Just look at that punim. Does that look like the face of a terrorist to you?
Monday evening, returning to the US from our “vacation of a lifetime” to the Galapagos*, I was detained by Customs and Border Patrol agents at Miami International Airport.
I hadn’t flown internationally in 15 years, so I was unfamiliar with the reentry process. As instructed, my daughter and I used the automated kiosks provided for US citizens. We scanned our passports. We answered the questions honestly—”no” to everything that would warrant further inspection—and had our photos taken. (The touch-screen kiosk is actually pretty nifty; it automatically adjusted its height lower to take my daughter’s photo.) Katie’s reentry pass printed out with a slightly goofy surprised smile. Mine printed out with a big X printed across my face, and instructions to go see an agent… who promptly confiscated my passport and called an armed agent to escort me to a holding area. My passport had been “flagged,” I was told.
Only after the fact did I learn I wasn’t allowed to use my phone at CPB. Oops!
“How long will this take?” I asked the agent, mentioning that we had a connecting flight to catch.
“Could be five minutes; could be five hours,” he offered uncooperatively. “Could be five years,” he added with a slightly ominous tone.
Yikes.
While others were escorted into rooms for their interviews, my daughter and I sat and waited, making plans for her to continue to Seattle without me or our luggage if the process dragged out too long. After about 45 minutes, I was called to a counter, handed my passport, and instructed to take a left, head down a hallway, and then go through a gray door. It was only once I opened the door that I realized it was an exit. It would have been useful had they told me they were done with me, considering my daughter was still waiting in the sitting area around the front.
I retrieved my daughter, and after a bit of a search, our luggage (our flight information had scrolled off the monitor, and no airport personnel could tell us on what carousel it had arrived, so we had to sort through thousands of bags). The process leaving the baggage area was routine. At no time during my encounter with CBP was I questioned; at no time was my body or belongings searched. Fortunately, we had a three-hour layover, so we made our connecting flight.
But the question remains: Why the fuck was my passport flagged?
I suppose it could have something to do with this. Or this. Or maybe this, this, or this. But although I’ve been a brash and frequent critic of the security theater that has characterized the Orwellian-named Department of Homeland Security in the post-9/11 era, nothing I’ve said or written could reasonably be interpreted as an actual threat. Still, I’ve always entertained the possibility that my writing could leave me open to some sort of retaliation.
But assuming this incident was intentional rather than due to some weird glitch (and to be clear, there was nothing random or routine about my detainment), I’m guessing it probably had more to do with something like this. Or even more likely, this. And if it was, judging from their actual lack of interest in me or my belongings, I can only characterize this experience as an episode of official harassment.
Okay. Lesson learned: From this point forward I will always speak my mind clearly and forcefully—even recklessly—without any fear of the consequences. I’ll just never, ever book a return to the US again expecting to make a connecting flight.
Suck on that, DHS.
* And yes, it was a vacation of a lifetime.
To be returning from such a wonderful trip and have this happen is no fun at all. F**k everyone who had a part in it.
First off, now’s the time to go celebrate the freedumb that comes with being a Murican whose passport is flagged and allows you to be detained without cause.
Yes! Buy firearms! Also too cop killer bullets.
This is Murica and all those other freedumb may have been schlonged, but get a gun!
Wow, and being a card carrying Seattle libtard didn’t help either.
1) Could be the libtard company you keep
– A clueless crazed databaze leech
– A whack job anthropology perfessa
– A person who advocates drug legalization in their thread
– A moron who thinks posting from Oregon makes them superior
– A pressurized person who advocates the banning of those he hates
– A person who advocates libtards must arm claiming to be a wabbit
– A sheet metal worker who advocates OWS fecklessness
– A “doctor” who thinks they are correct from the left
– A person who thinks they are “better” than anyone else
– A person who thinks they are masquerading as a dunce when in reality the cap fits perfectly
2) Surely it couldn’t be
– From the fool who thought ever attack on Obummer was racism
– From the NYC gay blade who can’t post anything without ad hominem attacks on heteros
You see Goldy, you have to state your intentions in Obummer’s police state. This treatment is from the most transparent sadministration evah! Isn’t the NSA a great organization?
BTW
There are signs and placards in every American airport customs location specifying cell phone use is prohibited in the customs area which includes picking up your luggage from the carousel! Seems you missed this Huff Po article or you were experiencing 24 hour moronic moonbat memory malady as you forgot about this article! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....89257.html
“Does that look like the face of a terrorist to you?”
Yeah, it does. I hate to say this, Goldy, but with that mugshot you could pass yourself off as a Palestinian. I don’t even want to know what your driver’s license photo looks like.
“I suppose it could have something to do with this. Or this. Or maybe this, this, or this.”
Geez, and you guys think I have a big mouth? If you ever decide to ban posters for violent trash talk, the first person you’ll have to kick off your blog is yourself.
@3 “Obummer’s police state.”
