British journalist detained, strip searched, deported . . .

[OneBlueSky]

all because she didn't have something called a "journalist's visa" . . . more idiocy brought to you by BushCo and the Patriot Act . . .

Welcome to America
When writer Elena Lappin flew to LA, she dreamed of a sunkissed, laid-back city. But that was before airport officials decided to detain her as a threat to security ...

Saturday June 5, 2004
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1231089,00.html

As it turned out, I was to spend 26 hours in detention. My crime: I had flown in earlier that day to research an innocuous freelance assignment for the Guardian, but did not have a journalist's visa.

Since September 11 2001, any traveller to the US is treated as a potential security risk. The Patriot Act, introduced 45 days after 9/11, contains a chapter on Protecting The Border, with a detailed section on Enhanced Immigration Provision, in which the paragraph on Visa Security And Integrity follows those relating to protection against terrorism. In this spirit, the immigration and naturalisation service has been placed, since March 2003, under the jurisdiction of the new department of homeland security. One of its innovations was to revive a law that had been dormant since 1952, requiring journalists to apply for a special visa, known as I-visa, when visiting the US for professional reasons. Somewhere along the way, in the process of trying to develop a foolproof system of protecting itself against genuine threats, the US has lost the ability to distinguish between friend and foe. The price this powerful country is paying for living in fear is the price of its civil liberties.

(snip)

Though my experience was far removed from the images of real torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, it was also, as one American friend put it, "conceptually related", at distant ends of the same continuum and dictated by a disregard for the humanity of those deemed "in the wrong". American bloggers and journalists would later see my experience as reflecting the current malaise in the country. Dennis Roddy wrote in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "Our enemies are now more important to us than our friends ... Much of the obsession with homeland security seems to turn on the idea of the world infecting the US."

On a more practical level, this obsession, when practised with such extreme lack of intelligence (in both senses of the word), as in the case of my detention, must be misdirecting valuable money and manpower into fighting journalism rather than terrorism. Ordinary Americans, rather than the powers that be, are certainly able to make that distinction. According to an editor at the LA Times, there has been a "tremendous" response from readers to the reporting on my case, and I have received many emails expressing outrage and embarrassment. The novelist Jonathan Franzen wrote, "On behalf of the non-thuggish American majority, my sincere apologies."

- more . . .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1231089,00.html

[fertilizeonarbusto]

1. What crap!

I'M SO FUCKING TIRED OF BUSHCO MAKING ME ASHAMED TO BE AN AMERICAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I HATE THEIR FUCKING GUTS!!!!!!!!!!!!:grr:
*rant over*

[LittleApple81]

3. What is worse, at least for me. A friend who I really love, came to

visit me a few days ago. She is a republican (not a repug) but works too many hours to keep up with the news (and frankly, I think she "trusts her president"). I cannot even think of terminating this friendship so I try to slip ideas as we talk about generalities. I mentioned this case to her and she said "But people have to understand that we have to protect ourselves and she did not have the proper visa". I said that was ridiculous, you can see that a journalist from one of the few remaining "coalition of the unwilling" should not be treated like this. Then I told her about the German mother I had read about some months ago that went through the same crap a few months ago... I made her think. Then I told her about 9/11: asked: where did the guys come from? She said Afghanistan? I said NO. most came from Saudi Arabia and proceeded to explain this plus the BFEE ties to Saudi Arabia, the BinLadens, etc. Then recommended several reading materials to her. AT LEAST DOUBTS WERE PLANTED. No major change expected. But I hate TOTAL IGNORANCE from people I know.

[tom_paine]

2. So many Imperial Subjects are so comfortable with low-level Nazi-like

behavior.

I wonder what will happen when their Masters ask them to "go all the way"?

Far more than we suspect will say "OK." And NOT JUST the Freepers.

Be ready if it happens.

(if it doesn't happen, no one will be more joyous than I)