Homeland Security assigned her the highest “threat rating” possible

[Ichingcarpenter]

LAURA POITRAS REPEATEDLY STOPPED AT THE BORDER


Over six years, filmmaker Laura Poitras was searched, interrogated and detained more than 50 times at U.S. and foreign airports.

When she asked why, U.S. agencies wouldn’t say.

Now, after receiving no response to her Freedom of Information Act requests for documents pertaining to her systemic targeting, Poitras is suing the U.S. government.

In a complaint filed on Monday afternoon, Poitras demanded that the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of the Director of National Security release any and all documentation pertaining to her tracking, targeting and questioning while traveling between 2006 and 2012.

“I’m filing this lawsuit because the government uses the U.S. border to bypass the rule of law,” Poitras said in a statement. Poitras co-founded The Intercept with Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill.

She said she hopes to draw attention to how other people, who aren’t as well known, “are also subjected to years of Kafkaesque harassment at the borders.”

Poitras has been the subject of government monitoring since 2006, when she was working on a documentary film, My Country, My Country, that told the story of the Iraq War from the perspective of an Iraqi doctor.

Airport security informed her that the Department of Homeland Security assigned her the highest “threat rating” possible, despite the fact that she has never been charged with a crime. She described the government’s inspection and forceful seizure of her notebooks, laptop, cell phone and other personal items as “shameful” in an interview with Democracy Now in 2012. On one occasion, security officers at the airport refused to allow her to take notes on her interrogation, arguing that her pen could be used as a weapon.

Poitras was only freed from the constant harassment after Glenn Greenwald published an article about her plight in 2012, and a group of filmmakers united to write a petition against the government’s monitoring.


https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/13/laura-poitras-sues-u-s-government-find-repeatedly-stopped-border/

[Spitfire of ATJ]

1. This is why the right-wing freaked out over Obama getting elected....

When the Republicans are in charge they use every agency they can to attack and otherwise harass their political opponents and they ASSUME the Democrats will do the same.

Obama should have done a top down review of the damage Bush did to our government and done a mass purge to clean out the stupid.

[JDPriestly]

2. Her problems were "between 2006 and 2012." Obama continued the Bush policy.

I asked here whether the surveillance would be eventually used for political purposes.

I guess the Laura Poitras matter answers my question.

Yes. It is as we speak being used to suppress dissent and even questioning.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

3. I'm not alone in my disapointment in Obama not taking the problems head on....

He should have arrested the architects of the Iraq war and purged the government of the "Loyal Bushies".

Instead, he acted like they were all good people who love America too but see things a little differently.

[Enthusiast]

4. You're not alone.

They weren't good people.

[BlueMTexpat]

8. I blame a LOT of that - along

with many other poor decisions - on his deference to Rahm Emanuel in the early years of his Presidency. Things improved for the nation (not necessarily for Chicago) when Rahm left.

Prez O should NEVER have listened to Rahm, IMO.

[BlueMTexpat]

7. To be fair, Prez O probably didn't even know

about Bush-Cheney-inspired policy towards specific individuals, Laura Poitras among them, in his first few years in office.

He did have one or two rather compelling other problems on his plate when he took office in 2009. Let's at least give him some credit for discontinuing the policy, towards her at least.

But yes, I hope that she gets some closure and I find the whole thing outrageous.

[msanthrope]

15. her problems dated from 2004 when she was complicit in an attack on American troops......

http://m.weeklystandard.com/blogs/soldiers-allege-laura-poitras-co-author-nsa-scoop-had-foreknowledge-2004-iraqi-attack-us-troops_735111.html?page=1


she's being disingenuous she knows precisely why she got the highest rating. the Devils sandbox is an excellent book by the way.

[Le Taz Hot]

19. You're using the Weekly Standard to make your point?

Wow!

[msanthrope]

21. no the Devils sandbox one of the best books ever written about Iraq which I'm sure you've read.

your post indicates that you didn't click the link and actually read that the information itself came from the book The Devil sandbox. I've often wondered why Poitras never sued for libel if the allegations in the book we're not true. They are extremely serious.

