
Sci-fi author and Crysis 2 writer Peter Watts beaten, arrested at US border - arundelo
http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Hellforge/Sci-fi-author-and-Crysis-2-writer-Peter-Watts-beaten-arrested-at-US-Border
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tc
The bottom-line problem seems to be that law-abiding people don't have much
experience with being treated like criminals.

In a high-pressure situation they sometimes fall back on their quaint
expectations of rights and basic human respect. I would wager that someone who
had spent serious time in prison would do much better in these situations.

The guy probably had a long day. I bet he just wanted nothing more than to get
home and go to sleep. He obviously didn't understand what all the fuss was
about, and he ended up stepping on someone's hair trigger. It seems terribly
unlikely he did something that you or I would consider physically threatening.
After being pepper-sprayed and man-handled, and likely not in the soundest
state of mind, maybe he even flailed a bit -- guaranteeing an assault charge
(and possible conviction).

Perhaps that's how it went down. It'll probably turn out that the border
guards "followed procedure." But that's exactly the problem that makes the
story frightening to us:

The path from "long day + non-violent temporary failure of judgement" to
"being physically assaulted and facing a life-altering felony charge" seems
terribly short.

~~~
Eliezer
Oh, I like that. Pepper spray in the eyes + flailing in pain = assault on a
federal officer.

~~~
forensic
Did you hear the one where the police dog was literally chewing on the arm of
a guy, and when the guy tried to escape from the dog he was charged and
convicted with assaulting a police officer. The dog being the police officer.

~~~
electromagnetic
Firstly, please site at least a news article on the case.

Also under the law, a police dog is an officer, an army dog is a soldier, a
search and rescue dog is typically a fireman. Also, depending on the US state,
and if it's in any other western country, animals have rights and injuring a
dog is a criminal act, and when it's owned by a cop you can be sure as hell
you'll be charged with animal abuse. If you're lucky, you won't be charged
with both and won't be sued civilly by the officer in question for damaging
property.

IMHO when a German Shepherd latches onto your arm and is attempting to force
you to the ground, you do as it says. Also when there's a half-dozen cops
(usually 1 for the dog team, and 2-4 cops called in for suspected drug
possessions) shouting "Stay down, stay down! DO NOT FIGHT THE DOG!" then you
do what they say.

Fighting the dog only does 1 of 2 things. 1st it angers the dog, which will
mean it clamps down harder and will likely mean it breaks the skin (which it
is trained not to do), which means any attempt to remove your arm can
literally shred the muscle from your bone. 2nd if you're lucky and get free
with your arm intact, running turns that highly trained dog into nothing more
than a wolf, it will no longer bite your arm or try to pin you down, when it
gets you it's likely to be going for the throat to kill you.

~~~
randallsquared
You appear to be asserting that it's unlikely this has ever happened because
no reasonable, thoughtful person being attacked by a dog would, upon careful
consideration, panic and struggle instinctively to get away from the dog.

------
DanielBMarkham
This article sets off my bullshit detector, and let me explain why.

First, it's throwing red meat to the dogs. The internet and tech community is
extremely sci-fi and video game friendly. This was one of us, and bad things
happened to him.

Second, it's not a news article. There's no presumption of being two sides to
the story. One side is given, by a friend, and a call to action given out.
Were the officers interviewed? Was the video-tape released (And you know they
have video tape)? Nothing of the barest minimum was done to provide some sort
of context. The purpose of this piece is clear: it's a call to action, an
editorial, an opinion piece. Don't confuse it with a news article.

Third, there's lots of loaded language in here -- "was subject to a beating
and arrest", and "the gang of border guards", "and losing it may cost him his
entire life" etc.

Look -- I'm not taking sides. Border guards screw up and are badly-trained
sometimes. That's why we have video on all border crossings. On the other
hand, people crossing the border have been known not to be able to handle
submitting to requests from people in authority for various reasons. There is
a very good case for using physical force on occasion. I simply don't know
what happened.

What do I do when someone starts singing sweet songs of injustice that sounds
wonderful to my libertarian senses? That's when I start asking questions.

