By the way, this is the primary reason I've never travelled to the United States.
The US is missing out on tourism because people overseas read horror stories like this and scratch it off their want-to-go list. I categorise the US alongside wonderful places like Saudi Arabia, China, and Russia as a place where human rights aren't.
I'm a white male of Christian background, I'm not on any "lists" that I know of, and have no reason to be. I work with government departments in my home country and have multiple clearance checks, some of which are very thorough. I sail through airport customs checks in every country.
But clearly the US is number one mainly at being a police state. It's the world's richest third-world country. It's authoritarian to its core.
In our country we have state-local police, one branch of federal police that exists only to protect politicians and a few other special duties. That's about it for uniformed people with arrest powers. Oh, technically we have the Office of the Sheriff for enforcing court orders, and I think Border Patrol aren't technically Police. I don't even know. It doesn't really come up as an issue for law abiding people, irrespective of their skin colour or time of year. Oh sure, you hear the homeless drug addicts complain about "the pigs" loudly, but... yeah. They're bound to.
Meanwhile, allow me to list the US police forces or police-like groups that I know of the top of my head just by watching US-made television shows: State Troopers, Local and county police, Sherrifs, DEA, ATF, DHS, Military Police, FBI, ICE, Marshalls, Campus Police(!), Secret Service, and I'm probably forgetting a few.
This is why the black-lives-matter riots are still going on. Your nation's law enforcement is a militarised, authoritarian nightmare. For someone who doesn't like being "not arrested for 18 hours" for "looking wrong" and using cleaning products, it's a place to avoid, not visit.
Reading this article in 2013 scared me off as well. A few years later, I had no choice but to visit the US and had 0 issues getting through CBP and TSA. The former was especially surprising (and a relief) to me, as my purpose of travel was not tourism or business. I came there to undergo an outpatient operation, so I had prepared lots of proof and documentation to show to border patrol officers. Because while this would technically fall under "medical tourism", I had heard this purpose of travel is somewhat likely to get you denied entry. The officer didn't seem to care one bit. After being asked the routine questions and answering truthfully, he asked me one trick question: "So, you're here on business?". I said "No" and then I was let through. No issues at TSA either. Being white and Dutch must be pretty powerful.
Probably around 2015, my brother and I left the US for the first time in our lives for a vacation in Italy. We both got out just fine, and I got back in just fine—but my brother was harassed by the TSA. My brother is a white American—unmistakably American. English is the only language he speaks. We don’t have any background that you’d think would lead to questioning. We were travelling with extended family, though we were all adults by that point.
One part that I found particularly odd: when they pulled him aside to question him, I tried to wait for him, but was told I needed to continue through a one-way, armored door with no window. I later found out that they asked him why his ticket said he was traveling with family when his family wasn’t with him. Fortunately, our mother was pretty far behind us in line, didn’t realize he had been pulled aside for questioning, and called for him to hurry up. I’m told that allayed their fears and he was released.
He came out of it pretty rattled. We had already been forced to stand in line for over an hour--which was taking a toll on our elderly grandparents, who weren't permitted to sit. He was visibly shaken and disoriented.
We eventually came to the conclusion that he looked a little too American. Cheap, university-student clothing (e.g., free sunglasses handed out by a university). They must’ve though he was trying too hard to fit in. He didn’t set off any alarms; he hadn't even made it to the security checkpoint yet. They pulled him out of the line.
I went to a fairly large university in the UK, about 11k people on a self contained campus. I think there was a designated police officer for the university. I don't recall any security guards per-se, but there was a "porters" who looked after the main building, and there were a couple of bouncers checking ID on the on-campus bars (to stop townies from getting in)
Is it not just normal police officers with perhaps some extra training on dealing with student matters?
> The US is missing out on tourism because people overseas read horror stories like this and scratch it off their want-to-go list. I categorise the US alongside wonderful places like Saudi Arabia, China, and Russia as a place where human rights aren't.
