Update to yesterday’s post. A day after Buddy was seized by DHS I now have my boat in my possession and at my slip.
This all happened while I was still trying to sort out a lawyer and had nothing to do with anything I did. Coastal Craft, the builder, took extraordinary steps (and expense) to get possession of Buddy from DHS.
I sat down to write this quick update just to let everyone know that things worked out.
But when I logged in to WordPress I saw a really curious comment from someone claiming to work for DHS in the same office that I dealt with. And the comment includes enough specific information that I’m inclined to believe him.
Okay all, the rest of the story(I was there). 1. The amount on both invoice and CBP form were in U.S dollars correctly completed on the form. 2. Just because someone has $$$ and posts something first on the web, doesn’t make them true. 3. The officer in question did not act gleefully, in fact SHE called back to the office and vessel manufacturer several times to verify the stated value. 4. The officer in question vilified by this rich individual now has to endure all the grief posted here and elsewhere by Mr rich guy and explain why she followed the LEGAL document value and wouldn’t cow to his brow beating. 5. Coastal Craft ended up paying for a broker to perform what should have been a personal importation and guess what The value on that entry was EXACTLY the same as on the CBP presented form. 6. Mr. Rich guy will probably post everywhere now that HE was right due to the fact that he has his boat and did not sign anything, but the fact is that the company took the high moral ground and due to ALL the false posting by Arrington, they paid for the paperwork to be processed. 7. We are all at the mercy of individuals who feel (right or wrong) that they can put out whatever they feel and get hundreds of all of you all worked up about the big bad government, fact is the is/was correct and all of us had to jump thru hoops due to arrington’s posts and written falsehoods. 8. I am proud to work with this office/officer and all of you should be ashamed for vilifying her/DHS without knowing the facts. 9. Most working folds have bosses and we are no exception sadly we had to answer many questions for correctly performing our sworn duties due to all the bad press put out by someone who feels entitled or above the public servant. Shame on you.
Just a few questions.
1. You state you work for DHS, correct? And you work in the office I had to deal with?
2. You say you were there. Are you claiming you were actually at the boat when this happened? Or do you just mean you were “there” in general (back at the office)? Because you were most definitely not on the boat (where everything happened) at any time I was there.
3. If you do, you really feel “vilified” when the net result was your office seized private property? I mean, hey, you got my boat. That had to be some consolation.
4. Is it appropriate for you to post private information about Coastal Craft? I won’t ask about my information since I started the debate and hey, I’m just a fucking schmuck citizen. But them? Do you see this as an abuse of your position?
5. You say “all of us had to jump thru hoops due to arrington’s posts and written falsehoods” – what hoops were jumped through exactly?
6. You say “she followed the LEGAL document value.” You realize she was holding an invoice in CA$ in one hand and the DHS document in US$ in the other, and seemed to have no understanding that they were two different currencies, right?
7. Did she tell you how she wouldn’t face me or look me in the eye or let me speak? Did she tell you how she wouldn’t let me speak with her superior to explain things? It was just “sign this or we’re done. Actually, we’re just done. Give me the keys.”
You have to realize how angry I had to be to write this. First, I don’t like talking about my personal business. Second, I had to take a lot of negative feedback from people over this, too. And third, for fuck’s sake, you are the Department of Homeland Security. What happens to me the next time I got through TSA at the airport, or try to cross the border into Canada? Do you think I may perhaps be on a “list” and have some difficulties? Do you understand that I am so upset about how the government is treating its citizens that I was willing to accept that I’ll now be subject to further abuse?
I’m terribly sorry that I upset you and your office over all this. But all I did was post what happened on my personal blog. I have the right to do that under the Constitution. That thing you’ve sworn to uphold and protect.
And one other thing I missed the first time. You say “The amount on both invoice and CBP form were in U.S dollars correctly completed on the form. 2.”, suggesting that the form your office created was identical to invoice. This is just another outright lie. The invoice was in CA$.
For you, the government, to outright lie like this, and engage in a personal attack, and discuss private information, is disgusting.
That follow up comment really addresses the whole crazy in his comment. He’s saying there was no problem at all with the paperwork. So why wouldn’t I sign? And why would it be necessary for her to apparently call all these people to verify the value?
And another thing he doesn’t mention is this whole broker business. The reason Coastal Craft had to hire a broker (which is something like $10,000) was because DHS told them they had to do it to get the boat out of seizure. That’s what Coastal Craft told me today, and that’s what officer Marr told me yesterday on the phone.
I can’t wait until the next time I have to cross a border or go through TSA at the airport.
Uncrunched 
You have now landed yourself on the No Fly List
Oh he can fly, but regulations are strict when it comes to people on the Always Probe List…
At least he can sail now.
fuck you arrington, you good-for-nothing-talking-head-with-no-brain, enjoy your boat and rot in it…you are such a disgrace to humanity. Your post reeks of fright of how you’ll be treated at the airport next time. I hope you do get a nice beating by TSA or whomeever else for being a disgrace to journalist/blogging community and a sorry excuse of a human being..shame on you you self loathing bastard…
That’s nice.
Man. You have some real charmers reading your blog.
I think it’s time you, your business and all your assets took a permanent trip north of the 49th parallel. Obviously the country you have the misfortune of being a citizen of doesn’t respect your experience, expertise and contributions to its betterment.
If I were you I’d seriously think about it.
You kinda get an appreciation as too why so many Americans end up living in other countries, and why in recent years there has been a decline in tourism to America. Last thing anyone wants is to start there holiday in America getting touched up by the TSA.
Setting that aside, and the gun nuts, it’s not a bad country for the most part.
So you can’t talk about any subject without some pathological need to bash gun owners? Bigot.
It occurs to me that the ‘gun nuts’ are one of the groups most likely to be annoyed by overzealous TSA/DHS agents. In other words… they’re on the same side as you!
The man buys a boat with his hard earned money (evil rich guy) Then a government employee (shit stain) takes his private property because he refuses to sign a form with incorrect info. The shit stain then complains about (evil rich guy) on his blog. Yea, why would I possibly want guns for self defense. I must be nuts. I (evil gun owner) would also like to apologize for destroying America.
Gun nuts? Seriously? That’s what you think of people who choose to defend themselves against the criminal element? You deem them as nuts? Hmmm…maybe it’s time we come up with a label for you and your ilk. How about Unarmed Nuts (how appropriate that the acronym is “UN”). You know, the people who are okay with being victimized, the naive people who believe in dialing 911 as their ultimate defense, the people who can’t comprehend the stats that show increased gun control brings about increased crime, the who adore the anti-gun agenda and the associated distortion of facts…devaluing integrity in exchange for demonizing rhetoric, and ultimately dismissing those armed citizens as “nuts.”
Except for the new taxation laws pertaining to US Ex pats. Currently a number of my friends/acquaintances living in Japan SE Asia are renouncing their US citizenship because the new taxation and wage/investments reporting scheme is so onerous their financial managers, banks and the businesses they deal with here in Japan and SE Asia don’t want to go through the very complicated hoops to continue doing business with them.
It’s bad enough when I buy a product from the US that I need to minutely document it and its final use to various branches of the US Government or they won’t allow it to be shipped…
Seriously, it’s getting ridiculous! Corruption, rules and regs that say “F U we don’t need your business and investments!” to potential customers and investors, stupid meddling and more.
Sae…can you say jealous??? You need to stop wasting your time reading peoples blogs and go out and make something of yourself. It’s easy to talk shit on a blog. It hard to build a company from nothing and sell it for hundreds of millions of dollars and then buy a boat as a gift to yourself for the decades of slave labor invested into a company. So fucking what if Michael complains. It’s his right and his boat.
I don’t even know hardly two many factual things about Arrington, other than what I read, which is what it is. However, one thing I know is, that people like sae only make themselves look worst than the actual person they are trying to lash out at. Btw, amen to that RJ Garbowicz!
