

Caution on Twitter urged as Britons barred from US - ximeng
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16810312

======
tokenadult
There are a lot of comments here about the importance of free speech. I value
free speech very highly, so I will practice some here. I will see if an
attempt to write a possibly disagreeing opinion here will be responded to by
thoughtful comments, as I expect, and urge HN participants to consider some
other points of view besides those expressed by the majority here.

As I noted in my last comment on this incident, in another HN thread,

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3529500>

"a foreign national kidding around about a trip in which he or she will
'destroy America' shouldn't be surprised to be questioned about that by law
enforcement officers." It is routine national policy in every country of the
world to give border officers full discretion to deny entry to any foreign
person, even if the foreign person has a visa issued by the host country's
overseas diplomatic officials, and even if the foreign person comes from a
country with a visa-free entry treaty with the host country (as the United
Kingdom has with the United States). A general policy of visa-free entry or
routine issuance of visas to visitors who meet defined criteria does not
remove an immigration officer's general discretion to deny entry to any
foreign visitor, without further legal recourse.

I encourage Hacker News participants to check the law of the country where
they live, whatever country that is. Very likely you will find that
immigration officials have exactly this kind of discretion, unreviewable
discretion, in your country. A foreign visitor who kids around about engaging
in any kind of illegal or bothersome activity, even the kind of activity that
many loyal citizens of the host country engage in, is at risk of being denied
entry in pretty much every country in the world. The way to test how often
this kind of rare edge case occurs in other countries is to try the experiment
--tweet about the fun you desire to have in the next country you plan to
visit, in the same terms, and see what happens. Probably most British visitors
to the United States who previously have tweeted similar messages have been
allowed entry to the United States, without anyone taking notice of the
tweets. And probably on some future occasion someone else may tweet the same
kinds of statements, and not be detected. But try it yourself if you wonder
what other countries might do. In general, each country of the world gives its
immigration officers unreviewable discretion to deny entry to foreign persons
for any reason or no reason at all.

On the broader issue of whether or not this lone incident is a sign that the
United States no longer cherishes freedom of speech, no of course not. Here we
all are talking about this incident, with many criticisms of the United States
being openly expressed. I daily exercise my right as an American to criticize
government officials at all levels in the United States. I will keep right on
doing that no matter what I hear about practices by immigration officers at
United States borders.

Moreover, the United States continues to enjoy substantial net immigration and
a large number of asylum claims by people from other countries who expect to
enjoy more freedom once they start living in the United States than they did
in the countries of their birth. Here in the United States, I can disagree
with you, and you can disagree with me, and we can be civil about that, and
not be afraid of secret police or private militia hit squads coming after us
if we express a controversial opinion. Other countries also provide the
benefit of free speech, and people who are concerned about recent trends in
United States law are correct to be wary about granting the government
intrusive authority to monitor the private conversations of people in the
United States. But the reported incident, while perhaps an excessive response
based on the facts reported so far, does not suggest that the United States
has lost free speech, nor indeed does it even suggest that the border response
to such a tweet is a response that would not be found at other national
borders.

The continued interest here on HN in founder's visas and in other efforts to
loosen immigration requirements is evidence that there are still plenty of
people around the world of high levels of education who would be happy to
settle in the United States and pursue their careers there. There are still
people who advocate that all of the tens of thousands of university students
from dozens of countries who attend undergraduate or graduate classes in the
United States should gain residence visas when they gain their degrees. There
is plenty of demand to reside in the United States, to visit the United States
for tourism or for business, and to invest in the United States. That is not
going away any time soon.

Believing in free speech, I welcome your kind comments to this comment, and
will read them with care to see if I can improve my thinking on this issue.

~~~
worren
I am sensitive, having insensitively used the term "The Republic" to refer to
Ireland when speaking to a British customs agent, to your argument regarding
sovereignty and the necessary discretion of government officials. I simply
didn't know the implications. Similarly, a stated intent, not a joke, to
engage in an activity that, while indiscreet and boorish in some circles, is
not reviled as in our Puritanical society should not serve to permanently
discredit a visitor to the US. It is a pernicious scale to employ. And it
isn't just visitors to the US who need to find concern in this story. Am I to
expect that all of my public statements from now on, guided by whatever level
of maturity, sobriety, or proclivity, are to be recorded, permanently and used
to determine which airspaces I may traverse? Should my intended audience
include every customs official I may ever encounter? Puritanical, indeed.
Jesus _and_ the border patrol are watching! You trumpet our political
freedoms, casting aspersions on the domestic political establishment. Talk
trash about the Her Majesty and then go to England. Speak about religion or
sexuality without offending anybody, and expect to travel the other way around
the globe to reach your destination. A panopticon such as this equates every
iota of common speech with taunting an official.

The argument that we're still a popular place to visit rings hollow. Greece is
a popular place to visit, but that shouldn't server as an endorsement of their
horribly broken bureaucracy.

