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Herb Ninja

A foreign reporter gets a story of U.S. paranoia

By Elena Lappin

Source

As I boarded my flight from London to Los Angeles on May 3, I looked forward to my first California experience. I had a freelance assignment for a British newspaper but also had been offered a bit of sightseeing by friends during my six-day stay. Instead, I spent 26 hours as a detainee. My only view of the city was framed by the metal bars on the security van transporting me, in handcuffs, from LAX to a downtown detention facility.

Inadvertently, I had arrived on American soil as a foreign journalist without a press visa, a requirement that has been on the books for years but is actually being enforced now under the strict guidelines of the Department of Homeland Security. I was traveling on my British passport and believed that, like most visitors from countries included in the U.S. “visa-waiver program,” I could still come in and go out easily without special paperwork. {HerbNinja: I thought he could come and go with his PASSPORT too, hell they let me into England and I wasn't even 18.} I was unaware that since March 2003 (when the Department of Homeland Security was created) the United States had begun to regard journalists from friendly countries as hostile aliens. Our intentions must be closely scrutinized before we are allowed to do our jobs.

What sort of country is afraid of the foreign press? I had plenty of time to ponder this during my disturbing, humiliating and deeply disappointing encounter with a United States that seems to have become a travesty of the country I love. (Only countries like Cuba, Syria, Iran and North Korea demand that journalists apply for special visas.)

If I had announced myself as a tourist at passport control, I would have been waved through. By declaring honestly that I was a journalist (as I had done on previous visits), I had become a suspect persona non grata. As I explained my situation to various officials, I was sure that my innocent mistake based on my (and my paper’s) ignorance of the still-obscure visa requirement would soon be clarified. After all, I had come from Britain, a staunch ally. Could I possibly be denied entry?

Incredibly, I was. And from the moment the decision to deport me was made, I was treated like a dangerous criminal without any basic rights. I was groped and searched. I was fingerprinted; mug shots were taken. Then, with my hands handcuffed behind my back - a particularly painful and demeaning method - I was taken through the airport to a van. Walking handcuffed among free LAX passengers was an indescribably strange experience; more than anything, it brought home the Kafkaesque fact that I was now a prisoner.

Later, I was to spend the night in a “detention tank” behind a thick glass wall, without a chair or bed. It contained only two steel benches, about 15 inches wide, a steel toilet and sink (all in full view of anyone passing by and of the camera observing all), a glaring neon light and a Big Brother-controlled television playing a shopping (!) channel all night. I found it hard to breathe in this human fish tank, yet knocking on the glass, repeatedly, brought no help. When a security officer finally walked by and I shouted through the door that I felt unwell, he wasn’t interested.

In the morning, I was transferred (again in handcuffs) back to a security room, where I spent the rest of the day awaiting my evening flight back to London. I and two other detainees, whom I was not permitted to talk to, were supervised the entire time by eight sleepy, TV-watching security officers. While they ate their breakfasts, I had to ask four times for food and was shouted at before something edible was brought to me, paid for with my own money.

I later found out that mine is not the only such case: In 2003, 12 journalists were detained and deported at LAX, and one at another U.S. airport, according to Reporters Without Borders. As a detainee, I was not allowed a pen. But it is not hard to remember what I saw: a glimpse of a country hiding its deep sense of insecurity behind an abusive facade, and an arbitrary (though not unintentional) disrespect for civil liberties. Nevertheless, I am applying for a journalist’s visa so I can come back and, I hope, see another America. May 3, as it happens, was World Press Freedom Day.

{HerbNinja: I feel so much safer knowing Bush created the Dept of Fatherland Security... Don't you? }

__________________
Ron Paul for the Long Haul

 

Niteshift

I STRONGLY suspect there were other factors that the author is not telling us.

If not, I strongly suspect that there would have been more than a total of 13 for the entire year of 2003.

I also find it interesting that 12 of the 13 were in the same airport. This would lead a reasonable person to question if there is someone in charge there that is misreading or misunderstanding a law/policy/regulation.

That would be the first thing I would explore, instead of going off on some ridiculous tangent about the Dept. of Homeland Security without bothering to look into it further. It seems to me that he's more interested in going off on a rant than finding out the facts.

__________________
A burning desire for social justice is never a substitute for knowing what you're talking about. -Thomas Sowell

Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is muzzle flash.

Herb Ninja

I think he realizes the fact that he was detained for 26 hours, after that id be ranting too.

I wouldn't know but I bet there were some irrelivant things he left out so he could somewhat get to the point.

That was me that named the thread 'Dept of Homeland Security Is Ridiculous' and I still believe it to be.

But considering that your basically part of it, I would expect you to disagree. Peace, HN-

Niteshift

I wouldn't know but I bet there were some irrelivant things he left out so he could somewhat get to the point.

No, I'm talking about relevant things. It's doubtful he told us everything. It's doubtful that he even knows everything about what happened.


That was me that named the thread 'Dept of Homeland Security Is Ridiculous' and I still believe it to be.

I was talking about the article, not the title.

And if you want to characterize an entire agency based on the actions of a group in a single airport concerning 12 people out of the MILLIONS that go through that airport each year.........well, that's your perogative.

But considering that your basically part of it, I would expect you to disagree.

That comment is ignorant on 2 levels.

First, I don't work for them. I haven't collected a federal paycheck since 1991.

Second, you try to weakly play the "you're a cop" card and it used to be beneath you to do that. Obviously your standards have changed.

