Palantir's role or non-role aside, the idea that we're even looking into whether people wrote about a student protest is absurd. The "combating antisemitism" cover story for all of this is incredibly cynical.
I am European, traveling from Europe to New York. They picked me from the line. Then the guy got bitten by his own dog. [edit] I just realise this was 10 years ago, time flies :O
It’s terrifying that anyone would not only accept forbidding travel to critics, but also thinks it’s normal. From de Toqueville and Dickens to de Beauvoir to Žižek, the US used to welcome and embrace criticism.
Have we really become as thin-skinned as North Korea?
Nice! Such a great gotcha if you've never read the Constitution or spent 30 seconds thinking about how freedom of speech works.
You're free to have an opinion and be free from state-sanctioned consequences.
You are not guaranteed to be free from private parties choosing not to affiliate with you, calling you mean names, or banning you from their platforms... for the obvious reason that protecting that right would require that the state compel specific speech from private parties, which... See Step 1!
All of this should have been covered by about 8th grade. Were you paying attention?
I hope you’re just trolling and not genuinely that oblivious. Terrifying either way, I suppose. The US has failed, and the people who killed it read like 4chan.
The "normal administration" to which I'm referring would be almost any administration in US history other than the current one. Freedom of speech is — at least putatively — a bedrock principle of the US.
In fact, the same Secretary of State who deported this man from the US for his speech (amongst dozens of other such deportations[1]) has announced a policy meant to prevent other countries from doing the exact same thing.[2] "Free speech for me, but not for thee."
Fascists consider applying double standards that enable them to enjoy what they deny others, virtuous. Not a logical fallacy. The purpose is to dominate.
The denied person seems to be a foreign national and by all looks of it, an activist, taking part in university protests. It doesn't seem all that surprising that he got denied entry.
Man, if we can't agree that "freedom of speech" includes protection from legal consequences for something you say then there's really nowhere to go from here.
Well, he appears to have been a protester at Columbia University in 2024, and he is also not a citizen.
If you yourself are a citizen, I'm sure you can express your views and not be sent anywhere. You can also vote to get people in power who are more to your liking, or even attempt be one of those people yourself.
If you actually care about these concepts then reading about them will be faster than relying on Cunningham’s Law to iteratively eliminate all conceivable wrong answers.
So I guess the neat way for US to deny entry to people is somehow have the denying done by non-law-enforcement and also perhaps somehow outside of its soil (if that matters)?
Yes, but isn't the current situation based on a technicality then? Assuming that reaching that when anyone reaches US law enforcement gets everything in the constitution applied to them and then must be let into the country because they only want freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. I guess the workaround for this would be to have outposts in other countries where non-US law enforcement personnel is denying entry - this would be ok, as the constitution doesn't yet apply.
Or, I wonder if the the people for whom denying entry was wrong don't base their decision on a technicality, but would actually prefer foreign political activists to enter the country. I wonder if this is tied to the foreigner's specific agenda, or would they also like the opposing side to be let in. To me, this sounds either a way to get supporters for their own opinion, or, on the latter case, recipe to increase chaos.
What could the technicality possibly be? They explicitly said they deported him due to his speech! This is like the most egregious possible violation of the First Amendment. The police literally — in the fashion of a cartoon villain revealing their dastardly plot — copped to breaking the law.
What the police did here doesn't hold up to even the most stringent possible definition of "freedom of speech", and it's also obviously unconstitutional. And there are still people trying to defend it. I'm honestly a little flabbergasted.
As I read it, he was trying to enter the US from elsewhere and was denied entry at the border. Perhaps his student visa had been cancelled due to clearly getting involved with unrelated stuff.
I say "I wonder", "perhaps" etc to simply be polite, tease out the content of your argument, and also due to the person we are talking about not providing the legal reason given to him of why he was denied entry.
He literally didn't, he just quoted what the police said. But I assume his visa was cancelled and thus he was denied entry. Is this legal, or would you say that anyone already in US soil should be let in, regardless of visa status, if they want to assemble (the constitutional right)?
Reductio ad absurdum: corporal punishment for people who say things the government dislikes doesn't violate their freedom of speech. Sure, they might get beaten for it, but they can still express their opinion and they can still protest!
