9 ms·

Not only tracking them, but putting flags on their passports and interrogating them at the border: “They asked about the new caravan and if word had gotten out

by sehugg 8y ago

Not only tracking them, but putting flags on their passports and interrogating them at the border: “They asked about the new caravan and if word had gotten out about how difficult it is to seek asylum in the U.S.,” Drehsler said. “Then before I left, the female agent asked if I rented or owned my home.” This sounds much more like a political intimidation operation than serving a national security purpose.

vectorEQ 8y ago
this is normal. journalists are hot targets to either spoof or buy to snoop around as they often have more access than regular civilians to high profile targets.... counter-intelligence and counter-espionage. people should realise that forgein powers demotivate them against their own government, and now these demotivated people are the ones complaining about this kind of shit, preventing their own government from functioning normally. so yes. keep complaining about your governments hard work to keep you safe, i'm sure the opposing forces will thank you later.
- renholder 8y ago
  >so yes. keep complaining about your governments hard work to keep you safe, i'm sure the opposing forces will thank you later. Are you suggesting blind fealty? If so, relevant.mp4: https://youtu.be/2HYIJahQKaI?t=189 https://youtu.be/2HYIJahQKaI?t=189
  - rjf72 8y ago
    I don't think he's suggesting blind fealty so much as avoidance of the opposite - blind opposition. Good individuals (or governments) can do very bad things. And bad individuals (or governments) can do very good things. When one immediately jumps to one conclusion or another, it leaves one open to being trivially manipulated. In political jargon - being made into a useful idiot [1]. In this case it was particularly bad since it wasn't "one" but rather entire groups of people either blindly supporting or blindly opposing the caravan based on political ideology. Comments running contrary to the groupthink tended to be simply attacked instead of considered. Are there reasons to support the investigation into the caravan? Absolutely. Are there reasons to oppose it? Absolutely. But people are increasingly becoming simple minded on political issues and will simply go full-on one way or the other. This (to borrow from a peer comment) is what is "completely incompatible with functioning democracy." [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot
    - renholder 8y ago
      >I don't think he's suggesting blind fealty so much as avoidance of the opposite - blind opposition. The OC's statement came across as, "The government is doing this for you, so don't question it." To me, it didn't come across as including the facet of being pro/against the caravan in question, whatsoever, but - to the OC's credit - maybe it was there and I just missed it...
    - wsy 8y ago
      Please apply this to the case at hand. The case at hand is not about supporting or opposing the caravan, or its investigation. It is about how journalists reporting on it are marked for special treatment at the US border. I fail to see any complex pro/con political issue there. Free press is a constitutional right for a reason.
      - rjf72 8y ago
        The first critical point is to classify the caravan. This is something you have to step outside of politics for, for a minute. This caravan had already illegally broken past the border between Guatemala and Mexico. [1] There's every reason to believe they planned to attempt similar behavior at the US border. This is the definition of criminal conspiracy. In this case it would likely have also been a politically destabilizing event in the US. You would have had far right vigilantes work to 'apprehend' the trespassing individuals which likely would spark 'anti-vigilante' action from far left individuals. Violence would have been inevitable due to the fact you have loonies on both ends meeting up with emotions flaring high. This could have been an organic action, but it could also have been driven by actors who would benefit from such instability. In any case it would be absolutely remiss for the government to not investigate the funding, composition, and other aspects of the caravan. And on this front the journalists were/are not only witnesses but witnesses with video, photographic, and audio evidence as well as first person accounts. Like the article states, "[The investigators] said that I [journalist] was on the ground and they’re not, which I thought was really interesting.". The really important question is whether the investigation has gone from investigation to intimidation, which would be an issue. So is the government doing their due diligence, or are they intimidating journalists? Perhaps it's even a bit of both. But I don't think this article is enough evidence to really determine one way or the other and so I think the wisest course of action would be to await further information. [1] - https://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-migrants-guatemala-20181019-story.html https://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-m...
- boomboomsubban 8y ago
  How is preventing Americans from reporting on the migrant caravan keeping us safe?
- newsgremlin 8y ago
  There's a lot of implicit trust in this view, it's the same type of trust people around the world have for their governments, that doesn't mean they are incorruptible or well-meaning. This entirely is for allowing the government to control information, and thus control people.
  - wallace_f 8y ago
    Sadly, most people are subservient to authority, propaganda, epaulets, etc. Einstein quote on people: >Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions that differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. It's more than just a trust in rulers. I agree with Einstein. It's a complete subservience to them.
- pjc50 8y ago
  This is the standard wartime playbook for restricting freedom. It's completely incompatible with functioning democracy.
  - huffmsa 8y ago
    The United States in still engaged in 2 declared wars. One of which has it's theater defined as "wherever al-qeada and it's associates are" (paraphrase). So what's wrong with the wartime playbook? We're at war.
    - imglorp 8y ago
      You're not allowed to use those special war powers to suppress normal democratic dissent. This is exactly fascism.
      - glorious 8y ago
        You're not allowed to cross the border illegally. This list of "journalists" is actually a list of people who were/are trying to help people enter the country illegally. "Suppress normal democratic dissent" and "fascism" sounds like a conspiracy theory.
        huffmsa 8y ago
