Quote: its amazing how many security guards will escort you up to the roof of a skyscraper if you only ask, or won't even stop you if you look like you know where you're going
This is taken from an archive of an AOL hacking website called AOL-Files.com that I ran back in 2000/2001. We had a section called AOL People where the site's visitors could submit profiles on themselves. The full list of profiles is here: http://www.mattmazur.com/archive/aol-files/downloads/people/
Interesting. I clicked through to a related article about this guy, and his last run-in with the law was because he refused to provide his DNA to the federal government. Because apparently hacking web pages leaves a lot of DNA evidence, and they want to get him for sure next time, or something. Frightening.
No, you just realize that terrorists can get valid passports just as easily as ordinary citizens. If anything, things like biometric passports just make people less safe -- since customs agents will just assume that if your passport is valid you aren't a threat, they won't ask tough questions. Then a terrorist will slip by, and they'll have an excuse to require rectal imaging on the next generation of passports.
The irony is that the terrorists have already won.
FWIW, I would never visit the US. The immigration rules are insane, and I wouldn't want the legal liability of accidentally not crossing a T or dotting an I on an immigration form.
Fortunately, I suppose, I'm a citizen, and other countries aren't dumb enough to inflict such terror on their guests. If they did, I wouldn't visit those either. (It's really and interesting case study in what a great idea the Constitution is. It doesn't apply to immigration and customs, supposedly, so those agencies act like a mutant Hitler-Stalin lovechild. The rest of the government, though, does a pretty good job. They pass a retarded law, and the Supreme Court strikes it down.)
I apologize. I consider myself personally at fault for allowing my government to do this. It's a shame that non-citizens are not given the same "freedom from government" that citizens are. It's what makes America great, and it's unfortunate that we don't share it.
Oh well, when I overthrow the government one day...
It gets worse really... I'm from a first world, priviledged country and a member of the visa waiver program which means it's actually easy for me to enter the US. I can't even imagine what it's like for citizens of many countries.
Agreed, I'm from the UK but have immigrated to Canada (I believe finger prints are only ever required by the police when performing a full criminal history check when applying for citizenship; there was no such mention of it during my PR application process) and the thought that a 5-hour drive can land me having to be finger printed just to visit is very barbaric. I've walked past police with machine guns in airports and that doesn't cross me nearly as unnerving as having to give my finger prints.
It's not that I'm worried for anything I've done, I have had police checks performed (twice from the UK) and I come up clean because I've never had a problem with the police and I've never committed a crime. What worries me is that our governments have data sharing policies, as soon as I'm finger printed entering the US I have little doubt that they've been entered into a database back in the UK as well.
I dislike the thought that someone will be capable of checking up on me behind my back. I can understand why the US would want it, even if it seems exceptionally barbaric, but it's that the UK and possibly Canadian or other governments will be checking up on if my fingerprints have appeared anywhere. Precisely because after the Madrid bombings an Oregon based lawyer was arrested on an 'incontrovertible match' by the FBI based on prints lifted and arrested him, however completely ignored the fact (for two weeks!) that he hadn't left the country - he matched because he was an Islamic convert and his wife was Egyptian born, his fingerprint never matched at all.
My figuring is that the longer my fingerprints stay out of any national or international registry, the less chance I have of being hassled during my lifetime because of a government screw up with the data.
Why do so many feel this is exceptionally barbaric?
More like exceptionally emotional. Really, I'm not trying to start an argument, but this tangent seems both off-topic and unappreciative of the fact that no country (AFAIK) is obligated to permit foreign visitors. That said, to the extent the US can encourage well intentioned, law abiding foreigners to visit, I believe that it significantly adds to the culture, economy and general health of the society. Besides, isn't the information exposed by a fingerprint a far cry from that exposed by DNA?
It's barbaric because it's pointless and invasive. You're worried I might commit a crime? I don't recall seeing tourism cited as the reason your prisons are overflowing.
But beyond that visas themselves are stupid. There is no humanity behind visas, just mindless and impersonal bureaucracy designed to protect us and our countries from nobody - they don't stop anyone with bad intentions, they don't stop anyone intending to stay illegally. All they do is artificially limit you whether it's in your exploration of a foreign culture or you're the founder of graphic.ly.
I travel a lot, I love the world and I love seeing and being a part of as much of it as I can afford to. But I hate visas.
Doing things the legal way left me unemployed for over a year and a half, however if I had done things the illegal way I could have been working that full year and still gotten in as a legal citizen without any consequences and it's that hypocritical bullshit of penalizing the law abiding immigrants as to why there are so many illegal immigrants.
