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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.
So, did they just forget about the other mandatory bullshit charge, resisting arrest?
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.
If you consider the border patrols trustworthy, sure. I don't. I'd bet the only "crime" Peter Watts committed was of arguing back.
on the other hand, this may be another victory in the war on tourism.
What most people don't realize is ANY "unwanted" contact with any officer or agent of a government entity is assault. Tapping them on the shoulder when they're yelling at your friend would constitute assault on an officer. Something as innocent as brushing the agent's hand away would provoke that charge, which I suspect is the case here.
Wake up people, our laws are broken.
It sounds like the facts aren't all in yet, so let's not leap to conclusions. We're hearing the account of Cory Doctorow -- who in his novel "Little Brother" had an obvious axe to grind against Homeland Security and law enforcement, to the point of suggesting "9/11 was an inside job". (Says one of the leaflets dropped by the novel's heroic protesters.) We're also hearing second-hand from Watts and the other people in the car. We're not yet hearing the guards' account. Maybe Doctorow et. al. are completely right, but let's not assume so right off the bat, eh?
The Doctorow account quotes Watts saying that he got out of his car when questioned (mistake #1), then refused the order to get back in (mistake #2). No, of course that doesn't justify a beating. It just suggests we don't have the whole story.
Revive the Constitution.
Everyone who gets into an altercation with any
sort of law enforcement officer always claims
"I was like so totalllly innocent, dude!"
apparently you haven't seen the video of a bart police officer shooting in the back a man who was being held face down on the ground by other officers, or the more recent case where a bart police officer grabbed someone [who did need to be taken off the train], walked the poor guy across the platform and smashed a glass barrier with the guy's face.
it is incidents like these that make me less likely to believe the law enforcement officer's side of the story.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I for one am shocked.
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
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.
It seems he didn't. Looks like he was being delayed at the checkpoint, got out of the car to ask what was going on, the officer told him to get back in the car, and instead asked a question. Now, when a police officer is in a situation like that, he usually likes to have complete control of the situation (understandable, since sometimes they end up dead when things get out of control). If he feels like you are trying to take control, things can escalate quickly. It would have been better for our author friend to instead get back in the car.
Now, from what I've read, it seems the border patrol escalated quickly and unnecessarily. In tense situations that can happen. It basically sucked to be Peter Watts at that moment.
Also it's worth noting that in some jurisdictions, assault doesn't have to be physical, it can be verbal. So if you do end up in a similar situation, the best thing is to be calm and acquiescent in the moment, and then sue the hell out of them later.
Qxe4
In a mature society, "civil servant" is semantically equal to "civil master." - Robert Heinlein
Never understimate the power of human stupidity -Lazarus Long
Look guys, this is the same story we hear over and over again. First we need to hear the side of the border guards; secondly, always assume that government officials are assholes. Do what they ask, obey their orders, don't be a smartass - as a result, you will generally speaking be OK.
If you talk back, disobey orders and give them a hard time, crap like this will most likely happen to you because you escalate the situation and make the lives of people who already have miserable jobs more miserable. That's not an excuse, but don't be surprised when stuff like this happens.
Since quite a few are asking, I figured I'd provide the pertinent sections of TFAs.
According to an update in the Boing Boing article, Watts got out of the car to ask what was happening -- presumably because his car and/or person was being searched. When the officers refused to answer and told him to get back in the car, he asked the question again. At which point he was attacked, his property was seized, and he was asked to waive his Miranda rights.
Sounds like the unfortunate combination of a pissed off officer and a less-that-sympathetic citizen compounded by detectives/officers who get pissed when prisoners refuse to talk. I can empathize with both parties (first and second, not third -- right to remain silent means right to remain silent,) but -- assuming the accuracy of Watts' story -- the assault charge is probably trumped up. Convincing a judge of that is a whole different story.
in the blue corner it's "hasty generalisation" weighing in at zero examples and in the red corner it's "the opposite hasty generalisation" weighing in at two anecdotes! ding ding! round one!
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
I got a tweet about this earlier today.
I can't wait to hear what really happened here. It's wouldn't be so outlandish if Watts' version of the story is entirely true, especially with the number of police beatings that get online where the exact same thing has happened (i.e. someone not resisting at all, getting beaten up, and then charged with resisting arrest).
Over 10 years ago now, Indianapolis had the infamous "police street brawl" incident where a group of off duty drunk policemen went around picking fights with guys and harassing women in down town Indianapolis. Everyone that tried to protect women in that situation ended up in jail with a bunch of bruises on resisting arrest charges. I don't believe even one of the cases ever made it to court. Still the police union backed their boys to the very end. I believe they even called the mayor a commie at one point...
watt charged with resistance
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
Alert != abusive
Beating and throwing someone in jail on a charge like this doesn't protect anybody.
Maybe they thought that he'd stolen some precious joules.
As a Canadian I will never understand why the US is so eager about its boarder security with Canada.
Take a look at a map of North America, we share a huge boarder. If some one wanted to get across undetected, they would go to Calgary, Edmonton, etc. Buy/Rent a off-road vehicle and just drive in across some open fields. It's not hard to figure out.
