I wouldn't consider this a US only problem. Anyone from UK/Ireland will remember this case: http://news.techeye.net/internet/stephen-fry-prepared-for-ja...
US bars friends over Twitter joke
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Re: US bars friends over Twitter joke
#102I work for a US company in Europe and I'm seriously concerned about my security if and when the time comes for me to visit the company HQ. I'm a completely harmless person, but sometimes I look like a bearded pirate (arr!), my passport photo looks like I'm a recently escaped convict, I've ordered flight simulators and aviation maps with my credit card from the US and my police file mentions a short wrestling match with a police officer and some other encounters with the law. I've been involved in organizing underground music events and I've probably been photographed by security officials in political protests I've attended.
If people get locked down and refused entry based on a few tweets, I'm worried that my background check will get me a special four S treatment from airport security officials.
I would not consider going to the US for a vacation. Thankfully there are five other continents to visit.
Re: US bars friends over Twitter joke
#103So I guess "I want to kill the President of the United States of America" is still illegal, isn't it? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEQOvyGbBtY
Re: US bars friends over Twitter joke
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you serious? Do you think you can't be tracked down by all the IP-addresses you are using?
I think even more importantly than using a VPN in some foreign country, I would start by not joking about 'destroying America' so they wouldn't have a reason to bother me. Then again I have no intention of ever visiting the States again. It is sad that as a Canadian I feel threatened by our proximity to our neighbors to the South.
It wasn't a joke. It was commonly used terminology to describe going somewhere to "party". They could have written that they were going to "rock America". This wouldn't have meant that they were going to start an earthquake.
Re: US bars friends over Twitter joke
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for your honesty. As an American, this issue deeply concerns me.
I have relatives in the US since my mother is from Rhode Island and I find myself always putting off a visit because frankly the last time I was there the border patrol made my girlfriend cry. We were separated because we weren't yet married and she was quite aggressively questioned because she didn't know the exact trip details. I refuse to brief my loved ones for possible interrogation before a vacation.
I have to say that most of the time I've travelled into the US things have been perfectly fine. However, one time I got questioned about why I had travelled to Turkey so often and got questioned a lot about why I liked Turkey as a holiday destination - which afterwards seems a bit surreal but at the time was quite alarming.
Re: US bars friends over Twitter joke
#106I work for a US company in Europe and I'm seriously concerned about my security if and when the time comes for me to visit the company HQ. I'm a completely harmless person, but sometimes I look like a bearded pirate (arr!), my passport photo looks like I'm a recently escaped convict, I've ordered flight simulators and aviation maps with my credit card from the US and my police file mentions a short wrestling match wi…
I live in the US. Someone put me on a list of people who retweet wikileaks tweets and I'm concerned. Our policy towards visitors and immigrants has been increasingly hostile. Citizens get it a little better, but increasingly bad too.
Minor quibble with your last sentence:
> I would not consider going to the US for a vacation. Thankfully there are five other continents to visit.
Mexico, Canada, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, El Salvador, Honduras all share North America with the United States. And Antarctica is a continent too (7 total, not 6).
Re: US bars friends over Twitter joke
#107Even if this story is accurate, which is unlikely, the righteous indignation of the comments here is even more pathetic. The U.S is like China and Russia, please. That is an insult to people actually living in oppression. Maybe do something productive instead.
Re: US bars friends over Twitter joke
#108It's stupid things like this that have kept me from travelling to the US for work or conferences since 2003. I've actively avoided them. Unfortunately, we'll probably have to attend a wedding in NY next year but I'm not looking forward to the experience
Re: US bars friends over Twitter joke
#109Does anyone know what the quote mentioned from Family Guy is?
Re: US bars friends over Twitter joke
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am always at odds with this because I find myself talking about our freedoms being taken away while I think back on my grandfather and what he went through. Gay people are even getting closer to the vast majority accepting them and possibly marriage (depending on the supreme court). This country was built with women and blacks having no true freedom. That does not mean I am not appalled at what is happening now, bu…
One of the nice facts about history is that you will never see any group trash "liberty" and "freedom." Just about every dictatorial, authoritarian, or megalomaniacal political movement thinks it's pro-freedom. Communists? "The bourgeois have enslaved the proletariat, and we lock them up in the name of liberating the people." Nazis? "The actions of the Jewish Conspiracy at the end of the Great War have enslaved the G…
This is because of the nature of freedom. Freedom is to constraints as silence is to sound. Constraints are the things that positively exist, freedom only exists as the negative space.
This is also why the concept of free will is so problematic: how free does will have to be to be called free will? Does it have to be free from the laws of physics? Does it have to be free from coercion?
I think there are more concepts where we have it the wrong way around like this.