Category: U.S. government behaving badly

American journalist detained by Customs and Border Patrol until he admitted that he writes “propaganda”

October 7, 2019 • 8:45 am

Last Thursday, Ben Watson, a journalist for the national-security news site Defense One, was detained at Washington D.C.’s Dulles Airport by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP).  He was detained simply because he was a journalist and therefore supposedly wrote “propaganda”. You can read the story by clicking on the links at the Washington Post and Defense One below (the latter story is by Watson himself).


Learning that Watson was a journalist, the passport screener engaged in the conversation with Watson below (from Watson’s report):

CBP officer, holding Watson’s passport: “What do you do?”

Watson: “Journalism.”

CBP officer: “So you write propaganda, right?”

Watson: “No.”

CBP officer: “You’re a journalist?”

Watson: “Yes.”

CBP officer: “You write propaganda, right?”

Watson: “No. I am in journalism. Covering national security. And homeland security. And with many of the same skills I used in the U.S. Army as a public affairs officer. Some would argue that’s propaganda.”

CBP officer: “You’re a journalist?”

Watson: “Yes.”

CBP officer: “You write propaganda, right?”

Watson waited five seconds. Then: “For the purposes of expediting this conversation, yes.”

CBP officer, a fourth time: “You write propaganda, right?”

Watson, again: “For the purposes of expediting this conversation, yes.”

CBP officer: “Here you go.”

At that point, the CBP officer handed back the passport.

CBP is investigating the incident and Watson has filed a civil rights complaint with the Department of Homeland Security.

Now one could say, as I thought when I first read this, that this is just an oddball CBP employee who has absorbed a dose of Trumpism, but the detention of journalists appears to be more pervasive than I thought. As the Washington Post reports:

A growing list of journalists say they have been startled by government officials’ harassment in a country that prizes freedom of the press. The encounters are raising fears that hostile rhetoric led by President Trump and his allies are damaging reporters’ ability to do their job unhindered.

This spring, the World Press Freedom Index called journalists’ treatment in the United States “problematic” for the first time in its 17 years of assessments — and singled out “President Trump’s anti-press rhetoric and continuing threats to journalists” as driving the deteriorating conditions. The U.S. ranking on the index has fallen for the past three years.

Journalists have had reporting run-ins with border agents for years, too.

In 2016, a Canadian photographer on his way to cover protests in the United States was detained for more than six hours. Ed Ou said airport officers took away his cellphones after he refused to unlock them, saying he needed to protect his sources. When Ou got the devices back, he suspected tampering and potential data copying.

As Andrea Peterson reported in The Post:

If Ou had already been inside the U.S. border, law enforcement officers would have needed a warrant to search his smartphones to comply with a 2014 Supreme Court ruling. But the journalist learned the hard way that the same rules don’t apply at the border, where the government claims the right to search electronic devices without a warrant or any suspicion of wrongdoing.

Several other journalists have described difficulties getting through airports in 2019.

In February, CBP apologized to a BuzzFeed journalist questioned at a New York airport about his news organization’s coverage of Trump and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation. A few months later, a freelancer said he was detained by CBP officials for hours at an airport in Texas.

Then, in August, British journalist James Dyer described an “unsettling experience” as he flew into California to cover a Disney event. The film and TV writer said a CBP officer at Los Angeles International Airport called him a member of the “fake news media” and asked if he had worked for CNN or MSNBC, two frequent targets of Trump’s criticism.

“He aggressively told me that journalists are liars and are attacking their democracy,” Dyer wrote in a viral tweet thread.

He said he was allowed to move on after explaining that he was just trying to write about Star Wars.

And some more anecdotal evidence via Twitter:

Things have come to a pretty pass in America when border patrol agents harass journalists. This did not, as far as I know, happen on such a scale before Trump was elected, and is clearly a byproduct of the Chief Moron’s constant war with the media and cries about “fake news.” Just one more reason to impeach him and remove him from office. As for the officer above, he should be disciplined and told that he’d be fired if he ever did anything like that again.

h/t: Ken

EPA advisory panel gutted of scientists, to be replaced by people from regulated industries

May 9, 2017 • 12:30 pm

This is the kind of stuff the Science March was designed to prevent. As yesterday’s New York Times reported, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, whose name encapsulates its mission, has just dismissed five or more members of its scientific review board, the Board of Science Counselors (BSC). The BSC’s job is to review and vet the science produced by the EPA, which is used in its mission to regulate industries and protect the environment.

