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CNN and a a lot of other outlets are reporting that JPL engineer Sidd Bikkannavar, an American-born citizen, was detained at the border when returning from racing solar powered cars overseas.
The border guards demanded he turn over his government-issued NASA phone and its PIN and held him in their detention area.
Bikkannavar also was interviewed by The Verge:
"It was not that they were concerned with me bringing something dangerous in, because they didn't even touch the bags. They had no way of knowing I could have had something in there," he says. "You can say, 'Okay well maybe it's about making sure I'm not a dangerous person,' but they have all the information to verify that."
Bikkannavar says he's still unsure why he was singled out for the electronic search. He says he understands that his name is foreign — its roots go back to southern India. He didn't think it would be a trigger for extra scrutiny, he says. "Sometimes I get stopped and searched, but never anything like this. Maybe you could say it was one huge coincidence that this thing happens right at the travel ban."
Land of the free? Home of the brave?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by charon on Wednesday February 15 2017, @08:48AM
(Score: 2) by aclarke on Wednesday February 15 2017, @12:02PM
As a Canadian, this point has always grated me about American politics and laws. It's somehow worse if it happens to an American, but OK if it happens to someone else. We, as humans, should be concerned about "human" rights, not the rights of our own particular little group of people.
I work for an American company, and occasionally have to travel across the border for work. I haven't had to do it under the new administration, but it's gotten to be such a pain already that having to travel to the US is a serious negative consideration for me when choosing my next job. I could go on and on about what I've dealt with from US Border Patrol, from taking my passport and leaving me sitting there for hours, to accusing me of coming into the US to "steal our jobs", to putting me in secondary for driving the wrong type of car, apparently. There comes a point though when one just decides that one doesn't have to to deal with this, and decides to do something else.
I suppose there's a group of people who would consider that a "win" for the US, as it's one more job for an American to compete for. But travelling across the border is becoming so distasteful that I don't even want to travel through the country on a family vacation. It's a shame as I lived there for a long time and have a lot of friends there.
I'm sure this post has put me on some sort of new list, but there it is.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Wednesday February 15 2017, @12:11PM
um, perhaps you've heard of a teeny, tiny, eensy, weensy, trifling concept called 'american exceptionalism' ? ? ?
BY DEFINITION, Amerika is ALL that is good and great, all the rest of you are shit on a shingle...
end of discussion
(yes, OF COURSE that is pathological psychopathy, but we have the big guns, so nobody does shit about it, do they ? ? ?)
'what, we're so innocent...'
THAT alone is what makes the deep state hate t-rump...
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Wednesday February 15 2017, @12:45PM
I've already canceled a vacation there (Florida) since the ridiculous "travel ban", and will not be doing planned motorcycle trips in the US this summer either. There are lots of places to explore in Canada, so that'll be the top of my list rather than Vermont, New York, etc.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday February 15 2017, @05:50PM
Yes, by all means, please stay away from our country. We don't want you here.
I'm not being snarky. Approximately half our population voted for this Administration, and the other half voted for people who would do much of the same (all of this stuff was already happening under "progressive" Obama, remember; Trump's only been in office for about 3 weeks now).
Coming here and spending your hard-earned money here only feeds the beast. There's many other places to visit that will treat you properly instead of like a criminal. You can stay in Canada (I assume that's where you live by your writing), as it's a quite large (geographically) nation, with lots to see and do, from coast to coast. You can also fly to many places in Europe. Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, etc. all seem like wonderful places to visit for a vacation. They're probably a little pricier than the US, but that's OK. If you're into motorcycle trips, I'll bet driving around Great Britain (but avoiding the London area) would be fun, especially the quaint parts of Scotland and Wales. But you can also drive straight across Canada, as your famous drummer Neil Peart did a while ago (and wrote a book about).
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Wednesday February 15 2017, @07:47PM
Thanks, that's the idea (great idea about motorcycling around the UK ... it's hard to rent motorcycles here, but there may be different). I think with the previous government, people were oblivious (and mainly, still are). Having a fascist as as leader will hopefully be a wake-up call for a few people. Probably not enough, but a few.
