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posted by on Wednesday February 15 2017, @05:35AM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-the-government's-data-already dept.

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?


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  • (Score: 2) by archfeld on Wednesday February 15 2017, @08:50PM

    by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Wednesday February 15 2017, @08:50PM (#467589) Journal

    The part in which he no longer wanted to waste his time and energy being detained indefinitely by a backwards ass agency that lacks any common sense. He did the right thing. Just let them have the device, get free and then call and report the incident. It was not a question of there being 'top secret' info in the device, merely that is a was a NASA owned device. At the point when the rock of stupidity meets the hard place lacking common sense why punish your self ? Just follow procedure, surrender the device and report to your bosses the device was taken from you by other federal authorities and then go home. Let the executive pinheads and the folks employed for that kind of thing do their jobs...

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