Boarder security at major ports of entry just pisses everyone off and hurts trade. The most they are going to catch are some teenagers buying pot and Canadian beer. 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.
Now they are giving a middle aged white guy a hard time? Please, this security theatre has gone too far.
Getting out of the car uninvited is an aggressive act
Sorry, getting out of a car is an aggressive act?!?!
_GETTING OUT OF A FUCKING CAR_ ?!?!?!?!??!
Sig Heil, you fucking fascist.
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.
In all jurisdictions, assault is *never* physical. The moment something becomes physical it is "battery."
Assault is the threat of committing harm. Battery is the carrying out of that threat.
Let's have some intellectual honesty, shall we? GP is obviously not implying that Watts was going to bomb the US. Why would you even say that? It ruins the conversation.
What he is saying is that not all border patrol people are untrustworthy. He is saying you can't just assume the agent is wrong because he is an agent. He is saying it IS a good idea to hear both sides of the story before coming to judgement. Now, I am sure if you had thought about his comment for a while, you would have understood this and wouldn't have resorted to weird tangents.
Now, your underlying point seems to be that Watts is a nice guy, so we should trust him. I don't actually know anything about him other than he is an author, and I've known enough dick-head authors to say that doesn't guarantee that he was on the right side of this situation. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. But if you have a reason to assume that he is, for example if you have personal knowledge of the character of Watts, you should say it instead of coming up with some weird distraction from the conversation.
Qxe4
Now, when a police officer is in a situation like that, he usually likes to have complete control of the situation (understandable, since sometimes they end up dead when things get out of control).
This is a common myth. Police officers are *rarely* killed on the job. And border guards? I'm sure it must happen, but it seems it must be exceptionally rare in their case. But somehow that's given as an excuse when they beat the shit out of someone for *daring* to ask a question.
If he feels like you are trying to take control, things can escalate quickly.
"Take control"? The border guards have fucking guns. More to the point, they beat and imprisoned the guy. Even further, they can press charges against him. What did he do? Asked a question? HOW DARE HE!
It would have been better for our author friend to instead get back in the car.
No, it would have been much, much worse. The worst thing one can do in the face of fascism is to acquiesce. Worst thing for society, specifically. Whether backing down or not was something he should do personally depends on how much he cares about personal liberty and what exactly he did. If all he did was ask a question, I can't see any way in which he should have known better.
Also it's worth noting that in some jurisdictions, assault doesn't have to be physical, it can be verbal. So if you do end up in a similar situation, the best thing is to be calm and acquiescent in the moment, and then sue the hell out of them later.
Shit, in some cases, assault can be a dirty look. But you're right, the best thing to do is be a good little slave and bow to your masters...
But I fail to see what Obama has done to earn a Nobel peace prize.
He made the Norwegian leftists on the Nobel committee wet with the anticipation of what he might do?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Being a "sci-fi author" gives him the ability heard in a public forum about entering the US.
As for past issues listen to : Steve Bierfeldt of Ron Paul Campaign for Liberty been confronted by TSA 3/27/09 in at the St. Louis airport.
He was carrying Ron Paul bumper stickers and cash.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3394970594491846292
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Getting out of the car uninvited is an aggressive act. How were the officers to know whether or not he was a threat.
So beating him, imprisoning him, then threatening to charge him for assault (an almost inevitable side-effect of being beaten), is a measured response for people with guns, when confronted by a man with the audacity to make the terrifyingly aggressive action of exiting his car?
And make sure Neal Stephenson wrote it.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Some people think Chicago didn't get the games because of border issues.
Athletes' families, friends, blabla all getting in the states? What about North Korean athletes? Iranians and so on
Don't know if this incident is true but this is just another one (real or not) that shows how bad the experience can be.
If Watts' account is even close to correct, those agents belong in fucking jail.
No, it would have been much, much worse. The worst thing one can do in the face of fascism is to acquiesce. Worst thing for society, specifically
Dude, if you want to fight for your civil liberties by putting yourself in front of a police baton, where it makes little difference, go ahead. As for me, I'll fight for what I care about in the courts and at the ballot box, where it can actually make a difference. You may consider that being a slave, but that's ok because I consider your method just dumb.
Qxe4
http://www.thetimesherald.com/article/20091211/NEWS01/91211010/1002/Science+fiction+writer+charged+after+bridge+struggle
"Jones said Watts was crossing into Michigan from Point Edward when he was selected at random for a secondary Customs inspection. Watts exited his vehicle "angrily" and border officers began checking the black sport utility vehicle he was driving, Jones said.
Border officers ordered Watts back into the vehicle, and when he refused, officers attempted to handcuff him, Jones said. At that point, Watts began to resist and pull away from the officers "and became aggressive toward officers," Jones said.
Jones said a border officer used pepper spray to subdue Watts. Jones said Watts "choked" an officer during the struggle. "
I saw the video of that. The guy being arrested was drunk and belligerent and was holding his hand out when it hit the glass. It wasn't his head but his hand that hit the glass. Did you see the video someone recorded of it and put online? The guy was picking fights with people on the train. When the officer pulled him off the train, you could hear everyone in the train car clapping. It was pretty clear that the officer didn't do anything wrong.
Cory Doctorow talking about cloud computing makes as much sense as George W Bush talking about electrical engineering.
