Jensen writes: "From a 'critique' of my work on the recently launched website Professor Watchlist, I learned that I'm a threat to my students for contending that we won't end men's violence against women unless we 'address the toxic notions about masculinity in patriarchy ... rooted in control, conquest, aggression.'"
Professor gives lecture at Columbia University. (photo: AP)
How Did I End Up on a Professor Watch List?
By Robert Jensen, YES! Magazine
01 December 16
This attempt by conservatives at bullying professors may easily inhibit professors across the country.
rom a “critique” of my work on the recently launched website Professor Watchlist, I learned that I’m a threat to my students for contending that we won’t end men’s violence against women unless we “address the toxic notions about masculinity in patriarchy … rooted in control, conquest, aggression.”
That quote is supposedly evidence for why I am one of those college professors who, according to the watch list’s mission statement, “discriminate against conservative students, promote anti-American values and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.” Perhaps I could take such a claim more seriously were it not coming from a project of conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA, which has its own political agenda—namely educating students “about the importance of fiscal responsibility, free markets and limited government.”
This rather thin accusation appears to be a reaction to my published work instead of an evaluation of my teaching, which confuses a teacher’s role in public with the classroom. So, I’ll help out the watchlist and describe how I address these issues at the University of Texas at Austin, where I’m finishing my 25th year of teaching. Readers can judge the threat level for themselves.
I just completed a unit on the feminist critique of the contemporary pornography industry in my course Freedom: Philosophy, History, Law. We began the semester with On Liberty, by John Stuart Mill (I’ll assume the Professor Watchlist approves of that classic book), examining how various philosophers have conceptualized freedom. We then studied how the term has been defined and deployed politically throughout U.S. history, ending with questions about how living in a society saturated with sexually explicit material affects our understanding of freedom. I provided context about feminist intellectual and political projects of the past half-century, including the feminist critique of men’s violence and of mass media’s role in the sexual abuse and exploitation of women in a society based on institutionalized male dominance (that is, patriarchy).
The revelations about Donald Trump’s sexual behavior during the campaign provided a “teachable moment” that I didn’t think should be ignored. I began that particular lecture, a week after the election, by emphasizing that my job was not to tell students how to act in the world, but to help them understand the world in which they make choices.
Toward that goal, I pointed out that we have a president-elect who has bragged about being sexually aggressive and treating women like sexual objects, and that several women have testified about behavior that—depending on one’s evaluation of the evidence—could constitute sexual assault. “Does it seem fair,” I asked the class, “to describe him as a sexual predator?” No one disagreed.
Trump sometimes responded by contending that President Bill Clinton was even worse. Citing someone else’s bad behavior to avoid accountability is a weak defense (most people learn that as children), and, of course, Trump wasn’t running against Bill, but we can learn from examining the claim.
As president, Clinton abused his authority by having sex with a younger woman who was first an intern and then a junior employee. He settled a sexual harassment lawsuit out of court, and he has been accused of rape. Does it seem fair to describe Bill Clinton as a sexual predator? No one disagreed.
So, we live in a world in which a former president, a Democrat, has been a sexual predator, yet he continues to be treated as a respected statesman and philanthropist. Our next president, a Republican, was elected with the nearly universal understanding that he has been a sexual predator. How can we make sense of this? A feminist critique of toxic conceptions of masculinity and men’s sexual exploitation of women in patriarchy seems like a good place to start.
In that class, I spent considerable time reminding students that I didn’t expect them all to come to the same conclusions, but that they all should consider relevant arguments in forming judgments. I repeated often my favorite phrase in teaching: “Reasonable people can disagree.” Student reactions to this unit of the class varied, but no one suggested that the feminist critique offered nothing of value in understanding our society.
Is presenting a feminist framework to analyze a violent and pornographic culture politicizing the classroom, as the watch list implies? If that’s the case, then the decision not to present a feminist framework also politicizes the classroom, in a different direction. The question isn’t whether professors will make such choices—that’s inevitable, given the nature of university teaching—but how we defend our intellectual work (with evidence and reasoned argument, I hope) and how we present the material to students (encouraging critical reflection).