The Board was in bad odor after having recommended more work on climate change, and their punishment was to ditch the scientists off the Board—after those scientists had already been told they wouldn’t be let go under the new administration.

So who’s going to guard the environmental henhouse? Why, members of the regulated industries, of course! Read and weep:

A spokesman for the E.P.A. administrator, Scott Pruitt, said he would consider replacing the academic scientists with representatives from industries whose pollution the agency is supposed to regulate, as part of the wide net it plans to cast. “The administrator believes we should have people on this board who understand the impact of regulations on the regulated community,” said the spokesman, J. P. Freire.

The dismissals on Friday came about six weeks after the House passed a bill aimed at changing the composition of another E.P.A. scientific review board to include more representation from the corporate world.

President Trump has directed Mr. Pruitt to radically remake the E.P.A., pushing for deep cuts in its budget — including a 40 percent reduction for its main scientific branch — and instructing him to roll back major Obama-era regulations on climate change and clean water protection. In recent weeks, the agency has removed some scientific data on climate change from its websites, and Mr. Pruitt has publicly questioned the established science of human-caused climate change.

In his first outings as E.P.A. administrator, Mr. Pruitt has made a point of visiting coal mines and pledging that his agency will seek to restore that industry, even though many members of both of the E.P.A.’s scientific advisory boards have historically recommended stringent constraints on coal pollution to combat climate change.

Mr. Freire said the agency wanted “to take as inclusive an approach to regulation as possible.”

“We want to expand the pool of applicants” for the scientific board, he said, “to as broad a range as possible, to include universities that aren’t typically represented and issues that aren’t typically represented.”

Everybody knows what’s going on here: the Republicans don’t give a rat’s patootie about the environment, and if those pesky scientists get in the way, well, fire ’em! Let the coal industry determine pollution standards and the industrialists prosper. (And we can also ditch the Paris climate accords.)

You can march for science until your toes wear off, but the real way to stop this is to quit electing Republicans.

U.S. State Department deletes congratulatory tweet for Oscar-winning director who opposed Trump’s immigration order

March 1, 2017 • 9:45 am

Well, compared to the damage our new President is likely to do to the country, this incident doesn’t count as much. But it’s a sign of how mean-spirited the administration is.

As you may know, Asghar Farhadi, an Iranian director, won the Oscar this year for Best Foreign-Language film for “The Salesman.” (I haven’t yet seen it, but it gets a 97% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes.) But this wasn’t his first win: he nabbed the same award for his 2012 movie “A Separation.” Here’s a man who knows what he’s doing.

Unfortunately, the U.S. government doesn’t share that view, at least publicly. As Reuters reports. the U.S. State Department’s official Persian language Twitter account initially congratulated Farhadi for his win, and then deleted the tweet. Why would it do that? Here’s one clue:

Farhadi boycotted the Oscars ceremony to protest Trump’s January executive order that temporarily banned entry to the United States by Iranians and citizens of six other Muslim-majority countries, and issued a statement criticizing the order. The ban was blocked by federal courts, although the administration is working on a new order.

Farhadi chose two Iranian-Americans – a female engineer and a former NASA scientist – to represent him at the ceremony. Anousheh Ansari, an engineer who was the first female space tourist, read a statement on Farhadi’s behalf calling the travel ban “inhumane.”

“Dividing the world into the ‘us’ and ‘our enemies’ categories creates fear, a deceitful justification for aggression and war,” Ansari said, reading from Farhadi’s statement.

According to screenshots circulating on Twitter, the @USAdarFarsi account posted a message around 1 a.m. EST congratulating Farhadi on the award, which was Iran’s second Oscar victory. The tweet was then deleted, although it is unclear exactly when.

“A congratulatory tweet was posted,” a State Department spokeswoman said. “We later removed the post to avoid any misperception that the USG (U.S. government) endorsed the comments made in the acceptance speech.”

