U.S. Filmmaker Repeatedly Detained At Border

Salon:

Since the 2006 release of "My Country, My Country," Poitras has left and re-entered the U.S. roughly 40 times. Virtually every time during that six-year-period that she has returned to the U.S., her plane has been met by DHS agents who stand at the airplane door or tarmac and inspect the passports of every de-planing passenger until they find her (on the handful of occasions where they did not meet her at the plane, agents were called when she arrived at immigration).

Read the whole story: Salon

Comments

[Ukridge]

07:15 PM on 04/09/2012

I searched in vain for something about Laura and to see what she had to say, and found nothing at all.

[belladio]

07:38 PM on 04/09/2012

You didn't look too hard because it took me all of three minutes to find a couple of them.

[mehurst]

04:32 PM on 04/09/2012

One thing is very interesting in these posts. There are very few right-wing tea-party rants about "liberals this and that ...". Could it be that this is one thing we all agree on more or less?

[mehurst]

04:15 PM on 04/09/2012

I TRIED TO COMMENT ON SALON, BUT YOU HAVE TO BE A "PREMIUM" MEMBER. ELITE SNOBS.
**************************************
Add this to the list of what the government can do without suspicion or without a warrant. Including tapping your cell phone, and monitoring your whereabouts through your cell phone. Now, thanks to the SCOTUS, Ms. Poitras or any of us that the Feds (or any security agency) want to intimidate can be strip searched as well. And the federal government can detain you without trial or even kill you if the government declares you to be a suspected terrorist.

Not your grandfather's America.

[Cautiously optimistic]

04:01 PM on 04/09/2012

Crazy. They stop a citizen like her, yet millions of Illegals sneak in undetected. I think they have it backwards.

[Ukridge]

05:29 PM on 04/09/2012

They are not stopping here, they are just checking her out, like they do anyone who goes to Yemen.

[Ascoli]

03:47 PM on 04/09/2012

Many people I know refuse to set foot in the USA anymore.
It's a dangerous, scary place.
Sorry for the decent people who live there.

[Ukridge]

07:14 PM on 04/09/2012

Isn't that a little over the top? Do you know how many millions of people visit here every year? America is also still the top spot for people waiting to get in to live.

[LazarusRises]

02:16 PM on 04/09/2012

Gee, more illegal & Unconstitutional activities commenced by W. being adhered to by O. O. is a neocon in D's wrapping. More proof of the steepening slide into Dictatorship & Police State.

[belladio]

03:37 PM on 04/09/2012

Yep. Now if only the main stream media would report these things so everyone knows about it, but of course that will never happen. No, only those with the curiosity to search for what's really going on here will ever know.

[ORAXX]

02:05 PM on 04/09/2012

The land of the free, and the home of the brave.

[jsmit]

01:39 PM on 04/09/2012

As a conservative, stories like this are really emblemmatic of big government run amock. The bigger the government with more programs and controls eventually ends up in the hands of a bureaucrat or low level person that takes the rules too far or too extreme and steps on your rights. Just as we see here when the border agent says she cannot even take notes of the questioning.

We need less government with less power so that this type of thing will not happen.

[LazarusRises]

02:18 PM on 04/09/2012

W. created thee abuses & created the largest government ever. We need adherence to the Constitution in our government. However, that has been now lost in all 3 Branches of our government. Far too many parallels to 1984.

[jsmit]

07:26 PM on 04/09/2012

While Bush spent much more than I supported, Obama has doubled down on government controlling many aspects of business and personal life. We've got Michelle Obama fighting obesity by forcing kids in school to eat certain things regardless of what their parents want all because she knows better than what the parents know about what their kids should eat.

The bottom line is it doesn't matter whether its a Republican or Dem that wants bigger government and more intrusion on our freedoms -- all is bad.

[DC Liberal]

02:35 PM on 04/09/2012

The problem is that all someone has to do is say this is all for “national security,” and then the Republicans all get on board. In my opinion, the Democrats are by far the bigger disappointment here, who should be out there championing the rights of Americans to be free from government intrusion, even when such intrusion is done under the guise of national security.

[jsmit]

07:27 PM on 04/09/2012

While there are legitimate national security issues that need to be dealt with, an erosion of personal freedom is not something that we should put up with regardless whether Rpublicans or Dems do it. Don't demagogue the issue.

[ChiBloger]

01:20 PM on 04/09/2012

I always get a little chuckle out of the fact that a local right wing radio host, says that he is repeatedly detained in airports because his name is “on the list”. This was a Bush era legacy thing.
It turns out he has a common first and last name. He also has name sake that the Bush administration put on their list for being in some harmless left wing group. The chuckle quickly turns to disappointment. While I am not a fan of this guy, he do not see him as being dangerous. He is a center right kinda guy albeit a bit of a Bush apologist by inference. He does not deserve this kind of thing anymore than I do. Yet 3 plus years into the Obama Administration, it continues. These Bush era polices have made us a joke amongst ourselves. As youth we thought our nation was above such things. These polices would instantly make us think of communist Russian Republic states of the fifties. Today it is we who are the jokes among freedom loving nations.

[LazarusRises]

02:19 PM on 04/09/2012

Because the simple truth is that we are no longer a freedom loving nation.

[LIKEWHAT]

02:44 PM on 04/09/2012

I often hear "Bush era".... that era is over???? He is not the president.....but the era remains it seems, as you remark.