        Human trafficking is quite illegal. I don't think anyone would have a problem with a database of possible human traffickers
      - huffmsa 8y ago
        The House and Senate vote to reauthorize the war every year. Have you called your Representative to express your opinions? Have you voted for politicians who oppose the reauthorization? There's a system in place to stop this, you're just not using it.
    - Spooky23 8y ago
      This “war” has been going on for nearly two decades. There’s no credible linkage to even the ridiculously vague definition of the “war” and migrants fleeing repressive regimes in Central America.
- empath75 8y ago
  Im sure once an opposing government takes power and starts interrogating people who make comments like yours, you’ll be as accommodating.
- AsyncAwait 8y ago
  You do realize this is the exact same reasoning places like China & Russia use and indeed why we always hear they're 'non-free' as a result. If you simply think that the same actions when done by a Western government are somehow more justifiable/right then you simply fell for some form of exceptionalism propaganda. The very reason why we're supposed to be more free is because we're not supposed to do these things on principle, even if it makes the work of security officials more convenient to do them.
- ionised 8y ago
  > people should realise that forgein powers demotivate them against their own government, and now these demotivated people are the ones complaining about this kind of shit, preventing their own government from functioning normally. Oh the poor poor US government, with its trillions of dollars in resources and monopoly on the use of lethal force, stopped dead in their tracks by their eternal nemesis, the free citizen airing their opinion. There are places you can go where governments blame journalists and other opinionated people for all their problems. There are even a few places where the government will go further than mere coercion and intimidation and actually murder people who speak out against it. Turkey or Saudi Arabia. Maybe North Korea or the Congo. Perhaps those countries are more to your liking?
- boudin 8y ago
  Safe from what?
- CWuestefeld 8y ago
  people should realise that forgein powers demotivate them against their own government But what's wrong with that? Americans have every right to be "demotivated" and seek change from the government. The government has zero authority to coerce people to support the government, or to prevent dissatisfied citizens from agitating for change through free speech.
wallace_f 8y ago
It's terrifying. Free speech should not be infringed upon. This is obviously happening more and more. High profile cases like journalists and activists caught up in association with Snowden, like Greenwald, Poitras and Lavabit's founder... Are probably known to most here. But I wonder if most are aware even a journalist covering the dakota pipeline protests was detained by the US government(1). 1-https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/02/business/media/canadian-journalists-detention-at-us-border-raises-press-freedom-alarms.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/02/business/media/canadian-j...
- FlatSunSociety 8y ago
  Terrible indeed, I didn't know of this case, thanks for sharing. Regarding the caravan case you can at least try to bury it under international politics/border security. But to detain a journalist that has been covering Dakota pipeline is restricting the freedom of speech for pure economical reasons.
  - wallace_f 8y ago
    I think they tried some vague excuse that had something to do with him having travelled to the Middle East in the past. So if you want to retain your civil rights in America, you either can't cover protests, or can't travel to the Middle East. Or both. Anyways, who on earth is downvoting my parent comment??
- 18pfsmt 8y ago
  I wonder if that might have to do with foreign influence being involved with the protests? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/03/01/congress-russians-trolls-sought-to-inflame-u-s-debate-on-climate-change-fracking-and-dakota-pipeline/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/03/01...
  - boomboomsubban 8y ago
    No, it doesn't. Not only was that "influence" so minor to have had basically no impact, the posts were made months after the detention.
azeotropic 8y ago
It sounds most like a criminal investigation into a particular violent incident at the border and the investigators are trying to follow the money.
- danesparza 8y ago
  This is incorrect. A criminal investigation would be legal. A quote directly from the article sums up the counterpoint nicely: “We are a criminal investigation agency, we’re not an intelligence agency,” the Homeland Security source told NBC 7 Investigates. “We can’t create dossiers on people and they’re creating dossiers. This is an abuse of the Border Search Authority.”
  - wbg34 8y ago
    A quote from the official statement from the Customs and Border Patrol. It was also in the article. "CBP told our colleagues at NBC News that the names in the database are all people who were present during violence that broke out at the border in November. The agency also said journalists are being tracked so that the agency can learn more about what started that violence."
    - SolaceQuantum 8y ago
      That quote doesn't mean that the journalists have been convicted of crimes. It means they have dossiers/database tracking on them just for being there, reporting the violence, etc. Doing their jobs as reporters. If the agency wanted to find out what started the incidents in question, the agents should swiftly identify that journalists couldn't be the cause and dismiss them instead of keeping a database of them.
    - fredgrott 8y ago
      since when do we as a country track people over violence instead of say just oh doing an investigation of just asking wha5t happened? are we suddenly Communist China or Nazi Germany?
      - 8y ago
alistairSH 8y ago
Similar story involved ICE, different location, not explicitly linked to border crossings... https://www.thenation.com/article/ice-immigration-protest-spreadsheet-tracking/ https://www.thenation.com/article/ice-immigration-protest-sp...
tinus_hn 8y ago
Probably taken from the playbook of your new comrades.
cmroanirgo 8y ago
Whatever the original altruistic goal of state surveillance, this must stop, because the abuse increases every year and human freedoms decrease, for everyone, no matter your country of origin/ habitation. Our global political landscape must radically improve for humanity's sake. It seems that every government, particularly the 'western' ones are racing headlong into outright facism: all because of political and corporate maneuvering.