This is a common myth. Police officers are *rarely* killed on the job.
Why is that relevant? Statistically speaking our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are "rarely" killed in the line of duty. So I guess they don't have any reason to fear death when they go out on patrol? A police officer has to worry about taking a bullet every single time he has an interaction with someone. Have you ever known that kind of fear? Ever had to contemplate absorbing a small piece of lead at supersonic speeds when you show up at the office?
I cut them a lot of slack even though I've had my share of run-ins with asshole cops. Even if you are dealing with one that's a complete asshole it does you no good to escalate the situation. It's only going to make it worse. Suck it up and do what they tell you. If the abuse was particularly egregious then do the American thing and sue the hell out of them at a later date.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Overly officious US border agents, the "Guantanamo halo effect" (ie. there is no rule of law)and the general unfriendliness at the border have caused me to cease visiting the US. I can say that I am far from the only Canadian I know that now refuses to cross the border.
I don't buy there, travel there, spend there, or .... even do business there.
I'm hoping that with the Obama administration I (and others) will become a little more comfortable and eventually travel through/to the US, but I'm far from the only Canadian that feels this way. Pity .... the US in general are great neighbors and great people.
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.
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
I see you have never dealt with addicts.
Pardon, but being "*rarely* killed" is still being 'killed' nonetheless.
As a rule, I think it is not smart to fuck with armed people who work in jobs where they are much more likely to be killed (however 'rarely') than those of us in 'normal' jobs. I know that I personally would hate to be killed, and so can understand that it is probably a bit more stressful than what I am used to, working with/in the knowledge of that being killed on the job is a distinctly more likely possibility than in most other jobs.
Do I like subjugating myself to the control of a police of whatever sort? No, I don't. I hate it. But I can do it, when it means I can otherwise get along with my life in order to try and effect the change necessary to not have to deal with that sort of thing down the road. Whether that means working towards changing the system, or just getting the fuck away from/out of it.
Don't fuck with cops when things get stressful. It ain't smart. Wait 'til later, out of the stressful and high-strung situation, and you can be much more effective at whatever your intended purpose is.
The sci-fi authors audience on this story is not going to be appreciatively larger than had he done the things needed to _stay out of jail_ for two years, and spent that time as a free man writing and exposing the incident from the standpoint of someone who isn't in jail. Not to mention that the two years would be, for him, much more enjoyable.
Ask Mandela if he was able to do more from inside his jail cell, than from without.
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
As for me, I'll fight for what I care about in the courts and at the ballot box, where it can actually make a difference.
Those make almost no difference. The courts don't matter because it would be your word against the word of a couple sworn upholders of the law (who of course would have erased any recordings that you might try to have subpoenaed). The ballot box doesn't matter because don't blame me I voted for Kodos.
What does make a difference is getting people in general to actually give a damn. So you get things like the organized civil disobedience of the civil rights movement, where demonstrations of what's wrong are forced into the public's awareness. This in turn leads to a chance that someone decent (at least with regard to that one item) might appear on the ballot and actually have a chance of getting elected, and that those running for reelection will have to at least act like they care so they have less risk of getting kicked out.
Yes! Innocent until proven guilty applies to the cop as much as it does to Watts. Good and bad cops exist because good and bad people exist.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The day that we do pull out of there - which will be with our tails between our legs - will subject the peoples of Afghanistan and nearby states with the same dangers and indignities they'd face if that day were today. The only difference between now and then will be the body count.
I say this in the following capacity:
1. I deployed to a remote Sunni area of Iraq in 2007-08 with lots of rocket, mortar and small-arms fire.
2. I know dozens of people who have deployed to Afghanistan, including close friends.
3. I am at risk of deploying there myself shortly.
That said, I was against this intervention from the start. I am against it now. We should pull out yesterday. We cannot win. Afghanistan has proven intractable to central governance even with 105,000 Soviets there and the will to use armaments that we blanch at. There is no reason to expect that a lesser number of US troops will have any more luck. Only more death lies along that route.
Obama is playing LBJ's game of placating the public to the hilt, but he will understand failure soon enough.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
You know, for Border Guard?
If he's smart, his lawyer has subpoenaed the surveillance camera footage before it's miraculously "lost". If they claim there isn't footage I'd have someone out there photographing the camera that was pointed where he was at when the incident took place cause I guarantee there was a camera recording the incident, they have camera's all over those places and half of them are hidden/non obvious.
The other thing I would do is take out ad's on both sides of the border in the paper asking for witnesses to come forward. If his account is correct he shouldn't have a problem beating the charges provided they can locate a witness or video, and with them he's got a slam dunk civil rights suit against DOHS. I'd also take out a civil suit against the border guards directly that the government will be forced to defend, and if not you get the pleasure of going after their personal assets as well.
Well if he was dumb enough to do that then he deserves what he got.
