Re: [xml-dev] Welcome to Balisage in America?

[Steve Newcomb <srn@coolheads.com>]

Here is an anecdote, and an explanation as to why I feel it is relevant:

More than a decade ago I was detained and questioned closely for more 
than an hour while entering Canada through Ottawa airport, coming from 
the U.S. with no other recent travel on my passport. It was a baffling 
experience, and very uncharacteristic of Canada, then and now.  They 
read my paper calendar and asked about each appointment, which I found 
intrusive but there were tax issues to be addressed since I was on a 
consulting trip.

That done, they insisted that I start my computer for them.  It was 
running Linux, which they had no idea how to operate.  I'm not kidding, 
just telling you what happened.  I said, "Maybe if I knew what you were 
looking for, I could help you find it."  They said they were looking for 
photographs of people having sex with animals.  I could scarcely believe 
it.  But I at least pretended to take them seriously, because they 
wanted to know where I keep my pictures.  I said, there could be 
pictures anywhere on the disk!  Which surprised them.  Eventually I did 
a command-line "find / -name '*.jpg'" and the output showed them a long 
list. Eventually they picked a couple of .jpgs from my browser cache, 
and those turned out to be wee tiny graphics from web pages, like the 
corners of picture-frames, etc.  In the end they said, "Welcome to 
Canada".  It was nearly midnight by then.  Relieved but mystified, I 
said, "I have no interest in exporting pornography from the U.S., but if 
I were doing that, I certainly wouldn't be carrying it in physical form 
across the border.  It would be so much easier and cheaper just to send 
it as e-mail or something."  They seemed to appreciate having that 
information. All in all, it was a Kafka-esque experience.

Later I concluded that it was probably retaliatory harassment due to 
similarly unfriendly treatment given to incoming Canadians by the Bush 
administration; the only alternative explanation would be that these 
people (all males, by the way) really were as ignorant as they appeared 
to be.

Why is this anecdote relevant?  Because I did not, and do not, choose to 
be intimidated by it.  Instead, such stories should be occasions for 
mirth, because public ridicule is the most powerful antidote to pubic 
intimidation.  By the way, American reporters sometimes have their 
equipment confiscated at the U.S. border and it is effectively *never* 
returned to them.   So Patrick is right; don't bring anything you can't 
afford to lose at the border. Perhaps this absurd behavior by the U.S. 
government is the reason why the market for used laptops on ebay.com is 
strengthening. There must be an awful lot of computer junk in storage 
somewhere. These days, you can install Ubuntu on almost anything, at no 
out-of-pocket cost, and do it pretty securely, too.  All part of the 
cost of a ticket to the U.S.: innoculations, visas, disposable computers...

On 02/17/2017 02:42 AM, Dave Pawson wrote:
> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/business/border-enforcement-airport-phones.html
>
>
> Rather more hot than a warm welcome.
>
> Dave
>
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