. . . The @USAdarFarsi account, which launched in February 2011 and seeks to engage directly with Iranians, had previously tweeted messages about “The Salesman,” including on Jan. 24, when it noted its Academy Award nomination and sent best wishes to Farhadi.

That tweet, which is still online, was published days before Trump issued the travel ban that sparked Farhadi’s protest.

Umm. . . congratulating him for his win doesn’t mean endorsing everything he says, though in this case I agree with both Farhadi’s sentiments and his gesture. But the State Department could have been big enough to congratulate the man for his achievements (after all, aren’t we trying to be friends with Iran?) without a mean-spirited revocation of those congratulations.

Here’s the tweet captured by Steve Herman before it was deleted. I can’t read the Persian, but perhaps a reader can.

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From Reuters and the Torygraph

 

Here’s Farhadi at the 2012 Academy Awards in 2012 with his Oscar for “A Separation”:

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CREDIT:REX

Trump’s immigration missteps cause pandemonium

January 29, 2017 • 7:30 am

UPDATE: More shenanigans from my CNN news feed, which comes in an email: “White House officials are discussing the possibility of asking foreign visitors to disclose websites and social media sites they visit, and to share cell phone contacts, sources tell CNN.”

_____________

Despite some grousing that I should spend more time criticizing Donald Trump than the Regressive Left, my feelings toward the Trumpster have always been clear (I despise his views), I’ve gone after him a number of times, and, most important, there are plenty of other bloggers out there engaged in taking him down. (Also, read the Roolz: I’m not to be told to write about X rather than Y.)

Nevertheless, I woke up this morning both dispirited and heartened by the news. As you know, on Friday Donald Trump signed an executive order on immigration, putting on hold for four months the entry of all refugees to the U.S., suspending refugees from Syria indefinitely, and, for 90 days, prohibiting citizens of seven countries that are predominantly Muslim from entering the U.S.:  Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen (why not Saudi Arabia?).  He also promised “stringent vetting” of refugee applicants in the future—probably those from Muslim lands.

This caused pandemonium. Some refugees were sent back from the U.S., others weren’t allowed on planes to the U.S. (these included holders of green cards that allowed them to live and work here, as well as foreign students already attending American universities), and some holding valid visas were detained for hours at airports.

This is unconscionable, for not only does it prohibit legal residents from returning to the U.S., but also, despite Trump’s claims, constitutes a form of religious discrimination against refugees. It also tars the reputation of the U.S. as a historical home for refugees.  It is merely one of many actions Trump will take that are repugnant and contrary to the values of our country. And remember, he’s barely been in power for a week!

I’ve always thought that both demonstrations (including peaceful ones that constituted civil disobedience) and legal action were the best way to blunt Trump’s actions, and in this case they succeeded. Many of my countrymen showed up at airports, protesting the executive orders; these included Senator Elizabeth Warren, who showed up at Boston’s Logan Airport to protest. Peace be upon her! Note that she predicts that Trump’s orders will be overturned, and I suspect this video was taken before the judge’s decision (see below).

But more important, as has been widely reported, Judge Ann M. Donnelly of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn  (you can see her short court order here) temporarily blocked Trump’s order, or at least part of it:

The judge’s ruling blocked part of the president’s actions, preventing the government from deporting some arrivals who found themselves ensnared by the presidential order. But it stopped short of letting them into the country or issuing a broader ruling on the constitutionality of Mr. Trump’s actions.

The high-stakes legal case played out on Saturday amid global turmoil, as the executive order signed by the president slammed shut the borders of the United States for an Iranian scientist headed to a lab in Massachusetts, a Syrian refugee family headed to a new life in Ohio and countless others across the world.

. . . Judge Ann M. Donnelly of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama, ruled just before 9 p.m. that implementing Mr. Trump’s order by sending the travelers home could cause them “irreparable harm.” She said the government was “enjoined and restrained from, in any manner and by any means, removing individuals” who had arrived in the United States with valid visas or refugee status.

