Have no more fear, your country is safe from all terrorists who tweet about their plans.
Truthfully, I wouldn't have expected this from America, they're the kind of jokes I could imagine myself making on Twitter, but will be careful not to before future trips there..
This is pretty much what I think of when going to China, and what makes me specially careful not to say anything the Chinese could take as a threat. Heh, last time I went we were doing some IPTV streaming from an event, and where given a list of words which, if anyone said on air, would have us all deported within hours.
edit: To people complaining about The Sun - yes, it's a crappy rag, but this is basically a story that no news outlet would hear of unless the people involved sold/gave their story, and there's no reason they wouldn't go to The Sun, where they could reasonably expect to get a little more $$$ than if they went to the BBC.
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.
But, for the whole of the 20th century, I think, one could make the argument that there were places freer, particularly if one happened to be a member of one of the US's more hated minority groups. From WW2 to the 60s, if you happened to be a racial minority, there was almost no-where less free in the developed world; the US was extremely late amongst developed countries to grant universal suffrage.
the US was extremely late amongst developed countries to grant universal suffrage
I'll agree with you that the civil rights movement beginning in the 1960s was necessary for the United States to extend the benefits of freedom to all its citizens. But universal suffrage for women came significantly earlier in the United States than it did in Switzerland, for example, and black people in my state (Minnesota) have always been able to vote and to own property and to marry whomever of whatever race and so on since before Minnesota became a state (which, indeed, was one of the points of the Dred Scott case, in which a slave tried to become free by claiming that his passage through the free territory of Minnesota should end his condition of slavery). The Civil War was a necessary reaction to totalitarian denial of basic human rights by the Confederate states, and the civil rights movement after World War II was a necessary response to the deplorable segregation that still occurred in those states long after the Civil War, but everyone in some regions of the United States has long recognized that slavery and Jim Crow segregation were both aberrations, gone in some states from the beginning, and always contrary to the basic principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights (and the bills of rights in various state constitutions).
Yep, I didn't say it was the last democratic developed country to grant universal suffrage, because of Switzerland (or the one or two cantons that didn't let women vote).
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, but what should we go back to? People constantly mention "freedom" like everybody in this country always had it. The government is just finding ways to do what it has always done, which no includes technology. The main difference is that the internet lets us know without a short time-span.
I do hope that we can make a better future, but it is not like the past was the greatest thing either.
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"...
This is because of the nature of freedom. Freedom is to constraints as silence is to sound. Constraints are the things that positively exist, freedom only exists as the negative space.
This is also why the concept of free will is so problematic: how free does will have to be to be called free will? Does it have to be free from the laws of physics? Does it have to be free from coercion?
I think there are more concepts where we have it the wrong way around like this.
I think your first sentence is really interesting & insightful, kind of treating "true" freedom as a sort of absolute zero -- that is, a never-actually-reachable ideal.
I feel like free will doesn't have much to do with the kind of freedom we're talking about, though. If some other human being (or group) has the ability to make you do something you don't want to do, that's a problem of freedom, not free will. (After all, you could decide not to do that thing and suffer the consequences).
Free will is much more about things that you have no ability whatsoever to actually make that decision in the first place, whether because of the manipulative hand of some supernatural force, or via some radical rationalist explanation of decision making.
I see at least two implications of what I said, one being that freedom is an absolute zero, the other being that shifting freedom around is a zero-sum game. Maybe these two are related in some game-theoretic way, I'm not sure. The only fundamentally productive way of obtaining freedom is by getting more control over our environment, i.e., technological progress.
I understand the distinction you're making between freedom and free will; I mentioned it because the compatibilist notion of free will is what you're calling freedom here. But yeah, it's probably not too relevant to the original discussion.
Nothing, the problem is not with reality (of course :-). The problem is that most people seem to think about freedom as something positive. You can only create freedom for Joe by coercing Jane to not violate it. This enables the kind of scenario that the parent to my original comment describes.
This goes back a _very_ long way; politicians used similar rhetoric in the Roman Republic (which was a slavery-based state which granted a meaningful franchise only to a wealthy elite).
That period includes the internment of 110000 Japanese Americans in War Relocation Camps without any kind of due process. Land of the free, unless your parents were born in the wrong country.
Well, that depends on whether he meant when we gave black people the right to vote on paper (after the Civil War) or when black people effectively got the right to vote (1965). I assumed he meant the latter ;-)
Actually, right after the Civil War, I've read that things were pretty different - I know there were a lot of blacks who moved into Indiana and were accepted quite warmly by the people here, up into the 1880's and the Klan really got underway.
By 1930, of course, the KKK had a significant political presence in Indiana, and at this point, white rural Hoosiers hate blacks with the best of them, but I was surprised to learn that that attitude came well after the end of the Civil War.
There was no Klan in the 1880's. There was a Klan from the end of the war until the 1870's but that was a disorganized vigilante group and it was suppressed by state governments. Around 1915, Birth of a Nation came out and people started romanticizing the Klan and it reformed. For a good 35 years though, there was no Klan of which to speak. That's not to say there weren't other groups which filled the same niche in that time period, but the Klan itself didn't exist.
As for when, it wasn't the land of the free when they wrote the Constitution, but it was when Jefferson made them add the first ten Amendments. It wasn't if you were a black person who couldn't vote and it was in the period directly following the Civil Rights Movement -- unless you were gay, in which case it became the land of the free after the Stonewall riots. Unless you were gay AND in the military, in which case it just recently became the land of the free when Obama ended "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Obama made America briefly the land of the free when he was elected and unmade it again very soon after taking office. Unless your hobbies involve consuming any of a number of harmless or nearly harmless plants and/or chemicals, in which case you're going to have to wait until they ratify the 21st Amendment a second time.