[ChiBloger]

03:07 PM on 04/09/2012

Bush as president is over. But the era continues as the former president was often reckless with his handling of the law and with his single minded interpretation of our constitution. Laws created are not easily overturned. Especially so with lock step voting Republicans in the federal government today. Their position is always against the president and rarely for anything that actually benefit 99% of us.

The Bush legacy is a real thing. As the Reporters and activists in the piece can attest to. Before Bush there were no such issues. To make meaningful changes, we more than just all the presidents Democrats or we would be wasteing all the presidents time on decidedly uncertain outcomes.

[LuLou Murder]

01:12 PM on 04/09/2012

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,

[belladio]

01:43 PM on 04/09/2012

That was the plan when our nation was founded. Now we'd be indefinitely detained/disappeared and/or declared an enemy of the state.

[jdmccallum]

03:29 PM on 04/09/2012

I think that means that you could demand an election general or otherwise,but what most people mean by it (from an outsiders perspective) is Civil War to oust an elected goverment I thought the US had had a belly full of that with the last one recently calculated to have cost 750,000 lives,in todays population that wuold be around 2,000,000,or maybe not as I don't think it would last as long.

[ScottNY]

01:10 PM on 04/09/2012

I lost a lot of respect for President Obama on many of these incidents of trampling on our rights. Harassment by the government because you don't agree with their views? Assassinating U.S. citizens?

We faced down the Soviets who could have easily wiped out our country as we know it and still preserved our way of life. Now a few fanatics have us discarding the constitution whole sale.

I was taught McCarthy was an extremist, now his way of thinking is the norm.

Very sad.

[ChiBloger]

01:21 PM on 04/09/2012

do you really think the president has the power to change them on his own? How about a little balance?

[plebian43]

01:47 PM on 04/09/2012

He had the right to veto the 2012 NDAA. Instead, as Senator Carl Levin was recorded as saying, he insisted that the indefinite detention clause be included in the Senate version. Later, under pressure, he waived the indefinite detention clause, an utterly meaningless gesture.

[Rissa64]

01:57 PM on 04/09/2012

The president has the power for line item veto, if I'm remembering correctly. The most recent piece of legislation, NDAA, further whittles away at the Constitution. I'm very disappointed too that as a Constitutional lawyer he would do such a thing. He even said he had reservations about certain items in the NDAA but he signed it anyway.

[sking007]

01:09 PM on 04/09/2012

Considering the aptitude of this women courageously reporting on the Iraqi war it seems odd she's not challenging this in court in the national spotlight. If civil rights are being violated by the powers that be, and remedy through the courts has taken a blind eye, then I'm afraid citizens in this country not only have the right but, a duty to act out in violence or otherwise to protect their constitutional freedoms.

[LazarusRises]

02:25 PM on 04/09/2012

The Courts now embrace this Unconstitutional infringement on the freedoms & liberties formerly embraced in our Constitution. Benjamin Franklin was so correct.

[keithdengenis]

12:59 PM on 04/09/2012

This story is emblematic and reveals the binary cognitive decision making process employed by the largely ineffectual officers of DHS.

At the core: Everyone and Anyone associated with Bradley Manning can/will be dealt with and, dealt with in as harsh, intimidating and ruthless manner as is possible. Quietly, I think the Public Embarrassment that Pvt Manning has caused various 1st, 2nd and, 3rd World Regimes - and, set into motion 5 Revolutions and counting... - has been "For-the-Better", on balance. But, Pvt Manning did commit a very serious felony while doing so. DHS; DOJ; etc. Officials see this as INTOLERABLE as it threatens the Hierarchical Status-Quo.

In the end, these decisions made by Officials from the various Police Agencies will be their own undoing. As these sorts of stories become more known, the outcry from the Left and the Right (Think: "People who get involved; vote; fund raise...") for Public Policy Reform will be the catalyst that sets into motion the lessening of their powers.

[ChiBloger]

01:24 PM on 04/09/2012

The DHS has become as all encompassing and powerful as the NAZI Party in Germany. They mentioned the word Jew or communist and got everything they wanted. Here its. Terrorist or Muslim. There is just no balanced judgment going on here.

[LazarusRises]

02:27 PM on 04/09/2012

I disagree. Lower & lower levels of people who dissent will begin to disappear. The Police State has begun.

[dfranz]

12:56 PM on 04/09/2012

Those who give up their liberty for more security neither deserve liberty nor security.

Too late.....

[LazarusRises]

02:28 PM on 04/09/2012

But who listens to Benjamin Franklin?

[belladio]

12:48 PM on 04/09/2012

Richard Bartholomew, I don't know why your post was deleted, but I mostly agree. I just don't believe it will take 20 years for the US to be a full-on police state. We're well on our way already, and essentially are under the facade of "democracy" and our ever diminished constitutional rights.

[LazarusRises]

02:30 PM on 04/09/2012

The Republic officially ended & our conversion to a Police State began on 12-31 when O. enacted the legislation abandoning the Bill of Rights & authorized permanent rendition (imprisonment) of Americans without any rights, previously provided, such as the right to Counsel, the right against self incrimination, the right to a jury trial, etc.

[belladio]

03:22 PM on 04/09/2012

Not so fast there, LR. Permanent rendition has been on the books since 2001 with the AUMF. I'm not disagreeing that Obama is continuing it, but it was well underway before he was even a blip on the political radar.