{"id":14867,"date":"2012-01-25T04:21:56","date_gmt":"2012-01-25T04:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renne.finalknight.net\/?p=14867"},"modified":"2012-01-25T04:21:56","modified_gmt":"2012-01-25T04:21:56","slug":"what-the-actual-fuck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renne.finalknight.net\/?p=14867","title":{"rendered":"What the Actual Fuck?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What the Actual Fuck?<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

amarilloo<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

kurookami<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

swanblood<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

unknownbinaries<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI ordered some video-editing software from Hitfilm in the UK which also comes with some instructional videos. So a few days later I get a call from FedEx saying that the DVDs were being held at U.S. Customs until I filled out a Video Declaration Form, which she said was now standard practice. Now, I\u2019d never heard of this before, so I called back to ensure that this was indeed FedEx and not someone phishing for information. Had them email me the form.<\/p>\n

This is what the form said: \u201cI\/we declare the the films\/videos contain no obscene or immoral matter, nor any matter advocating or urging treason or insurrection against the United States, nor any threat to take the life of or inflict bodily harm upon any person in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, the first clause I can kinda see, though \u201cimmoral\u201d is weird and there\u2019s no standard definition of obscenity in the US, but let that go\u2026what made my eyebrows go up my forehead and down the other side was clause two. So I called back the nice lady at FedEx \u2014 who was only following instructions given to her by Customs \u2014 and asked what this was all about.<\/p>\n

Apparently \u2014 and this is only her understanding of the situation \u2014 this is a new thing being done by Customs and Homeland Security with FedEx, UPS, and other carriers to make sure that films and videos with ideas or stories that were at odds with the United States Government didn\u2019t get into the country, as it was a form of terrorism (as further elaborated upon in the third and final clause.) She added that some DVDs showing Occupy events in London and elsewhere had gotten bounced because of the concern that these were being used to coordinate activities here (as if with the internet people actually need physical DVDs for that sort of thing but that\u2019s neither here nor there).<\/p>\n

Under this new stipulation, if V for Vendetta had, for instance, been produced in the UK (instead of just filmed there), importing it into the US would be considered subject matter \u201cadvocating or urging treason or insurrection.\u201d And if you lied about it on the form, you could be held liable for this.<\/p>\n

So there are now very literally guardians at the gate ensuring that the wrong sorts of ideas, movies or DVDs are not allowed into the country without investigation and\/or prosecution. And most pernicious of all, they don\u2019t actually define what they mean by advocating treason or insurrection, any more than they define what \u201cimmoral\u201d means, it\u2019s whatever they decide it means, so you could be breaking the law without knowing you\u2019re doing it, until they decide you\u2019re doing it.<\/p>\n

Thoughts?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Thoughts: this country\u2019s laws and things the government stands for gets more disgusting every day. Those are my thoughts.<\/p>\n

Also, this only has a few notes and it\u2019s someone\u2019s personal story, so, probably good to signal boost it because it won\u2019t be going around everywhere\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0wtf?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

uhmm\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What the Actual Fuck? amarilloo: kurookami: swanblood: unknownbinaries: \u201cI ordered some video-editing software from Hitfilm in the UK which also comes with some instructional videos. So a few days later I get a call from FedEx saying that the DVDs were being held at U.S. Customs until I filled out a Video Declaration Form, which … Continue reading What the Actual Fuck?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-link"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renne.finalknight.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renne.finalknight.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renne.finalknight.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renne.finalknight.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renne.finalknight.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renne.finalknight.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14867\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renne.finalknight.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renne.finalknight.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renne.finalknight.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}