by sehugg 8y ago

vectorEQ 8y ago

this is normal. journalists are hot targets to either spoof or buy to snoop around as they often have more access than regular civilians to high profile targets.... counter-intelligence and counter-espionage. people should realise that forgein powers demotivate them against their own government, and now these demotivated people are the ones complaining about this kind of shit, preventing their own government from functioning normally. so yes. keep complaining about your governments hard work to keep you safe, i'm sure the opposing forces will thank you later.

renholder 8y ago
>so yes. keep complaining about your governments hard work to keep you safe, i'm sure the opposing forces will thank you later. Are you suggesting blind fealty? If so, relevant.mp4: https://youtu.be/2HYIJahQKaI?t=189 https://youtu.be/2HYIJahQKaI?t=189
- rjf72 8y ago
  I don't think he's suggesting blind fealty so much as avoidance of the opposite - blind opposition. Good individuals (or governments) can do very bad things. And bad individuals (or governments) can do very good things. When one immediately jumps to one conclusion or another, it leaves one open to being trivially manipulated. In political jargon - being made into a useful idiot [1]. In this case it was particularly bad since it wasn't "one" but rather entire groups of people either blindly supporting or blindly opposing the caravan based on political ideology. Comments running contrary to the groupthink tended to be simply attacked instead of considered. Are there reasons to support the investigation into the caravan? Absolutely. Are there reasons to oppose it? Absolutely. But people are increasingly becoming simple minded on political issues and will simply go full-on one way or the other. This (to borrow from a peer comment) is what is "completely incompatible with functioning democracy." [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot
  - renholder 8y ago
    >I don't think he's suggesting blind fealty so much as avoidance of the opposite - blind opposition. The OC's statement came across as, "The government is doing this for you, so don't question it." To me, it didn't come across as including the facet of being pro/against the caravan in question, whatsoever, but - to the OC's credit - maybe it was there and I just missed it...
  - wsy 8y ago
    Please apply this to the case at hand. The case at hand is not about supporting or opposing the caravan, or its investigation. It is about how journalists reporting on it are marked for special treatment at the US border. I fail to see any complex pro/con political issue there. Free press is a constitutional right for a reason.
    - rjf72 8y ago
      The first critical point is to classify the caravan. This is something you have to step outside of politics for, for a minute. This caravan had already illegally broken past the border between Guatemala and Mexico. [1] There's every reason to believe they planned to attempt similar behavior at the US border. This is the definition of criminal conspiracy. In this case it would likely have also been a politically destabilizing event in the US. You would have had far right vigilantes work to 'apprehend' the trespassing individuals which likely would spark 'anti-vigilante' action from far left individuals. Violence would have been inevitable due to the fact you have loonies on both ends meeting up with emotions flaring high. This could have been an organic action, but it could also have been driven by actors who would benefit from such instability. In any case it would be absolutely remiss for the government to not investigate the funding, composition, and other aspects of the caravan. And on this front the journalists were/are not only witnesses but witnesses with video, photographic, and audio evidence as well as first person accounts. Like the article states, "[The investigators] said that I [journalist] was on the ground and they’re not, which I thought was really interesting.". The really important question is whether the investigation has gone from investigation to intimidation, which would be an issue. So is the government doing their due diligence, or are they intimidating journalists? Perhaps it's even a bit of both. But I don't think this article is enough evidence to really determine one way or the other and so I think the wisest course of action would be to await further information. [1] - https://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-migrants-guatemala-20181019-story.html https://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-m...
