This is yet another reason why the pay is important. Low level jobs are process-oriented. They are designed to be carried out by average people. They are trained on what to do in various situations, of which this is probably one. I don't know about legal requirements, but I'd bet anything their training doesn't tell them to just say "have a nice day" when someone refuses to answer simple questions.
The customs agents this guy dealt with were just doing what they were trained to do. That's all they can be expected to do, all they should do. It's unreasonable to treat them as goons for simply doing their job. They're real people, most of them probably decent ones (because really, most people are decent people) who have families to feed, mortgages to pay, cars to buy, etc. Assuming that they are not makes the author a douchebag (and one who reads way too much Orwell).
There is not a distinction between goons and non-goons that can be made. He'd probably get similar results at any airport he went to because they all go through the same training program.
I don't know about legal requirements, but I'd bet anything their training doesn't tell them to just say "have a nice day" when someone refuses to answer simple questions.
Then it should. He is under no legal obligation to answer their questions. If I were to try something similar, I'd be much more polite about it, but, rude or not, he was perfectly within his rights to refuse to answer.
Now, if other factors were enough to actually raise reasonable suspicion that he had done something wrong (such as smuggling some contraband into the country), then the proper response is to move him on to further screening.
It's unreasonable to treat them as goons for simply doing their job.
Ah, yes, the tried-and-true "just doing their job" argument. I don't buy it. People are responsible for their conduct while performing their job. Their employer may set policy, but in the end the person implementing that policy that must accept shared responsibility for that policy.
They're real people, most of them probably decent ones (because really, most people are decent people)
Wait, wait, wait. Now, I'm going on just the words of the author here, but:
"The officer changed tack to bad cop. 'Let this guy sit until he cools down,' the officer loudly said to a colleague. 'It could be two, three, four hours. Heβs gonna sit there until he cools down.'"
How does that describe the actions of a decent person? I don't care if the author was rude to the customs official. Declaring in a power-trip manner that you're going to make someone wait for 2-4 hours just because you can... how is that decent?
I do think the guy was a bit of a douche in how he handled the situation: "none of your business" is probably one of the rudest ways he could refuse to answer. Something more like, "I'm sorry, but I'm not legally required to answer your questions and would prefer not to," seems like it would have garnered a better response, both from the customs officials, and from the hordes of commenters calling him a douche. If he had done that, and still was subjected to the same mistreatment, I'd feel a lot more sympathetic. But still, he did nothing legally wrong, and exercised his rights as a US citizen, and was detained and hassled for it. That's wrong.
Any Orwell other than Animal Farm is too much Orwell.
Orwell's fundamental problem was that he didn't understand how organizations function, and how the whole differs from the sum of its parts. He saw only the trees and not the forest. He understood what motivated individuals well, and just extrapolated that out, which led to erroneous thinking.
Aldous Huxley was quite the opposite, which is why his vision of government and society has in many ways materialized but his vision of the individual has not. There was a great post here a couple weeks back about the two that illustrated it.
The customs agents this guy dealt with were just doing what they were trained to do. That's all they can be expected to do, all they should do. It's unreasonable to treat them as goons for simply doing their job. They're real people, most of them probably decent ones (because really, most people are decent people) who have families to feed, mortgages to pay, cars to buy, etc. Assuming that they are not makes the author a douchebag (and one who reads way too much Orwell).
There is not a distinction between goons and non-goons that can be made. He'd probably get similar results at any airport he went to because they all go through the same training program.