[ProfChronos]

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]

> 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]

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]

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).

[vacri]

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]

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.

[couchand]

At what cost?

[balls187]

The extra 30 seconds per person to answer this question, I imagine.

[peyton]

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.

[dempseye]

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.

[balls187]

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.

[Kadin]

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]

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.