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.
Same story here. Left in 2007, and no longer have any desire to return. My last visit, in 2010, left quite a bad taste in my mouth, with the creeping totalitarianism on display at the airports in particular. Welcome to America: don't forget that WE ARE ALWAYS WATCHING YOU.
What's especially depressing is that the commitment to paranoia and the dismantling of due process, civil rights, etc., is 100% bipartisan; there are no serious political voices taking a stand against it. Bush was of course bad; Obama -- my last great hope -- has extended and amplified everything that Bush did. And Obama's opponents are essentially unified in their position that Obama's chief failure has been to not dismantle due process and civil rights quickly enough. At this point, I think that Obama is probably still the lesser evil, but that's too damned evil for me to vote for.
I don't see any prospects for this reversing itself. Carry this trend out another decade or two, and it means the end of the American republic. There's nothing extraordinary about this thought: over long enough timeframes, great nations collapse all the time, and this is more or less the blueprint they follow when they do it: increasing paranoia about being beset by enemies both external and domestic; dismantling of internal political apparatus and centralisation of political power with a single individual; increasing inability to balance a budget, tolerate dissent, maintain infrastructure, etc. I fear that the present era will be remembered alongside Rome in the late 4th century, Spain in the early 1930s, etc.
I hope I'm wrong, and that those who stay can somehow turn it around. But at this point I'm glad I left.
Eh, I'm not sure I'd call him "serious". He's definitely pretty good on some civil liberty issues. Rather less so if you happen to be female, non-white, or gay. Even if that wasn't the case, his understanding of economics is sufficiently loony as to exclude him from serious consideration, at least in my view.
In any case, a belief in civil liberties shouldn't even be a discrete political position; it should be the bedrock on which all political positions are founded. When one candidate defines themselves as "pro-liberty" -- as opposed to all those other guys -- the game is already lost. Should they win power, they'll need to claim extraordinary powers in order to reinstate "liberty" -- undermining democratic institutions in the process, and thus the actual mechanisms that guarantee liberty.
In fact this is more or less exactly what happened with both Bush and Obama, and I'm pretty sure that the same thing would happen with Paul. His message is: "I will give you liberty" -- not "I will ensure that the institutional checks and balances which act as guarantors of liberty are maintained and reinforced". In fact he rarely shows anything other than contempt for those institutions. Therefore I do not believe he would be a friend of liberty.
I'm not sure how familiar you are with Paul's record but he's been a Congressman for 20+ years and has ALWAYS voted consistently. He was one of the three House Republicans who opposed the original PATRIOT Act. He consistently indicates that he will not use executive orders. He understands and has repeated that the president cannot take a country into war without a Congressional declaration of war first. He is constantly citing Constitutional provisions.
There is no reason to assume that Paul will turn evil as soon as he gets the Presidency. This is a different question from whether he will be able to be effective or not, and my belief is that he would not be able to do almost anything he wants to do, and that a Paul presidency would accelerate our plunge into chaos and anarchy, but I don't believe Paul himself would be corrupted and start ignoring the Constitutional stipulations on executive power.
"Rather less so if you happen to be female, non-white, or gay."
[citation needed]
You are way off base on this one and have nothing to back this up. Ron Paul has consistently been for every American. He is for repealing Roe v. Wade and allowing states to decide on abortion rights, he has been outspoken on the bias of prison sentences and the death penalty on minorities, and is against a federal mandate on marriage. Those positions are exactly contrarian to the ones you are attempting to assign to him.
I'm not sure why you think his understanding of economics is "loony" as he is the ONLY member of congress that predicted the housing collapse YEARS before it happened (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnuoHx9BINc)
Neither Bush nor Obama ever championed liberty. Ron Paul is a completely different animal. He isn't promising to GIVE you anything — he's promising to reduce government to get OUT of your life. Big difference.
I'm not even American, and I think I can safely speak for 99% of gay Americans when I say that the grandparent comment was right in saying Ron Paul is anti-gay.
Abortion rights... well from this side of the pond we think it's nutty that anyone in your country can want abortion to be illegal, literally crazy. But whatever your view, pro-choice can argue that they're fighting for woman's rights, pro-life cannot - you can argue you're fighting for the rights of babies, meaning it's an issue not relevant to whether Ron Paul is good for women.
In the past he has somehow tried to blame those sexually harrassed in the workplace for being sexually harrassed - something that is far more a women's issue than not.
Overall he's a far-right (shockingly not the furthest right thanks to batshit teapartyers) Republican. I get that there are Americans who agree with his views, but don't try and argue that his views on these topics are universally considered correct - even in America.
Without knowing much about Ron Paul, I was shocked to see you call Paul for females by repealing Roe vs Wade! Abortion should always be a womans own choice, not something the government should meddle with.
"""He's definitely pretty good on some civil liberty issues. Rather less so if you happen to be female, non-white, or gay."""
No candidate (actually, no party) really gives a f* if you "happen to be female, non-white, or gay". It's just a market niche they are milking, with the Democrats appealing to the "progressive" masses and the Republicans to the "conservative" ones.
In actuality they could not care less. Blacks, hispanics, women, gay, is not where the money (contributions, under the table, campaign funding, post-congress job waiting, etc) come from.
People voting with those issues in mind (either pro or against) are sucked into this false dichotomy.
