I don't see this yet on DKos, so thought I'd be the first. Canadian science fiction writer Dr. Peter Watts, author of Starfish, Maelstrom, and Blindsight, was stopped at the border Tuesday for no apparent reason, beaten, pepper sprayed, and arrested.
Apparently it happened while he was on his way home, but before he got back into Canada. His car was searched by U.S. border police in Port Huron, Michigan. What exactly happened next is unclear, but it appears that he simply asked about the reason for the search. According to an account by fellow SF writer Peter Nickle:
border guards subjected him to a beating, restrained him and pepper sprayed him. At the end of it, local police laid a felony charge of assault against a federal officer against Peter.
This is just breaking today, so there's not a lot of major-media coverage yet. The best starting point is a post from this morning by fellow SF writer Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing. Watts himself has also now briefly posted about it here.
While Dr. Watts is a critically acclaimed author, he's not wealthy by any means. He badly needs money for his legal defense; the Boing Boing article suggests a way to donate.
I'd also like to see this story get wider exposure. Somebody needs to rein in these little tinpot dictators we have guarding our borders.
UPDATE: Slightly edited to add clarification, based on the comments.