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Daniel Stenberg, author of the ubiquitous URL fetcher cURL and the libcurl multiprotocol file transfer library, and recipient of the 2017 Polheim Prize, has been blocked again from attending a US-based conference. Daniel has written a post in his blog about his two-year odyssey through the byzantine US bureaucracy to try to get permission to attend a work-related conference in California. He has been in the US nine times previously but despite pages of paperwork, hundreds of dollars in fees, and personal visits to the embassy, no dice. As a result the conference will have to move outside the US and probably Canada too if it wants to stay open to the world's top talent.
Earlier on SN:
US Visa Applications May Soon Require Five Years of Social Media Info (2018)
Reducing Year 2038 Problems in curl (2018)
cURL turns Seventeen Today (2015)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @08:07PM (11 children)
He's a foreigner. He has no right to come to the US. Much like I have no right or recourse to visit Russia or China, when they deny me even after completing an onerous visa application. Yeah, I can say they're being assholes, but it is their own country.
With respect to Swedish data protection laws, have his relatives given consent that their data is provided to a foreign government to mine?
(Score: 5, Informative) by choose another one on Sunday July 29 2018, @09:34PM
Equally the conferences have the right to move to other countries if the attendees can't get into US.
If the loss is big enough things will change - White House guarantees that athletes from all countries (must have included Trump-muslim-ban ones) would be allowed in were apparently required to get LA the 2028 olympic games. IOC and other international sporting organisations face this sort of problem all the time - IJF recently suspended events in Tunisia and UAE over the issue, and threatened to cancel the world championships in Morocco last year in order to get some athletes visas.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday July 29 2018, @11:56PM (8 children)
So?
The USA benefits from his visit to the USA.
The USA has the right to deny entry to all non-citizens. Do you think that would be a good move for the economy?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30 2018, @12:14AM
MAGA! Keep this alien out, he's stealing our jobs!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30 2018, @12:56AM (6 children)
Not your call.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30 2018, @02:15AM
I don't need no arms around me
I don't need no drugs to calm me
I have seen the writing on the wall
Don't think I need anything at all
No don't think I'll need anything at all
All in all it was all just bricks in the wall
All in all you were just bricks in the wall
(Score: 5, Insightful) by khallow on Monday July 30 2018, @02:26AM (4 children)
Then whose call could it possibly be? This is the typical problem with authoritarian logic. Once someone gets in charge, they magically gain the authority to make all kinds of bullshit "calls" without explanation or accountability.
My view on this is that even non-citizens have rights to just do stuff, like enter the US, without this sort of bullshit. Sure, regulate their entry and such to protect the delicate security theater the US has set up. But to reject entry (and stonewall on a second application for over three months) without explanation is bullshit. This guy is obeying the laws of the US and has a good reason for being in the US. Why isn't he being allowed entry? We need more than some bullshit about rights.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30 2018, @05:13AM (1 child)
Simple. The executive branch under president Trump, who has generally unrestricted authority to ban foreigners from entering the United States. Actual decision is through a mix of inputs from department of state, homeland security, FBI and a bunch of other TLAs whose information can be reasonably classified.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 30 2018, @12:50PM
I agree that's the problem. But how to fix it? I suggest eliminating most of those TLAs and making much less of that information "reasonably classified" so that citizens and non-citizens have more information about how they can get things done and still comply with whatever decision-making processes are going on.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Monday July 30 2018, @07:21PM (1 child)
What if it wasn't anyone's call? But rather this outcome being solely result of bureaucratic SNAFU? After author of cURL wouldn't be near as important as some Olympic athlete, so forgetting to process him in timely matter wouldn't even result in diplomatic incident. With the amount of sods trying to enter US for whatever reason there's no wonder that government workers would become bored..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 31 2018, @05:20AM
If it's not important enough for them to care, it's certainly not important enough for me to support.
(Score: 5, Informative) by driverless on Monday July 30 2018, @01:27AM
I've been to all three. It is far, far, far easier to get a visa to Russia or China than the US. In my case for both it's been a pure formality, send in paperwork, pay a fee, and get your visa, and that was before the APEC business travel card, now I just walk in without needing paperwork. For the US it's so painful that we ended up cancelling the trip, since the pain of that was less than trying to get a visa to get in. The business ended up going to a European company instead of a US one.
I've heard many, many more stories like this one. What a way to run your trade policy!