It would be easier to dismiss this rather silly project if the United States had not just elected both a president who shouts over attempts at rational discourse and a reactionary majority in both houses of Congress. I’m a tenured full professor (and White, male, and a U.S. citizen by birth) and am not worried. Yet, even though the group behind the watch list has no formal power over me or my university, the attempt at bullying professors—no matter how weakly supported—may well inhibit professors without my security and privilege.
If the folks who compiled the watch list had presented any evidence that I was teaching irresponsibly, I would take the challenge seriously. At least in my case, the watch list didn’t. But rather than assign a failing grade, I’ll be charitable and give the project an incomplete, with an opportunity to turn in better work in the future.
FOCUS | Trump-Sessions: Expect the Worst for Prison Reform
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=36478"><span class="small">John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News</span></a>
Thursday, 01 December 2016 12:28
Kiriakou writes: "Majorities of both parties in Congress support some form of sentencing reform, and they said so with their votes in favor of bills that would have shortened sentences and done away with many mandatory minimums. Until Donald Trump was elected president, that is."
Senator Jeff Sessions with Donald Trump at a campaign rally. (photo: Taylor Hill/WireImage)
Trump-Sessions: Expect the Worst for Prison Reform
By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
01 December 16
’ve written in the past that the United States has five percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the world’s prison population. Most of those prisoners are people of color, and most of them are serving time for drug crimes. Majorities of both parties in Congress support some form of sentencing reform, and they said so with their votes in favor of bills that would have shortened sentences and done away with many mandatory minimums. Until Donald Trump was elected president, that is.
Before the election, a myriad of law enforcement organizations called on both major presidential candidates to publicly support an overhaul of the criminal justice system — including sentencing reform — to reduce crime and to improve relations between police and citizens. The move came in the aftermath of repeated failed attempts in Congress to pass comprehensive sentencing reform legislation.
Civil liberties groups have demanded sentencing reform for years. They thought they had a real chance in 2014 when a bipartisan group of senators, led by Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) introduced the Recidivism Reduction and Public Safety Act of 2014 (S. 1675). The bill easily passed the Judiciary Committee. A similar bill, the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2013 (S. 1410), also passed the committee. Both bills also passed through the House Judiciary Committee. They died on the Senate floor, though, when then-Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) refused to call them up for a vote. A year later, the new majority leader, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), also refused to allow a vote. This was despite President Obama’s vocal support for reform.
Both bills, which would have eased sentencing guidelines, done away with mandatory minimum sentences for most drug crimes, and offered incentives for federal prisoners that would have allowed early release for good behavior and for taking GED or vocational classes, had the support of groups as diverse as the American Civil Liberties Union, the conservative Heritage Foundation, former prosecutors, police and prison guard organizations, victims’ advocates, prominent conservatives, and faith groups.
The truth is that both bills were good ideas. We have too many “crimes” in the U.S. The only reason they didn’t become law is that two stubborn congressional leaders wouldn’t allow it. Now, with the appointment of Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) as attorney general, sentencing reform is all but dead.
The non-profit Marshall Project wrote recently that things will likely change quickly under Sessions. The new attorney general “helped block broader drug sentencing reform in the Senate this year despite wide bipartisan support, saying it would release ‘violent felons’ into the street.” He will also be tasked with carrying out the new president’s policies on private prisons. The Marshall Project noted that candidate Trump told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews in June that “I do think we can do a lot of privatizations and private prisons. It seems to work a lot better.” Just weeks before the election, Geo Group, the second largest private prison corporation in America, hired two former Sessions aides to lobby in favor of outsourcing federal corrections to private contractors.
Sessions was known as a vigorous prosecutor of drug cases when he served as the U.S. attorney in Alabama in the 1980s. The Marshall Project notes that he believes that the Obama administration erred by prosecuting fewer, but more serious, drug cases. He said in a March Judiciary Committee hearing that “The prison population is declining at a rapid rate. And at the same time, drug use is surging and deaths are occurring. And in my opinion, it’s going to get worse.” Most Americans will likely read that to mean that there will certainly be more, not fewer, drug prosecutions and more, not fewer, people going to prison on Sessions’ watch.
