Oscar-winning film director Laura Poitras is suing the US government to find out why she has been searched, questioned and subjected to enhanced security screenings over the past six years, being stopped over 90 times during the course of her travels.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am filing this lawsuit because the government uses the US Poitras is a professional journalist and Academy Award-winning In her federal complaint<\/a>, Poitras, an American citizen, said she Security agents gave Poitras different reasons for why she was She was often detained for hours during these secondary security \u201cI am also filing this suit in support of the countless other For the past decade, Poitras has been \u201cdocumenting Not only is Snowden considered a criminal, apparently the \u2013 Andrew Brown (@Andy_Ed_Brown) July A year ago, Poitras filed a freedom of information request (FOIA) \u201cWe are suing the government to force it to disclose any \u201cBy spurning Poitras\u2019 FOIA requests, the government leaves The complaint was filed against the Department of Homeland Via RT<\/a>.\u00a0This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Oscar-winning film director Laura Poitras is suing the US government to find out why she has been searched, questioned and subjected to enhanced security screenings over the past six years, being stopped over 90 times during the course of her travels. \u201cI am filing this lawsuit because the government uses the US border to bypass […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":167034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,18,1616],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-167033","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-latest-news","9":"category-usa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nborder to bypass the rule of law,\u201d<\/em> said Poitras in a
\nstatement<\/a>. \u201cThis simply should not be
\ntolerated in a democracy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
\ndocumentary filmmaker. Her work has also received a Pulitzer
\nPrize and a MacArthur \u201cgenius\u201d grant. Poitras\u2019s documentary about
\nNational Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden,
\nCitizenfour<\/em>, won her an Oscar earlier this year.<\/p>\n
\nwas searched and questioned every time she entered the US between
\n2006 and 2012, on more than 40 occasions. She was also subjected
\nto secondary security screening on more than 50 occasions while
\nleaving the US, outside the US during the course of international
\ntravel, and on domestic flights in the US.<\/p>\n
\nbeing stopped. They told her she had a criminal record even
\nthough she has never been arrested. Another time she was told her
\nname appeared in a national security threat database, and on
\nanother occasion that she was on the government\u2019s no fly list,
\naccording to the complaint filed in a US District Court in
\nWashington, DC on Monday.<\/p>\n
\nscreenings, and has had a laptop, camera, mobile phone and
\nreporter notebooks seized and their contents copied. She was once
\nallegedly threatened with being handcuffed for taking notes
\nduring her detention, as border agents said her pen could be used
\nas a weapon. The searches were conducted without a warrant, often
\nwithout explanation, and no charges were ever brought against
\nher.<\/p>\n
\nless high-profile people who have also been subjected to years of
\nKafkaesque harassment at the borders,\u201d<\/em> said Poitras. \u201cWe
\nhave a right to know how this system works and why we are
\ntargeted.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
\npost-September 11 America\u201d<\/em> with films like
\nCitizenfour.<\/em> Other documentaries featured the work of
\ndissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, journalist Jacob Appelbaum,
\nand NSA whistleblower William Binney. She has also made
\ndocumentaries about the military commissions for Guantanamo Bay
\nprison and the US\u2019 military occupation of Iraq.<\/p>\n\n
\njournalists that covered him are too. Filmaker sues US gov
\nhttp:\/\/t.co\/aMDWvsIYxH<\/a><\/p>\n
\n13, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nfor records naming or relating to her, including case files, but
\nagencies either said they had no records or didn\u2019t respond to her
\nrequest at all. The FBI, however, did respond in May, saying they
\nhad six pages relevant to the request but wouldn\u2019t release the
\nrecords because of grand jury secrecy rules.<\/p>\n
\nrecords that would show why security officials targeted Poitras
\nfor six years,\u201d<\/em> said Jamie Lee Williams, an Electronic
\nFrontier Foundation attorney who is representing Poitras in the
\ncase.<\/p>\n
\nthe impression that her detentions were a form of retaliation and
\nharassment of a journalist whose work has focused on US police in
\nthe post-9\/11 world.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n
\nSecurity, the Department of Justice, and the Office of the
\nDirector of National Intelligence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n