[JDPriestly]

20. I'd like to hear her side of the story.

Has she responded to the allegation in the book?

[msanthrope]

24. what's interesting is that she's never responded to the allegations in the book including

Never suing the author for libel.

[JDPriestly]

35. Hmmm.

[reorg]

55. I'm sure you know better

than to trust a word this poster says.

Took me three minutes to find (actually, it was the second link I clicked after searching for 'Laura Poitras rooftop'):

In 2006, federal agents began stopping Poitras at airports as she was leaving or entering the U.S., asking questions about her travels and her work; on one occasion, they confiscated her electronic equipment. She began taking notes during the interrogations, and argued when she was told to stop. Altogether, she says, she was detained at least forty times between 2006 and 2012, without ever being told why. It might have had to do with a 2004 incident in Baghdad: American soldiers saw her filming from Dr. Riyadh’s roof during a firefight in the neighborhood, and, according to an article by Peter Maass in the Times Magazine, an officer wrote a report suggesting that she might have had foreknowledge of the attack. (She denied having any, and no evidence suggests otherwise.) A journalist named John Bruning eventually published a book about the soldiers’ battalion, “The Devil’s Sandbox,” in which he repeated the same charge against Poitras. Then again, she told me, the trigger may have been a wire transfer that she sent in 2006 to Dr. Riyadh when his family fled Iraq’s civil war. Bruning’s book claims that the battalion suspected the doctor of being an insurgent. (There is no evidence for this, either.)

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/20/holder-secrets

Laura Poitras on the roof of Archimedes Exhibitions in Berlin. Poitras moved to Berlin to escape the attentions of the US security services. Photograph: Malte Jaeger for the Observer

[JDPriestly]

58. A good journalist who is not embedded with one of the fighting armies is bound to

be, just based on the statistics of chance, in the right place to see the beginning of a battle sooner or later.

Logically, Laura Poitras would have tried to go to places where based on just looking at a map and figuring out where American soldiers were likely to go, would be a place where the Iraqi insurgents would attack.

But, I don't know.

Laura Poitras knows.

[reorg]

60. this, and

there may well be certain signs and indicators prompting a journalist to be vigilant.

As one story goes that I read about it, shortly before counterattacks by the Iraqi resistance there used to be an uncanny quiet in places where otherwise many people would move around, indicating that some kind of notice had been given to some people of impending attacks. Thus 'foreknowledge' would spread, based on rumors and perception, of course, not conspiratorial participation, as the military person spreading the slander suggests.

[Comrade Grumpy]

22. You're citing the Weekly Standard and claiming she was complicit in an attack on US troops.

When even the Weekly Standard article only says "soldiers allege."

From the article:

Brandon Ditto led the platoon that came under fire that day. Speaking Tuesday evening by phone with THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Ditto said it seemed that Poitras "had pre-knowledge" of the ambush. He recalled the events he witnessed that day, confirming the details described in Devil's Sandbox.

During a patrol of Adhamiya early in the morning of November 20, two soldiers in Ditto's platoon noticed a woman standing on a rooftop next to a man while holding a camera. They found that very odd. "Usually when you see someone planted on a rooftop with a camera, they're waiting for something, and right after that is when we got ambushed just down the road," Ditto told me Tuesday night. "So it seems that she had pre-knowledge that our convoy, or our patrol, was going to get hit."

"We took multiple casualties," Ditto said. "Things kind of erupted."

-----

So we have an allegation unsupported by any actual facts. Designed to smear this woman. And from a right wing source, no less. And you run with it. That's low even by your standards. You ought to delete your duplicitious post.

[msanthrope]

23. I'm citing the Devils sandbox 1 of the greatest books ever written about the Iraq war.

The Weekly Standard wrote a story on it. I've often wondered why is the author of the devil sandbox is lying about this Poitras never suit him for libel.