As someone who has been in Saudi Arabia, China and the US, I can say that your view of reality is severely incorrect. I encourage you to visit the US before making this kind of statement. (Disclaimer: I'm European)
I did not notice anything in China either (and been there a lot for work) as I don't notice anything in the US. Actually; things like borderpatrol and policing (and the treatment you get from these two gov agencies) seem far worse in the US than in China if you did nothing wrong. But we know the reality ofcourse; just saying that appearance/visiting does not tell you a lot.
Never had a single encounter with the police in the US while I lived there.
I do agree that the US border is the toughest. I assume much of that is because of how many people try to illegally immigrate to America (and how hard it is to get them out once they're in)[0]. America is perhaps the only country where pretty much everybody coming in is a potential future illegal immigrant. Some of it is perhaps indeed unreasonable but in no way does it represent the experience you'll have IN the country.
But again, never had a bad experience with them. Always opt out of full body scanners and that has never been an issue. It just always feels much more crowded and slower than other places. That's my biggest complaint.
Many countries essentially have the police forces you listed but they may just be a department in some bigger organization. The American setup is just much more decentralized.
BTW China and Russia have perfectly boring borders. Yet inside of China I did have some not-so-pleasant encounters with the police just for failing to register my address with them. And again look at how the Chinese police is structured. It's pretty boring like most places, yet it TRULY is an authoritarian country.
[0] which again just proves how not-authoritarian America is.
The border is horrible. It is something which I hated, one feels like cattle and is treated worse. The other one similar to that was in Russia.
The border authorities look all psychopathic and I wonder if they are selected as such.
The agriculture guys after you pick your luggage are ok.
As for the police inside the country, I had 3 encounters over 20 years and maybe 50 trips.
One was when I asked for some directions on Phoenix. This is the normal thing to do in France but here the lady was perplexed as of why I am asking her. Nice but really surprised.
The second one was on a road in the middle of nowhere in the SW. It was night, we were driving and ther was a single light on our lane. We slow down to a stop, look at the police car, no reaction on their side so we drive on. The car rushes after us, bright lights, the cop yelling at us with his gun out and my bowels almost giving up.
He asked for our papers, I asked if I can move my hands which were on the roof and I think he recognized an accent. He relaxed a bit, said yes and I proceeded to explain every move I was doing.
He had a look at the papers and let us go. My friend lightly peed himself.
Third one, a year ago. I am driving with my family entering Paso Robles. My gps tells me to turn left. I go to the left turn lane but it was the wrong one, the right one is 20 meters further down the road. Quick glance around and I drive forward, against the rules.
Sound and light signal, I see a big police car behind. A young cop walks to my car and asks me jhghjhffcjjhgvbk (this is what I understood). I ask him to please repeat slower, to what he glances inside the car, sees two kids grinning in the back, us in the front and says "you are free to go, have fun and drive carefully"
I've travelled to Saudi Arabia a lot, and have never been detained or even asked anything. Their customs have always been friendly, so it probably does not belong on that list.
I'm not sure how important the difference is for a non-native speaker. For me it definitely isn't, and I mean no offense. It's just, color or colour, both foreign words so its gonna be whatever the default software thought appropriate. But we're digressing :)
FWIW, I've travelled extensively in Saudi Arabia, China, Russia and the United States. I find the US easily the scariest of the four, because it's where I have by far the highest likelihood of being shot, both by criminals and by law enforcement.
Anecdote: I once ventured into a post office in central New Orleans (the touristy bit) in the search of some stamps. The post office happened to be located inside a courthouse, with airport-style security to get in. When I started to take off my backpack so I could put it in the X-ray machine, I was greeted with very agitated shouts of "KEEP YOUR HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM SIR!" because -- I realized afterwards -- the armed security thought I was going to shoot up the place.
The black lives matter protest -- which are primarily a reaction to police violence and racial profiling -- have been a on the news here every day for weeks.
I also know of the Rodney King Riots, just to name another similar incident off the top of my head.
I live in Australia. Name one incident with our police that made the national news in the US, off the top of your head. (Using Google is cheating!)
There was also some incident in the last year or so that looked like suicide by police. I felt bad for the officer involved, and apparently they had to get counselling because they were so distraught afterwards.