But that’s not all the damage Sessions can do. He can advise Trump to issue executive orders that would countermand those executive orders related to reform that were issued by Obama. With the stroke of a pen, for example, Trump could overturn the federal ban on solitary confinement for juveniles. He can, and likely will, overturn the policy of transitioning away from private prisons. Expect the worst.
I wish there were some sign that something, somewhere, related to criminal justice, sentencing reform, and the so-called war on drugs will improve. There is none. Sessions and Trump are the enemies of civil liberties. They are the enemies of reform. Obama’s criminal justice reform policy changes are over. Expect the prisons to fill up again.
"John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act - a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture program."
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
FOCUS: Maybe a Trump Presidency Is What God Intended
Thursday, 01 December 2016 11:45
Keillor writes: "So many Trumpists have written in since the election, and I am grateful for their interest and also impressed by the sheer variety of their profanity. I never learned to swear that well because by the time my mother died, at 97, it was too late for me to learn."
President-elect Donald Trump. (photo: Jabin Botsford/WP)
Maybe a Trump Presidency Is What God Intended
By Garrison Keillor, The Washington Post
01 December 16
o many Trumpists have written in since the election, and I am grateful for their interest and also impressed by the sheer variety of their profanity. I never learned to swear that well because by the time my mother died, at 97, it was too late for me to learn. I gather from the letters that these people’s lives were devastated by the advent of gay marriage, political correctness, the threat of gun control and the arrogance of liberals, and now a champion rises from Fifth Avenue and 56th Street, and God forbid that any dog should bark when he speaks or any pigeon drop white matter on his limousine.
What the letter-writers don’t grasp is that cursing is highly effective in person — someone kicks his car in rage, forgetting he’s wearing flip-flops, and flames pour from his mouth, and it’s impressive. But you see it in print, and it’s just ugly. It makes you pity the writer’s wife.
It’s not good form to curse at someone you’ve just defeated. That is why the president-elect made it clear he would not be waterboarding Hillary Clinton or sending her back to Mexico. He was gracious in victory and said the Clintons are “good people.” Several of his biggest applause lines seem to have been put back in the box. And his base is faced with the possibility that they may have elected a Manchurian. They know that he was a Democrat for most of his life and that the sight of Adam and Steve holding hands does not fill him with loathing. He is, after all, a New Yorker; he’s not from Tulsa. He likes drama. Maybe he’ll appoint his sister to the Supreme Court. Maybe he would rather row than wade. Maybe the Republicans will privatize the Pentagon, and maybe the Chinese will be the low bidder. Why not run the Marines like a business? Put the “deal” back into “idealism.”
Meanwhile, Chris Christie waits for the prosecutor to call and summon him to a low-ceilinged room with fluorescent lights and ask him pointed questions for the good man to answer under oath and say the same things he’s said in public, that he had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with those orange highway cones. Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani waits for his phone to ring, the mayor who put his emergency command center on the 23rd floor of the World Trade Center, over the objections of the police department, and later started his own security consulting company. This is a new level of chutzpah. This is like the captain of the Titanic, had he survived, writing a book about the art of navigation.
My first election was 1948, when we stayed up late listening to returns on a Zenith radio, in our basement home in the cornfields north of Minneapolis. Mother was content with Harry Truman’s victory, believing that he cared about the poor, and Dad was dubious of politicians in general and Democrats in particular. It was interesting for a child to sense this division, though my parents were gentle people and evangelical Christians who refrained from voting, on the assumption that the Lord was in charge and would put into power whomever He wished. If you voted, you might vote against the Lord’s Will.
Their reasoning seemed shaky to me — it seemed to argue that one should not get out of bed in the morning lest you eat the wrong cereal for breakfast — but I’ve inherited some of their fatalism. Maybe God did choose this bloated narcissist and compulsive liar and con man to be president, and maybe He will send a couple of Corinthians to light his pathway.
I have my doubts. You grow up to be skeptical of the hormone treatment that eliminates wrinkles, the metal detector that will locate buried treasure, the school that will teach you the secrets of getting rich, the great leader who will make the country great again.