~~~
scoot
Say what?! It is the _UK_ Ireland Act (1949) that recognises "Republic of
Ireland" as a name for the Irish state. Under Irish Law, "Republic of Ireland"
is only a description, and the official name (in English) is Ireland. The only
insensitivity (and ignorance) in this instance is that of the the UK border
agent.

I cannot disagree with your main argument however.

~~~
worren
As I was later to understand, "The Republic" is slang that indicates a
sympathy for Republicans, Irish Catholics, some of whom rather notoriously
caused "trouble" for the Crown and it's subjects. The offences were mutual.
Open hostility relatively rare now, but there is still a lot of animosity and
caution reserved for suspected troublemakers of any stripe. As an American, I
am certain I was treated deferentially. I had, in effect, just given the agent
the finger.

~~~
scoot
Leaving aside your rather ill-informed history lesson - indicates to whom?

As a British born non-catholic who has lived and worked in both Ireland and
the UK, I can assure you are over-stating its meaning, except perhaps to
practicing loyalists in Northern Ireland. The accepted vernacular there as a
matter of practical sensitivity to the majority is "Southern Ireland" or "The
South" and "GB" for the part of the UK that excludes NI.

To suggest that it is generally offensive (as in "giving the finger") is,
well, offensive.

Edit: To wit - "UK Border Agency | If you are travelling to or from the
Republic of Ireland [...]" [http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/customs-
travel/Enteringthe...](http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/customs-
travel/Enteringtheuk/arrivingatukborder/travellingtocommontravelarea/)

------
jgrahamc
From other news reports it appears that this pair came to the attention of the
border folks in the US because of a tip off.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/01/31/call-
to-l...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/01/31/call-to-lax-
tipline-flagged-u-k-tourists-tweets/)

"Based on information provided by the LAX Port Authority Infoline – a
suspicious activity tipline – CBP conducted a secondary interview of two
subjects presenting for entry into the United States"

So, the question comes down to... was this a random US citizen who likes to
monitor Twitter for threats who decided to make the tip off, or is there
something else going on here that we are not seeing? In all the news reports
that I've seen I've only seen the first page of the document given to the guy;
the page that mentions Twitter. I wonder if there's something else on the
other pages.

~~~
rdtsc
A tip off could have come from anywhere, that is why it is such a good PR
explanation for them:

* A random concerned citizen (so it wasn't them looking, they just acted on behalf of someone genuinely concerned, this makes the thing a bit more noble).

* A scorned lover/an enemy ("oh you think are going to go on a vacation? remember what you did to me, I know exactly how to get back... what is that FBI tip-off number again...?")

* A secret (or not so secret govt.) web searching and filtering program. They don't want to reveal which one it is, but it could potentially just be made to generate "tip-offs" so that it looks like a person noticed, but in fact everything is automated. High profile tip-offs can be filtered through human agents as well.

Some of us who lived repressive regimes know how this works. If the govt. is
afraid of X, and sets up an anonymous tip-off line to report X. Then is known
to go ahead and blindly act on that tip. It creates an awesome/terrifying tool
for everyone to use. X can be anything you like: terrorism, communism,
whatever the du jour "War on ..." is waged.

In the Soviet Union we had neighbors denouncing each other for anti-communist
activities because they couldn't agree on the color of the fence. This stuff
will happen. The crazier and irrational the govt. gets the more potential for
abuse it creates. With a bit of work and ingenuity, during certain decades,
you could have made your whole neighbor's family disappear into Siberia
practically overnight.

~~~
c0mpute
Yes, its a nice veil they can hide behind.

