12 ms·
The Tragedy of Newcomb Mott, Who Thought He Could Walk into Soviet Russia
- rangibaby 10y agoI don't agree with harsh punishment of innocents, but mess with strict regimes (this includes the US now) at your own risk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_foreign_nationals_detained_in_North_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_foreign_nationals_deta... /edit to add to my comment, remember that the moment you step over the border you are at the mercy of a regime that can treat you however it likes. It doesn't matter whether Otto Warmbier actually stole that poster or not, since he's spending 15 years in DPRK prison anyway.
- rukittenme 10y ago> (this includes the US now) Can you expand? edit: I don't understand why this question was so poorly received. I didn't know what this was in reference to and now I know having been given proper information.
- rangibaby 10y agohttps://youtu.be/V8U4Qn6iIIg https://youtu.be/V8U4Qn6iIIg
- MegaButts 10y agoI didn't watch the entire video, so maybe it happened by the end, but I feel like he's going to have a bad time with the law at some point. That said, it was pretty funny how he could just repeat "am I being detained?" until they all just gave up and let him go.
- cameldrv 10y agoThis is because what they're doing is just barely legal. Generally, the police need to have a reasonable suspicion that you've committed a crime in order to stop you.
- MegaButts 10y agoDoes this mean DUI checkpoints are unlawful?
- cardiffspaceman 10y agoUS Supreme court says a balancing test applies because there isn't much inconvenience. [0] [0] http://traffic.findlaw.com/traffic-stops/are-dui-checkpoints-legal-.html http://traffic.findlaw.com/traffic-stops/are-dui-checkpoints...
- URSpider94 10y agoWhat you have to understand is that these videos are taken at checkpoints set up many miles from the border by Homeland Security. The point is that they can't detain you, even for a brief time, or search you or you car without probable cause, which they don't have (and you can always refuse to answer questions). However, there's no law against asking you to consent to a search, and if you do it's perfectly legal. In fact, they can ask in such a way that you assume that you have no choice, and that's still ok. The videos (and there are tons of them) demonstrate over and over that if you refuse to answer questions and ask if you are being detained / are free to go, they will grudgingly admit that they can't stop you. On the one hand, i love seeing people exercising their constitutional rights. On the other hand, the fact that there's a sort of secret handshake to get out of the situation when police are gaslighting you plays into the worst of the "sovereign citizen" conspiracy theories that if you write some magic words on your tax return you are exempt from paying taxes, and the like.
- MegaButts 10y agoThere are lots of things the police or federal law enforcement agents can't legally do but they do anyway. I'd rather not be the antagonist that pisses off the guy with a bad temper, mace, a taser, handcuffs, a gun, and the presumption of authority.
- FabHK 10y agoWell, and border control in particular tend to have wider powers than regular domestic police, I believe, in many jurisdictions. In particular, they don't need reasonable cause to search you or your luggage or your computer/devices e.g. in the US, if I'm not mistaken.
- uiri 10y agoIn the US, Border Patrol only have the authority to do these things if you are attempting to enter the US. Apparently, that hasn't stopped them from asking politely on domestic flights: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/papers-please/517887/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/papers-...
- headShrinker 10y agoThis video only shows successes but you're pretty much at the mercy of the cop. If they get pissed off they will brake your window, tase you, drag your limp body from the car and arrest you. You can fight the action in court if you'd like. (Good luck with that) Source: https://youtu.be/NPtc_N9QiG8 https://youtu.be/NPtc_N9QiG8 NSFL Warning: This video will haunt you
- headShrinker 10y agohttps://youtu.be/kjQc-2GBlYw https://youtu.be/kjQc-2GBlYw
- awfgylbcxhrey 10y agoThe cop dropping him on his face was horrible, but AFAIK everything up until that point was the correct course of action. The kid was refusing lawful orders. If a cop asks you to do something (which is what all the 'border' checkpoints show, often with clever wording), you can refuse. If a cop orders you to do something, you can't refuse. Before someone comments about lawful orders, it's a complex topic and you're welcome to fight it in the Supreme Court, but in general I'm just going to obey police orders.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Buge 10y agoThose guys were let go. They didn't spend hundreds of days in detention like the North Korea link, or get stabbed to death like the Russian article.
- rangibaby 10y agoThat is how citizens of the US are treated. Non-citizens end up in places like Guantanamo.
- coldtea 10y agoFor, one only "now"? As if border crossing was some disneyland earlier? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migrant_deaths_along_the_Mexico%E2%80%93United_States_border#Incidents_of_Border_Patrol_use_of_force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migrant_deaths_along_the_Mexic...
- camus2 10y ago> Explore, yes, by all means, just not near politically fraught international borders, even if you are a white man from America, with all the privilege in the world to marshal I'm not an English native, can someone explain me what would be the meaning of the verb to marshal in that sentence, in the context of using of the word "privilege". I don't want to misinterpret the last point.
