Disabled Woman Denied Entrance To US Due To Private Medical Records 784
Jah-Wren Ryel writes "In 2012, Canadian Ellen Richardson was hospitalized for clinical depression. This past Monday she tried to board a plane to New York for a $6,000 Caribbean cruise. DHS denied her entry, citing supposedly private medical records listing her hospitalization. From the story: '“I was turned away, I was told, because I had a hospitalization in the summer of 2012 for clinical depression,’’ said Richardson, who is a paraplegic and set up her cruise in collaboration with a March of Dimes group of about 12 others.'"
While... (Score:5, Insightful)
..literally hundreds of others crossed the border illegally. USA USA USA!
Re:While... (Score:5, Insightful)
They can walk, and they can work cheaply.
Re:While... (Score:5, Insightful)
....and there are people who will hire them.
Re:While... (Score:5, Insightful)
And those people are rich and well connected.
You want to stop illegal immigration, start putting business owners in jail for hiring them. No labor market, no illegal immigration.
Re:While... (Score:4, Interesting)
And in other news: "Depression" is a reason for denying entry to the USA for a holiday.
Re:While... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:While... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:While... (Score:5, Insightful)
You are implying that this means we should be on the lookout for people with depression. You are mistaken.
If having depression on your medical record is something which can bite you, fewer people with depression will seek help. This will if anything cause more shooting-sprees, not fewer.
It's exactly this kind of bullshit that makes it so important medical record be kept genuinely private, not just handed out to government agencies as a matter of course.
Re:While... (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, none of them were in wheelchairs. This is DHS grasping at straws to create some boogeyman terrorists where they don't exist.
Re:While... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:While... (Score:4, Funny)
If we look closely enough it is quite likely that we will find spree shooters all had drivers licenses. Talk about a key similarity!
And they all breathe air! Time to ban oxygen!
Re:While... (Score:5, Insightful)
Way to miss the point. Just exactly how does a DHS rent-a-cop get access to her medical records? That's pretty freakin nuts.
very understandable (Score:5, Funny)
We don't want no evil Canadian paraplegic terrorist to assault our defenseless citizens with kind words.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Funny)
The article conveniently left out that that the March of Dimes makes no commitments to organizing non-violent marches. It's clearly a radical, dangerous group.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Funny)
Indeed. Most people don't realize how dangerous a dime can be in the hands of a trained terrorist.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't want no evil Canadian paraplegic terrorist to assault our defenseless citizens with kind words.
Irrational fear is the new patriotism.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
Irrational fear is the new patriotism.
No, it is not new. Irrational fear has ALWAYS been the keystone to American "patriotism". Hell, just look at the whole McCarthyism thing.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
irrational fear has been the keystone to all patriotism
nothing american about a human phenomenon
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
It is more overt in the U.S. than in other western countries.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet it is far more prevalent in the U.S. than in other Western countries.
Clearly you've never heard of the Daily Mail.
Re:very understandable (Score:4, Insightful)
Where is "over here"? If you're talking about the UK then yes it absolutely does.
Shit like the porn filters David Cameron is so proud of are the direct result of a Daily Mail campaign.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
Americans are not patriotic. Patriotic people wouldn't let their country slide to tyranny, nor let its leaders shit all over its laws, nor keep voting for people who can't even pass a damn budget without turning it into a game of "chicken".
While that's entirely possible, the fact is that they aren't at the top. It's American's turn to show what you're made of and whether you can handle real power. This far, the answers seem to be "pyrite" and "no". And so the USA fades to history, the same as every previous empire who failed the test. But at least the world has calmed down enough that it's unlikely anyone will be ransacking Washington.
Yours isn't, sadly.
Re:very understandable (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's fair to say that the biggest threat to the world wasn't communism, it was the interplay of two superpowers struggling for dominance: everyone else is a target to them.
You were both a real threat to the rest of the world.
Land of the free my arse.
Re:very understandable (Score:4, Insightful)
Really, +4 Insightful? "Not necessarily irrational"?
Two small quotes:
1. -"... is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. It also means "the practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially in order to restrict dissent or political criticism".
2.- "The term is also now used more generally to describe reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries. (...) During the McCarthy era, thousands of Americans were accused of being communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations and questioning before government or private-industry panels, committees and agencies. The primary targets of such suspicions were government employees, those in the entertainment industry, educators and union activists. Suspicions were often given credence despite inconclusive or questionable evidence, and the level of threat posed by a person's real or supposed leftist associations or beliefs was often greatly exaggerated. Many people suffered loss of employment and/or destruction of their careers; some even suffered imprisonment. Most of these punishments came about through trial verdicts later overturned, laws that would be declared unconstitutional, dismissals for reasons later declared illegal or actionable, or extra-legal procedures that would come into general disrepute".
