German NSA Critic Denied Entry To the US 352
An anonymous reader writes "Major newspapers in Germany (FAZ, Die Welt, SZ, ...) and the Huffington Post report that the author Ilja Trojanow has been prevented from boarding a plane from Salvador da Bahia to the U.S. where he was invited to attend a conference. He had ESTA documents showing that his visit was approved as part of the Visa Waiver Program and was last year given a visa to teach at the university of Saint Louis. Trojanow was one of the initiators of an open letter (Google translation to English) urging Chancellor Merkel to take actions against NSA surveillance in Germany."
Arm Bands (Score:3, Interesting)
Since we are going full-on Totalitarian Police State, can we get cool Hugo Boss suits with colorful arm bands?
Time for DHS/FEMA to start filling up those Concentration Camps they've been building.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Interesting)
Nothing you can do will bring about a faster or harsher reaction from Government than challenging their power. This is true of any Government. Though the US seems to be getting harsher and harsher about it.
Re:Arm Bands (Score:3, Interesting)
Since we are going full-on Totalitarian Police State, can we get cool Hugo Boss suits with colorful arm bands?
Time for DHS/FEMA to start filling up those Concentration Camps they've been building.
This is nothing new. I know a few people who were denied entry into the USA, none of them could think of a reason why and the embassy never gives a reason. All of these people are University graduates, all have clean criminal records, none of them was planning to the US on a tourist visa and stay illegally nor does any of them have ties to Al Qaeda... they aren't even moslems. The closest I have found to a reason is an engineer buddy of mine who was invited to an all expenses paid technical conference by a US business partner only to be denied a visa. We finally figured his visa application was probably denied because he had worked as a paperboy for a communist newspaper when he was 15 to earn some extra pocket money and because of that he made some sort of blacklist back in the cold war.
Re:And with that ... (Score:5, Interesting)
The UN is in the USA... (Score:5, Interesting)
Because, in the late 1940s, it was basically the only industrial power not deeply into reconstructing their torn economy and infrastructure. Not because any other country recognized the moral supremacy of the USA's national definitions, not because the USA grants anybody guarantees to dissent.
The United Nations is juridically akin to the various embassies. It is international territory, not USA territory. It might be phisically located in Manhattan, New York, but is not because New York is (or ever was) the hippest place to talk freely about the evil bad guys.
Re:Remember all those times Bush blocked... (Score:2, Interesting)
Not a visa, but he does need to register with, and be accepted through, the visa waiver program.
Which he supposedly was, so in theory someone within the US security theatre system had approved him already.
(But then again, I've used that ETSA/visa waiver program website, and it's remarkably piss poor, you get very very little in the way of any acknowledgement or notification of what your status is under the program, and on the whole feels more like a tourist tax than anything else.)
(ESTA = Electronic System for Travel Authorization)
Re:Remember all those times Bush blocked... (Score:5, Interesting)
Once again, Obama proves he's a worse President for civil liberties than Bush ever was.
I had to Godwin this thread, but that's like saying Hitler wasn't so bad because Stalin killed millions more people. Obama, for the most part, has lost my support, but that certainly doesn't mean I wish Bush Jr. were still president. If I could choose any politician to appoint to the presidency, it would probably be Ron Wyden. Unfortunately, it looks like I'll probably be stuck voting for Rand Paul next election, despite the fact that I vehemently disagree with his economic beliefs, because civil liberties in this country have eroded so much and I don't think Wyden will be in the running (fucking Democrats will probably nominate another jackass who toes the establishment line similar to Obama).
Re:Remember all those times Bush blocked... (Score:2, Interesting)
I would never travel to Afganistan, Iraq, North Korea, US and Iran.
Re:Remember all those times Bush blocked... (Score:4, Interesting)
...critics of the NSA from entering our country?
Me neither.
Once again, Obama proves he's a worse President for civil liberties than Bush ever was.
I'm not sure that the US believes that foreigners have civil liberties. Certainly not the Canadian that Bush had kidnapped and sent abroad for torture.
