 10y ago

KineticLensman 10y ago

> Canadian customs officers may ask questions but they are generally not in a abusive tone. Brit here, anecdata. I once entered Canada for business reasons and (long story short) my employer hadn't given me the correct visa paperwork. The Canadian border guys let me leave the airport and gave me 24 hours to come back with the correct paperwork (and threatened arrest if I didn't return). It was stressful but the guards were professional and relatively courteous. The guy I spoke to the next day basically said "we get this all the time, we know it's your company and not you".

tempestn 10y ago

Apparently they do it intentionally to throw people off, supposedly making it easier to spot if they're hiding something. It doesn't really hold water with me, but that's the rationalization I've heard fwiw.

moftz 10y ago
I was on a school trip flying out of IAD and the TSA guy standing near security looks at me and asks me if I'm feeling ok because I look nervous. I've flown probably over a dozen times in my life at that point and everything up until that question had been a very routine day at the airport so I wouldn't have had any reason to be so. I just looked at him and said no, and he replies back that he was just checking. I think he had just recently sat through a powerpoint on detecting suspicious people by confronting them. I'm guessing the thinking is if they ask someone if they are nervous, the less experienced smugglers and terrorists are going to react even more nervously to that kind of question. But you are at an airport. There are plenty of people flying for the first time and those that are just always apprehensive about flying. Little questions like that can surely help when trying to determine the mood or emotional state of someone (like the Israelis do) but it was a dumb question. Expecting your average, uneducated TSA officer to be able to pull off those sly interrogation techniques is asking a bit much from them.
- coldpie 10y ago
  Probably part of the "behavior detection" program that costs $200M per year and has exactly zero effectiveness: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/tsa-spent-900-million-behavior-detection-officers-who-detected-0 http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/tsa-sp...

techdragon 10y ago

Isn't the point of the giant world wide surveillance apparatus run by the NSA, etc. meant to let them know this sort of thing before they even buy a ticket for a plane trip? I know I'm being purposefully naive in saying this, but why pay for something that's not working?

smsm42 10y ago
You can't really find out in advance if someone intends to overstay their visa by surveillance. Surveillance is not magic, and mass surveillance has a problem of collecting huge mass of junk, and no agency, even NSA, would have resources to sift through this junk enough to find trivial matters like intent to overstay visa, even if that information actually was there. Surveillance may be useful to detect highly anomalous behavior, or to detect connections between people (e.g. is Mr. X connected to known terrorist Mr. Z?) but I don't see how it can be useful in trivial matters like immigration enforcement.
CaptSpify 10y ago
> but why pay for something that's not working? Because it's The American Way! We spend so much money on programs that are proven not to work, it's embarrassing.

misingnoglic 10y ago

One time I was going to Canada for a Hackathon, and I had to explain for a bus full of people what that means. Their only reply was "you do that for fun?"

refurb 10y ago

Canadian customs officers may ask questions but they are generally not in a abusive tone. Going to disagree with this statement. I've had 3 instances where Canadian border police were very aggressive and basically accused me of breaking the law without any evidence. The US? 1 instance.

jliptzin 10y ago

I went through Canadian Border Patrol and I had to deal with possibly the most aggressive power hungry person I ever have. I am a US citizen and was just going there with my boyfriend for a weekend trip.