Right, which is why I called you out for bringing it up. Make your bland criticism of the Guardian in a journalism forum.
If the standard for criticizing clear ICE overreach (and yes, an unexplained detainment is very clear overreach for a department who are statutorily just supposed to be checking visas) becomes "You have to be able to prove that ICE was wrong before saying anything", then that simply makes them the secret police.
My point isn't really "no speculation is allowed", but that we should be honest about the assumptions we're making. The Guardian headline that kicked off this thread uses misleading wording to hide the assumption being made. It's fine to criticize ICE based on informed speculation if we're honest about it.
And my point, again, is that focusing on this particular criticism[1] seems like a transparent attempt on your part to deflect from the very serious story (ICE transparently harrassing "enemy" journalists without apparent cause) because, hey, maybe he failed to declare an agricultural product in his luggage. We don't know, amiright?!
It just doesn't seem to be a good faith discussion of the situation, and in particular it makes your position seem decidedly pro-secret-police.
[1] Which amounts, basically, to "Mildly sensationalist mid-tier news outfit used a sensational headline". It's boring.
I think the appropriate reaction would be suspicion, not jumping to assumptions. Speculation can be okay too, but we should be forthright about it, whereas The Guardian headline above tries to misleadingly pass off speculation as fact.
>... I mean it absolutely does. What on earth are you _supposed_ to do? Give the unaccountable secret police the benefit of the doubt?
Exactly. Even if this guy holds beliefs that aren't aligned with those of the US government, so what? That is not a reason to detain or refuse entry to a place that's supposed to embrace freedom of expression and of the press.
This is blatantly anti-democratic (small 'd'), capricious and just one more example of the current administration's attempts to destroy a free and open society.
Yet here you guys (@ajroos, @dlubarov, etc.) arguing about why the US government is abandoning the rule of law and trying to normalize authoritarianism and bad-faith governance. It doesn't matter why. It's wrong and evil on its face.
Or if it did, then why this particular assumption? Why not assume that Hamdi was arrested because of his hair style or something?