But what boggles my mind the most is, why did FBI have to deport them? Are
they really so irrational that they could not discern genuine threats vs
someone who jokingly meant it (and in this case its a brit slang!). This is
where I think administration is falling apart. You read those stories about
TSA horror stories and all of them indicate a lack of common sense on the
administrative side.

~~~
mikeash
I believe that we're seeing the result of an extreme cover-your-ass mentality.

There is a chance, even though incredibly small, that the person in question
really will commit some act of terrorism. What are the payoffs _to the
individual making this decision_ of all the possible options?

Not a terrorist, deport him: no cost.

Not a terrorist, let him in: no cost.

Terrorist, deport him: no cost.

Terrorist, let him in: lose your job, your career, get to testify before a
hostile Congress, become a national scapegoat, etc. etc.

As far as I know, there are no consequences for deporting someone in a
situation like this. Thus, even if the chances that he's a real terrorist are
incredibly small, the fact that they're nonzero, and the fact that knowledge
of this tweet would inevitably result in massive fingerpointing in that remote
event, means that deportation is the obvious best choice. There's no benefit
to letting him in, and some benefit to deporting him.

You see this sort of thing pop up in any large bureaucracy. There are rarely
penalties for "better safe than sorry", even when taken to an absurd degree,
but there are huge penalties for a failing to take that approach in the event
that you miss something.

My wife just finished a thorough government background check, including an in-
person interview about all of her international travel activity for the last X
years, several calls for followup questions about relatives and their jobs and
potential ties to foreign governments, etc. The job they're checking her for?
Web designer at the Smithsonian. Not exactly a repository of national secrets
here.

That background check makes no sense from a cost-benefit analysis, but makes
tons of sense from a cover-your-ass bureaucratic analysis. Looks to me like
the exact same thing happened with this tweet.

~~~
c0mpute
Well put. It is unfortunate that there is no way to have these folks
accountable for their actions. I agree the public sentiments will be with them
in this case though, but its one step closer to the Orwellian society.

Note: I am not a USA citizen or reside in USA - just so that my perspectives
are understood as an outsider.

------
shadowfiend
Caution on Twitter. The ultimate goal of censoring is exactly this: self-
censoring. At some point, the government barely needs to censor at all,
because the people censor themselves. In this fight, at least, the TSA/DHS/etc
is succeeding in spades.

~~~
user24
Indeed, this quote scared me:

> Abta, which represents travel companies in the UK, said holidaymakers need
> to learn to be ultra-cautious when it comes to talking about forthcoming
> trips

no, we shouldn't 'need to learn to be ultra-cautious', we should be able to
say whatever we want without living in fear.

edit: yes, _whatever_ we want. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words
will never hurt me. It's actions that we need to stop, not speech.

~~~
wyclif
By all means, say whatever you want. Just don't expect to be allowed into the
USA as a right.

The irrationality and absurdity of TSA is something that most Americans are
aware of. But we have a President and Congress who think it's all just fine.
The only solution to this problem is to elect lawmakers who will abolish TSA.
Last time I checked, there's only one candidate for President who has included
that as part of his platform.

~~~
zem
single-issue voting is no less stupid when groups other than fundies do it.

~~~
wyclif
Erm, actually it's not "single-issue voting." There is a whole host of bad
legislation that is very invasive of personal liberty in the US, not just TSA.
A good example would also be the recent SOPA/PIPA legislation. All those
things need to be voted down, not just one of them.

------
amalag
Our tax dollars are being well spent, so now we can catch the next Al Qaeda
bomber as he is preparing to destroy America and inadvertently tweets his
intention. The jokes on you Al-Qaeda bomber, the US is way ahead of you man.
Sounds like a prewritten Colbert segment.

~~~
kevinh
You say that, but multiple people with intent to commit a school
shooting/bombing have been caught because they revealed their intentions
online.

Monitoring doesn't have to be done to catch the stereotypical "terrorist", but
can also catch people with psychological issues that are disgruntled.

Now, is it worth it and does it work? I don't know, but there is precedent for
people to post their intentions online.

------
smokeyj
Does this mean, for every person traveling, the feds can identify your social
network activity and detect thought-crime? I'm interested in how they already
knew which accounts belonged to who -- and how they automatically detected
them as 'threats'.

~~~
OriginalSyn
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_(software)>

Carnivore, now DSC1000, scrapes the web and inspects packets for keywords and
flags potential threats. I'm pretty sure "destroy" and "America" would raise a
flag in it's system.

