The Toronto Star, The Age, and other media are reporting that Ensight‘s Jeffrey Wright, a “25-year-old Toronto consultant on blogs — Web logs, or online journals — says he has been shut out of a lucrative job in New York City after he was denied entry to the United States.”
Pick your jaw up, and keep reading …
Wright, reports The Age, “has gained a measure of fame among bloggers for selling his blog for profit and auctioning his services on eBay.”
Jeffrey’s story, dug up by The Age, will make you feel safer from traveling terrorists, no doubt — and impressed with the vigilance and intellectual acumen of your security forces:
In another post, Wright wrote: “I’m still not 100 percent sure what happened at Customs at the airport. Really, totally unsure. However at the very least I was denied entry and flagged for follow-up any other time I try to enter. As far as I can tell, I am not ‘banned’ from entering. I’m not sure why the border guard said I was, threatened to throw me and jail and seize my assets, etc.”
…..
He wrote that the immigration officer who interrogated him asked why he would visit someone in the US whom he (Wright) had never met. Wright had mentioned that apart from the meeting, he was meeting some people with whom he was acquainted.
When Wright answered that he had talked to these people online, the officer allegedly told him: “Don’t be a smartass. If you don’t have their phone number, and you’ve never met them, how can you have ever talked to them?”
Wright said that at this point he kept quiet and that the official allegedly replied: “So, you’re trying to tell me that you’re going to visit someone who you’ve never met, never talked to and who knows nothing about you? And I’m supposed to believe this?”
Wright said, despite this experience, he was looking forward to visiting the US again at some point. “I’m sure (almost, anyways) that next time won’t be as big of (sic) a hassle. It’ll probably be a hassle, but not a massive one. It’s not like I’m a terrorist or a hair dresser or anything.”
It’s too bad customs agents can’t Google people. In 10 seconds, they’d have found this from Blog Business World, January 2004:
Readers of the prestigious American newspaper The Washington Post, were treated to the words and opinions, of fellow blogger Jeremy Wright of Ensight.
In an article about the leading search engine Google’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) of its shares.
In the article, Jeremy is quoted as forecasting another internet and technology stock market bubble, where stock prices far exceed the true company value. …
You can drop Jeremy a line if you’d like: jeremy@ensight.org