Canada Border Control

Ann Wright, a retired senior diplomat for the U.S., was denied entry into Canada yesterday. Her name appeared in the FBI database for criminal records. A database designed to track fugitives, missing persons, violent felons, and potential terrorist.

The reason she was in the database is because she was arrested in the U.S. for protesting the Iraq war. Canada has held a longstanding admissibility requirement that travelers must have a clean criminal record, meaning completely empty.

This seems to be a pretty nasty little problem. I can't really fault Canada for forbidding criminals from entry, but perhaps the definition of a criminal is overly broad. I guess it comes down to the true definition of the FBI Database. Either Ms. Wright's record is too benign to appear in the DB, or Canada needs to be more discriminating with their search results.

Either way, the full extent of punishment for peaceful protesting doesn't fit the 'crime'.