The thread on airport scanners reminded me of a story I read online this past week.
A "gentleman" now living in Melbourne, Australia, spent 6 years at Columbia university in New York. During the student demonstrations at Columbia in 2024 he wrote a number of blog posts about the protests. While he stated that they were middle of road in a political sense, and fair, what recently happened to him has to cast some doubt on that statement.
He recently returned to the U.S. on holiday to catch up with friends on New York. 48 hours before he flew he decided to "sanitise" his social media accounts, which included deleting his posts about the Columbia protests. He was careful to have all the required documentation for his visit.
On arrival in the U.S. he is standing in line at immigration when his name is called over the PA, directing him to a point in the arrivals hall where he is met by a US Border agent. He is taken into a room and interviewed for about 10 hours, during which his interviewer tells him that he not only read his blog posts, but he has printed copies of the now deleted, and obviously offending, blogs.
He is denied a phone call home to his mother, only being allowed to phone his consulate/embassy, who passed on a message to the Australian Foreign Affairs department who contacts his mother. She in turn is quoted as saying to the reporter who wrote this story that there was no reason for him to be denied entry to the U.S.
The end result of the encounter at the U.S. Border was the person was detained for a little more than 12 hours and placed on a return flight to Australia. He stated that he should simply have volunteered to get straight on a return flight instead of allowing access to his electronic devises. My view on the whole matter is that this guy is what we, down under, call a "muppet". He made those blog posts with no thought as to any consequences, and so deserved not being allowed to re-enter the U.S.
Karma.
A "gentleman" now living in Melbourne, Australia, spent 6 years at Columbia university in New York. During the student demonstrations at Columbia in 2024 he wrote a number of blog posts about the protests. While he stated that they were middle of road in a political sense, and fair, what recently happened to him has to cast some doubt on that statement.
He recently returned to the U.S. on holiday to catch up with friends on New York. 48 hours before he flew he decided to "sanitise" his social media accounts, which included deleting his posts about the Columbia protests. He was careful to have all the required documentation for his visit.
On arrival in the U.S. he is standing in line at immigration when his name is called over the PA, directing him to a point in the arrivals hall where he is met by a US Border agent. He is taken into a room and interviewed for about 10 hours, during which his interviewer tells him that he not only read his blog posts, but he has printed copies of the now deleted, and obviously offending, blogs.
He is denied a phone call home to his mother, only being allowed to phone his consulate/embassy, who passed on a message to the Australian Foreign Affairs department who contacts his mother. She in turn is quoted as saying to the reporter who wrote this story that there was no reason for him to be denied entry to the U.S.
The end result of the encounter at the U.S. Border was the person was detained for a little more than 12 hours and placed on a return flight to Australia. He stated that he should simply have volunteered to get straight on a return flight instead of allowing access to his electronic devises. My view on the whole matter is that this guy is what we, down under, call a "muppet". He made those blog posts with no thought as to any consequences, and so deserved not being allowed to re-enter the U.S.
Karma.
