Posted on 12/12/2009 9:34:58 AM PST by Hank Kerchief
Edited on 12/13/2009 6:59:02 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
My friend, the wonderful sf writer Peter Watts was beaten without provocation and arrested by US border guards on Tuesday. I heard about it early Wednesday morning in London and called Cindy Cohn, the legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She worked her contacts to get in touch with civil rights lawyers in Michigan, and we mobilized with Caitlin Sweet (Peter's partner) and David Nickle (Peter's friend) and Peter was arraigned and bailed out later that day.
But now Peter faces a felony rap for "assaulting a federal officer" (Peter and the witness in the car say he didn't do a thing, and I believe them). Defending this charge will cost a fortune, and an inadequate defense could cost Peter his home, his livelihood and his liberty.
Peter's friends are raising money for his legal defense. I just sent him CAD$1,000, because this is absolutely my biggest nightmare: imprisoned in a foreign country for a trumped-up offense against untouchable border cops. I would want my friends to help me out if it ever happened to me.
Update: Here's more from Peter, in his own words: "Along some other timeline, I did not get out of the car to ask what was going on. I did not repeat that question when refused an answer and told to get back into the vehicle. In that other timeline I was not punched in the face, pepper-sprayed, [expletive deleted by Mod], handcuffed, thrown wet and half-naked into a holding cell for three [expletive deleted by Mod] hours, thrown into an even colder jail cell overnight, arraigned, and charged with assaulting a federal officer, all without access to legal representation (although they did try to get me to waive my Miranda rights. Twice.). Nor was I finally dumped across the border in shirtsleeves: computer seized, flash drive confiscated, even my fucking paper notepad withheld until they could find someone among their number literate enough to distinguish between handwritten notes on story ideas and, I suppose, nefarious terrorist plots. I was not left without my jacket in the face of Ontario's first winter storm, after all buses and intercity shuttles had shut down for the night.
"In some other universe I am warm and content and not looking at spending two years in jail for the crime of having been punched in the face."
Sf writer David Nickle writes,
Hugo-award-nominated science fiction author Dr. Peter Watts is in serious legal trouble after he was beaten, pepper-sprayed and imprisoned by American border guards at a Canada U.S. border crossing December 8. This is a call to friends, fans and colleagues to help.Peter, a Canadian citizen, was on his way back to Canada after helping a friend move house to Nebraska over the weekend. He was stopped at the border crossing at Port Huron, Michigan by U.S. border police for a search of his rental vehicle. When Peter got out of the car and questioned the nature of the search, the gang of border guards subjected him to a beating, restrained him and pepper sprayed him. At the end of it, local police laid a felony charge of assault against a federal officer against Peter. On Wednesday, he posted bond
and walkedwas taken across the border to Canada in shirtsleeves (he was released by Port Huron officials with his car and possessions locked in impound, into a winter storm that evening). He's home safe. For now. But he has to go back to Michigan to face the charge brought against him.
The charge is spurious. But it's also very serious. It could mean two years in prison in the United States, and a ban on travel in that country for the rest of Peter's life. Peter is mounting a vigorous defense, but it's going to be expensive - he's effectively going up against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and he needs the best legal help that he can get.
He's got that help, courtesy of one of the top criminal lawyers in the State of Michigan. We, Peter's friends and colleagues here in Canada, want to make sure he gets the help he needs financially to come out of this nightmare whole.
The need for that help is real. While Peter is a critically successful science fiction writer, he is by no means a best-selling author. Without help, the weight of his legal fees could literally put him on the street by spring.
We can't let that happen. So there's going to be fundraising.
We're going to think of something suitable in the New Year - but immediately, anyone who wants to help can do so easily. Peter's website, rifters.com, has a link to a PayPal account, whimsically named the Niblet Memorial Kibble Fund. He set it up years ago for fans of the Hugo-nominated novel Blindsight and his Rifters books, to cover veterinary bills for the cats he habitually rescues from the mean streets of Toronto. Peter has made it clear that he doesn't want to use the veterinary money to cover his lawsuit. But until we can figure out a more graceful conduit for the legal fund, that's the best place to send donations for now. Just let Peter know that the donation's for his legal defense, and that's where it will go.
Here's the link to the backlist page on Peter's website, rifters.com, or you can just send a PayPal donation to donate@rifters.com.
The link to the Niblet Memorial Kibble Fund is in the middle of the page. The page also links to Creative Commons editions of all his published work, which he's made available free. Peter would approve, we think, if you downloaded one or two or all of them. Whether you make a donation to the legal fund or not.
Update: David Nickle adds, "there's a very small correction I need to make to the account that's gone, erm, viral. I had thought that Peter had made his way back on foot; in fact, police released him in shirtsleeves at the Canadian side of the border. It was a winter storm, he was in shirtsleeves, but he didn't have to cross the bridge on foot.
I'd misunderstood Peter's account on that point. "
The only way to defeat liberals is to be so rich you can ignore them. I have to become rich just to live free of liberalism. This is a sad reality.
I see.
Maybe...I have it!...His son is in a runaway balloon!
I have been back and forth a lot myself. As several have posted, there is more to this than we are hearing.
LOL “Just filming a big Hills Bros’ Coffee comercial today, guys.”
The article is obviously biased in wording.
There is a lot more that needs to be seen here, and...
Peter is probably toast.
