Earlier this month the Montreal Gazette wrote about Pascal Abidor, a man with France and US citizenship who was the subject of secondary-inspection by US border agents which resulted in:
- Losing his laptop for 11 days
- Being frisked, handcuffed, and placed in a cell
- Fingerprinted and photographed
- Released…3 hours later
Getting the ACLU involved seemed to be what helped get his laptop back sooner than later, and (from the article)…
He is now one of the plaintiffs, along with the National Association of Defence Lawyers and the National Press Photographers Association, suing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to have policies regarding electronic equipment changed.
Unfortunately for Pascal, he was the perfect storm for determining who should be flagged for secondary inspection:
- Muslim
- Doing his Ph D in modern Shiite history
- Pictures of Hamas and Hezbollah on his laptop
- Foreign citizenship and studying in a different country, but travelling to NY to visit family
Now he’s in the system, as he realized when he flew from London to New Jersey a few months later and was detained again. I love the comment in the article:
…agents seemed to have inside information about Abidor, asking about the last time he was stopped, how he pays for travels, his girlfriend and Ph.D. and whether he was Muslim.
This shouldn’t be a surprise, as we all know that when you get sent to secondary inspection you’re flagged in the system, especially after fingerprints and other information is gathered.
Unfortunately I don’t know how successful the lawsuit is going to be. It’ll come down to the rule of law against the fear of terrorism, and unfortunately its much easier to succumb to fear. Still, for foreigners this is another example of why crossing into the US can be dangerous. If this is how they treat their own, how do you think they’ll treat those from other countries?
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