I'd rather people voted for the ACTUAL issues, which mostly amount to FREEDOM, the ECONOMY, and FOREIGN POLITICS.
His attempts to use jurisdiction stripping to remove the First Amendment/Fourteenth Amendment restrictions on establishment of religion from applying to state and local government says otherwise.
I know you have your reasons to leave, but it makes me sad when the good people, the ones who could do something because they can see what's wrong, leave.
The US may be far from perfect, but it's important as a country founded upon the right ideas. If it crumbles, we all lose, regardless of where we live.
I disagree. I think that the good people should all make an effort to leave, because the sooner it crumbles, the sooner it can be rebuilt.
There's no un-ratcheting the loss of freedoms there. It no longer has basic liberties or the rule of law, and it's actively dangerous to anyone trying to bring about changes to that status.
I still believe smart people can make a difference. The real danger is a country ruled by bad ideas with a strong military. Believe me: it's easier to bring change from the inside.
I left in 2006 for two years. As a foreigner in East Asia, it felt freer in some ways. But I think that was a combination of one, perception and two, getting breaks as a foreigner. Foreigners are given slack because they aren't expected to know the small details of whats accepted and not. They expect we know the big goods and bads but not the small ones.
And then there was perception --just not being aware of what was allowed and not. I do recall people telling me that mocking the president was not allowed. Anyhow, I'm back and I feel ok. It could be better, idealistically, I suppose, but it's not as bad as it would seem, vis a vis other places.
It's not that it has become worse, it's just that all those crazy things that happened after 9/11 have become institutionalized and bureaucratically entrenched.
Good luck getting rid of stupid when stupid has a budget.
I have to say that from the inside, we don't look all that attractive any more, either. Do us a favor and boycott us loudly - money's the only thing our government actually understands.
If this gives you any solace, I'm planning to boycott the US for the near future.
Being French, I've always wanted to visit the US, and I'd love to come work / build a startup in the Silicon Valley. I'm really interested in American culture: I read mostly american books, and hang out on various English communities (reddit, HN, ...).
But, over the last few years, I've been following closely the various US policies (TSA, press freedom, wikileaks), and I have decided this country is not for me, at least for now. If I were to emigrate, I'd go to Germany or Canada, not the US.
That said, I might be biased by all the stories I see on Reddit...
I hope you change your mind about visiting the US, and the Silicon Valley in particular. If you're concerned about your safety or enjoyment while you're here, that's fine, but I wouldn't boycott the US to make a political statement. The strange minority of Americans who don't understand freedom aren't gonna get the message. Your boycott is gonna hurt the Americans who most want our country to be a diverse, welcoming place.
I highly recommend San Francisco in particular. We have a decent sized French expat population, and the city is fairly multi-cultural and liberal, even by European standards, I think. Once you arrive here, you're in driving range of stunning natural beauty--redwood forests, SF Bay, Yosemite National Park, Big Sur, etc.
Yeah don't pay too much attention to everything you read online. I mean it's all true--as well as annoying and frightening--but such politics and invasions of privacy are confined to a small aspect of a much, much larger, diverse, and interesting society. It's not like TSA agents are raiding our private homes, or quizzing us on the way to and from work (well, unless your work is of the traveling variety).
That's true, but is it really a good choice for me to continue living in the US, afraid to visit abroad and to thereby set myself up for the hassle of getting back in?
Keep in mind this is a sensationalist story. The TSA unfortunately consists of workers trained to follow procedures by the book and have no authority to use common sense. Luckily the only place you ever deal with them is at the airport and usually you'll just walk right on through.
This does not represent the people US who generally like tourists and will be delighted and impressed by your accent, and helpful to show you around our country. (Yes, even in New York City!) Don't be put off by a few assholes, unfortunately we have them here too.
To be clear, I was not blaming Americans for this. Most of them look to be great folks - it's their government that's starting to give me the heebie-jeebies.
I have relatives in the US since my mother is from Rhode Island and I find myself always putting off a visit because frankly the last time I was there the border patrol made my girlfriend cry. We were separated because we weren't yet married and she was quite aggressively questioned because she didn't know the exact trip details. I refuse to brief my loved ones for possible interrogation before a vacation.
I have to say that most of the time I've travelled into the US things have been perfectly fine. However, one time I got questioned about why I had travelled to Turkey so often and got questioned a lot about why I liked Turkey as a holiday destination - which afterwards seems a bit surreal but at the time was quite alarming.
It is actually pretty funny that they have a saved search for "Destroy America". Better watch what I say for the superbowl, don't want to talk about killing the patriots or anything...
After not one but two of my acquaintances have been detained and deported at the airport on trips to the US I can't really see myself ever daring to go there. Both are Muslim, they don't have any terrorist sympathies that I know about, and one of them is even very outspoken in his refutation of violent ideologies.
It's funny but I feel much more comfortable visiting China.
I was under the impression that it came from the government to the event organisers (who we were contracted by), but it's possible it was a list compiled by them based on their experiences (they were a South Korean company who had done a couple of Chinese events before).
The list itself was really short, it was more interesting for the fact that our video game streams would be watched closely and that we would get kicked out of the country, than for it's content.
We called it "the Ts", off the top of my head the banned words/topics were Taiwan (call it "Chinese Taipei"), Tiananmen, Tibet.. and there were two others, both (I think) beginning with the letter T.
Usually its the 3TF list, of Tibet, Taiwan, Tiananmen and Falun Gong. There are other occasional topical words that are added, such as early last year Jasmine, including Jasmine tea being banned and just before that in late 2010, references to the Nobel Peace Prize.
