Shiters Stand Forth!
Or something like that. We need a rallying cry, anyhow, and “Spoon!” was already taken…
Check out this link to Boingboing.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/11/dr-peter-watts-canad.html
The skinny: scientist and excellent SF writrer Dr Peter Watts has somehow fallen afoul of US Border security. His treatment wasn’t particularly nice: it included pepper spray, restraint and beating, and then being sent to walk back across the border in his shirtsleeves in a Michigan/Ontario winter storm. You can make up your own mind, naturally, but given the way US Border security has been behaving lately, odds are very high that Dr Watts is the wronged party here.
Of particular interest is the charge against him: assaulting an officer. That’s the blanket charge generally used when the forces of Law and Order want to cover their asses after beating on someone. You need to ask yourself what a 40-something academic thought he might gain by “assaulting” a team of border officers on his own. And then weigh up what you already know about the US Border people, and figure whether they might have “over-reacted” just a touch.
Add to that the following: Dr Peter Watts is one of the smartest, most interesting writers in hard SF at the moment. He’s released a number of his works through the Creative Commons License, and you can download and read them for free from his site. (www.rifters.com) Dig around on the site a little. It’s interesting. This man isn’t some quick-tempered cowboy. He’s a highly intelligent, deep-thinking man with a record of charitable behaviour. (Towards cats, at the very least!)
However you add it up, Dr Watts is One Of Us, and he’s got troubles. We can help.The Boingboing article links to places where you can donate to Dr Watts legal defense fund. Easiest way is through Paypal, to donate@rifters.com but there are other options, too.
On a serious note: crossing the US Border has become a fraught issue in recent years. US Border authorities were never the friendliest of people to begin with, since the so-called War on Terror gave them big ideas, they’ve become downright dangerous. Incidents such as this are reported almost daily. People from all walks of life are being detained, abused, and maltreated at the US border, and it seems there’s really nothing we can do about it, generally.
This time, this once, maybe we can help see the right thing gets done. CoolShite: you know what to do.
Dirk Flinthart.
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Actually, Terry, the smuggling over the Canadian border is mostly Marijuana, not maple syrup. Cute one, though.
However, the issue here is not re-hashing the event in question (which no one who was not there will ever know the exact truth of). We can argue until we're blue in the face and it will still be opinions of two people, not hard fact. Rather, everyone should concentrate on the real problem:
Dr Peter Watts requires financial aid for his court/lawyer fees.
I seldom think any scenario like this is all one-sided and, indeed, new comments from the guy himself allude to getting out of his car; asking what was going on; repeating the question and being un-cooperative when told to get back into his car.
For someone who Dirk talks up as being incredibly smart, I find that kind of behaviour at a checkpoint incredibly dumb. It doesn't matter what you think of border security, trying to stand up to them when they ask you to do something is ASKING FOR TROUBLE.
Does that make the overall behaviour of the guards right? No it doesn't. Not by a long-shot. But does it suggest this dude could have approached the scenario differently and not had a trouble in the world? Absolutely. Kids, don't mess with these dudes; period. It's very simple.
I totally disagree with you Rob. Abuse of human rights is an important issue. If you don't stand up to self-empowered border guard bastards collectively and individually, you're part of the problem. Yes, they're protecting a border – possibly from illegal maple-syrup smuggling – but the rule of law is supposed to apply… in both directions.
Sure, it's a tough call. Maybe Watts shouldn't have got out of the car and asked why he was being searched. But you know… I can remember when it was okay, in the USA, to ask for information when you were subject to official intervention. And I can remember when the US prided itself on its freedoms.
The more we DON'T ask border guards what they're doing; the more we don't ask to see warrants and authorisations and IDs, the more they take away from us. And frankly, when an armed team of border guards resorts to pepper gas and physical violence to take down one unarmed 40+ man — either they're very badly trained, or they over-reacted big-time.
Don't take my word for Dr Watts' intelligence, either. Go look up his PhD thesis, and tackle his novel 'Blindsight'. The neuroscience in that novel is dense, cutting-edge, and brilliantly applied. Very smart guy.
As Scott observes: for the moment, the real issue is that Dr Peter Watts could use some help, and just maybe we're in a position to help a man who's given us considerable to think about, both in SF novels and in gaming — writer on Homeworld 2 and writer/consultant on Crysis 2.
Hey Terry, it's called choosing your battles. Trying to take on guards at a border, whether physically or verbally, is not going to end well for the person trying it on. There is no other way to slice and dice that fact. Anyone who tries it, no matter if they have an entire alphabet after their name, is not displaying a very smart mindset. This is a very simple mantra that any world traveler lives by, whether they're flying into a friendly country or some moderately oppressive third-world regime. Why this chap decided he wasn't going to behave in the same way as other world travelers is beyond me. That, for mine, is as interesting a question as any other in this whole story.
