The topic was not about catching terrorists at all. But even if it were you'd be wrong. I'm sure all the terrorists also used cars and probably brushed their teeth. So what? The point of security is to figure out relevant things - that distinguish terrorist from non-terrorist - from irrelevant. Coming from US/Canada border is clearly an irrelevant thing - millions of people come through and even if one of them is a terrorist treating all of them as a terrorists would be highly ineffective. Moreover, it's even worse than ineffective - it's hurtful. Since the officers can't spend hours on every border-crosser, each innocent they wrongly detain raises the chance that they won't have the resources to inspect the real bad guy, because they were busy with harassing the good guy. The fail here is that they denied entrance to the innocent. Imagine spam filter that would put a lot of legitimate email into "spam" folder - would you argue it's an excellent thing to have because once 10 years ago you had one spam in your inbox - or would you argue it needs to be rewritten and fixed so that the false positive rate would go down?
Nobody argues for no border protection at all. But border protection that confuses protecting with harassing the innocent has clearly lost the vision of its purpose and needs to be reminded of it. And if somebody from the personnel can't understand the difference he should be given a job that doesn't involve contact with people - like cesspool cleaning or monitoring early-warning radar stations in the Arctic.
It is an incredible mistake to make, so yes it does bring your perspective into question. Especially given that this story has absolutely nothing to do with "catching terrorists" -- even the most paranoid interpretation wouldn't go down that route -- and everything to do with immigration thinking he was going to be a lazy layabout who would end up working illegally in the US (or worse would end up resorting to petty crime to support himself)
The fact that you have only been a member here for 22 days is plainly apparent. Our community doesn't take the tone you are using.
I frankly don't think you understand one bit of what I was saying. You latched on to one part of my original statement - which particular terrorist it was that crossed the border - and missed the overall point. The border patrol is not there for travelers convience. The burdon is on the traveler to have their affairs in order. The officers are going to really dig into anyone who has a wierd story or raises red flags. The fact that you know you are innocent doesn't mean they know you are innocent.
Let me give you an example. The last time I crossed the border from Canada into the US, I was waiting in line in my car. I was probably 10 cars from the checkpoint when I realized that I had left my passport in its usual home in my suitcase - which was in the trunk. I thought, "oh, I'll go get that now so I don't have to waste time later and hold everyone up in this line" which seemed like the efficient thing to do. As soon as I got out of my car to open the trunk I had a pile of border patrol agents running at me yelling to put my hands up. I hadn't realized it, but apparently going for the trunk would be an obvious move to set off a car bomb.
Once they came over and we talked about what I was doing it was all cleared up and I had no issues, but at the moment what was an entirely innocent action to me appeared to be very suspicious to them. That is not an indictment of them, it is just a fact based on the red flags they are looking for. If you hit those red flags, whether you know you are innocent or not, you are viewed through the lense of their training.
Now if you got that from my original message and still think I'm an idiot, then thats your opinion. But that's my perspective on the matter and I'm almost certain that you are judging it without understanding it.
The fact that you have only been a member here for 22 days is plainly apparent.
How utterly obnoxious. I suspect that few of the HN community would embrace your inability to accept your error.
You latched on to one part of my original statement - which particular terrorist it was that crossed the border - and missed the overall point.
You claimed that all of those responsible for the worst terrorist incident in the US history came through Canada. Only none of them did. It's a pretty egregious claim.
The rest of your boring story is irrelevant. Terrorism has nothing to do with this situation. Nothing at all. Zero. Zilch. Nada.
