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Comment by golergka | Hacker News Reader

> Harassing

Honest question: how is stopping someone for 15 minute of polite questioning is "harassing"?

It doesn't matter for how long you are being stopped. Being suspected to be a terrorist just because you look vaguely Muslim (that was probably the other factor apart from the book) can be a shocking and live-changing experience. It tells you that you are not seen as a part of mainstream society in your home country (the woman is British). Given the HN demographics you are probably a white American male, so you probably never got into this situation and never will.

I am from Prague, worked in Ireland for many years. I was detained on UK airports for about 20 hours in total.

Just because you've decided to accept your treatment, doesn't make it right.

Let's say the police made a point of stopping all HN commenters whose usernames end in "a" for a polite 15-minute chat. Would you find this to be acceptable?

So, you call it "harassment" not because of nature of the action, but because of the reason behind the action?

Of course. If the police stop and question you because they think you just killed a guy, that's completely reasonable. If they stop and question you because they don't like your hair, that's harassment.

Thanks for your reply.

So, if you're being questioned but don't know why, it means that you don't know if you're being harassed or not?

And if you don't find out the reaso later (as it usually happens with security checks), this episode goes down as Shroedinger cat of harrasments in your life story?

Yes. Sort of like if you keep bumping into the same guy at the grocery store, you don't know if you're being stalked or if it's just a wacky coincidence.

For a more prominent example, every time a black American gets stopped for some minor traffic violation, he has to wonder if it's a legitimate stop, or if the officer actually pulled him over for Driving While Black, and whatever offense he came up with is just an excuse.

Unwanted attention from someone who won't take "leave me alone" for an answer normally counts, even in a situation where the target is allowed to walk out and knows that nobody involved in the unwanted attention is armed, even if the target knew for a fact in advance that the attention would end in 10 minutes.

And you don't think that police officers should be an exception to that definition?

If they have reasonable suspicion that a crime happened or is about to, sure. However, reading a book other than, say, _How to hijack an airplane_ isn't that.

Polite questioning? You were there? Can you provide more details, please?

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