Meanwhile we're hearing about US police forces killing people roughly weekly during the protests against excessive police violence.
It's flabbergasting that you think these facts are hate speech. This criticism is warranted. Certainly, many hundreds of thousands of your countrymen agree, loudly.
I am a white American who never even travelled outside the country until I was an adult. The very first time I had to cross the border, I ran into issues. It’s very real, no matter how American you are. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23626963
I’ve been harassed by police in other contexts when they followed protocol incorrectly and tried to cover their asses. Lawyers tend to sort that out quickly, but what about people who can’t afford lawyers?
At the same time, I’ve had police officers help me and my family, and I’ve generally gotten along quite well with law enforcement. But in all these situations, they weren’t acting as LEOs; they were acting as social services.
What might be entirely coincidence, but I found interesting, was that this was a JetBlue flight from JFK. The one time I triggered the explosives detection machine was a JetBlue flight from JFK. I had almost nothing special - a carryon I've used many times before, with clothes and toiletries. I also had two small fossils I bought from the Evolution store in NYC, which the TSA agent seemed especially interested in retesting.
In my case though, I just had to deal with a thorough search of the carryon, confusion from other TSA agents (something like "oh, you searched the carryon? That wasn't necessary" from one agent to another) and listening to the main TSA agent wax poetic about how evolution is a lie and how climate change is a hoax.
Meanwhile I’ve gone gun range to airport without a change of clothes between and neither my skin or clothing apparently triggered anything when they swabbed me...
Not sure what specifically their explosives test is testing for, but when I realized what I’d done while waiting in the security line the scenario that played out in my head definitely included them picking up on a wackload of gunpowder residue.
Pyrotechnician here.
I've walked off gigs with my hands black from powder, smelling of powder, with so much powder falling from my bags that the security guards laughed about how "dirty" my bag was, got swabbed and went through without issue. Likewise, I have had colleagues travel with 12" mortar shells in their baggage without any issue.
I can only assume they're checking for deflagrating explosives (TATP, ampho, etc).
I've only travelled to America once, and its the only place of all the places I've been to where I've been essentially interrogated in the departure lounge at Heathrow. I don't really recall what he was asking but I remember thinking it was very strange how rude and hostile he was being. It wasn't much better on the other side either to be honest. I haven't been back, and don't really have any intention of going to be honest.
I think that's because America made quite a few enemies in the process of policing the world. Israel is much tougher on inbound travelers for the same reason.
If America didn't police the world, China would, and we would still have Soviet Union, and probably Taiwan would not be on the map.
Well you can think that way until you are the one they are protecting. Then it's nice having freedom of travel (thanks to the collapse of the USSR) or having the most progressive government in Asia (Taiwan). I'm really grateful to America for doing this.
Outside of the US, every time I go through airport security I am always "randomly" searched. "Sir, this is just a random search, we do this all the time" - I must be incredibly unlucky. Strangely, when I shave I get through fine.
This might sound cynical but in that case I'd just shave before every flight. It's the same reason I always fly in a shirt when on business, it's one of many markers that makes you look like a business flyer, which will mean you're probably gonna be treated more like one.
In my opinion, we can accept that reality is very severely non-optimal while still trying our best to avoid the problems that reality causes. Or in the words of Hunter S. Thompson (maybe misattributed): 'Pray to God, but row away from the rocks.'
I like my beard though, and I'm not bending over backwards to conform to some security agent's bigoted views. Fuck 'em. My mom called me frantically when I was in college once and told me to shave my beard because she didn't want me to be targeted (I'm brown) -- I didn't do it then, and I'm sure as hell not doing it now.
Anecdote: A student and their professor were flying abroad to present at a conference, where the student was presenting and the professor was there to network. As such, the student was suited and booted to present later that day.
A flight attendant approaches the student in economy class and offers them a free upgrade, presumably because he is perceived to be of an important profession. Completely ignoring the ridiculously qualified, well-traveled, multiple language speaking, highly cited professor. They were quite salty but it made for a good story over some beers!
