
Journalist says CBP withheld passport until he agreed he writes ‘propaganda’ - enraged_camel
https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2019/10/04/journalist-says-cbp-officer-withheld-his-passport-until-he-agreed-he-writes-propaganda/
======
throwaway87394
Is anyone else concerned about the changes to the CBP officer population over
the last few years?

The priorities of the current administration have allowed the organization to
rapidly balloon in size. Those of us who have worked at fast growing startups
are aware of how quickly the character of an organization can change when it
doubles or triples in size too quickly. And then the kind of person who wants
to be a CBP officer in this political climate is... possibly worrying?

Will the next adminstration try to purge this organization? Will they even be
able to? Are we going to be stuck with a dramatically more authoritarian
customs organization for the next few decades?

I'm moderately concerned.

As a meta-addition to this comment, self-censorship is absolutely real here. I
normally interact online using my real name, but obviously that seems a little
more fraught when there's a real possibility that your comments will be thrown
back at you when you interact with a customs officer at an airport. "You
clearly don't like customs agents. That probably means you're hiding
something" etc.

~~~
sagebird
The concept of class warfare is a popular tool everyone knows of, but there is
a nasty new war that is going on- personality warfare.

IE- Conservative aggressive males use police jobs, the DHS, and border
protection to give jobs to their chums. It’s like welfare for people who lack
self control. You could say that the far left has taken over Silicon Valley,
but it is not the same, skilled conservative tech people still get jobs, they
just need to shut their mouths and blend in when people talk at lunch or
whatever. For police departments taken over by assholes, I think they filter
more heavily.

~~~
friendlybus
Arguing which side of the aisle filters more, is not a competition I want to
see expanded by complaint. Can we instead reward blending with our mouths &
hearts open?

~~~
sagebird
I agree - I don’t think I’m qualified to say which sides/groups filter more,
nor should that be a main focus. It would be great if we could work together
harmoniously and professionally without so much group identity bs.

------
mnm1
CBP officers are some of the biggest idiots, it seems, not even knowing their
own field let alone anything else about the world. I was once asked why my
passport didn't have the stamp when returning from Europe. First, it did have
a stamp but the idiot officer flipped over that page multiple times before
giving up and asking if I have another passport. I told him I did but I did
not use it on this trip. He proceeded to tell me that dual citizenship is
illegal and told me to get rid of the second passport. Thankfully he did not
force his idiotic, wrong position on me. Of course, I told him I would. If
course I did not follow his stupid, incorrect demand. These are the types of
morons our country puts on the front lines of our defense and as the first
impression for foreigners. It's no wonder most of the world hates us although
that hate mainly stems from much worse issues. It's ridiculous to hire such
idiots in these positions.

~~~
onetimemanytime
Sadly, that "moron" and thousands like him have major power over millions of
people; they can deny entry to non-citizens in a heartbeat. Of course you can
complain...once you go back to your country. So it pays to say "yes sir, of
course sir"

~~~
mnm1
Yup that's what I did. I'm a citizen and I would never complain. I've lived in
an authoritarian country before. I know the drill.

------
saagarjha
> He figured he could get stuck for hours if he tried to call in the officer’s
> supervisor. So he gave in.

This is the unfortunate reality of CBP (and the TSA): they can make your life
miserable if they’d like to, so most people just accept it in the interest of
being able to get out of it quickly and going wherever they need to.

~~~
sneak
I have been repeatedly locked in a room for double-digit hours of time
(without food or water) at the US border for exercising my fifth amendment
rights.

It’s really time these people were held to account for their crimes.

~~~
jfk13
Repeatedly? Wow. I'd be curious if there is something in particular about you
or your behavior that triggers this issue? While I certainly have concerns
about how CBP sometimes operates, many of us still manage to travel in and out
of the US without encountering problems like this.

~~~
csense
I'm pretty sure they keep files on everyone. If you cause trouble once, even
if you're perfectly within your legal rights, they will put a note in your
file.

Then you will be harassed every time. They know exactly how much they can
inconvenience / intimidate you without breaking the law. The nail that sticks
up gets hammered, unfortunately.

This is why I never travel outside the US.

~~~
sneak
They stopped stopping me as a matter of course 3-4 years after I stopped
refusing to answer their questions. It must still be in my file. One of these
days I should test it again to see if I will get another few years of
harassment.

------
clamprecht
I recently watched a video of an Argentine-Canadian telling his story of why
and how his family left Argentina in 1970, during the military dictatorship.
He described how the government employees would treat citizens like garbage,
how they looked at you with contempt. The current behavior described in this
article reminds me of that.

Here's the part of the video mentioned above (Spanish, the English subtitles
are okay):

[https://youtu.be/b6r3wKax2NM?t=1302](https://youtu.be/b6r3wKax2NM?t=1302)

------
jacquesm
The whole narrative that the media are the enemy of the people needs to die
and soon or we will all regret it. The darkest ages of mankind started out
with the governments of the day attacking the media and when that happens you
know there is a bunch of stuff going on that can't see the light of day. Fish
rots from the head, it's a repeating pattern and the border patrol feeling
empowered to do this is a clear sign that should not go ignored.