Refusal of access means that they'll never get in on the visa waiver program and any employment in the future that might be with a multi-national will be limited by their ability to travel. They just won't be able to enter the USA without going through an arduously long process every time.
I've been telling my friends for the longest time to moderate everything that they say on the internet, in private and in public. Little of it will be used in your favour, and all of it can and will be used against you.
It's not far from the way you would have to think if you were living under the Stasi. You'd have to think about how your public actions could be perceived, and you'd have to consider whether you trust any present parties for private actions.
The biggest difference between people today and people under the Stasi is the awareness of it. Those under the Stasi knew to change their actions.
The only thing to which these two are guilty of, is a failure to understand that this is not the world they thought it was.
I wholeheartedly agree with that XKCD comic. However the thing is... speaking openly and care free, accepting the consequences of your actions into the future.... those are things that you need to know you're doing.
That is: If you put your foot in it because you hold beliefs about the freedom of expression, then you do so knowingly. If you put your foot in it because you believe the world to be innocent, then you pay the price disproportionately.
I just don't think people should be innocent about the world around them and how it (their government, big business, everything) works.
Brings to mind forum flamewars and the like. I wonder how a community would evolve if the default post were a private reply, instead of a public one, or if public replies were throttled in some manner?
Also, sometimes I feel that working in a stack-ranked group encourages defecting behaviour.
I love to travel and visit the US frequently but it's not the end of the world if they don't get to come back to the US. There is a whole lot more of the world than America.
Really? Are you sure? They've never been before and it doesn't look like they'd even want to go after this. I haven't been to the US since 1999 and I don't feel screwed in any way shape or form.
Plenty of multi-nationals don't require you to travel to the states, even here in the UK. Travelling to the US is expensive, holding conference calls in the afternoon is much cheaper.
> It's not far from the way you would have to think if you were living under the Stasi.
You'll have to forgive me for finding this a little hyperbolic. Not as hyperbolic as I'd like, but still fairly hyperbolic.
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 their jobs rudely.
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.
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 apprehensive.
I also made sure my medical travel insurance was solid.
Now, maybe I live in a paranoid white-male bubble that reads about this stuff, and that informed my apprehension, but I personally think it would turn off many, many people from visiting.
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.
"Most people don't spend much time reading and fretting about the TSA online"
That's only true for countries under the U.S. Visa Waiver, which are maybe 5% of the world's population (basically European Union and Australia).
For the remaining 93% of us, we have to think long and hard and plan far ahead before visiting the U.S., and that means being aware of all the issues or risk deportation.
I decided not to visit America this year with my gf because of some recent horror stories from my friends. Instead we'll visit South Korea for a month.
I've actively avoided the U.S. even though I still want to go, because of those same issues.
I even was a few meters from the U.S. (Niagara Falls) and avoided going because of all the visa complications and expenses plus the security measures (if it had been a given I'd be accepted I would have gone, but they don't like young unattached people saying they want to do "tourism", they expect we'll want to stay).
French national who visited Canada a few months ago here. I crossed the US/CA border with only a small backpack ( I left my luggage at the bus station ) and the US border agents after the Rainbow Bridge where fun and welcoming.
It wasn't the case in SFO, after a 12 hours flight from Paris, the agent was OK but far from welcoming.
I have to apply for a visa, and at the time there was a significant chance of it being denied - and forget about being refunded, and chances of it being accepted after re-applying drop dramatically. So it isn't worth it.
I could probably be accepted for a visa now since I "settled down".
And Canadian customs and inmigration were very friendly, I don't doubt the U.S. people might be the same (though they did fingerprint my father the time he was there, and he reported a few not so friendly times, and he is a frequent visitor).
As I understand it, pre 9/11 air travel domestically in the USA was like hopping on a bus.
Europe had terrorist incidents involving planes long before 9/11. As a consequence air travel (domestic or international) had greater security checks but nowhere near the level we see now in America.
Here is the problem, no amount of security checks can guarantee that there will not be a terrorist incident on a plane.
Even accounting for 9/11, other terrorist incidents on airplanes and plane crashes, the likelihood of you being killed in one is very small.
But the politicians are faced with a decision, respect civil liberties and relax security to common sense levels or ratchet up security to ridiculous levels. If they do the first and a terrorist attack occurs they will get the blame.
Ultimately it is a risk problem, and it is the voters that need to tell those in charge that they understand the risk and won't blame the government for "not protecting them" if something bad happens to them.
> Has anyone done a study of how much this is damaging the tourism industry in the USA?
It has been reported here in Australia that the US tourism bureau (or whatever they are called) is very concerned about it. Numbers are way down over the last several years. They will be running an ad campaign this year
So, aside from the discussion around the journalistic standards of the Sun, now the Department of Homeland Security is monitoring the twitter accounts of British citizens?
Furthermore, how did DHS match up a twitter handle with a passport number?
That's the sort of discussion I'd love to hear. There's surprisingly little about the privacy ramifications here of somehow associating real people to an online account.
Granted, the tech exists. Google has been doing it for a while now. Anyone who's gotten the little "is this you?" thing when doing a search knows what I'm talking about.
I wonder how many false positives happen with these match ups. Or if the people in question could have just denied that they made the tweets.
This also makes me super freaked out about Google+'s real names policy, since it will literally be providing the United States Government with a massive surveillance network.
Facebook is much more lenient with fake names, and it's much less of a risk for a user to have a fake name on Facebook--all that get's deactivated with if a fake name gets caught is the Facebook account, not their Gmail or any other services.
