Sci-fi author and Crysis 2 writer Peter Watts beaten, arrested at US border

http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Hellforge/Sci-fi-author-and-Crysis-2-writer-Peter-Watts-beaten-arrested-at-US-Border

by arundelo • 17 years ago

122 128 17 years ago

hellforge.gameriot.com

byrneseyeview• 17 years ago

We've heard one side of the story -- from someone who tells stories for a living. He may have been arrested, and he may have been beaten, but I'd wait to hear more about why.

grandalf13• 17 years ago

My guess would be that he politely mouthed off to the guards a bit. Technical people are at risk for harassment because we assume that the process is about something other than the guard not taking a personal dislike to you.

houseabsolute• 17 years ago

My guess was that he raised his voice or otherwise displayed ire. Undoubtedly he did something a wise person in his shoes would not have done. But he probably didn't deserve a beating (although we lack any evidence that that actually happened).

adammichaelc• 17 years ago

My guess is that he was being defiant -- yelling at them in a tone similar to his blog post on the matter.http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=932

Beyond yelling, I'd be very surprised if 1 law-abiding author without a criminal history would try to physically confront a group of armed guards.

So is standing up and yelling at an officer enough to justify getting beat up, thrown in jail, & charged with assaulting an officer?

tptacek6• 17 years ago

Refusing to stay in your car when a cop demands that you do so seems like a good way to get thrown to the ground, and once the police start using physical force to restrain you, they get harsh pretty quickly: they gang up, they jam their knees into you, and they slam your face into the pavement. All of this qualifies as taking a beatdown.

I wouldn't be surprised to find out their General Orders demand decisive force once a situation escalates; if you've confronted the wrong kind of guy, doing things that just piss them off (like getting grabby and trying to guide them back into the car) could be dangerous.

hyperbovine4• 17 years ago

Having just been given the third degree by both U.S. and Canadian border patrol last weekend, I can attest that it can be a really infuriating process. To be blunt, they can (and generally are) huge assholes, really getting in your face and making you feel like a criminal even when you have nothing to hide. I presume the goal of this is to psych out the people who actually are up to no good, but the end result is that you end up feeling pissed off and unwelcome.

That said, I definitely agree that there is another side to this story. For one thing, everything that happens at a border crossing is videotaped from about 14 different camera angles, so there's no way they're going charge him with assault unless he actually took a swing. The fact that the situation even got to that point--multiple guards, pepper spray, verbal commands--means he did something pretty egregious. The crossing guards are dicks but they are professional dicks, at least in my experience. Do as you're told and you'll eventually get through. Ignore repeated commands and project the same surliness back at them and you're just asking for trouble.

ghshephard2• 17 years ago

Well put - to put it simply - Don't act like you have any rights whatsoever when crossing a border - the instant you think you don't have to answer every question, be prepared for an instant search, or otherwise, be completely docile - well, that's the start of a fairly ugly downhill journey, as Mr. Peter Watts has just discovered.

As a frequent border crosser though, I'll note that I have _never_ witnessed, nor been exposed, to anything other than thoroughly professional (if sometimes highly antagonistic and hostile) behavior on the part of Immigration. These guys _really_ know what they are doing - and the "psych out" is intentional - nothing personal.

Though, I'll admit, traveling back to Canada for a visit (I work in Silicon Valley) and explaining what I (a Canadian Citizen) will be doing there, and why, and where - does get a little old after 10+ years of doing so. At least I know what to expect.

mkyc2• 17 years ago

That argument's hardly better than the "he helps cats therefore he's innocent" quip at the bottom of the link. Quit thinking of there being two sides: there's no "other story", there's just "insufficient information". All we know is that he got pepper sprayed and charged, and that he needs money. Donate to his defense fund and leave the speculation to science fiction writers.

(I'll let someone else comment on "if you don't obey, you're asking for it".)

ellyagg• 17 years ago

> project the same surliness back at them and you're just asking for trouble.

That's commonsense, but its truth still pisses me off. There is zero reason border guards deserve deference, and projecting surliness to people behaving surly is my natural right.

ErrantX2• 17 years ago

Swiss border guards at airports are worst - esp if your European (like me). I nearly got arrested for standing the wrong side of the yellow line a few months ago :) The best border guards I've met are the ones as Newark Airport, NY; friendly and smiley.

I actually find US/Canadian Border guards not too bad (by comparison) - as you say they are at least professional and perfectly helpful if you are courteous.

