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LifestreamVia BoingBoing …
Don’t say ‘blogger’ to US Immigration.This sounds like an unbelievable story, but it happened to Canadian blogger Jeremy Wright last week. As already reported on quite a few blogs, Jeremy was detained and interrogated by US Immigration when he arrived in New York last week to discuss a great business opportunity for Jeremy in the area of blogging.
It appears that the immigration people simply did not believe that Jeremy could make a living as a blogger. And they gave him the third degree - including an humiliating strip search - as a result for some hours. And banned him from entering the US. Incredible. Jeremy wrote detailed commentary on his blog about his experience, but he’s now pulled those posts. While the details aren’t yet clear on exactly why Jeremy had such an awful experience at the hands of the guardians of freedom and liberty (hard to get true irony here), this appears to be disgraceful behaviour on their part.
Jeremy Wright’s response to this is here and here. Hmm, doesn’t quite qualify as “Silent Nation” material as I believe this says more about the mindset of the American population than it does about official and sanctioned practises. But it is upsetting nevertheless.
I know exactly what u mean, altho I don’t make much mney from my blog (http://www.insanetom.com) it does stand to reason that people out there CAN! and SHOULD! and damn immigration officials if they can’t have any sort of imagination.. no woner they are working in customs.
Yeah, who makes money off of a blog anyway. Given the time it takes to write stories and crawl the net, most people are making a big loss. I know I am. At least if you support the idea that time is money. Damn
Regarding the story it was later suggested that JUST BECAUSE he was a journalist (of sorts) he was denied entry. It seems journalists need some sort of special visa or whatever. And I guess "bloggers" aren’t going to get those easily. Haven’t had time to check up on that. I’m not going to the US any time soon. If indeed ever.