If the NSA sucking up all those phone calls manages to implicate current members of your government if nefarious activities, it may have the opposite effect ... but again, may bring attention to it.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday February 15 2017, @08:59PM
Why would the NSA use their data to get current members of government in trouble, unless they're members of the opposition (to whoever is running the executive branch)? That would be biting the hand that feeds them.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday February 15 2017, @05:48PM
What bothers me the most about this situation is the fact that the headline and the story go out of their way to assure us that Mr. Bikkannavar is American born. The unspoken corollary is that it would be perfectly fine to seize, search, and copy electronics at the border for non-natives.
That is not what corollary means. It's merely something that follows near trivially from the conclusions of a prior bit of argument. Implication would be a better word choice here.
Most successful argument is about persuading people from their point of view that something is wrong. If to make the relevant example, I don't care about the rights of non-natives especially when it comes to protecting and securing natives, then I probably won't be moved by the stories of many non-natives getting searched, etc at the border particularly since that process supposedly is to protect the natives of the US. But an example of a native-born likely with a decent level of federal security clearance undergoing the same treatment would be far more persuasive from my point of view because the whole point of the security apparatus is to protect that class of person not persecute them. One example that gets past my ideological defenses is worth a hundred that don't.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday February 16 2017, @04:15AM
One example that gets past my ideological defenses is worth a hundred that don't.
Nothing gets by khallow's ideological defenses! Nothing! Reminds me of Drax the Destroyer in _Guardians of the Galaxy_: "Metaphors go right over his head." "Nothing goes over my head! My reflexes are too fast! I would catch it!" Yes, khallow, you would catch it, if you could. A corollary to an axiom that informs a rule for the alt-right, is no corollary at all, in this you are correct! But it is because the original axiom, the ideological posit, is batshit, Mighty Bustard, jmorris crazy, and crazy rules are not rules at all.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday February 16 2017, @05:21AM
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday February 16 2017, @07:06AM
And this, khallow, is why you fail. You need to listen to your fellow Soylentils! They are smarter than you are!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday February 16 2017, @08:02AM
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday February 16 2017, @08:19AM
I have learned a lot from you, my dear khallow! I learned that just pointing out your ignorance is not enough. I learned I have to actually demonstrate your ignorance to you, and that that is still not enough! Oh, good times, eh? Not thinking? Long periods? What do you thing a philosopher who has been around for thousands of years does with his time? It is not like I am some child of the Eighties that gets trapped into the works of a refugee from Russia that writes very bad fiction! Or even less likely that I fall prey to the addled thinking of Moses Von Miser and the Austrian School of Very Bad Economics! Yes, rich people are bad, evil, immoral, and they are going straight to hell. Not just me saying this! So I still hold out hope for you, khallow! It is never too late to begin to learn!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday February 16 2017, @02:45PM
What do you thing a philosopher who has been around for thousands of years does with his time?
Apparently, not much of anythink.
It is not like I am some child of the Eighties that gets trapped into the works of a refugee from Russia that writes very bad fiction! Or even less likely that I fall prey to the addled thinking of Moses Von Miser and the Austrian School of Very Bad Economics!
Funny, that hasn't happened to me either. The Austrian School has the typical philosophical problems that occur when empiricism is abandoned. And I find it less pitiable to be a follower of Rand's works rather than the people who insist on acting like Randian villains (she has nailed that stereotype quite well). And what is there to brag about, when you defend Marx [soylentnews.org] who doesn't have even the virtue of readable bad fiction to entertain us?
Yes, rich people are bad, evil, immoral, and they are going straight to hell. Not just me saying this!
And as I noted elsewhere, this sort of rhetoric [soylentnews.org] is just so Nazi. I'm not at all surprised that you give it at least lip service.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @10:18PM
Look Mummy, a Godwin! And with little sense of irony too...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 18 2017, @01:27AM
Look Mummy, a Godwin! And with little sense of irony too...
An AC wrote [soylentnews.org] in my journal comments:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
(Martin Niemöller)
How many people should die before I speak out against evil? "The rich" are merely the start.