I agree with what you end with: he has to have done something pretty stubborn and rude to get that treatment.

e40• 17 years ago

I think if he did actually assault a border guard, he would never have been let go (edit: so quickly). The surface facts that we know and can believe (detained and released) smack of punishment for some small slight. His punishment (beating, citing for a felony a being immediately released) is completely consistent with many other cases of people saying the wrong thing.

Make no mistake, when you really do cross the actual line with a cop/border guard, you will pay with all the force of the law (and then some).

billswift• 17 years ago

It was pretty obvious that "contempt of cop" was his real "crime".

grandalf13• 17 years ago

I recommend that everyone donate a few dollars via PayPal to Peter's legal defense fund:

donate@rifters.com

mattmaroon4• 17 years ago

I'd like to donate to the border guards. I figure there's a 50/50 chance there's a lot more to this story than Cory Doctorow's (his friend) has told, but nobody else will blindly take their side.

noarchy• 17 years ago

Haven't had to cross the border much, aye?

tsally• 17 years ago

You already do donate to the border guard; it's your tax money paying his/her salary.

More importantly, I don't think blindly taking the government's side on any issue is a good thing. I'd much rather have everyone default to believing the private citizen and be wrong some of the time. Blind faith in the citizenry probably at worst has a net zero effect. Blind faith in the government is most certainly negative.

That being said, I'm completely open to the possibility that the border guards followed procedure. I definitely need more information to form an opinion.

baguasquirrel• 17 years ago

I know someone who often has to get tour groups through customs. He could tell you all about what great fun it is.

cgranade5• 17 years ago

It's not just Cory Doctrow vouching for him, but also Charlie Stross and Neil Gaiman. Is it possible that there is more to the story that exonerates the guards? Of course it's possible, but given the US border crossing guards, it's not bloody likely. Even if he did something tremendously ill-advised, which doesn't sound like the case here, that does not justify a brutal beating and an assault charge, nor does it justify attempting to get Watts to waive his Miranda rights. Hell, we can even take the extreme case that Watts did somehow commit a felony (no evidence of this); the guards still should have respected his rights and his human dignity.

tptacek6• 17 years ago

I think a lot of people don't realize that they have drastically reduced rights at or near border crossings. You and your car can be searched by customs at their discretion without warrant or probable cause.

The "in some other universe... I didn't get back in my vehicle when I was told to" quote is telling too. I think someone more familiar with how border crossings work would never refuse to physically comply with a demand from officials.

Afton• 17 years ago

The storytelling here is a little confusing, but isn't he saying that in this universe, he did get back in his vehicle when told?

Not discussing whether he deserved a beating or not, just trying to get his story straight.

tptacek6• 17 years ago

I got the opposite impression, but it was a bit hard to follow.

potatolicious• 17 years ago

> The "in some other universe... I didn't get back in my vehicle when I was told to" quote is telling too.

I agree. I do not know this man - but from my frequent Canada <-> USA border crossings I do know that while border guard power trips are frequent (too often so), getting beat takes effort. The story is clearly not as clear-cut as a bunch of crooked border cops deciding randomly to pepper spray and beat some guy. His friends and family are free to contribute to his legal defence, but without knowing what really happened I am unwilling to contribute.

That being said, the amount of unprofessional power tripping at American borders is ludicrous - myself and other Canadians avoid cross-border travel for this very reason, and it's costing America business. Even my American coworkers get hassled on their way home from Canada, and nearly everyone agrees that Canadian guards are on the whole a hell of a lot more professional and polite.

Nothing tops the time I was at the airport in Vancouver, pre-clearing customs. A very large border guard with a pissed off sneer on his face was hassling everyone he dealt with, and verbally berated an elderly gentleman for moving too slowly as he shuffled his way up to the booth. That sort of bullshit cannot be tolerated, and gives America a bad name for no good reason.

tptacek6• 17 years ago

I've had really bad experiences crossing back in via car too. Really intrusive personal searches, and a horrible attitude. They really deserve the reputation they have. But, that said: they have that reputation, and so I think you'd have to be kind of crazy to give them any shit.