- rangibaby 10y agoIt means he has a lot of privilege.
- charlieflowers 10y agoIn that context, it means "to muster up." To gather and apply.
- mistermumble 10y agoIf one wanted to overthink this, one could say there is a "calculus of privilege" that depends upon context. In many contexts (geographical and social contexts), being white, male and America adds up to maximum privilege. But in other contexts, white and male usually add up to a positive -- but being American can subtract (which is why backpackers are returning to the habit of sewing the Canadian flag patch on their gear, even if they are from the US). In the era of Trump, the attribute of being American has turned negative, in many places. I suppose the bottom line is that if you are placing yourself in different contexts, don't assume that that calculus of privilege works the same way on the Russian border as it does in Virginia or Indiana. And if you are a Sikh in the United States, that calculus, which was at best neutral, has now turned sharply negative, sad to say.
- microtherion 10y agoOr, in a brief video illustration of said "calculus of privilege": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY_FRc__ZVQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY_FRc__ZVQ
- 10y ago
- jankotek 10y agoAt that time Soviet Union was shooting their own people, who would try to cross the border in opposite direction.
- geoka9 10y agoOne of the most interesting books I've read on the topic. The guy has made several attempts (and paid for it a terrible price). https://www.amazon.com/Inclined-Escape-Yuri-Vetokhin/dp/B001QGDGA8 https://www.amazon.com/Inclined-Escape-Yuri-Vetokhin/dp/B001...
- knz 10y agoPeople accidentally cross borders. Another well know case was three sailors from the UK, Canada, and New Zealand who accidentally sailed into Cambodian waters during the reign of Pol Pot. They ended up being burnt alive after months of torture at the infamous S-21 building.
- akkartik 10y agoTurns out the "burnt alive" part is unsubstantiated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dawson_Dewhirst https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dawson_Dewhirst Still a terrible story, though.
- dannylandau 10y agoEven after all the years that have passed, this story is still heartbreaking to read. And I was born in the soviet union.
- Sharlin 10y agoMathias Rust is another, more famous, unauthorized border-crosser. Thirty years ago, in May 1987, the then-18-year-old West German took off from Helsinki in his rented Cessna and due to various happenstances was allowed to not only enter the Soviet airspace unchallenged, but to fly all the way to Moscow and land next to the Red Square. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathias_Rust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathias_Rust Much less known, and much more tragic, is the story of two Finnish teenage boys who, in 1946, set sail from Helsinki in their small boat. Their intention was to voyage to Stockholm to meet some relatives, but as a result of extremely bad luck and post-war Soviet paranoia ended up in a forced-labor camp in Siberia. http://beaufortmagazine.fi/2014/08/seven-years-sailing/ http://beaufortmagazine.fi/2014/08/seven-years-sailing/
- codecamper 10y agoSuch a tragic story! I had never heard of Newcomb Mott. I wonder if Rust knew about him?
- rl3 10y agoI was just researching Mathias Rust since he was mentioned in the Cessna 172 article[0] trending on HN right now. Wikipedia says he stabbed a nurse shortly after his return, but was lacking details. A quick search turned up a couple news articles.[1][2] Notable excerpts include: "According to police, Rust pulled an 18-year-old student nurse into a hospital changing room and, after locking the door behind them, attempted to kiss her. When she resisted, she was stabbed twice in the stomach, police said." He received only two and a half years in prison for that. The woman he stabbed nearly died. What the fuck. "Mr. Rust had testified that he might have been drugged throughout his captivity in the Soviet Union, where he had been jailed for more than a year after landing a borrowed plane in Red Square in May 1987." Having just read an article on the U.S.'s psychochemical warfare program[3] in the 1950s and 60s, and considering the Soviets had similar programs, I suppose it's possible he was drugged in a manner that had long-term effects. It'd make sense for the Soviets to render him violent in an attempt to destroy what amounted to a Western folk hero at the time. That said, he was already out of his mind to attempt penetrating Soviet airspace in a Cessna 172, so an incident involving spontaneous violence isn't exactly surprising. Either way, I found the whole thing extremely bizarre. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13792309 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13792309 [1] http://articles.latimes.com/1989-11-24/news/mn-176_1_moscow-s-red-square http://articles.latimes.com/1989-11-24/news/mn-176_1_moscow-... [2] http://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/20/world/red-square-pilot-convicted-of-stabbing-a-student-nurse.html http://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/20/world/red-square-pilot-con... [3] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/12/17/operation-delirium http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/12/17/operation-delir...
