How to piss off customs agents with impunity

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

devotee,

I am answering this two ways.

First, you use "politely" as an adjective for invoking the rights, and then you use ass in the other end of the sentence as the way you are looked upon - it's loaded in both ends. The blogger seemingly was not polite, at least not to my interpretation. Also, I feel the reaction was warranted - the officer was not just being an ass, she (politely or not) did some more probe questions and just passed it on within the system for a more through look since she got no cooperation. It was a reasonable reaction.

Second, as a hypothetical, if you act polite and say "I invoke my 5th, please ransack me and my stuff", then I do not think you should be treated like an ass. I would question why you would want to do so, though, but that's another question.

Understood.

EB said

"I don't understand the utility of the question, either: if they find you suspiscious, they'll hold up the line of people no matter your answers, and if you're someone who has something to hide, you will answer their questions, with lies, but you'll answer, and they'll let you pass."

I am confounded. Not answering these, really trivial, questions is in itself suspicious. Your choice to create a dichotomy between private and not private issues is of course yours to make, but we are not living in utopia. I don't think the questions are very out of line nor very intruding to privacy as a very arbitrary first step in the border control.

The choice not to answer is in itself both a legal choice and one warranting a closer inspection.

You can argue that the rules should be handled differently, but I argue they are reasonably handled in this case. I do not see it as inherently more reasonable to let persons who don't want to answer to just enter the country.

Here's the thing in my hypothetical the individual is refusing to answer but being completely open about allowing a search of their bags and person which is what "Customs agents" should be concerned with. It's what the traveler is bringing into the country that directly touches upon their jobs, not what the traveler did while the traveler was away. They are not border guards. They are agents of the Federal Government making sure people aren't bringing in stuff they shouldn't and they are paying the proper customs duties on the items they do bring in.

Therefore, whether someone answers an irrelevant question, or not, does not directly impede their performance of their duties. When someone fights their bags and person being searched that's when their duties are being impeded. This man, although rude, did not attempt to impede their perfectly legal searches in any way. He made a point not to. Hence their irritation and frustration is unwarrented because he never did anything to prevent the accomplishment of their assigned tasks.

[Insert Edit]

I listened to a radio interview with an Israeli gentleman (name escapes me) discussing airport screening. He was pointing out the training that their agents receive, compared with the minimum wage drones that get hired at North American airports. But the same basic techniques are used - interacting with passengers, and noting visual and auditory cues to determine if the person is worthwhile to follow up with.

Assuming that all smugglers etc are accomplished liars/dissemblers - why?

Isn't that the whole reason why people sometimes try to get dupes to carry items across? Because someone with nothing to hide will be more likely to act naturally?

[Datepalm]

Here's the thing in my hypothetical the individual is refusing to answer but being completely open about allowing a search of their bags and person which is what "Customs agents" should be concerned with. It's what the traveler is bringing into the country that directly touches upon their jobs, not what the traveler did while the traveler was away. They are not border guards. They are agents of the Federal Government making sure people aren't bringing in stuff they shouldn't and they are paying the proper customs duties on the items they do bring in. Therefore, whether someone answers an irrelevant question or not does not directly impede their performance of their duties. When someone fights their bags and person being searched that's when their duties are being impeded. This man, although rude did not attempt to impede their perfectly legal searches in any way. He made a point not to.

But then he's just basically telling them how to do their jobs. He allows them the right to search his stuff, but diasllows the right to ask basic, unintrusive questions that help them determine whether they should search his stuff, which is probably a system they've worked out over decades to optimally balance, as much as they can, the competing needs of efficiently screening trens of thousands of people a day while maintaining as much as possible their dignity and privacy and effectively keeping stuff from coming into the country that shouldn't.

What he's saying is in essense: thats not good enough for me. I want you to find a different way to handle me - I don't know or care what it will have to be, whether it will mess up the operation, whether it will incovenience greatly hundreds of other people, whether it will impact security, whatever: I have found a sliver of a loophole and my ego means to exploit it. My opinion of this guy has worsened - he's a condescending asshat.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

DP,

I'm not defending his tone and attitude. I'm simply agreeing with him that the the custom's agents are not entitled to the information they requested from him, therefore I don't believe his tone and attitude are particularly relevant to the point he was making. They are perfectly entitled to search his stuff or his person to make sure he's not smuggling. He did nothing to impede their performance of those duties.

[The Iceman of the North]

Here's the thing in my hypothetical the individual is refusing to answer but being completely open about allowing a search of their bags and person which is what "Customs agents" should be concerned with. It's what the traveler is bringing into the country that directly touches upon their jobs, not what the traveler did while the traveler was away. They are not border guards. They are agents of the Federal Government making sure people aren't bringing in stuff they shouldn't and they are paying the proper customs duties on the items they do bring in.

This is what i don't understand. How can answering a trivial question being more intrusive than having your bags and person searched? Why would anyone chose this?