But it does seem like the very thing God might do. Put an idiot in charge and cluster his clueless children around him and a coterie of old hacks and opportunists and thereby teach us haughty journalists a lesson. God made Balaam’s donkey open its mouth and say, “Quit hitting me, stupid.” And if He could do that, He could make this moose a halfway-decent president.
Meanwhile, blessings on all who cursed me. May you thrive and prosper. I hope you have not cursed your children.
The No-BS Inside Guide to the Presidential Recount
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=27607"><span class="small">Greg Palast, Reader Supported News</span></a>
Thursday, 01 December 2016 09:52
Palast writes: "There's been so much complete nonsense since I first broke the news that the Green Party would file for a recount of the presidential vote, I am compelled to write a short guide to flush out the BS and get to just the facts, ma'am."
Line to cast a ballot in Wisconsin. (photo: Reuters)
The No-BS Inside Guide to the Presidential Recount
By Greg Palast, Reader Supported News
01 December 16
here's been so much complete nonsense since I first broke the news that the Green Party would file for a recount of the presidential vote, I am compelled to write a short guide to flush out the BS and get to just the facts, ma'am.
Clip from "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy," by Greg Palast
Nope, they're not hunting for Russian hackers
To begin with, the main work of the recount hasn't a damn thing to do with finding out if the software programs for the voting machines have been hacked, whether by Putin's agents or some guy in a cave flipping your vote from Hillary to The Donald.
The Green team does not yet even have the right to get into the codes. But that's just not the core of the work
The ballots in the electoral "dumpster"
The nasty little secret of US elections, is that we don't count all the votes.
In Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania—and all over America—there were a massive number of votes that were simply rejected, invalidated, and spoiled. They were simply, not counted. Officially, in a typical presidential election, at least three million votes end up rejected, often for picayune, absurd reasons.
The rejects fall into three big categories: provisional ballots rejected, absentee and mail-in ballots invalidated and in-precinct votes "spoiled," spit out by a machine or thrown out by a human reader as unreadable or mis-marked.
So, as Robert Fitrakis, lead lawyer for the recount tells me, their first job is to pull the votes out of the electoral dumpster—and, one by one, make the case for counting a rejected provisional, absentee or "spoiled" ballot.
Spoiled: over-votes and under-votes
How does a vote spoil? Most fall in the categories of "over-votes" and "under-votes."
In Michigan, the Green team has found a whole lot of people who voted for TWO candidates for President. These are the "over-vote"—votes that will count for neither candidate.
How odd. While the schools in Detroit are not stellar, its graduates do know that they can only have one president.
Then, some folks didn't vote at all. They are the "under-voter."
But, Fitrakis and team suspect, many of these under- and over-voters meant to vote for a candidate but the robot reader couldn't understand their choice.
Here's how it happens. Voters in Michigan and Wisconsin fill in bubbles next to their choice. The cards, filled up with darkened bubbles for each race, are gathered and fed through an "optical scanner." These robotic eyeballs mess up all the time.
This is what Fitrakis, an old hand at vote-machine failures (both deliberate and benign), calls "the calibration problem."
Are machines calibrated with a Republican or Democratic bias? No, that's not how it works. But just as poor areas get the worst schools and hospitals, they also get the worst voting machines.
The key is an ugly statistic not taught in third grade civics class: According to the US Civil Rights Commission, the chance your vote will be disqualified as "spoiled" is 900% more likely if you're Black than if you're white.
So the Green Party intends to review every single one of the six million bubble-filled cards. They'll use the one instrument that can easily tell one bubble from two, or one bubble from none: the human eye.
As you can imagine, This will require several thousand eyes. The good news is, Fitrakis reports, that well over a thousand volunteers have already signed up. Training by Skype begins Tuesday morning.
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The team and I are off to Ground Zero: Michigan. Wisconsin. Pennsylvania. To report the REAL story of the recount.
I'm also responding to urgent requests in the recount states for our technical files and analysis. And then it's on to Washington—to the Department of Justice—while there's a bit of Justice left.
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Provisional or "placebo" ballots
According to the US Elections Assistance Commission (EAC), Americans cast 2.7 million provisional ballots in the last presidential election. About a million were simply discarded. What?!