Here's a recently posted article that includes the government's side of the story. It seems to back up Watt's account that the border guards overreacted violently. "A Canadian science fiction writer is facing a felony charge after police said he assaulted a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officer and resisted arrest at the Blue Water Bridge. But the writer, Peter Watts of Toronto, wrote on his blog that he was “punched in the face, pepper-sprayed, sh*t-kicked, handcuffed, thrown wet and half-naked into a holding cell for three (profanity deleted) hours, thrown into an even colder jail cell overnight, arraigned, and charged with assaulting a federal officer, all without access to legal representation (although they did try to get me to waive my Miranda rights. Twice.).” Neither Watts nor U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officials returned phone calls Friday seeking comment about the Tuesday incident. Port Huron police Capt. Jim Jones would not provide the Times Herald with a copy of a police report about the incident Friday. But, he read the police report to a reporter. Jones said Watts was crossing into Michigan from Point Edward when he was selected at random for a secondary Customs inspection. Watts exited his vehicle “angrily” and border officers began checking the black sport utility vehicle he was driving, Jones said. Border officers ordered Watts back into the vehicle, and when he refused, officers attempted to handcuff him, Jones said. At that point, Watts began to resist and pull away from the officers “and became aggressive toward officers,” Jones said. Jones said a border officer used pepper spray to subdue Watts. Jones said Watts “choked” an officer during the struggle. " http://www.thetimesherald.com/article/20091211/NEWS01/91211010/1002/Science+fiction+writer+charged+after+bridge+struggle
Et In Arcadia Ego
OK, what I hear you saying is roughly that if no one cares about a subject enough to get it on the ballot, then it won't be on a ballot. So you use civil disobedience to raise people's attention. Civil disobedience becomes a kind of advertising technique.
The problem is most of the time it doesn't work that well, and it hurts. If you want to get your voice out, there are other ways to do it that work a lot better and don't hurt as much. A well organized ad campaign, for example, will be much more effective than trying to get in a confrontation with police officers.
Qxe4
To visit the family cabin on the US side of the border, I can say that about 50 percent of the US Customs agents are assholes on a power trip, pure and simple. Some at our border crossing have had sexual harassment charges leveled against them.
I've run into a few jerk-off Canadian Customs agents as well.
I hate putting myself in the power of these individuals - it seems the sky is the limit with regards to outcomes.
He got the prize just for not being Bush It's how he was elected, and now it got him another win.
If the committee were sane, they should have waited until Obama actually ended the wars, unless the New World Order is going all 1984 on us and telling us that "War is Peace".
p.s. I'm diggin' your +1 troll, man.
He must have forgotten where he was. After all, in Canada (and most of the free Western world) I'm pretty sure you can get a straight answer to the question "Why am I being detained?" from law enforcement without a preliminary beating about the head and shoulders.
The DHS doesn't give a shit about individual civil liberties or rights...effectively they behave as if they were the American Stasi, and should be viewed as such.
Cops are bullet stoppers, like front line infantry. They should be treated as expendable, as in reality they very much are. It is very easy to train a person to be a cop, usually takes less than 2-3 years.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Given that everything there is legal, if you resist it, yes, you are committing a criminal act.
In most states there is no right to resist unlawful arrest. I happen to live in one of the states that recognize this right.
SSC
Don't be a douche bag, know something about what you are talking about.
This year, 115 police officers have died in the line of duty. Half of those deaths were accidental or medical.
In terms of deaths on the job, police officer doesn't even make the top ten.
I stand by my statement. Police officers *are* rarely killed on the job. 50 people died as a result of tazering this year, and that's just *tazering*. Police kill more people that don't need killing than they themselves are killed. From a strictly numerical point of view, an innocent citizen being confronted by the police is more likely to be killed than a police officer is to be deliberately killed by an assailant.
Yet, in spite of this, we are supposed to bow down to the police who have chosen such a "dangerous" occupation, but when they attack an innocent citizen, no big whoop, they probably had it coming because they asked a question or something.
As an alternate persona to the Linux Geek I share here I am also a Cross-Border Truck Driver when the IT market takes a nose-dive.
I have crossed at Windsor/Detroit & Sarnia/Port Huron THOUSANDS of times.
I will _GLADLY_ add 2 hours to my day if I have the option of crossing at Port Huron.
Detroit Customs officer:
"How long have you been driving?"
"How long have you been with this company?"
"Did you check the trailer?"
"Did you seal the trailer?"
"What kind of seal on the trailer?"
"Why didn't you seal the trailer?" (A: because GM/Chrysler/Ford sealed it before I picked it up and I am not allowed by law to open it.)
"What are you bringing with you?"
"What are you bringing for lunch?"
etc...
Port Huron Customs:
"Hello sir, how are you today?"
"What are you hauling?"
"Have a nice day."
The difference is night & day. You can find assholes anywhere, but 100% of my experience at Port Huron has been positive.
B5_Geek: Truck Driving, Linux coding, Recumbent riding, pencil-neck Geek!
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
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.
I'm not so sure about that:
EL MIRAGE, Ariz. -- Three firefighters were assaulted while responding to a late-night medical call on Dec. 5, according to The Arizona Republic.
The crew found a teen -- reportedly suffering from an overdose -- running around. They were able to calm him down to check his vital signs and insert an intravenous needle, but officials told the newspaper that the patient become violent when firefighters tried to place him on a gurney.
The 16-year-old began punching, kicking and scratching the first responders.
Police were called for assistance and were able to subdue the teen, who was on probation and wore an ankle bracelet monitor.
