SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
A Vancouver man was denied entry into the United States after a US Customs and Border Patrol officer read his profiles on the gay hookup app Scruff and the website BBRT.
[...] André, a 30-year-old Vancouver set decorator who declined to give his full name for fear of retaliation from US Customs, describes the experience as "humiliating."[He] says he was planning to visit his boyfriend, who was working in New Orleans. But when he was going through Customs preclearance at Vancouver airport last October, he was selected for secondary inspection, where an officer took his phone, computer and other possessions, and demanded the passwords for his devices.
"I didn't know what to do. I was scared, so I gave them the password and then I sat there for at least an hour or two. I missed my flight," André says. "He came back and just started grilling me. 'Is this your email?' and it was an email attached to a Craigslist account for sex ads. He asked me, 'Is this your account on Scruff? Is this you on BBRT?' I was like, 'Yes, this is me.'"
[...] "I could tell just by his nature that he had no intentions of letting me through. They were just going to keep asking me questions looking for something," he says. "So I asked for the interrogation to stop. I asked if I go back to Canada am I barred for life? He said no, so I accepted that offer."
A month later, André attempted to fly to New Orleans again. This time, he brought what he thought was ample proof that he was not a sex worker: letters from his employer, pay stubs, bank statements, a lease agreement and phone contracts to prove he intended to return to Canada.
When he went through secondary inspection at Vancouver airport, US Customs officers didn't even need to ask for his passwords — they were saved in their own system. But André had wiped his phone of sex apps, browser history and messages, thinking that would dispel any suggestion he was looking for sex work. Instead, the border officers took that as suspicious.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 1) by SparkyGSX on Monday February 27 2017, @06:05PM (4 children)
How about you stop assuming and come over to Europe to see for yourself? Just leave you guns at home, bring a jacket and make sure your return ticket is refundable.
In most of western Europe, gays can get married. That's quite a difference from the homophobia epidemic in the US, especially in the south. So, please, do not consider Europe to be "much like the US". We don't particularly appreciate it.
If you do what you did, you'll get what you got
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Monday February 27 2017, @07:24PM
Freedom of the press, man. The point was not a gay guy, the point was the press.
If some country tells you that you're unwanted, no one notices, 99.9% of the time.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Monday February 27 2017, @07:25PM (2 children)
Oh - you also presume to speak for all of Europe. I don't believe that gays are commonly married in Russia, are they?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @08:34PM (1 child)
Ok, stupid semantic games are when you know you've lost. You know damned well what he was referring to.
In most of western Europe, gays can get married.
So you bring out an example of a country that is geographically in eastern Europe. Good job.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 28 2017, @01:25AM
So, Eastern Europe isn't really Europe?
Jesus Christ, the faggotry runs deep here.