These stories usually have some non-trivial factor that is missing in the article. In this case there's a small visible red flag: the two tourists are British but traveling on B visas, rather than using the visa waiver program. Why? Well according the DHS they both have multi-year overstays in the US.
This doesn't justify the detention they went through. But it also means the lesson of the story is not "random tourists are being detained".
The article clearly says only Bill had overstayed, not Karen. "Bill’s US visa had expired; Karen’s had not.".
The B2 visa seems to be because the length of the trip exceeded the ESTA limit, "over two months", perhaps the original plan had been for a longer trip.
The Guardian article linked has chosen to omit material facts regarding Karen... This is par for the course when it comes to Guardian reporting and doubly so for immigration related articles. The Guardian only prints hit pieces nowadays that reinforce their group-think propaganda.
>What the media won’t tell you: this woman was BANNED from our country for 10 years for violating terms of her visa.
Here are the facts:
Karen Newton has violated the laws of our nation, and overstayed her visa waiver admission for almost FOUR years after visiting her spouse. Her husband, William Newton ALSO broke the law for nearly 20 years by overstaying an H-1B visa.
The Biden Administration granted her a tourist visa, and she traveled to the U.S. under this visa and was let into our nation.
When she and her husband attempted to cross the Canadian border, they did not have proper paperwork for their vehicle and were denied entry into Canada. During her inspection re-entering the U.S., she was unable to provide clear details about her situation, including her husband’s legal status.
Given her history of overstays, her husband’s unlawful presence, and the vehicle documentation issues, officers determined scrutiny and detention were warranted under the law and she was detained.
The sad thing is that you believe what DHS has to say about absolutely anything, especially after Alex Pretti has proven them in death to be complete liars.
Yes, because a DHS statement, published on Twitter of all places, isn't going to be propaganda. I can't think of any instances of them blatantly lying even against their own video evidence in, like, at least a week. /s
When a publication only publishes the "oppresseds" point of view without ever publishing the other view then it is by definition propaganda. The Guardian has been incredibly consistent in this over years now.
There are small suppliers in Hong Kong who sell refurb enterprise drives at less-exorbitant prices. I've had good luck with this over the years. I stuck with reliable, well-known models like the 4TB HGST, 16TB Seagate Exos (X16), etc.
I used to get them with a year or so of warranty remaining, though last order I got units that must have been from a bulk OEM purchase and weren't warrantied through the manufacturer.
Regardless, I've had good luck this way and failure rates have been within expectations. I started with a few different suppliers to mix inventory in case one source turned out to be a dud, then eventually consolidated on a single supplier who does a great job and has consistently delivered good drives. This method has worked for me for over a decade. Definitely easier than flying around countries, and in my case cheaper than if I'd physically gone to the US like this guy.
I refrained from replying to this until now because I felt this thread was excessively pedantic, but Aaron Swartz is in fact one of the cases I had in mind when writing my original comment about "harshly as possible". To say that his case was only "tangentially" copyright-related is whitewashing the copyright lobby of its complicity in his death. It is, in fact, the primary reason he died. The US government was trying to make an example out of him, and stacked every charge they possibly could, because of his act of copyright infringement. Perhaps, with a shallow understanding of the case, you might see the list of felonies he was charged with and come to the conclusion that copyright infringement was only one small part of the case against him. But the copyright infringement was the crux of the case, and the rest of the charges were "throwing the book at him" in the well-defined meaning of the term[1]. His suicide was a direct result of the overzealous prosecution attempting to ruin his life with charges wildly disproportionate to the harm he caused to society (ie. basically none). It is worth noting he had not even shared the material he had downloaded, although the prosecution made a case on asserting that they believed he intended to.
Now, as for "the rest of us are prosecuted as harshly as possible if caught". You are correct in your pedantry that this statement not expressed as rigorously as it possibly could have been. There are different classes of copyright infringement; "receiving" and "perpetuating" being two of them [to avoid further pedantry, I am not asserting this is precise legal terminology but rather a lay distinction for the purposes of discussion]. It is the latter case which is tried as harshly as possible when caught, and there are many such examples other than Swartz, and I think it was clear my intent when I said it despite the fact that I did not write about the distinction at length.
That is not to say the situation around the former type of copyright infringement is so kind, either. While in some countries it is mostly overlooked, which I believe to be the case in the US, in other countries it is more strictly enforced, such being the case in my own country. While "as harshly as possible" isn't accurate to prosecution against infringement of this nature, you can still be disproportionately punished relative to the damage caused when downloading pirated material for personal viewing, if caught (and ISPs/rightsholders do monitor for it to the best of their abilities).
There is also a third class of copyright infringement to consider which is highly disfavourable to individuals: derivative works. Strictly speaking, even as something as simple as drawing fanart of a character or remixing a song is illegal, even if the activity is completely non-commercial in nature. This is, of course, absolutely ridiculous. Rightsholders know that copyright law reformation would gain tremendous popular support if they were draconian about enforcing their rights against derivative works, and that allowing fan communities to bloom is actually beneficial to their own IP, so enforcement is highly selective. However, that arbitrary, selective nature of enforcement is itself dangerous to individuals, and is sometimes used to punish specific individuals as harshly as possible at the whims of the IP holder. It is true that not everyone is actually subjected to this, but the threat of it happening looms over everyone who expresses their creativity through derivative works.
None of this sits right with me, especially as corporations are hoovering up every piece of copyrighted material they possibly can and creating commercial derivative-work-machines that mass-produce sloppified derivative works, and are getting a completely free pass by the legal system to do so while individuals are still treated like felons for 'crimes' that are at most marginally harmful, or in the case of the creative production of derivative works, not only not harmful but actually beneficial to society.
That’s plainly ridiculous. If Swartz killed himself over the few months in prison he was facing, the primary reason he died was almost certainly mental illness, and not how the legal system treated him.
I dare you to find an era of history when the dominant military power losing wars it started worked out well for anyone. Its citizens. Its neighbours. Even its enemies, who may profit in the long run from the instability but still bear its costs in the short.
The best is peace. Second best is fewer folks feeling they have to blow shit up to soothe a wounded pride.
I'm going to production with a new Electron app at my job this week, i wish this had existed a year ago lol. Electron Builder does a pretty good job making the updates and signatures not TOO painful but it hasn't been painless by any stretch.
Looks cool, I'll try this for my next personal desktop project and see how it goes
For me the back pockets are usually good enough to hold the phone when I'm walking then i just put it wherever (bag, table, bike mount, etc) the rest of the time. I wouldn't keep it in my front pocket even if it did fit.
But they're not lowest-common-denominator products. If they were, clothing designers would be tailoring clothes for a rectangular figure. The article clearly shows that only 12% of women have that "hourglass" figure and yet, by design, almost all the clothing manufacturers are tailoring their clothes for this shape, regardless of size.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/21/karen-newton...
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