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Comment by g-b-r | Hacker News Reader

This is a first amendment violation, right?

Almost certainly. The law should also be amended to require conviction or settlement, not merely investigation, to revoke someone’s PreCheck or Global Entry status.

Overall you can have Global Entry revoked for almost anything; one of the clauses is “The applicant has been found in violation of any customs, immigration, or agriculture regulations, procedures, or laws in any country.” which falls dramatically short of a crime or investigation. There are many reports of GE revocation for stuff like failure to declare fruits at checkpoints.

Yes, but even so doing it because of protest is a restraint on speech, and that's expressly prohibited by the constitution.

The first amendment may be frustratingly silent on fruit trade regulations, but it's 100% not unclear about abridging the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Expressing your first amendment right to protest is not “almost anything.” Historically, courts have taken very dim view of government retaliation for first-amendment protected activities.

It's trivial for the state to punish you and nearly impossible to assert your own rights. It is a very hard legal battle to get those rights acknowledged and upheld by the courts.

> nearly impossible to assert your own rights. It is a very hard legal battle to get those rights acknowledged and upheld by the courts

What are you basing this on? This administration is constantly losing in court.

They mean it’s costly - in time and money - so in practice random individuals who are abused by the government can’t defend their rights and simply have to accept losing them.

Plus even if the administration loses, why would they care? They aren’t going to jail for those losses.

> They mean it’s costly

Which is far from “nearly impossible.”

> even if the administration loses, why would they care? They aren’t going to jail

Neither is someone whose TSA PreCheck is revoked.

They lose but ignore that they have lost, just keep going, the courts aren't shutting them down very effectively.

> They lose but ignore that they have lost

The way this comment ignores that the administration has not been held in contempt by the Supreme Court?

nor will they. the scotus is just an extension of one of the two political parties these days and for foreseeable future

How is attending a protest a potential violation of customs regulations? This doesn't track.

The argument, if there is one, would probably be that following ICE was a violation of an immigration procedure (note that the person who had their GE revoked doesn’t claim they attended a protest, but rather that they were following ICE and got their picture taken). Given what I’ve seen of GE revocations historically, though, it’s equally likely to have been something like “you lived with a felon” or “unpaid traffic ticket became a warrant” or “family member was accused but never convicted of an obscure crime.”

There’s always been a pretty clear mantra that GE is a privilege not a right and that it’s always been an arbitrary and capricious system.

In some ways I think maintaining GE is probably as hard or harder than maintaining a low level (ie Secret) security clearance; it seems to be based on similar databases and discretion with less transparency, human touch, or opportunity to appeal.

They are at least (according to the 9th circuit) supposed to disclose why the GE was revoked though: https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2024/05/22/2...

> How is attending a protest a potential violation of customs regulations?

FTFA: “Protesting isn’t a listed or ‘valid’ reason for having Global Entry revoked, but being arrested at a protest is. Impeding or interfering with the agency is. And being investigated is.”

Looks like this is a social credit system.

> Looks like this is a social credit system

To the extent it’s a government program with any discretion, yes. In every other respect, no.

Global Entry absolutely is a completely voluntary social credit system? It’s an optional thing you literally subscribe to that says “I’m squeaky clean so I can skip the investigation line.”

> Global Entry absolutely is a completely voluntary social credit system?

They’re making analogy to China’s social-credit system. It would be like if Global Entry was held by most Americans and you needed it to get a credit card or board a train.

right, but as the post above says:

> “Protesting isn’t a listed or ‘valid’ reason for having Global Entry revoked, but being arrested at a protest is… And being investigated is.”

its no secret they're declaring everything a protest. they are actively and seemingly randomly roaming, demanding ids, and then declaring everything from that moment forward a protest. this isnt imaginary, its happening regularly.

it’s no secret how many people they have arrested and released an hour or two later once they’re "investigated."

it’s also no secret that they’re simply arresting people, who arent at a protest, but who happen to be in the same street they’ve roamed to.

if they roam into my neighborhood, and if i were to be outside walking my dog, they demand my id which i probably wouldnt have because im just walking my dog. so they arrest me. hours later let me go because they’ve "investigated" and oops, just a neighbor out walking his dog..

if they've declared it a protest, this would mean i would have just been arrested and investigated at what they call a protest.

so now in this situation i would barred from global entry because they’ve declared everyone in their eyeline worthy of arrest and then wrongly arrested and investigated me?

what a cluster fuck. we need to get due process back, this is insanity.

not to mention that protesting, just like legally carrying a firearm is absolutely protected by the constitution and not at all a criminal offense. getting arrested at a protest because they dont like protesters is absolutely not a reliable indicator of any kind of illegality.

