U.S. Border bars Psychotherapist with drug research in his past (2007) | Hacker News Reader

U.S. Border bars Psychotherapist with drug research in his past (2007)

alternet.org

14 pointsburo94 comments

There's another set of articles bouncing around but I wanted to dredge this particular story.

The story is of a respected psychotherapy researcher for a Canadian university. Andrew Felmar's profile is here: http://www.andrewfeldmar.ca/

This story was also covered here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/aug/08/closeddo...

The gist is: In his distant past, he researched the effect of various substances that years later came to be classified as illegal substances. This was in Canada, and he attempted travel to the USA. He was declined entry to the USA as the border agency Googled his name, found his research, and considered him an admitted drug user.

The point of posting this in light of the NSA and PRISM revalations is to show that you needn't have done something wrong or be doing it today, that there are examples of people who have found their past re-defined by the present and that they now breach some rules that would not have been considered back then.

The message I took from this at the time was this:

    When Feldmar looks back on what has happened, he concludes that he was operating
    out of a sense of safety that has become dated in the last six years, since 9-11.
    His real mistake was to write about his drug experiences and post this on the web
    , even in a respected journal like Janus Head. He acknowledges that he had
    not considered posting on the Internet the risk that it turned out to be. So many
    of his generation share his experience in experimenting with drugs, after all.
    He believed it was safe to communicate about the past from the depth of
    retrospection and that this would be a useful grain of personal wisdom to share
    with others. He now warns his friends to think twice before they post anything
    about their personal lives on the web.

> His real mistake was to write about his drug experiences and post this on the web, even in a respected journal like Janus Head.

In the light of the NSA scandal, would it really have made any difference if he had only admitted to drug use in private communication? If the DHS has no access to NSA surveillance data right now (or had in 2007, when this happend), it's only a matter of time until they do.

In light of PRISM, no. I guess the only difference was whether you saw the border control use Google, or whether you just arrived and were declined entry without information as to why.

We continue to learn about more and more "exceptions" the authorities have written themselves that allow them to examine the contents of U.S. correspondence without a warrant.

Who knows how deep this rabbit hole goes? Today, or in the future; I suspect that the rabbit is still digging.

I'm not a drug user -- never have been. I have some friends who have been (I'll be judicious with my tense, here). I would guess that 50% of U.S. citizens, if not more, have used illicit drugs at least once. (And, remember also, underage drinking is "law breaking".)

I find this... "policy" abhorrent in its formulation and execution. Individual results are essentially "luck of the draw" and up to the attitude of individual border agents. ('There's something about this person... Let's google them.')

The current President has admitted to smoking marijuana. Should Canada exclude him from entry? What about all the troubles sports stars? What about all the troubled actors who travel north for their productions to take advantage of lower production costs in Canada? What about all the Canadian actors down here? One can hardly toss a stone without hitting one. (Lots of boozers and "experimenters" in that lot.)

Preferential treatment, maybe?

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