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Comment by Broken_Hippo | Hacker News Reader

I am American, living in Norway. I got searched while coming home from Amsterdam. Its OK, I understand, it is Amsterdam, after all, and they want to make sure I'm not smuggling stuff. And I pack very lightly, which doesn't help matters at all.

I've never been treated so well while being searched. The guy was kind and polite and smiled a little. I also learned that in his opinion, Americans were usually pretty easy to deal with, but more nervous in general. He thought it was because we (Americans) were used to a more authoritarian-acting police.

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I used to get searched all the time in Seattle because I was coming in from Beijing and must have looked suspicious or something. Anyways, I was never treated poorly in the red line by immigrations and customs. Just one point of anecdata, Seattle is a sleepy place and the airline staff is usually a bit nicer.

I’ve never had to go through an extended customs search in another country, however.

> because I was coming in from Beijing

> and must have looked suspicious or something

Can it not be that you were coming from Beijing?

No, my Chinese colleagues on the same (direct) flights were never searched, just me.

Random searches should be the norm. Same for tax evasion, for example.

No. Just like every fucking where they should have a very good reason to search you, and they should receive a giant fine for searching for no reason.

Fuck this authoritan border shit.

Why not? If it is completely random, it is actually fair, and it'd filter out the people who seem suspicious but who are not. If there has to be a very good reason in order to search (probable cause) then people who understand the pattern can avoid it. If there is a completely random chance you get the special treatment, people will always have to be careful; not just when they're being suspicious.

Because you should not have less right on the borders than elsewhere.

I know the courts don't recognize it; I will be dammed before I let laws determine justice.

Except you're between borders. You do have the very same rights airports as borders as well. Customs can check every person who decides to pass the border. That they don't is their choice; not yours. Don't like it? Don't leave your country.

I've gotten searched every single time I've went to Canada.

The last time they searched my car, stripped searched me, threw all my stuff on the ground, and after finding nothing told me to "pick up my garbage."

The bright side is, I was only held for 5 hours that time, but I did have a gun pointed at me. The first time was 9 hours, so maybe next time it will only be 3 hours.

Some people are just pathetic humans who get off on being above anyone else.

/I never had anything illegal any of those times and tried to be very respectful. I worked with law enforcement for many years, and know the type of people that they can deal with.

Also, everyone involved was white, so at least there wasn't racism...? I don't know, it's all dumb. None of my complaints went anywhere, and last time I called they said I "had nothing on file anywhere."

Going to Canada or coming back from Canada?

I’ve never experienced that either way across the Vancouver area border crossings.

Going to Canada. I can't remember the exact locations, but the two that gave me the most headaches were the one in northern Minnesota and the one in Montana. The one in North Dakota did look through all my stuff, opened bags, but let me be on my way in an hour or so. That was my best experience so far.

Every time I went from Canada to America, they looked in my trunk, moved some stuff around back there, and said I could leave.

I still haven't been given any reasons why that happens to me, but my name must be somewhere important.

I just learned to get used to video chatting instead of seeing relatives up there. Much less of a headache.

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