On the other hand, coming back to the States from Europe has always been a pleasant experience for me.

hyperbovine4• 17 years ago

I suspect this has to do with the fact that you are Canadian. I am American, I have always found crossing back into America to be much less of a hassle. The Canadians have been stone-cold S.O.B's whereas the Americans are just rude.

viraptor2• 17 years ago

On the other side of the globe, car searches by customs without a warrant or a probable cause were a standard thing up until ~2000. Now not only don't you see any border control when travelling in Europe, you're not bothered at all by the authorities at the airports (unless you're from outside EU). It seems ironic, when you think about people running away from here, over the ocean, to get to freedom just a couple of decades before...

forensic7• 17 years ago

You don't get harassed at borders but you have lost national sovereignty. So it's one freedom for another - and in the case of the EU many would argue that it is a net loss of freedom.

tptacek6• 17 years ago

I had my bags searched on a train Europe, in the middle of the ride, not at a crossing. Just taken out and rifled through. Say what you will about the States, but that's unconstitutional here --- except at the border.

cgranade5• 17 years ago

I have never understood the legal doctrine by which inalienable rights suddenly become quite, well, alienable at the border. If a right is truly universal, then it should hold at the border just as well as it does anywhere else. This is one of many places where I disagree with the US Supreme Court on principle, and where I suspect that they let politics cloud their expertise.

jamesbritt• 17 years ago

"I have never understood the legal doctrine by which inalienable rights suddenly become quite, well, alienable at the border. "

I bet that's true for a lot of people, and may explain some of the confrontations.

akkartik• 17 years ago

Blindsight (his book) is awesome.

cgranade5• 17 years ago

FYI: Updates from Watts' blog are online at http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=935.

mkyc2• 17 years ago

Awesome, some real information, rather than pointless and obvious speculation as to what happened. He links a news story:

http://www.thetimesherald.com/article/20091211/NEWS01/912110...

cgranade5• 17 years ago

Sadly, I think we won't get too much more info for a while, since Watts is not in a place to say much right now, and I don't think that the border guards will have much to say...

tc3• 17 years ago

The bottom-line problem seems to be that law-abiding people don't have much experience with being treated like criminals.

In a high-pressure situation they sometimes fall back on their quaint expectations of rights and basic human respect. I would wager that someone who had spent serious time in prison would do much better in these situations.

The guy probably had a long day. I bet he just wanted nothing more than to get home and go to sleep. He obviously didn't understand what all the fuss was about, and he ended up stepping on someone's hair trigger. It seems terribly unlikely he did something that you or I would consider physically threatening. After being pepper-sprayed and man-handled, and likely not in the soundest state of mind, maybe he even flailed a bit -- guaranteeing an assault charge (and possible conviction).

Perhaps that's how it went down. It'll probably turn out that the border guards "followed procedure." But that's exactly the problem that makes the story frightening to us:

The path from "long day + non-violent temporary failure of judgement" to "being physically assaulted and facing a life-altering felony charge" seems terribly short.

drinian2• 17 years ago

quaint expectations of rights and basic human respect. I would wager that someone who had spent serious time in prison would do much better in these situations.

This is America. We shouldn't be expected to act like guilty slaves when interacting with law enforcement. Your attitude isn't constructive at all.

tc3• 17 years ago

Oh dear. I had hoped that the satire of the first two grafs was self-evident [1]. Helpfully, wiktionary includes for quaint the definition:

"quaint, adj., 3. Highly incongruous, inappropriate, or illogical; naive, unreasonable -- usually used ironically."

Edit: While sarcasm in writing is a generally bad idea, the tradition of thoughtfully written irony and satire goes back a ways (c.f. A Modest Proposal). It of course does require the reader to reflect intelligently while reading, but that is what we expect in this forum. Since my final three grafs made my position pretty clear, I was rather unsure until your response below whether you were intentionally trolling.

[1] My statements are likely true, paradoxically, but we react strongly to the fact that they shouldn't be.

Eliezer• 17 years ago

Oh, I like that. Pepper spray in the eyes + flailing in pain = assault on a federal officer.

forensic7• 17 years ago

Did you hear the one where the police dog was literally chewing on the arm of a guy, and when the guy tried to escape from the dog he was charged and convicted with assaulting a police officer. The dog being the police officer.

cabalamat• 17 years ago

Maybe he assaulted the officer in the kneecap with his groin.

Quarrelsome• 17 years ago

If someone pepper sprayed me i'd punch them in the..... well whatever I could hit given the lack of sight. Even if it was the Queen.

tc3• 17 years ago

Another point:

There appears to be a growing disconnect between what we consider right and what we consider practical. It seems right that you should be able to peacefully question any non-emergency procedure, expect basic respect even if you're not being the most pleasant person, and retreat a step or two reflexively if you feel threatened.

Of course, we know that the practical approach to take is to be docile, passive, sickeningly submissive, and compliant nearly to the point of being patronizing.

The border guards train and drill repeatedly on how to behave aggressively and militantly in this situation. Most adults have no corresponding practice at acting completely flaccid and defenseless on command, which is what it seems we've come to expect.

fnid• 17 years ago

It's like the experiment in Stanford with the prison where the prison guards started doing typical prison guard things and the prisoners started doing typical prisoner things, even though originally, both groups were composed of people who had simply volunteered for an experiment and randomly assigned a role.