[Comrade Grumpy]

26. You're citing an unsupported claim in an attempt to do a hit on Poitras. It's ugly.

Even the book doesn't make the claim that you do. It just has some weak supposition.

Shame on you.

[msanthrope]

27. Poitras apparently admitted to being on the rooftop. I'd like to hear her address that but she's

Never had the courage to do so. By the way I do recommend the devil sandbox it is an excellent book.

[davekriss]

34. You apparently have little understanding of libel laws

You really think that someone can sue and win a libel case when the matter expressed is opinion, not fact? Ha!

The text:

During a patrol of Adhamiya early in the morning of November 20, two soldiers in Ditto's platoon noticed a woman standing on a rooftop next to a man while holding a camera. They found that very odd. "Usually when you see someone planted on a rooftop with a camera, they're waiting for something, and right after that is when we got ambushed just down the road," Ditto told me Tuesday night. "So it seems that she had pre-knowledge that our convoy, or our patrol, was going to get hit."

So you think you can win a libel suite because someone says "they found that odd" and "so it seems"? Again, ha!

[Rex]

37. Not just that, but how is that apparent she was helping the enemy?

Someone is pushing around some innuendo.

[randome]

53. If she did have pre-knowledge and did nothing, she was helping the enemy.

Seems straight-forward to me.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
Tony Randall, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)[/center][/font][hr]

[reorg]

59. Well, she sure didn't help the Bush regime

which used to be the common enemy around here at one time.

Nowadays some posters apparently feel that journalists who refused to participate in the illegal wars by that illegitime regime are traitors.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

31. The fuckwagon you've hitched your star to is busy today.

I see he's using his day to tweet in support of James O'Keefe's latest festival of lies.

And you can go ahead and skip the part about how it's a good book and has nothing to do with the right wing rag that printed it. The New Yorker has a MUCH different take on the matter than the Weekly Standard.

You should be careful about making cause with right wing liars.

[msanthrope]

32. all the more puzzling why Poitras has never sued for libel.

If she did not admit to being on that roof top if that story is completely false and I don't understand why she's never addressed that nor has she ever sued for libel. They are extremely serious allegations.

Shirley Sherrod sued Breitbart and Okeefe...... why is she suing the US government when the person she should be suing is John Bruning.

if she wasn't complicit in the attack on the US troops but that's the basis of why she's being harassed then it's a bit disingenuous of her to claim she doesn't know why there's a problem. if I was accused of being complicit in the attack on US troops you better be sure I would do everything I could to clear my name. and the devil Sandbox is an excellent book.

[Rex]

36. It doesn't say she was complicit in an attack, you should go read your own link.

I see why, she wrote bad things about the American MIC (and made a movie) so now the DHS wants to make her life miserable. I guess we can pretend she is actually guilty of a crime (since she has never been convicted of one that I read about) and just dismiss her, just because.

So by that standard, why is Heraldo walking around a free man when he gave away military positions on live TV?

Because one works for the right people and the other works for the wrong people, according to the Weekly Standard.

Barf.

If the Sandbox has anywhere in it where she is brought up on charges or is beyond a doubt guilty of something, please share because that article in your link says no such think about her being complicit in an attack.

[Emelina]

5. When government is given too much power...

it will exercise it against you, not only the other guy, but you too.

[RKP5637]

6. +1, n/t

[Babel_17]

9. I don't think her case will lend itself to obscurity. nt

[Octafish]

10. Kafka and Orwell meet J Edgar Hoover with supercomputers.

"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell

"Tell them to suck on this." -- Thomas Friedman, New York Times journalist on Iraqis questioning U.S. invasion.

[marym625]

41. Just frightening stuff

And I mean in this thread.

Thank goodness for you and some others here!

Speaking of which, I miss woo me with science.

[Octafish]

44. Me, too, marym625...

...and Jackpine Radical and a whole bunch more in the posse who actually understood why the First Amendment is what makes democracy possible.

