When The Black Wind Blows

I’ve been very busy the last few days, with a combination of post-moving stuff (hey, look, we’re close to family now, and it’s the holidays), and with some important changes at work (on which I shall write a very journal-y entry shortly). Which explains why I haven’t already written about an utterly unacceptable, and miserably predictable, incident. Quite a bit’s been written already, and I don’t have anything new to add, but I don’t want to go without noting it here.

If you’ve read here for a while, you may have noticed that I’m a fan of the writing of Peter Watts, both his novels and his blogging. You will also have noticed that I am very much not a fan of the rising abuse of police powers over the last decade across Western society, particularly in the form of the US DHS, and in special particular, in the form of the US Border, where I’ve personally seen several times what I would describe as egregious abuses of power. (Fortunately I’ve never been on the end of any serious problems–just a lot of delays, and sub-gorilla chest-thumping).

So, you can imagine my immediate reaction upon reading this story:

Dr Peter Watts, Canadian science fiction writer, beaten and arrested at US border
…

Peter, a Canadian citizen, was on his way back to Canada after helping a friend move house to Nebraska over the weekend. He was stopped at the border crossing at Port Huron, Michigan by U.S. border police for a search of his rental vehicle. When Peter got out of the car and questioned the nature of the search, the gang of border guards subjected him to a beating, restrained him and pepper sprayed him. At the end of it, local police laid a felony charge of assault against a federal officer against Peter. On Wednesday, he posted bond and was taken across the border to Canada in shirtsleeves (he was released by Port Huron officials with his car and possessions locked in impound, into a winter storm that evening).

In reading the comments at that post, and on the discussions at Making Light and Scalzi’s site, I was actually shocked by the number of people who seemed to assume Watts must have done something to “deserve” the attack. Shocked both at the assumption that it was more likely someone like Watts had misbehaved than that some border guards had abused their authority, but even more shocked at the notion that anything he might have done would have deserved that reaction.

Watts himself has since spoken a little bit about the incident (twice actually), but for obvious reasons can only say a certain amount–although in what-appears-to-be typical fashion for Watts, he’s already said more than his self-interest might dictate. A scrupulously honest, outspoken person on one side, border guards on the other side–I know which way I’m biased.

There’s been a lot commentary around since. Let me quote some of my favourite bits.

Don’t tell me Watts should have known better. He’s a free, law-abiding citizen of a free country, who has a right to believe in the rule of law and reasonable behavior in the nation right next to his. If you tell me he asked for it, he deserved it, what happened to him was justified by his actions, I swear I will ban you from this goddamn journal. Because that could have been any of us.

Everyone involved in this crime who was wearing a uniform should go to jail. They’ve brought shame on my country and on my justice system.

That’s Emma Bull, who I am proud to call a friend, being awesome.

If we assume, arguendo, that (irrespective of how it ended) what started this was an honest query about the legitimacy of the search, then this is a time to stand up and be counted; because Peter Watts did. Someone has to have the courage to look authority in the eye and challenge it. To force the powers that are to justify themselves. We like ot say we have a system where the people who are in charge are answerable to the people they are governing.

That only works when the governed refuse to act like sheep.

Terry Karney, making an important point, and one that needs to be made a lot more often.

I believe he questioned the authority of the border patrol, and that is why he was beaten, thrown drenched and under-dressed into a cold holding cell, and eventually dumped at the border.

There are those that will say he asked for it; that he should have cringed more. That he should have been meek in the face of authority, and anticipating the abuse of it. That he should have been cowed.

But do we wish to become a society that enforces meekness in the face of abuses of authority on pain of physical abuse? There are other societies that have enforced the rule of law through terror. I do you the dignity of assuming that you do not need reminding of their names and infamy.

Author Elizabeth Bear, in a letter to her representatives.

It’s not just authors writing on blogs, though, the story has been picked up by the national press, including The National Post, the Toronto Star, the Globe & Mail, and many others. (And if the comments at the site I mentioned earlier were depressing, the comments at the major papers are enough to make me utterly give up hope for humanity–I mean these people are just fractally wrong. Many, many people should read comments like this one before they make their own.) There was also some coverage in the Port Huron paper, which includes an expanded version of the border guards’ story–a story that sounds very unlikely to me.

I’m sure there will be video of the incident, and that it will vindicate Watts. Sure enough that I’ve put my money where my mouth is and become one of those friends Watts didn’t know he had. I’ve done this for three reasons: because it could as easily have been me at that border, because while I don’t know Watts personally he’s in my tribe (a mouthy atheist Canadian SF writer Oysterband fan? How could he not be?) and we must hang together or they’ll hang us one by one, and because it’s important to resist this kind of abuse whenever you can.