Journalist detained at US/Canadian Border | Hacker News Reader

Journalist detained at US/Canadian Border

onthemedia.org

23 pointsGeorgeOrr8 comments

Systemic abuse at border crossings.

I hear these detention stories at the border continuously and each time there's a lot of discontent among people about such practices. However, nothing changes.

I wonder, is it that largely this topic does not concern the American public or are there no democratic means to influence the agency?

Both. Many people think if it's not happening to them, it's not a problem. And the agencies involved aren't really under any oversight from anyone outside the executive branch. I, for one, am disappointed the civil libertarian / Constitutional scholar I voted for isn't stepping up to do something about these things.

real answer: it always happening to other people, I have to hide, blah blah....

The border agent has a lot of power and his /her judgment is trusted. Of course a US citizen has the right to get in but they hold you for hours and hours based on suspicions. Just a cavity type search for your luggage will set you back a few hours and I suppose they can justify it with "he was acting nervously.". Go ahead and dispute that

Real, real answer: Not only is it happening to other people, it's happening to small N other people.

You hear about it like five times a year, and millions of people cross the border every year. The proportion of egregious false positives -- defined as, bad enough for someone to want to write about it -- is vanishingly small. The odds that it'll happen to any given person here, even any given person of the subject minority (brown), is so small it might as well be zero, from the perspective of a brain that's bad at dealing with small numbers [1].

It's hard enough to get people who read a tech site to care. Now try getting everyone to.

[1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/6h1/people_neglect_small_probability...

Misleading title; makes it sound like the Canadians were doing the holding.

Hmm, are you from the US?

I am, and I assumed this article was referring to the U.S. doing the holding not Canada. I feel like the title is appropriate actually, saying "journalist detained at U.S. border" would be less informative imo.

That's just my opinion though, perhaps I am not properly conceptualizing the matter from yours/others viewpoints.

s|US/Canadian Border|US's Canadian Border| # solved

I also clicked it thinking they meant Canada customs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com