You might want to rethink that "misinformed but not irrational" part, it was a witchhunt. It was, basically: If I do not like what you think, do, say, film, perform, or just who you are, I am going to destroy you, your family, your career and everything you hold dear.
Those quotes come from the first two paragraphs from Wikipedia. Go, read the article. Done? Now go read some of essays and the extensive literature available on the subject, now that you are at it. And by you, I mean the author AND the people that moded that post.
Re:very understandable (Score:4, Interesting)
How do you rationalise the fear of a small, non-poisonous spider? Or a friendly little dog with no history of violence?
Re:very understandable (Score:4, Insightful)
War on Terror: 2001-
Your rant is fifty years off.
I'm not justifying anything or claiming that any government was right. I just said that in the political context of the early 1950:s, fear of communism was not considered irrational.
Today many people seem to have forgotten that before the 1970s, many countries supported the U.S. anti-communist agenda. Many of the same countries are now more or less opposed to the current U.S. foreign policy.
So, aim that flamer at someone who actually disagrees with you, OK?
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Interesting)
Annual number of handgun-related deaths per 100,000 people by selected country (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate [wikipedia.org])
Australia: 1.06
Canada: 2.38
Germany: 1.24
Israel: 1.87
Japan: 0.06
Netherlands: 0.46
United Kingdom: 0.25
United States: 10.3
Actually that's not as big a contrast as I expected -- I thought the US was 20-50 times higher than the norm, but it's significantly less than that for most western countries. The worst mostly in Central America, but Mexico is only slightly higher than the US at 11.17.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
Fear of guns is not irrational. The fact is, someone with a gun can kill you and there's not the damndest shit you can do to defend yourself.
If however someone tries to attack you with a knife you at least have the chance to try and punch them in the fact and stamp on their balls afterwards.
That's why gun murders are a different problem to other murders - they're harder to defend against, and even if you have a gun yourself it doesn't help because a criminal will always ensure they get the jump.
Even outside of that, if you do manage to fire back then there's a greater chance that stray bullets will kill innocent bystanders, something that doesn't happen when you're instead resorting to punching someone in the face.
It's also very easy to stick up, injure, or kill multiple people with a gun - you can quite easily assault a group of 5 people with a gun, but assaulting 5 people with a knife is probably the fastest way to get yourself a good kicking. You may injure or kill one or two of them but the fact you're going to get the shit beaten out of you after that is a rather massive deterrent.
So yes, violence occurs without guns, but guns amplify the problems of it by making it too easy.
This isn't to say I think banning guns outright is the answer in the US - they're too prominent and widespread for a UK style amnesty that has been extremely successful to work, but pretending they're harmless items that don't cause any problems is stupid, it's pretty obvious that they do.
But to turn your "I have never understood anti gun folk irrational fear of an inanimate object." comment around, I've never understood pro gun folks irrational fear of leaving their house without their gun or living without one in the first place. Are you really so lacking in confidence of your ability to defend yourself should someone try and physically attack you or what?
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Interesting)
Just dropping in to add a few facts to the rhetoric:
Point Blank, by Gary Kleck, pg 165, citing a study by Wilson and Sherman, 1961:
âoeAt least one medical study compared very similar sets of wounds (âall were penetrating wounds of the abdomenâ(TM)), and found that the mortality rate in
pistol wounds was 16.8%, while the rate was 14.3% for ice pick wounds and 13.3% for butcher knife wounds."
So a single GSW to center of mass is carries a 16.8% mortality rate.
From Wikipedia:
"In 2005, 75% of the 10,100 homicides committed using firearms in the United States were committed using handguns, compared to 4% with rifles, 5% with shotguns, and the rest with unspecified firearms.[48] The likelihood that a death will result is significantly increased when either the victim or the attacker has a firearm.[49] For example, the mortality rate for gunshot wounds to the heart is 84%, compared to 30% for people who sustain stab wounds to the heart.[50]"
OK, carry on.
Min
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you should consider that you possibly don't understand what "anti-gun folk" fear about handguns. They don't fear an interlocking series of components that produces a chemical reaction that accelerates an emitted object or objects. They fear the human abuse of such an item.
I don't think I've ever heard an anti-gun protester complain about a marine carrying a sidearm in uniform, but lots of them seem to complain about how amazingly trivial it is to obtain one even if you're a diagnosed schizophrenic felon (just head to your nearest gun show.)
