Hacker News Reader

Comment by muzz | Hacker News Reader

It happened in December. What is the relevance of who was President at the time?

At least in New York, there are many Democrats campaigning on an anti-Trump platform. They use stories like this to justify their candidacy. Recognising that they did nothing about these issues is informative for primary coördination and voting.

What's your take on the story?

It shows a hole in our rule of law. There's a case in front of SCOTUS, Hernández vs. Mesa, exploring the Constitutional protection of foreign nationals at the U.S. border [1]. In 2010, an unarmed fifteen-year-old Mexican boy was shot in the head by a U.S. Border Patrol agent. The boy was in a culvert jointly patrolled by the U.S. and Mexico, but officially, the agent was in the United States and the boy in Mexico.

This more proximate story profiles a single U.S. Customers and Border Protection agent traversing the personal and sensitive data of a minority (by sexual orientation) citizen of a friendly nation. The agent wields sole and arbitrary power to detain, question, seize and arrest. And he does so with impunity. (Our government declined to prosecute Jesus Mesa, Jr., from Hernández vs. Mesa, despite him having made up claims of the victim throwing rocks at him, later disproven.)

We're on Hacker News, so instead of depressed drivel I'll suggest a solution. We need legal insurance for the U.S. border crossing. Get extrajudicially harassed by a numpty? Your monthly fee covers a competent lawyer. (Maybe use the AirHelp model [2]--you only pay if they succeed.) We also need rapid data exfiltration and reintroduction techniques. Wiping my iPhone and Mac, traversing the border, and then hoping my Internet on the other side is fast (and secure) enough to reload my apps and data within a day isn't reasonable.

[1] http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Cross-b...

[2] https://www.airhelp.com/en/

What I don't understand in the Hernández case is why Mesa apparently hasn't been investigated/charged by the Mexican authorities?

He has. The US refused to extradite him.

The monthly fee thing sounds a bit much for visitors.

If there is a way to quickly get the data back on they can ask the password for that service or refuse you entry.

So we pay numpties to harass people, and then pay lawyers to harass the numpties for doing their jobs?

I'll give you credit, it's a very American solution.

Because there are good indications that it's going to get a lot worse.

The President has significant influence on how border security is conducted, as evidenced by the recent effect of Trump's executive order which has been covered extensively in the news. Many/most readers will associate this event with Trump.

Incidentally, how do we know when this event happened? The photo is labeled December, but its essentially a stock photo.

It says in the article:

"he was going through Customs preclearance at Vancouver airport last October"

Thanks! I ctrl-f'ed for Dec through Feb :)

The faces change, but the game stays the same. That's the salient point here IMO.

Why is that? Who is behind it?

The DHS under the direction of the President. Are you suggesting that the US needs looser border controls and screening?

It needs more competent screening.

Good luck getting that when all they do is grab low hanging fruit from publicly available social media.

Anyone who is truly a problem will use a burner and spend 10 minutes creating fake social media accounts that are harmless.

The US has very inconsistent border controls and screening. On one hand, people arriving from wealthy countries at airports get hassled, on the other hand, there isn't any exit border control (I hear that's changing). So they don't even know who left or not. Sanctuary cities for illegal immigrants exist. Employers don't need to verify identity. None of it is really coherent.

> there isn't any exit border control

There is, but it's done electronically by monitoring passenger records. It's very difficult to exit the US without creating a paper trail, which is vacuum up, so the DHS definitely has info (albeit noisy) when aliens don't leave.

https://www.quora.com/Why-does-the-US-not-have-immigration-c...

One reason not to interview people when they are leaving is philosophical, or slippery slope, depending on your political persuasion. Exit restrictions are obviously very disturbing, being classic precursors to fascism/dictatorships, and generally immoral. (Yes, there are cases where people commit crimes or otherwise shirk duties and the state has a justification for preventing their departure, but these are relatively rare.)

> Are you suggesting that the US needs looser border controls and screening?

I would suggest that, yes. If a gay man wishes to come to the US to prostitute himself, I think that's a fair trade-off for not forcing everyone to bend over for the digital equivalent of a rectal exam.

These procedures were put in place to prevent terrorism. You're OK with human trafficking, but are you OK with terrorism?

My point is that some people are worked up about what you equate to a "rectal exam," but don't you think there's good reason for these procedures? If not, how would you prevent terrorists from entering? That is, what if your male prostitute is a terrorist?

"Won't someone think of the children?!"

There are terrorists who slip into the country. There are terrorists who are born here. Most school mass shootings are white American males. Why don't we put all of them into detention cells and demand their passwords?

Arbitrarily violating the privacy of non-citizens makes it easier to do so to citizens, and also makes it more likely it'll be done to US citizens when they travel abroad. Sometimes you just have to acknowledge that bad people will do bad things.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com