IMHO if you don’t have a globally-reachable address or forwarded port, you are not really a participant of the internet, you are just a receptacle xD

One service I never see mentioned is OVPN. They have a 1-to-1 feature parity with mullvad and were an easy drop-in replacement when mullvad closed their ports:

• wireguard
• port forwarding
• no usernames/emails/registration, only account numbers
• crypto payments/cash in the mail
• same price as mullvad
• multiple device keys
• multihop
• no bandwidth limits
• setup guides
• status dashboard

I used mullvad for years, sad to see them go, and all my scripts basically worked without any change other than the server addresses/public keys. Only downside is they don’t have as many users so not as many servers. I wish more people would join up so I get more IPs to choose from :D

I know you are just nitpicking on whether the current dictatorship has an official policy to deport American citizens, but I want to clarify, for the benefit of anyone else who might not be aware of this, that the American government has in fact already deported multiple American citizens by mistake. This GAO investation found that while ICE doesn’t keep track of such stats, based on the data that is available it must report that indeed “ICE and CBP took enforcement actions against some U.S. citizens.” The numbers are in the hundreds-arrests-per-year range, and dozens-per-year deportations. There are many interviews in the press with American citizens who say they were illegally detained or deported. Some Americans had to sneak back across the border after being illegally deported. Many Americans sued and won settlements for their illegal deportations, so now it is official court record that such events happened.

This is not just a matter of ambiguity, cases of “who can really know whether that person was a citizen or not”. These are cases where CBP has been clearly negligent, where the victims had been able to procure for display real birth certificates, real passports, and the agents wouldn’t look at them. The court-appointed lawyers would “lose” the documents and claim none were received in front of the judge, or there would not even be court hearings at all, just deportations. When sued later, no one would take responsibility, no one reprimanded, just settlements paid out. Sometimes the CBP would get sued, receive a court judgement affirming that the victim was a citizen who was unlawfully deported, then ignore the judgement and deport them again. This has all already happened… under past administrations. The implication is that the willful negligence under the current one will not get better.

Exactly right! The desire on display in this snow path is the desire for more space/safer lane width tolerances. The handlebars on my bike alone are more than 2 feet wide, I literally cannot fit in the quarter-lane as designated!

There’s been talk for several years of repurposing the mirror traffic lane on the other side of the bridge for exclusive pedestrian use, which would solve this. Both lanes were originally streetcar tracks when the bridge was first built, then converted into car lanes and remained so for decades. The car lane still in use on the opposite side is hardly even used because the un-expandable 8 feet is narrower than standard lane width. Trucks and larger cars can’t fit there, almost all motor vehicle traffic goes through the interior bridge lanes instead. Yet for years the city resisted the switch. Showing desire is important to win them over.

I do have good news to report for accuracy’s sake: after several more snowfalls during the winter, the many bridge paths did get salted every time afterwards, and this scene did not repeat. Must have been an aberration!