[Datepalm]

DP,

I'm not defending his tone and attitude. I'm simply agreeing with him that the the custom's agents are not entitled to the information they requested from him, therefore I don't believe his tone and attitude are particularly relevant to the point he was making. They are perfectly entitled to search his stuff or his person to make sure he's not smuggling. He did nothing to impede their performance of those duties.

I don't care about his tone and attitude, I care that he's fucking with the system thats serving him, yes, but also millions of other people. This is like coming into a supermarket and demanding the person checking out your items call up the manager for each one to check the price becuase you think the stickers might be wrong. (or something like that.) Its totally your right, sure, but how are you better qualified than the checkout person, manager, person who stocks the shelves, person who designed the bar code system, person who designed the layout of the shelves, etc, to say - no, I want it to be done this way. This way is better.

[MercenaryChef]

This is what i don't understand. How can answering a trivial question being more intrusive than having your bags and person searched? Why would anyone chose this?

i agree totally.

your choice is letting the agent know your were on business or whatever in whatever country you were in or you can try to be all badass and offer no answers at all (which is your right) and then they can dig around in your bags, handle your belongings and intrude upon your luggage (which they are allowed to by law).

i am sorry but i am more interested in the former than the latter.

[kairparavel]

Here's the thing in my hypothetical the individual is refusing to answer but being completely open about allowing a search of their bags and person which is what "Customs agents" should be concerned with. It's what the traveler is bringing into the country that directly touches upon their jobs, not what the traveler did while the traveler was away. They are not border guards. They are agents of the Federal Government making sure people aren't bringing in stuff they shouldn't and they are paying the proper customs duties on the items they do bring in.

They serve both functions, Scot. Customs AND Immigration.

CBP's priority mission is to prevent terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the United States and ensuring the security of our nation at America's borders and ports of entry. We must maintain this line of defense while allowing legitimate travel and trade that is vital to our economy and way of life.

CBP is responsible for apprehending individuals attempting to enter the United States illegally; stemming the flow of illegal drugs and other contraband; protecting our agricultural and economic interests from harmful pests and diseases; protecting American businesses from theft of their intellectual property; and regulating and facilitating international trade, collecting import duties, and enforcing U.S. trade laws.

That's right from the CBP website.

Ports of entry be it by land, air or sea are all the same and manned by all these same people. Customs AND Immigration.

When I cross, either at an airport or when driving, customs makes sure I'm not bring back bad stuff and immigration checks my passport and alien status. The same person performs these tasks. And when you cross by land, you do not prepare a declaration card. You state your declarations and it goes from there.

Again, he's a moron for thinking he's showing what for by refusing to verbally provide information and get searched instead. What's more personal and private - what he was doing in China, or the agent rifling through this things and discovering he enjoys lacy pink thong underwear?

[Liadin]

This is what i don't understand. How can answering a trivial question being more intrusive than having your bags and person searched? Why would anyone chose this?

Right, I brought this up once before too. They ask the questions as a way of determining whether or not someone is suspicious, in order to not have to search everyone's bags. I'm pleased with that and can't imagine why you'd want a search instead.

[Arbor Gold]

They serve both functions, Scot. Customs AND Immigration.

Thank you. They have two jobs: (1) to decide to let you in the country and (2) to decide to let your stuff in the country.

As far as data collection is concerned, when entering the US, both residents and non-residents have to fill out an entry form which asks where you've been, where you are going, why, when, passport number, etc. This form gets stamped by the immigration person and IS collected later on in the arrival process, so in theory, the data is somewhere. Probably here.

This whole situation is frustrating. Since the guy said in his post that he had all his arrival paperwork in order, he obviously filled out his landing card and answered all the questions. So he doesn't have a problem giving that information out, he has a problem giving that information out verbally. All he needed to do was politely indicate that he had already answered the questions being asked, and be on his way. Instead, he wanted to be a jerk.

[MercenaryChef]

Instead, he wanted to be a jerk.

yep.

and jerks are not social heroes. they do however on frequent acts of jerkocity find themselves getting cavity searches.

[mormont]

I think we've all learned a really important lesson here, and it's this:

If you want to get hundreds of hits on your blog, pick a really pointless, petty argument with someone in a uniform over your rights, and then use your next entry to brag about it.

[Datepalm]

I think we've all learned a really important lesson here, and it's this:

If you want to get hundreds of hits on your blog, pick a really pointless, petty argument with someone in a uniform over your rights, and then use your next entry to brag about it.

So, this business with moving stuff to Forum Games....:leaving:

[Angalin]

I think we've all learned a really important lesson here, and it's this:

If you want to get hundreds of hits on your blog, pick a really pointless, petty argument with someone in a uniform over your rights, and then use your next entry to brag about it.

And do the utmost to protect your privacy by putting a carefully-posed head shot with your name above it in the sidebar. :ninja:

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Anybody listen to "This American Life" this week and the story about "coptrack and it's abuse in the 81st Precinct in NYC?