True, if caught with a fake name, your @facebook.com e-mail will probably be deactivated, but not as many people use @facebook.com as do @gmail.com
I work for a US company in Europe and I'm seriously concerned about my security if and when the time comes for me to visit the company HQ. I'm a completely harmless person, but sometimes I look like a bearded pirate (arr!), my passport photo looks like I'm a recently escaped convict, I've ordered flight simulators and aviation maps with my credit card from the US and my police file mentions a short wrestling match with a police officer and some other encounters with the law. I've been involved in organizing underground music events and I've probably been photographed by security officials in political protests I've attended.
If people get locked down and refused entry based on a few tweets, I'm worried that my background check will get me a special four S treatment from airport security officials.
I would not consider going to the US for a vacation. Thankfully there are five other continents to visit.
I live in the US. Someone put me on a list of people who retweet wikileaks tweets and I'm concerned. Our policy towards visitors and immigrants has been increasingly hostile. Citizens get it a little better, but increasingly bad too.
Minor quibble with your last sentence:
> I would not consider going to the US for a vacation. Thankfully there are five other continents to visit.
Mexico, Canada, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, El Salvador, Honduras all share North America with the United States. And Antarctica is a continent too (7 total, not 6).
Antarctica isn't really a hot (no pun intended) vacation area. People go there to work and conduct research, but there's no hotels or resorts.
Besides Canada, the rest on your list don't scream "freedom" or "welcoming to foreigners" to me. I'm not saying Cuba isn't an interesting place to visit, but a Cuban vacation isn't really comparable to a US vacation in terms of sight-seeing and luxury.
Though as an American, my viewpoint of Cuba might be skewed. There's a lot of unwarranted and false anti-Cuban propaganda in this country, it makes it hard to tell the truth from the lies.
At the risk of coming off as crass and vulgar, Cuba is a shithole.
The food's terrible, smog in Havana is the worst I've seen anywhere (most cars don't have mufflers and are poorly tuned), the locals try to screw you over any chance they get (Beijing Tea Room type scams are commonplace, especially in bars - just don't talk to anyone who acts friendly and tries to bring you into a shop, and NEVER EVER accept local currency or any gifts), and the whole place is so dilapidated (except for the small touristy section of town) that it's amazing the buildings are still standing (most balconies in concrete buildings have long since collapsed). I watched in Trinidad as local workers dug up part of a cobblestone road, then filled it back with plain dirt. Most of the roads people have worked on are completely washed away from the rain (the ones they haven't touched are still fine).
You can have good food and a pleasant stay if you go to a resort, but then what's the point? You could be at any resort in the world and have the same cookie-cutter experience.
Oh, and if you do go, bring a currency OTHER than USD because the Cuban government controls all currency conversion, and trades USD at a severe disadvantage compared to other currencies.
If Costa Rica doesn't scream "freedom" and "welcoming to foreigners" to you, you haven't been paying attention to your continental neighbors. Mexico is great on most counts outside the border region, too. Even Guatemala and Nicaragua and Panama are quite welcoming.
Like I mentioned, the US has some pretty anti-Latin American bias. Everything shown in the media is either Sandals Resorts, Caribbean Cruise Lines, or jungles and warlords. People all around the world only know what they're taught or what they've seen first hand. Not many Americans have seen Latin America first-hand.
I have been to Panama, came in on a boat from Mexico. The advice I received in the port was to not set foot in the port in the first place and avoid law enforcement even if I got into trouble. Of course I received the same warning on the trip back to Mexico, so...
Like the whole system or not, America and their buddies do a pretty decent job of keeping street thugs to a minimum.
> the rest on your list don't scream "freedom" or "welcoming to foreigners" to me.
I'm guessing that's because of your own ignorance, not because of the places. Costa Rica is superb in terms of freedom, and almost all of those places are more welcoming to foreigners than the US. If you want luxury, México has first-class resorts.
I've been to some resorts in Mexico. I don't know if these are the kinds you're talking about, but they're basically the US confined within large walls to keep the natives out (unless they're working there). If I go to Germany, I expect to see a German resort. If I go to France, I expect to see a French resort. When I go to Mexico, I don't expect to see a US resort on a cheap plot of beach-front property.
If you're going to list Cuba and the Dominican Republic, you shouldn't leave out Jamaica and all the Lesser Antilles - I highly recommend visits to any of them!
Well looks like your company cannot send you to the USA. After all, if you were a gay person married to someone of the same gender and your multinational employer wanted to send you to the office in Saudi Arabia, then you should have the right to refuse.
Likewise, you have an perfectly valid excuse why you cannot go the USA.
Just for anyone unfamiliar with thesun news paper. They are the paper that goes out with the sole intention of polluting a story with utter crap just to fuel drama and sell more papers.
They are the by far the worst paper owned by the Murdoch empire and is an embarrassment to the whole of the UK.
Anything written by the Sun can be discarded as total balls. </end rant>
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 jokes. They're so insanely benign, they must have been created for the sole purpose of harmlessness.
This is true. I guess non of us can share timely reports of what we had for breakfast in case we ever have to travel to the US. Best to avoid a such a terrorist-affiliated site.
> Where did they get the pictured Homeland Security report if HS "declined to comment"?
Good point. Though fabricating imagery like that is so much par for the course for Sun that it doesn't tell much about the truthfulness of the rest of the story.
Similarly, that photo isn't necessarily them either.
And perhaps neither their names ...
You know maybe you're right :-)
As a story though, it's completely plausible. In most countries customs you can get in serious trouble for joking about bombs. Adjust that for America's larger-than-life paranoia culture and tweeting about "destroying America" (not even a real threat) is a perfectly logical thing for them to get all worked up about.