I would like to know more about this, and from a non-aligned source, before
being able to form any kind of opinion at all.

~~~
jacquesm
I completely and fully believe the story. I've crossed the Canadian - US
border many times by car and I've personally witnessed more than one occasion
of absolutely unwarranted aggression on the part of the border guards.

Seriously, you have to make the trip a couple of times per month for a year or
two to get any idea of how many rotten apples there are in that basket.

American and Canadian visitors are always completely surprised when we tour
the region here, and we go from the Netherlands to France, Belgium and Germany
without ever seeing a borderguard in person, let alone having to interact with
one.

It's really just costumed theater, you could _easily_ do without it and it
would not somehow threaten the American way of life.

American borders being what they are I stopped going there completely after
one especially nasty incident in Miami that caused me to miss a connecting
flight.

Until sanity returns to the American borders I'm sure they can do without my
business.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I used to travel internationally quite a bit, so I've crossed the border many
times too. What can I say? It's usually not a pleasant experience no matter
which border you are crossing. And it seems to just be getting worse,
especially in the U.S.

It's also obvious that people who know Peter think of him as having a docile
character. So if I had to guess I'd guess that Peter was indeed wronged.

But I don't have to guess. There should be plenty of evidence for reasonable
people to make up their minds. I'll just wait until I hear more information.

Or put another way -- is this a story because of what exactly happened? Or is
it a story because it feeds into larger narratives that we already agree on
and it comes from somebody well-known on the web? Joe Schmoe gets tasered,
perhaps unfairly, and nobody cares. Person-of-note X gets tasered, perhaps
fairly, and everybody is up in arms. Why? Because it's easy for us to be. It's
a familiar theme with lots of characters doing things we would expect them to
do.

That type of story -- one that fits so well into established narratives and
stereotype and one that is presented without context -- just makes me feel
like I'm being manipulated, even if everything happened just the way it was
told and a true injustice was done.

I just don't know. But I do know that if there was serious misconduct on the
part of the border agents then heads deserve to roll on this -- just like any
other case involving anybody else.

~~~
grandalf
You may be right. It might even be a publicity stunt for Peter's new book
(which I'd buy in a heartbeat)...

But in any case, your critique doesn't mean that the event isn't useful for
helping people who haven't decided how they feel about the various post-911
excesses formulate a more nuanced opinion.

------
cstross
I know Peter.

He's _not_ the guy most likely to blow up and punch someone.

About the only point of information that might serve to remotely spin this in
the border guards' favour is that Peter is just shy of seven feet tall: if
you're of average height, he looms.

I gather the assault indictment stated that he was trying to enter the United
States when the incident took place. As he was in fact _leaving_ one wonders
what other lies the border patrol are telling?

------
byrneseyeview
We've heard one side of the story -- from someone who tells stories for a
living. He may have been arrested, and he may have been beaten, but I'd wait
to hear more about why.

~~~
hyperbovine
Having just been given the third degree by both U.S. and Canadian border
patrol last weekend, I can attest that it can be a really infuriating process.
To be blunt, they can (and generally are) huge assholes, really getting in
your face and making you feel like a criminal even when you have nothing to
hide. I presume the goal of this is to psych out the people who actually are
up to no good, but the end result is that you end up feeling pissed off and
unwelcome.

That said, I definitely agree that there is another side to this story. For
one thing, everything that happens at a border crossing is videotaped from
about 14 different camera angles, so there's no way they're going charge him
with assault unless he actually took a swing. The fact that the situation even
got to that point--multiple guards, pepper spray, verbal commands--means he
did something pretty egregious. The crossing guards are dicks but they are
professional dicks, at least in my experience. Do as you're told and you'll
eventually get through. Ignore repeated commands and project the same
surliness back at them and you're just asking for trouble.

~~~
ellyagg
> project the same surliness back at them and you're just asking for trouble.

That's commonsense, but its truth still pisses me off. There is zero reason
border guards deserve deference, and projecting surliness to people behaving
surly is my natural right.

~~~
hyperbovine
_There is zero reason border guards deserve deference_

No? Such universal, stratospheric levels of assholedom don't arise organically
--border guards behave the way they do because they are trained to. Probably
because the alternative, cheerfully waving everyone through, is unacceptable
from a national security standpoint.

I know you can justify pretty much anything these days by waving the security
flag, but I think in this instance it's fair. They deserve deference because
somebody has got to secure our borders in this day and age, and like it or
not, this is probably the best way to go about doing it. I'm willing to live
with my feelings getting hurt if it means people aren't able to drive bombs
over the border.

~~~
grandalf
I think you are 100% wrong. Do we really want to live in a society where being
hurried or annoyed at the border guard will result in searches, detention, or
worse?