The first way you are treated is what you become in a way. When you get to the border and they are searching your car, you are guilty until proven innocent. And I argue it should be that way.

Think of the ramifications of seeing someone in a car at the border and treating them cooperatively. If they are a competitor intent on blowing the place up, then the guards have a lot to lose in this prisoners dilemma and little to gain. They could lose their life, but they gain a happy dude who got through the border easily.

Unfortunately, in this case, the individual crossing the border when treated like a guilty person didn't appreciate it and things got out of hand. That much we know. That's not the desired outcome, but what was the worst that happened? He got pepper sprayed, roughed up, but lived to tell the story. If the other team had lost, they could be dead -- lots of them could be dead -- or even worse, a city blown up. Dramatic but true.

So, let's all try to understand that we are all in this together. I really don't think some border guards are looking forward to beating up a sci-fi writer and I don't think the sci-fi writer was looking forward to experiencing anything even close to what went down there that day.

gridspy2• 17 years ago

How does your game theory example stack up when 20,000 people coming through the border have no intent to blow stuff up, and only one does?

The benefits of roughing up 20,000 innocent people start to look a little bit small in comparison to the probability of that behaviour catching the one extremely polite person going out of their way to avoid detection.

junuyibvuyv2• 17 years ago

Happened here in Vancouver, an elderly Canadian man crossing into the USA objected to a borer guard not calling him sir. The DHS pepper sprayed him an dragged him from the car.

Simple solution, don't visit America - don't buy American

teeja• 17 years ago

Looks like he may have crossed one of the invisible lines.

http://www.flexyourrights.org/faq

"just touching an officer could get you tasered or beaten and stuck with a felony charge for assaulting a police officer."

NOT to excuse what they did, but I crossed the border for decades. You're free to refuse consent to a search. That doesn't mean they have to quit searching. They appreciate you remaining respectful. Pushing the definition: crossing a border is probable cause for drug warriors. And when you're ordered to get back into the car and don't, you're pushing your luck. I'm guessing these guards (crossing just north of Detroit) had had enough attitude for one day and were primed for a rumble.

jsz0• 17 years ago

From the border agent's perspective anyone can be a threat. You should approach these situations avoiding any actions that may confuse you with a lunatic or criminal. Not sure if that was the case here or not. Hopefully it was on camera so we can know the true story.

grandalf13• 17 years ago

So the correct response is to supplicate before the guard, avoiding any visible signs of irritation, hurry, etc. It is generally preferable to put on the most benign facial expression one can muster to avoid threatening or annoying the guard, who has the power to waste several hours of your life on a whim, and can cause far more harm if he chooses.

jacquesm6• 17 years ago

> From the border agent's perspective anyone can be a threat.

Yes, but in practice only in their minds. Seriously, if you stop someone going out of the country they most likely are not a threat to you.

nazgulnarsil• 17 years ago

when stopped by a police officer I always act like they already have a gun pointed at me. I keep my hands visible and answer everything with a 'sir'. maybe there's lots of good cops out there. But if I get the one asshole who gets off on power I'd rather appease his view of the world than challenge it.

cstross• 17 years ago

I know Peter.

He's not the guy most likely to blow up and punch someone.

About the only point of information that might serve to remotely spin this in the border guards' favour is that Peter is just shy of seven feet tall: if you're of average height, he looms.

I gather the assault indictment stated that he was trying to enter the United States when the incident took place. As he was in fact leaving one wonders what other lies the border patrol are telling?

DanielBMarkham4• 17 years ago

This article sets off my bullshit detector, and let me explain why.

First, it's throwing red meat to the dogs. The internet and tech community is extremely sci-fi and video game friendly. This was one of us, and bad things happened to him.

Second, it's not a news article. There's no presumption of being two sides to the story. One side is given, by a friend, and a call to action given out. Were the officers interviewed? Was the video-tape released (And you know they have video tape)? Nothing of the barest minimum was done to provide some sort of context. The purpose of this piece is clear: it's a call to action, an editorial, an opinion piece. Don't confuse it with a news article.

Third, there's lots of loaded language in here -- "was subject to a beating and arrest", and "the gang of border guards", "and losing it may cost him his entire life" etc.

Look -- I'm not taking sides. Border guards screw up and are badly-trained sometimes. That's why we have video on all border crossings. On the other hand, people crossing the border have been known not to be able to handle submitting to requests from people in authority for various reasons. There is a very good case for using physical force on occasion. I simply don't know what happened.

