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Sci-Fi Author Peter Watts Beaten, Charged During Border Crossing
JoeGee writes "On December 8th, Canadian sci-fi author Peter Watts, author of the Rifters trilogy and Blindsight, was crossing the US/Canadian border at Port Huron, Michigan when he was involved in an altercation with US Border Patrol agents. According to Watts, he was beaten, left half-naked in a cold cell, and finally dumped on the Canadian side of the border with no coat. A legal consultant from the Electronic Frontier Foundation was successful in helping a civil rights lawyer in Michigan free Watts. Watts faces US charges of assaulting a federal officer. Based on the accounts, one can assume Watts did so by hitting the officer's hand with his face. If convicted, Watts faces two years in a US Federal prison."
They should give the border patrol the Nobel Peace Prize for keeping America safe.
This probably is a horrible abuse of power... but you never know with these things.
To quote Babylon 5:
"Truth is a three-edged sword. One side is your truth, the other side is their truth, and the third side is the truth."
I'd like more information.
I think I'd like to hear both sides of the story before I decide. Everyone who gets into an altercation with any sort of law enforcement officer always claims "I was like so totalllly innocent, dude!"
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
In a mature society, "civil servant" is semantically equal to "civil master." - Robert Heinlein
Never understimate the power of human stupidity -Lazarus Long
Sorry, absolutely nothing justifies a beating. The only two options are either A. Arrest the man or B. Let him go. "Beat him" is not acceptable under any circumstances whatsoever.
who in his novel "Little Brother" had an obvious axe to grind against Homeland Security and law enforcement
Him and millions of other people who realize that a posted sign saying "Don't hijack the plane" would be about as effective and far less annoying than homeland security.
When an unarmed man alone gets into a fight with multiple armed people, it's a rare case where the unarmed man is the aggressor.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Camping on quad since 1996.
"I'm not saying that tapping an officer on the shoulder is assault,"
Good, because legally it is battery.
"it probably isn't a good ideal to initiate physical contact by surprising them with a tap on the shoulder from behind when they might have a (quite reasonable) expectation of being attacked."
Sure, I can agree with that. Do not touch police officers, ever.
"Also, cursing at an officer isn't assault but why be a jerk?"
We have the right to be jerks, that's why. Failing to exercise our rights means that we will eventually lose them.
"Cops have a difficult job"
So do plenty of other people. What makes police officers special is that they can legally hold a person against that person's will; this is a dangerous right to grant anyone, of course, so we have all kinds of laws protecting innocent people from cops.
"in my experience are pretty friendly even under adverse conditions."
Some cops are friendly and firmly believe in protecting the public, whom they serve. However, we no longer live in a world where the police only arrest dangerous people. There are too many laws on the books, and it is now difficult to be a law abiding citizen. Police officers are paid overtime regardless of whether or not they were clocking those extra hours interrogating a real criminal. DAs and other public, political figures want to look "tough on crime," and put pressure on the police to be more aggressive; and of course, appearing to be "part of the war on terror" is all to appealing to police departments.
Again, we grant the police the right to do things that would be illegal for the rest of us. We must be extremely careful about giving out such a right, and remain on the alert for any possible abuses.
Palm trees and 8
Or more accurately, assaulting an officer means trying to defend yourself from aggressive police.
I can't speak about this particular case, but there is always in regards to hierarchical organizations, especially military and law-enforcement, people draw into its ranks seeking authority and respect. To such a mentality any slight against their authority is in itself a crime worthy of physical punishment. And anyone from within their own ranks that dare speak up are themselves criminals and traitors; often such whistle-blowers are effectively committing career-suicide.
Unfortunately proving that law enforcers used excessive force is almost practically impossible, unless the incident were clearly recorded, or the victim is an obvious cripple of such a nature and appearance that it instils immediate feelings of sympathy in most people (read: media). For the rest of the citizenry the best they can hope for is to have the charges dropped. Peter Watts will, in my opinion, probably find himself banned from visiting the US for quite some time to come; regardless of how badly he might have been mistreated.
The Long Now Foundation
You do realize that you do have the right to speed don't you? Turn on the TV to the racing channel and you'll see lots of people speeding on private property and sometimes on public property. You just don't have the right to endanger others unless they agree.
I'm not arguing that you have the right to blow smoke in someones face or operate heavy equipment while under the influence of anything that can screw up your judgment/reflexes.
You also have a right to loud music. Try it sometime, go somewhere where people don't mind and turn up the music as loud as you want. As long as you are not interfering with other peoples right to quiet it is perfectly legal.
Just like you have a right to swing your fist. Just not to make contact with my face.
The drug laws are one of the few things where if you are not a danger to others and doing it in complete privacy the law can and if they don't like you will arrest you and convict you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Right. When that fist or nightstick is headed towards your face, don't throw up your arm to protect yourself, just take the hit. We have advanced dental science in America; once you get out of prison your teeth can be made almost as good as new. In fact, it's recommended that with every kick or punch, you say "Thank you sir may I have another".
Asshole.