Furthermore, finding out who accounts on twitter belong to is often fairly
trivial since a good deal of people use their actual names and if not that use
pseudonyms that are easily linked.

~~~
smokeyj
Because their name is linked on Twitter? What's to stop someone from making an
account under my name?

~~~
tripzilch
> What's to stop someone from making an account under my name?

Absolutely nothing! But, if you got nothing to fear, you got nothing to hide
... er, ... or something to that effect.

------
estevez
Let me play devil's advocate here and note that twitter has been used as a
communication platform by what the US Gov't consider (again, I take no
position on the merits) terrorist organizations,[1] and that monitoring such a
public forum is at least somewhat legitimate.

The offending party probably shouldn't have been deported, but that's another
matter.

[1]: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/28/al-shabaab-
twitter_...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/28/al-shabaab-
twitter_n_1172442.html)

~~~
phillmv
Sure.

It's still absurd to deny them entry. Rude white kids from England aren't
exactly a threat, and a cursory glance at their background would probably
confirm that.

------
RyanMcGreal
"There are reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say,
watch what they do, and this is not a time for remarks like that; there never
is."

\-- Ari Fleischer, White House Press Secretary, 2001-09-26

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/nation/specials/attacke...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/fleischertext_092601.html)

------
mike-cardwell
If they were a credible terrorist threat, they would have been picked up in
the UK before even setting off.

~~~
burgerbrain
And they certainly should not have been put _back_ onto an _airplane_.

Isn't the job of these people to keep terrorists _off_ of airplanes? Then they
"catch" some and the first thing they do is put them on one...

Whoever made that call should be arrested. When they admit that the two did
not actually pose a threat, they should be released then promptly re-arrested.

~~~
furyg3
You're confused.

It's the job of the TSA (or security guards at foreign airports) to search and
clear you and your possessions for flying. They are preventing short-term
threats, this is the last line of defense.

This story is about US Customs and Border Patrol, who are responsible for a
lot of things at airports as well as border crossings, including:

1) Making sure you are permitted to enter the country (checking or issuing
visas).

2) Making sure you are not bringing anything illegal into the country.

3) Making sure you are not a "threat" to the US. You're a criminal, or
associated with activist/terroris organizations which are hostile to the US,
or are likely to commit a crime during your stay.

Customs wasn't worried that this guy was going to blow up the next plane he
got on. They were (stupidly) worried that he would (probably) cause trouble
after he entered based on something somebody (might have) told them. So they
played it safe and denied him entry.

The evidence they used was dumb, but at the border there is something between
"we have evidence that you're a criminal and we're arresting you" and "you
seem like trouble so we're not letting you be our guest".

~~~
burgerbrain
Oh no, I get all of that. But DHS is DHS as far as I care.

If they sincerely thought that these people were a threat they would have been
detained. They were not worried in the slightest however, and nobody "seemed
like trouble". The agents were just being assholes.

You see, the extent to which they posed a threat to the country they also
posed a threat to the aircraft. (Not in the slightest, and everybody involved
knew it.)

~~~
furyg3
Counter-example:

Normal guy, going to a conference, history of overstayed visas.

He can get on the plane from Paris to New York, but he's not getting in
(rightly so). TSA is not CBP, nor should they be.

I'd much rather that all that money go toward (better) background checks by
CBP instead of perfume-stealing by the TSA.

~~~
burgerbrain
I think it is pretty clear that in this case the rational of the CBP is that
the two were 'dangerous', not that they messed up paperwork or violated visas.

De-fund them all, they have proven that even they don't take themselves
seriously.

------
joejohnson
Did the guy who said he was going to "destroy America" have a public twitter
feed? I'm wondering if making your tweets protected is enough to keep the FBI
from reading them.

~~~
bilbo0s
Uhh...

I think you are underestimating the reach of the FBI and DHS.

They know EXACTLY whose IP address is posting every comment, they just never
go through them unless your spouse's body turns up somewhere. Then they go
through everything.

What is surprising to me is that they went through the e-communications of
these two simply because they were traveling to the US. That's new info to
me...I didn't think they did that.