Death by handgun isn't any more horrible than death by any other method (hell, you could argue that it is more humane if the shooter knows what they're doing - I'd rather die by gunshot to the head than burn to death) - but I have never heard anyone complain that dying by handgun is worse than anything else.
What I have heard people complain about is that handguns are more dangerous than other 'murder weapons' for the same reason that assault rifles are more dangerous than handguns, that hand grenades are more dangerous than assault weapons, that grenade launchers are more dangerous than hand grenades, and a 20mm automatic cannon is more dangerous than a grenade launcher. Each one makes it easier to kill more people than the next.
I assure you that carrying two M9s will allow you to kill far more people than carrying two knives.
So, perhaps you're a bit mistaken about why people don't like handguns. Personally, I enjoy handgun shooting as a sport, but don't carry one - I use a Mark 23 (a little big to carry anyhow.)
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
What made McCarthyism bad not the hunt for subversives per se, it was tossing out the constitution in the hunt for subversives.
Gee, now why does that sound so familiar?
It's deja vu all over again.
Those who fail to learn from history...
Strat
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Informative)
What made McCarthyism bad not the hunt for subversives per se, it was tossing out the constitution in the hunt for subversives.
Gee, now why does that sound so familiar?
It's deja vu all over again.
Those who fail to learn from history...
Strat
It sounds familiar because your hero Michelle Bachman was recently calling for an investigation of people in congress who are not "American enough" So yeah... Deja Vu.
Re:very understandable (Score:4, Interesting)
Ignoring the biased reported polls, from an informal survey of everyone each of you readers actually know, does anyone know, personally, someone who thinks the TSA is a good idea? Not even a majority, just a single person? I know that everyone I have ever talked to has said it is stupid, useless and completely against their wishes. And that's not to mention all of the other stupidity going on that no one seems to be in favor of. Also, it is across the board from my redneck, gun in the rack across their pickup window, co-workers to the very liberal pro-gay, pro-vegetarian librarian I chat with. I can't seem to find anyone, other than my congress critters that will defend any of the anti-terrorism, pro-spying actions our government is doing. And even the congress pukes are obviously sending out form responses that they don't even believe in and can't defend when questioned in person, other that more rote memorized parroting.
It not even like Obamacare or immigration, where I can find a broad range of opinions, with some rational, well thought out arguments on both sides. The culture of fear we are being force fed seems to be universally despised.
Re:very understandable (Score:4, Informative)
We don't want no evil Canadian paraplegic terrorist to assault our defenseless citizens with kind words.
Meh. Canadian medical privacy is kind of ridiculously done--they put diagnosis (rather than just prescription) on the slips they give the pharmacist, which means for most of small-town Canada, there is near-zero medical privacy. (These are places where the post office knows everyone by name.)
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Informative)
This entire article is flamebait. She published a book one year ago about her ordeal with depression and suicide attempts leading to her being paraplegic. It's on a her own website, ellenrichardson.ca - yet the articles frame the issue as if her medical privacy was compromised? She published herself right on the Bio page about seeking repeated medical help.
I'm starting to get tired of this shit Toronto Star.
Re:very understandable (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
Pharmacists are supposed to be more than pill counters. They're highly educated drug experts, far more so than physicians. The pharmacist is supposed to check what the physician prescribed, make sure it's correct, a reasonable dosage, and doesn't conflict with anything else the patient may have or be taking. It's very useful for the pharmacist to know the diagnosis, in order to do his job.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:very understandable (Score:4)
I've worked with pharmarsists. Haven't met a single one that would not take his oath of silence on patient matters very seriously.
Medical profession is not for everyone. One of the reasons is that you need to be able to segregate patient information and never divulge it even to those who are close to you.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Funny)
Not to mention evil Canadian paraplegic depressed terrorists. Can you imagine the guilt they could inspire in honest citizens with their "I'm sorry"s?
Re:very understandable (Score:4, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:You're correct, mostly (Score:5, Insightful)
I could be described as liberal, I think the over reaction to children playing with toy guns, drawing guns etc is absolutely ridiculous. What I find more ridiculous, is peoples inability to understand liberal and conservative are not two molds where everyone thinks exactly the same and has the same reaction and level of intelligence. Stop turning politics into a tribal war thinking there are two distinct sides, and one is out to get you.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
All the recent mass murders in the U.S. have got the right wing blogosphere screaming for a crackdown on the mentally ill.