Yes, my opinion is that there should be no legal consequences for speech. And again, that is the US Secretary of State's opinion too — just only for US nationals traveling to foreign countries, not vice versa.
> In your opinion, should anyone be able to travel to the US to protest? Would you set an upper limit to this process, or should any amount be allowed?
The government shall not take action in response to his constitutionally protected rights because the laws to authorize that action shall not exist.
They are not limiting foreigners (well, they are, but that's a separate issue). They are deporting people specifically in order to censor speech the government dislikes, irrespective of how many people are visiting the country.
I understand what corporal punishment is. My point is that the reductio ad absurdum of your definition of "free speech" does not preclude it.
Remember, the far left uses terms like "assault" to describe speech they don't like. Maybe this is conservatives' chance to play "manipulate the meaning of words" and spin it as "denied entry in order to prevent assault" ?
Either way, they made certain forms of speech de facto illegal and we're not going to go all "free speech" a few years after people on the right were fired or kicked out of school for expressing wrongthink.
The far left is welcome to use those stupid terms. That is also their First Amendment protected speech.
Has anyone been charged with assault by the state for their speech? No.
Private schools and private employers are private entities (it’s in the name) ergo they do not have to respect the First Amendment. In fact they have First Amendment rights to kick out whoever they want, free of government compelling them otherwise.
Has any country ever functioned like that? The idea seems absurd. Of course you should be held legally accountable for what you say. You can see trivial examples in American culture with defamation law, laws against calling for violence, laws about when and where you're allowed to protest. Agree with it or not, we don't have a right to say what we want with no consequence. The devil as always is in the details. But people need to actually agree what sort of values we should have represented as a people to write those laws, and america has never figured out how to do that without either violence or a massive river of cash to distract us from each other.
For an instance of how bad free speech can get, look no further than the role RTLM played in the genocide of the Tutsi in 1994.
> You can see trivial examples in American culture with defamation law, laws against calling for violence, laws about when and where you're allowed to protest.
Defamation is extremely hard to stick in the US.
You also are allowed in general to call for violence in the US. Incitement is very specific and not merely "calling for violence."
> we don't have a right to say what we want with no consequence.
Yes, in the US you absolutely are allowed to say what you want with no state-sanctioned consequence. There are extremely, extremely narrow exceptions. Way, way narrower than most people on either side of the political aisle intuit.
For an instance of how great free speech can get, look no further than the role the 1st Amendment has played in creating a highly adaptive society that, despite the internal chaos, conquers most of its challenges.
I understand quibbling about specifics, but I'm still unconvinced "free speech" is a meaningful term or that it's necessary for industrialization with private investment. It's a bone given to morons to get them to not demand real rights. I would also not ever willingly live in a society with truly free speech.
> Yes, in the US you absolutely are allowed to say what you want with no state-sanctioned consequence.
When has this ever really benefited us? We complain endlessly but fix nothing. What value have unanswered complaints?
Sorry, can you illustrate which point you were confused by or which aspects of my sentiments you felt weren't fleshed out? On rereading I think i'm perfectly clear. Do you feel like one of your points didn't get the attention it deserves? I'm happy to comply—if I didn't respond to a point, it's because I don't want to indicate disrespect, and as a result I have nothing left to say. But I would be overjoyed to tell you my actual thoughts if you can bear the social conflict.
If you don't want to or do not feel equipped to reply to my thoughts you can do just that—not reply.
Ah apologies, you edited to expand on an extremely cryptic comment.
> but I'm still unconvinced "free speech" is a meaningful term
It is demonstrably a meaningful term given that it has prevented the imprisonment of countless people who have been unfriendly towards the state or other powers that be at various times in our history. You can look for "landmark 1st Amendment cases" for an extremely partial list. In reality the bulk of the power is in the deterrent effect against the state pursuing action against private entities for expressing themselves, and the obverse effect that private parties aren't afraid of the state when expressing themselves.
> or that it's necessary for industrialization with private investment.
Not sure what you're getting at here, but it doesn't matter whether it's "necessary" for anything. It's in the Constitution. If you want to debate changing the Constitution you can go ahead and do that, but I won't spend my time engaging with it.
