Peter Watts

Via facebook -- the Canadian science fiction writer Peter Watts has been convicted of noncompliance with an order from a US customs guard. He did not lie down on the ground when the guard ordered him to, but kept asking, "What is this about?"

Per Watts, the guard had already hit him in the face, and he was feeling a little dazed.

The crime is a felony. He could be in prison for two years.

He was not coming into the US, for what it's worth, but was leaving.

A disturbing story. These kinds of things usually happen to brown people and poor people, not white people with PhDs. It makes me think I don't want to go through US Customs.

I certainly would tell people who want to visit the US that they are coming at their own risk.