The firefighters suffered only minor injuries.
According to the report, a recent survey conducted for the Arizona Fire Chiefs Association show that 55 percent of responders in the state said they had been assaulted at least once while on the job. Ariz. Firefighters Assaulted by Patient
____
Daniel A. Noble, of Moscow, Wash., was allegedly driving erratically Monday morning on the Washington State University campus and struck two pedestrians - one in a crosswalk, the other on a sidewalk. The victims were taken to the hospital.
At the scene police said that Noble was uncooperative. "He was combative at the start, when we tried to take him into custody," Lt. Steve Hansen of the WSU police told The Spokesman-Review. Police used a Taser to subdue Noble.
Mark Moorer, Noble's lawyer, said Tuesday that his client was known to consume large amounts of energy drinks and Starbucks coffee. Moorer said in court that the caffeine could have accounted for Noble's strange behavior.
Noble's wife told investigators that he started acting strangely about three days earlier, was not sleeping at night and seemed confused. During Tuesday's hearing, Noble got up and tried to walk away from the defense table, but his lawyer pulled him back to his seat.
Following in the footsteps of the "Twinkie defense" , The Oregonian has dubbed this the "The Starbucks Defense." Lawyer: Driver Had 'Caffeine Psychosis'
I've known a few. I don't see them as particularly inclined to initiate an assault on multiple police officers unarmared either, actually.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Is that the current state of the charges, or is there potential for more?
Why is that relevant? Statistically speaking our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are "rarely" killed in the line of duty. So I guess they don't have any reason to fear death when they go out on patrol?
This is apples and oranges. They are in locations where they are shot at every day. They aren't surviving for lack of attempts on their life. In the case of the border guard, how many times do you think he's been shot at? Yeah, I don't know either, but I'll bet it's extremely low. I'll be even further that the times he's been shot at by someone simply asking him a question is even lower, and even lower still, from people who he's beating and then throwing into a cell.
A police officer has to worry about taking a bullet every single time he has an interaction with someone.
Bull. Shit. He has as much to worry about taking a bullet "every single time he has an interaction with someone" as I do. There are *some* interactions that are riskier than others, but it's absurd to state he has to fear every encounter.
Have you ever known that kind of fear?
Yes. And no, I won't elaborate, except that it's none of your business.
Suck it up and do what they tell you. If the abuse was particularly egregious then do the American thing and sue the hell out of them at a later date.
Fuck that. It shouldn't get to that point in the first place. While there are definitely some insane people who provoke cops for no apparent reason, this isn't what we're talking about. We're talking about someone who asked a boarder guard what's going on, then got a beating for it. Even if he was confrontational, the cop's response *was* atrocious.
We've got to quit treating the police like gods. They're men. Bad things happen when you treat classes of men as gods.
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.
Please help metamoderate.
My father has been on the Maine border for the past 20 years.
From my memories as crossing 10 years ago, things have definitely changed- and there are many reasons why. One of the biggest is that since 2001, the number of border gaurds has increased by a factor of 4. There used to be high standards, with lengthy training. You had to learn spanish, and generally become reasonably educated in detecting lies, noticing suspicious people, etc. The handgun training weeded out a lot of people, and my father had to practice every 3 weeks, because if he didn't, he might not pass the handgun qualification test, which seemed to be at least 4 times a year. A lot of that went away when some politicians decided they needed to stack the border in the name of "Homeland Security". Immigration and Customs (2 separate groups 10 years ago) were rolled into Homeland Security after 2001. Instead of ambitious folk who didn't mind learning spanish, passing rigorous handgun tests, remaining current in their education, etc, you got the bottom of the barrel uneducated Joe. The kind who saw a cushy government job for little effort and took it.
Joe is not a fun guy. Joe does the bare minimum and nothing extra, collects his paycheck, and sits in the booth following his script.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Are you so sure that they have video cameras covering the exit area? One weird thing about this is that the incident happened as he was leaving the US, where you normally don't stop at all.
Yes, because you're entering Canada, and they've got all sorts of cameras too. I seriously doubt there is a single square inch of a border crossing that isn't under 24x7, recorded surveillance.
Actually, that's an excellent point, one I didn't think of. At least the last time I hit one of the VT crossings, the into-Canada side, you only talk to a Canadian border agent. You talk only to a US agent on the way in.
I'm now really, really curious as to why he ended up talking to any US customs agents on his way out of the country. If you're leaving, the US doesn't give a rat's ass what you've got in your car or anything- you're literally someone else's problem. I know a number of people with restricted academic visas who didn't have problems leaving the US- they had problems getting back in, because their visa said they were not supposed to leave the US, and the US customs agent wanted to know why they were coming back in...
Please help metamoderate.
apparently you haven't seen the video of a bart police officer shooting in the back a man who was being held face down on the ground by other officers
In 1999 1.5 million vehicles crossed the Blue Water Bridge at Port Huron Michigan. Blue Water Bridge Canada
The US has a population of 300 million people and employs about 700,000 police officers. Q: How many police officers are employed in the United States
It is easy to find an incident but it is much harder to prove a pattern.
Well, I heard once that on the old road from the bulk of West Germany to Berlin, back when it was surrounded by East Germany, just getting out of your car could get you shot. If you had a breakdown/out of gas, or such you had to wait for the military guys to arrive.