This is the kind of drivel you get from someone who voted for a Republican president who had ordinary law-abiding citizens arrested, forcibly dragged out of townhall meetings, and thrown in jail for disagreeing with his plans to privatize Social Security.
No, asswipe, we liberals haven’t forgotten what you fascist pricks
did to our democracy when you had the chance to do it.
Summary of PB’s political analysis: Every mistake made in a Republican administration is because of prior Democratic administrations. Everything that happens in a Democratic administration that is bad is because and only because of the current Democratic administration and possibly, prior Democratic administrations. Good things that happen in a Democratic administration are because of the current Republican congress or prior Republican administrations, ad infinitum.
The mustache looks sinister right? Frito bandito :)
Frito Pendejo never had a mustache.
And living in Oregon doesn’t make a person superior.
Just very lucky.
Maybe you’re on some list the government won’t explain to you nor provide you due process to investigate.
Perhaps try to purchase a firearm and see how well that goes.
Goldy: You look like you got busted smuggling Fritos across the border :)
Distant in Memory while stuck on replay:
Estúpido Analfabetos y sin poder pensar por uno mismo
Frito Bandito did wear a mustache :)
http://www.todayifoundout.com/.....o-bandito/
@11 I know which list you’re on: Overpaid Medicare doctors.
@13,
Verdad. Pero Frito Pendejo no tiene.
http://stevedeace.com/wp-conte.....ocracy.jpg
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
Estúpido lleva un bigote,
Le gusta trepar por las paredes
Frito Bandito with a droopy mustache :)
“Or even more likely, this.”
How could you be so fucking stupid, Goldy? Didn’t you see it coming? I turned your lame ass in for providing a platform for a right-wing extremist Christian terrorist to spew hate against America. I call him the batshit crazy loon, but DHS knows him as the “Babbling Jackass”.
Serves you right for moving here and dissing my city and state.
Heh.
“Wow, and being a card carrying Seattle”
“There are signs and placards in”
Huh! I thought I buried the loon in the woods behind the house last night. Must have been some other black batshit crazy loon knocking on my door. My bad. Didn’t know there were two of them. Oh, well, no loss.
Pendejo?
The only pendejo on this blog is the clueless crazed databaze cretin! That one is all arschloch!
Goldy, not sure if you heard but we have Presidentisl Candidates that pal around with Paators that call for killing of Gay Americans. If that should happen or if that should bring on more adverse living conditions here in this Country for Gay Americans, then you getting stuck in customs isn’t s that bad in comparison, is it?
Goldy, or maybe you would find it better if you played in the NFL and opposing players threaten or intimidate you with baseball bats.
“our “vacation of a lifetime” to the Galapagos”
“Goldy, or maybe you would find it better…”
Eh, don’t bother. He won’t respond. He’s no doubt sought and found succor by sucking on his billionaire’s teat and is not to be disturbed.
I suggest we tar and feather Goldy and the loon and send them both back to Philadelphia on a rail.
@23 yeah, I guess if It were me that experienced what Goldy experienced, and it was in ISIS territory (or Russia or Uganda, although the lion gives them a free pass unlike ISIS), he would told me that it could have been worse and that I was lucky there wasn’t a gas chamber near by the customs area.
I guess Goldy should be thankful for the same thing, that there wasn’t a gas chamber nearby.
@24. The he would be the loon and not Goldy, for clarification.
Roger senile @7,
It is Obummer’s police state. Deal with it! See the open thread for more! http://horsesass.org/open-thre.....nt-1304620
Heh. It’s sooooo entertaining to see the trolls staying so stupid. ‘specially one babbling jackass troll consumed by 24/7 hate.
Stay stupid! It makes us laugh!
Reply to @26 consists of shoving @7 up loon’s stinky ass again. No additional actions needed at this time.
“‘specially one babbling jackass troll consumed by 24/7 hate.”
Even on Christmas Eve.
Apparently Roger senile didn’t read how Obummer used various guvmint agencies against Obummer opponents.
Reading is no longer fundamental to senile peeps! Any ASs-shoving happens to the arschloch @27!
Damn! I shot a second black batshit crazy loon last night who was knocking on my door and buried him in the woods in back of the house next to the first one. There’s more than two of them?? Who would have thought? Oh, well, no loss and I’ll get it right yet. And when that day comes, there will no longer be a batshit crazy loon sullying these fucking threads.
Could have been worse you didn’t end up in a village with a number two wanting information.
You can talk to an attorney or try going across the border to Canada a few times and see if you get some kind of repeat performance. Once it could just be a big oops and you will never know. Twice your on a list, and not the kind that Santa is checking twice. As Santa does more diligence than Homeland security.
It’s also possible you were the random person the system flags just to see if the agents know how to do their job, and to see if some one is bringing something over the border or might actually be an authentic terroist.
Maybe they suspected you of smuggling marine iguanas in your pants and decided to let you sit for a while and see if any crawled out. (I went to the Galapagos in 2006. Wonderful. My traveling companion sports a very long white beard. Kids saw him and began yelling, “Charles Darwin!”)