Should we point out to them that all these mentally ill people are loose on the streets and not getting proper treatment because these same right-wingers are insisting on social service cutbacks?
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Interesting)
When those with issues can seek help without fear of punishment (and for free) the number of "mentally ill" in the US will go up by 10x or more.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
It is a real peeve of mine how laws get passed with absolutely zero thought given to what the consequences will be. People change their behavior, but so many of these dumb bills just assume that they won't.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Interesting)
That's an interesting social difference I noticed after moving to Denmark. It's super hush-hush to get any kind of treatment for mental illness in the U.S., and many people avoid doing it at all because of the stigma. But here, someone will just casually mention in conversation that they were out of work for 3 months last year because they enrolled in a treatment program to treat their depression + drinking problem. The state paid for medical leave and provided a treatment program, it worked, and they went back to work 3 months later, and they have no problem disclosing that. It's just seen as a thing that can happen and should be properly treated, but otherwise no need to be ashamed of it.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Interesting)
Slightly offtopic, but I can't resist reposting one of the Onion's best predictions [theonion.com] (jan 17 2001)
Statue of passing judgement (Score:5, Insightful)
Give me your tired^whealthy, your poor^wrich/Your huddled masses^wvisa-workers yearning to breathe free^w"managed"
Only a few more words to go people; you can do it!
D for douchebag? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does the D in DHS stand for douchebag?
Re:D for douchebag? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's the "H" in DHS that you need to be concerned about. How does it not make everyone extremely uncomfortable as soon as a government institution (that spreads and entangles everything everywhere) starts referring to "the homeland". It has a very specific cold-war connotation to it and accurately conveys the mentality behind the department (and the government, overall) of the last decade.
Re:D for douchebag? (Score:4, Insightful)
I hear "Homeland," and I think "Fatherland," or "Motherland." Very 1930s Germany, very USSR.
Re:D for douchebag? (Score:5, Funny)
Der Heutigen Stasi.
Collusion (Score:5, Interesting)
How did they get her Canadian medical records? Canada's hospitals are run by government... did the government really hand over all of Canadians' private medical records to a foreign country?
What scum.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the kind of situation where you want to hear all the evidence before passing judgement. We don't have it all here.
Although I don't really understand why they want to ke
Re:Collusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Although I don't really understand why they want to keep depressed people out, it's just a tourist visa, not even a long term thing.
Bruce Schneier calls it "the war on the unusual" - I like "the war on diginity" because it better encompasses the kafka-esque nature of the unthinking and unyielding bureaucracy that produces this sort of result.
Re:Collusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Delusional? No, she was treated for clinical depression after a relationship ended. I guess you've never had a soul destroying break up that leaves you alone and utterly bereft of joy in your life. Be thankful for that because it fucking sucks.
Re:Collusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Gosh, guys, what on earth could a person who is paralyzed from the waist down have to be depressed about?!
Re:Collusion (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think you have a clear understanding of mental illness.
It's like physical illness, but applied to the brain and mental functions. People get better. People get worse. Some people are very very ill, many are just a bit ill. 1 in 4 people will have a mental health issue at some point in their life.
By "is delusional" you mean "was delusional". This is now managed with drugs, just like someone who lost their leg has their "balance issues" managed with a false limb. I don't think anyone would condone blocking entry to a country because that person had lost a leg in the past.
The decision was appalling, and the fact that it is clear that Canada is giving up private medical records to US authorities is disgusting.
The US just spies on everything (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is that the NSA knows about everyones personal medical records. And they abuse that information.
Umm, what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is there some catch-all 'medical refusal' category left over from the good old days of TB screenings at Ellis Island that somebody felt like powertripping on? What sort of insane logic is at work here?
Re:Umm, what? (Score:5, Interesting)
I lived in Point Roberts [google.com] and commuted to Canada for work 5 days a week for 3 years, with weekend shopping trips to mainland Washington. So I got very familiar with how CBP works. You're probably right that it was some border agent power tripping. But aside from U.S. citizens, nobody has an inherent right to enter into the U.S. (and sometimes they even make U.S. citizens feel like you don't have a right to enter). Their default is to deny a foreigner entry unless the agent feels comfortable letting the person in, not let the person in unless the agent can find a reason to deny them entry. If you do or say anything which makes the agent wary or suspicious, you risk being denied entry. If pressed, they will just make up a reason if they're deciding based on a gut feeling. Be polite, answer their questions openly, no veiled insults, no jokes which might be misconstrued, and you'll usually fly right through. If they say something insulting to you, smile and ignore it.
