BuddhaInABucket: “Why were you in China?” asked the passport control officer, a woman with the appearance and disposition of a prison matron.Someone actually favorited your post? Really?
“None of yourbusiness,” I said.
And then he could have gone on with his life.
“I gave you a written declaration,” I said.Seriously, dude? I get that he was frustrated and trying to make a point, but what was this supposed to accomplish? He could easily have said "no there isn't", and the end result would be exactly the same, except one person fewer would be irritated.
“I need to know if you want to amend that written declaration,” he said. “I need to know if there’s anything undeclared in these bags.”
I stood silently.
Visibly frustrated, he turned to a superior, who had been watching, and said that I refused to answer his questions.
“Just inspect his bags,” the senior officer said. “He has a right to remain silent.”
The CBP goons want U.S. citizens to answer their questions as a ritualistic bow to their power. Well, CBP has no power over me. I am a law-abiding citizen, and, as such, I am the master, and the federal cops are my servants. They would do well to remember that.I was ok with him getting his special snowflakes all over me until it turned into a blizzard at this point. "A ritualistic bow to their power"? Way to ascribe motive from the Tinhat Bumper Book Of Motives. Occam suggests that actually bureaucracy feeds on information, and will take any chance to ingest the max possible, especially beyond asking questions that technically don't need to be answered.
Wouldn't a better bang for the buck be to get as many like minded individual to this simultaneously in one airport (don't ask about logistics) or in many airports on one day and make sure the press knows? If there is one thing Starcraft has taught me is not to send out one zerg...you need to mass them in a bunch to be effective.One thing that Starcraft has taught me is that if whiny Zerg players complain loudly enough, Blizzard will nerf siege tanks!
This. Her day already sucks. You can get all kierkegaardian about why she's evil for cooperating with the system, or you can let her do her job, and then write a letter to your congressperson.All she has to do is write "N/A" or "refused" in the little box. It really isn't any of her business.
Border control is different from most police interaction. Customs has more rights to search and detain you than a random cop would. ... A cop can't ask to search my backpack without reason, but at customs they have every right to look through your bag. It's really not that complicated.It also has nothing to do with this story. The guy wasn't complaining about having his bags searched, it was complained about being asked what he was doing in China, and being detained for not answering. RTFA.
We should only assert our rights when it's convenient for those in power. I forget, did Tom Jefferson or Rosa Parks say that?Yeah man that bus driver was just doing his job. Why ruin his day!?
Sure he did, because Mr. Lukacs chose to respond in such a way that the customs person felt obliged to instigate a separate procedure, which was a pain for everyone involved. We can argue about whether or not her response was warranted or correct, but that's a separate discussion from whether instigating that process made life more difficult for her.Why does it even mater? It's her fault she "felt obliged" to do something. She wasn't actually obliged.
Yeah, again: No, not really. It in fact does me no harm whatsoever to tell a customs agent, as I did last week, for example, that I'm coming back to the US after visiting Australia, and I was visiting there for pleasure.Suppose he was visiting china for his mothers funeral, and talking about it choked him up and he just didn't want to deal with it? Maybe it was some embarrassing reason, like medical tourism for treatment of anal cancer. The fact that you went to Australia to have fun doesn't mean no one ever minds talking about why they're traveling.
And he wasn't even guilty of anything. He had nothing of contraband and no reason to be evasive. All he was doing was wasting the FSA's time, and his own time.Huh? Was that last bit a joke? Anyway, I don't really see much of a moral argument in the idea you shouldn't waste these people's time.
Seriously, people, just comply. It makes it that much easier to point to those who don't as proof of their guilt.
She said that her questions were mandated by Congress...Is that true? Is there federal law requiring customs officials to ask about your business abroad? Is everything customs agents do prescribed by Congressional decree?
I liked the guy who compared this guy to Rosa Parks. That was classy.Who was that? Not anyone in this thread, I don't think. What I said was that if we hold the "Wasting someone's time" as some kind of horrible injustice, then Rosa Parks was a horrible person because she "wasted" the bus driver's time when he was "just trying to do his job.
I also expect that in the main, most people don't travel for funerals or anal cancer surgery (or such), and that answering "business," "pleasure," or "vacation," is not particularly onerous or invasive, when such an answer is requested.Well, some people don't like to lie, especially in situations where doing so is a federal felony, even if it's not likely to have an consequences or ever be noticed. And even if you do lie you still have to think about it. And it might make you seem nervous or guilty.
"What I'm getting at is that this behavior in any other context would be absurd. If you saw someone acting this way in a market you'd think, "Whoa, wacko," but since he was needlessly rude to law enforcement and refused to answer simple questions, that's somehow worthy of praise? Why? Because cops aren't people, they don't deserve a little basic respect?"Who is asking me these questions "in a market"? The cashier? This would never happen because if someone said "none of your business" the cashier wouldn't have the authority to detain you. If it's a cop, well, not answering their questions isn't a sign of 'disrespect' In fact, not answering questions is never really a sign of disrespect, and the idea you think it is is pretty bizarre.
Refusing to answer questions in customs and presenting this as some kind of challenge to the state when other people have actually fought and died for his right to do so is hypocritical. Or at least vicarious living.This is a statement that makes zero sense.
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posted by DeltaZ113 at 4:32 PM on September 10, 2010