Pretty soon simply giving the guard an annoyed look can land you behind bars
for a few hours. This is the opposite of the rule of law, it is giving way too
much power to the whim of the guy with a gun.

~~~
hyperbovine
No, but it isn't as simple as that nowadays. My only point is that, when there
are people out there who are trying to blow you up, dealing with a certain
amount of bullshit from law enforcement is an acceptable tradeoff for putting
a stop to that. It's not optimal, but neither is dying in a terrorist attack.
Neither extreme--fascism or doing nothing--appeals to me as much as the middle
ground. YMMV.

~~~
rbanffy
If enough people think like you do, the terrorists won.

They are not out to blow you up. They want to destroy your way of life - your
freedoms and the notion that government serves the people. The want the
opposite.

And they are winning. Blowing people up is not the objective: it's the tool.

~~~
CamperBob
_If enough people think like you do, the terrorists won_

Al Qaeda spent $20,000 or so on September 11. The US spent $1 trillion and
counting. They "won" the minute we opened our checkbook; turning the country
into a police state was just dancing in the end zone.

~~~
grandalf
Excellent point. By definition, "terrorism" is a method that the US cannot
really defend against without creating a police state.

------
grandalf
I recommend that everyone donate a few dollars via PayPal to Peter's legal
defense fund:

donate@rifters.com

~~~
mattmaroon
I'd like to donate to the border guards. I figure there's a 50/50 chance
there's a lot more to this story than Cory Doctorow's (his friend) has told,
but nobody else will blindly take their side.

~~~
tsally
You already do donate to the border guard; it's your tax money paying his/her
salary.

More importantly, I don't think blindly taking the government's side on any
issue is a good thing. I'd much rather have everyone default to believing the
private citizen and be wrong some of the time. Blind faith in the citizenry
probably at worst has a net zero effect. Blind faith in the government is most
certainly negative.

That being said, I'm completely open to the possibility that the border guards
followed procedure. I definitely need more information to form an opinion.

~~~
cgranade
If following procedure means beating someone senseless and trying to get them
to waive their legal rights, then procedure is fucked. Yes, I am taking Watts'
story at face value, and I could be wrong in that, but given my experiences,
it seems much more likely that border crossing guards acted out of line than
the alternative.

~~~
grandalf
I have had incidents with the Canadian guards at the Windsor border... Not as
extreme as Watts' case, but I did nothing more than take a call on my cell
phone for 5 seconds (to tell the person I'd call back later), and then say
"This is bullshit" when the car was turned away from Canada b/c of the phone
usage.

This was before 9/11 and I am an utterly harmless, good natured person who is
about the most obviously non-criminal one could possibly imagine. It is absurd
any border guard anywhere would feel the need to ramp up the testosterone in
response to me.

~~~
pyre
The best explanation is this:

Law enforcement of any kind (police up to military) are trained to be 'in
control' of their situation. When you start asking questions (or getting out
of your car or whatever) you are being proactive for yourself. You're trying
to take control of a situation so that you understand what's going on and that
you don't have to accept everything at face value. But this contradicts all of
their training that they need to control the situation. Even though you might
be unarmed and they are armed (meaning that no matter how verbal you might get
they still have control... they can f-cking kill you) they react to gain
complete and utter control over the situation.

I'm not saying I like this. To be truthful, I absolutely hate this. But it is
the way it is. Their training is f-cked. (or at least there are a majority of
people that take the training past the point of (un)common sense).

~~~
grandalf
I realize that under some circumstances the training is beneficial, but I have
seen way too many examples of various armed officials using excessive
verbal/physical force with obviously harmless people.

I think of it this way: If you're in law enforcement, the real bad guys are
very scary, so you would start to feel like a real wimp after a while. The way
I think many of them deal with this is by over-controlling obviously harmless,
law-abiding people.

------
tangram
If he was going back to Canada he was not passing through US customs, you just
go through and stop at Canadian customs. He was pulled over by the US border
police so this could not have been a customs matter. Unless they had tip that
he was doing something illegal or he broke a law like speeding, I don't know
why they would have pulled him over.

Also I have crossed the border plenty of times, what I have issues with is
that customs officials are given too much discretion it seems in what they can
do. If an officer has a bad day they can pretty much do what they wanted.

The worst I saw was when my brother was renewing his TN1 visa. I was driving
him to the airport in Buffalo. We waited for close to two hours at the customs
office. The whole time the customs officers were just talking about their
weekend, what their plans were, on one was actually doing their job.