But then, East Germanys border was designed to keep them IN, not just others to keep others out.
First up, I've witnessed and had described by retired police officers occasions when an officer elected to go medieval on a citizen who was being only mildly disagreeable, or didn't immediately understand what the officer wanted, so I can well imagine Mr. Watts was unreasonably roughed up, and hit with trumped up charges.
That said, based on the information in TFA's links, as a practical, like-to-avoid-getting-my-ass-handed-to-me matter, I might question Mr. Watts' evident lack of "street smarts". I'm just a mid-aged, college-educated white boy who for the most part stayed out of trouble. But, even I have heard and read enough to know that:
Unfortunately, Mr. Watts may not have had any previous experiences that would prep him for the possibility that getting out of the queue at a border crossing wasn't the best plan. I hope his only lasting consequences are a bruised body and ego.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Every fox I have asked has said that you are required to give him the key to your henhouse, too.
Just because a cop says so doesn't make it correct.
The militarization of the police; where every traffic stop is treated as a 'Life or Death' situation, is as much a result of the behavior of the police as it is of the risk.
I understand and agree with your sentiment here but I don't think you can blame the police for this turn of events. We are the ones who tolerated and even encouraged the War on Drugs. We are the ones who tolerated and even encouraged the War on Vice. In so doing we transformed the police from being people that we turned to for protection to being people that we are all afraid of, on one level or another.
We the people created the militarization of the police. In 50 years we went from a police force armed with revolvers and shotguns to SWAT teams packing fully automatic M-16s and armored vehicles. We went from the beat cop who knew everybody on his patrol to nameless faces behind riot shields that kick in your door and shoot your dogs, all in the name of the fucking War on Drugs.
Ever watch the TV series "The Wire"? There's a great scene in it after a police officer gets shot during a drug bust gone wrong. His CO laments the fact that he didn't sign up to do this kind of work and would rather be doing things that are "worth taking a bullet for". I've known my share of police officers and I suspect that most of them share this thought process. For better or worse though they are trapped in the system that we created for them.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
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.
Okaaay. I so I guess you're pretty militantly pro-legalization on marijuana, but aren't you spinning things a little bit too much by calling drug possession your "right to grow plants and have the products in your possession?"
I mean, context matters. You might as well describe speeding laws as interfering with your "right to drive," noise ordinances as abridging the "right to enjoy music," and laws against shooting people as abridging your "right to play catch."
Plus, if you want to characterize prisoners in jail for drug violations as "political prisoners," then you're going to have to call anyone who is in prison for a crime they don't believe is wrong a "political prisoner." That just renders the term meaningless.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
This is disappointing. The States has been well known for a while as the most hostile and least welcoming country in the world. I refuse to fly to the States after all the awful stories I've heard from friends that have been there (border control, the people are apparently fantastic once actually inside). However a Canadian friend suggested I fly to Canada and drive to New York (somewhere I would like to visit). However, after everybody pretty much backing up the posted story with their experiences, I guess that is out too. Not a huge loss, as the States is just one small place and there are thousands of other more friendly places to go to, but still it's a shame to cross something from my To Do list for such a reason.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Now, when a police officer is in a situation like that, he usually likes to have complete control of the situation
A situation like what? Somebody who is asking him a question? Police like to talk about how they need to protect themselves. They need to wake up and understand that they are in an unsafe profession. It is their duty to GIVE UP their own safety in return for the privilege of being able to arrest and potentially kill people. You don't get to have the same level of safety as everyone else. Police love to use excessive force because it keeps them safe. While this probably does help keep them safe, they need to suck it up and realize they have no RIGHT to be safe. If you want the right to be safe, don't go into law enforcement. The civilian population has a higher right to safety than the police, expressly because the police are the only ones with a monopoly on legal force.
A few weeks ago in my locale, a police officer shot an unarmed 12 year old girl with a bean bag gun. Was the girl belligerant and uncooperative? Yes. Did the police officer perhaps make himself safer by beaning her? Yes. However, the man is a coward. If you want every day at work to be safe, why would you choose law enforcement as a profession?
If the police being safe means that people get beat up and shot, then they don't deserve safety.
And why would you need to tase someone who is face down on the ground and under control ? Tasing is the new way to beat-up without leaving massive bruises. Really it does relieve the itch of trigger happy cops. When taser showed up they where supposed to be the last line of defense so you would not kill a suspect where you would have shot him before.
I'm very sad to see that you're excusing murder because tasing someone on the ground is considered 'normal' and 'OK'.
The BART shooting incident appears to have been incompetence in that the officer thought he pulled his taser. You'd have to be pretty brazen to shoot on purpose while surrounded by the public. The cop that threw the guy at the wall probably didn't realize that the glass would break. The guy was resisting and trying to attack the cop.
I find it hard to believe that anyone's going to mistake their gun for their taser. In any case the subject had already been subdued. This excuse comes off sounding as plausible as the dog ate my homework.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
A lot of these posts don't seem to get the fact that he was leaving the US to enter Canada. And US Customs were stopping Canadian vehicles to search them. This is very bizzare behavior by US Customs, if they needed someone stopped normal policy would be to Inform Canada Customs to stop them before they "offically" enter Canada and send them back to US Customs. So what was US Customs up to that the "US" did not want "Canada" to know about?
