Re: IAOC requesting input on (potential) meeting cities

[Nico Williams <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, Apr 04, 2017 at 01:43:12PM -0500, Andrew Newton wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 1:15 PM, Nico Williams <[e-mail]> wrote:
> > All that said, I've been harassed by Customs in Japan and Canada, and I
> > have heard harassment stories in Argentina (where I hail from) and
> > elsewhere.  My impression and experience is that Europeans customs are
> > the least likely to harass visitors.
> 
> If we are going to base our decision on anecdotal experiences, my
> worst encounters have all been in Europe. I don't think that means
> anything other than my worst encounters have an an odd pattern. I also
> know people who have been detained and denied entry into Canada
> because the Canadians believed them to be violent criminals. They
> weren't, but because the Canadians have arrest records but not
> conviction/acquittal records from other countries there tend to be
> misunderstandings (btw, the US does this as well, not picking on
> Canada).
> 
> In my opinion, statistics will better inform this discussion.

My unstated point was that the US border situation is not really
different from anywhere else.  YMMV.  Stats would be nice, but I suspect
there are no reliable stats available, though individual organizations
like the IETF can probably track how many of *its* participants are
harassed at the various countries where it has held conferences.

Perhaps the IETF could gather and publish such statistics going forward.
Though given the relatively fickle nature of border enforcement (I
imagine it tends to be reactive as well as proactive, so recent events
probably tend to affect policy), stats may not be terribly predictive.

Nico
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