boomboomsubban 8y ago
How is preventing Americans from reporting on the migrant caravan keeping us safe?
newsgremlin 8y ago
There's a lot of implicit trust in this view, it's the same type of trust people around the world have for their governments, that doesn't mean they are incorruptible or well-meaning. This entirely is for allowing the government to control information, and thus control people.
- wallace_f 8y ago
  Sadly, most people are subservient to authority, propaganda, epaulets, etc. Einstein quote on people: >Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions that differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. It's more than just a trust in rulers. I agree with Einstein. It's a complete subservience to them.
pjc50 8y ago
This is the standard wartime playbook for restricting freedom. It's completely incompatible with functioning democracy.
- huffmsa 8y ago
  The United States in still engaged in 2 declared wars. One of which has it's theater defined as "wherever al-qeada and it's associates are" (paraphrase). So what's wrong with the wartime playbook? We're at war.
  - imglorp 8y ago
    You're not allowed to use those special war powers to suppress normal democratic dissent. This is exactly fascism.
    - glorious 8y ago
      You're not allowed to cross the border illegally. This list of "journalists" is actually a list of people who were/are trying to help people enter the country illegally. "Suppress normal democratic dissent" and "fascism" sounds like a conspiracy theory.
      - huffmsa 8y ago
        Human trafficking is quite illegal. I don't think anyone would have a problem with a database of possible human traffickers
    - huffmsa 8y ago
      The House and Senate vote to reauthorize the war every year. Have you called your Representative to express your opinions? Have you voted for politicians who oppose the reauthorization? There's a system in place to stop this, you're just not using it.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    This “war” has been going on for nearly two decades. There’s no credible linkage to even the ridiculously vague definition of the “war” and migrants fleeing repressive regimes in Central America.
empath75 8y ago
Im sure once an opposing government takes power and starts interrogating people who make comments like yours, you’ll be as accommodating.
AsyncAwait 8y ago
You do realize this is the exact same reasoning places like China & Russia use and indeed why we always hear they're 'non-free' as a result. If you simply think that the same actions when done by a Western government are somehow more justifiable/right then you simply fell for some form of exceptionalism propaganda. The very reason why we're supposed to be more free is because we're not supposed to do these things on principle, even if it makes the work of security officials more convenient to do them.
ionised 8y ago
> people should realise that forgein powers demotivate them against their own government, and now these demotivated people are the ones complaining about this kind of shit, preventing their own government from functioning normally. Oh the poor poor US government, with its trillions of dollars in resources and monopoly on the use of lethal force, stopped dead in their tracks by their eternal nemesis, the free citizen airing their opinion. There are places you can go where governments blame journalists and other opinionated people for all their problems. There are even a few places where the government will go further than mere coercion and intimidation and actually murder people who speak out against it. Turkey or Saudi Arabia. Maybe North Korea or the Congo. Perhaps those countries are more to your liking?
boudin 8y ago
Safe from what?
CWuestefeld 8y ago
people should realise that forgein powers demotivate them against their own government But what's wrong with that? Americans have every right to be "demotivated" and seek change from the government. The government has zero authority to coerce people to support the government, or to prevent dissatisfied citizens from agitating for change through free speech.

