"coffee, Tea, or Handcuffs?"

[pnorman]

Open City
Coffee, Tea or Handcuffs?
An Australian journalist gets a taste of Department of Homeland Security hospitality
by Steven Mikulan

Sue Smethurst enjoys traveling. “It’s one of the things about my job that I absolutely love,” says the 30-year-old Australian, who works as an associate editor for the women’s magazine New Idea. She doesn’t even mind flying. “It’s one of the great pleasures of the world to be able to turn off your cell phone and be where no one can annoy you.”

But when her Qantas flight from Melbourne, Australia, touched down at LAX around 8 a.m. on Friday, November 14, Smethurst found herself nightmarishly annoyed — by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Smethurst was supposed to continue to New York and on Monday interview singer Olivia Newton-John. Smethurst had honeymooned in Manhattan last year

and was looking forward to a long, free weekend “having a good walk through Central Park, getting a decent bowl of chicken soup and going Christmas shopping — all those gorgeous New York things.” Better still, her six-hour layover in L.A. would allow her to have lunch with her American literary agent.

“I had a room booked at the Airport Hilton,

where I was going to my leave bags, shower and get a cup of coffee.”

But first she had to clear LAX’s immigration check-in, which she reached after 20 minutes in line. An officer from the DHS’s newly minted Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bureau studied the traveler’s declaration form Smethurst had filled out on the plane.

“Oh, you’re a journalist,” he noted. “What are you here for?”

“I’m interviewing Olivia Newton-John,” Smethurst replied.

“That’s nice,” the official said, impressed. “What’s the article about?”

“Breast cancer.”

When Smethurst tells me this, she pauses and adds, “I thought that last question was a little odd, but figured everything’s different now in America and it was fine.” What she didn’t know was that her assignment and travel plans, along with the chicken soup and stroll through Central Park, had been terminated the moment she confirmed she was a journalist. Fourteen hours later, she was escorted by three armed guards onto the 11 p.m. Qantas flight home.
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http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/04/open-mikulan.php

pnorman

[Ilsa]

1. Brutal.

And pathetic. I'm glad I'm not personally associated with this group of thugs run amok.

[Hippo_Tron]

2. We REALLY need a new president...

This stuff should not happen to travelers.

[diamond14]

7. sadly, because of bush*, I've cut back ALL my international travel

and most of my American travel...if I can get there by car, or train,...I use that mode of travel...but I've only traveled by plane 8 times this year....usually, I travel internationally 5 or 6 times a year, and within America up to 15 times a year...

buying an airline ticket is just paying money to be abused....I hate being treated like a criminal just because I bought an airline ticket...the treatment of travelers at airports is a real horror show...and does little to prevent terrorism, actually, IMO, the scandalous treatment of travelers does NOTHING to prevent terrorism, and everything to humiliate law-abiding America citizens...


now, I no longer travel internationally, because every country in the world hates Americans due to bush* policies...it has become very dangerous for Americans to travel internationally...also, shrub has destroyed the American dollar.....

[aquart]

3. BushCo doesn't like the foreign press its been getting.

I'll bet you could look up stories from Germany and Italy in the 30s, and they'd be remarkably similar.

So. Anyone think this petty spite will result in more favorable coverage?

[Eric J in MN]

4. The official who put her in handcuffs because what-if

The official who put her in handcuffs because what-if would put us all in handcuffs if he could.

Benjamin Franklin said "Those who surrender liberty for the sake of security deserve neither."

[madrchsod]

5. this is what is going to happen

during the republican convention..they will do everything they can to keep the overseas press out of new york. they will also use it against americans who will fly into new york to cover the convention

[Eric J in MN]

9. I don't think they can tell Americans that they need I Visas to vist NY nt

nt

[BiggJawn]

6. Well, no Vegemite for THAT TSA goon...

Why do we treat Strylians like that? after they invited us down for a shrimp on the barbee and everything?

[Eric J in MN]

8. I found another webpage on this

Apparently, the law that journlists need "I Visas" has been on the books since 1986, but I never heard of cases like
this before George W. Bush.

http://www.globalissuesgroup.com/ijc/quillarticle.htm


"America is a country which is supposed to have a reputation for press freedom," (journalist Tim Gopsill) said. "It's one of the points about the USA that is appreciated by people."

Treating journalists more harshly than everyone else is something that totalitarian
regimes do, said Gopsill, who is the editor of "The Journalist," a publication of the U.K.'s
National Union of Journalists.