Poisoning the well fallacy! He writes fiction, so clearly you can't actually expect him to tell the truth about anything. You and the guy upthread perpetuating the "all geeks are self-important obsessed losers" generalisation should get together.

Nice to call for facts while using unsupported generalisations as your banner.

Er....just to clarify the construction of your statement "That he was half-naked suggests something of the state he was in before he precipitated the altercation." It seems to state that Peter Watts (disclosure: I see him once a year during a writing event and would call him friend) was half-naked prior to exiting the vehicle and prior to the altercation. It is my understanding that the "half-naked" came after he was bailed out and released--the border guards seemed to think they needed his coat as evidence.

'course, it's just me, but ejecting somebody from your precincts into a wintery night isn't the most humane thing to do, so I guess that may be prejudicing my view that they acted with all due restraint.

We don't know if there was instruction from law enforcement or not, since it's not specifically in Peter's account. But it's not unheard of for officers to ask people to exit the vehicle while being searched. When my boyfriend's vehicle was searched at the US border, they asked us to exit the vehicle once we were informed. (I think this was because they didn't want us grabbing any potential evidence and trying to hide it or get rid of it.