I think it's important to respect people's cultural norms, even if we do not understand them. Just like you wouldn't order a glass of milk during an Italian business lunch.
(They get seriously offended if you do that and no I don't know why)
I knew a version from Voltaire which goes like this: "give me one sentence from anyone and I'll have him hanged."
Of course if it comes from Richelieu it's more interesting since he actually could have people hanged, their castles destroyed, their properties confiscated, etc.
That reminds me of a story of a relative, who was working in a local German bank (Sparkasse). They were screening the text on money transfers (Überweisung) for words like "anthrax". I couldn't believe that they had such an order.
serves them right for putting up stupid comments like that on a public site where the world can see
At least the yanks have got it right.
If that was here, it would be completly different... they would be welcome even more with a brass band waiting for them at arrivals with hand outs, benefits and housing all sorted for them
Perhaps if they spoke or 'tweeted' to each other in proper English...........................
Or is it just me getting old? : )
No doubt that Twitter has replaced Facebook as THE medium for proving yourself to be a prime CHUMP....
How are Americans supposed to know that its British Slang. They did the right thing by detaining them as they believed they were a threat. The problem is that since Facebook, Twitter etc, people enter their whole lives on the internet, when 99.999999% of people really dont care. Its acutally good to see that America's Security is high that two ordinary brummies saying something on Twitter was picked up and they were questioned about it. Wish Britain had that kind of security.
Twitter/Facebook is not private, its public. Get some common sense people.
serves them right, the bloody idiots. what kind of morons post those kinds of statements ?
After the amount of people who died on 9/11, of course they are twitchy when it comes to intercepting perceived threats. Terrorist don't come with a big sign on their head! So if a couple of idiots who thought it was funny to 'joke' about destroying someone’s country on a 'public' network lose their holiday that's hard luck, but the US probably feel that, better safe than sorry, is the more important option. Not really for us to preach when we can't even deport those we know to be a threat!
Very specific? The sun "has ... the largest circulation of any daily newspaper in the United Kingdom" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun_%28United_Kingdom%29) Looks like the specific audience you are talking about is the majority of the population.
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.
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.
It wasn't a joke. It was commonly used terminology to describe going somewhere to "party". They could have written that they were going to "rock America". This wouldn't have meant that they were going to start an earthquake.
I have no idea what the fuck is going on here. Comments on here are similar to what you'd find on reddit. The story is exactly the kind of thing you'd find on reddit.
I am not really familiar with the Sun, but people here on HN seem to dismiss the story as a hoax because it's featured on the this website/newspaper. Can anyone please clarify what's its reputation and why should it be mistrusted? Thanks.
I wouldn't go as far as to say that the Sun makes stuff up... but they certainly don't question a "good story" as much as they should and seem to print almost everything at face value. It's the kind of paper that has sensationalist headlines about pederasts on the front page, topless pics of barely legal girls on page 3 and no sense of irony.
This particular article falls into the Jingoism style articles that the Sun is famous for. It's readers are, by and large, xenophobic bigots obsessed with reality TV and C-List celebrities.
They're the closest thing with have to Fox News here in the UK, (that's no coincidence as it's owned by Newscorp) and as such, articles in the Sun about other countries should be given the same level of credence you would give Bill O'Riley's comments about anything.
Other british tabloids you would do well to dismiss entirely out of hand are
- The Mail
- The Mirror
- The Express
- The Sport (often hilarious)
Unfortunately, a lot of the US media doesn't seem to be aware of this. There was an amusing incident a while back where Wired had an article claiming that the British government was installing CCTVs in peoples' houses to watch their parenting. There source for this nonsense was that most reliable of papers, the Express.
The Sun is famous for headlines like "Freddie Starr ate my hamster" and "Werewolf seized in Southend". The American equivalent would be something like the National Enquirer.
Sister paper to the News of the World (home of the "phone hacking") and home of Page 3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_Three (photos of topless glamour models).
For one, it published claims (later discredited) that football hooligans were partially responsible for the Hillsborough disaster, where mistakes in crowd control led to almost 100 deaths and 800 injuries among supporters of Liverpool F.C.; sales of The Sun are measurably lower in Liverpool to this day because of that story.
If the TSA were taking decisions based on actual threats and threat vectors you'd see very different behaviors and structures. As they aren't, they lack any proper standard to avoid stupidity like this.
The only surprising thing about this story is that it made the papers.
US immigration officials have always taken a hard line on visitors. I had a very similar experience several years before 9/11 when I was denied entry because they suspected that I MIGHT be intending to marry my then-girlfriend (a US citizen and now ex-girlfriend).
Often, when I've related my story, I've heard similar first-hand accounts of travelers being accused of trying to smuggle in drugs, etc. for no apparent reason and being denied entry, interrogated or worse. Any flimsy pretext seems sufficient. I don't know if the officials need to fill quotas or if they are trying to set examples. I'm sure some are on a power trip but in my case they seemed decent people, just determined not to be swayed by evidence or common sense.
As much as I like America (and it's people in particular) I have no desire to return.
This is extremely unpleasant given the vast reach of US authorities worldwide, let alone just for entry into the US.
Someone could ruin your life based on just your name just by impersonating you or simply having the same name on social networking while acting in some way an authority finds offensive, even if you yourself have never used it!
It would seem you are actually safer to be the first to create closed and private accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, of your actual name - even when you never ever want to give out your private information, including your name, and will never use the accounts.