Can you post the IP address and time hack of the “I was there” comment
Same for your friend SAE…
You can always sail, man. Some of us would have to pedal. j/k
I’m betting that Leo Laporte is behind all of this ;}
Gee sae, sounds like you have a personal interest in this whole affair – as in you work for that office? Or are friends with the officer(s) and feel the need to throw up your two-cents of over-reaction? Or perhaps, you are just someone who needs a really *good* orgasm. Let it go. Just silly people who apparently can’t see the difference between Canadian dollars and U.S. dollars. No puppies were harmed in the affair.
@Brian Omv: he’s got a boat now, no need to fly! 🙂
nice @Jimm
Sae, in a way, you should thank Arrington for bringing-out this expressive side of you from your normally reclusive, people-challenged self.
That is really nice of sae to stop by and really uplift the conversation like that.
“sae”, how EXACTLY do you justify your position? Is it because Arrington is wealthy? If so, the only self-loathing here is your own. Is it because you “just don’t like him” that you’re willing to overlook the obvious bullying by a government agency whose purpose is unfulfilled and whose extent of power is not clearly defined? If so, you’re really REALLY reaching.
Here’s a towel – wipe the froth from your face and go home.
All you cronies in the TSA are going to be fucking fired first thing monday morning. You piece of shits….You’re going to love your new job cleaning septic tanks, because thats obviously perfect for your feeble mentality. And learn how to fucking spell.
This, coming from a guy who forgets to capitalize ‘Monday’. 🙂
Easy there, cowboy! No need to stir up the embers just because one dingbat is rattling her rubber sword. If you ignore them, they will go and bother someone else. 😛
Look it’s obvious that sae is the same DHS officer, compare the similarities in word patterns and the “shame on you”, the absense of punctuation. DHS needs to check some IP addresses..
If they’re monitoring their employees like they are other Americans, they already know…
It’s always the anonymous trolls.
So many intelligent, run on sentences here. Way to get your point across. This is trolling at its finest..
Screw you, SAE. If it comes down to taking the word of a law-abiding citizen who has contributed something to society, or a power-mad goon at the DHS, guess which one I’m going to believe?
There is no point beating about the bush, just say what you mean! 😀
Is that you Blogger Bob?
Oh, that won’t happen. He doesn’t fit the profile. Now if he were a little girl in a wheel chair.
SAE…what does that stand for Stasi Absolute Excrement? You are a piece of shit for sure so yes, that must be what it stands for. Come join my Facebook page, let’s have fun you little fascist bitch! sharpinlosangeles (picture of cow).
This comment should be moderated, I think
sae sounds like someone with an axe to grind. someone who apparently despises people who’ve been wronged by a very corrupt government. so sad there are people who think less of common law abiding citizens than they would a rattlesnake. but it’s ok, all i can say of government, in the u.s.a., is that that government, with very minor exceptions, is complete trash.
So, don’t tell me, lemme guess…are you the chick from DHS?
If you represent the USA- government, you prove people like you ‘have guts’ only in the midst of a majority of collegues – goons in uniforms- and that you are cowards daring to foulmouth and accuse etc. behind the anonymity of the Internet. Dare to give your name, address, etc. so corrective action can be taken that teach you not only normal manners but proper behaviour in normal contact with human beings.
This is not the jungle… though you are doing your very best to make it so…hiding behind the Internet and the uniform to behave like the very worst scumm on earth. The worst criminals in NAZI- Germany and in USA -prisons etc. are people who in normal life would have been in prison, as people unfit to fit in society, but war (and it’s a war in the USA and much of the world now of government goons on one side and the people who are submitted to goons in uniform by evil, injust, oppressive laws) gives them the possibility to enter some force and abuse their position to live out their personal frustrations with life on innocent people. Crimes committed by government officials who abuse their ppower, like these goons on the Canadian border ( watch: Watch 2 Canadians Discover That The US Is Now A Police State http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i5sDOdoFqg ) should be punished DOUBLE.
Watch your collegues at the USA border and the TSA in the video’s of my playlist: “States are our worst enemies as worst criminal organisations” http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwRRzJo9TolT-kZBZO-1CBojztLY_Z6TX
Hmmm, you write a post that is full of name calling and wishing bad on a person.
Please tell me, just who, exactly, is a “sorry excuse of a human being”?
Hmmm, so you post a message wishing ill on someone. No to mention the personal insults.
Please tell me, just who, exactly, is “a sorry excuse for a human being”?
You sound like one of those people who gets angry for no reason. I think you might have a parasite. Get yourself checked ‘sae’. Your words come across as if you were a caveman recently thawed out, and angry because progress left you in its dust. I would also add that you ‘sae’, are a disgrace to humanity, and the English language. I bet you do not go a single day without swearing. Are you ghetto too? You seem to support civil asset seizure, and the molesters of the TSA. Let me guess, you get your jollies groping/molesting strangers at an airport for a living?
BAaaaaaa !! BAAAaaaaaa! O- Baaaa– maaa !!!
Fkn disgusting.
There are just so many fascinating excerpts from his message. Just noticed “We are all at the mercy of individuals who feel (right or wrong) that they can put out whatever they feel and get hundreds of all of you all worked up about the big bad government”
The fact that a DHS agent feels “at the mercy” of some guy who posted his experience on a blog is amazing. This is the government. The same government that prosecutes non violent crimes until the point of suicide. The same government justifying the killing of American citizens via drones. The same government we’re all, in the back of our minds, afraid of. This guy has a gun. They took my boat. And he feels at my mercy. Nutso.
Hard to know what to believe, but the overblown persecution complex exhibited by the presumably young DHS office member reeks of ass covering. In my experience, this is usually a symptom of poor leadership. That there is a guy somewhere in DHS that knows how to read and respond to blog posts is kinda heartening though. At least he cares enough about right and wrong to try and justify the DHS actions. I say give this guy a few books on ethics, send him to management school and put him in charge. Then fire whichever bosses let this happen and discipline the agent. Of course, that wont happen.
You don’t help by trying to hold the individual involved responsible for the failings of the entire government though. Of course, your role isn’t to help, it’s to be the asshole shining the light of truth on incompetence. So yeah, good job asshole 😛
Dont forget indefinite detention (Fear and Oath-ing in DC), loss of due process, warrantless wiretaps, “The Constitution Free Zone” that 2/3rds of the US population lives in (thanks Bush), federally funded checkpoints, secret witnesses, the “war on” XYZ and the coming attack on the 1st Amendment. But we cant really blame the DHS, they are kept in a state of shock themselves, reading reports from “experts” explaining in perfect newspeak that the new terrorists are people “reverent of individual liberty” ($12 million). If our response to being attacked is to give up our most important values, then those who “hate our freedoms” have won.
Hi, there. I read the original post on Cruisers Forum, where it was locked after seven posts for “being political”.
Everything is political eventually, I find.
I’m a Canadian sailor prepping for an around-the-world voyage. My family and I have come to the conclusion that the U.S. has been in a state of cognitive dissonance for a number of years regarding its self-image as “the bastion of freedom” versus its institutional behaviour, of which the boat seizure post was one tiny example, as a paranoid petty dictatorship where the rule of law is interpreted by the last moron with a badge one happens to encounter.
We will therefore not be including a visit to the U.S. by boat, as your Venn diagram of hundreds of government agencies granted powers of (in our opinion) illegal search and seizure in the name of “stopping terrorism/drugs/ideas that scare us” act capriciously and inconsistently in our experience.
I won’t risk some jumped-up mall cop finding a bottle of Cuban rum, or God forbid, a Cohiba (both of which have never been illegal to possess in Canada) during some “inspection” declaring my boat a threat to liberty and happiness and impounding it.
Your country isn’t worth the hassle, or frankly, the stupidity. America, you used to be cool, but you have presented your collective Constitutuional backside to be serviced by those who wouldn’t have the good grace to provide you a reacharound.
No doubt I am, in making these comments, just another terrorist-harbouring, Obama-loving, socialized-medicine-having, atheistic pinko fag freedom-hater cowering for free under the mighty aegis of U.S. military might, superior culture and capitalistic hegemony.