> When has this ever really benefited us?
Every day! It is literally benefiting you right now. You're aware that these very comments, in a regime with weaker protections, would put you at risk? And that even if the odds are remote, you would experience a chilling effect on sharing your thoughts with me here?
This all sounded pretty abstract to me too until I spent some time in a truly authoritarian country. I went on a date and casually asked the lady "so what's it like living under [ head of state ]?" What was a warm and friendly evening immediately turned as she glanced over her shoulder and completely clammed up, hurrying us onto a different topic. That reaction sent chills down my spine, and if you're an American and have zero concept of what any of this stuff means in the real world, it would've sent chills down yours too.
> It is demonstrably a meaningful term given that it has prevented the imprisonment of countless people who have been unfriendly towards the state or other powers that be at various times in our history.
You can just say "first amendment protections" rather than the disingenuous "free speech"
> Not sure what you're getting at here, but it doesn't matter whether it's "necessary" for anything. It's in the Constitution. If you want to debate changing the Constitution you can go ahead and do that, but I won't spend my time engaging with it.
You were the person that identified free speech as a reason for western dominance. I'm saying it doesn't appear to be related at all.
> is literally benefiting you right now. You're aware that these very comments, in a regime with weaker protections, would put you at risk
I don't give a damn. No amount of free speech will help the homeless, so fuck it. Let's get real rights in this country. All americans do is complain and complain and complain, so I see it as a marker of american complacency that they don't actually want anything to improve.
It's the same thing a lot of the people on the right were complaining about ten years ago. Most people don't seem to understand these contradictions until it affects them.
Watching this happen twice has really killed the idea that polls are a useful way to determine mandates for government policy in my mind. Most of the population probably just shouldn't be involved.
What legal censorship were conservatives facing ten years ago? There is no real precedent for this that I can think of since maybe the Red Scare in the 50s.
Well there's all the fake censorship where private parties exercised their First Amendment rights to control which content they carried. According to modern "conservatives", private actors should be compelled by the state to carry certain kinds of speech (their kind, obviously).
They will claim the government pressured private platforms despite 1) the platforms never claiming coercion, 2) the moderation actions aligning with the platforms' own content policies, 3) the platforms routinely denying government requests for content moderation, 4) there being no evidence of an implicit or explicit government threat towards the platforms.
> private actors should be compelled by the state to carry certain kinds of speech
Restrictions on speech far predate either social media or section 230. If you want to call this censorship—sure, by all means. I don't personally think it is very objectionable appropriately characterized in a situation with consequences.
> Most people don't seem to understand these contradictions until it affects them.
And, by design, it won't affect most people. Except the people who have the chutzpah to speak out against israel, of course—good luck finding that on cable tv or the opinion column. That shit is only on social media.
The protesting and activism are the same. I think foreign students/citizens should refrain from doing either of these, as they are in the country for a specific reason (to study), and not to turn its government. You'll probably get away with it when you do it at a small scale, but as things get out of hand, you are unlikely to go unnoticed - as person in the topic apparently did.
There are no such considerations in the US Constitution.
As an American, I have a right to hear the speech of foreign students and citizens. The government does not have the power to prevent me from hearing what they have to say. Small or large scale does not matter.
Stanley v Georgia: "It is now well established that the Constitution protects the right to receive information and ideas... This right to receive information and ideas, regardless of their social worth is fundamental to our free society."
Yes, but this person arrived from another country. Would you say freedom of speech and freedom of assembly means that people from around the world have the right to assemble in the United States?
> Yes, but this person arrived from another country.
Yes.
> Would you say freedom of speech and freedom of assembly means that people from around the world have the right to assemble in the United States?
I wouldn't say that because it isn't a well formed question. It conflates multiple, distinct activities. It unhelpfully presents them as if they were a single, constitutionally addressable action, which they are not.
But he was denied entry at the border, so it appears that, according to you, anyone from elsewhere in the world should be able to assemble in the US and express his free speech.
He also took part in the protests of Columbia University and by the looks of it wants to continue his political agenda in a foreign country. If this happened at scale then then foreigners could come (perhaps even be imported to the US, if this were a known-to-be-usable loophole) and steer the politics of a country in some other direction. It looks like the government is trying to avoid that and, if I were a citizen, it's what I would expect it to do.