Yes. Discarded, not counted. You show up at your normal polling station and they can't find your name, or they don't like your ID, or you're supposed to vote in another precinct. Instead of letting you vote on a regular ballot, you fill out a "provisional" ballot and place it in an envelope, sign your name, and under penalty of jail time for lying, affirm you're a properly registered voter.
The polls close—then the magic begins. It's up to highly partisan election officials to decide if your vote counts. Hillary Clinton only won one swing state, Virginia, notably, the only one where the vote count was controlled by Democrats. She lost all swing states—Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Arizona, North Carolina and Florida—where the GOP set the rules for counting these ballots and their hacks acted as the judge and jury on whether a ballot should be counted.
Wisconsin generally rejects votes cast in the wrong precinct, even if they're legal voters—and, says Fitrakis, "even if their official precinct was just another table in the same high school gym—and they were mis-directed by poll workers."
(That's why I sometimes call "provisional" ballots "placebo" ballots. They let you feel you've voted, even if you haven't.)
In Wisconsin, provisional ballots were handed to voters—mostly, it appears, students—who didn't have the form of ID required under new Wisconsin law. These ballots were disqualified despite zero evidence even one voter was an identity thief.
Fitrakis says the Stein campaign will fight for each of these provisional votes where this is clearly no evidence the vote is fraudulent.
Mail-in, Early and Absentee Ballots go Absent
If you've gone postal in this election, good luck!
According to EAC data, at least half a million absentee ballots go absent, that is, just don't get counted. The cause: everything from postage due to "suspect signature." Fitrakis told me that in his home state of Ohio, you need to put your driver's license number on the envelope, "and if you don't have a driver's license and leave the line blank—instead of writing 'no driver's license'—they toss your ballot.
From Palast's book The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: A Tale of Billionaires & Ballot Bandits by Ted Rall
It's a "gotcha!" system meant to knock out the ballots the officials don't want to count. (Remember, your mail-in ballot is anything but secret.) Team Green will try to fight for each absentee ballot rejected for cockamamie reasons.
If the recount doesn't change the outcome, can we feel assured the election was honest?
Sadly, no. As Fitrakis says, "If a student is given a provisional ballot because they didn't have the right ID, or the state simply lost their registration, we can fight for the ballot to be counted. But most students who voted off campus didn't know their right to get a provisional ballot and most probably didn't get offered one.
Students and others were discouraged from voting because they lacked the proper ID (300,000 by the estimate of the experts with the ACLU—that's thirty times Trump's plurality). But if you didn't cast any ballot, provisional or otherwise, no one can fight for it.
And final decisions may come down to the vote of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, God forbid. As Norman Stockwell, the editor of Madison-based The Progressive explained to me, formerly, elections law adjudications were made by a panel of non-partisan judges. These were replaced by this new commission of partisan shills appointed by GOP Governor Scott Walker.
Trump says millions voted illegally. Is he crazy?
Crazy like a fox. There's a method in his madness that affects the recount.
While the media dismisses Trump's claim that there are "millions of people that voted illegally," they have not paid attention to the details of his claim. Trump explains that millions of people are "voting many, many times," that is, voting in two states in the same election.
Trump's claim is based on a list of "potential duplicate voters" created by his operative, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. Kobach (a top dog in Trump's transition team) directs a program for hunting down fraudulent voters using a computer system called, "Crosscheck."
It's quite a computer: Crosscheck identified a breathtaking 449,922 Michiganders who are suspected of voting or registering in a second state, a felony crime, as are 371,923 in Pennsylvania.
I spent two years investigating the Trump/Kobach claim for Rolling Stone. We obtained the "confidential" suspect list of several million citizens accused of voting twice. In fact, it was no more than a list of common names—Maria Hernandez, James Brown, David Lee—that is, common to voters of color. Read: Democrats. A true and typical example: Michael James Brown of Michigan is supposed to be the same voter as Michael Kendrick Brown of Georgia.
Page from The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (FREE) Comic book penned by Keith Tucker
About 54,000 voters in Michigan, five times Trump's plurality, lost their right to vote based on this nutty double-voter accusation. In Pennsylvania, about 45,000 were purged.