Two girls that were there before us finally asked, and they were were
courteous while do so, when their case would be handled. They said they had
waited for 3 hours and were on their way to a funeral. The customs officer
blew up at them right away, told them to shut up, used allot of swear words
directed at them and threatened to throw them in jail.

Nothing the girls did warranted that behavior. After his tirade he had
everyone that was waiting come over and denied them entry right on the spot
without hearing them out. The whole time all the other officers were just
laughing.

Usually everyone has always been professional when I crossed the border and
that was the only time I have seen someone on a power trip. But it does
happen, and when it happens you are pretty much screwed if you are caught in
the cross fire.

~~~
ajb
It's not that hard to think of reasons why the border guards would pull
someone innocent over on the way out. Most obviously, he or his car could fit
the description of an all-points alert; at least, enough that they want a
closer look.

------
tptacek
I think a lot of people don't realize that they have drastically reduced
rights at or near border crossings. You and your car can be searched by
customs at their discretion without warrant or probable cause.

The "in some other universe... I didn't get back in my vehicle when I was told
to" quote is telling too. I think someone more familiar with how border
crossings work would never refuse to physically comply with a demand from
officials.

~~~
potatolicious
> The "in some other universe... I didn't get back in my vehicle when I was
> told to" quote is telling too.

I agree. I do not know this man - but from my frequent Canada <-> USA border
crossings I do know that while border guard power trips are frequent (too
often so), getting beat takes effort. The story is clearly not as clear-cut as
a bunch of crooked border cops deciding randomly to pepper spray and beat some
guy. His friends and family are free to contribute to his legal defence, but
without knowing what really happened I am unwilling to contribute.

That being said, the amount of unprofessional power tripping at American
borders is ludicrous - myself and other Canadians avoid cross-border travel
for this very reason, and it's costing America business. Even my American
coworkers get hassled on their way home from Canada, and nearly everyone
agrees that Canadian guards are on the whole a hell of a lot more professional
and polite.

Nothing tops the time I was at the airport in Vancouver, pre-clearing customs.
A very large border guard with a pissed off sneer on his face was hassling
everyone he dealt with, and verbally berated an elderly gentleman for moving
too slowly as he shuffled his way up to the booth. That sort of bullshit
cannot be tolerated, and gives America a bad name for no good reason.

~~~
hyperbovine
I suspect this has to do with the fact that you are Canadian. I am American, I
have always found crossing back into America to be much less of a hassle. The
Canadians have been stone-cold S.O.B's whereas the Americans are just rude.

~~~
tptacek
At grave risk of redundancy: I have had the opposite experience. Canadian
customs have always been friendly to me, and US customs at the Canadian border
have always been total dicks.

~~~
llimllib
And I've had the misfortune of meeting asshole border guards on _both_ sides,
many years apart. Do I win a door prize?

~~~
ajross
Goodness no. How will we ever find out who wins now?

------
cgranade
FYI: Updates from Watts' blog are online at
<http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=935>.

~~~
mkyc
Awesome, some real information, rather than pointless and obvious speculation
as to what happened. He links a news story:

[http://www.thetimesherald.com/article/20091211/NEWS01/912110...](http://www.thetimesherald.com/article/20091211/NEWS01/91211010/1002/Science+fiction+writer+charged+after+bridge+struggle)

~~~
cgranade
Sadly, I think we won't get too much more info for a while, since Watts is not
in a place to say much right now, and I don't think that the border guards
will have much to say...

------
nazgulnarsil
when stopped by a police officer I always act like they already have a gun
pointed at me. I keep my hands visible and answer everything with a 'sir'.
maybe there's lots of good cops out there. But if I get the one asshole who
gets off on power I'd rather appease his view of the world than challenge it.

------
anguslong
Without hearing both sides of the story, an instructional video came to mind:

Chris Rock's: How not to get your a$$ kicked by police
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj0mtxXEGE8>

Hope this situation gets worked out amicably though.

------
jsz0
From the border agent's perspective anyone can be a threat. You should
approach these situations avoiding any actions that may confuse you with a
lunatic or criminal. Not sure if that was the case here or not. Hopefully it
was on camera so we can know the true story.

~~~
grandalf
So the correct response is to supplicate before the guard, avoiding any
visible signs of irritation, hurry, etc. It is generally preferable to put on
the most benign facial expression one can muster to avoid threatening or
annoying the guard, who has the power to waste several hours of your life on a
whim, and can cause far more harm if he chooses.

------
akkartik
Blindsight (his book) is awesome.