~~~
nollidge
I'm not sure you understand the question. It's not a matter of IP addresses.
Protected tweets are not publicly accessible, so it's not a given that
intelligence agencies have access to them unless Twitter is providing it to
them, or they've hacked into them.

~~~
sp332
Twitter's privacy policy doesn't actually require a warrant to give up your
"private" info (including your protected tweets).

 _Law and Harm: We may preserve or disclose your information if we believe
that it is reasonably necessary to comply with a law, regulation or legal
request; to protect the safety of any person; to address fraud, security or
technical issues; or to protect Twitter's rights or property._

<https://twitter.com/privacy>

~~~
w1ntermute
Yes, but that's a moot point unless one of the following is true:

1) Twitter monitors all tweets _itself_ for any "subversive" content, and then
takes the initiative to report that to the appropriate authorities.

2) Twitter gives full access to _all_ tweets to the FBI, regardless of their
content, so that the FBI can sift through the data themselves.

1 isn't such a big deal, but 2 certainly is.

~~~
sp332
I doubt Twitter gives them _everything_ since it's a difficult engineering
problem to handle that much data. But I could easily believe the FBI has a
list of terms or phrases that Twitter self-monitors for.

------
ilkandi
Can I offer some thoughts that seem to go against the majority opinion so far?

1) Should authorities take reasonable steps to prevent the commission of a
crime, or wait until after it's occurred? What if a well-known soccer hooligan
has posted that he's looking forward to running amuck? 2) Are threats against
an individual allowed as part of free speech? What about against a family?
Small business? A neighbourhood? A country? Where do you draw the line? 3) Do
you differentiate between personal criminal behaviour and organized criminal
behaviour? Or, between explosive threats vs non-explosive threats, like a
small bomb vs significant vandalism to public property done for Youtube? 4)
How would a third party know the tweeter is joking? (Most people who get
called out for saying rude or racist remarks say "oh I was just kidding"
afterwards). Do you prefer that all remarks should be ignored completely, or
(somehow) checked for credibility? (And I have no idea how one would approach
that, btw)

Looking for direct answers to all 4 questions, please. Would like to sample
where people stand.

~~~
viraptor
Yes. No. Yes. Due to lack of real proof. If we reacted this way to every
aggressive speech, we'd have majority of population in prison for saying
they're going to kill someone. (as in - "What did he do? I'm going to kill
him!")

------
gizzlon
This might be a case of what Schneier calls "cover your ass" security: No-one
want's to be held responsible if something happens.[1]

If you are an organization, or even just a random guard, the real priority
might not to stop something bad from happening. It could just as well be to
avoid blame. So it's much better to be extremely cautious.

You're in a world of hurt if someone tipped you off to a "suspicious" tweet,
you let them through, and (beyond belief) they actually carried out an attack.
Much better to deny them entry, even if it's obvious the "threat" is false.

Since everyone has to be _at least_ as careful as the next guy, probably even
more so, I I see this ending badly.

[1]
[http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/02/cya_security_1...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/02/cya_security_1.html)

------
epo
The salient point here is that the offending tweet was apparently made some
weeks ago. This public act was done deliberately to send a warning signal that
Big Brother is everywhere and sees everything. It might have caused some
unpleasantness if they had made an example of Americans so they chose a
foreign national.

But then again it is just security theatre. They've made people aware they
monitor Twitter and (EDIT I would guess) can mine it for historic comments so
people will now take more care when using Twitter thus diminishing the value
of the monitoring. This was a PR stunt for a purpose we may never understand.

------
ilkandi
Did DHS specifically say they were banned for their tweets or is it just a
newsworthy assumption? Did the two have any kind of criminal history, or was
the denial due to their responses?

This could be like the guy who reportedly entered the US because he showed an
iPad photo of his passport. Made news for a few days until US customs said
"uh, no, we have our own methods and discretion, the ipad pic didn't matter".
Big story became a non-story.

------
kruhft
Maybe it's time to go back to IRC?

