The tale of how Saul was almost a sex offender.

Well, that's what I told him, but after thinking about it, they are custom agents, they probably make exception, as officers of a special body which purpose is to control, they wouldn't need reasonable suspicion.

However, I'm pretty sure he could've said that the fact that they consider people who like anime to be "in general" into loli is a criteria of discrimination. But I think in those cases, it's easier to be nice with them, and get done with it as fast as possible.

Sure is, if they want to artifically inflate their reputation. I mean, come on! What looks better in the papers then some cops/agents bagging a dirty pedophile? Sure, it's going to ruin the life of guy/girl who's only been looking at drawings, but that's a small price to pay compared to the fame and glory of the police.

Customs agents can search your car in America without your consent as well(when trying to cross an international border). It was a random search, just like the random searches at airports; it's completely legal for them. As Neya said; it was safer to answer questions and not cause problems so they would let me get on my way faster than to make problems; if they had arrested me I'm sure my lawyer(good firm) would have had some case to defend me.

So loli is illegal in Canada eh? I should start making some backups on diskettes just in case!

Yahh like Jacob said make backups of your backups lol!

If that's the case, I'm surprised Bangladesh hasn't jumped on such and "opportunity".

Seriously? I thought it was weird when I went to Canada for Anime North a couple of weeks ago and the border people did a random search on me. They took out my cellphone and started going through my phone, specifically my text messages. Then they took out a letter I'd received from a friend in England and started reading it. In the states it is completely Ilegal to read someone else's mail.

unless crossing the border into the states, seriously; look it up. Most international borders have their own sets of rules and can do as they please, including full cavity searches(thought they require reasonable cause to do the hardcore searches).

Wow. Well I guess I know for next time. Btw I heard bondage is illegal in Canada.. Is this true or are people just fucking with me?

This story actually got mentioned at one of the AX panels, I just now read this and realize what they were talking about, heh.

"DON'T BRING PORN TO CANADA"

That makes me happy.

reading these reply...makes me wonder...isn't it more safer to just mail your stuff home?

also, international border actually follow the custom set by the country. specifically, it depend on which country you're attempting entry into. i don't know much about canada's law, but in the States, they're not allowed search without your permit unless they have reasons to be susicious of you.

FYI: go watch Harry and Kumar Escape from G.B. use what he did. XD

That story was a good read..

I find it disgusting that the police are even allowed to do this under anything less than a warrant signed by a judge who has found reasonable suspicion - border crossing or otherwise. I don't really like loli, but I don't know if I could keep a straight face for pure angst towards the principal of the thing.

I've always kinda wondered what the cops would do if they had to search one of my laptops. They would either have to give up immediately or have to send it to a crimelab. I use linux with a fairly complex custom-written interface (Xmonad + lots of libraries) which is NOT intuitive for most common computer users. I have to issue a couple commands just to start my system. Also since the root partition is fully encrypted, it might raise some red flags. But suspicion because "people who are into anime are often pedophiles" - I would have gotten pretty fucking pissed right there.

funny thing is you can see when they are going to stop someone for questioning/searching. that's the impression I had when I passed customs in the USA and my own country.

While stuck at passport control on both occasions I could see the guards on the other end of the room puff out their chests everytime they wanted to question/search someone.

I've noticed that, too. I remember one time when my French class was going on a trip to Quebec and the customs officials gave us a lot of shit because some of our classmates were Indian citizens (never mind that they'd lived in the United States for most of their lives). We were held up for two hours by racism. They always act really cocky and self-righteous about what they do, too.