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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: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday February 15 2017, @04:39PM
You Americans are obsessed with symbolism.
I'd hardly identify myself as some sort of jingoistic American. I just find it interesting and somewhat bizarre that we have a national anthem composed of a bunch of questions, and no one seems to notice. When I've pointed this out to other "patriotic" Americans occasionally, sometimes they're actually offended -- as if I've taken something away from the song by pointing out that the first verse ends in a question, not a declaration of greatness about "The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave!"
That stuff isn't real.
Well, the U.S. anthem text is actually a narrative based on a real historical event, written by someone who was there. That's pretty rare among national anthems too, and the poem certainly wasn't written to become an anthem. Of course it's a poem, so it's written in an "elevated" style, but that doesn't mean there wasn't actually a guy imprisoned on a ship overlooking a fort and wondering whether the British attack had succeeded in the early morning hours when the guns stopped blaring. Had the fort been taken or not? Well, when the sun came up, the flag was still flying there.
Flags weren't "symbols" made important by Americans. Particularly in wartime, the carrying of the flag (or various battle banners) was something taken from European tradition as a critical element of morale, etc.
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Thursday February 16 2017, @12:34AM
Speakin' of "Jingoism"