Yes that leaves a lot of opportunity for agents to act like an asshole or practice all sorts of discrimination. It doesn't matter to them. There's very little consequence for them incorrectly denying someone entry, while they suffer huge consequences for incorrectly allowing someone in. Most of the agents I met were polite and professional. All were strict. Only a few were jerks (all of us who commuted cross-border knew who the jerk agents were). Their job isn't to be fair, it's to prevent threats from entering the country. If you're trying to judge them based on fairness, I could write pages of crazy things they did (like strip someone of their Nexus pass for life because a half-eaten sandwich in the car's trash had a slice of tomato, tomatoes being on the USDA's prohibited list that month - yes the list changed monthly). I don't necessarily agree with it, but that's just how CBP works. The whole system is designed to err on the side of the country's safety - denying entry to lots of innocents is considered a worthwhile tradeoff for prohibiting entry to one threat.
Re:Umm, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice apologia, but it's bullshit.
When people are denied entry on a capricious basis, everyone suffers. Though they don't know it, even the border patrol fuckwads suffer. And then the country produces more fuckwards, who apply for border patrol jobs because they sense an opportunity to bully people. Then they invent a bunch of bullshit rationalizations for being assholes.
I tell everyone I speak to on the subject not to visit the USA. You'd have to be an asshole to give us your money. We're just going to use it to fuck you and everyone else over.
Re:Umm, what? (Score:5, Interesting)
That is why any sane legal system allows some leeway to the decision makers. In many jurisdictions a judge has a wide range of sentencing room, like from 1 to 5 years in prison. He can than look at the specific case at hand and precedents and decide appropriately. Recently all those "zero tolerance" laws are producing absurd situations, for example where a 10 year old boy is expelled from school because he brought a toy gun or knife. (I need to look that article up some time again.) The problem is not the law as intended, it is that the added zero tolerance addition. This makes the administrative staff liable when no action is taken. This creates the stupid situation where people get prosecuted even when the situation runs totally against the intent of the law.
Re:Umm, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is exactly why it's the only government in the world I'd trust to obey the law.
best troll ever?
Meanwhile (Score:4)
Our southern border remains as porous as sandstone. No one knows, or cares, how many people are infiltrating on the southern border. No one cares what their mental state might be, no one gives the slightest thought to their loyalties, or their purposes for crossing the border.
But, we must prevent some Canadian from entering the United States who just might possibly could do harm to herself!
Re:Umm, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
he's explaining a shitty reality, not condoning it
ever hear of the phrase "shooting the messenger"?
Re:Umm, what? (Score:4, Insightful)
interesting though stupid comment (Score:5, Insightful)
The US can deny anyone entry into their country for any reason or no reason.
While I think we all agree that flying like many activities is something of a privilege. But at the same time, who really thinks it's a good idea to let some preening, unaccountable bureaucrat decide whether or not you should be granted that privilege with no justification needed?
While the commenter goes on to note that US Customs and Border Protection should not have had access to that medical information (with the poster claiming that is the only "deeper issue" at stake), it's interesting how many issues this one incident bring up.
In addition, we have regulations that can block someone from flying on dubious medical grounds. And that US Customs and Border Protection has the authority to block people from merely flying through the US on their way to other foreign locations.
It's like someone knocked a whole crate of worms off the locking dock.
Re:interesting though stupid comment (Score:4, Insightful)
When three of the latest mass murders that happened in the US was due to people with mental illness. It is not statistically likely but it could become highly deadly given the failings previously.
This is a combination of several logical fallacies. Let's examine the given argument: Because attacks happened, and because the perpetrators were mentally ill, if we let a mentally ill person into the country, then there might be an attack.
First, correlation does not indicate causation. Simply because a person is mentally ill does not mean that an attack was perpetrated because of them being mentally ill. You would need further proof that this is the case, and it wasn't due to political or ideological motivation.
The cum hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy can be expressed as follows:
A occurs in correlation with B.
Therefore, A causes B.
Secondly, this is a fallacy of the single cause.
It can be logically reduced to: X occurred after Y. Therefore, Y caused X (although A,B,C...etc also caused X.)
Often after a tragedy it is asked, "What was the cause of this?" Such language implies that there is one cause, when instead there were probably a large number of contributing factors. However, having produced a list of several contributing factors, it may be worthwhile to look for the strongest of the factors, or a single cause underlying several of them. A need for simplification may be perceived in order to make the explanation of the tragedy operational, so that responsible authorities can be seen to have taken action.
