Returning from Abroad? Tell the Border guards to basically go fuck themselves

[papajohn56]

I Am Detained By The Feds For Not Answering Questions | The Nomad Lawyer

10 Brief Responses To 700 Comments About Refusing To Answer Questions At Passport Control | The Nomad Lawyer

What's scary though, is his 2nd point at the end of the first article:

"2. They’re Keeping Records. A federal, computer-searchable file exists on my refusal to answer questions."

How does this benefit you? Are you flying somewhere and planning to deduct part of your expenses as a business expense, but telling the border you went for personal reasons? That's providing false statements to a federal officer, a felony. Keep quiet but polite.

 

[mattseh]

Very Interesting.

I was given this kind of shit (I am British) returning from Ireland to the UK. Never again

 

[AustinP]

Worldly polytricks!

 

[shopdeal]

That guy is one badass... can't believe, lot of them commenters are saying he is a douche

 

[buxtonlove]

I was wearing this t-shirt going into the United States that said something like aviation or some crap like that. I got pulled aside and asked continually about it, just because there was some random logo on my shirt. Crazy power hungry assholes. They let me go but not without making me sweat for a few minutes.

 

[megatabbers]

Good for him. Fuck authority!

 

[makethatgreen]

He is a douche for not answering the simple question of if he had packed his own bags.

 

[WhatupG]

Unfortunately Osama ruined traveling for everybody. Would be great it you could just hop on and off wherever you want to go, but we don't live in that type of world

Bullshit.

Bin laden destroyed buildings and killed innocent people.

Our own government took away our rights and made traveling a potential nightmare. The problem is the patriot act, 'homeland security', and the rest of the bullshit responses that used a tragic event as a convenient excuse to monitor, harass, and detain citizens/taxpayers.

None of this crap has made us safer. You're not going to stop terrorists by destroying the constitution and the freedoms the constitution was designed to protect.

 

[Vadym]

What a fag. He wasted time, didn't take anything away from it - and was mad about them doing a secondary check and jerking him around after he intiated it?

And he did come from China, not the Carribean. Not exactly the first vacation spot for the typical traveler - so it wasn't an absurd question to start.

Nomad bullied as teenager. Nomad bullies poorly paid authority now. Nomad wins.

 

[advive]

Unfortunately Osama ruined traveling for everybody. Would be great it you could just hop on and off wherever you want to go, but we don't live in that type of world

Osama won the war didn't he? Cunt might be dead but he achieved 10 years of terror and there will probably be another 10...

 

[bizousoft]

A friend was coming back from US after an 11 hours flight (dead tired). The border patrol asks him what he has in his luggage and follows up with some rude questions like: "so you don't wash your clothes or what?" So my friend demands to speak to his supervisor.

Supervisor came over and explained "you look so neutral and tired that he couldn't read you, so he needed to provoke a reaction out of you..."

friend responds: "if he's so incompetent you should better train him". Supervisor walks away.

Interesting job they have..

 

[Netphase]

He is a douche for not answering the simple question of if he had packed his own bags.

They are douches for asking. :thumbsup:

 

[music4mic]

He is a douche for not answering the simple question of if he had packed his own bags.

He's a hero for not answering their questions. Why should he give up his rights for no reason?

 

[tavin]

I can't express the frustration I have in my run ends with USA border control.

I've been detained by Dulles border Control in DC when I was on military orders returning home from Italy. These power hungry assholes kept me in a room with these sketch arab dudes and questioned me like I was a terrorist.. all because I answered I wasn't travelling alone... I didn't know the persons full name and she was in my military unit too on orders as well.

They pulled me aside a week ago when I returned from Croatia and had dogs sniff me and all my bags for 5 minutes.. once again on military reserve orders returning home on a 23 hour flight day.

Fucking stupid.

 

[Kiopa_Matt]

Happened to me once when returning to Canada. Hadn't been in Canada for over two years, and passport was full of stamps from all over Europe (mainly Eastern Europe), and SE Asia, so on came the barrage of questions.

For the most part it was fine though. After a while I started getting a little irritated, and just politely reminded him I'm a natural born Canadian citizen, and he let me through. As for the US, nowadays I just pay the extra few hundred to get a flight that doesn't route through the US. It's worth it. Especially LAX. What a shit airport to get routed though. And it's irritating that even though I'm only going to be in the US for a few hours, I still have to go through immigration and customs.

 

[Benji49]

US border guards are the worst, and I mean the worst fucking border guards in the world.

Okay, I've never visited Russia, but I did a lot of corporate travel in late nineties, early '00s, visiting EU countries, Israel, Australia, England, Norway, and others.

And this was before 9/11.

Seriously, I suspect that a lot of hate for the US is because of their border guards who are unnecessary pricks. I mean, I went through Israeli customs multiple times and those guys have real reasons to be paranoid.

Even Americans hate their own border guards. How screwed up is that?

 

[Fatbat]

Happened to me once when returning to Canada. Hadn't been in Canada for over two years, and passport was full of stamps from all over Europe (mainly Eastern Europe), and SE Asia, so on came the barrage of questions.

I look forward to my return...

"how long have you been out of the country?"

"oh, about 8 years"

...yeah, that's gonna be good times.

 

[turbolapp]

The officer asked for state-issued ID. I gave him my California Identification Card. I probably didn’t have to, but giving him the ID was in line with my principle that I will comply with an officer’s reasonable physical requests (stand here, go there, hand over this) but I will not answer questions about my business abroad.

This is where it gets tricky. He's basically making his own rules. And now that he's making his own rules ya gotta wonder why it's acceptable to have to provide an ID card but not acceptable to say where you've been. In otherwords, it's an invasion of privacy to ask about your past behavior but not an invasion of privacy to demand your full name and address?

 

[turbolapp]

He's a hero for not answering their questions. Why should he give up his rights for no reason?

Actually he is kind of a douche since he had already "given up his rights" in a written declaration. I mean why not stay within "his principals" again and repeat exactly what he had already written? It's kind of obvious he was hurting for a blog entry.

 

[JerseyJoe]

it's an invasion of privacy to ask about your past behavior but not an invasion of privacy to demand your full name and address?

that's not what he's saying. he's saying an inquiry into his past behavior is unnecessary and a violation of his privacy; a "reasonable" request for name and address, which was likely already on the written declaration, wasn't on that same level apparently, and it's pretty easy to see why.


it's amazing to me that when people stand up for their fundamental rights and actually have a working knowledge of basic law and constitutional principles, and actually let others know what they did, either via word or video, they're suddenly attention whores.