On the other hand, if somebody said "I'm here for terrorism" and the immigration officer laughed that off, imagine the shitstorm if that person turns out to be a terrorist.
For the individual employee the cost of wasting someone's time by escalating the case and detaining them is zero, the potential cost of letting someone slip by is realistically tiny but potentially huge
The point is that the situation must be really crazy if we reach a point where someone (mostly foreigner) saying "tourist" is being confused as to saying "terrorist". Airport are full of tourists, and exactly 0 person on the planet would reply with "terrorist".
So when an immigration officer makes an error parsing the tourist's words, you think the security protocol ought to be to let the tourist pass through the gate?
> I wonder how many actual terrorists they pick up for saying "I'm here for terrorism"
Its like those stupid questions on US immigration forms, e.g.
"Do you intend to engage in the United States in Espionage ?"
or
"Did you ever order, incite or otherwise participate in the persecution of any person ?"
It's like, really ? Do they seriously think someone who should answer yes will really answer yes ?
Might as well just turn up at the immigration desk, slap your wrists down on the counter and invite them to handcuff you .... why bother with the form !
> the purpose of the form is to generate convictions for lying on the form.
Yeah but if the immigration officer has reason to question you about those sections of the form then surely they have more than enough evidence of the underlying crime anyway ?
Wouldn't it be easier to make those things illegal and then prosecute them instead of the lie? For prosecuting a lie you need to prove 2 things, the thing lied about and the lie itself, so it seems like a more difficult prosecution for no reason. Also how does every other country in the world manage to not have these questions?
Making false statements to federal officials is itself a crime. The intent of having those sections is to be able to have legal recourse against people that lie on them, which hopefully deters people that would lie on them from attempting to immigrate in the first place.
Believe it or not it’s a question on the pre-clearance form for travel to the US: ”are you or have you ever been a member of a terrorist organisation” - I always wondered what the rationale for that was
It could probably be part of the premise for a gag in a hypothetical Liar Liar 2 after Jim Carrey haphazardly finds himself mixed up in one 30 minutes earlier in the movie, so there's that.
> I always wondered what the rationale for that was
One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. An easy way to keep communists out of the country.
And we've seen how easy it is to expand that list with "antifa" groups just recently, with antifa groups in Germany having to deal with their banks closing their accounts because the banks were afraid of getting hit with retaliation in their US business.
On the other hand, if somebody said "I'm here for terrorism" and the immigration officer laughed that off, imagine the shitstorm if that person turns out to be a terrorist.
For the individual employee the cost of wasting someone's time by escalating the case and detaining them is zero, the potential cost of letting someone slip by is realistically tiny but potentially huge
The point is that the situation must be really crazy if we reach a point where someone (mostly foreigner) saying "tourist" is being confused as to saying "terrorist". Airport are full of tourists, and exactly 0 person on the planet would reply with "terrorist".
>and exactly 0 person on the planet would reply with "terrorist".
Unfortunately you give your fellow humans way too much credit.
Much like the people that rob a bank by writing a note saying to hand over all the money... on the back of their own deposit slip.
So when an immigration officer makes an error parsing the tourist's words, you think the security protocol ought to be to let the tourist pass through the gate?
> I wonder how many actual terrorists they pick up for saying "I'm here for terrorism"
Its like those stupid questions on US immigration forms, e.g.
"Do you intend to engage in the United States in Espionage ?" or "Did you ever order, incite or otherwise participate in the persecution of any person ?"
It's like, really ? Do they seriously think someone who should answer yes will really answer yes ?
Might as well just turn up at the immigration desk, slap your wrists down on the counter and invite them to handcuff you .... why bother with the form !
> It's like, really ? Do they seriously think someone who should answer yes will really answer yes ?
No, they do not think anyone will check 'Yes' to that box.
The purpose of the box is that it's a crime to lie when someone checks 'No', and that tends to be an easy charge to bring.
So, the purpose of the form is to generate convictions for lying on the form.
> the purpose of the form is to generate convictions for lying on the form.
Yeah but if the immigration officer has reason to question you about those sections of the form then surely they have more than enough evidence of the underlying crime anyway ?
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Wouldn't it be easier to make those things illegal and then prosecute them instead of the lie? For prosecuting a lie you need to prove 2 things, the thing lied about and the lie itself, so it seems like a more difficult prosecution for no reason. Also how does every other country in the world manage to not have these questions?
3 replies →
Making false statements to federal officials is itself a crime. The intent of having those sections is to be able to have legal recourse against people that lie on them, which hopefully deters people that would lie on them from attempting to immigrate in the first place.
Believe it or not it’s a question on the pre-clearance form for travel to the US: ”are you or have you ever been a member of a terrorist organisation” - I always wondered what the rationale for that was
It's easier to deport people for lying on their immigration form than for having been a member of a terrorist organization
But to prove lying you would have to prove being a terrorist anyway...
7 replies →
I liked the “have you been in contact with someone with Ebola” questions the kiosk used to ask people entering Canada.
I’m like, uhhhh, I dunno, maybe? A little late to inform me that I was supposed to be asking/testing everyone.
If I knew the answer to that was yes I'd already be at the hospital ...
It could probably be part of the premise for a gag in a hypothetical Liar Liar 2 after Jim Carrey haphazardly finds himself mixed up in one 30 minutes earlier in the movie, so there's that.
> I always wondered what the rationale for that was
One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. An easy way to keep communists out of the country.
And we've seen how easy it is to expand that list with "antifa" groups just recently, with antifa groups in Germany having to deal with their banks closing their accounts because the banks were afraid of getting hit with retaliation in their US business.