The problem for Fitrakis: While he eventually plans to file suit against Crosscheck purges, in the meantime, it's not clear he can challenge someone whose lost their vote because of a false accusation of double voting. And those who found their names missing and didn't demand a provisional ballot—there's no hope at all of recovering their vote.
Is Jill Stein going to get rich?
Fitrakis laughs at this one. "The FEC [Federal Elections Commission] has very strict rules on recounts. The donations for the recount are sequestered in a specially designated account and all spending is restricted to the recount."
The big problem is that the cost is somewhat out of Stein's control. Each state will bill the campaign for the "pro-rated salaries and benefits" of its county and state officials working on the recount.
To add to the cost and just plain drive the Green team crazy, the Wisconsin Election Board announced on Monday that each separate county elections clerk will decide if they'll even let the Green volunteers directly view the ballots. Fitrakis and partners will have to get a court order to get into each county. How does one recount ballots without seeing them? (Hmm, is the Wisconsin board, stooges appointed by the GOP Governor, fearful that the viewing the ballots will expose the game?)
Hillary joins the fray
What will the Clinton camp add to the recount? "Lawyers," said Fitrakis, though he's yet to see them. The Clinton campaign is apparently helping find one voter in each Pennsylvania county, as one is required in each jurisdiction to file for a recount of that state.
And what about that hack job?
While Fitrakis is not looking for Russkies in the computer code, he says, "We're more concerned with the private companies that control the keys to the kingdom—to match what's on paper to the official count." The "keys" are the little machines, memory cards and other electronic gewgaws that are used to suck the data from the voting machine—which are carried off to another state for tabulation by a private contractor. Will these tabulations at each step match what the volunteers find in the on-the-ground recount?
One problem is that the tabulation software is "proprietary." A private company owns the code to the count—and the privateers will fight fiercely, with GOP help, to keep the ballot counting code their commercial secret.
Push and Pray Pennsylvania
In the end, the single biggest impediment to a full and fair recount is that 70 percent of Pennsylvania voters used what are called, "Push and Pray" voting machines—Direct Recording Electronic touch-screens. Push the screen next to your choice and pray it gets recorded. Pennsylvania is one of the only states that has yet to require some form of VVPAT ("vee-pat") or voter-verified paper audit trail that creates an ATM-style receipt.
Therefore, the Keystone State recount will have to rely on hopes of access to the code, statistical comparisons to counties that used paper ballots—and prayer.
Maybe it IS the Russians
The possibility that a Putin pal hacked the machines was championed by University of Michigan computer sciences professor J. Alex Halderman who proposed, "The attackers would probe election offices well in advance in order to find ways to break into their computers…and spread malware into voting machines."
I imagine some squat, middle-pay-scale civil servant in chinos and a pocket protector who works in the Michigan Secretary of State's office approached, one late overtime night, by some FSB agent in high heels and a slinky dress split halfway up her thigh. The svelte spy would lean against the bureaucrat provocatively and whisper, "My handsome dahling, would you mind sticking this little thumb drive into that big old computer of yours?"
Professor Halderman, if you want to help the recount, put down the James Bond novels and pick up some Opti-Scan ballots. We've got a lot of bubbles to read. End
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Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, now out as major motion non-fiction movie.
Greg Palast has been called the ìmost important investigative reporter of our time ñ up there with Woodward and Bernsteinî (The Guardian). Palast has broken front-page stories for BBC Television Newsnight, The Guardian, The Nation Magazine, Rolling Stone, and Harper's Magazine. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, Armed Madhouse, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, and the highly acclaimed Vulturesí Picnic, named Book of the Year 2012 on BBC Newsnight Review. His books have been translated into two dozen languages. His brand new film of his documentary reports for BBC Newsnight and Democracy Now! is calledVultures and Vote Rustlers.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
Does What Happened to This Journalist at the US-Canada Border Herald a Darker Trend?
Thursday, 01 December 2016 09:26
Handeyside writes: "The recent abusive border search of a Canadian photojournalist should serve as a warning to everyone concerned about press freedom these days."
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers conducting a traveler inspection. (photo: AP)
Does What Happened to This Journalist at the US-Canada Border Herald a Darker Trend?