You forgot about wearing glasses. For some reason Airport security sees no danger in people wearing glasses. Shaving, wearing bland clothes and glasses (fake, because my vision is fine) are part of my travel strategy. And i am not joking.
The lack of rights one has when traveling through an airport is genuinely scary. As far as I'm aware once you start the security process I don't believe you can actually stop it without some similar interrogation like this.
I remember a while back I believe it was New Zealand that wanted the ability to search your devices for BitCoins. I believe at least in the UK it's a criminal offense to not provide the password to your encrypted device. Unless things change I'm sure this will just get worse.
Oh my god. I do not know how people can have such patience. If I was subjected to the same absurd humiliation as the author, I'm afraid I would have "snapped" angrily and ended in a much worse situation.
When people talk about privilege, this is what they're talking about. A white person would probably just not be in this situation enough for the need to comply.
I remember the first time I was flying to the US, I was adviced by multiple people in the days leading up to the flight, to get rid of my beard, because it made me look Muslim. From all the stories, it's probably a good precaution to take. Stuff like this and complying to authority in a polite way even though all human instinct tells you to be pissed is normal.
> turning the whole world into prison from which there is no escape
This kind of alarmist sentiment is meaningless without elaboration. It could equally be a marxist criticism of wage-slavery as it could be a neo-liberal critique of the surveillance state.
It’s not a Marxist or Neo-liberal critique, just an observation. People are (rightly) viscerally afraid of dying in a fireball, but are far less animated about the horrors of living as a non-person, without the right to privacy, freedom of movement, freedom of speech, freedom of thought, the presumption of innocence, due process in law, and just all round basic human dignity. The right to life is an important one, but it can and should be upheld without setting fire to all the others.
Worth just reminding everyone that those rights exist whether the powerful of the day want to undermine or uphold them; they exist everywhere in the universe including airports. They exist for all people regardless of their religion or ethnicity.
We’re not fooled into forgetting about these immutable rights just because someone acts as if that they have the authority to negate them. They most certainly do not.
Based on the many stories published about TSA experiences, and based on my own personal experiences (nothing scary like this 2013 story), I conclude that TSA does not have particularly high standards for intelligence or empathy.
And to be fair to some of the TSA employees, their jobs look really sucky. Add to that a sense of power (because obviously they have the power to ruin your trip and perhaps your life if it causes you to end up on the no-fly list), and you've got a volatile situation.
I can’t imagine a worse job government job than being a TSA agent. Other federal agencies think you are a joke, the public mostly hates you and/or thinks you are a joke, and you make no money, and it’s a boring job were you have to stand up all day and talk to people at an airport. Oh and there are no real prospects of career advancement especially at the lower levels, and the job skills are not incredibly applicable in the outside world.
Cold fact - America is amazing to you if you're wealthy. They're still slave owners and if you don't know that you're wealthy, then sorry but you're the slave.
I mean this guy was working in Venture Capital? Probably not hurting for cash. This seems like clear-cut profiling + law enforcement paranoia and inability to de-escalate things.
In a twisted way, the agents' behavior is actually kind of rational if you think about it. They prefer false positives to false negatives because the cost of a false negative is a successful terrorist attack, whereas the cost of a false positive is an annoyed traveler.
The cost of many false negatives is an overall worse quality of life for everyone, especially for targeted groups, and the enactment of a massive surveillance apparatus to enforce that QoL degradation.
I've been around a fair bit including a few trips across borders at which you'd expect a bit of a grilling, such as the Eastern Bloc before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and Israel; but nothing prepared me for the absolute aggressive rudeness of US immigration.
Interesting how the TSA pretends it is police when it isn't. Also interesting the level of stupidity and incompetence shown by every asshole of every organization involved. Perhaps people are starting to see now, thanks to BLM, that law enforcement is made up of extreme assholes who enjoy cruelty and hate. Not just cops but even non law enforcement organizations with power like the TSA. It's built into the culture, this sick power-hungry drive to hurt and control others so that one can feel superior. Even the airline agent displays it because of that. I doubt there are many people in power in the US who don't display this. Certainly have never met any myself.