No doubt.
None of that is true in any sense, but if it makes any of one feel better to think that as your liberties are eroded like Alka-Seltzer in a rainstorm, feel free. It might be an increasingly rare feeling going forward.
Damn shame, really. You guys ran a promising experiment.
Yeah, try being a resident here. Unfortunately most of my fellow US citizens refuse to pull their heads out of their arses long enough to take an objective look around. Any room in Canada for someone who wants to mind his own business and live without the fear-mongering, elitist, manifest destiny bs that America still hasn’t gotten over yet?
You realize that if you move to Canada you will still have to file an income tax statement with your IRS for the rest of your life or until you pay your $460 USD and revoke your USA citizenship at the local consulate. And… you can’t revoke your US citizenship until you are up to date on your tax filings.
You will have to do this even if you don’t earn another cent from USA derived income. The IRS may or may not decide to have you pay some portion of your income to US taxes even if you have already paid Canadian income taxes (at a higher rate than the US).
FYI… don’t consider this the exception. If you were accidentally born in the USA, but never spent a day of your adult life on US soil, never received a Social Security number, never worked a day earning US $$ at at a US job on US soil, never owned property in the USA, never got a USA passport, and have citizenship in another country…. you still have to file with the IRS every year. To stop this lunacy you have to clear your history by filing the last 7 years, possibly being penalized enough that you have to sell your home to pay the penalty, and only then can you pay your $460 USD to revoke your accidental birth.
I’m told the USA is the only country in the Western world to do this.
Snowman, it’s not true, if you are US citizen that was born on the soil of a union state you can use 15 Statutes at Large to expatriate with no delay – having to pay a fine is a delay so it is not allowed. Coincidentally these statutes were passed the day before passage of the 14TH AMENDMENT. They knew the 14th was typing up all of us under federal “slavery” as US citizens.
Best response ever!
M. Dacey: This comment is a masterpiece 🙂
Thanks. I would have preferred not to have felt it necessary to write it, actually. An America punching itself in the nuts intellectually on the way to becoming Jesusland or Greater Texas is not good for either Canada or the rest of the world. The bar was set high, and people took comfort and inspiration from that. Watching it erode is neither fun nor an opportunity for gloating. It’s just sad. The Turd Reich mall cop mandate is emblematic.
Last night “Argo” won Best Picture at the Oscars. Fair enough, “it’s only a film”. But it’s also part of the B.S. America recites in the mirror to convince itself it’s still great, honourable and “fuck, yeah!”
“Argo”, as many Canadians over 40 could tell you, is fiction. We know the real story about what went down in Tehran in 1980, because we saw it largely as our story, or at least a solid team effort:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canadian_Caper
The Ben Affleck movie is conflated, omitted, parsed and herbed with action/suspense cliches. Even some Americans know this:
http://screenrant.com/argo-movie-facts-fiction-true-story-differences/
Now, far be it from me to get in the way of a nice night at the movies, but it seems that increasingly (hello, Birthers!) Americans are having difficulty separating fact from fiction, or patriotism from blind obedience, or exhibiting the ability to count past “entitlement”.
This is dangerous, for everyone, precisely because Americans are really expert at creating well-made, crafted falsehoods, and then believing them. “Wag the Dog” was a stealth documentary, I think.
Oh, and by the way, I believe that Snowman’s post about the vast difficulties and costs associated with ceasing to be an American are largely, if not entirely, accurate. In urban Canada, one meets a lot of Yankees, and the death grip of the IRS is a continuing concern, even if they’ve gone dualie.
Well, it is not the government that we have to be afraid of, exactly, but the individual government agents who have been granted extraordinary and sweeping powers to persecute and abuse not only American citizens, but also (and in particular) foreign citizens. (A fact that seems, disturbingly, to be accepted without a hint of criticism).
Now, granted, the vast majority act in good faith and will not abuse these powers, but the potential for abuse is certainly there.
Furthermore, studies of innate human nature and the evidence at hand both seem to indicate the gradual and inexorable formation of a besieged us-vs-them cultural mentality, a mentality that cannot (in my opinion) lead anywhere good.
This is of particular concern given the extraordinary and unprecedented power that the information ecosystem hands to those in the legal and security agencies.
Combine intrusive state surveillance with an overreaching legal code, and you have a situation where any given (randomly selected) person could (with high probability) be prosecuted/persecuted by the legal/state-security system.
The only thing that protects any one of us from this fate is the good will of the aforementioned (embattled, besieged, bitter and angry) officials.
Now, it is true that this good will has (so far) been granted to nice, upper-middle-class, white, male technocrats, but for how much longer?
And for how much longer will the corruption of money and power politics stay out of the mix? The recent election has already demonstrated the power of technology to forge direct links between individual voters and political movements. For how much longer will those channels remain free of the coercion and power politics of Washington DC?
On what basis do you separate government from government officials? Whose charter do you think they’re operating under? Whose laws are they enforcing? Who will defend them in court if they’re accused of wrongdoing? This mulish insistence on defending poor old government while decrying its functionaries is just stupidity masquerading as inanity.
I used to love America. As a Royal Netherlands Naval Officier I spend one year on board of the USS John King (DDG-3) almost qualifying for the SWO-pin during my one year in the PEP-programme (1977-1978) but I figured that since my own criminal department of Defense wiuld not allow me to wear my US-SWO-officier pin, and since all left to do was “Engneering” and since that was not my main specialty – in the Duthc Navy we have different officiers for that, I spent 3 months majoring on being a protestant lay leader on board. This was on top of my 8 – hours on the bridge as OOD, and other nice duties they keep people busy with. I am saying this, to let you know I am very familiar with USA- society, and having also attended Bible Schools, like Roch Church Bible Instutute in Virginbia Beach, Va, and the Ministry Training College in Santa Rosa Beach, Fl, etc etc. I think I have shown I care for the American people and America.
That is why I am so sad to see the way America has gone down the drain because of government treason, by people who have sold out to the money -handers, the owners of the illegal Federal Reserve Bank, which is privately owned, and a scam. Only because president Wilson got that false bill passed that allowed the establishment of this criminla organisation, making the people of the USA slaves to these bankers. ALL your Federal Income is used to pay of the INTEREST on the debts, which are not real debt…for it is a scamm beyond belief that the FED prints your money – the last president who tried to get out of it, J.F. K. and had US- dollars printed by executive order, was murdered by these bankers for this very reason. (as they recenetly murdered Ghadaffi and Saddam’s Hussain’s stand-in to take over their Central Banks) and why they are now trying to make the American people ready to engage in another war for Israel, against Iran, making thei president look like a pathological criminal as they did with Hitler, Saddam, Ghadaffi and will do, by the media they own… because Iran’s bank is not yet owned by the mega criminal Talmud -Jeiwsh devilworshipping international bankers like the Rothschilds.
The lies they have told you and let you believe about so called ‘global warming’ after they had set up the so called ‘cold- war’ (read the books by Eustace Mullins – http://www.henrymakow.com/the_cold_war_–_4_trillion_ill.html about the scheme that cost the USA trillions) which they felt it’s time to end had come, and looked for another ‘war’ they could use to enslave the citizens and rob them even more… and they came up with Global Warming and the le about CO2. More CO2 is waht this world needs to feed a growing world- population, as CO2 is plant – food. Co-2 by the power of these devil-owned media has been made to look like a poison. It is not.
The lies about so called ‘fossil fuels.’ Oil and Gas are NOT fossil fuels (just do your own homework – watch the video’s in my playlist and you can google ‘oil not fossil,” and “oil a-biotic.” ) they are produced in the depths of the earth – as deep oil drilling in the Gulph also poves because at such depths no fossils exist. Oil- wells that had run dry are now full again. Showing they are only a place the deep oil through cracks in the earth’s rocks filled up the empty spots again. But the mega criminal money handlers Jesus Christ wipped out of His temple..and we should whipp them off of the face of the earth..but God kept vengeance unto Himself…so if I would do what my passion would be to do in my passion for truth and justice, I would be at odds with God.
