US Borders: Secret Paths for Interrogation, Seizure, Detention of Whistleblowers' Associates
It turns out that the U.K. isn’t the only country abusing its border authority to carry out politically motivated detentions, seizures and interrogations of travelers, as illustrated by the case of David Miranda.
Internal government documents released Monday by the ACLU show that U.S. government agencies collude with local authorities to use border crossings to bypass civil liberties protections and seize and search electronic devices that belong to people who associate with whistleblowers and other political targets.
The documents detailing this abuse were publicly exposed by 26-year-old David House, a fundraiser for campaigns to support WikiLeaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning. House was detained and interrogated while traveling through Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on a return trip from Mexico in 2010. House’s laptop computer, mobile phone, camera and USB drive were seized, with all but his phone held for 7 weeks.
The ACLU and the ACLU of Massachusetts filed a lawsuit on House’s behalf, charging that his 1st and 4th Amendment rights were violated. House and the U.S. government reached a settlement in May 2013 which stipulated, among other things, that the government must hand over documents related to the investigation of House and search of his electronics.
These turned out to be treasure troves of evidence.
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