Very disappointed to hear that most people view a simple border check as more dangerous than a fanatical religious terrorist. Again, I know this is not a popular view, and will surely get more downvotes. Just kind of sad to me, to be honest.

> most people view a simple border check as more dangerous than a fanatical religious terrorist.

Which terrorist?

So by your logic, because there was a fanatical religious terrorist at some point in time, it is perfectly ok for this country to start prying into everyone's (public and private) accounts, infer who knows what from what they read there ("You write on twitter you are going to have a _blast_!? in Boston" "Ok, step over here please"), and then proceed to interrogate people at the border.

It seems like the guy was added to some black database somewhere. Are you in that database too? Can you check who is in there? Do you know how one gets added or removed from it?

Are you prepared to justify all the groping, and x-raying going in airports because because of a religious terrorist. What else are you willing to sacrifice because of this religious terrorist.

I am, for one, also very disappointed to see that you and others have drunk the cool-aid that has been flowing from Washington D.C. (This is a War on Terror, Be Afraid, Be Prepared for More Attacks, We Must Invade etc. etc.)

I think you misunderstand. It's like saying I'm more afraid of twisting my ankle than getting struck by a meteorite; It's not that the latter isn't worse than the former, but rather that the latter is less of a threat when actual probability is taken into account.

"It seems like the guy was added to some black database somewhere."

Or, a much more simple explanation as was outlined in a post above, is that they asked what he does for a living, and he mentioned cryptographic technologies. Which is a controlled export in this country. Which would naturally raise the curiousity of someone whose job it is to monitor the flow of humans and properties in and out of this country.

Someone who enters and leaves this country frequently, who works in an area that is a defined controlled export of this country...

Tell me, if your job was a border agent, would you be curious? Would you interview that person? Wouldn't you be horrible at your job if you didn't?

The point of those religious fanatics is to kill the influence the US has so they can increase their influence. Every time someone says they aren't going back to the US because of their last experience at customs we lose influence. When a company avoids doing business with the US because of our laws we lose influence.

The simple border checks are symbolic in nature. It means we are intentionally excluding people from our conversations. Eventually those people will form a new dialog without us. Think about Pakistan, they are our allies in name only. The population doesn't like us, government actively works against with states who are not our friends.

Are you aware of the level of details people have to report (or have reported by the airline and weird treaties I'll never understand) to enter this fine country?

How many people are scanned (using information that's, in spite of your advice of 'not putting things in public', readily available to the US immigration and border control)? How many of those are terrorists?

That's because many of us understand that fanatical religious terrorists are extremely extremely rare. Government abuse of power is not.

But you can rest assured that this viewpoint you're disappointed by is much more common on internet forums than among people with actual power.

if furniture is more dangerous than terrorists, then the bar isn't very high for border checks

>I don't quite mind the idea that we are attempting to figure out who exactly the people are that are coming across American borders into this country.

What exactly does the kind of software a person develops have to do with whether they should be allowed entry into the USA?

Do you remember the story about the woman losing her teaching certificate because of a picture on facebook as a "drunken pirate"?

Now imagine that as government policy instead of an isolated incident.

"Quantity has a quality all its own."

Karunamon: absolutely nothing, on the face of it. And that is my entire point: I don't doubt this is how the developer interpreted these events, but if you can scroll up to see my post, I am 100% skeptical that there is some kind of silly campaign to keep crypto devs out of the country through intimidation at the border. It simply makes no sense when you take a step back and extrapolate the larger implications. It's very easy to roll your eyes and say, "Here goes that government of ours, AGAIN". It's very easy to have that emotional reaction, but in my obviously unpopular view here, it doesn't jive with reality.

Another poster, untog, made an interesting point I agree with. He said it better than I can summarize, so let me copy/paste:

"When you arrive at their desk, they ask "what do you do for a living and what does your company do?". If you answer "The company makes chat software", you'd walk straight through. If you say "The company makes encrypted, secure chat software" then they are going to ask further questions. I wouldn't be surprised if they have a watchlist of words to listen out for, and "encryption" is one of them. Encryption is subject to export controls:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_in_the_U... "

Encrpytion is subject to export controls. Obviously, if there are controls on such a product, and you are an individual coming in and out of the country frequently, working on crypto for an American company... They are going to be interested. It's their job to monitor, inspect and even restrict the flow of humans and controlled properties in and out of the country. They'd be terrible at their job if they didn't want to hear more about a controlled export.

If you were a nuclear scientist working on energy research in America, and nuclear components and intelligence properties are a controlled export... Would you be surprised if someone stopped you at the border?

My point is not to equate crypto with nuclear research, it's to equate crypto with another controlled export.

to further expand, let me copy/paste my first response to this entire situation:

"1) Why? I presume your point is that the government is attempting in a very, very, very round-about way to stifle free speech? Please inform me if this is not your point, I don't want to put words in your mouth.

2) What would that accomplish. We live in an era of instant communication and transportation of software. Developers can work on products from anywhere in the globe. If this man was denied entry to the United States, what is stopping him from simply working for his company from abroad? The answer: nothing.

It would serve pretty much zero purpose to run a campaign of intimidation against an incredibly small subset of the developer population... Programmers with cryptographic expertise who frequently travel in and outside of the United States... I don't get it. What about all of those with crypto experience who are already in the US and don't travel. Aren't they a threat? Are they being targeted? Where are their stories?

Doesn't the government, when they are looking to either break or make these same crypto software, draw from the same talent pool as private industry here in America? Why would they run that talent out of town?

If the US government wanted to suppress cryptographic research or otherwise circumvent it in an effort to subvert Free Speech, don't you think there are more precise and non-haphazard-and-idiotic ways of doing it?

This goes against the general sentiment of comments I've seen in this article, but I just have to say it. I think the idea is ridiculous and above all, completely inefficient for the goals everyone is ascribing to the border agents and the government here.

Logic doesn't really back this up. I can't imagine the point of this. I am not naive enough to think the government doesn't do some shady stuff, but I simply don't see the point and don't see this as an effective tool in whatever their war on developers is supposed to be."