“Along some other timeline, I did not get out of the car to ask what was going on.”
Just for the record tho, If you're traveling from Michigan to Canada via the Blue Water Bridge in Port Huron, or the Windsor Tunnel or Ambassador Bridge in Detroit, you simply pull up to the toll booth, throw your money into the catch bin then drive on. Or, you give you cash to the attendant then drive on.
Once you reach the Canadian side you are then in the hands of the CANADIAN BORDER GUARDS who question you and ask for your personal identification.
Unless something has changed with the way one can leave Michigan and travel to Canada, I say there is something really fishy with this guy's story.......
My guess is that he found himself subject to the most annoying part of border crossing, that of dealing with computers, laptops and other electronic devices at a border crossing. And I'm also guessing that he had the great pleasure of being told to turn over such devices, that they will be returned to him in a couple days time, and he sincerely objected to this.
My guess also is that they're going to find things on that laptop that probably shouldn't have gone through a border crossing.
So the rules: Be cooperative and polite, answer the questions asked at the border crossing. Do not bring with you any electronic device or data storage that you'll have immediate need of at your destination. This goes for heading both ways: Canada also nabs electronic devices on a random basis. Use a common carrier express post to send such devices and storage across international lines; ideally make a ghost image of the drive you want onto DVDs and simply send the DVDs in one package, and your wiped computer in another. Or just e-mail if you're talking about minimal data like the sum total of everything you've written (which is likely less than 2gb.)
DO NOT get out of your car unless requested to. Do not think you have a right to privacy, the right to prevention of unreasonable searches and seizures, or that you have any particular rights, no matter what your nationality is. You are crossing a border, everything you have, including your person, is subject to search without court review.
Now, all that would have happened is this guy would have had a bruised ego and likely been refused entry for a couple years. Instead, he's making a big stink about it. Yes, SF writers are almost universally opinionated bastards, and shoot their mouthes off at the drop of a penny. Which means that ICE is going to have to pursue this case, including possible prosecution on whatever data's on that laptop that he didn't want them to see.
Yeah, I've no details on the case, I don't personally know this author, and for all I know, he's one of the rare persons who just really pissed off the border patrol into getting a random beatdown for absolutely no cause.
But we have his statement that he exited the car without being asked, refused to return to the car when requested - pretty sure that ICE will be ‘leaking’ the video in the not so distant future showing him swinging a car door into a border officer, and probably taking a swing at one.
Well, he obviously isn’t Mexican or Muslim, why should he expect a welcome?
Living in upstate NY I have crossed the border hundreds of times. I never saw anything like this. They were always polite. The idiot did something that met a profile and then resisted, you’ll see. The only proper response to a government official with a gun is “yes sir”, or “no sir”.
Michigan to Canada or Canada to Michigan is not like flying into another country. Typically, you have just driven across the border and arrive at the booth manned by the customs agent. He then asks you questions and proof of identification while eyeing you and the inside of your car
Then he may or may not ask you to drive over to the inspection point so they can search your vehicle. If he does, you do it and comply with their every request.
I suspect it was at that point that the guy developed an attitude and it all went downhill from there.......
Obama’s fault.
Why did they choose this guy?
This sounds, to me, like a new version of a Nigerian lottery scam. “Poor, poor, pittiful me. The big, bad government hurt my feelings so I want you to send me some money to make it better, and if there’s anything left in my little kitty cat fund it will go to help the poor, poor, pittiful little animals that are about to be destroyed by Global Warming.”
Money, money, do they want it sent to a bank in Nigeria?
You're right. One deals with the Americans coming south, and with the Canadians going north. Hmmm...
“DO NOT get out of your car unless requested to. Do not think you have a right to privacy, the right to prevention of unreasonable searches and seizures, or that you have any particular rights, no matter what your nationality i”
That ‘constitition’ that protected us back in the twentieth century is long gone. You will sniff that leather, and you vill like it!
PING
LOL
And I wonder just how much kiddie porn will be “discovered during the foresic search” of this Loons PC.
Almost always bad to travel with a computing device.
I have never heard of this guy, or his work - so I looked up his website. After that, I doubt I’ll bother with any of his books.
This “story” is all over the web. DHS will most certainly do all that they can to nail this clown.
Say,how did that work out for the Jews in the 1930s and 40s?
Yeah,I know this isn't Nazi Germany or Communist Country X ,but freedoms disappear when people no longer stand up for them.
And just exactly why should any person be deprived of all rights,including the right to know why his person or belongings are being searched,simply because you or the "authorities" want the people cowed and ignorant?
Upholding rights and freedoms of people we don't particularly like is the test of whether we believe in those things as a principle or just for people in our special group.Too many people fail the test.
I wonder if such a compliant populace was envisioned by T. Jefferson and company?
If the account of the beating is true, he must have done something. A beating and jailing because of a few smart-a$$ remarks is not right and sounds more like what happens on Mexico’s southern border. Like a previous poster said, the videos will tell the tale and, preconceived notions aside, I’ll go with the old ‘innocent until proven guilty’ thing - not, innocent until you get your name in the paper.
Sure, that constitution still protects you. It also states that the federal government has control of the borders, and has the ability to regulate travel and what is imported or exported. This isn’t a random stop, this is a border crossing, you are taking property and yourself across an international boundary and you are subject to search when doing this.
One of the few things anymore that actually follows the constitution.
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