This is also straight up cherry-picking. If it's not statistically likely that a mentally ill person will commit a terrorist act, then why would you base your argument around it?
Cherry picking, suppressing evidence, or the fallacy of incomplete evidence is the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position, while ignoring a significant portion of related cases or data that may contradict that position. It is a kind of fallacy of selective attention, the most common example of which is the confirmation bias.
That barely skims the surface of the problems with that argument.
Re:interesting though stupid comment (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe all those people also had a Y chromosome instead of the normal double X.
Re:interesting though stupid comment (Score:4, Insightful)
over the constitution
I've got real problems with that one. If it's so damn important to put something above the Constitution, make an amendment. Otherwise, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Otherwise, you've just defeated the point of having rule-by-law.
Not due to private medical records (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not due to private medical records (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not due to private medical records (Score:5, Informative)
If you check the article, you'll see that the DHS agent who rejected her specifically cited the medical incident from 2012.
Re:Not due to private medical records (Score:5, Interesting)
Not due to private medical records, due to her medical condition being advertised all over the internet
There have been at least 12 others with similar experiences at the border. [www.cbc.ca] I think it is unlikely that they've all written books about their circumstances.
Re:Not due to private medical records (Score:5, Interesting)
That's quite impressive access (Score:5, Insightful)
That is absolutely amazing. (Not in any good way) TSA/ICE people literally have access to this stuff. It amazes me in an utterly horrifying way. That it's more international data sharing at this level should be cause for all manner of scrutiny and corrective action.
I'm sure Canadians and others are just about done with the US and what the government is up to.
Re:That's quite impressive access (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not our government that gave away your information, it was your own government that did that.
Since you refuse to blame the right party, your attitude is hardly going to help solve your problem.
And I might also point out, the UK, Australia, and Germany probably also have all your information. But don't blame them, they're also not the ones who gave it away.
Why bring up her physical disability? (Score:5, Insightful)
Disabled Woman Denied Entrance To US Due To Private Medical Records
While it wouldn't necessarily be a surprise to find out that her physical disability (paraplegia) might have had some affect on her mental wellbeing over the years, is it not just a little bit disingenuous to make it the first word of the headline, implying that it was her physical disability rather than her mental illness that caused the issue at the border?
You wouldn't write the headline "Black man arrested for insider trading" would you?
Re:Why bring up her physical disability? (Score:5, Insightful)
Aren't you assuming that mental illness isn't a disability?
Re:Why bring up her physical disability? (Score:5, Informative)
is it not just a little bit disingenuous to make it the first word of the headline, implying that it was her physical disability rather than her mental illness that caused the issue at the border?
Since I wrote the headline, I'll tell you why I did it that way -- In order to emphasize that she was not a threat. The agent would not have needed "private medical records" to deny her entrance for being in a wheelchair.
Don't start a cruise from the USA (Score:4, Informative)
Let's be honest, they're a pain in the arse and the last people you would want near you on a relaxing holiday.
Ridiculous border restrictions (Score:5, Interesting)
This reminds me of a former co-worker of mine at a university in Britain. My co-worker was Indian, held an MSc and a Research Fellow position at said university, while also being halfway through a PhD at the same university.
He was scheduled to attend a conference in the US together with our line manager, but had to cancel as the US blankly refused him entrance on the grounds that the risk of him becoming an illegal immigrant was too high. Letters from the university did not help.
Now, you may well be proud of your country, but is it really realistic to expect someone to be so desperate to live in the US that they will drop a relevant, career-progressing and decently paid job in another Western country to work in the kitchen of a golf club as an illegal immigrant?
He now ironically works in the UK for a large, very high-tech US company.
Re:Ridiculous border restrictions (Score:5, Interesting)
It doesn't surprise me. An Indian friend of mine told me of all the extra things Indians have to do to get a visa that British people don't, for example if an Indian has to go to the US Embassy to apply, they have to turn up in a suit or they get denied. British people can turn up in jeans and T-shirt. Immigration services (and this isn't just the US) are often filled with arbitrary rules made up by petty officials who enjoy being little Hitlers. I lived in the US for something like 6 years. The INS in the US wasn't a particular problem, but the US Embassy in London may have come out of the pages of Franz Kafka.
