Laura Poitras: Life In The New World Order

Dear Mr. President,

Since 9/11 there has been a revolution in America but few people seem to have noticed. Laura Poitras is one who has although she never calls it that. I’m sure you’ve been briefed on Poitras, the documentary filmmaker who helped Snowden and Greenwald expose the NSA’s surveillance programs. An article in next Sunday’s NYT Magazine (“How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets”) tells the story. The revolution impacts Poitras’ life in June 2006 when her airline tickets were suddenly marked “SSSS”—Secondary Security Screening Selection. She was detained the first time in Newark boarding a flight to Israel to show her film, “My Country, My Country.” She was detained again on her return and the next month again in Vienna where her bags were searched and she was questioned. There, a security agent told her that her government had flagged her as a terror threat. Since then, she’s been detained more than 40 times. She wrote members of congress and submitted FOIA requests but never heard back. Each time she was detained, her notes and papers were copied so she stopped carrying paper. She was told that if she didn’t answer their questions, they would confiscate her computers and cell phone (they did). She was told her refusal to answer questions was itself suspicious. The government contends that constitutional rights do not apply at border crossings so she was not permitted to have a lawyer present. She began taking notes of these searches and interrogations. In 2012 she was told she could not take notes and an agent threatened to handcuff her if she continued. Taken to another room, 3 agents interrogated her and yelled at her as she continued taking notes. When Greenwald wrote an article about her the detentions stopped but for 6 years Poitras felt she was in a Kafka state where she was put on a watch list without explanation. “It’s the complete suspension of due process,” she says. “A shadow government has grown…in the name of national security without oversight or national debate…” Snowden revealed an American police state where there is no personal privacy and only the government is allowed to have secrets. But privacy is a form of refuge and when that is taken away, it creates anxiety, distrust and fear. From the government’s perspective however, the invasion of privacy is a form of control that suppresses dissent and reduces risk. The Constitution no longer applies and personal privacy no longer exists. Welcome to the new world order.