You're much less likely to have trouble that way, and it explains why you're doing what you're doing, which makes it more likely to have a positive impact and get the officers to re-think why they're doing their job and what it means. Stonewalling them is your legal right, fine, but it seems to be a sub-optimal choice on a principals/ethics level and on a practical level. Now before anyone replies, "You shouldn't have to bow and scrape to get into your own country" - yes I agree with you, but being rude doesn't accomplish anything additional than stating your principals politely.

The reality is that while personality flaws and broken power dynamics may (but almost certainly won't) cause border police to charge you with some crime if you misstate "business or pleasure", absent any demonstrable intent of comitting a crime, you're unlikely to see the inside of a courtroom on such a charge, let alone be convicted. For instance, in the original post: saying you were in Antwerp for pleasure isn't going to get you a "Bureau of Prisons Number" without the satchel of smuggled diamonds.

I don't want to be misconstrued here; I'm glad we have crazy douchebags like this guy to stand up for our rights to refuse to answer questions, especially dragnet-style questions explicitly intended to trip criminals (and whatever collateral innocents come with them) up at the border.

But having said that, there's an element of the social contract at play here. The exact same logic this guy is using suggests that he also shouldn't answer the questions of police investigating crimes in his neighborhood. "Have you seen this man? We think he just shot up your neighbor's car."

Our society doesn't work if the police get absolute authority over us, and our protections against authoritarianism will degrade if people like this guy don't occasionally stand up for them. But society also won't work if everyone routinely refuses to cooperate with the police, who are dependent on our support to get the important stuff in their charter done.

I highly recommend "Cop in the Hood", a sociologist's writeup of a year spent as a Baltimore East Side patrol cop, for insight into all the crazy dynamics at play here.

Time for my story:

Last October, I released a concept video of a next-generation desktop UI that garnered a surprising amount of blog coverage. Within a week, I had received emails from people at Google, Apple, and Microsoft, as well as a few startups.

As you might imagine, I was rather excited. This was exactly what I'd hoped might be a result of the video: I'd get noticed, talked about, and picked up by an industry leader.

Yet here I am, nearly a year later, still at my old job. What happened? I'd figured I had it in the bag, that all I had to do was put my best foot forward and I'd be well on my way to my dream interaction design career. In truth: I got lazy.

The interview at Google the next month went well, but a month after that, I got the bad-news call. Apple took me through a series of wide-spaced phone screens that never went anywhere, only to restart the recruitment process for a different division several months later, finally getting bumped by an internal candidate. Microsoft got lost in the shuffle, I went through some disjointed recruitment processes at a few startups with a bit of contract work, but finally, even that went quiet.

Where did I go wrong? I think I assumed I'd gone far enough for the time being, that this one video marked my arrival and that was it. But I lost my momentum. Lengthy recruiting processes can make it seem like you have time to kill, but you don't! I shouldn't have missed a beat; I should have doubled down on my concept and explored it even further instead of pinning my hopes on getting hired somewhere cool.

My advice to Feross or anyone else who finds themselves in a similar situation: Don't stop now!

> 5. Politeness Would Make No Difference.

That's not true at all in my experience. After lots of international traveling, I've found the optimum is, "Good afternoon officer, how are you?" while handing my passport over. Maybe ask about the local sports teams. They're much friendlier and cooler when you do so. This is my empirical observation on my part after dozens if not hundreds of border crossings - it does make a difference; the author is mistaken. I respect his principals, but I think adding politeness would be more pragmatic and serve his goals of establishing civil liberties more effectively.

I crossed the border more than a hundred times over ten years with no difficulties whatsoever. I grew up in a police family and am unswervingly polite and respectful. That did not protect me from 12 hours of interrogation in a white room and a deportment (reason still undetermined and undisclosed: a Freedom of Information Act request brought a document 75% redacted) when I happened upon the wrong, bored CBP official.

Just because you've affirmed the consequent a few dozen times doesn't mean politeness will help you.

I don't think you should always take the path of least resistance.

  -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

It's basically the same position you should always take with a police offer who is trolling (as opposed to performing actual police work) - Always refuse to answer anything but the most basic questions such as your identity, always (always) refuse to consent to a search.

Precisely why you -- and most people -- shouldn't hold positions of authority over others.

If you get a jeep made since 1995, it's definitely way more complex. The jeep in the video doesn't have the same emission controls and safety requirements of a modern vehicle.

Modern jeeps still shars some of the same design principles. For instance, tub on frame -- they lift the tub off of the frame. The cabin of a jeep is like a bathtub on a wagon.

The suspension in modern jeeps is far more complex in order to give a smoother ride -- the jeep in the video has leaf springs on front and back. Modern jeeps typically don't have leafs in the front.

Jeep CJ's were the first consumer models available. Some of the older ones may be close to that simple.

I drive a jeep. I think it's awesome. For the same reasons I like it, most of my passengers hate it:

- it's loud (soft top or top down you basically have to yell to hear each other, forget listening to the stereo on road trips) - it rides rough -- you get thrown around - it has almost no features. I have a heater, headlights, three speed wipers (off, too slow and too fast), manual windows/mirrors and a button to reset the trip counter

Also, it's a bit of a money pit. It's super rugged, but when you take it into the bush, you push the machine to its limits. I'm not really an expert in vehicle repairs (spent my teen years on computers instead of with my dad in the garage), but I'm definitely getting more into it as a way to save money.

I get about 15 L/100KM (~15mpg). It's as aerodynamic as a brick flying sideways, so you can't really do anything to improve gas mileage.

That all being said, I love my jeep. I can't see myself not owning a jeep in the future.