I had two run-ins with the US Embassy in London. The first was when getting my L-1 visa issued. They refused it, and told me I had to go to the Embassy for an interview. Since I don't live anywhere near London it's quite a trip, so I get there nice and early. Once you go past an airport-like security, you go into this large waiting room with all the other foreigners wanting visas. It's sort of a bit like a cross between a delicatessen and a railway ticket office - you get given a deli-style ticket with a number on it and they announce your number when they want to see you, and then you go to a train station style window to be interviewed (no privacy of course). I had no idea why they had refused the application, they just stamp it "224(g)" (IIRC) which means they need more information. The numbers don't seem to be read out in any particular sequence so you can't tell when you're going to be called, and you know if you miss your number they won't call it again and they'll make you come back another day, so you can't even get into a good book while you're waiting (typically 3-4 hours). They have these "newspapers" around the waiting room, I think they were called "Going USA". The first part of this newspaper was about happy emigrants who had left your country (and for some bizarre reason, the majority of them seemed to go to the US to run gas stations), how shit your country is and how wonderful the US is. The second half of this newspaper is dedicated to telling you how we're not going to give you a visa anyway.
Finally I got called for my "interview", the guy asked me one question: how long have you worked for your company? I told him, he stamped my passport and said "Your visa will be in the mail".
They could have asked me that on the phone. Or even an email. Instead of wasting money and time on a day going to London and waiting in that awful room for half of it.
The second time was when my visa was extended in the US. That part of it was pretty painless. However, I wanted to go and see my family and you have to get a new visa put in your passport. This should be a formality since the visa is already approved by the INS, so really it should be a matter of filling in the form, sending off the passport to the US Embassy in London, and a few days later getting it back. Oh no, not so easy. They refused it again! They said the form I used was out of date. So I went to the US Embassy website and downloaded the new form. It turned out to be IDENTICAL to the old form, except for the date printed at the bottom. That stupidity cost an airline change fee and an extra two weeks off work that I would have rather taken off when I chose to take them off.
Don't think I'm ragging on the US exclusively here. This kind of douchebaggery isn't confined to the US. My next door neighbour is Albanian, and exactly the kind of person we want coming to our country, she has an engineering degree, speaks three languages fluently and is a very smart person. However the British Embassy treated her as if she were a criminal, straight up saying to her "You're a liar" about her relationship with her husband. The treatment she was given in my country's name made me ashamed to be British.
Re:Ridiculous border restrictions (Score:4, Informative)
If you are thinking they are discriminatory, I'm here to assure you that they fuck with us just as badly. I generally refuse to fly because of the DHS (our airlines having some of the worst service on earth doesn't help either) but the last time I flew it was to adopt my son, so I absolutely had to. The airline screwed up our tickets so we had to have them reissued which not only delayed us so we were barely make the flight but also flagged us because it was now a 1 way ticket to Africa paid in cash. It was like my wife were the duke boys, they were Rosco P Coltrane and had finally caught us dead to rights. The amount of grovelling, and debasing of myself I was willing to do to get them to allow me to board the plane so I wouldn't miss my foreign court date so I could finish the adoption truly amazed even myself. Alas, they really didn't give a shit, and the only thing that saved us was our bulldog of a social worker who was already well aware of our situation due to the ticket screw up and somehow got our congressman to call the DHS and demand our release from the circle jerk they called security and let us board the plane. I'd also like to mention that my congressman and I don't see eye to eye politically (I let him know when he showed up on my doorstep campaigning once) so I'm sure I'm on his naughty list, but adoption seems to be one of the last vestiges of decency in politics.
Canada contracts some medical records to USA (Score:4, Interesting)
Where I live (British Columbia), our provincial government has contracted a US multi-national to maintain our public health records. This caused considerable controversy at the time, including an unsuccessful court challenge [www.cbc.ca].
It should come as no surprise to any Canadian that the US has access to their health records when we're paying a US company to maintain them.
Oh The Irony.... (Score:5, Funny)
From TFA:
'U.S. Customs and Border Protection media spokeswoman Jenny Burke said that due to privacy laws, “the department is prohibited from discussing specific cases.’’'
If only they were always so scrupulous in observing privacy laws.
Dude, you're way off base. (Score:5, Insightful)
That creature was no bull dyke.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not a fan of bull dykes, at all. I've no use for them, and they have no use for me. But, a bull dyke is a woman, after all, and human.
That creature you refer to, who was running DHS, is a full fledged fascist pig, with an agenda of her own. She has no love for the United States, or any segment of the country's demographics.
As little as might like bull dykes, I would have preferred that there actually WAS a militant lesbian bull running DHS.
USA,..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:USA,..... (Score:5, Insightful)
The terrorists won.