The lies about vaccins and medications… No wonder! Big Pharma, owned by the Rockefellers (read Eustace Mullins about it) found ou too soon that that business is far more profitabe than even the oil- business they artifically kept the prices up by the lie of ‘fossil fuel’ to artificailly create the sense of shortage… only to jack up praices, when we can swim in oil…and the next problems these criminals are involved in as the very worst enemies againt humanity, are FOOD and WATER!
Governments should make speculation of food (and water) by these banksters a crime (and it is a MEGA- crime) , and should hang these criminals money- handlers for causing artifical shortages of food and water, and earthquakes (the Americans use HAARP to cause earthquakes and Tsunami’s like they did in Sumatra, Haïti and recently in Japan. Though that last one was caused by a nuclear detonation deep in the sea-floor, which is why the Americans especially targeted the nuclear reactors, so the radiation of the nuclear explosion – again this was because the Japanese government refused to let these criminal banksters take over their central bank…) would be covered up by the radiation caused by the destruction of the Japanse nuclear plants causd by the Tsunami the USA- nuclear device’s caused in the deep sea bed.
I can go on… and on..and on… such crimes the governments are involve in, against their own people. I just wanted to show why I can no longer apply for the Green Card… I used to do that… but the USA government rejects any application if in the form even a dot is not in the right place. And since I was born in Indonesia of Dutch parents, never having been an Indonesian citizen, and certainly not a muslim, like Obama, but being a citizen, I did not know if I had to put “Native of Indoensia” or of “The Netherands”on the form. I never won that Lottery. Now I even payed money for some company to do it. But these liars… saying they would enter the lottery for me indefinitely, all of a sudden invente e rule by the government that did not allow this kind of deal…money stolen en thes criminals…ach, God knows. So, now I am even getting reminders from some other company that I am elligable to enter. I wroite them: Why in the world would I want to submit to the humiliation most of the people of this once great nation have to endure from the TSA, customs, police, etc etc. I even avoid visiting the USA. I do not trust those goons that one has to swallow so much abuse from. They make mountains out of molehills. Starting the molehill themselves. Just watch that video of the USA Customs officer’s handling of two Canadians who wnated to visit the USA to do some shopping. They did nothing wrong. The behavior of this criminal goon in uniform escalated the situation that he and his wife got arrested. This looks good as a statistic on the war on terror. The idiot even dares say that the USA- customs catches 8 terrorists a week… The poor innocent people they make into ‘terrorists’ to justify before Congress etc. their existence and increasd budget…This system is so sick and criminal. So, my apologies for sharing so much… But this is why the USA would be the last place now to visit, let alone to live. The USA with Israehell are now the very worst terrorist nations on earth – a burden to all mankind. Starting with their own citizens, wom I pitty. Rich folks now move to South- America, away from the USA! OKay, enough. I go to bed. It is 04:30 AM here now.
Oh, I forgot the link to te video’s: Watch 2 Canadians Discover That The US Is Now A Police State http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i5sDOdoFqg
And my playlist: States are our worst enemies as worst criminal organisations http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwRRzJo9TolT-kZBZO-1CBojztLY_Z6TX
For more video’s in my 70 playlists start here: http://www.youtube.com/user/DutchLionFrans/videos?flow=grid&view=1
Finally: My apologies for some typing errors. I was too tired to go over it again.
NEVER GIVE UP to fight against lies and injustice and evil in general , especially by the government officials abusing the powers of their prosition!
Hell is real (yes Israhell is also.. but nothing compered to the real thing) as people in this site share: http://spiritlessons.com/
My favorite line in his comment was:
“Most working folds have bosses and we are no exception sadly we had to answer many questions for correctly performing our sworn duties due to all the bad press put out by someone who feels entitled or above the public servant.”
How dare you feel above the public servant? You are merely a lowly citizen… just pay your taxes and do what you are told!
Being ‘at the mercy of individuals’ is sort of meant to be the point of his position. You public, him public servant.
“This is the government. The same government that prosecutes non violent crimes until the point of suicide.”
I hope this whole episode mints some Libertarians. The use of force is ugly.
Michael, note too the dismissive attitude towards the First Amendment. You “feel” that you can “put out whatever”. The fact that an agent of the government is complaining about being “at the mercy” of your free expression is rather telling.
Check the IP addresses and the time stamps. See if those DHS employees are posting on government time. Not that there are any consequences. Their bosses approve of their actions. Actually, they may be being paid to post here.
Yeah, how dare you “feel” that you as an individual can “put out” whatever speech you want and get hundreds of us mad at them. Gee, anyone would think we had that awful “freedom of speech” thing in this country.
I love how we should be ashamed. We have a welfare program for the D-students and we give them this wonderful self esteem thing about protecting us from terrorist boat purchasers and they tell us we should be ashamed for questioning their integrity or competence. I wonder what it’s like having a job where 80% of the people you interact with on a daily basis think you are a worthless douche. frederick, would you care to enlighten us?
good thing you have the boat now that you are headed to the no-fly list…you might want to invest in a missile shield for the craft…sitting duck for a drone
OK Arrington: Are you gonna grow balls and join wikileaks now that you are already half way on the dark side? Maybe you can help Assange skip England on your craft… 🙂
Michael, you have a complete right to be upset with what happened to you and the DHS. People whining and complaining to you obviously don’t get the larger picture or take a second to understand the situation.
While I wasn’t there and cannot verify your situation, your explination makes complete sense and is, in fact the agents fault for wanting you to sign on incorrect documentation.
In this case I see it as complete bullying by the DHS and a lot of extra expense they’re making you and Costal Craft endure for something as simple as a currency mixup.
Good luck.
The government has a monopoly on violence – they don’t give, but they can definitely can take.
This is a great example of the government’s overreach; they ought to provide just enough structure to keep the machine humming. In this case, they’ve added no value to our society, and I daresay the DHS and TSA provide a net negative value at our airports.
Shame on them, but more especially, shame on the political institutions that created them.
I’m glad you got your boat back … 🙂 Quite interesting the exchange. I do hope that you are on the FLY list and that you have no trouble with TSA or border crossings. God bless. 😉
If he was really DHS, how unprofessional is it to come and complain on your blog?
I was thinking that exact same thing…The DHS guy obviously visited this blog regularly or maybe surfed the internet looking for stuff which had a tag saying “The government is stupid”
He has no right to protest against something on a personal blog anyway.
On the other hand it’s a good thing that he feels like he can speak.
Good to hear that you have your boat back.
Interesting to hear from the DHS officer. And, it’s nice to see someone who has enough pride in his work to step up and post.
There’s a lesson here for everyone:
1) There are two sides to every story
2) Bloggers, aka the new media: You have an extraordinary amount of power (some of you more than others) and should use it wisely. You never know how your postings can personally affect their “targets”.
3) DHS and others with a badge: Imagine how a simple smile and a friendly attitude could have changed this whole story.
I hold no ill will towards you, but I find it odd that this entire dispute is over the difference in the USD/CAD exchange rate, something close to “rounding error”. I can understand the desire for Absolute Accuracy, but I think both you and your readers have now learned a little more about the nature of bureaucracy, and those who given small powers.
If either party had shown a little more flexibility this might have been avoided, but I can also understand wanting to live in a world where you can afford to be accurate without losing your boat in the process.
Except that, if he does sign the document with a statement on it that he knows to be false, that’s a violation of 18 USC § 1001, a felony carrying a penalty of up to five years’ imprisonment. The Feds have been really abusing that statute recently, entrapping people for making any false statement to the government, no matter how inadvertent. Remember: The government is not your friend.
Flexibility in this case could have equated to a stint in federal prison. I do not trust our over reaching government to not do an audit later down the line and find that he signed, under penalty of perjury, and they charge him with a crime. There are 10k federal laws on the books and I would NEVER take the risk of being charged with something such as this.
The government wouldn’t put that little notice, below the signature line, if it didn’t hold credo and there wasn’t a potential of being charged with a crime. Never, EVER believe that it couldn’t happen.