- bobjordan 10y agoInteresting article. I've stood on the China side of a river between China and North Korea, more like a stream really, where I could almost throw a rock into North Korea. Still haven't worked up the courage to actually enter, though I understand if you don't do anything stupid it's pretty much safe to visit. This was up in Jilin Province, China, where Russia, China, and North Korea meet. I've been there a few times and must admit it still feels a bit surreal every time I'm there. I cant avoid recalling as a child during the Reagan era and "Red Dawn", I'd really considered that this place must be hell-on-earth, a communist axis-of-evil. But, it's a pretty cool place to visit.
- FabHK 10y agoJust do a guided tour... I've been there with "Young Pioneer Tours" (YPT), and have a picture waving a DPRK flag and having a beer on the North Korean side of the DMZ. Just don't do anything stupid, or you might be detained, like 22 yr old Otto Warmbier from Ohio, who was also there with YPT and allegedly stole a propaganda poster, and is now in North Korean labour camp. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Warmbier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Warmbier Crossing illegally from China is something I would not do...
- djsumdog 10y ago..and from Cincinnati to. Oh Cincinnati.
- biesnecker 10y agoI did that up by Heavenly Lake, which is about 1/3 in China and 2/3 in North Korea, back in 2001. The border was just a stone marker, a chain that ran to the cliffside, and a very young (although about the same age as I was at the time), very bored member of the Chinese armed police. Apparently the North Korean guards were about a half mile back, so if you were unlucky enough to stumble all the way out to them you were well and truly screwed. I have a picture somewhere that a friend took when I jumped over the chain and turned around and smiled, two feet inside North Korea, before jumping back and smiling at the border guard, who pretty clearly just wanted to make sure no stupid American tourists got arrested by the Norks on his watch (apparently some European backpackers had tried to hike the perimeter of the lake not long before and spent a few months in a North Korean prison).
- Grue3 10y agoYou don't need to be a foreigner to be murdered in a Russian prison. Look up Sergei Magnitsky.
- rodionos 10y agoIt's been always the case of real-politik at play. Some people can get a multi-year business visa on arrival even if their passport is revoked (Snowden et al).
- Piskvorrr 10y agoDo not confuse the 1970s Soviet Union with present-day Russia. There are indeed some similarities, but your comparison has so many differences that the only actual conclusion is "very different stuff is very different".
- rodionos 10y agoI don't think the intel agencies have changed much, they still swap operatives as they see fit, it's an established routine. Case in fact: Chapman vs Skripal.
- Melchizedek 10y agoExplore, yes, by all means, just not near politically fraught international borders, even if you are a white man from America, with all the privilege in the world to marshal. All these reference to "American white male privilege" is a weird addition to the story that is completely in the mind of the author. Does she seriously think a woman would likely have been treated worse in this situation? A non-American? This was the USSR. They worshiped women and third-worlders almost as much as the left does today (at least according to their official ideology). They funded and helped feminist and "anti-racist" organizations all over the west. Mott was the absolute worst thing he could be in this situation - a white male American.
- evgen 10y agoThe point of the statement is explaining that only a white American male, raised in privilege and cosseted in the belief that nothing really bad ever happens to people like him, would be so oblivious as to the potential consequences of such an action. It is not that others would have been treated better or worse, but others would have been acutely aware of the dangers of such a risky action in the same way they were constantly made aware of the dangers of being not white or not male and taking such risky actions as speaking out or standing up for their rights in 1960s America. Sometime privilege is not just in the outcome of your actions, but the range of consequences you can possibly imagine as a result of an action. Privilege is what led him to conclude that his plan was not suicidally stupid.
- libeclipse 10y ago> only a white American male, raised in privilege and cosseted in the belief that nothing really bad ever happens to people like him, would be so oblivious as to the potential consequences of such an action > Privilege is what led him to conclude that his plan was not suicidally stupid I disagree with this completely. I think you're giving too much importance to something quite insignificant here, his race and background. What's with this profiling? "White male makes stupid decision, it's because of privilege." This needs to stop. Disclaimer: I myself am not white, but I can see the unfairness of this bullshit association.
- pipio21 10y agoHow do you know he was not an spy? Spies don't have the name "spy" on the forehead, but are people that serve their country obtaining information from another (preferably)with some excuse or alibi. History tells us that anyone could be a spy, from sailors to tailors, including prostitutes. I had family members in former Soviet Republics. Some of them risked their lives running away. That someone intelligent was so naive to not understand the danger is unconceivable for me. Norwegians knew for sure and told him.
- pvg 10y agoIt's inconceivable someone could be so foolish and thus he was a spy? That seems like an even more outlandish theory than 'unusually naive person'.
- coldtea 10y agoSpies never cross borders. It's always some "innocent tourists backpacking"...
- Piskvorrr 10y ago"A naïve tourist" and "spy pretending to be a naïve tourist" are hard to distinguish without further data - it is impossible to tell either way.