Re:USA,..... (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree that the US has become less civilized, but you can't say your own (I'm assuming western european) country(ies) are any better. For one, many are quite happy being the lapdogs of the US fed and the fortune 100 (eg copyright cartel), and secondly, like the US, their own, current policies routinely clobber freedom for the sake of mob rule and the coddling of its collective, kneejerk feelings. Unlike the US, however, they don't even have free speech, self defense rights, and protection from unwarranted search, codified into their laws, which leads to even more abuse than the average US citizen gets in the US. What's more 'civilized' about that? I think the western world needs to reevaluate its priorities lest it become the harbinger of the next dark age.
Re: USA,..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes.. Bush and his crew created it, and Obama's extended it. He also voted for PATRIOT as a senator. Bush and Obama really are two faces of the same coin. In fact, Obama ran on the promise of shutting down secret prisons and killing off PATRIOT. What did he do? Extend the bill and move the secret prisons here, giving precedent to expand them on american soil, later. Also, do not forget about the expansion secret courts and the denial of proper due process for the sake of 'national security.'
The democrats and republicans need to go..
Re:Maybe not NSA snooping (Score:5, Insightful)
If the book was published in 2009 and the exact event stated by DHS for denying entry occurred in 2012, how did the 2012 event get known by the DHS from a 2009 book?
Re:Maybe not NSA snooping (Score:5, Insightful)
The DHS quite obviously have access to sweeping surveillance information on anyone who wants to enter the US. This was obvious before the Snowden/NSA leak. A couple of years before that leak there was a British man who made national news here for being denied entry to the US (and being interrogated for hours) because of a tweet he made not long before he boarded the aircraft (the tweet was of the nature "we're gonna go out and destroy the town tonight" which in British slang means we're going to get drunk and party, but the DHS took it literally as if he were planning to bomb Seattle). To link someone's Twitter username with an actual living person in such a short period of time and have it ready on a border agent's computer when the unfortunate person arrives means they must have had pretty wide and detailed surveillance already capable of making all the links necessary to link a living person with a pseudanonymous Twitter username.
Re:Avoid a psychiatric diagnosis at all costs (Score:5, Insightful)
This is basically the opposite of good advice, and none of it conforms to any experience I've ever had, or that anyone I know has had. I have a psychiatric diagnosis or two, and I've gotten treatment, and you know what? It's made my life a heck of a lot better actually getting some help. I've never had a doctor try to somehow disregard physical illnesses based on this, either.
The thing with "treatments" in scare quotes is a pretty strong indication that you're not merely unaware of the state of the art in the field, but actively avoiding any risk of being contaminated by actual information about it. And I guess if you wanna be that way on your own dime, that's your business, but when you start telling other people they should avoid basic health care services because you're afraid of them, that's sorta harmful to other people.
Re:Avoid a psychiatric diagnosis at all costs (Score:5, Insightful)
The state of the art in the field is medication. The drugs have changed over time, but drugs have been the first line of treatment for at least 40 years now. I have both experienced myself, and witnessed in others the indescribable suffering and agony that can occur due to drug side-effects, and those that appear due to withdrawal of the drugs after long-term use. Psychiatry would have you believe, I suppose, that the central nervous system is endlessly plastic, and can rapidly adapt and respond to medications being added and removed as one pleases. For the majority, perhaps this is true - but there is a sizable minority who find their mental health deteriorate the longer they are on the medications, and then discover (to their horror) that they cannot discontinue the drug without terrifying mental and physical symptoms, far worse than the original illness. If it should happen to you, psychiatry absolutely _will not_ have your back, or really anything to offer you, as even the drug manufacturers themselves do not know how the medications affect the brain long term.
One might argue that any treatment has risks, but after experiencing what I've experienced, I think people should understand what kind of risk they're really taking. For my part, I do not consider this kind of medication Russian roulette to be a "basic health care service."
Re:When visiting a country (Score:4, Informative)
This sounds like good advice, but really isn't
If you apply for a visa to the US for a visit that doesn't require one, you are acting suspiciously! The request will likely be denied for the simple fact that it is suspicious, and here's the kicker: if you have been denied a visa once, it becomes very difficult to enter the US. You can never make use of the visa waiver program again, and having previously been denied a visa may be grounds for rejection the next time you apply for a visa.
A better advice: just do exactly what is required.
Re:Her information was public, put away your tinfo (Score:4, Informative)
This is like the fourth time in this article I have seen this. She wrote a book that was published something like 4 years ago, but yet the DHS knew about something that happened last year. Holy shit do you people pay any attention to what is going on? Or did you skim the summaray and then off to googling in the hopes you would earn some modderations if you brought back a tasty treat.
You people sometimes, no fucking common sense.