He did the right thing and the DHS employee was on a power trip.
Michael Arrington, “Mr. Rich Guy”. He called you rich like it’s a bad thing 3 times. You should have just replied, “I’m on a boat”.
I wonder if a DHS employee who is stupid enough to post a public comment on a blog is smart enough to use a VPN to hide his IP address.
Seems to me like it wouldn’t be all that difficult for “someone” at DHS to figure out who made that public comment post and dooce them.
After all, isn’t the government allowed to obtain our IP info without a warrant now? 😦
I think, now that you took this over your chest and got your boat back home, to try and give back to the society. Continue getting that lawyer and make sure that this incident leads to a better treatment by the dhs of people. I’m not American, I don’t live in the US, but this is the right thing to do. You have the money, the friends, now act.
You’d better be careful what you say, Mike. America is a dictatorship now. It happened so gradually that no one can pin it down to a specific date (*cough*9/11*cough*) and barely anyone noticed. There is no freedom of speech anymore. Sure, you can say something, but there will be dire consequences now. You should watch your back and be careful what you email and say on the phone. Your supreme overlords are watching you.
Agent Imbecile likely got a promotion over all this. That’s the way it works.
Arrington,
The DHS unofficial post on your tale of woe is illuminating & frightning on many levels.
Can you not just hire a doc service to help instead of a broker? A doc service would be $2500.
You hire them so you can yell at them when these things happen.
Having said that, if Frederick works for DHS he should be fired but with thatblevel of arrogance and chip on his shoulder he may be in line to replace Napolitano.
Aw, man. I am so sorry you had to go through this.
I think (hope really) the DHS poster is a troll. Do real DHS agents truly think all people with nice boats are “Mr rich guy[s]” for them to harass? Are they really surprised when the “mr rich guy” turns out to have a sting, mainly a pulpit and a hoard of fans and non-fans?
I’m sure if they were really a DHS agent who was there, and every policy was followed to the letter, instead of a blog posting, we’d see something official that stated the same thing, like “All policies were followed, and DHS regrets the confiscation of Mr Arrington’s property, and will work with him to ensure that we can work things out”.
Also, as a DHS agent, they would know that there are a lot of normal, law abiding citizens that cross the border every day who aren’t trying to get away with anything, but run afoul of policies, and with a lot less than a big boat, maybe an apple or a brown bag lunch. These people remember getting humiliated in front of their loved ones, by people with a badge and a gun, and identify with they guy with a nice boat, not because of the boat, but the humiliation from someone whose salary they’re paying to stop smugglers and terrorists.
We learned in school that in the eyes of the law we’re “innocent until proven guilty” and protected from “unreasonable search and seizure”. That is until recently, when we’ve found out that US customs thinks it’s “within 100 miles of the border”.
I think I’m with Mr Arrington on this one.
Now, I WASN’T there … but in most battles of the individual versus the collective, I side with the individual. Hell, it’s looking more like every battle, these days.
I wouldn’t worry too much about the dhs motard, they prolly have enough trouble in the morning lacing up their velcro shoes. Plus, if you don’t have kids to be molested or a handicapped relative to be humiliated, the TSA won’t bother you too much.
And, one more comment to the dhs tard who had emailed to you: we ARE above the public servant … what part of servant does he not understand? He wasn’t drafted, he (or she) ASKED to be subservient – and not out of charity or good-will, either: he or she sold out for coin.
the last thing a civil servant is intereste din is being civil or a servant
@ElonMusk vs. @NYTimes, @Arrington vs. @DHS … only a few of the epic blog showdowns in 2013. And we’re only in Q1!
Of course the DHS is a complete failure – it’s a republican program. All republican programs are extremely expensive failures: the War on Drugs, the War in Iraq, the F-35 etc. Keep the borrow-and-spend republicans out of office and we’ll have less of this kind of nonsense to deal with and more money in our pockets.
The missile defense program that we gave to Israel, do you consider that a failure Bill?
How’s Section 8 housing, Welfare, Food Stamps, DoEnergy, DoEdu so on asnasuim doing Bill? Democrat programs that are draining us dry year by year while democrats fiddle away the burning country. Please dont spew your vindictive rethoric, it’s just the pot calling the kettle black.
Hey Bill – and don’t forget the EPA. Damn that Nixon.
By the way, look at Joe Biden’s role in the War on Drugs. Not counting his daughter’s effort to snort them all to protect the citizenry.
http://www.ontheissues.org/2012/Joe_Biden_Drugs.htm
I noticed one remark in the replies that got me to thinking “we pay your salaries” or something to that effect. What if we paid them better wages. Seems to me that this might be a good example of “you get what you pay for” and might also explain the apparent hostility directed at ‘rich guys’. I know TSR and similar ilk are pretty much close to minimum wagers both monetarily and educationally for which we get the obvious result. Of course if I had my way I destroy all of the related bureaucracies as being a significant cost savings measure 🙂 !
My best friend used to work for DHS. He made $25 an hour plus lots of OT in Port Huron, Michigan post. They make a great living. He was pulling in close to 100k a year with all the OT they get. Don’t kid yourself, they make more than the average American citizen.
In order to be a justified program, they have to do things like this to seem relevant to our national security. It is a joke.
Excellent observation. The goons in uniform abuse their authority to steal from the people to enrich themselves. They should be punished DOUBLE for their crimes because they are done from a position of trust and power and authority that was granted to serve the people, not tyrannize them.
Perhaps we need to construct our own list of people like this lady who do not deserve to do things like go to a concert or drink in a bar. A “no fun list” as it were. I mention these activities because they require the presentation of id, and it would be easy to create such a list and enforce it
I’ve seen bars that refuse to serve certain government types. It’s not unprecidented.
But don’t you feel so much safer, knowing how on the ball DHS are? God knows, those evil Canadians could have rigged your boat to hunt down and ram a nuclear submarine…..or something.
everyone know we canadians ae just lurking waiting to take over, all the sleeper agents will come to life, neil young, joni michell, mike myers, steve nash, every hockey player ( watch out those guys really can fight),over1 million CDNs in LA alone (who all hate hockey or they wdnt be there), but of course none of use really know how to use an AK47 seeings as they are illegal here, but watch out for the hockey sticks
“Canadian Sleeper Agents.” Dibs on that band name.
Why didn’t you just save yourself (and everybody else) the trouble, time & expense and just sign in the first place? You actually were in a sense being a petty bureacrat too, inflexibly insistency on adherence to a very minor technicality, which cost someone $10,000. Whether that was $10,000 USD or Canadian is really quite beside the point. “Needless or foolish consistency is the boondoggle of small minds.”
Because it was an illegal thing to do and could result in fines and imprisonment. I won’t break the law so that it is easier for everyone.
No, it wasn’t his fault. It was the DHS bureaucrat being ignorant or lazy. She wouldn’t have even had to re-type the form to correct the problem. All it would have taken was attaching the currency conversion worksheet and using a one to one conversion. All nice, legal, and proper.
“I’m just a fucking schmuck citizen. ”
Bullshit. You are the guy that PAYS THEIR SALARY. Don’t ever forget that; they sure have.
As long as I am commenting, just how many of the people that read this blog were Big Government voters? People need to wake up.
Well Michael, himself, for one. He decided the social issues were more important than the fiscal. Understandable, but there is a downside.
Mr. DHS is right in one thing: “Mr. Rich guy will probably post everywhere now that HE was right due “… So Mr. DHS is right. Right?
Let me see if I get this joke straight.
A man is speeding at 100 mph on the freeway and gets stopped by a policecar. The officer says “I’m stopping you for speeding. Can I see your license please?” The man says “I don’t have a license, officer”. “Well, then the registration of the car please”. “No registration becaus it isn’t my car, I stole it. But I believe I did see something in the glovebox when I put my gun there”.
The officer, flabbergasted “You are armed with a pistol in a stolen car?” “Yes,” says the man, “I needed that to kill my wife from whom I stole this car. I dumped her body in the trunk”.
