Homeland security reaches the anus (2007) | Hacker News Reader

Homeland security reaches the anus (2007)

thelancet.com

126 pointsdaenney47 comments

2003 - 2009 seemed exceptionally wild west for the TSA in my anecdotal experience. I had the TSA damage medical equipment (insulin pumps and glucose meters) more than once over the years by not complying with policies, and ignoring information given to them in real time. I can't imagine how much worse it was for people being threatened right after procedures. At least my worst fears were "Okey my bg was x, I have y spare supplies, So I have 6 hours to get to a pharmacy or hospital, unless I annoy them and they hold me, then I could die."

Vs having a procedure from an unvetted doctor in an airport...

They are still damaging/destroying insulin pumps. I had a coworker who was recently stopped ay security. His pump failed to pass at the swab. To pass through security they required the pump pass through the xray scanner. Refusing to retest the swab, and disregarding the damage which could occur.

Either causation or coincidence, it broke shortly after.

I hope he found a good ambulance chasing lawyer add sued the TSA for all they have.

Good luck suing the TSA if you are not resident.

Security theater at its finest. I'm at a loss for words.

Not just theatre, drama.

Maybe it's not amazing that the letter writer thinks that the solution is yet another letter?

Agent A: “hey Bob, this one has something medical-looking anally attached. Should we get a medic to take it out for inspection?”

Agent B: “No, they’ve presented us with a Doctor’s Note. Let them in through.”

I suggest that any patient with a seton who is planning to travel to the USA or any other country where they are likely to be searched in this manner should carry a letter from their specialist explaining the nature of their condition and treatment.

I mean what else can you do except never travelling again to places like the US

Yes, or going outside of it

Curious. Even in America this is well-known procedure, they could just have phoned a medical professional?

> Given the somewhat stark choice, he chose removal of the seton, which was done by a doctor at the airport who claimed never to have come across one before.

The obvious answer is to fly home, not to enter the country, and not to let an untrained and clueless individual remove it. Why didn’t he do that?

> The obvious answer is to fly home, not to enter the country, and not to let an untrained and clueless individual remove it. Why didn’t he do that?

We don't know given the lack of details in OP, but a few possibilities come to mind:

- Time-sensitivity to attend a meeting, deliver knowledge, deliver goods, etc.

- Fleeing country of origin to seek asylum

- Relatively extraordinary expense of plane ticket and lack of means to purchase another

It says he was on vacation visiting as a tourist. Did you read the article?

> It says he was on vacation visiting as a tourist. Did you read the article?

The linked OP which I read is an article summary and that summary does not identify the author as a tourist on vacation.

I do not have access to the full article.

I think that would have counted as a deportation or similar and he would have had worse problems the next time he visited.

That's what I would have done, but I can understand the reticence. Being denied entry -- especially due to security concerns -- can turn into a Big Deal with lots of downstream effects.

Good luck trying to enter the USA again after being denied entry for something like this.

This is a remarkably unempathetic response.

That would at the very least incur costs for new flights. Airlines may charge you for the return, too. It may cause future immigration trouble. Some travel is time sensitive.

After all that, if the trip is more than a couple of days, you have to pay American healthcare rates to get a new one put in so the hole doesn’t close up. That could be $20-30k given it required general anesthesia.

The obvious answer is because he had something extremely urgent to do in the country.

It says he was on vacation visiting as a tourist. Did you read the article?

A 5 min google session could have led to another phone call to an actual professional.

Apparently the did, and the doctor had not heard of the procedure before.

...and did not bother to find out whether it was before removing the seton. That's malpractice in my book, though I doubt the victim has standing to sue.

The selection and training of border control weeds out any curiosity or empathy. In practical terms the person wouldn't have been allowed to use their phone, it may even have been confiscated.

My wife got pulled aside for additional screening for taking a breast pump on a business trip, until an older female agent told the young woman doing it "It's a breast pump."

The US has some of the best medical professionals in the world - the TSA intentionally chose to not care about who they called in to assist.

They pulled on the Seton?!? that must have been excruciating!

Can't leave a loose thread

At this point I just refuse to fly…I’m not putting up with this crap.

Sorry for playing the devil's advocate but policing officers being stupid or arrogant and behaving with contempt for the law is not an American exclusive.

In Canada and many European countries they do the same, too.

I would say it depends who you are, what you look like and where you come from.

But as a super privileged white German the US border control (around 2009) was definitely the harshest I have experienced.

I travelled to many places in Africa, Asia and South America as well, never had been questioned and probed like i was in the USA. Ofc i cant speak to the experience in EU.

Edit: added date

> I travelled to many places in Africa, Asia and South America as well, never had been questioned and probed like i was in the USA.

The last time I travelled to Mozambique, some “security person” armed with what looked like an AK47 (I don’t know firearms), asked me to see my passport. He then proceeded to demand payment, uhm, I mean ransom. At the airport.

That’s far far scarier than anything I’ve experienced at a U.S. airport, even as a foreigner.

Spare the whataboutism, the US has always been in a category of its own.

As an American who has lived in 5 or so countries it is not unique to the US, but it does seem to be a specialty of US Border Patrol.

"Wait a minute... This isn't democracy, This is anal sex!"

While I understand the downvotes, I want to see the cartoon script that led up to this line :D

You're a man of great taste!

Here you go: http://i2.wp.com/thecuriousbrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2015...

Good candidate for a universal New Yorker cartoon caption.

But the Homeland was protected, can never be too careful these days. And if you wonder if a doctor would perform a procedure for no medical reason, and the procedure could harm the patient, well there you go.

Should say, [2007]

Is there reason to believe TSA has gotten less problematic since then?

Time + Torts tend to have that effect in general, and probably specifically for the TSA.

Where do you get this kind of optimism? I would think time + rejected entry into the country would teach travellers to more vigilantly defer to the TSA.

In the chaos post 911 there was a lot of resources poured into the new Homeland Security and TSA agencies, as well as huge expectations. Rights of travelers weren’t the first priority, it was all about safety and national security. Only by the passage of time were they able to moderate their practices and adopt reasonable policies for treating travelers, especially edge cases. That and lawsuits. When the courts get involved, things tend to change rather quickly relative to lodging complaints.

I think this is a general dynamic. A familiar metaphor might be that of a startup’s journey from idea to stability at scale. It takes time and mistakes to figure out how to balance stakeholders’s interests.

I also think tech/eng UX practices have had such a cultural impact that customer experience and usability are more top of mind for decision makers and customers alike. Concurrently, ubiquitous pocket cameras and video distribution have held all kinds of law enforcement more accountable, including TSA. Commerce drives this. A sharp decline in flight travel due to draconian enforcement would be railed against by business and government interests alike. With some of the safety and security concerns waning, the pressure is on TSA to get out of the way.

I wouldn’t call any of that optimism per se, but I see how it could be perceived that way. Travelers most definitely did get taught to fear the TSA and it’s cost us tremendously. That fear is well-earned, and the panopticon + excessive policing powers still need to be corrected on a legislative level.

No; just that it wouldn’t be news these days.

From my experience, absolutely.

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