The ruling does not appear to force the administration to let in people otherwise blocked by Mr. Trump’s order who have not yet traveled to the United States. [JAC: That’s bad, for many of those are legal residents]

The judge’s one-page ruling came swiftly after lawyers for the A.C.L.U. testified in her courtroom that one of the people detained at an airport was being put on a plane to be deported back to Syria at that very moment. A government lawyer, Gisela A. Westwater, who spoke to the court by phone from Washington, said she simply did not know.

This was followed by another ruling against Trump’s order:

Minutes after the judge’s ruling in New York City, another judge, Leonie M. Brinkema of Federal District Court in Virginia, issued a temporary restraining order for a week to block the removal of any green card holders being detained at Dulles International Airport.

In the meantime, the Department of Homeland Security has said it will continue to carry out Trump’s orders, excluding those that have been put on hold by the courts. Trump’s actions have created chaos, and I’m delighted to see some American protesting his actions, as well as the courts overturning them. But what will happen when the Supreme Court once again attains a solid conservative majority, as it undoubtedly will?

Protests and recourse to the law: these are the two weapons we liberals have against the actions of the Trump administration. Protests are fine, and I hope they change people’s minds, but for sheer effectiveness there’s nothing like a court order.

Here’s a photo of Donnelly donning her judicial robes in 2015, right after being sworn in as a federal judge:

ann-donnelly-robe
Source: Brooklyn Eagle

Goosed again!

July 28, 2016 • 3:12 pm

It turns out that TSA Precheck Status doesn’t help you when you’re flying internationally, so I had to go through the entire screening process at O’Hare: shoes and belt off, computer and liquids out of laptop, and so on. And, as usual, the See You Naked Machine found those suspect Yellow Patches on me. But this time, instead of being confined to one of my buttocks, they were on my entire lower back, both buttocks, and rear thighs.

That, of course, ensured that I got a thorough groping: not just a double goosing, but a full rubdown of my thighs, front and back, all the way from the knees to the naughty bits. Oh, and a hand swab, too.

I am stymied about why my dorsal side sets of the detectors, and, of course, don’t like the gratuitous caresses at all.

So it goes. On to Poland.

I got groped again

June 1, 2016 • 8:15 am

This is getting depressingly tedious, and I’m starting to think that “TSA” stands for “Terrorist: Squeeze his Ass.”  With wallet, belt, keys, change, and all other things removed from my clothing, I still set off the detector in the See-You-Naked Machine, and the problematic area was the same as always: a yellow patch on my right buttock (or left; I can’t tell from the diagram). That earned me a full patdown, this time with the agent running his hands inside my waistband as well as groping both buttocks (“with the back of my hands”—does that make it better?) and running his hands inside my thighs from the knees to the groin. And they swabbed my hands for explosives. Of course they found nothing.

Now it’s 4:25 in the morning (I have a 6 a.m. flight) and, after buying a “blueberry” muffin and a coffee, I discovered that the muffin had exactly ONE blueberry in it. But I nommed it before I could photograph it. Now I will write a few posts and fume at the TSA. For the first time ever, I glared at the agent who was goosing me.

 

Moar adventures with the TSA

April 11, 2016 • 2:30 pm

I forgot to note that, on leaving Chicago for Houston, I was again groped on the buttocks by the avid agents of the Transportation Security Administration. Once again the see-you-naked machine showed a yellow patch on my lower back, and so I was once again thoroughly goosed. (The same patch showed up a short while ago when I went through security at Houston’s Hobby Airport, but they just swiped my tuchus lightly.) I’m not sure what it is about my rump and lower back that sets off these machines, but I swear that I haven’t had buttock implants, and there’s no metal in there.

In Chicago, they not only goosed me, but swabbed my hands AND my computer for explosives (none were found). I have no idea why they did this.

But the saddest thing I saw was this guy in a wheelchair in Houston, who got the most thorough examination I’ve ever seen. I didn’t want to take a lot of photos with my camera, but I saw them not only pat him down thoroughly, but put their fingers underneath his waistband and run them completely around his body.  I can imagine what that felt like! And then they patted down every part of his body and thoroughly inspected his wheelchair. I’m starting to get damn sick of this stuff. What about this man made them think he was more of a potential terrorist than anyone else?

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