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Comment by leap_ahead | Hacker News Reader

Maybe some day but not today. Today I'm not comfortable with the mere idea.

What if some patent troll learns I'm going for a visit to the US? What if they secretly tell the police to arrest me at the airport and then sue me over some dumb patents?

What if somebody makes a joke on the Internet and then I'm detained at the airport and interrogated whether I have fought in the Ukraine?

What if they learn I have some Muslim friends and decide to question me if I knew of any bombing plans? What if they send me to one of their secret prisons to beat out my consent to spy on my friends?

You see my problem?

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The US has its problems but I think your perception is greatly exaggerated. Let me tell you how I believe those scenarios would play out-

1. Patent trolls have no political clout. Zero chance of police arresting someone on their behalf (let alone them calling police to request this). Patents are a civil matter, not criminal.

2. I have not heard of the US interrogating any suspected Ukraine-invasion fighters.

3. Muslim friends could bring you more scrutiny. But they'd have to be pretty dirty to warrant that much attention on you. I haven't heard one case of someone being taken to a secret prison just to be convinced to turn spy. If you're taken to a supposed "secret prison", you're probably there to stay.

>> Muslim friends could bring you more scrutiny. But they'd have to be pretty dirty to warrant that much attention on you. I haven't heard one case of someone being taken to a secret prison just to be convinced to turn spy.

What about this?

http://www.thelocal.se/20120419/40368

>> If you're taken to a supposed "secret prison", you're probably there to stay.

Okay, thank you very much, I'm staying home then.

>> What about this?

That article was about the US treating a Muslim terribly. That happens, and unfortunately it seems to happen very often, and with little justifying evidence. What I'm saying is that I haven't heard it happening to a friend of a Muslim, which was the original scenario.

>> Okay, thank you very much, I'm staying home then.

My comment was made tongue in cheek. Secret prisons on US soil are near unheard of, but if they do exist I'm assuming only very high profile targets would be sent there. If they are taking low level suspects there for interrogation and releasing them, it wouldn't be secret for very long. My point is, the scenario is bad spy novel material, and doesn't remotely reflect reality.

>> Patent trolls have no political clout. Zero chance of police arresting someone on their behalf (let alone them calling police to request this).

But they have rich guys behind them. What if they decide to make "an example" of me, to scare everyone in the US and abroad and convince them to give in and just pay extortion money to them? Right know every non-US company just ignores them and that's huge potential money to be made. It cannot be done through European courts for instance but they could use another intimidation tactic like making the IT community know that everyone who doesn't pay to the trolls will be arrested if he ever crosses the US border. That would be a very profitable venture.

This fear is completely irrational. There is no legal justification to allow for anyone to be arrested due to a patent violation, regardless of how powerful or rich the patent holder is. There is just no way this would or could happen.

To be fair, I'm sure I have a lot of assumptions about Russia that you would find equally ridiculous.

You might be right that I'm being irrational. But I've really developed some apprehensive attitude towards the US over the last few years. And the worst thing is, any new day brings some new information that reinforces this fear. Things are objectively getting worse, not better. Somehow I'll have to live with it. But at least I'm not doing any business in the US, so this is not a practical problem for me.

I think your fears are indeed irrational. You're reading sensationalized horror stories, internalizing the fear and using it as a justification to NOT do something. I see this mentality in my aging parents and their friends who watch a lot of Fox News.

Would you call me ridiculous if I told you I'll never come to Russia because I believe a joke I made about Putin years ago on the internet will get me assassinated in the streets? I would certainly hope so.

Don't let irrational fear guide your decisions.

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