groo
07-13-2006, 04:15 AM
I've mentioned some of my issues with US Customs and with the Chippewa County Jail system, but you'll note I didn't say much about the other US departments of Homeland Security nor their intelligence agencies.
During my 6 or so hours of interview by those remaining departments, I was listened to politely, treated professionally and courteously, and had few significant issues.
One department tried to get me to sign a document that made no sense to me. It read like it might have been a general confession or admission of guilt, but I didn't receive that document after I refused to sign it (I never sign something I don't understand.)
I had been stressed by the surveillance for several weeks prior to the border issues. I had already spent a fair bit of time speculating about why I might be under surveillance, and I knew my computer had an "infection" that wasn't being detected by McAfee anti-virus.
The computer infection was cleared up while I was held. I owe the security departments my thanks for that cleanup, and the implicit confirmation that there was an undetected infection of some kind on the computer. The key evidence of the cleanup was my music player software re-doing it's final installation and registration procedure the next time I used it, as well as the elimination of a delay and icon displayed by my Firefox email software during it's startup process.
For those who are terrified of the DEA, CIA, et. al., don't be.
They knew I was a medical cannabis user, because I told them that. They also knew of my suspicions of other reasons I might be under surveillance, though they didn't know why I was bringing up those issues.
One of the departments asked me why I was there, and why I'd spent so much time talking about all those issues. As I've mentioned before, I asked him if he thought I was a terrorist, and was told "No." While it's possible they would have taken the opportunity to "set me up" as a dupe to harass or aggravate the Canadian government, law enforcement, and security agencies, I do not believe that to be the case. How would that benefit them or the US when there are already closer relations between the US and Canada than there have been in many years?
It is my belief that the agents I spoke to were front-line professionals doing their job to the best of their ability. Unlike US Customs or some of the CCJ staff, they were not belligerant or aggressive, and they did not harass or pressure me in any significant way. If anything, they were as puzzled by my being there as I was by the surveillance I hadn't told them about.
Don't get me wrong -- it's entirely possible that they just didn't know anything about surveillance operations other members of those rather large organizations might have been performing. "Need to know" and all that, eh?
Kudos again to their information systems security people. They even seem to have stripped out the registry edits I did to tweak the hard drive and memory subsystem performance for video editing and large resident memory set applications. :)
In short, the majority of law enforcement and security personelle are good professionals doing their job.
During my 6 or so hours of interview by those remaining departments, I was listened to politely, treated professionally and courteously, and had few significant issues.
One department tried to get me to sign a document that made no sense to me. It read like it might have been a general confession or admission of guilt, but I didn't receive that document after I refused to sign it (I never sign something I don't understand.)
I had been stressed by the surveillance for several weeks prior to the border issues. I had already spent a fair bit of time speculating about why I might be under surveillance, and I knew my computer had an "infection" that wasn't being detected by McAfee anti-virus.
The computer infection was cleared up while I was held. I owe the security departments my thanks for that cleanup, and the implicit confirmation that there was an undetected infection of some kind on the computer. The key evidence of the cleanup was my music player software re-doing it's final installation and registration procedure the next time I used it, as well as the elimination of a delay and icon displayed by my Firefox email software during it's startup process.
For those who are terrified of the DEA, CIA, et. al., don't be.
They knew I was a medical cannabis user, because I told them that. They also knew of my suspicions of other reasons I might be under surveillance, though they didn't know why I was bringing up those issues.
One of the departments asked me why I was there, and why I'd spent so much time talking about all those issues. As I've mentioned before, I asked him if he thought I was a terrorist, and was told "No." While it's possible they would have taken the opportunity to "set me up" as a dupe to harass or aggravate the Canadian government, law enforcement, and security agencies, I do not believe that to be the case. How would that benefit them or the US when there are already closer relations between the US and Canada than there have been in many years?
It is my belief that the agents I spoke to were front-line professionals doing their job to the best of their ability. Unlike US Customs or some of the CCJ staff, they were not belligerant or aggressive, and they did not harass or pressure me in any significant way. If anything, they were as puzzled by my being there as I was by the surveillance I hadn't told them about.
Don't get me wrong -- it's entirely possible that they just didn't know anything about surveillance operations other members of those rather large organizations might have been performing. "Need to know" and all that, eh?
Kudos again to their information systems security people. They even seem to have stripped out the registry edits I did to tweak the hard drive and memory subsystem performance for video editing and large resident memory set applications. :)
In short, the majority of law enforcement and security personelle are good professionals doing their job.