Someone from an economically poor background, from a country with a corrupt police system is never going to abide by an immigration law if it makes them poorer and looks more corrupt. It's asinine.
It's also worth pointing out that Citizenship and Immigration Canada is currently facing a class action lawsuit for profiteering off of issuing visas when by law they can only serve them at cost.
I know in the airports I've passed through in France, Spain and Turkey, the police were in full bulletproof vests and had personal defence weapons, tasers, batons and pepper spray, but were always very nice and polite.
Entering Canada the police only have vests, handguns and tasers, and aren't nearly as polite.
The one time I entered the US (before this whole fingerprinting bullshit started) they had vests, handguns and pepper spray (I can't remember if tasers were issued into service at that point, but I didn't see them) and were rude as all hell. All I know is that post 9/11 I expect them to be ruder, and adding fingerprinting to the process might as well be substituted for a complimentary whack over the head with a baton.
I've got an American friend who once got the "American treatment" at a Chinese border. They told him it was specifically because of all the pains Chinese people have to go through when they go to the US.
I transited China once, without a visa and any papers that proved I had an onward flight. I was asked to go over to a special area, where 10 different immigration officials looked at my passport. A minute or so later... they stamped it, and I was free to go. No problems at all.
"Brazil tends to reciprocate the behavior of the other country. IIRC, they only fingerprint US citizens, because that's what the US does to Brazilians."
Good for them. I wish the Indian government (and every government on the planet) would have the cojones to do this. The USA treats visitors very badly.
> You should try being a foreigner ... I've had my fingerprints taken 5 times now entering the US.
They also fingerprint green card holders, i.e. legal residents.
Nothing makes you feel welcome back home like having to justify your reasons for daring have gone outside the U.S. to an asshole with the power to refuse your entry at whim.
It's not the TSA, it's their parent organization, the DHS, which also oversees customs and immigration. The TSA is a hilarious joke, customs and immigration are fucking scary.
Yes, that's right, the TSA are the jokers in the airport luggage and person screening area, the customs and immigration officials are the jerks behind little bits of glass.
But they seem to hang out in the same airports.
Apparently according to some 'mission statement' I once spotted on a wall there they are 'Americas first line of defense against terrorism'. I guess they really believe that or they wouldn't be working there, but to me the level of harassment of people just going about their lives is several steps across the line.
The image of the US abroad because of these clowns is really suffering.
Something about his halting, monotone speech, perhaps slowed by his medication, got the officers’ attention.
An ambulance arrived. “After a few moments of conversation, they just kind of exchanged a look and told me to get on the stretcher,” says Lamo.
We are going to see more of this. The more we label this kind of behaviour, the more people will be institutionalised.
He obviously has the support of his family, so who made this decision?
...where he was placed on a 72-hour involuntary psychiatric hold under a state law allowing the temporary forced hospitalization of those judged dangerous or unable to care for themselves.
It scares me. It reminds me very strongly of the way things worked back in the 50s and 60s. I thought we were past forced institutionalization for disorders that didn't cause serious danger.
There isn't. There is medications that help tangentially only.
Antidepressants, Anti-Anxiety & anti-psychotic medications are commonly prescribed to treat the symptoms.
I'm just very curious to know which medication is being referenced here:
Now, the new medication prescribed in Woodland has made a positive change in his interactions with other people.
“Talking to strangers was really hard for me,” Lamo says. “I had to script it all in my head and act out normal behaviors in a very conscious way. Essentially, I had to learn how human beings act.”
“Now I no longer feel there’s a surface tension that I have to break through when I talk to somebody, like I’m a fish going after a particularly tasty bug and I have to break through the water to get it,” he continues. “I just talk to somebody, like it’s a natural function.”
Actually, you may do better with qEEG-guided neurofeedback.
The problem is that its hard to for a lot of people to be fully functional after taking a Valium.
Social meetings are one thing, but business meetings are another.
Give them medicine so they conform. Wouldn't it be beneficial to society to find a way to productively harness the way the brains of those with this condition are differently wired and let them solve problems, rather than killing their natural instinct with drugs?
Quote: its amazing how many security guards will escort you up to the roof of a skyscraper if you only ask, or won't even stop you if you look like you know where you're going
This is taken from an archive of an AOL hacking website called AOL-Files.com that I ran back in 2000/2001. We had a section called AOL People where the site's visitors could submit profiles on themselves. The full list of profiles is here: http://www.mattmazur.com/archive/aol-files/downloads/people/
Mine, which is hilarious now, is here: http://www.mattmazur.com/archive/aol-files/downloads/people/.... So much for being an astronaut and not sitting in front of a computer all day...