I have been mostly flying to visit my family who live in another country, but in the last 10 years flying has become such an unpleasant experience, even when not being singled-out by airport security. Actually, with the current crisis going on I am quite content about not having to deal with going on a plane again.
I mean, airports are such hostile places, it feels like you're just a chunk of meat going through a meat grinder. As others here have remarked, it wasn't always like that, but then again, people haven't been flying that often, so maybe scale has something to with it as well.
As most I have only anecdotal evidence for border police differences. But I do still sometimes think about how it once took 4 hours of queueing with no toilet no water and a sign that said no mobile phone use to get in to the US at Newark (after thorough passport examinations), while in Iran that same year there was no queue and a smile and a wave. I am a white Scandinavian.
One may lament the state of things in the US after 9/11, and be justified to so to some extent. The thing I want to lament however, is the near zero insight into the dynamics and logic of terrorism: in essence, that this is what terrorists want.
Terrorists want to strike fear into normal citizens so that they ask for revenge - and more protection. Which results in draconian measures that paves way for authoritarianism which leads to more recruits for the terrorists (on all sides). And so a vicious circle takes off. We are being played, essentially.
In some distant future maybe this logic could be taught in primary schools, so that society could be forever inoculated. Sadly such a vaccine seems a long way off.
Interesting, I had never heard about this before. Apparently it "only" dates back to the year 1699, and it was a commandment for the "Khalsa" Sikhs, which to my understanding is a subset of Sikhs. Wikipedia says that:
> In the United Kingdom, there have been tensions between the Khalsa Sikhs and the non-Khalsa Sikhs. Many Sikhs in Britain have insisted on their right of not conforming to the Khalsa norms while maintaining that they are truly Sikh. On the other hand, some of the Khalsa Sikhs think of the non-Khalsa Sikhs as having abandoned the Sikh faith altogether.
Anyway, for reference, the five K:s are: Kesh (uncut hair), Kangha (a wooden comb for the hair), Kara (an iron bracelet), Kachera (100% cotton tieable undergarment, not an elastic one) and Kirpan (an iron dagger large enough to defend oneself).
what does coming to a middle mean - I would take it to mean that if you will have a range of 2000 consecutive days of not wanting to visit the US you would be at day 1000.
Yep, I mean there were a lot of good things about the U.S. and I'd like to go back someday but stories like this would give me pause even if COVID-19 wasn't running rampant and social unrest amplifying.
Imma need a citation for all of that. Also, the blogger is Hindu, not Muslim.
I also found the post to remarkably free of arrogance or "victim-posing", I don't think I'd be able to restrain myself that much if I had the same experience.
> Unless you're convinced 9/11 and the Orlando terrorist attacks were inside jobs of course...
Ramadam 2001 started on Nov 16th
The deadliest mass shooting since the Greenwood Massacre 100 years ago was the Las Vegas one in October 2017, committed by a white male. Ramadan was in June that year.
Indeed the vast majority of mass shootings in the developed world are committed by white Americans.
Most recent terrorist attack in the US was the 2019 El Paso attacks, which was a White American Male who killed 23 people
Before that another white american male in Poway (and an attack on a mosque earlier than that), another in the Pittsburgh synagogue, the Blaze Bernstein shooting, and if you don't include the ones where nobody died - the mail bombing attempts aimed at people like Obama and Biden
One thing all these terrorist attacks on american soil have in common? The perpetrator was a white american male.
This doesn't mean that all white american males are terrorists, but if we were to take the attitude that many have towards Muslims, white american males are at best supporters of terrorism.
> One thing all these terrorist attacks on american soil have in common? The perpetrator was a white american male.
I do not see why you introduce the race issue here. All the terrorist attacks in the USA after 1995 (last unabomber kill) have been performed by far-right extremists, and this includes islamists and american conservative nationalists. Terrorism in america is clearly a matter of politics, not of race.
> I do not see why you introduce the race issue here.