Clearly, this guy is a bad criminal so the officer calls for backup. In no-time the car is surrounded by armed officers. Then the chief walks over to the car. He askes the man for his license and papers which the man produces from his pocket.
The the chief asks him if he can look in the glovebox to check for a gun. He finds no gun there. Finally he asks if he can check the trunk. He finds an empty trunk.
He says to the man “This officer told me that you were armed with a gun, driving a stolen vehicle with no license and had a dead body in the trunk. What’s going on here?”
Says the man “I bet you he also told you that I was speeding…”
Clearly you are the officer in this story.
that’s pretty funny.
I cannot believe that a DHS employee would not be violating some type of rule of employment by posting personal information on you and the broker deal. This is a rogue arm of the government that has way too much power and very little oversight from anyone. I loathe this department with almost every atom of my being. I am glad that you stood up in this public forum and wish more people would do the same. I am glad you are getting your boat, but it’s utter crap that it cost so much to retrieve from a bull shyt seizure.
Fuck the DHS, with all the talk of US budget cuts we should start with downsizing them.
Just curious if the IP the DHS douche came in from corroborates their claim
I’m glad that you got your boat, I would have taken the path of least resistance and saved all the hassle! In the big scheme of things this is a minor blip, I am saving for a boat (used, cheap, small) as I am no longer allowed to drive due to health issues and I still want to enjoy the outdoors. You waited a day, I will be waiting for years. 😦 You will never get the better of government agents because the job attracts officious and self important tossers who have no people skills, if they were different they would work in commerce where they can make good money. 🙂
1. The government is a horrible bureaucracy (and only getting worse).
2. I hear ya Mike… just the other day I tried to bring in a new Concord I ordered and they gave me all sorts of hell.
The opportunity to engage in petty tyranny seems to be one of the attractive recruiting factors in these “almost a real cop” jobs.
I had tons of fun with the US Customs and Immigration people for a few years after 911. I’m not sure what I did to irritate these guys, but for several years I was a “random selectee” for “enhanced” security measures every time I flew.
I’m a bland, boring, middle-aged white guy who always wore a suit, checked my luggage and traveled with a return ticket and a clear itinerary. It didn’t make a lick of difference.
I grew to suspect that officious types picked on me because I was harmless looking and because they knew I likely wouldn’t make a fuss. It also had the bonus effect of proving to all the nearby minority passengers that they weren’t engaging in racial profiling.
If I hadn’t been traveling with someone else’s money I’d like to think I wouldn’t have been so passive.
Sadly, this kind of douchebaggery is just as prevalent in Canada. I’ve been interrogated by an armed and angry “officer” from the National Capital Commission (sort of a glorified city park ranger), over whether or not my dog had crapped on a narrow strip of grass overlooking an old industrial park.
That incident made me wonder why people care so much about gun control for civilians but don’t seem to worry about all the guns in the hands of petty bureaucrats with a penchant for bullying.
The opportunity to engage in petty tyranny seems to be one of the attractive recruiting factors in these “almost a real cop” jobs.
I had tons of fun with the US Customs and Immigration people for a few years after 911. I’m not sure what I did to irritate these guys, but for several years I was a “random selectee” for “enhanced” security measures almost every time I flew.
I’m a bland, boring, middle-aged white guy who always wore a suit, checked my luggage and traveled with a return ticket and a clear itinerary. It didn’t make a lick of difference. Some airports were worse than others, or course.
I grew to suspect that officious types picked on me because I was harmless looking and because they knew I likely wouldn’t make a fuss. It also had the bonus effect of proving to all the nearby minority passengers that they weren’t engaging in racial profiling.
If I hadn’t been traveling with someone else’s money I’d like to think I wouldn’t have been so passive.
Sadly, this kind of douchebaggery is just as prevalent in Canada. I’ve been interrogated by an armed and angry “officer” from the National Capital Commission (sort of a glorified city park ranger), over whether or not my dog had crapped on a narrow strip of grass overlooking an old industrial park.
That incident made me wonder why people care so much about gun control for civilians but don’t seem to worry about all the guns in the hands of petty officials with a penchant for bullying.
I concur that Canadian petty official douchebags exist, but few of them are armed and they are usually fractionally brighter. It lowers the stakes.
I do care about gun control for the various flavours of cop, actually. I have a brother-in-law who’s an ETF instructor.
I don’t know if “Free Arrington’s Boat” has quite the same ring as other great freedom cries. I can appreciate feeling oppressed by one’s own government as only a middle class educated white male can, which is to say only in matters that sound very petty to others. Still, I’m glad you got your boat back, sorry to hear that the manufacturer is forced to foot such a large bill because of what honestly sounds like a tiny bureaucratic mix-up which caused a rather large disruption. Maybe a government form processing system that didn’t rely on handwritten input and had things like versioning and timestamps and an API, might make stuff like this easier to spot and harder to repeat. Of course I’m still baffled why all bills in the house and senate aren’t written in Google Drive with full and public revision histories, but then I still watch Startup.com with a glimmer of hope in my eye, imagining a way to succeed were others have failed.
Looking forward to the post about the engine of Buddy by the way.
hah
Whatever you do, don’t store your new florescent light bulbs in a warehouse the wrong way either. They’ll try to fine you $15,000 if there happen to have a couple busted bulbs next to the storage. Doesn’t matter if your company has an excellent enviornmental reputation or how much your company contributes to local envionmnetal organizations either. Doesn’t. Fucking. Matter. These miserable union goons are on power trips and get off on making your life miserable. Total assholes.
Well the salient point here is that you are a ‘rich guy’. No offence but the US has really slid downhill with regards to the whole class warfare issue. For the record, I am with your version here. As I see it, if this IS a DHS employee it amply shows a disdain for ‘rich guys’. So much so that it is easy to believe that the small person treated you rudely and took pleasure in taking your boat.
I’m glad to hear you got your boat back. Welcome to the Department of Homeless Insecurity’s perpetual harassment list. We’ve been on it for going on 4 years now. Just don’t book tight connections when you are crossing the border.
I’m glad you got your boat, but you seem unaware of the realities of international borders. Do you understand that “duties and imposts” are authorized in the Constitution, that we’ve had a US Customs Service since the Founding and your right to transport foreign goods into the United States is conditional?
You rightly refused to swear to an incorrect form. Did you think that meant you could go home with your stuff and sort it out by mail? Who’d bother to swear then?
You refused to declare that you had nothing contraband aboard or that you weren’t cheating on taxes. They held your boat for you- “mpounded”, not stole. They didn’t lose your boat for you. You got it back within a week. It wasn’t banged up when you got it. Mr. I know people who’ve had worse trouble after parking on the wrong side of the street on a sweep day.
Glad you had a happy ending.
Wow, Chris. You got Balsz. Sure is a good thing you came along to straighten his ass out. Can’t have citizens expecting civil treatment from civil servants. They might forget their place.
Shouldn’t that read Snivel Serpents instead of civil servants?
Hey Arrington, get your receipts and taxes in a pile because they probably will audit you after this comes out. HOW DARE THE GOVERNMENT (that you pay for in tax money) HAVE TO DEAL WITH A PEASANT LIKE YOU!
Dear “Mr./Ms. DHS Government Official”:
You tell us all we need to know about you when you refer to our protagonist as ‘Mr. Rich guy’. So rather than protect our country as you have sworn, you chose to join the class warfare bunch. Figures. Amazing how fast leadership from the very top percolates down to the very bottom.
Hope the sequester scrapes you off our shoe. Your presence in our midst is rather ‘unsavory’.
I hope to christ you still intend to speak with a lawyer regarding all of this? If you didn’t have cause for redress before, you almost certainly must now; if authentic, that post represents a serious breach of professional ethics. Probably a legal breach of a whole slew of privacy laws. The bureaucratic labyrinth traps both ways, if you have the means to leverage it.
Talk to an attorney. For all of us.
Best.