Define "take on the guards", Rob. From the sound of it, Watts did no more than ask why the search was happening, and pull away (and who wouldn't?) when grabbed. And while we're at it, why were US borderers trying to search a car LEAVING the country? Isn't that supposed to be done by the Canadians, whose country is being entered?
And it wasn't exactly a situation where he was in a line of people all acting the same. His vehicle was pulled over and singled out. By definition, it was no longer possible to 'behave in the same way as other world travellers'.
Seriously? It looks very much, to an outsider, as though the US has reached the point where the police and other authorities are beyond question. You want to know why there's a reaction here? Because many of us who travel can see ourselves in Watts' position — ask the wrong question, look the wrong way, say the wrong magic word and we could be seized, beaten, and charged with assault for no understandable reason.
I've travelled through England, Ireland, France, Malaysia, Thailand, New Zealand, Tahiti, Indonesia, Canada and Australia as well as the US. I actually possess a US passport and US citizenship as well as my Australian passport and citizenship. I have not travelled to the US since 2001 and the War on Terror nonsense — but without exaggeration, I can report that of all the countries I passed through, US border authorities were routinely the least pleasant, the most invasive, the most humourless and threatening.
That's a pretty heavy comparison when you put Indonesia into that list, and I'm very sorry — as a US citizen — to say it's so. And after 2001?
Frankly, I'd be dead scared going through US borders. And it looks very much as though my fears, and the fears of dozens of other people, other travellers, other SF writers and fans who have communicated with me on this matter, are far from unreasonable.
This isn't about whether Peter Watts looked cross-eyed at the US border guards. This is about the safety and security of anyone and everyone who needs to travel into or out of the US.
The girl in the provocative clothing didn't 'deserve to be raped'. The black guy walking through an upper-class suburb at night didn't 'deserve to be arrested'. And until positive, legal evidence comes in to show that Dr Peter Watts, a middle-aged academic of good reputation and legal standing, returning legally to his home country, physically attacked an armed team of border guards by himself and threatened them sufficiently that the use of pepper gas and physical violence was necessary, we are by law required to regard him as innocent.
The attitude that somehow, asking questions of the people who detain and search us makes us deserving of arrest, beatings, pepper-sprayings and assault charges is one of the real problems to emerge from 9-11. The USA was once a free nation that prided itself on protecting the rights of the individual. Is that really all in the past?
So, Flinthart, you admit you'd be, "dead scared going through US borders," but you still don't want to see my point about behaving at borders? Interesting. The fact of the matter is, regardless of the country, you don't f___ around at borders. Period. I'm sick of people like Watts acting contrary to common sense in situations like this and then crying, "poor me" about the consequences. Put simply, if I was at the US border I would *not* be getting out of my car; I would *not* be questioning what was going on; I would *not* be repeating the question when it was clear it was going nowhere, etc. These are common sense things that smart travelers just don't f___ around with and I honestly have little sympathy for people who do, then find themselves in trouble. Also, I have no doubt the border has a lot of CCTV cameras, so the truth of the matter will come to light soon enough. As to whether your country has gone to hell in a hand basket is a whole other issue. Personally, I've traveled into it multiple times post 9-11 and I've never had a problem. But then again, I play by the rules at borders and don't try and work outside the parameters set down. If the border personnel want me in a certain line; or to remain in my vehicle; or to only speak when spoken to; whatever the case might be, I do it. So do other smart travelers. Then life goes on as normal. Maybe Watts will consider trying that, next time he's at a border?
Nah. Far more likely he just won't re-enter the USA. Like a lot of people these days. Including this US citizen.
We're on opposite sides, and likely to stay that way. I believe that agents of the law are obliged to demonstrate restraint and caution. I believe that it is not only legal, but reasonable to inquire of those agents as to how and why they choose to exercise their authority.
You, on the other hand, hold that it is to be expected that any deviation from a rigid set of minimally-communicated behaviours approved by agents of law and authority is appropriately met with extreme force. You have also entirely avoided the question of the assault charge levelled against Dr Watts, and the very clear point I raised about the legal presumption of innocence. Ergo, we're going to continue to disagree.
However, I do personally feel that your implicit understanding and expectation that sudden, excessive violence is the due result of inquiring as to how and why a search is being imposed on you speaks volumes for what's become of America the Free. It's also a pretty good indicator as to why I choose to live in another nation, rather than the country I was born, in whose history and principles I have long taken considerable pride.
I'd also point out that on a number of occasions here in Australia, and overseas, I've politely asked various agents why they chose ME for their 'sniff-tests'. I asked because I was curious, mind you. I wanted to know the protocols they were observing.