Heck, you can be on a terrorism watchlist and entirely barred from flying without a conviction

Trusted Traveller programs are a privilege and not a constitutionally protected entitlement. They can be revoked at any time for any reason and you don't get your money back. What law are you talking about? Show us where in the Constitution it says you're entitled to cut in line at the airport.

We're now in the Find Out phase of "Let's fuck around with DHS and see if they take us off their club's VIP list".

"Congress shall make no law". If there is a law, it's unconstitutional. If there is no law, then how is the executive doing it? By what constitutional authority?

Personally, I don’t think that anyone should be speaking authoritatively on this subject because it seems to me to be untested constitutional law, unless a constitutional scholar would like to chime in.

In which case, it’s up to the Supreme Court to either explicitly (through judgment) or implicitly (through denying a hearing of the case) decide.

Ok, I am a Constitutional Scholar and there is no way that not getting to jump the line at the airport is a “material adverse action” because you can simply get in line. In general, there need to be damages when you talk about liability.

Welcome to the thread! I trust your expertise, but am a little put off by your flippant tone:

> getting to jump the line at the airport is a “material adverse action”

This is rhetorical device of framing. I could just as easily say:

> Pretending to open an online cupcake shop and pretending to be forced to serve gay people isn’t a “material adverse action”

And it would sound equally ridiculous, yet the highest court in the land ruled in that individual’s favor.

> This is rhetorical device of framing

Is MAC a thing outside mergers?

> am a little put off by your flippant tone

I love this. You:

1. Declare everyone stop talking until an actual expert can speak and educate us all

2. An Actual Expert™ enters the chat and offers his expert opinion.

3. You decide his opinion is bullshit after all, because it disagrees with what you had in mind, and accuse him of being flippant.

Ha. I love this comment.

I mean usually an Actual Expert pretends to inform and educate the people he’s interacting with. I didn’t really think he came across as informative or educational.

This is textbook retaliation. Your statement is akin to a manager firing their underling after their romantic advances are rejected, and quoting at-will employment laws. Sure, you can be fired for "any" reason - except retaliation - that is illegal.

It's bad for all of us if there are privilege government entitlements. I disagree with the word privilege because anyone who hasn't been arrested seems to be able to get these things. I don't have one and haven't applied either, I should be able to get it I guess, at least before the fascists came to power.

There are also no consequences for the president, his agency leaders, legislators, or anyone else involved in this when they violate the constitution. At best, the victims sue and get money from taxpayers. The law must be changed to remove all types of qualified immunity from anyone in a government position.

Yes. Some would also say it violates a substantive due-process right to privacy.

Absolutely. The problem is proving in court that the pre check / global entry revocations are a direct result of the protesting. The government has levers they can use to muddy the issue and claim that it's a coincidence.

I'm not sure that they want to hide it; in any case, if it's systematic there will be thousands of these "coincidences", enough to convince a judge or jury even without investigating the revocations

Yes. So are raiding a WaPo journalist’s home, arresting observers / recorders of ICE activity, threatening to arrest teachers for speech, forcing the Ten Commandments into classrooms, or shooting a civilian who is legally carrying a firearm at a protest, etc. These are all positions of Trump or key members of his administration.

It’s clear the constitution is something in their way, not something they respect. By violating it a little bit each day, it’ll lose meaning and half the country will be primed to replace it.

Yes, but we don't have rights anymore until we go to court.

The constitution is not a living document except in a courtroom, and even then it really depends on what the supreme court thinks of you.

Whether or not that was true before this admin, it is clearly the case now.

Yes. Except they are attempting to make the claim that protesters are interfering with federal operations, which is a crime. Therefore, they can try to make the claim that they are only investigating potential involvement in a crime, punish you, and file it under a violation of the terms of service for precheck and global entry. IANAL, etc, but this seems to be the strategy.

I don't think that terms of service can override the constitution, in any case

I mean, yes, because it's clearly intended to have a chilling effect on speech.

But also Global Entry isn't really a thing, it's kind of just like a weird privilege some people can get ... because ... ??? It's just a fake-privilege thing. Taking it away doesn't actually prevent anyone from doing anything/going anywhere they would have anyways.

It's a privilege pretty much anyone can get if they have a clean record, pay the fee, and do the interview.

Taking it away can mean a much longer wait returning to the US. And while that certainly isn't an earth-shattering problem that is going to cost people their lives or general freedom, it is absolutely unconstitutional for the government to retaliate against someone for exercising their constitutional rights.

The idea that you can be so dismissive about that concept is a bit chilling, to be honest.

To be clear, I find it horrifying.

I also find Global Entry, TSA Precheck, and especially Clear to all be problematic, along with the fact that people flying on private jets don't need to go through the same TSA checks that the rest of us do. Hell, I even think it's bad to have different lines at customs for citizens vs. non-citizens. I think the most-privileged of us should use the same public infrastructure as the least-privileged of us.

My comment was a reflection of multiple different opinions on different topics.

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