Allowing cops to beat on people with no punishment for them and punishment for their victims even if the cops were in the wrong -- that's what's really anathema to the rule of law. That's rule of men, men with badges.
In principle you are perfectly right. The problem comes when the nation doing the pushing is 10 times larger (population) spends most of their money on weapons and you are economically dependent on them.
America has a long history of beating the shit out of countries that have something they want and don't give it. Just today I was reading in the paper Obama saying that he won't hesitate to enter a just war. And America is very good at twisting something into a just war, 2 of them happening right now. Iraq was disobedient and got invaded and Afghanistan wanted proof that Bin-Laden was behind the 9/11 actions and got invaded.
There is a reason that you guys have 10 or more carrier fleets spread around the world and it's not for self-defence.
Also it is kind of disheartening when our political activists end up in American jails where it is very hard to run for government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I often wonder if foresight wouldn't have lead to constitutional amendments preventing the restrictions since imposed, as I'm quite sure the right to bear arms explicitly disavows any future police state.
Its too bad really, when I look at America now and count off all the things they used to mock the Soviet Union for, all the freedoms those poor "commies" didn't have that Americans no longer have either. I specifically recall many political discourses and writers commenting on how evil it was for their governments to encourage snitching on your neighbours and how the KGB would make you disappear without access to representation.
Welcome to the era of the FBI snitch 800 numbers, and the ability to throw people in jail without access to a lawyer for security reasons, without an open hearing, with no public record. Sounds like something America fought against to me.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
The problem is not as clear cut as you think. I know it's a popular and misguided philosophy in the US to think that you can live and not affect the environment around you but this is not the case.
Now, the US simply doesn't ask for these laws to be put in place, they shoe horn, back door and in some cases force it. Most of the bad US laws entered onto Australian books came attached to trade deals (pretty one sided trade deals at that), the unenforceable DMCA came in on the free trade deal made by Howard in the early 2000's. In the case of many Asian 3rd world nations the introduction of these laws came attached to aid packages which is why the drug laws in Thailand became so draconian. In many cases the US has threatened sanctions and even military action for not adopting laws stipulated by the US, a lot of this happened in South America which is why much of Latin America is Europe friendly but not US friendly.
Honestly, let me fix this for you. If bob sells widgets and you need a widget for your douvalacky but Bob wont sell you a widget until you do something stupid and you do, who's fault is that? It is Bob's fault primarily, it's called coercion and in many cases does absolve the person who commits the stupid act as it was not their intent and the coercive party was the one with the motivation.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I am a US American, but I live in Japan with my wife, who is Japanese. We have severely reduced the number of trips back to see the US family due in no small part to our unpleasant experiences with immigration and the TSA.
One time the immigration goon almost wasn't going to let my wife in because she only had $5 (oh, and a joint US savings account with almost $100k in it, and a checking account in her name only with a few thousand more--ATM cards in her wallet), and they didn't believe that she was married to an American. She started jumping up and down and waving to me, where I was waiting, which was a long way away, since the armed thug in the hall told me I couldn't wait for my wife by the booths, and that we should just meet up in baggage (good thing I kept just standing out of his sight, but where I could still see my wife, who was taking forever). I then started walking to her booth, panicking that they might detain her and we didn't have phones or anything, and were not even in the right state yet (connecting flight), so I would have nowhere to go and no one to help me. Of course, the goon put his blue-rubber-gloved hand in my chest and started regurgitating his training, but evidently this was enough for the moron dealing with my wife to believe that the panicked guy getting in an altercation for this woman actually was her husband.
Then there is the string of presents for Japanese relatives that have been destroyed by the TSA in their vigilant "dump the suitcase on the floor, rummage around in the contents, open any toiletry bottles, and then scoop the pile up and throw it back into the suitcase" searches. They scratched an otherwise spotless guitar that I was transporting for sale, and broke a brand new one that I had put in an expensive flight case because I thought I'd learned my lesson the first time. How they managed that, I don't even know. They've done hundreds of dollars of damage to our stuff over the last few years, so now when we go, we just mail everything home. Our highly-suspect garlic salt seems to slip through the postal service unabated.
And then there's this "even if you are from a visa-waiver country, you need to tell us 3 weeks in advance that you are coming so we can get the detention cage ready for you" bullshit. Gee, guys, going online and giving you all the details of my wife's stay in the US, almost a month before... That really kinda sounds like what most people in the world would call a "visa." In fact, the only country I've had to do that for, aside from the US (for my wife), is China. And then you only have to do it a few days before!
It breaks my heart to see what utter pussies my countrymen are. Nineteen assholes knock down a couple buildings, and we blame our freedoms and beg for them to be taken away. And what absolutely slays me is that the Tea Party morons--the very people who would support these actual intrusions on our freedoms--scream about their freedoms when the government is trying to bring their health bills down to something that doesn't send them into bankruptcy.
The US is a wasteland. Avoid.
In Canada we had a case which was captured on video of RCMP officers tazering a man to death. While legally it had been recommended to prosecute these officers, this is not going to happen without the cooperation of the RCMP. This is seriously fucked up.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.