Uniformly, within Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia (the only countries I've flown recently enough to ask) I received polite, friendly responses. Admittedly, it rapidly became clear that the guards didn't actually understand the meaning of "random", but that wasn't the issue. Nobody objected. Everybody co-operated. Pepper gas, beatings and arrests did not occur.
I have to date not asked in the USA. Nor will I, if by mischance my flight happens to be diverted to a US port. You will regard this as "wise". I, on the other hand, regard the authoritarianism and paranoia of US agencies as startling, and unnecessary. To each their own, I guess.
Flinthart, at its most basic, I just don't see the point in antagonising people who are notoriously hostile.
It's like if there's a vicious dog living next door. My method is to not stick my hands through the fence and thus avoid any chance of injury. Yours appears to be, "It's my goddamn RIGHT to stick my hands through the fence…" And maybe that comes of being an American in general. An awful lot of your countrymen do seem to want to excercise "rights" whether they will have good consequences or not. Sometimes it almost seems to be excercising rights for the sake of excercising rights. Being married to an American, and having spent a lot of time there myself, that's an honest opinion based on what I've seen firsthand and heard from her.
Also, can you let me know how have I, "entirely avoided the question of the assault charge leveled against Dr Watts," when I explicitly commented that there will be plenty of CCTV footage available of what happened and thus the truth – whatever the truth might be – will come out soon enough? At this stage, that's the best line I think any of us can take on what he did, or didn't, do. That's why I made that comment in the first place.
To close, I think it's great that you're enjoying living here in my country. I like it, too! My wife opted for Australia over the US for not dissimilar reasons, from what I am reading into what you're saying. So rest assured, I do understand your point of view — even if I am taking the opposite point of view that it's simply better to not stick your hands through 'the fence' in the first place, rather than wring our hands about why 'the dog' is vicious.
Pointing out, "Hey, this vicious dog bites!" isn't the most profound thing the good professor could do.
It's more a question of what constitutes antagonising, isn't it? As I've pointed out, I've routinely engaged in behaviours that would apparently have sent US Border guards into a frenzy in countries that are nominally supposed to be much more hard-assed. Conversely, the US prides itself (publically) on freedoms of many sorts, particularly those of the individual. Why should any traveller from a foreign land routinely expect rabid violence from the agents of this famously liberal beacon of freedom?
You may well choose to blame the victim in this situation; it's common enough, of course. And you may choose to paint me "American" – though as I pointed out, I hold Australian nationality too. (It's not "your country" mate; it's ours. Unless, of course, we acknowledge that the blackfellas were here first and we took it off 'em.) But in promoting the line that we should all just "pull our heads in" when facing tin-pot tyrants of any sort, you do us all a disservice.
I did my university years in Brisbane, at about the time Joh Bjelke-Pedersen had an honest-to-Stalin "Special Branch" of the Queensland Police Force dedicated to political work. I don't know how old you are, so I don't know what you may or may not know about that era — but the only reason it all came down is because people started pushing back, and eventually, the Fitzgerald Inquiry revealed the scope, depth, and nastiness of the corruption involved.
If nobody had protested (because, of course, you got arrested for doing that); if nobody had written letters and newspaper stories (you got targeted for searches, and your name went into a special file for that); if nobody had stood up to the thugs the government employed as cops (you got your head broken for that), then very likely the situation would have continued for another decade, or longer. But they did protest, and they did write, and they did stand up, and Queensland became a much, much better place.
At its worst, we couldn't legally walk three abreast on the sidewalk without being arrested. At its worst, laws were passed making it illegal to provide alcohol service in any public bar to persons deemed "deviant" — gay, lesbian, or transgendered. And it started small, as it always does, but got worse and worse as time went on — because that's what tyrannies do. If you let 'em go, they just keep getting bigger, and nastier.
Your analogy with a vicious dog is flawed. You don't go after the dog. You go after the owner. You do it in court. And with a little luck and with financial help from people who refuse to spend their lives trying to hide from vicious dogs that roam the street, Peter Watts outcome may well provide the test case that brings some useful attention onto the situation.
Or it may not. But I guarantee this: if we all just pull our heads in and shuffle along like good little citizens, sooner or later they'll decide that it's still not enough — that they need more control. That since we've accepted the beatings and the random searches, we'll no doubt accept the tracking chips and the in-home cameras and the permanent phone taps and the rest.
So — when, exactly, is the point where you stop pulling your head in an acting like a good little citizen?
Chances are that Peter Watts, a foreigner in the USA, from a country where the authorities do NOT randomly taser citizens, and do NOT regard the slightest deviation from programme as reason to commit grievous bodily harm, did not know how to react when the US Borderers ramped up the situation suddenly. Chances are he was tired from the drive, just wanted to get home – and reacted as he would in his own homeland. The fool.
Chances are it could happen to you or me, no matter how "smart" we like to think we are. If and when it does, I'd like to think there will be a few people willing to help me out.