wallace_f 8y ago

It's terrifying. Free speech should not be infringed upon. This is obviously happening more and more. High profile cases like journalists and activists caught up in association with Snowden, like Greenwald, Poitras and Lavabit's founder... Are probably known to most here. But I wonder if most are aware even a journalist covering the dakota pipeline protests was detained by the US government(1). 1-https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/02/business/media/canadian-journalists-detention-at-us-border-raises-press-freedom-alarms.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/02/business/media/canadian-j...

FlatSunSociety 8y ago
Terrible indeed, I didn't know of this case, thanks for sharing. Regarding the caravan case you can at least try to bury it under international politics/border security. But to detain a journalist that has been covering Dakota pipeline is restricting the freedom of speech for pure economical reasons.
- wallace_f 8y ago
  I think they tried some vague excuse that had something to do with him having travelled to the Middle East in the past. So if you want to retain your civil rights in America, you either can't cover protests, or can't travel to the Middle East. Or both. Anyways, who on earth is downvoting my parent comment??
18pfsmt 8y ago
I wonder if that might have to do with foreign influence being involved with the protests? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/03/01/congress-russians-trolls-sought-to-inflame-u-s-debate-on-climate-change-fracking-and-dakota-pipeline/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/03/01...
- boomboomsubban 8y ago
  No, it doesn't. Not only was that "influence" so minor to have had basically no impact, the posts were made months after the detention.

azeotropic 8y ago

It sounds most like a criminal investigation into a particular violent incident at the border and the investigators are trying to follow the money.

danesparza 8y ago
This is incorrect. A criminal investigation would be legal. A quote directly from the article sums up the counterpoint nicely: “We are a criminal investigation agency, we’re not an intelligence agency,” the Homeland Security source told NBC 7 Investigates. “We can’t create dossiers on people and they’re creating dossiers. This is an abuse of the Border Search Authority.”
- wbg34 8y ago
  A quote from the official statement from the Customs and Border Patrol. It was also in the article. "CBP told our colleagues at NBC News that the names in the database are all people who were present during violence that broke out at the border in November. The agency also said journalists are being tracked so that the agency can learn more about what started that violence."
  - SolaceQuantum 8y ago
    That quote doesn't mean that the journalists have been convicted of crimes. It means they have dossiers/database tracking on them just for being there, reporting the violence, etc. Doing their jobs as reporters. If the agency wanted to find out what started the incidents in question, the agents should swiftly identify that journalists couldn't be the cause and dismiss them instead of keeping a database of them.
  - fredgrott 8y ago
    since when do we as a country track people over violence instead of say just oh doing an investigation of just asking wha5t happened? are we suddenly Communist China or Nazi Germany?
    - 8y ago

alistairSH 8y ago

Similar story involved ICE, different location, not explicitly linked to border crossings... https://www.thenation.com/article/ice-immigration-protest-spreadsheet-tracking/ https://www.thenation.com/article/ice-immigration-protest-sp...

tinus_hn 8y ago

Probably taken from the playbook of your new comrades.

cmroanirgo 8y ago

Whatever the original altruistic goal of state surveillance, this must stop, because the abuse increases every year and human freedoms decrease, for everyone, no matter your country of origin/ habitation. Our global political landscape must radically improve for humanity's sake. It seems that every government, particularly the 'western' ones are racing headlong into outright facism: all because of political and corporate maneuvering.