The posts on this thread have been very informative/frightening/extremely humourrous. I can see why we Canadians need to take measures to protect ourselves from your government. I just hope the next POTUS is more inept than Bush Sr/Bush Jr/Obama/Romney combined.
I noticed that your were addressed numerous times by this idiot from the DHS as “Mr. Rich guy.” More class warfare trickling down from the fascist regime currently in power.
I would’ve told that fascist little idiot from DHS that I worked hard for my money! And, I did it without sucking on the teat of taxpayers—unlike him/her and everyone else in the DHS who have no chance of pulling in multi-millions without resorting to criminal activity or winning the Lotto.
Maybe Mr./Mrs. Idiot should consider quitting the DHS and starting his/her own company. Whether he/she succeeds at his/her business or not is immaterial; at least he/she will learn to appreciate and respect the amount of work that goes into becoming “Mr. Rich guy.”
Of course, he/she will also discover that signing a contract without dotting all the “i’s” and crossing all the “t’s” first, or signing a document just because someone demands you sign it, is, in the business world, the equivalent of playing Russian roulette with all the bullets still sitting in the chamber.
Just my two cents.
Cheers!
P.S. – Yes, I’m poking fun at “frederick’s” “/” obsession. So, sue me/she/he/it!!!
pps – correction to my previous comment: “I noticed that your were addressed” should be “I noticed that you were addressed”
I’m using one of those small laptops with a cheap, chicklet keyboard, right now. Drives me up a wall, but I’m too lazy to plug in the external keyboard. LOL
Cheers!
I can’t get over how the DHS commenter called you Mr.Rich guy. Boy. Obama’s demonization of the rich has really permeated our society. What a shame.
I want to comment on the glee with which the woman at DHS seized the boat. I don’t doubt that for a minute. I experienced something similar in 1989. A friend and I were at a bar that held illegal poker games every Friday night. One December Friday the state police raided the place. They let everybody go except 4 or 5 of the men who were part of the poker game. They knew who they were after so they weren’t interested in the rest of us. My friend had a fur coat that she had flung over a chair behind the pool table which is where the game was going on. When she went to get it the cops wouldn’t give it to her. She just wanted to leave but it was bitter cold that night, I was parked about 10 blocks away, and I wasn’t going to let her freeze. So I walked over to one of the cops and asked for the coat. He picked it up, checked the pockets, and then looked at me with a sh*t eating grin and started caressing the coat. He was going to keep it. Why? Because he thought it was valuable. I told him it was made out of beaver and wasn’t worth anything. It was a beautiful coat. So it was probably worth a few hundred dollars. But it was beaver. He threw the coat at me and we left.
I’ll never forget the look on his face when he thought he could seize something of value. And the feeling I had knowing there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. Nobody should be faced with being cowed by that kind of power. Whether it’s a fur coat worth a few hundred bucks or a million dollar boat. Private property rights are the foundation of our founding principles.
The response from the “DHS” guy was more like from the boat company.
The problem here is you went from being a concerned citizen pointing out a paperwork issue, to being equated with a criminal, requiring the seizure of property. There was no criminal intent on your part. There was no fraud attempt on your part. It was simply pointing out a clerical issue. I have seen this before in other scenarios, including personal experience in one scenario where I was almost handcuffed for simply taking a photo of a wildfire…hardly a crime. While these scenarios are not representative of the entire government level enforcement population, it only takes one or two personal experiences to cause law-abiding citizens to distrust the very people they think they can trust.
The person who responded on behalf of the DHS has an obvious bias against people who are economically advantaged. I’m sure the DHS personnel have run into wealthy people who treat the DHS folk as sub-human, but to hold a bias against all who fit in the wealthy category demonstrates a bigger problem. The anti-rich statements are almost an admission of discrimination in how the situation was handled by the DHS officer: boat buyer is rich, therefore treat the boat buyer with less respect and increased difficulty. Sad, really. Going above and beyond can get noticed and lead to better opportunities.
I know a company exec, who will, on occasion, run into a situation where a moderately paid person in a service/gov service/public service employment capacity exhibits above-expectations behavior, customer service, professionalism, and pro-active mentality. She will hand them a business card and request they apply for a job at her company simply because they wow’d her with their work ethic and how the situation was handled.
Amazing the DHS officer didn’t go Dorner and just shoot you.
“Armed dumberment official councils citizen to commit fraud”.
No consequence to them for a “paperwork error”, but grave consequences for you should some vindictive govt microbe decide to teach ‘Mr Rich Guy’ a lesson.
You can almost feel the venom with which those words were written.
Achieving success & wealth has somehow become ignoble in today’s USA. Far more socially acceptable to become wealthy by winning the lottery or gambling, or even better yet by winning a lawsuit against some “Rich Guy” who needs to be taken down a peg or two.
Work for it? Nah. Then you’d be the undeserving Rich Guy who made money off of other people’s backs. Read Thomas Sowell’s short essay “Trashing Achievements”. He points out how this attitude is now promoted even at the highest levels of government.
Like M Dacey (above), who’s comments I fully agree with, I too am a Canadian. I used to enjoy visiting the US. It used to seem like a pretty decent place to live. Now I prefer to avoid it. And that’s a shame, because the place is incredible and most of the people are pretty decent too.
Somehow, something deeply fundamental seems to have changed in the last 10 or 15 years, and “land of the free” seems to have taken on a hollow, mocking note.
I hope you can turn it around. I really do.
Looks like “security theater” has taken a nasty turn. 😦
Strange how civil servants and public servants no longer understand service.
I am sorry to hear about your difficulties but you surely have a new reader.
Seems like “security theater” has taken a nasty turn.
Strange how civil servants and public servant no longer understand how, and to whom they serve.
I am sorry to hear of your difficulties, but you surely have a new reader.
The step from a civil servant to a civil master is small. Imagine how many times this happens on a smaller scale instead. I suspect that it’s the tip of an iceberg.
People isn’t going to bitch much on a confiscated bottle of alcohol. If that bottle finds it’s way into the hands of a civil servant to be consumed – well, I wouldn’t be surprised.
I find it hard to believe that an agent of the US Government would be so unprofessional as to craft a poorly written class warfare screed on a blog. I mean, that’s not possible right?
It sounds like the DHS office up there is just gnawing their own livers out over the fact that he “won.”
DHS guy? When the boat manufacturer tells the story, it won’t be Arrington who’s cast as the village idiot. You have added another chapter to the Canadian experience of Americans as ignorant buffoons who think wandering polar bears are a traffic hazard in Toronto in June.
I wonder if anyone is taking kickbacks from the brokers?
Obviously they are! American bureaucrats are becoming very much like the Chinese bureaucracy, they seem to always be working an angle and looking to have their palms greased.
Since 2003 the US Coast Guard is part of DHS so you can look forward to that.
My impression based on the post is whomever wrote it was upset that you have money and they do not. I also get the impression that it was the woman agent you dealt with who was talked to in response to the seizure and is upset that her promotion may have been stalled by 2 weeks because of this blemish on her record.
I’m a Canadian and I had to share this with my political discussions group on Facebook (you’re welcome to come join us if you like). Search for “Sharing Political Opinions. My preamble to your link was in part: “[regarding DHS] ….self-entitled idiot bureaucrats who think anyone with money must be evil. Man it makes my head spin. Feels like a communist mentality is seeping into the American psyche or something (and you have to *know* that’s saying something, coming as it does from this side of the border, from a citizen of a country many Americans see as socialist).
Good points! Maybe, while you’re at it you could slap the NDP, Liberal and Conservative’s noses sharply as well. They spend way too much time trying to imitate the excesses of the bureaucrats south of the border.