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Better: let's revive the finger protocol.

~~~
bickfordb
Most terrorists I know keep a .plan

------
randomaccount12
Can I just point out that according to the article he's Irish and therefore
not a Briton. An Irish passport might be slightly higher on the 'be careful'
list?

------
ilkandi
Did DHS specifically say they were banned for their tweets or is it just a
newsworthy assumption? Did the two have any kind of criminal history? Were
they denied This could be like the guy who reportedly entered the US because
he showed an iPad photo of his passport. Made news for a few days until US
customs said "uh, no, we have our own methods and discretion, the ipad pic
didn't matter". Big story became a non-story.

------
mkramlich
Reinforces what should be a lesson for everyone: the flipside of freedom and
free speech is responsibility, judgment and facing the consequences. Just
because you can do a thing does not mean you should. Win a battle but lose a
war. You have the ability and right to yell fire when alone in a room at home.
But do it in public theatre and there may be consequences both physical
(stampede) and legal.

------
gerggerg
Some takeaways.

    
    
        The US government absolutely does monitor twitter.
        Not having your real name on-line still matters greatly.
        The US is willing to waste gobs of money just to make you feel bad.

------
Zarathust
What if they were american citizens? Shouldn't the FBI or something arrest
them under terrorist charges?

They came from the UK and were sent back, but if they were from the US, would
they be imprisoned?

~~~
roc
Or more to the point: how many checks exist (if any) between such a 'tip'
identifying someone as a possible threat, and their being identified as a
'terrorist' by the executive branch and essentially stripped of their rights
as a citizen?

This is why people don't trust the administration's argument of: "we'll only
use it on real terrorists, we promise". Not only is that still a terrible
affront to liberty, but our country's track record of identifying "real"
terrorists has been laughable. The very concept of any practical "trust" in
their ability to operate in this space is made laughable by situations like
the deportations in question.

------
justinhj
Does anyone know how they went from a tweet to real names and travel dates?
And how do they stop some third party abusing twitter to prevent someone else
from travelling to the us?

------
emu
Perhaps we need a humor flag on web pages, Twitter. By setting the humor bit
you could remove all ambiguity as to whether you're making a joke or a threat.

[this.humor := true]

~~~
gizzlon
I wonder if an emoticon would have saved them..

------
georgieporgie
I really hope US anti-terrorist work isn't so ethnocentric as to focus on
"destroy" and "America". Next they'll be searching on, "hate our freedom".

------
maeon3
Let one little patriot act pass through Congress and we get plagued with the
retard bregade known as the tsa for 100 years.

------
shareme
CAUTION, DHS does not understand Queens English, Farsi, basically anything
other than DHS speak..so oh why not have DHS stop scanning twitter..

~~~
Isofarro
"The United States and Great Britain are two countries separated by a common
language." George Bernard Shaw (apparently).

The original tweet(s) were immature as well as culturally insensitive. If you
are going to use language that's cliquey in a public broadcast medium, and
words that in their plain well-understood meaning convey threats or danger,
then you have no grounds to complain if persons of authority take measures
against such perceived threats.

Granted, these people probably didn't realise the repercussions of their
locale-specific slang, but ignorance is no excuse. They should at least be
aware of the environment they are travelling to.

It's the golden rule of international travel: Don't be an idiot. International
travel is a privilege, not a right. Foreign countries don't have to let you
in, even if you are British.

Being British myself, I'm actually unaccustomed to the use of the word destroy
in that context, and never heard this digging up Marylin Monroe quip. I found
both tweets tasteless and needlessly incendiary.

------
mrleinad
US, guardians of free speech around the world, indeed..

"You're free to say what we tell you to say.."

~~~
Karunamon
As much of a farce as DHS is, I'm pretty sure they have all the authority in
the world to regulate who gets into the country and who doesn't.

------
desireco42
This shows you that security agencies don't have command of english language
(they simply don't understand it). I can't understand this otherwise.

~~~
wyck
I think this shows you security agencies are just plain stupid, maybe it's a
bureaucratic problem but time and again common sense is thrown out the window
with "homeland" security.

------
jballanc
How many more incidents of this variety before foreigners (and foreign
investment and foreign inventors and foreign entrepreneurs) stop coming to the
US? After reading this and listening to the latest episode of "This American
Life" ([http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/456/r...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/456/reap-what-you-sow?act=1)), I can't help but wonder if the
right in the US will "reap what they sow" and end up with an impoverished
shell of an empire that no one _wants_ to illegally enter.

 _Edit_ : Based on the down votes this comment is receiving, I assume some
people disagree. I'd be curious if the source of that disagreement is a
feeling that this incident will not have any impact on the likelihood of other
foreigners visiting?