Actually, the US has always had a tendency to block people from entering the country, if the government didn't like what they had to say. These abuses didn't start with Obama (or Bush) or the NSA. Throughout most of the 20th century, it was communists and anarchists who were blocked from entering. And prominent opponents of [insert whichever war the US is engaged in at the moment. (This sort of abuse is not unique to the USA, either.)
The only way to completely prevent these abuses is to get rid of the border guards.
The Government Whisperer (Score:2, Interesting)
The people's and country's interests are always going to be against the government's interests. Recognizing that, and then having the government submit to us all, is kind of the whole point of America.
Unfortunately, we've become a nation of bad dog owners. Our dog misbehaves and doesn't submit. Cesar Milan tells us to use calm assertive energy (i.e. votes) to dominate the misbehaving dog, but we essentially don't vote. (Even when we bother to show up at the polls, we tend to check the "R" or "D" instead of any serious candidates, and we even advocate against allowing candidates onto the ballots.) And instead of that calm assertiveness, we react with excitement (TP, OWS) which doesn't accomplish anything.
We need the Government Whisperer! Come, Government Whisperer! Come train us, and rehabilitate our government.
Re:Remember all those times Bush blocked... (Score:4, Interesting)
Western Hemisphere? Hell, the entire human race should go back to Ethiopia where they came from.
Re:Remember all those times Bush blocked... (Score:5, Interesting)
IF GWB was president, the Democrats would pretend to care about civil liberties, there would be some real hearings on the NSA, Nixon's healthcare plan with the liberal parts stripped out wouldn't be the law, there would be blowback for spying on the press and prosecuting whistleblowers under the Espionage Act at a rate 3x that of all other presidents since it's enactment in the early 1900s, the president might still feel the need to trick or lie his way to getting Congress to approve a war but Libya basically killed the War Powers Act ... on and on and on.
What Obama has done, is take what was considered an abusive extension/usurpation of power by the Executive branch, and made it the bipartisan consensus. So yeah, Obama is worse than GWB because instead of rolling back the abuse, he embraced it, extended it, and with the silence of his supporters and party, cemented it forever as the new normal.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Interesting)
Ahh yes, exactly what we need. A dead document on delivery that lays out whats allowed and what's not, whatever happends next be damned.
The constitution was written the way it was for some very good reasons. What do you suppose is going to exist, say 100 years from now? Do you think 100 years ago anyone forsaw 3d printing? The Internet? Cell Phones? Nuclear weapons? Jet Fighters that can exceed the speed of sound?
If you write a document like that, ridged, unforgiving, you end up with something that works for about 10 years then needs to be rewritten. Abstract interpretation is very important. Its also clearly a huge problem when people take things like "secure in your papers in effects" to not cover things like Email and IM conversations, but thats more because we're a bunch of corrupt jerks than anything else.
We're just experiencing the very thing they forsaw when they wrote this thing, eventually people will corrupt anything you give them. Eventually, you're left with little choice than to take over and redo large parts of the goverment. The nice part is we have legal, non-lethal means to do that, right now. The problem is they're not being used, yet. It remains to be seen if they ever will be.
Re:Remember all those times Bush blocked... (Score:4, Interesting)
Since when does a foreign citizen who actively works AGAINST the interests of the US government allowed freedoms to enter the United States?
Maybe so we don't look like hypocritical petty assholes who don't actually believe in things like freedom of speech, freedom to peacefully assemble, and freedom to voice our grievances.
The American principals that some of us were taught are that these aren't simply rights granted to citizens by the generosity of the state, but fundamental human rights and the state is specifically recognizing as such, and vowing to protect.
This isn't about left or right. Bush's administration had peaceful critics who were American citizens on no-fly lists. There has been abuse of power by the government in general.
I'm super critical of tea-party and libertarian types, but they aren't wrong about everything. They are speaking the truth when they say government is becoming too powerful and oppressive.