[JKCalhoun]

"Officers were instructed to screen for those "who advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to national security; or who perpetrate unlawful anti-Semitic harassment or violence"."

Okay, that's your job then. It's not mine or anyone else's job to just hand everything over.

[rayiner]

That's like saying aircraft inspections is the FAA's job and it's not Boeing's job "to just hand everything over." Entering into a country's borders is a privilege and you submit to an inspection in doing so. One of the very first things the American founding fathers did in 1789 was to create a customs service to perform border inspections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Customs_Service.

[JKCalhoun]

One has quite a bit more to do with privacy. And stifling free speech.

[throw310822]

> perpetrate unlawful anti-Semitic harassment

Interesting that threats to national security and "antisemitism" are put on an equal footing and clearly above everything else; also makes me wonder what is "unlawful antisemitic harassment"- the US considers every speech lawful as far as I understand. Or, if some speech is indeed unlawful, is it going to matter only if that speech is against Jews or Israel?

[mothballed]

Sure but they'll make your day extremely unpleasant before deporting you or if a USC letting you in.

A few things that's happened to me as a citizen after invoking right to remain silent to CBP

1) Told I could not enter the country. Held up for 3-24 hours in holding areas. Officials come in and claim they will revoke my passport under "national security"-esque grounds. Lots of bluffing and huffing and puffing. Diesel therapy of being made to go back and forth to interrogating officers and then constantly prodded to be deprived of sleep. After a few shift rotations no one is left that know why you were being fucked with so you then [hopefully] get let go.

2) Dogs constantly come in, none of them alert. Eventually they get tired of finding nothing and write up a fraudulent affadavit for a warrant claiming one alerted anyway. Strip searched, hands cuffed and feet chained, imprisoned in a holding cell with people you can't speak the language of, diesel therapy again in prisoner van driven all over the state. Taken to two different private hospitals where CBP officers claim there is drugs up my ass. Cursed and touched without consent by private hospital staff (oh you can complain to the board as I did, lol, the state board just claims since CBP told them to their license isn't in jeopardy). Hospital staff rack up bills, which are sent to me privately and go to collections. Medical records state nothing was found but they "Think I'm packing drugs" anyway despite absolutely no medical evidence.

Have fun!

[saxenaabhi]

Wait what did I just read? This sounds horrible and pure evil and not worthy of america.

My sympathies are with you!

[egorfine]

> My sympathies are with you!

Is there anything you can do about it?

[tavavex]

What do you expect from them? Unless saxenaabhi is code for "US CBP Commissioner" or some position of an equivalent power, there is very little that an HN user can do about it at this point.

[egorfine]

"What can I do alone?!", said 100m+ people.

[tavavex]

I'm not an American, but I'm doubtful there's 100 millions Americans out there who think this is wrong, let alone to an extent where they would be willing to do anything about it. If you look at it in terms of scenarios that can actually happen, the US has already decided about a year ago - now they and the rest of the world are along for the ride. Something truly momentous would have to happen now for an agency as powerful as the CBP to change course, barring an unlikely sudden mood change from up top.

[mvdtnz]

What do you mean "not worthy of America"? It is America.

[andsoitis]

Friendly reminder not to believe everything you read online.

[mothballed]

Yeah this is why I don't talk about it often. Because no one but my family believe it, and only after I showed them the warrant and medical records.

Fact is hardly anyone believes these things until it happens to them, because they don't want to believe we live in such a dystopia.

[andsoitis]

You wrote:

> A few things that's happened to me as a citizen after invoking right to remain silent to CBP

What happened that caused you to “invoke your right to remain silent”? When you enter a country, including the US, you are asked some pretty standard questions that would be weird to refuse to answer.

What question did you not want to answer?

[mothballed]

I answered the questions on what I had to declare and anything regarding my identity and citizenship, along with presenting my passport. I also will answer the question to which countries I've been to, although I know of no requirement to do so. I will answer the question about whether I have currency and instruments exceeding $10,000. Other than that I will not answer, nor am I aware of any requirement to do so.

This caused me to be fucked with mercilessly for about 10 years. Eventually I was investigated by an HSI officer who seems to have determined I'm just a crazy libertarian or something, now I tend not to get held up terribly long.

Edit: I have tried to answer below questions but it appears I cannot post any more messages until a certain times elapses. Below commenter has repeatedly shifted his attack, it is clear only goal is to shift and attack my message through a series of moving questions that keep moving the goalposts. 'This' did not happen 10 years ago, some of the events happened 10 years ago, some of them significantly more recent, and I have pretty much fully defined what sort of questions were answered. But of course it's pointless to even reply such commenters as I know from experience they are only going to dig endlessly until a magic 'gotcha' is found as to why I deserve it.

[fluidcruft]

To clarify: CBP is Canadian Border Patrol and you are a Canadian citizen re-entering Canada when this happened?

[phantasmish]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Customs_and_Border_Protec...

Probably US Customs and Border Protection.

[lukevi]

More likely US Customs & Border Protection

[fluidcruft]

Yeah, it was confusing. I my circles the US one is known as "BP" and Canadian is "CBP". It makes more sense that they were talking about the Mexican border in retrospect given some other cues.

[tavavex]

You must be misremembering, or maybe the your social circle mixed up the two by accident, which then became established. The Canadian border agency is never called CBP, because the actual name of the agency is CBSA. CBP always refers to the US agency.

[fluidcruft]

We're on the US side so we probably don't care. Never heard it called CBSA or the US one called CBP, either.

[mothballed]

Customs and Border Protection in the USA

[carlosjobim]

A tourist (to any country) has no right to enter. If you don't cooperate they can simply deny your entry.

[vidarh]

Yes, but few other countries are as draconian about this as the US seems to want to be, and it is relevant to want to discuss how it will affect the US to make itself a less attractive place to travel to.

[andsoitis]

Try travel to Europe on an African passport…

[JKCalhoun]

I don't doubt there are worse countries/scenarios. We're dealing specifically though with the downward slide of the U.S.

[vidarh]

I have in-laws who do that regularly. I'm aware there are plenty of complications with that. I still stand by what I wrote.

[andsoitis]

> there are plenty of complications with that

What are some of the complications?

[vidarh]

Do you have an actual point that doesn't involve me divulging private information of people who are not part of this conversation? My identity is on my profile; identifying the people in question would be rather easy.

If what you're suggesting is that the US is not being more draconian than most, you're free to make an actual claim about how.

I'll note that this article is about people eligible for the visa waiver program, which does not include any African countries - travelling to the US from African countries is also far more draconian than what is outlined in the article, so it's unclear why you think the comparison is relevant.

[benmmurphy]

or try to travel to an islamic country with an Israeli stamp on your passport or an Israeli passport.