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Comment by sickcodebruh | Hacker News Reader

Years ago, my band was harassed aggressively by border crossing guards while entering Canada. They insisted we had drugs with us and wanted us to confess. We knew we had nothing. Separated from my friends, threatened with what would happen when they found things, being told they were calling the dogs to search the car, seeing them going through our stuff, I had moments where I wondered if I had forgotten anything and if it might be better to confess just in case.

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I had a nearly identical experience crossing into Canada back in 2012. It was bizarre. They kept telling me they knew they were going to find someone in my car, which made me think they might actually PUT something in my car to find. Several hours later I was able to continue on into Canada after I repacked everything they had spread out everywhere.

I’m sorry you went through that, too. Were you also traveling with a band?

We had similar tactics applied by Border Agents in Arizona just past the California-Arizona state border last September. This time, I was driving and I knew they were full of shit when they surrounded us, talked about bringing dogs (they always threaten with dogs?), and claimed they smelled drugs in the vehicle. It didn’t go on for as long, they didn’t make us get out or go through our stuff, and copping to something we didn’t do didn’t enter my head, but it felt too familiar.

The stakes in these situations were low, we knew this was par for the course when crossing these borders and it was STILL stressful and frightening. I can so easily see how people in more serious situations break when under more intense pressure.

I wasn't traveling with a band, just my dog! I was moving from Florida to Alaska, trying to catch the ferry out of Prince Rupert. Weather turned me around in Banff and I went to plan B and drove back into the US to Bellingham to catch the ferry there. Had no trouble at all crossing back into the US at the same crossing. My dog ended up with a gastric dilatation-volvulus the night before I got on the ferry and had to be euthanized. Not the best trip but living in Alaska was amazing.

I was “pulled over” by a police officer when I was driving into Chicago from Washington state. He had followed me off the highway where I had pulled over to make a phone call, and he came up to me asking for registration and wanted to know who I was calling. All of this was justified because he suspected drugs in my car because a lot of drugs come from Canada through WA into Chicago. He said he had a dog with him in the car as well. I said I didn’t care because I don’t have any drugs and that I’m just traveling through the state and needed to phone a friend for a place to stay. He never ran my registration after I handed it to him, nor did he go back to his car for any information or dog, then he said I was clear to go. When he pulled away it was clear there was no dog in the back seat. I know to say as little as possible to cops even if I know I’m not guilty of anything but this was outright so stupid I couldn’t invoke “I want a lawyer” either.

Cops and other forms of law enforcement seem to have a history of lying to suspects to try to uncover criminal behaviors and I’m really not sure if this practice is even constitutional let alone effective. I don’t know what’s reasonable anymore in our police state.

It happened to me few times while crossing border to Switzerland.

We usually smoke everything we have a couple of kms before the border, just to be sure we have nothing when they are going to check on us, after all that's their job, they're gonna check anyway.

It also happened on the border to Slovenia, with my girlfriend, they separated us and told me they had a new test that detected every known drug and could charge me on the account of using.

I laughed so hard that they let us go.

> We usually smoke everything we have a couple of kms before the border

So you coming rolling up smelling heavily of weed, and for some reason they insist on searching you for weed? How weird. I feel like there's a way to avoid that.

They search you anyway, the point is that you have to be clean, not that you have to smell good.

Be sure to not bring anything that may cause troubles, but don't worry if they treat you like a troublemaker, it's just their job.

You're on a van, packed with stuff, you dress weird, you look weird, you probably haven't slept properly the night before, they are going to search you, no matter what.

Even more so if you have merch with you, for example in Switzerland they want you to pay taxes on the merch you sell, so they try as hard as they can to get an idea of how much money you're going to make so that they can charge you on the way back, when you leave the country.

That's what crossing borders with bands (mostly american) taught me.

We didn't get hit with the tax thing in Europe when we were last there but we did have Canadian border crossing guards give us grief about it. Luckily/sadly, there's no money in black metal so they laughed at our estimate and told us to get going.

The extra tax in Europe is only for Switzerland, which is actually not EU and that's why you still go through custom controls.

There is no passport check if you are an EU citizen, but the border still exists.

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