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."

Comments

I'm entirely inclined to believe Watts

[Anonymous Coward]

We visited Canada this summer and our experience with the US border patrol when we were returning home leads me to entirely believe the story as told by Watts. I've honestly had better and more pleasant experiences with the East German border patrol in the mid-80s.

Re:Boarder Security

[Mashiki]

The only real threat at the CAN/US boarder is people bringing handguns into Canada (where they are illegal) and selling them to Toronto street gangs.

Hand guns aren't illegal in Canada. I have my restricted FAS and own a handgun. It just means that there are more hoops for me to jump through to own it up here. I goto the local range about 40mins from my hometown to go shooting. Toronto is a half liberal pissing hole that things that handguns are the doom and gloom of everyone. It was to the point where the Toronto Police Service was going to march on City Hall because of the gun ban until the mayor and city council saw common sense. Where do the police go for firearms practice in the city when they want to ban their indoor range?

You know what the big problem is? Is that 5 years ago there was half the problem with travelling into the US as there is now. I really don't want to go. I live within 1.5hr give or take a few of 4 major border checkpoints. Why do I want to put myself through that hassle, when I can travel to other countries in the world that have easier travel and access. Well if you want to erect the fortress and piss off your northern neighbour, that's a good way of doing it.

It's funny however, the biggest problem that Canada deals with from Americans is teenagers. Little bastards who come over here to drink, cause havoc, smash shit up, or cause criminal offences then run back across the border. Goto any border city and they'll tell you what kind of pissing match it is to even try to get US border guards to stop them.

Not worth it.

[mauriceh]

I am a Canadian citizen living in Canada.
I have been entering and leaving the USA for pretty much my whole life.
I am 53.
A few years ago I stopped going to the USA, except when absolutely necessary.

One of the most dangerous places I can think of is a US border crossing.

Re:Not worth it.

[kwandar]

I regularly crossed the border. (Regular as in once every couple of weeks) for a number of years). At first there was no issue, but then .... worse and worse.

Border guards are not the most intelligent creatures on this planet (I'm well employed, with professional designations that get me through any border) and US border guards in particular seem to love the power of it ..... and they have a LOT of power. You don't have constitutional rights at the border.

Hassle level just kept increasing, and I didn't have to experience more to believe the stories. Why take the risk? Really? We've seen stories of illegal rendition of Canadians to 3rd world countries, torture, detention, quasi-illegal wiretapping. We've been astounded to see our neighbour throw out the rule of law, and export some of that culture of paranoia to Canada.

I just stopped doing business there. Simpler and safer.

Re:Wow,

[digitalunity]

Exactly. Or more accurately, assaulting an officer means trying to defend yourself from aggressive police.

I read a story about a homeless mean getting beat by cops for resisting arrest. The only charge? Resisting arrest of course. They had no reason to harass him in the first place, other than to give him a hard time for being homeless on public property.

Re:Wow,

[dryeo]

You do realize that America has over 2 million of its people in jail, with a good proportion in there for political reasons.
Like all successful police states these people aren't busted for expressing anti-Government views. Instead laws are passed taking away fundamental rights (remember your bill of rights is not an exhaustive list and IIRC amendment #9 basically states this) then the undesirables are targeted.
The favourite rights to be removed are things like the right to grow plants and have the products in your possession.
While this is bad enough, it's your country and if the citizens like having a police state so they can feel safe that is your right.
What really pisses me off about America is the way you treat foreign political activists. If they're lucky they get extradited and spend years in the inhuman American jails perhaps being raped. If they're not lucky they get tortured and/or killed.
Also you push other countries around to remove the same rights from their citizens. See drug laws and the most recent thing being IP laws with ACTA being pushed by Americans to take away my right to play the DVD I purchased on my computer and my right to make personal copies of stuff and lend stuff to you to make personal copies.
Shit, when the leader of a political party that I voted for is being threatened with the death penalty on a trumped up charge of money laundrying (making him a king pin) and a charge of selling seeds, a law that has only been enforced against political activists, there is something wrong. One article, http://peacesecurity.suite101.com/article.cfm/marc_emery_and_the_bc3 google Marc Emery for many more.
Of course like all police states if you are a respectable citizen you don't have much to worry about. Just keep your nose clean and you won't have your life ruined by being accused of diddling children.

maybe you have a chip on your shoulder

[SuperBanana]

Given that customs officers are trained to get a vibe off people (by asking questions about your stay etc- they don't give a rat's ass what you say, it's HOW you say it.) Given out righteous some slashdotters get, I can imagine them giving a customs agent a real bad vibe. Just look at any of the threads about laptop confiscations (I agree, those are very evil and I feel they should be illegal.) There's some serious hatred here for customs folks.

I crossed the border several times to go to track driving schools. First border crossing, I was nervous. The Canadian officer was curt, and mostly concerned about the fact that I was unemployed at the time. Probably picked up on my being nervous. I just didn't want the hassle of being searched or giving the "wrong" answer.

Second border crossing, the Canadian officer was friendly and while they are trained to engage you in banter to judge how shady you are (which clearly Mr. Watts failed, want to guess why?), he seemed genuinely amused that I was taking MY car to drive on a racetrack. Have fun, he said, and handed me my paperwork.

Both times back, the US crossing was completely unmemorable. Drove up, handed over my license, answered some quick questions about when I came into Canada, what I'd done, and whether I had anything to declare. 2-3 minutes, tops- long enough to run my plates and license in the computer and see how fidgety I was. Nobody at any of the events I went to (all of them American) had anything bad to say, and some of them had been coming to the track for years.

I lost my license right before a trip to Canada, and called around trying to figure out if a temporary replacement license was sufficient. I eventually got put through to one of the actual border officers, who was audibly in the middle of his lunch break, munching on his sandwich. For a cop on his lunchbreak being pestered by some dumb shmuck, he was not only helpful but...chipper. He wouldn't make any solid promises, but he did ask me when I was coming, my name, and a few other things, and said if he was on shift when I came back into the US, he'd help if he could and take the fact that I called ahead etc under consideration, but he said I definitely needed to make sure I'd be OK getting IN to Canada. So he gave me the number for his Canadian counterparts, and cheerfully wished me a good afternoon and best of luck trying to get a 'real' license or some other government ID out of my state government (didn't.)

HOLY FUCKING SHIT. A very curt, annoyed, angry Canadian customs agent answered the phone, and read me the fucking riot act and demanded to know how I got the number for their office, why was I calling them, who was I, what the hell did I want. When I explained what I wanted (mainly to know if I'd be permitted into Canada with my temporary license, and was there anything I could do to smooth the wheels, like bringing extra documentation of some sort, anything to help), point-black refused to answer or discuss anything with me, and hung up after angrily saying "NEUO!" to several questions.

Re:Google: Jingoism

[FireFury03]

and the last 8 years of the War on Terror have not helped.

The silly thing about the War on Terror is that I'm currently more terrified about what my own government is doing than what the terrorists are doing. And I feel equally helpless to stop it.