http://www.rabble.ca/in_your_own_words.shtml?x=29499I've crossed many borders in my life: I've been held up for 12 hours at the Bulgarian-Turkish border while my travelling companions, home-coming Turks, negotiated the size of the bribe to be paid to the border officials; I've had my car inspected at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin by suspicious East German police; and once, when I'd lost my passport and had to go to Germany from Italy to get it replaced, I drove around Switzerland because that non-European Community member would have required the missing document, whereas member state Austria didn't.
But the border I've crossed the most is the American one, usually by car between St. Stephen, New Brunswick and Calais, Maine, on my way to visit my sister in Boston. Normally it's a quick drive-through — a couple of questions about destination and duration of stay, and you're off. Over the holidays, however, our travelling companion, a friend from Italy, was called into the customs building for questioning and then, for good measure, we too were subjected to the drill.
It wasn't pretty.
No one, of course, minds security measures meant to root out terrorists, and it's good to see border officials taking the task seriously. But the questioning we were put through crossed its own lines: we were badgered, patronized, treated like disobedient children — and long after it had to be apparent to everyone that we weren't terrorists and had nothing to hide. After an hour of this unnecessary treatment we left the building humiliated and angry and cursing George W. Bush, who presided over the whole ritual in the form of a huge grinning photograph.
-snip-
----------------------
read the rest of the article to see the things these guards said to them, ugh
who hired these border guards? they sound very fundamentalist.
A Big Smirking Picture of Bush - oh, please
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
