7 ms·
Do you honestly think customs agents care whether you'll get fired or not? US immigrations will permanently sever families that have been together for years or
by rosser 9y ago
Do you honestly think customs agents care whether you'll get fired or not? US immigrations will permanently sever families that have been together for years or even decades with utter disregard for the emotional trauma they're inflicting.
Your job matters exactly fuck-all to a CPB agent.
- noja 9y agoThat border agent is a real person, who is "only doing their job". So are you. It works both ways. If enough people say no, then after a hellish but hopefully short adjustment period, the policy will change.
- DanBC 9y ago> the policy will change. The policy might change to include cells at the borders where people are detained until they hand over login details or voluntarily decide not to enter.
- komali2 9y agoShould the slope become that slippery we'll have a much better reason to stand outside a legislator's office with pointy sticks than "I was mildly inconvenienced by the TSA."
- Jare 9y agoIf what is already happening across the country is not a good enough reason already, I doubt anything will be.
- chronic940 9y agoYep. Quite simply, the 0.1% of the US population here on HN does not care about privacy nor protesting nor writing to their local or state government. HN needs to stop living in a bubble. Only 1/3 of the US even bothered voting in the Trump v Clinton presidential election. I'll let you think about that for a moment. Now think about border searches. Has your phone been searched? Neither has mine. I'll go back to my company catered lunch now.
- thesumofall 9y agoWhere did you get the 1/3 from? It's been 55% of eligble voters. Counting non-eligibles wouldn't really make sense in your argument Source: https://www.google.de/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/11/11/politics/popular-vote-turnout-2016/index.html https://www.google.de/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/11/11/polit...
- thaumasiotes 9y agoIf you really care about the issue, why abstain just because someone else doesn't want to count your vote?
- syshum 9y agoActually you should count all Adults not just "eligible" for a few reasons 1. No one once reaching the age of majority should have their voting rights taken, for any reason including criminality 2. The figures also do not include people of age who are ineligible to vote or have not registered. The "Have not registered" is a key part because many stated in the last 2 election cycles have been passing a number of laws to disenfranchises segments of the populations making it harder and harder to register 3. The concept of our nation is "Consent of the people", that is all people, not just those voting. the majority of PEOPLE reject the 2 candidates put forth buy the corrupted and unethical political parties then the government can not claim to have the consent of THE PEOPLE... Many many many Americans feel complete disenfranchised by the political systems that gives them 2 Choices that are equally terrible and corrupt. Forcing a defensive vote that is mainly against the person you do not want to win instead of voting for a qualified person you actually want to be in office. As a life long Libertarian, I have no interest in voting for either a Republican or Democrat
- rosser 9y agoThat job they're "just doing" is, as it's drilled into their minds, to act as a barrier against anything that even might be a threat in some form or fashion to their country. They have pretty broad authority toward that end. You (the notional you) aren't even from here. If you say no, you've identified yourself as a potential threat, and can just sit in a room by yourself for as long as it takes to put you on the next flight back to wherever you came from, at your expense. And you probably won't be allowed to return. If you're a citizen and say no, they might confiscate the device, and might make you wait around long enough to miss your connecting flight (and maybe even the next couple, if they're feeling particularly peevish), but that's about all they can do.
- rhizome 9y agoThat job they're "just doing" is, as it's drilled into their minds, to act as a barrier against anything that even might be a threat in some form or fashion to their country. They may get that drilled into their skulls, but I think it's more that they just don't want their boss to yell at them. No police officer arrests a DUI and says "but I'm just doing my job." It's only when the other person (the traveler in this case) has an entirely legitimate reason to resist them that "I'm just doing my job" comes out, with an implied threat that the authority they're appealing to (that they themselves don't have) will come down on everyone involved, and they don't want that. Also, they don't have any personal liability for anything that goes wrong in this process, except perhaps that the company they work for will lose the contract (unlikely here). Again, "boss will yell at me." These people are better thought of as clerks than cops. And yes, they can inconvenience you, but that's not the same thing as compliance.
- wyager 9y agoI assume you're referring to illegal immigration, in which case there is at least a legal (if possibly not moral) basis for screwing people over. The story with stealing citizens' personal information is entirely different; there is almost certainly no legitimate legal basis to fuck over US citizens for excercizing the basic rights explicitly protected by the 4th and 5th amendments, just because they happen to be at a border area.
- kasey_junk 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception The Supreme Court has actually weighed in on this and granted it a legitimate legal basis.
- 0xTJ 9y agoBut what about non-Americans? As a Canadian, I can have a very valid reason to go to the States, and even refusing a search once could cause me issues any time I try to go to the US.
- Sir_Substance 9y agoYup. The correct solution is to stop traveling to the US. Stop sending your employees to the US as well. If the rest of the world starts insisting that US companies always come to them because of how US border agents act, that shit will bubble up to the lobbyists real fast.
- jjawssd 9y agoIt's just that easy.
- sqeaky 9y agoIf hurts people with money, something will change.
- Fiahil 9y agoCome and see us in Europe, it's nice here !
- brianwawok 9y agoNo thanks!
- dognotdog 9y agoNo, it's not. That's similar to saying just stay away from bullies, or leave if you don't like your job/school/whatever. It is easy if you view the issue in isolation, but for a lot of people it is more complicated, such as how will you see your loved ones / do your job / travel freely? In this case, the ones most dependent on being able to travel have little choice if they can't take on almost unlimited (potentially, but still) risk to their livelyhood.
- kasey_junk 9y agoAnd to the UK: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/14/campaign-group-to-challenge-uk-over-surrender-of-passwords-at-border-control https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/14/campaign-gr...
- Youareweakhn 9y agoYou sound like a weak cunt with no spine
- ForrestN 9y agoIt completely depends if you are white or not. If you are white, and speak politely, the agent will care deeply about your concerns, including potential firing as an example. If you are not white, and especially if you appear black, Latino or Arab, then your comment will definitely hold true.
- skyrw 9y agoYou are absolutely the worst kind of person.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- JadeNB 9y ago> You are absolutely the worst kind of person. What? I'm not sure I believe the grandparent's post, and it would be nice if it were sourced or clarified as opinion rather than stated as fact (as briandear (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14406689 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14406689) and Banthum (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14407293 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14407293) urged), but your reaction seems grossly hostile and unconstructive.
- dang 9y agoWe've banned this account. No one is allowed to post like this here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html All: upvoting such blatant violations of the site guidelines also causes accounts to lose voting privileges on HN.
- briandear 9y ago[citation needed]
- TallGuyShort 9y agoRecently delayed by the TSA to the point of missing my turn to board. Was subjected to additional searching. Upon finding nothing, I discovered the extra searching was what they do when you fail the hand swab test. I had not had the test administered. So they administered the test. I passed. They then searched my things again and I was questioned regarding the quantity of business cards I was carrying. Oh also I'm white.
- briandear 9y agoDoes customs anywhere else the world care more? Explain your refusal to allow a search to a Chinese, Korean or UK customs official.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- RodericDay 9y agoIf you, as an innocent person, don't refuse to have your belongings inspected, you participate in making belonging-inspection-refusal into a great heuristic for determining guilt. This is a form of "citizen duty".
- nihonde 9y agoI've witnessed US border agents mocking someone for hours in the waiting area before summarily sending him back to where he came in from.