~~~
throw12091827
I agree mostly, but which newspaper is still objective?

In any story I'm familiar with, the only newspapers that do unbiased reporting
are the Financial Times and the Neue Zuercher Zeitung.

Especially in SJW stories these are the only ones that do not misquote the
targets.

~~~
danso
Objectivity isn't a mandatory requirement for journalism.

~~~
DuskStar
Objectivity is what separates Journalism from Propaganda.

~~~
danso
I know differences in the semantics of "objectivity" come to play here, so
I'll stick to the straightforward assertion that there are Pulitzer Prizes for
editorial writing [0], editorial cartooning [1], commentary [2], and criticism
[3]. Op-ed writers, such as Jamil Khashoggi, are considered to be journalists.

[0] [https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-
category/214](https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/214)

[1] [https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-
category/215](https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/215)

[2] [https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-
category/212](https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/212)

[3] [https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-
category/213](https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/213)

~~~
jacquesm
In the case of Jam _a_ l Khashoggi he _was_ considered to be a journalist, and
it is very likely that it was his profession that got him murdered.

------
pirocks
[https://outline.com/ujBNtS](https://outline.com/ujBNtS)

For those who don't feel like consenting to tracking/ are using firefox
incognito like me, and can't seem to get past consent page.

------
V_Terranova_Jr
This is crazy. Ben Watson writes/edits for DefenseOne, which has certainly
published a fair bit critical of Trump & his team; but then if you are a
member of the reality-based community, and a public writer about stories in
the national interest, it would be hard to not do that. Calling him a
propagandist harkens back to dark American behaviors of the past rather than
aspirational American values. It's also not like he writes for one of the
publications that would be considered a particular gadfly to the Trump
community, like NYT or Washington Post, so it would be good to investigate how
this CBP officer even specifically knew to "call out" Watson.

~~~
smadge
I don’t think the CBP officer has any specific knowledge of Watson or
DefenseOne, but instead believes that generally journalists are propagandists
and “enemies of the people” as Trump would phrase it.

~~~
V_Terranova_Jr
That's a fair point - I had taken it as a specific political targeting as
opposed to part of the whole "the press is the enemy of the people" line of
rhetoric. On the other hand, anyone pushing that line probably approves of Fox
News, Washington Times, etc. - how would this CBP person have known to let
such a person through? I guess maybe with some response back from the
individual of "Naw, I work for Fox News - we fight the liberal propaganda!"

------
tekproxy
Somewhere something bad happened.

Orange man bad.

------
crashcrashcrush
A simple observation - I travel mostly under a US passport - I am treated with
may more respect in the EU by their border control agents than I am entering
the United States.

------
genuin43
I was watching some Trump press report and he made some completely outrageous
claim like that unemployment was at 3.4% or something, the lowest in 10+
years. That is not the normal amount, the normal amount is 7-10%.

Since I read the liberal media, surely I would know if there were a historic
level of low unemployment level. Maybe the true level is extremely high -
15-20% or something.

I have two tasks for you:

1\. Task 1. Find the true current unemployment level. This is closely tracked,
should take you less than 15 seconds.

2\. Compare with the liberal media reporting. Is the tone appropriate?

Spoiler below:

Spoiler spoiler spoiler

The first article I found was "Hiring Slowed in September as Unemployment Rate
Fell to a 50-Year Low", in the New York Times. If you did 1 and 2 you would
find this is totally inappropriate reporting. I like this example as it's very
natural and factual. The unbiased headline would be: unemployment hits 50-year
low.

The facts are still there, but the actual headline is clearly biased and
totally inappropriate.

There is no way that can be considered an appropriate headline.

It's like imagine if Iran agreed to denuclearize and stop seeking nuclear
weapons, and the headline said: "Iran armies, planes and helicopters have the
U.S. in sights, but won't be sending nuclear bombs for now". The greatest
possible success could be misreported to an absurd level.

Or let's say Trump makes vaccines mandatory and signs legislation introducing
fines for parents of unvaccinated children, due to child endangerment.

This would be an amazing win, but based on my research, the news would report
it in an outrageously biased way. Like what's the most biased thing you can
think of. Maybe:

"Trump still doubts vaccines, even as he makes some mandadory." Just something
outrageously biased that takes everything away from the huge win.

Go ahead and do the exercise and you will get really clear results.

It's a really interesting exercise. If I had time I would look at a Republican
(Trump) list of "wins", then do 1 and 2 for each one: find the actual facts or
figures, usually quite straightforward. 2. Decide what would be appropriate
reporting. See if they are reported appropriately or in an outragrously biased
way. (Instead of man lands on moon, some outrageously negative version).

(I would assume if you do this exercise you will fine many Republican points
are false or exaggerated, hence why it is a 2 part exercise for each point.)

------
newnewpdro
Presumably the CBP officer is wearing a body-cam documenting this admission of
propagandist for future use by the administration, should this particular
journalist come into the crosshairs of a "Fake News" accusation.

Collecting confessions for the future.