That's a really bizarre take. You think it's acceptable to deny entry to someone based on your assessment of their political opinions? Given the very directly related context that Columbia students with visas and greencards are being detained and facing deportation explicitly for their political opinions, you can't conclude this is anything other anti-speech policy. There is absolutely no threat to life or property stemming from their speech. Meanwhile, expressly pro-genocide political figures with documented history of violent crimes like Ben-Gvir are freely admitted and allowed to rile up mobs.
I don't know the specific reason for denial for this particular person. I just generically don't understand why why would you want students like this in the country. The citizens, sure, vote, assemble, etc. to express your view.
This person was sent back from the border, so it sounds like a technicality, as they probably didn't have the info at point of departure to not let him on the plane. He's also a foreigner and an activist, so I assume that's why the assumed visa was cancelled.
You seem to argue that regardless of what the US as a country wanted (to not let him in) should be ignored, because he made it onto US soil. Sounds like a technicality.
This will be my last comment as you've proven yourself incapable of loading words into your brain.
> You seem to argue that regardless of what the US as a country wanted (to not let him in) should be ignored, because he made it onto US soil. Sounds like a technicality.
This should read:
> You seem to argue that regardless of what the US federal government wanted (to not let him in) should be ignored, because their provided justification for achieving what they want would violate the Constitution. Sounds like how Constitutions work.
I think the legal method of denying entry for the person was that his student visa was cancelled. If you don't have a visa, should you or anyone be still allowed entry if they want to "assemble"?
Revoking a visa due to politically speech is a violation of the first amendment. It's leverage executive authority explicitly to promote the administrations current preferred foreign policy. He committed no crime and made no threats to any government or person. Pure thought crime. His particular thought, that Israel is very badly mistreating Palestinians and that they should stop immediately, is one shared by many millions of Americans including myself.
If government is permitted to set any policy of any kind specifically to police the speech of any person of any status, then they can do it to everyone for everything. And it's the same for their denial of due process to other people they have deported.
And furthermore, Khalil had a green card and is married to a US citizen. Not a student visa.
> ... Allowing foreigners to join political protests in your country...
Protests are protected by the 1st Amendment. The constitution applies to everyone in US jurisdiction. Gov actions here are not appropriate or accepatble.
> ...obviously insane thing to advocate for.
Advocating for this individual's right to join a protest is not insane. Safeguarding constitutional rights is wise by default.
> Does it make sense for me and a bunch of friends to go to Thailand and protest the way they run their country?
This topic concerns the actions of US Gov; it's about which actions are specifically limited by the Constitution. Enforcing those limits is how we protect our rights.
It makes sense to advocate for the constitutional rights of individuals.
Further, not advocating for others' constitutional rights - this is a factor in erosion of rights overall. I offer that the 100mi constitution-free zone adjacent to US borders is an example of that¹.
If Thailand's government is similarly bound by it's constitution, it is probably wise for Thai people to advocate for individual rights.
The people who we are debating with seem to have the opinion that people from around the world have the right to assemble in the United States. That indeed is an interesting take.
> The people who we are debating with seem to have the opinion that people from around the world have the right to assemble in the United States. That indeed is an interesting take.
Our opinion is that the US Constitution applies to the people within a US jurisdiction. In this, our opinion is correct.
As far as you disagree with that, your disagreement will be with the Constitution - which is your inalienable right.
It it an actuality and not a not a technicality. The reasons remain the same as the last time you made the assertion. Also for the next time.
You've been heading toward the farthest boundary of good faith discussion for some time now. At this point, I think you are signaling that you have crossed it.
If the person had his visa cancelled, then the ideal way would have been to not let him on the plane at point of departure. As this didn't happen then the next location entry can be denied is at the border within the destination airport, and he was denied entry there. If you argue that he has landed, is on US soil, is handled by US law enforcement, then are you also saying that regardless of whether this person has a visa or not, he should be let assembled in the United States regardless of the visa status?
> It's ideological libertarinism taken to the absurd point of essentially anarchy.