- Someone 10y agoHe should have taken a bicycle. At least recently, that, apparently was (I think this loophole has been closed) legal "There, refugees face a new twist: Russian law bans foot traffic at the border and Norway fines drivers for carrying migrants across — meaning the only way to cross is by bicycle." (https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-11-03/why-some-refugees-are-choosing-bike-across-russia-norway-border https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-11-03/why-some-refugees-are...)
- lobster_johnson 10y agoI have a journalist friend who covered this. Refugees from places like Syria would be shuttled through several countries by bus and train, but also often long distances by taxi, to land up in Nikel, where they'd have to pay some exorbitant price for a bicycle so they could get across the border into Norway. The law of course caused a huge market for bicycles in Nikel. I wouldn't be surprised if some enterprising individuals in Norway bought the bikes back at reduced prices and shipped them back to Russia so the process could begin again.
- coldtea 10y agoMeanwhile, hundreds of people have been killed by guards while crossing the US-Mexico borders to immigrate. And several by vigilantes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migrant_deaths_along_the_Mexico%E2%80%93United_States_border#Incidents_of_Border_Patrol_use_of_force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migrant_deaths_along_the_Mexic...
- low_battery 10y agoEnough with this Whataboutism.
- Aaargh20318 10y agoYeah, let's just ignore all the bad shit the US does.
- coldtea 10y agoYeah, let's concentrate on a single incident from the cold war 60 years ago, and forget the yearly deaths to this day on our side. Because whataboutism. And also they're mexican, and our side deemed it OK to kill them, so they would have their reasons. (As I wrote before, invocation of whataboutism is the laziest intellectual excuse to put things in perspective and to be vigilant about all sides. It's "lalala" hands on the ears denial pretending to care).
- pvg 10y agoLet's also not forget the sack of Baghdad in 1258. You're deliberately highjacking a thread that's about a specific story with something completely different. This isn't 'caring' or some unflinching exercise of intellectual rigour. It's just inane.
- coldtea 10y ago>You're deliberately highjacking a thread that's about a specific story with something completely different. Where by "something completely different" you mean "with something of the exact same nature (people killed because of crossing a border) that still occurs often today"? Conversations naturally expand to similar stories and greater lessons and perspective on things. Heck, a Rust announcement on HN will almost always expand to discussing type theory or static-vs-dynamic languages, Golang and C++ and same with everything else. That's what different threads are for. What's inane is to artificially constrain a discussion, just to never break the echo chamber.
- Waterluvian 10y agoThe last two sentences left a very sour taste in my mouth. Don't paint a naive adventurer mindset as some sort of white, male, American "privilege."
- cocktailpeanuts 10y agoIt is somewhat true. Anyway, it is a fact that there are clear discriminations when it comes to traveling freely. I don't know if you have had a chance to become a non-american woman traveling to the U.S., but a lot of times the people at the consulate who approve your visa will start out from doubting you, and you have to go through troubles to prove that you are not a prostitute. I am not joking. This happens everyday, even for women who are legitimately visiting the U.S. to get a PhD, etc. This means these people normally can't even imagine doing things like crossing the border illegally and get away with it. They have seen from past examples how harsh the society is to their kinds. However sad this is, you can't really blame anyone for this because statistically speaking this happens a lot, and these people at the consulate were naturally trained to act that way over time. I have also seen a lot of illegal immigrants who came here naively thinking everything will work out, and just became illegal immigrants. They try to find a guy to marry so they can get out of the illegal status. Also I cringe whenever I see the language "white male privilege" because this term itself assumes inherent superiority. A lot of liberal activists throw this language around without thinking, but this is completely missing the point. These racism, sexism, etc. exist all around the world and is not specific to a white country. If you go to another country where the majority is Asian or African or whatever, you no longer have "white male privilege", you are a second class citizen. The people from these cultures believe they are the most superior race/culture/etc. Which means the "White" from "white male privilege" is a made-up illusion for some of these Americans. My point is, racism, sexism, etc. all exist and are very real. And they are contextual. I am not a social justice warrior but I do think people should know what's going on. Just wanted to share my two cents.
- camperman 10y agoIn Soviet Russia, passport control stamps YOU!
- andrepd 10y ago"Explore, yes, by all means, just not near politically fraught international borders, even if you are a white man from America, with all the privilege in the world to marshal." I found this closing remark rather unnecessary, especially since it was the fact that he was American that got him into this mess.
- anjc 10y agoAmazing how an author can turn an interesting story sour so quickly. The "white privilege" thing doesn't even make sense here no matter how hard you try to make it fit.
- kalasama2 10y agohttp://blog.goo.ne.jp/visulsign/e/102a2733e71fe5967b907ea2a556f94f http://blog.goo.ne.jp/visulsign/e/102a2733e71fe5967b907ea2a5...