What do I do when someone starts singing sweet songs of injustice that sounds wonderful to my libertarian senses? That's when I start asking questions.

I would like to know more about this, and from a non-aligned source, before being able to form any kind of opinion at all.

jacquesm6• 17 years ago

I completely and fully believe the story. I've crossed the Canadian - US border many times by car and I've personally witnessed more than one occasion of absolutely unwarranted aggression on the part of the border guards.

Seriously, you have to make the trip a couple of times per month for a year or two to get any idea of how many rotten apples there are in that basket.

American and Canadian visitors are always completely surprised when we tour the region here, and we go from the Netherlands to France, Belgium and Germany without ever seeing a borderguard in person, let alone having to interact with one.

It's really just costumed theater, you could easily do without it and it would not somehow threaten the American way of life.

American borders being what they are I stopped going there completely after one especially nasty incident in Miami that caused me to miss a connecting flight.

Until sanity returns to the American borders I'm sure they can do without my business.

DanielBMarkham4• 17 years ago

I used to travel internationally quite a bit, so I've crossed the border many times too. What can I say? It's usually not a pleasant experience no matter which border you are crossing. And it seems to just be getting worse, especially in the U.S.

It's also obvious that people who know Peter think of him as having a docile character. So if I had to guess I'd guess that Peter was indeed wronged.

But I don't have to guess. There should be plenty of evidence for reasonable people to make up their minds. I'll just wait until I hear more information.

Or put another way -- is this a story because of what exactly happened? Or is it a story because it feeds into larger narratives that we already agree on and it comes from somebody well-known on the web? Joe Schmoe gets tasered, perhaps unfairly, and nobody cares. Person-of-note X gets tasered, perhaps fairly, and everybody is up in arms. Why? Because it's easy for us to be. It's a familiar theme with lots of characters doing things we would expect them to do.

That type of story -- one that fits so well into established narratives and stereotype and one that is presented without context -- just makes me feel like I'm being manipulated, even if everything happened just the way it was told and a true injustice was done.

I just don't know. But I do know that if there was serious misconduct on the part of the border agents then heads deserve to roll on this -- just like any other case involving anybody else.

junuyibvuyv2• 17 years ago

Remember there has never been a problem between Germany and any of it's neighbours or any problem with terrorism in Europe.

The USA lives under the constant threat of Canadian invasion, following their 1812 burning of the Whitehouse - it's natural for US security on the 'front line' to be nervous.

anguslong• 17 years ago

Without hearing both sides of the story, an instructional video came to mind:

Chris Rock's: How not to get your a$$ kicked by police http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj0mtxXEGE8

Hope this situation gets worked out amicably though.

tangram• 17 years ago

If he was going back to Canada he was not passing through US customs, you just go through and stop at Canadian customs. He was pulled over by the US border police so this could not have been a customs matter. Unless they had tip that he was doing something illegal or he broke a law like speeding, I don't know why they would have pulled him over.

Also I have crossed the border plenty of times, what I have issues with is that customs officials are given too much discretion it seems in what they can do. If an officer has a bad day they can pretty much do what they wanted.

The worst I saw was when my brother was renewing his TN1 visa. I was driving him to the airport in Buffalo. We waited for close to two hours at the customs office. The whole time the customs officers were just talking about their weekend, what their plans were, on one was actually doing their job.

Two girls that were there before us finally asked, and they were were courteous while do so, when their case would be handled. They said they had waited for 3 hours and were on their way to a funeral. The customs officer blew up at them right away, told them to shut up, used allot of swear words directed at them and threatened to throw them in jail.

Nothing the girls did warranted that behavior. After his tirade he had everyone that was waiting come over and denied them entry right on the spot without hearing them out. The whole time all the other officers were just laughing.

Usually everyone has always been professional when I crossed the border and that was the only time I have seen someone on a power trip. But it does happen, and when it happens you are pretty much screwed if you are caught in the cross fire.

berntb• 17 years ago

Lifecasting should change rude behavior like this in our lifetimes. Just consider, if there is 5-10% risk of someone being an a..hole/criminal almost directly ends up at Youtube, media or the police.

We can look forward to a polite society.

(I think this argument was from Steve Mann, but my memory might have bitrot.)

ajb• 17 years ago

It's not that hard to think of reasons why the border guards would pull someone innocent over on the way out. Most obviously, he or his car could fit the description of an all-points alert; at least, enough that they want a closer look.

Sci-fi author and Crysis 2 writer Peter Watts beaten, arrested at US border

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