So I can play your game too.......how about if I rephrase and say I haven't received a federal paycheck since before you were in kindergarten.

Herb Ninja

I used the word basically because think about it: Dept of Homeland Security. Whats your job? Homeland Security? Is your job more about protecting our homeland or just writing tickets?

Obviously my standards have changed. I was on Bushes side for a while. Finding things I agree with him on has become like finding a needle in a heystack. I was playing the cop card in the sense that there is a good reason for you why you would be against what i'm saying. I wouldn't want drugs to be illegal and its a good reason, i'm a drug user. And (I imagine) you wouldn't want policing to be to be looked upon as ridiculous and theres a good reason, your a cop.

Kindergarten was fun, they weren't cramming propaganda down our throat back then. Ohh and in 1991 I was already in kindergarten, good job checking the facts first. Peace, HN-

 

iGame3D

The situations at the airports are pretty bad: here from an American woman:

Three years after 9/11 Private security at Newark International Airport was under investigation for taking bribes and other crimes. Its been turned over to the government now.

Green party USA coordinating committee member held at airport

Peace activitst detained at airport

International SupersStar DJ detained at airport

Government watchdog detained at airport

Australian thwarts security easily, gets in big trouble for ....a fork!

Indiana Rep. caught at airport with handgun

"Homeland Security is making America safe from British novelists"

WWII Hero Detained at airport

HA Morrisey detained at airport. What a joke.

Cornell University researcher and family busted at aiport Two years later, I can't find any follow ups on this one.
Just a story with details about his research: enzymes to make poultry digest more of their food faster to help prevent environmental phosphorous contamination. He was going over seas for a job interview with another univserity, aparantly taking steps of the enzyme process to impress his new possible employers.

Well the list goes on and on. Being in an American airport is pretty much getting to be like a foreign airport, similiar to countries like Iran, where strip searches are routine, for EVERYONE.

One of my ex-girlfriend's went back and forth to Iran at least 4 times when I knew her, thats 8 strip searches, maybe she got a thrill out of it.

Niteshift

I used the word basically because think about it: Dept of Homeland Security. Whats your job? Homeland Security? Is your job more about protecting our homeland or just writing tickets?

My job has little to do with so called "Homeland Security".

Obviously my standards have changed. I was on Bushes side for a while.

I'm not talking about your political standards, I'm talking about your standards as far as talking to people.

I was playing the cop card in the sense that there is a good reason for you why you would be against what i'm saying.

And that's wrong to assume that my job has ANYTHING to do with it.

Using your reasoning, I should be all for things like a national ID card, but I firmly oppose it. It would make my job easier in some aspects, but it's wrong to do. So don't paint me as some zombie that can't think for himself.

Ohh and in 1991 I was already in kindergarten, good job checking the facts first.

You started at age 4? That's fairly unusual. Most don't start until 5.


Games:

There are plenty of airport horror stories.........I've even put some up here myself.

But the TSA is a SINGLE component of the Dept. of Homeland Security, the component that hires the least educated, least trained people in their fold. Just as you've done elsewhere, you have taken the actions of a few and turned it into a "pattern" of the many.

There were airport horror stories prior to 9/1, and I'll be the first one to say they went overboard immediately after 9/11, but you're picking out a small number of incidents and totally ignoring the fact that litreally MILLIONS of people go through airports everyday without the slightest bit of problem.

xxdr_zombiexx

I just flew from Atlanta to LAX to Seoul to Saigon to Nha Trang City, back to Saigon, back to Seoul, back to LAX and back to Atlanta.

I was not searched one time, not pulled out of line one time.

My bags were x-rayed to death.

I Korea on the way in I was told to NOT take off my shoes. On the way back, I was politley asked to remove my shoes and given a pait of slippers.

Returning to LAX I got to see "Homeland Security" and the TSA in action.

Some of them are just normal people happy to have a job, but some were CLEARLY there for the powertrip they get.

We HAD to take off our shoes and one man constantly barked orders at the passengers . It was just another checkpoint, just another metal detector, just another time my bags were x-rayed, but here weas a clown trying to make it seem like so much more was going on. ALl they were doing, it turned out, was shutting down a lane and causing people to stand in a longer line.

The "guilty until proven innocent" mentality permeated the clown's ordering of of people.

They were a lot more focused on discovering if you had brought anything profitable, or any money into the US. They wanted a peice of what you had.

I was stopped by a TSA guy who asked where I had been: when I said "Viet Nam" he raised an eyebrow and asked if the 2 bags I had we "it". He then told me I was traveling light. Then he asked if I had any money, which of course, I don't. Only after saying I was in Viet Nam for "tourism" (not "fun") was I allowed back into the Land of the "Free" and the Home of those with their panties constantly in a wad about nothing.

Priorities stand out.

Authority sucks if it is going to be this stupid and worthless.

__________________
Alien Space Signal

There's no money for your issue so long as we're squandering $50 billion a year on the DrugWar. Ben Masel

Fear became the ultimate tool of this government - V.

Niteshift

The "guilty until proven innocent" mentality permeated the clown's ordering of of people.

The only problem is, that if you wait until they DO something wrong, then you have dead people.

The security is SUPPOSED to be preventative, not reactive.

CrazyHair

wow, of all people i would have thought that you were familiar with that whole 'innocent until proven guilty' thing, are you sure you're a cop?

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Freedom is free, war costs 165 billion dollars... at last count.