This story really shocked me. That's a tweet I could easily imagine myself sending. I would seriously think twice before making a trip to America now. And with the recent stories about the FBI developing software to monitor social media I can only imaging this getting worse.
It's stupid things like this that have kept me from travelling to the US for work or conferences since 2003. I've actively avoided them. Unfortunately, we'll probably have to attend a wedding in NY next year but I'm not looking forward to the experience
I don't know what else to say then people like those border agents and the incredible stupidity they seem to posses are a bigger danger to humanity than anyone else could ever be.
It's so ridiculous that it's not even funny anymore and I for one will not conduct business with, nor visit the US before things change for the better there.
They have to treat their own people better as well as visitors, not only the rich.
I know there are still worse countries, but only just, and it's never a good thing to measure oneself against bad examples.
Even if this story is accurate, which is unlikely, the righteous indignation of the comments here is even more pathetic. The U.S is like China and Russia, please. That is an insult to people actually living in oppression. Maybe do something productive instead.
In an interview with Anthony Bourdain (Vice Guide to Travel) he mentioned that even in North Korea he is less worried about being picked up by authorities (than criminals). It usually just ends in deportation.
It's very easy to blow off incidents like this with a 'not much harm done' attitude. The truth is that a paranoia and senselessness from authority is what makes a regime like Russia or China and the US is quickly going in that direction.
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.
No doubt USA remains way better than many other countries. But that isn't what people are complaining about. It is the paranoia taking away a way of life that everyone seemed to like, even people (like me) who live outside the US.
The first time I visited the US (this was after 9/11), I was surprised to see the extent of security checks at airports. In my mind, I had notions of people getting into airplanes like they get into a buses or trains. Now there were lots of armed security, queues, list of things not to do. And I had no clue why elderly women were getting frisked.
I stood wondering what would have happened if they just did away with these checks. If the money and time saved could be put into health care, it would have saved way more lives than would be lost in terrorist attacks. And people could have generally had a better time.
Maybe it's time to differ from hivemind here. I should make clear that I cherish my right as an American, which I exercise liberally at home and abroad, to criticize the American government in general. I also like to call out specific elected or appointed officials (for example, the President, whoever he is each term) any time I think they are making mistakes. Participants on Hacker News who are also my Facebook friends know that I am not in the least bit shy about expressing political opinions contrary to those of the United States federal government leaders or those of my state government. That said, I think a foreign national kidding around about a trip in which he or she will "destroy America" shouldn't be surprised to be questioned about that by law enforcement officers. I have traveled to other countries, and have lived in another country as a long-term resident, and I don't express to cross a border without someone from the other country checking me out to see if I will obey the laws while I am in their country.
As a more general statement contrary to the main thrust of comments here, I have no fear that the United States of America will lose out on immigrants or business visitors any time soon. Any time here on Hacker News that we have a thread about United States visa policies, dozens of participants complain that they wish it was easier to come to the United States to do business, to visit, or to settle permanently. The United States is still a huge draw to people from all over the world, as I was especially aware when I lived in an international dormitory with students from all over the globe in another country. The rate of immigration to the United States has ups and downs, with the downs coming especially at times when the United States economy is in depression or recession, but on the whole the United States is one of the few countries in the world that still count on sustained, large, long-term population growth from net immigration alone, even if the rate of natural increase falls below replacement levels. (And it could be argued that the below-replacement birth rates of many countries are parents' expression of little hope for their countries' futures, as they are not even willing to have children in those countries. The United States still has an above-replacement birth rate and thus also enjoys natural increase in population.)
So, yes, let's criticize the United States whenever any liberties of persons in the United States are curtailed, but let's be realistic about where else people can travel and kid around about socially harmful or illegal behavior. If one is to leave the United States for more freedom, where would one go? (Fewer examples have been named in other comments than I would have expected, so far.) Considering ALL the trade-offs, which places are really, truly plainly better places to live than the United States? Which places are better to visit for tourism?
I don't think you get the point here. This story is not about US denying entry to two delayed teenagers wanting to get drunk on holiday. It's about US customs looking like idiots over what is obviously a joke.
You're talking about how it's perfectly fine for a country to ask you questions and make sure you don't intend to break any laws while you're visiting. And how US won't suffer from a lack of tourists and immigrants. I'm telling you that's not the problem here: the problem is we're more and more inclined to look at Americans as idiots by extension. I checked twice while reading the article that it's not on Onion - I did not expect the first comment here to be from somebody saying basically "we don't care about 'them foreigners, they shouldn't come if they don't like it".
Of course, we don't know all the facts. I'm inclined to guess that when the customs officials talked to them they found independent reasons to deny entry, but either they kept them confidential or simply they wouldn't make such a good story.
I apologize for using the word "idiot". It is not meant as a personal insult, but to express what this article makes non-americans feel about this kind of stories. I definitely do not mean to use it as an insult here, so please do not take it as such.
While I understand your concern about foreign travelers, I think you are a bit naive in defending acts of your border security. It should concern you that these people have absolute authority to perform any search and seizures at their whims, and also can deny entry to anyone. Legally, a US citizen cannot be denied entry, but they will use any possible power they have (which is vast) to keep you out of your country if they want to. [1] All in name of freedom. So watch out next time you use your freedom of speech while returning to your own country.
US is still a country of nice people, and my interaction with border official has been nothing but pleasant. Although there is a lot more security theater than when travelling to other countries, the officials from TSA, CBP and other agencies have been courteous and professional. However, it would still be a bad idea if you think that denying entry on jokes is fine.
