Kafkaesque ordeal: Innocent Canadian arrested at U.S. border

[suffragette]

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Kafkaesque-ordeal-Innocent-Canadian-arrested-at-US-border-139577203.html
BELLINGHAM, Wash. - A city bus driver from Vancouver, B.C., who tried to enter the U.S. at the Blaine crossing was arrested and thrown into jail after border officials mistook him for an international fugitive with the same name.

Several days later, the case against the bus driver was dismissed - but not before he spent a "horrendous" night in jail at Bellingham and spent thousands of dollars posting bail and on lawyer's fees to get out of the Kafkaesque jam.

Bus driver Richard Brandow's ordeal began on a trip with a friend to scope out motor homes for sale in Washington state for his pending early retirement.

When he drove up to the checkpoint at Blaine on Feb. 11, he was arrested on a 20-year-old warrant when border officials took him for a man with the same name who is more than a decade his junior.






Much more at link, including info about the computer virus the alleged hacker (the other Richard Brandow) made 20 years ago. Apparently it placed a "peace symbol or peace message" and the hacker's name on the screen - and for that there was a 20 year warrant?

[truedelphi]

1. Thank you for posting this.

Our countries demand we pay for our ID - yet they fail to actually use our ID to determine who we are.

A ten year difference in this person's age and that of the "terrorist" ought to have kept him free from being detained.

Hopefully he can sue for wrongful arrest.

[suffragette]

4. Agree and all this at a time when more money than ever is funneled into such agencies

and when they have been operating beyond their mission (and without appropriate oversight and safeguards in those arenas since their oversight was not created with such huge expansion in mind).


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1648105&mesg_id=1654095

[Newest Reality]

2. It is growing.

There is a present danger lurking in the shifting shadows of this constricting, entropic culture.

Suddenly, we are passengers on the paranoia bus, comparing notes with hopes that our current state is just a chemical imbalance and maybe the right medication will secure the future.

An almost ancient fellow with a face sculpted by conservative hardship and dressed in the tattered results of heartless wealth, laughs and shouts from the back of the bus, "They ain't out to get ya' just yet."

Nobody looks amused.

[Solly Mack]

3. K&R

[suffragette]

5. Thanks Solly