Shenanigans. 1) Where did they get the pictured Homeland Security report if HS "declined to comment"? If accurate, it looks like the sort of communication that an agency that refused to comment on an story would not be too quick to divulge. There is no mention of a FOI application, which I'm not even sure two foreigners are entitled to. 2) The two posing clowns are just that kind you would expect to be the butt of jo…
If you are refused entry to the US, they take a statement and give you a copy. It looks like this is that statement.
Folks lets remember something, unlike some regimes the USA admits it makes mistakes and corrects them.. sometimes you have to wait along time..but in contrast to a non-democratic republic there is no equal in terms of a gov/democracy that changes to become better.
Comments on the article's page are even scarier than the article itself.
Personally, after reading comments on news and sports sites in general, I am amazed that any of them even allow commenting. It is amazing how thoughtless some people can be.
I've thought this myself before. My rationalization is that most of the commenters are also regular readers - probably disproportionately regular, as they return to read replies to their comments - and so generate a disproportionately large numbers of page views. The sites are scared to turn them off lest the commenters stop returning, hurting ad revenue.
Would be nice to hear from anyone who can confirm or deny this hypothesis.
And people wonder why I do nothing on the Internet under my own name.
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.
There's a better version of the story on the Daily Mail web site that has a picture of the documents given to these folks when they were barred: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2093796/British-tour...
Best part of the documents is that they say he posted these things on his "tweeter" account.
Worst part is that these documents exist in the first place.
When _was_ it the land of the free? The period between giving black people the vote and the PATRIOT act? Even then, it was hardly number one.
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 German people." The U.S. Civil War stands as one of the most explicit examples: one side rallied behind the idea that slavery must be abolished; the other side rallied behind the idea that the federal government has no right to tell its member states what to do. It was a war where the liberty of the lowest class was pitted against the liberty of the state.
It's as if Mother Liberty was the Goddess herself: for whenever two nations come into a fight, people in both are always saying that "God is on our side"...
Has anyone done a study of how much this is damaging the tourism industry in the USA? I have 1001 places I want to go, but all those in the USA shifted down a lot lower on the list after they started a lot of the airport security/TSA measures. Airport security stuff annoys me to no end in other places too because half of them, or more than half, seem to literally be standing around doing nothing and the other half do…
This is just a small data-point, but I was seriously worried about visiting the US based on what I'd heard about customs and immigration there. And this is from a white 'middle-class' male living in London with no beard. I ended up visiting anyway (I really wanted to research Philly Cheesesteaks, Maine Lobster and see the colours of the New England Autumn/Fall), but I definitely thought long and hard about it and was…
Any friction will ultimately affect "conversions", although I think the friction is probably smaller that we'd think. Most people don't spend much time reading and fretting about the TSA online, so for those, standing in line for half an hour and having your passport stamped is just part of the excitement of travelling (for less experienced travelers). As a fraction of the total time and bother of intercontinental travel, it's almost negligible.
Has anyone done a study of how much this is damaging the tourism industry in the USA? I have 1001 places I want to go, but all those in the USA shifted down a lot lower on the list after they started a lot of the airport security/TSA measures. Airport security stuff annoys me to no end in other places too because half of them, or more than half, seem to literally be standing around doing nothing and the other half do…
I'm American and it turns me off from travelling. All air travel now carries the inherent risk of sexual molestation from a high school dropout. No thanks, Ill just stay home and enjoy twitter, apparently now along with 1000 US federal agents. America is getting more awesome every week.
US is done as the "land of the free". It's still very hard for many people to believe it, but it's true. I mean it's 47th place in the world for freedom of press now - 47th! That's far from the beacon of freedom US used to be. Whenever I see the heavily armed and militarized police in US and how they react to protesters, it's like I'm watching news about Russia or something.
I left the country in 2008, and I'm wondering if I'll ever go back. It's only gotten worse since I've been gone. It's almost to the point where I'm not even sure I want to visit any time soon.
After posting that, you're probably already on the blacklist ;)