Constitutionalism is about the core restraints placed on Gov. Not violating the constitution is it's own thing. Because it defines order, it is the opposite of anarchy.
Does some ideology or some facet of libertarian overlap here? I have no idea. It isn't relevant tho.
"Does it make sense for a place with a completely different governance structure, completely different laws, and completely different norms (notably lacking the US Constitution and its unique 1st Amendment protections) to behave differently?"
Uhhh yes. You would expect a different result in a different place. Here in America we have the laws that exist in America. In Thailand they have the laws that exist in Thailand.
The technicality being "to avoid violating the foundational laws of our country?"
Yeah, in the world of law you have to do stuff correctly and technically correctly. What country do you live in where this isn't the case, so I know never to go there?
He was trying to enter the country and was denied at the border (for a reason we don't know). The technicality being that he was on US soil. Had he been denied entry to the plane at point of departure, would that have been ok?
How horrible, how unacceptable. He probably even advocates for ending the genocide in Gaza. Good thing we have freedom in this country, to send the boots after those pesky peaceful protesters.
Yes, but you are currently arguing because the person on your side of the argument. For me, the question is more of whether you should allow people enter the country who cause civil unrest. It doesn't sound reasonable to allow a free-for-all entry to anyone, both to me subjectively, but I would also assume to all people for whom the US is their home country.
Well, we don't know the legal reason he was denied entry. Given that this is a foreign student and a protester, it could be that his permission to enter the country was revoked due to exceeding his purpose to be in the US.
I'm not debating what the legal formulation was, I just don't get the people who think he should have been let in. Since as in computer programming and in law, you can't nail down any circumstance in existence - you sometimes need apply the "do what I mean" rather than "do what said". In this case it does seem that the government did what the population would have liked it to have done. Though, I guess if he would sue, then you would do well in being his lawyers.
> “We both know why you’ve been detained…it’s because of what you wrote about the protests at Columbia”
I have no clue if this is actually true, but operating from the same set of facts that you have: we know exactly why he was detained, and assuming the facts we've been provided, we know for sure that it is unconstitutional
> it does seem that the government did what the population would have liked it to have done
You have no clue what "the population would have liked," and neither do I, and neither does the state. That's why we have the First Amendment, to preclude them from attempting such ridiculous assertions of omniscience.
But he was denied entry at the border. I guess it would have been better, if the person could have been not let on the plane in the first place - then it he would have not been needed to be "detained".
Does anyone anywhere qualify in this if your understanding? What does it mean to live here and not have an effect on on US politics? Can we use this same rationale to deny folks with dual citizenship office if they seek it?
The founders were proto-shitposters who ran a psyop on the public with the same technology used to print the daily paper. They knew what they were doing.
I agree with you, by the way. To a certain reading, this guy is creating a valuable resource in the attention economy: controversy. Give them a medal and a journalism grant.
This person is from another country and is rather an activist than a journalist, and he also can continue to express his views to this day.
Does it not make sense to you that a country (i.e, its citizens) don't actually want foreign activists to come and steer its politics? Sounds like a recipe for country take-over if done at scale.
My recommendation is that when you're inquiring about another country's laws or norms, you actually open your ears to what they're telling you instead of just repeatedly asserting your own (as you admit) completely ignorant perspective.
It shows how quickly the far left abandons its charity cases once it finds greener pastures. Remember all the "end ___ hate" campaigns? Not when there's a new group to manipulate for votes.
I've responded now to several of your comments, but this is a common enough sign of miseducation among the terminally online that I'll respond again here:
The far left is within their First Amendment rights to create "all the 'end ___ hate' campaigns" they want. The far right is within their First Amendment rights to create all the "hate _____" campaigns they want.
Bystanders, commercial entities, private schools, your friends and family are allowed to be friendly with you or disown you per their own preference for which side you take. They're even allowed to call you mean names like "ignorant fascist incel" if they want. And you're allowed to call them mean names too!
The government is not allowed to utilize state power to suppress either side of the hate or not-hate debate. It is not allowed to utilize state power to compel the "end hate" crowd to be nice to, give jobs to, maintain platforms for, or educate the "hate" crowd, nor vice versa.
