Root and branch

[pecunium]

Someone asked me why, since Bush is out of office, I'm still riding the torture hobby-horse.

I'm doing it because it still needs doing, because evil practices don't just wither away, they have to be torn out, root and branch; and the best time to get that done is when you have someone sympathetic to your desires in office (that's how the peple who like torture, and all the other trappings of police state the Bush Administration installed did it).

Which is why shit like the US Border Agents pulling someone out of a car and, by all reports, beating him, pepper spraying him, arresting him and then charging him with assualting a federal officer.

This is the report that went out:

Peter, a Canadian citizen, was on his way back to Canada after helping a friend move house to Nebraska over the weekend. He was stopped at the border crossing at Port Huron, Michigan by U.S. border police for a search of his rental vehicle. When Peter got out of the car and questioned the nature of the search, the gang of border guards subjected him to a beating, restrained him and pepper sprayed him. At the end of it, local police laid a felony charge of assault against a federal officer against Peter. On Wednesday, he posted bond and walked across the border to Canada in shirtsleeves (he was released by Port Huron officials with his car and possessions locked in impound, into a winter storm that evening). He's home safe. For now. But he has to go back to Michigan to face the charge brought against him.

That's the DHS, in all its twisted glory. Why were they searching a vehicle going out of the country? What probable cause did they have? Why the overreaction (and don't try to tell me he must have, "provoked them." Contempt of cop is often less than smart; not because it's illegal, but because cops have the power to do shit like this, and then file CYA charges like these).

Read the last bit again, describing his release, On Wednesday, he posted bond and walked across the border to Canada in shirtsleeves. Weds, the 8th of December, walked, in his fucking shirtsleeves. I don't care if he did do it (which, from people I trust seems damned unlikely, to the point of non-credible), that's criminal behavior. The weather there today (1300, warmest part of the day) is 18F/-8C. He was released in the middle of the night.

What did he do? I don't know. I'd guess he asked them what they were doing. He may not have been adequately deferential. He's tall. That's probably all it took. The cop felt nervous, and went off. No, I don't have all the "facts".

Rather what I have is a good understanding of cops, and a serious lack of faith in the honesty of DHS, and the organisations it swallowed. This one is getting a fair bit of play. That's good for Peter, but what of all the other people, the one's who don't have a lot of people (and friends of those people, like me) willing, or able, to make a stink?

If we assume, arguendo, that (irrespective of how it ended) what started this was an honest query about the legitimacy of the search, then this is a time to stand up and be counted; because Peter Watts did. Someone has to have the courage to look authority in the eye and challenge it. To force the powers that are to justify themselves. We like ot say we have a system where the people who are in charge are answerable to the people they are governing.

That only works when the governed refuse to act like sheep.

He has a legal defense fund. If you were considering buying a calendar, want to buy a photo, or even just thinking of sending me a little lagniappe (and I know a lot more of that sort of thing is thought about then done), don't, send the money Peter's way.

There's a donaton link on his website to The Niblets Memorial Fund, for the moment that's the working method to get money to him (because coming back to the states to defend himself isn't going to be cheap).

For other links (with more detail)

Dr. Peter Watts Arrested (Boing Boing)

Please, Please Help (Emma Bull)

Peter Watts, distinguished Canadian SF writer, arrested by US border police while trying to re-enter Canada (Making Light)

(UPDATE: I do have his version of events: In an alternate universe Along some other timeline, I did not get out of the car to ask what was going on. I did not repeat that question when refused an answer and told to get back into the vehicle. In that other timeline I was not punched in the face, pepper-sprayed, shit-kicked, handcuffed, thrown wet and half-naked into a holding cell for three fucking hours, thrown into an even colder jail cell overnight, arraigned, and charged with assaulting a federal officer, all without access to legal representation (although they did try to get me to waive my Miranda rights. Twice.). Nor was I finally dumped across the border in shirtsleeves: computer seized, flash drive confiscated, even my fucking paper notepad withheld until they could find someone among their number literate enough to distinguish between handwritten notes on story ideas and, I suppose, nefarious terrorist plots. I was not left without my jacket in the face of Ontario’s first winter storm, after all buses and intercity shuttles had shut down for the night.

In some other universe I am warm and content and not looking at spending two years in jail for the crime of having been punched in the face.

Comments

[michiexile]

And people wonder, repeatedly, why I keep on caring so much about immigrations issues and border control issues in the US.

People wonder, repeatedly, why I keep on watching what I say, what I do, and am hypersensitive to the mere possibility of doing anything that might be illegal. Or restricted to non-nationals.

This is why. I rely in my life, and in my profession, on being able to cross the US border without fearing the process. I rely on being able to do it relatively often. And I keep reading news stories that destroy any sense of security I before.

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

i was going to link to icedrake's post here but it looks like you have the same sources.

this is fucked up times infinity.
those guards need to go DOWN.

[texaslawchick.livejournal.com]

Well, I guess the good news is that this hopefully will stop the flow of Canadians coming over here for healthcare because their lines are too long. Anti-reform types tell me about them all the time. :rolleyes:


Seriously, that's severely, severely screwed up. I'm really glad that he has a very large network that can tell his account of things and draw proper attention to the beating and arrest. I suspect that his is not the only such story. I hope the DA realizes the impending shit-storm and drops charges before this gets to be a bigger ordeal than it already has been for him.

