
Former Mozilla CTO was detained at US border and told he had no right to lawyer - DiabloD3
https://boingboing.net/2019/04/03/former-mozilla-cto-was-detaine.html
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rococode
I really wonder what can reasonably be done about this. It seems to be
commonly accepted that TSA and border security are generally totally
incompetent [1], but AFAIK no politician is making a strong effort to fix the
problem. To me it's not really clear how it can be fixed anyways, as long as
we continue to give inordinate power to jobs which have minimal requirements.

I'm sure just about everyone who travels frequently has had a bad experience
at a border. Here's an anecdote: One time when I was returning from an
overseas trip a border security guy said there was a problem and started
questioning me about my trip and my whereabouts for the past couple years. He
wouldn't hand the passport back to me and wouldn't say what the problem was. I
finally got him to say that I was missing a visa. About 5 minutes later after
finally convincing him to keep flipping through the passport instead of asking
me more pointless questions, lo and behold, the visa was right on a page in my
passport where it was supposed to be.

And yet despite the utter waste of my time and uncomfortable questioning, I
didn't dare to say something slightly snarky like "you couldn't have looked
through the passport once before deciding I didn't have a visa?", because I've
read too many horror stories of ppeople being thrown into cells at US borders
with little or no recourse and certainly no responsibility on the part of
whoever makes that decision. Ultimately, in its current state these procedures
are far too prone to one dude having a bad day and taking it out by power
tripping on some poor traveller.

[1] [https://abcnews.go.com/US/tsa-fails-tests-latest-
undercover-...](https://abcnews.go.com/US/tsa-fails-tests-latest-undercover-
operation-us-airports/story?id=51022188)

btw, recent discussions on this:

(2 days ago):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19558161](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19558161)

(1 day ago):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19562920](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19562920)

~~~
ezoe
It's easy. Don't bother to visit US.

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spectramax
Can ACLU or anyone help sue the US Govt in any way or border security is off-
limits to prosecution?

~~~
SamReidHughes
Border security is not categorically off-limits, there have been past court
restrictions on their powers.

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fragsworth
This is incredible - he is specifically accusing the Trump administration
and/or the CBP of targeting him for harassment. These are the important lines:

> Until this incident, I have never been questioned like this by the CBP in my
> life."

> "The only thing that changed recently is that I have spoken out against
> Trump administration policies, including immigration policies and CBP," Gal
> added.