As for the defenders of the Police State, surprised they can look at themselves in the mirror.

[marym625]

45. I will never understand it

When the NSA stuff first started coming out and people were vilifying Poitras, Greenwald and Snowden, and saying such unbelievable inane things like "I have nothing to hide" I thought, this is the end. Truly brainwashed society when a supposed liberal says, about the government spying on us, "I have nothing to hide."

I see so much stuff that reminds me of Jackpine

One of my favorite DU articles on the spying was by 20score. Another great poster that doesn't anymore. At least he's alive though!

[Ichingcarpenter]

49. Prague's Kafka International Named Most Alienating Airport

From the onion


https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=111&v=gEyFH-a-XoQ

[Kablooie]

11. She made the documentary on Snowden

and was one of the three journalists he entrusted the NSA data to.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

12. .

[Maedhros]

28. Wait - are you saying that goverment harassment of journalists and filmmakers

is a good thing?

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

29. For some reason I thought the part about suing was in the headline. Which is

what I was responding to in my head. Too many windows open.Damn work keeps interrupting my posting activities......

[Maedhros]

30. Whew! I didn't think that's what you intended.

[Rex]

13. Well economic collapse is not a threat, at least not to the DHS. You would think a handful of people

reponsible for the biggest global economic meltdown/depression in history, would be on some terror alert list.

Oh wait...this is America, NM.

[msanthrope]

17. she was complicit in an attack on American troops.....

http://m.weeklystandard.com/blogs/soldiers-allege-laura-poitras-co-author-nsa-scoop-had-foreknowledge-2004-iraqi-attack-us-troops_735111.html?page=1

by the way the devil Sandbox is an excellent book on Iraq in 2004

[Rex]

38. That is not what your link says, you are using innuendo as facts and that is sad.

Where in the book does it say she is guilty of any crimes?

[msanthrope]

14. Poitras apparently had foreknowledge of an attack on American troops....that's

Why she was given the highest rating possible....... she knows this and apparently admitted to a journalist that yeah she was complicit she was on the rooftop.

http://m.weeklystandard.com/blogs/soldiers-allege-laura-poitras-co-author-nsa-scoop-had-foreknowledge-2004-iraqi-attack-us-troops_735111.html?page=1

[Ichingcarpenter]

16. Weekly Standard..... LOL... oh my god

thank you billy kristol

[msanthrope]

18. reporting on information from the Devils sandbox one of the very best books ever written about Iraq

I've often wondered why if the allegations in the book are not true she never sued for libel they are quite serious.

[progressoid]

48. Don't think you really understand what libel is.

here: http://dictionary.law.com/default.aspx?selected=1153

[msanthrope]

50. Ahem.... as an attorney I do. nt

[progressoid]

52. So after reading the book,

and as an ahem attorney, you think she had a case for winning a libel suit?

[msanthrope]

54. as long as it wasn't true yes.

[progressoid]

56. As long as what wasn't true?

Unlike your accusations, the book doesn't say she was complicit. It mentions circumstantial evidence and suspicions, but does not outright say she colluded with the enemy.

[Rex]

39. Innuendo is now fact when it is needed, my my...even that link does not say she was complicit.

Sometimes I just SMH at what other posters must be thinking when they post stuff that is not factual.

[marym625]

42. and yet

Might as well have posted free republic on this one.

[progressoid]

47. Actually it WAS posted on freerepublic.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3030308/posts

[marym625]

57. Figures

they need a "shaking my damn head" emoticon

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

25. I feel so much safer when our heroic defenders protect us from...movies.

[WillyT]

33. HUGE K & R !!! - THANK YOU !!!

[marym625]

40. K&R!

Brava!

Brave and brilliant woman!

[pa28]

43. A journalist disclosing facts is the most threatening thing of all.

Nice to know.

[JEB]

46. They really fear the truth tellers.

[leveymg]

51. Authoritarians and spooks really fear the film makers more than the bomb makers.

The bomb makers feed right in to justify their secret police state power.