The gist of the article is that the person was selected for this treatment because he wasn't white
The gist of the post was that's fine, because all terrorists are brown
The accuracy is that if you wanted to select people based likely to commit a terrorist attack in the US on appearance, you're looking for
1) Male
2) White
3) American
Clearly I don't think that means all White Male Americans are terrorists, but that highlights the absurdity of the anti-muslim movements that balooned 20 years ago and are still prevalent in western discourse.
He was arrested because Indians and Pakistani/other Muslims from countries of the area people are very similar looking. And in that region of the world attacks are up during ramadan.
I think he's trying to defend TSA's racial profiling, but well, in the eyes of the average TSA agent, aren't "all brown people are the same"? And to them, the "brown people" are the terrorists?
The current trend is for rightwing, white supremacy/incel extremism, so TSA racial profiling is dangerous because they might accidentally let a Nazi with guns on a plane, but grandparent commenter is not wrong, that the TSA are myopic...
>“In 2018, far-right terrorist attacks accounted for 17.2% of terrorist incidents in the West. By contrast, attacks by Islamist groups accounted for 6.8% of attacks, and attacks not attributed to any group accounted for 62.8% of incidents in the West,” the report has found.
Islamists are also right wing extremists. They are just as nuts as right wing extremists from other religions. Not sure why you need so much to separate their acts of terror. It's just insane people who have imaginary friends on the sky that guide them to kill real people.
Who's talking about the left here? I did not say anything about "the left", and much less pretend anything about them.
I just said that islamists are right wing extremists, and they do themselves say it so. Their main fight is precisely against the left-induced degeneracy of society.
What you said, "during ramadan terrorist attacks are up significantly", does not line up with the source you asked to look at. Also what does "looks Indian, Pakistani, or anything between middle east and India." even mean? You do realize the spectrum of that population range envelopes the entirety of the human race.
It's funny because the very link you pasted illustrates perfectly that in the last 30 years middle easterners and Muslims are hugely over represented among the deadliest attacks.
Ah yes, let's pretend you can't tell someone is from south Asia or Caucasian.
> Ah yes, let's pretend you can't tell someone is from south Asia or Caucasian.
First of all, you previously included the Middle East. And yes, I would not be able to determine ethnicity with certainty given the significant variation. Would you define Jason Mantzoukas as Caucasian? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JtamJmtc0g
That's precisely why stopping someone is not a conviction by court. It's just a step to check that the individual doesn't have any forbidden materials in his clothing.
> Ah yes, let's pretend you can't tell someone is from south Asia or Caucasian.
Its not about the way people look, its about their belief, Islam prohibits very seriously about blasphemy and that's why even the intelligent people can not help but comply. The same is not true about other religions.
The US is missing out on tourism because people overseas read horror stories like this and scratch it off their want-to-go list. I categorise the US alongside wonderful places like Saudi Arabia, China, and Russia as a place where human rights aren't.
I'm a white male of Christian background, I'm not on any "lists" that I know of, and have no reason to be. I work with government departments in my home country and have multiple clearance checks, some of which are very thorough. I sail through airport customs checks in every country.
But clearly the US is number one mainly at being a police state. It's the world's richest third-world country. It's authoritarian to its core.
In our country we have state-local police, one branch of federal police that exists only to protect politicians and a few other special duties. That's about it for uniformed people with arrest powers. Oh, technically we have the Office of the Sheriff for enforcing court orders, and I think Border Patrol aren't technically Police. I don't even know. It doesn't really come up as an issue for law abiding people, irrespective of their skin colour or time of year. Oh sure, you hear the homeless drug addicts complain about "the pigs" loudly, but... yeah. They're bound to.
Meanwhile, allow me to list the US police forces or police-like groups that I know of the top of my head just by watching US-made television shows: State Troopers, Local and county police, Sherrifs, DEA, ATF, DHS, Military Police, FBI, ICE, Marshalls, Campus Police(!), Secret Service, and I'm probably forgetting a few.
This is why the black-lives-matter riots are still going on. Your nation's law enforcement is a militarised, authoritarian nightmare. For someone who doesn't like being "not arrested for 18 hours" for "looking wrong" and using cleaning products, it's a place to avoid, not visit.