That is a bizarre story that, if true, doesn’t sound like the America I envision.
It all happened in an alternate universe where anything can happen. All one has to do is dream it up...
I think there’s a lot more to this story that this article is saying. This knucklehead got out of his car, did the officers ask him out or did he just get out on him own to be a bozo with the cops? I tend to think the later.
If you act stupid with the cops, you’ll pay the price.
The story really does sound like Sc-Fi.
If it is true he is either a smart ass or somebody didn’t
like his book.
don’t forget, he is a sci-fi fiction writer
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.
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.”