By Hugh Handeyside, ACLU
01 December 16
he recent abusive border search of a Canadian photojournalist should serve as a warning to everyone concerned about press freedom these days.
Ed Ou is a renowned photographer and TED senior fellow who has traveled to the United States many times to do work for The New York Times, Time magazine, and other media outlets. Last month, Ed was traveling from Canada to the U.S. to report on the protests against the Dakota Access pipeline in Standing Rock, North Dakota, when he was taken aside for additional inspection.
What came next left him questioning what he thought he knew about the U.S. government and the values it stands for, and we’re officially protesting to the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Although Ed clearly identified himself as a journalist on his way to Standing Rock, the CBP officers detained him for more than six hours and subjected him to multiple rounds of intrusive interrogation.
They questioned him at length about his work as a journalist, his prior professional travel in the Middle East, and dissidents or “extremists” he had encountered or interviewed as a journalist. They photocopied his personal papers, including pages from his handwritten personal diary.
They also asked Ed to unlock the three mobile phones he uses to communicate in different locations worldwide. Ed told them he couldn’t agree to do that because of his ethical obligation as a journalist to protect his confidential sources. The officers took the phones, and when they returned them several hours later, the tamper tape covering the phones’ SIM cards was altered or missing, suggesting that the officers had removed and possibly copied the cards.
After all that, the officers denied Ed admission to the country without giving him a valid reason. One of the officers said he couldn’t provide any details. Another officer said that Ed’s refusal to grant access to his mobile phones “did not help.”
Ed’s treatment was unjustified and unlawful. Although CBP has the authority to stop and search travelers at the border for the purpose of identifying people who are inadmissible or engaged in criminal activity, the officers exceeded that authority. They had no legitimate cause to detain Ed for six hours, interrogate him about his professional activities, copy his diary, or search his phones. That abusive and harassing conduct is all the more troubling given that the officers apparently conditioned Ed’s admission to the U.S. on his willingness to assist them in searching his phones.
Ed’s ordeal is yet another indication that the government is treatingtheborder as an all-purpose dragnet for intelligence gathering — an approach that is at odds with the Constitution, federal law, and CBP policies on border searches.
When CBP takes that approach to journalists, the dangers are particularly acute. Forcing journalists to turn over their newsgathering materials breaches confidences they are ethically required to honor, discourages reporting on current events, and turns journalists into unwilling agents of the national security state.
And conditioning foreign journalists’ admission to the United States on their willingness to agree to intrusive searches encourages similarly abusive treatment of American journalists in other countries.
Treating journalists this way at the border diminishes knowledge of important issues and narrows vital public discourse. It risks eroding press freedom, which is a necessary pillar of democracy.
Ed is fighting back though.
We’ve sent a letter on his behalf to DHS and CBP seeking assurance that Ed will not be subjected to intrusive and inappropriate searches in the future because of his work as a journalist. We’re also asking the government to purge any confidential information it obtained inappropriately during the search.
That the Obama administration would subject a journalist like Ed to harassment and abusive inspection at the border is wrong and alarming. And what this administration claims the authority to do today, the next administration could claim the authority to do in January.
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rom a “critique” of my work on the recently launched website 
’ve written in the past that the United States has five percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the world’s prison population. Most of those prisoners are people of color, and most of them are serving time for drug crimes. Majorities of both parties in Congress support some form of sentencing reform, and they said so with their votes in favor of bills that would have shortened sentences and done away with many mandatory minimums. Until Donald Trump was elected president, that is.
o many Trumpists have written in since the election, and I am grateful for their interest and also impressed by the sheer variety of their profanity. I never learned to swear that well because by the time my mother died, at 97, it was too late for me to learn. I gather from the letters that these people’s lives were devastated by the advent of gay marriage, political correctness, the threat of gun control and the arrogance of liberals, and now a champion rises from Fifth Avenue and 56th Street, and God forbid that any dog should bark when he speaks or any pigeon drop white matter on his limousine.
here's been so much complete nonsense since I first broke the news that the Green Party would file for a recount of the presidential vote, I am compelled to write a short guide to flush out the BS and get to just the facts, ma'am.