[saxifrage00.livejournal.com]

To be fair, there are times that we Canadians have to go south of the border for health care, but they are very rare and usually a matter of life and death.

The hospital system here has a cooperation agreement with hospitals in the States. When our son was born very premature (a matter of life and death), there was a chance that we'd be sent to Seattle if our local hospitals' Neonatal ICUs ran out of staffable beds. Thank goodness we weren't though, because shit like this is why I refuse to cross the border of my own free will.

Notably, though, if we had been sent south our government care would have paid for the exorbitant US hospital costs 100%. They don't do it unless necessary, because either way out gov't pays the bill and the absolute cost of a hospital stay there is much more than here.

All that said, US hospitals send people north, too, when we have beds for ASAP emergency care and they don't. It's just an ethical way to operate a hospital.

More on-topic, I do hope this becomes an international relations incident. I'm not holding out much hope because the Harper government is happy to bend over for the US on pretty much everything, but I still hope.

[aitchellsee.livejournal.com]

Terry, you might want to check your tags on this post again.

This is not the USA I was taught about at school in the '50s (of course, I was white, middle-class, and 8 years old when JFK was elected, so there was a lot about my country I didn't know back then). Still, this is not my USA.

[michiexile]

But is it a well-poised state or a well-policed state he typoed? ;-)

[ruthless1.livejournal.com]

I've posted this to facebook. Hopefully that will get the word out. This is just disgusting. And very unsettling to think it's not really get much press.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

It just hit the National Post. But *don't* read the comments:


http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/afterword/archive/2009/12/11/canadian-sci-fi-author-beaten-imprisoned-at-us-border-crossing.aspx

[charisstoma.livejournal.com]

Actually the comments were interesting. They are what you'd expect, I guess.

I did agree that it would have been nice if they had done their own write up and checking of the facts themselves instead of a reprint of the other media's post. It would lend more strength to the reporting of an event that needs looking into and correcting.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I have to admit I *would* like the whole story. (For instance, some reports mentioned "a witness in his car". I'd like to hope said witness would corroborate the story so we have more arguments against doubters, and also that the person was able to get across the border and mobilize some help so Peter didn't have to spend too long on foot in his shirtsleeves. Canadian winters are killing.)

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I am reminded of this:

Now, on a practical, day to day level, it's hard to argue that being argumentative with a cop is a dangerous thing. They have guns. They can arrest you and can cost you your freedom if they want to do it badly enough. They can often get away with doing violence on you and suffer no consequences. You are taking a risk if you provoke someone with that kind of power, no doubt about it.

Indeed, it is very little different than exercising your right of free speech to tell a gang of armed thugs to go fuck themselves. It's legal, but it's not very smart. But that's the problem isn't it? We shouldn't have to make the same calculations about how to behave with police as we would with armed criminals. The police are supposed to be the good guys who follow the rules and the law and don't expect innocent citizens to bow to their brute power the same way that a street gang would do. The police are not supposed wield what is essentially brute force on the entire population.

B

[charisstoma.livejournal.com]

Yes. You speak both sane expectation and realistic life.
I appreciate and support most of the law enforcement people I have met in my everyday life. Some are friends, some were relatives at one time but I also treat most of them like one would an angry person at a domestic disturbance call. Carefully.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

We shouldn't have to make the same calculations about how to behave with police as we would with armed criminals. The police are supposed to be the good guys who follow the rules and the law and don't expect innocent citizens to bow to their brute power the same way that a street gang would do.

This is what I try to explain to my brother, the cop.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I'm working on an essay on the topic, but Digby said it so well.

B

[mcduff.livejournal.com]

Someone asked me why, since Bush is out of office, I'm still riding the torture hobby-horse.

Is "because the Obama administration hasn't repudiated torture" not a good enough answer?

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

It's the answer I give. (This is relevent and well-written.)

B

(frozen) No Sympathy

[willysnout.livejournal.com]

Watts is an asshole. He had it coming. He's lucky they didn't break his arm. I would have. He was stopped at the border for a screening. He decided to be a pissant about it. Tough shit, Peter.

(frozen) Re: No Sympathy

[prodigal.livejournal.com]

The only asshole where this matter is concerned is anyone who defends the abuses of power the border guards committed.

(frozen) Re: No Sympathy

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

Goodness. You're very tough and manly, oh yes you are. And not at all afraid to express yourself!

So, as long as we're being all outspoken and honest here, did he actually steal your woman, or is it his brain you hate him for? Did you attempt to express your charmingly incoherent political philosophy to him sometime and get blown off? Or do you just have generalised uncontrollable urges to share your little fantasies about uniformed violence with the world?

Well, now you have, and we're all terribly impressed. Possibly not the way you were hoping, admittedly.

(frozen) Re: No Sympathy

[lyorn.livejournal.com]

Watts is an asshole.

Did he steal your toys in kindergarten?

(frozen) Re: No Sympathy

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I'm freezing this; people who want to comment may do so in the comments of the post about it.