I'd like to believe I've earned that.
I do remember QLD under Sir Joh, actually. And I remember it as a place where you could walk the streets at night and not get attacked by drunken gangs of feral children for one; a scenario quite unlike today. It takes a brave soul to cross Queen Street Mall after dark. But I digress. I just thought it was interesting to point out that for everything you just said there, I can provide many happy memories of the era. Horses for courses, maybe.
And, for the record, the vicious dog analogy isn't flawed as, to go after the owner, you have to first have a run-in with the dog. And to do that, you either have to be stupid and stick your hands through the bars for fun… or do it deliberately, in a bid to get deliberately bitten, to then engage the owner. Which was Peter doing?
For mine, it simply *doesn't matter* how the US border guys want to run their show, or whether they're worse than the SS, or whatever you will come out with next. There's a time and place to address that — and it's not done by getting out of your car when you shouldn't; or questioning them on what the delay is (I mean, come on, that is a question guaranteed to piss anyone off, from the local bank teller and up); or not taking no for an answer and trying to push the issue with some guys who are known to be short-fused.
You can't seem to accept that this guy has done things that have clearly provoked this response. And, until you can accept that, you're not going to see the situation clearly and will keep going off on tangents about what *should* happen and what would be really *nice* and, you know, none of that is reality… yet. We need to deal with reality; the here & now. And this professor hasn't done that in a very logical way at all, as far as I can see.
Well, I think that wraps up the debate. I was going to do no more than let your last remarks stand for themselves, but then I recalled that a number of readers here may be from overseas, and won't fully understand the context. So I thought I'd just clarify.
Essentially, I've argued from the outset that Dr Peter Watts deserves at the least the benefit of the doubt in this case, and I've cited the rule of law — "innocent until proven guilty" — in support. I've also cited the recent public record of US public authorities for excessive violence — a record which is truly appalling, taken as a whole.
In opposing, you've suggested that Dr Watts was stupid for showing any form of behaviour which could be construed as dissent, and that, in effect, he "deserved" the consequences of that stupidity — even if it meant two years in prison, and a felony record for charges of 'assaulting an officer'.
Countering that, I suggested that it is important that we, as a people and a culture, do not simply give in to violence wielded by those in authority. I argued that when we do, the authorities are encouraged to extend their violence to ever greater levels. In example, I offered the Bjelke-Pedersen government of the state of Queensland, through the 1970s to the early 1980s, owing to my personal experience of that regime.
You chose to reply by speaking up in support of the "law and order" of that era.
I would most certainly disagree with your assessment both of that time, and of the present. I did, in fact, live in Queensland from 1973-2000, and I maintain close contacts with Brisbane, and many people in it. I travel there routinely, so my knowledge is current.
However, I see no point. Instead, I prefer to remind you (and any other readers) of this fact: in taking to task my example of an authoritarian rule brought down by legal, civil resistance, you have chosen to speak in support of a government which was tried and found guilty of a truly absurd degree of corruption. Not I, sir, but the courts of the land speak against the Bjelke-Pedersen government: two ministers and a superintendent of police served prison time on charges of corruption. The Premier himself was tried, and found 'not guilty' — but it was later famously revealed that the foreman of his jury was an undeclared member of the "Young National Party" and an ardent, active supporter of the accused Premier. Representatives of the Law Society of the state agreed it was fundamentally a mistrial – but by that point, nobody wanted to put a man in his eighties, now a political irrelevance, back in the dock.
I do believe that clarifies things quite nicely. One of us has consistently spoken out for principles of law and natural justice. The other has spoken out in favour of a regime historically identified as the most egregiously corrupt of modern Australian history.
I have nothing further to add. I think your arguments speak quite eloquently for themselves.
Thank you for playing.
"Thank you for playing"? What's with the smugness?
You talk about living in Australia for some considerable amount of time, but you seem to cling to the very American attitude of people not having to be responsible for their own actions.
It's always someone else's fault, huh?
Like in this scenario… the professor couldn't have done a thing wrong, could he? Oh no, because it's always someone else's fault! And if a government is involved, maybe more so!
Have you not figured out yet that Australians are much more capable of detecting BS than our American cousins? As such, we don't instantly fall for the sob story side of things; we like to think about situations as a whole. And we still believe people are responsible for what they do. Wow, what a concept, huh? Actually being responsible for one's own actions…
But, hey, don't bother yourself with any hard questions about why this happened; just stick to railing against US authority — from a great distance, no less. Don't bother thinking about the totality of the situation or the what the professor actually did — just keep telling yourself that 'the man' is 'bad' and needs to be criticised at every opportunity.
There, that's a much easier line of thought to maintain, isn't it? Goodluck with that.
As this is getting either of you nowhere and no one else is commenting, I am turning comments off for this post.
You guys can agree to disagree.