I realize that what I'm about to say might not appeal to you. Please try to keep an open mind.
I've been reading Slashdot since about 1999. I've seen a lot of "outrage stories". Stories intended to get your blood pressure shooting through the roof. And they used to work on me.
Remember when Iraq invaded Kuwait? The story was circulated that Iraqi soldiers were taking premature babies out of incubators and throwing them on the ground. Turned out to be a total fabrication, created by Kuwait to get the US into the war. It worked.
Every controversy has two sides. No sane court will convict without hearing both sides. "There are two sides to every beef."
The "outrage story" is always based on giving you only one side. And it works - until you're old enough to recognize it.
Realize that every person who had an unpleasant contact with these border guards could tell a similar story. Only one in a 100 will recognize his own mistake. The majority will claim that he was nice, and the other guy created the problem.
While it depends on the officer I several times experienced some really nasty border guards when crossing at the Windsor Detroit checkpoint. Some of them behave far worse than the second runners up that I encountered i.e. East German and Soviet border guards. The later at least didn't display the kind of Rambo cop mentality that some of these US goons do. Don't know where they find these people.
To me the way law enforcement officials and government representatives treat the public says a lot about the level of civil society and the freedoms you enjoy. Doesn't inspire confidence. If it wasn't for my mother in law living in Ohio I'd be more than happy to not venture down south any more. I hope once she retires I can convince her to move up here. I hate this border.
People in general have been gunned down in stores, malls, their home, in alleys, street corners, etc. The four police officers being gunned down recently is the aberration of multiple victim public shootings that have been reported for years. In short, those four police officers, if anything, merely cause a statistically inflation of police officer occupational deaths for one year.
Would you feel the same way if firefighters, in seeing a school burning down, would refuse to rush in to rescue trapped children? Or would you acknowledge that firefighters (and police officers) chose their profession with the intent to, if necessary, lay down their life to save others?
Besides, discretion is about "cautious discernment" not "excessive force". You seem to view police officers as if they are weapons, with their only choices being to shoot/beat or not. Instead, police officers are people, with the ability to question, order, detain, and/or arrest. None of this translates into a need for reckless abuse of people.
PS - If you believe that the danger of a job should be a factor in what consideration we give to people of a profession, how do you feel about farmers being able to beat and arrest people? Farmers, IIRC, have a higher fatal occupation injury rate than police.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Peter Watts has put up a new post on the event. All emphasis mine:
"I'm at the point now where I can't talk a whole lot about ongoing proceedings. I am seeing a few common misrepresentations making the rounds, though, that I'd like to set straight:
That's it for the technical items. I have only two more things to say. Firstly, I am absolutely flabbergasted by the online reaction to this story, and by the support (both moral and financial) that's inundated me over the past few hours. I don't have a hope in hell of answering even a fraction of the incoming traffic at this point, so for the moment let me just say I'm humbled and a little bit scared. I did not start this campaign; it actually started when I was still in jail, and had absolutely no idea what was going on. But to the catalytic folks who orchestrated it, know that I am looking into having my vasectomy reversed so that I can sire a firstborn son and sacrifice him to you.
Secondly, I'm going to bed.
I don't agree.
If he had respectfully refused and said, "I haven't done anything to earn this yet" then he would have been the man I hoped I voted for.
Given McCain/Palin, I really didn't have a choice, but Obama is turnout to be much more of a tool of corporate interests and a lot less effective than Bush at getting *ANYTHING* done. I mean come on, we are closing on a year now. I could cut him some slack for the first 6 months because that was really Bush's policies playing out.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Then ask why the USA spends more on 'defense' than the next 5 countries on the list combined.
The USA projects its power well. That tends to have an effect on decisions made elsewhere.
It probably shouldn't be too hard to convince a judge of this since, as far as I know, all border patrol stations are video taped. I would assume they'd also have audio in there... First thing I'd be doing, if I were truly innocent, is requesting the video for the time in question.
The first thing you do is STFU.
Watts can't retreat from anything he posted to his blog without the risk of a jury concluding that he is a cynical, manipulative, liar.
I don't know if this is your source, but I figure a citation couldn't hurt. Number of police deaths.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Here are the facts to back up your statement. Police or border agents don't even make the list.
Top 10 most dangerous jobs in the USA (Fatalities per 100,000)
Timber cutters 117.8
Fishers 71.1
Pilots and navigators 69.8
Structural metal workers 58.2
Drivers-sales workers 37.9
Roofers 37
Electrical power installers 32.5
Farm occupations 28
Construction laborers 27.7
Truck drivers 25
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics; survey of occupations with minimum 30 fatalities and 45,000 workers in 2002
ANYWHERE.
http://www.constitution.org/uslaw/defunlaw.htm
You can pretty much say it's legal to resist an unlawful arrest to the point of using lethal force to do so if it is truly an unlawful arrest.