As to your claims of US being #1 in freedom and no place for anyone else to go, I am pretty sure that countries in Europe will be more receptive to your entry even after all your jokes, because they usually don't pretend to have a security theater to "protect" themselves from "terrorists".
Considering ALL the trade-offs, which places are really, truly plainly better places to live than the United States?
My sister left Minnesota for Australia 7 years ago and lives down the street from the beach, it's sunny 300 days a year, temp never below 50 degrees. She makes 2.5x what she did in the USA for the same job, only has to work 4 days a week, husband makes six figures as a tradesmen, family gets paid $5K whenever she has a kid, mandated 18 weeks of maternity and PATERNITY leave, government supported superannuation retirement fund, free health care, and savings accounts are getting 6%. Politics are mainly an afterthought, taking up little time on the news and almost never a divisive topic in daily conversation. There's very little religious influence; you're never in a situation where "because the bible said so" is considered a serious argument. She's surrounded by "mate-y" people who take friendship seriously and invite neighbors over for BBQ, and you can get an excellent cappuccino even from the guy in the trailer set up next to the construction site.
While I agree with what you're saying, I think that the main issue here is that the US does not have a sense of humor. This is a major disappointment for upcoming comics hoping for a cushy job with the Fed.
Seriously though, what they said was stupid, and obviously not protected speech (if said here in the US), but it seems a bit overzealous to ban them from the country based on a bad joke. This, to me, seems analogous to those unfortunate people who mention 'bomb' or something while in line at the TSA - usually saying something to the effect of, 'I really can't take my cupcake through security? It's not like it's a bomb or something.' I think that we should be spending our resources dealing with serious threats, not people with a poor sense of humor.
Considering ALL the trade-offs, which places are really, truly plainly better places to live than the United States?
I haven't been to the United States since 1999. However I have been to a lot of other places, some good, some bad and I can honestly say that most of Canada seems to be fine, albeit a little colder than most of the US. The UK (although I'm biased, as I live here) has a lot to offer while still being culturally close enough to the US. Australia is a wonderful country far better than most, but culturally somewhat coarser than the US. New Zealand is also good and slightly more reserved than Australia.
Outside of that I've had good experiences in the Netherlands (lots of English spoken too if languages aren't your thing), Spain, France and Turkey (aside from the actual bombings that happen relatively often without the government losing it's shit, but then the government losing it's shit and doing stupid stuff like trying to block youtube). I would say that Greece is probably not a good place to go right now which is a shame as it's a lovely place.
Australia and Turkey both have fairly good economies, Canada's not doing too badly either on that front. The UK has a thriving tech/hacker community in most major cities and while the economy is shaky London's still a great place in Europe to launch a startup.
Which places are better to visit for tourism?
Again, I only have limited experience of America and it's caught in a bubble from two decades ago. My memories of America are incredibly friendly, wonderful people, good service in restaurants, everything being too big (from portion sizes to highways to the distances between things) and some really impressive modern art and culture.
Canada I'd highly recommend but it isn't that different (although Montreal is wonderful and Vancouver is great too, although I've never been to Seattle so I don't know how similar it is). Anywhere you go in Europe you're going to find history, art and all kinds of stuff.
The UK is a great place for Americans to go on holiday, as is France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Italy. London and Edinburgh offer a host of things to see and do, and places like the Brecon Beacons offer the most amazing walks.
If you were to go to Istanbul I promise you an experience unlike anything you will have ever seen, heard, smelt or tasted in a 3,000 year old city that's seen earthquakes, ransackings, churches, minarets and wars over time.
The catacombs in Paris are really something else, although I always tell people to ditch the Louvre and head to Montmartre for fine French culture from la belle epoque.
Bavaria has the most amazing mountain air and there's a whole load of beautiful walks through Ludwig II's old garden, not to mention the beer and food.
Andalucia in Spain offers incredible history, art, food and fiesta from bullfighting and tapas in Seville to the Mesquita in Cordoba and the Al Hambra in Granada. Barcelona is one of the most laid back beautiful cities I've ever seen with wonderful people.
Of course all this is academic. You asked a set of questions at best seeking validation that the US is the best place in the world or an opportunity to challenge it. If I hadn't made a conscious decision not to go to the US while the DHS and TSA still stand (foolishly believing it'd all be sorted out in a few years) then I wouldn't have seen half of these places. Sure I'd have seen New York, Vegas, LA and maybe a few other places but would I trade that for Paris, Barcelona and London? Tough call to make, each to their own I guess.
Perhaps, but it's a reasonable way to catch mentally unstable people acting out crazy fantasies... Such people might actually post their plans on twitter.
What if authorities cannot distinguish between such utterances and bad jokes? (Obviously they can't)
I think, many people would change the way they communicate, if a single silly tweet can have legal consequences or even can destroy their lives.
unfortunately i cant read this title as my Block Murdoch extension wont allow it :-) But free speech is dead along with the right to protest and next will be political freedom
Truthfully, I wouldn't have expected this from America, they're the kind of jokes I could imagine myself making on Twitter, but will be careful not to before future trips there..
This is pretty much what I think of when going to China, and what makes me specially careful not to say anything the Chinese could take as a threat. Heh, last time I went we were doing some IPTV streaming from an event, and where given a list of words which, if anyone said on air, would have us all deported within hours.
edit: To people complaining about The Sun - yes, it's a crappy rag, but this is basically a story that no news outlet would hear of unless the people involved sold/gave their story, and there's no reason they wouldn't go to The Sun, where they could reasonably expect to get a little more $$$ than if they went to the BBC.