Patriot act in action! Abstract suddenly becomes concrete.

I have a ton of German friends in the Seattle area, and one of my friends was having a friend over from Munich for 6 weeks (whom I'd met before). These are some of the most a-political people I know, and here is her story:

Applied for 90 day tourist visa...rejected. No reason given.

Decided to travel on standard 6 week tourist visa. Booked flights, made arrangments for accomodation, then a few weeks later, packed her bags and headed to the airport. Flight to Seattle went just fine. She didn't cause any trouble on the airplane...

Now the trouble started: Detained in customs. Luggage confiscated. Strip searched. Not told why, or what charges are. Given clothes back, but then detained for 36 hours in a small cell with no toilet or sink, and only a hard bench for a bed. They didn't give her a blanket, or let her get a sweater even though the room was air conditioned to 60 degrees. No toothbrush, only one meal. Not allowed to make even one phone call. Never told what charges are.

Skip to my friend, waiting to pick up my acquaintance at the airport...She and her 4 children (2, 5, 7, 9) watch everyone come through customs, but not her friend. They wait for 4 hours before a customs agent feels sorry enough for them to tell them that "several people have been detained...you should go home". That's all they're told, then their friend is shipped back to Germany where she's finally able to tell people what happened. No arrest, no charges...

Moral of this story: You don't have to be muslim, or even from a middle-eastern or dark skinned country. You could be a blonde college student from Munich visiting a friend.

The implications of this to me are really scary: If a non activist, non muslim, is subjected to this...does this mean that if I travel abroad this could happen to me? I'm an american, but fairly active in anti-bush, anti war stuff. If they detained me, would they send me back to the country where my flight originated, or would they dissapear me? This is a good story to tell if you know any conservatives who says "if you're not muslim, if you don't come from a terrorist country, you don't have anything to worry about from the Patriot Act".

I know lots of other people probably have scarier stories, but this one helps me to remember what the stakes are when I work for "Anybody but Bush 2004".

Susan

Americans! That sucks!

instead of adding a tit to the tat... let's just get rid of the tat!

Trust me. It makes sense if you think about it. ;)

And this does suck. This is not the country I learned about in school. The one that was founded on the principle of "inalienable rights" to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"... the one that said, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free".

I love that America. The one endlessly devoted to freedom and equality. This new America... Bush's America... the one devoted to corporate profits and world domination... disgusts me.

We aren't the same country thaks to the boys who cry wolf!

We can still drive our 11mpg SUVs to the mall and go shopping!
</sarcasm>

I am really beginning to have my doubts as to how much Osama was involved in 9-11.

i wonder how prevalent it is, not that even one instance isn't one too many.

Thanks for posting this. Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the fight and forget the real-world ramifications of the Bunnypants Administration's bullshit policies. These are the things that we never hear about. They probably happen a lot.

That poor girl. If she wasn't an activist before, you can bet the US just created a new one.

No terrorists in your country? We'll kill some families and make some.

You're not an activist? How about we detain you for no reason, then deport you.

They make enemies out of friends professionally. :S

Susan

There have been a number of people detained and prevented from flying, a group of politically active(liberal) nuns and a state head of the Green party among others. Not records, no ties to terrorism, nothing out of the ordinary except for their political views and history of being active in various liberal political and social movements. In fact, there was an article last week(perhaps somebody could link to it, my files aren't here with me) where the TSA admitted to keeping a no fly list, but wouldn't say who or how many are on it.

These incidents are increasing in frequency also. There will probably be a point in the reletively near future where if you are a known liberal and wish to get overseas you will have to drive to Canada or Mexico and fly out of there.

In fact, that's the first thing I've been thinking -- I've been considering going out of the country for a vacation...but now I'm not so sure I want to fly in and out of an American city...My husband is Canadian, and we've never had any problems at the Canadian border...Maybe it's paranoid and premature, but after hearing this story, flying out of Vancouver instead of Seattle makes sense to me.

Susan

This girl needs to write this incident up as articles or as a short book and get it published, first in Germany and then translated into French and English.

I am certain that German publishers would be highly interested in this story. Anyone who has any ability to use inductive reasoning about history knows why German publishers would be interested in this.

Especially Germans with Turkish ancestry have sometimes problems entering the US. Once in a while a newspaper will publish a story like that, but it isn't a *big* story anymore.
99.999% have no troubles at all entering the US - only the new passport requirements suck.

I thought the post suggesting that we adopt the "Like a rock" slogan for ourselves. They want us to over react so they can profit from it.

Thanks for letting me know I am sending it to my Rethug family members so they know what they are doing in their name.