You'll be free of criminal charges - that won't stop the impending unlawful death civil suit filed by the family, so don't think you'd easily get off that scot-free.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
When crossing into Canada, you do not encounter any US Border Patrol at the Blue Water Bridge. At the Port Huron crossing, when crossing into CA, there's a toll taker (it's a toll bridge) on the US side, you cross the bridge, then stop for Canadian border inspection.
The process is reversed when entering the US (pay toll on CA side, go through border inspection on US side).
There's something not right with this story.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Yeah, why can't we all be like Canadians?
Sorry to break your bubble, but your country is not doing well because you are nicer, better, or smarter people, it's because you have a powerful and stable southern neighbor and because your ancestors managed to grab a huge landmass rich in natural resources and with no hostile neighbors, and to keep people out so that it remains settled sparsely.
As for those laws that people keep imposing on you, that's related to your political and economic significance. Where do you think companies and activists are going to lobby? Canada? Why would they bother? They lobby in the biggest and strongest nation because that's the nation that can then push other nations to comply. If the US weren't kicking you around, the same kind of laws would be imposed on you by some other nation. And if you were big and strong, you would be imposing these laws on others.
But you may get your wish: Americans are getting really tired of foreign adventures. If the US turns inwards, you may find yourself getting pushed around by the EU (British, French, Germans). But you already have experience with that, don't you?
The "war on drugs" is fundamentally political. It was started by Nixon as a way to punish what he saw as his chief enemies: the hippies who were constantly protesting against his Vietnam policies. Before Nixon's war on drugs, while drug use was technically illegal, there were far fewer arrests and incarcerations than after it got underway. Even then, the really intense number of incarcerations didn't happen until Reagan - again as a political measure against those he had seen as his enemies since they opposed his governorship in California - redoubled the effort.
Of course the war on drugs has been hardest on blacks. One of the chief political complaints against the hippies was they were taking too much of their culture and attitude from blacks. And blacks are less likely to have political connections - say through parents and college friends - to defend themselves against drug persecution. So they've been the easiest target. Still, the war on drugs is essentially Nixon's - and Reagan's - war against the hippies, based on their perception that the hippies were there personal enemies, and arguably enemies of everything essential to "America" - unbridled militarism, for instance.
There's nothing more political than substances that can help break people out of their followership trance.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I cross this same border regularly, and after reading the story, something is confusing to me. The story says that he was "returning to Canada". When returning to Canada there's a toll booth on the US side where you pay the bridge toll (staffed by employees of the bridge authority -- who are not customs agents). The customs inspection is always on the far side of the bridge, in this case the Canadian side. This would have been staffed by Canadian customs agents.
Does this article mean to say that there were US Customs & Border inspection at the toll booth on the US side? That would be very irregular. The only time I have ever seen an exception is during the weekend of the Mackinac Race when police are trying to curtail drunk driving across the bridge (there's a huge party just before the race, heavy drinking, etc.).
I really feel for Mr. Watts. I'm just trying to understand what happened.
I found a news article explaining that Mr. Watts was selected randomly for a "secondary Customs inspection" and that he was belligerent about it. I don't know what actually happened, but there's always another side to the story and, in typical Slashdot fashion, it doesn't appear anyone's considered what the other side to this one is. For instance, his being half-naked in a cell is likely because he was subdued by pepper spray, which has a tendency to get into your clothing and make you want it off of your body. I have seen one individual tear off his sweatshirt pro wrestler-style in the dead of a Montana winter night because of the pepper spray in the shirt.
It's quite likely that the US border agents went too far, but it's less likely that they beat up a Canadian celebrity just for sport.
Yes but this is just one of too many stories about over-reactions (to put it kindly) and outright dishonest behaviour by the boarder guards of various types, including the TSA.
Why risk it when there's the rest of the world to visit?
I've been to Japan, twice, since deciding not to go to the US anymore. They have pretty much the same checks as the US (fingerprints, photo on entry, declaration that you're not evil, IR checks to see if you have a fever) but not once did I feel threatened. The finger-print machine is more like playing a Nintendo DS or some Hello Kitty game! And none of the staff acted in a threatening or even over-bearing manner. They were cool and professional.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
When people are killed, they tend to die.
Maybe you mean that the ratio of "had aggression directed at them" to "was killed by said aggression" is higher for policemen - but even if we assume that everyone who is ever angry at a policeman immediately ends up killing the cop, the data still shows that fewer policemen die. If we assume that aggression against policemen is more likely to be fatal, the only possible conclusion is that policemen don't draw aggression as much.
In short, you argue that policemen are more well-liked by everyone than, say, timber cutters. I don't see how that meshes with their job being especially dangerous.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
fascist propaganda is full of stories that are outright fabrications or contain only a tiny grain of truth, but are designed to amp up the emotional reaction of the reader to the max
and lo and behold: look at the reactions under this story. for all those reacting in high holy indignation: you're all fodder for fascism, as your mind is primed to overreact in kneejerk emotional ways and jump to absurd conclusions based on the sketchy details of a border dispute
none of you overreacting in this thread represent a protection from fascism. in your overreactions is a good representation of the soil in which fascism grows: jumping to angry and emotional based on flimsy sketchy evidence
fucking pathetic
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
yeah, getting up out of your seat, and walking over to talking distance with someone so that you can speak to them is in Politeness & Courtesy 101.
FGD 135