It’s not a communist mentality unless you call the Israeli mentality communist which is a good obeservation, for communism – and Jewish invented crimes like ‘hate crime’ that Jews, who are the very wrst of hate crimes in the whole world, hating the whole world that is not Jewish, made themselves excempt from…how discriminatory a nation can be… only if it is not a legal but injust nation, (that can not be measured objectively but subjectively and can thus rob people seeking to prove their innocence, which is also the world upside down – that is satanic which Jesus Christ said the Jews are (John 8:44) is a curse of the Jews on humanity! The American police forces are trained by Israeli forces to treat the USA citizens and visiters to the USA as Palestinians (watch video’s like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp33RPksz_g ), and equipped as an inland army against the people for fear of their uprising against the crimes of an increasing injust, tyrannical and criminal government setting itself up and behaving as the very worst enemy of the people!
LESSON IN GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION AND ABUSE OF POWER:
Criminal abuse by goons in uniform usually also works like this : They intimidate you and provoke you to do something wrong, get angry, say something wrong, so they can get you, that you did something wrong and offer you a solution (to pay a bribe… this an have many forms) and they will wave the wrong they provoked…which may not be a wrong at all.
If you accept and pay the bribe, they know they have you. They set you up. Their superior is already waiting for you. He comes to you and says, Since you accepedt the bribe you admitted you were wrong and violated such ans such… But if you (another bribe)… I will wave it… .
So NEVER go this way! I witnessed this in Romania. It is without end. Always demand a paper for anything you pay and for waht reason.
These goons are the very worst news, no matter you did nothing wrong, as these Canadians crossing the border. They had done nothing wrong, Yet they found themselves arrested by these criminal customs officers who provoked and escalated a total innocent situation. Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i5sDOdoFqg
This is the kind of training Israeli’s are hired to teach the USA- police forces. making life hell as they already have in IsreHELL! You should prosecute the superiors who hired these Israeli’s / staretd this prgramme which is in fact an ACT OF WARR AGAINST USA CITIZENS BY USA OFFICIALS (it was a Jewish guy – citizen of the USA who was responsible for this programme) United States Police Departments Being Trained By Mossad, Treat Citizens Like Terrorists http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcDGUtr2E5I & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1cHYA8TGvQ
Question – Unless they knew about your blog, why was a DHS person checking out your blog to know what you posted?
It just seems so strange that they “knew” to check your blog looking for a post . . .it’s like they wanted to see how far they had pushed you, and how you would react on your blog. And maybe to see the reach of your message . . .
Shit.. with that big ass boat you just got, to hell with flying! My boat is only 27′ and I STILL don’t fly!
I think you give people a little power and some let it go to there heads–others, over time let the line blur between a hard ass person and someone who merely has a point they want to bring up and treat them like they’re one in the same
That list is no joke, you can still fly but it’s a pain in the ass because you will get stopped each and every time–and it’s not even because of something you necessarily do. Those ladies and gents that check you in? They can place you on the list, amongst other folks, simply because they don’t like you.
Or if you were friends with one of them..or dated.. Etcetcetc
“2. Just because someone has $$$ and posts something first on the web, doesn’t make them true. ”
They just don’t grasp that the everyday experience of everyone who travels internationally and encounters the routine incompetence and arrogance of Homeland Insecurity gives you complete credibility and them none.
Yeah, the experience where you’d love to say “Fuck off, you arrogant prick” but you dare not say a word in case they hold you just long enough to screw up all your connecting flights.
Mike, can I come up to Washington to hang with you on the new boat?
“The reason Coastal Craft had to hire a broker (which is something like $10,000)”
A customs broker typically charges $75-$150 to process an entry.
Wow. This is the most depressing comment section I’ve seen, Government incompetence creates a situation, and the victim is vilified for pointing out the idiocy of the situation. The apparent resolution which is praised by agents of the government program, is simply that a business paid 10k that is fundamenally shouldn’t have needed to pay. Then to top it off, the concept that the victim will now be hassled by this government agency isn’t anything surprising,
I’m not some mlitia member, but these are all signs of a rotting corpse of a government when compared with previous failed historical governments.
You and every normal reasoning human being would call it incompetence. Unfortunately it is not incompetence, but a deliberate deed, it is the present day agenda of law enforcement agencies, TSA, customs officiers etc etc. to point out a molehill that may not even be there…or the slightest thing they can and intend to escalate into a crime scene – creating the molehill and then by their deliberate escalaion blowing it up to a mountain (this is a crime they commit, and who will accuse, charge and procesute these criminal harassing, tyrannizing officers?) so they can arrest a person, and take their property, to prove they did something to justify their existence! Do you hear this customs officer say they arrested 6 ‘terrorists’ crossing the Canadian border EVERY WEEK? Do you for one moment believe this? They say it because they want to believe it…they are required to produce statistics…that’s America. To get their budget. And if they do not come up with the required performance, they will for sure take such criminal, tyrannical action against innocent citizens, making ‘terrorist’ of innocent, harmless ciztins of Canada who wanted to just go a day shopping in the Mall in the USA. Just see how these goons in uniform operate: Watch 2 Canadians Discover That The US Is Now A Police State http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i5sDOdoFqg
Just have a look at this! Policing for Profit – The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=_hytkAaoF2k
See how criminal the USA government is! Stealing from innocent citizens to fill their treasure chests. Their methods are outright tyrannical and criminal – making the government the people’s very worst enemy. Since the authorities are totally corrupt, and will not repent, for their consciences are seared with hot irons (necessary to be able to tyrannize innocent people > hence the very worst goons / criminals are hired and put on a uniform!) we must organise RESISTANCE and warfare prayer!
Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture
“This tightly reasoned document is a call for action by legislatures, citizens and, in the last resort, the Supreme Court.”
—Richard A. Epstein, University of Chicago Law School
http://www.ij.org/policing-for-profit-the-abuse-of-civil-asset-forfeiture-4
Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture
By Marian R. Williams, Ph.D.
Jefferson E. Holcomb, Ph.D.
Tomislav V. Kovandzic, Ph.D.
Scott Bullock
March 2010
Civil forfeiture laws represent one of the most serious assaults on private property rights in the nation today. Under civil forfeiture, police and prosecutors can seize your car or other property, sell it and use the proceeds to fund agency budgets—all without so much as charging you with a crime. Unlike criminal forfeiture, where property is taken after its owner has been found guilty in a court of law, with civil forfeiture, owners need not be charged with or convicted of a crime to lose homes, cars, cash or other property.
Americans are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but civil forfeiture turns that principle on its head. With civil forfeiture, your property is guilty until you prove it innocent.
Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture chronicles how state and federal laws leave innocent property owners vulnerable to forfeiture abuse and encourage law enforcement to take property to boost their budgets. The report finds that by giving law enforcement a direct financial stake in forfeiture efforts, most state and federal laws encourage policing for profit, not justice.
Policing for Profit also grades the states on how well they protect property owners—only three states receive a B or better. And in most states, public accountability is limited as there is little oversight or reporting about how police and prosecutors use civil forfeiture or spend the proceeds.
Federal laws encourage even more civil forfeiture abuse through a loophole called “equitable sharing” that allows law enforcement to circumvent even the limited protections of state laws. With equitable sharing, law enforcement agencies can and do profit from forfeitures they wouldn’t be able to under state law.
It’s time to end civil forfeiture. People shouldn’t lose their property without being convicted of a crime, and law enforcement shouldn’t be able to profit from other people’s property.
Check also: http://www.ij.org/policing-for-profit-the-abuse-of-civil-asset-forfeiture-private-property-rights
Download: http://www.ij.org/images/pdf_folder/other_pubs/assetforfeituretoemail.pdf
The irony is, the government makes it a crime for citizens (but not government officials or their underlings) to lie on government documents. Then they present you with a form with erroneous information, and demand you sign it. When you point out the incorrect info, they get pissy about it. Given the snotty rich guy remarks, this smacks of entrapment. It gives the appearance that they were trying to entrap you into lying on their form, so they could seize the boat and charge you with a crime. Only you thwarted their scheme and made them angry, so they seized the boat anyway. And yeah, you on “the list” now.
When I initially commented I appear to have clicked on the -Notify me when new comments are
added- checkbox and from now on each time a comment is added I get four emails with the same comment.
There has to be a means you are able to remove me from
that service? Thanks!