Oh, would some power the gift give us....

I heard about this when it first happened, but it just came up again a few days ago. It still makes me angry.

On November 14, Sue Smethurst arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on a flight from Melbourne, Australia. At the airport she was detained, interrogated, photographed, fingerprinted (on a form marked "criminal"), perp-walked through the airport in handcuffs, denied food for 10 hours (and then offered a "detention meal" consisting of an orange, a fruit-box drink, and a roll "I could play golf with"), and repeatedly body searched. Her bags were searched, a makeup bag temporarily confiscated. Fourteen hours after she arrived, she was taken by armed guards to a flight back to Australia, that is, she was thrown out of the country.

Her crime? She's a journalist.

The Customs and Border Protection bureau (CPB, part of Homeland Security) has recently begun erratically applying an old, rarely-enforced requirement that journalists from 27 countries covered under a visa waiver program must have a special I-visa to gain entry to the US. Non-journalists from those countries are under no such restrictions.

Though the claim is made this is a necessary security precaution, Matt Welch, writing in Canada's National Post earlier this month, shows the absurdity.

[I]f you were an evil-doing terrorist from France, Britain, Australia or the 24 other eligible countries, all you'd have to do is deny that you are a journalist, state that you are travelling for non-journalistic "business or pleasure," and the red carpet would be rolled out for you.

According to the newly enforced rules, if there were an earthquake in L.A. tomorrow, British reporters would need to pay US$100 to the local U.S. embassy or consulate, show up for a face-to-face interview carrying a "comprehensive letter from the journalist's employer on the employer's letterhead identifying the journalist and describing in detail the nature and function of the journalist's position," and then wait any number of days and weeks before getting the go-ahead. British terrorists, meanwhile, could just buy a ticket and hop on a plane.

Smethurst is not the only recent victim, Welch notes.

A month before, reporter Rachael Bletchley of the British newspaper The People "was held for 26 hours, was handcuffed for a time, was given very little to eat or drink, had no possibility of sleep and had to ask permission to use the lavatory, which was denied on at least one occasion," according to a protest letter to Tom Ridge, the Homeland Security Secretary, sent by the World Association of Newspapers.

In May, at least eight French and British reporters attempting to cover L.A.'s enormous E3 computer-game conference were blocked, probed and sent back home....

In each of these cases, the journalists had no right to see a lawyer, no right to call their local consulate and no right to appeal....

The Toledo Blade, in a December 12 editorial calling for "an end to this repressive embarrassment," mentions still more cases.

Peter Krobath, chief editor for the Austrian movie magazine Skip, was held overnight in a cold room with 45 others who arrived without the visa. The room had two open toilets, a metal bench, and a concrete bench. ...

Thomas Sjoerup, a photographer for the Danish paper Ekstra Bladet, was deported after a few hours during which a mugshot, fingerprints, and DNA sample were taken. A French journalist said he and five others from his country were marched across the airport in handcuffs, without belts or laces.

This, of course, has lead to protest from journalists and press organizations all over the world in addition to generating a tsunami of unfavorable international media coverage. Smethurst, for example, became a major story in Australia and her comment that by the end of her detention she would have "walked over broken glass" to get out of the US and back home seemed to sum up the general feeling.

It would be comforting to chalk all this up to clumsy and overzealous "by the book, by the letter" application of a newly-enforced musty regulation that will fix itself once CPB personnel get used to handling it. Or to say it's the fault of a few bad apples in the CPB - that perhaps tempting because at least a few of the incidents happened at one airport, LAX. Unfortunately, it's not that easy, because journalists are not the only ones being singled out and, contrary to Matt Welch, being a non-journalist doesn't mean the red carpet treatment.

Haroon Siddiqui, editorial page editor emeritus of the Toronto Star, wrote in his former paper ten days ago of how

[a]t a party the other night, five people were talking about their experiences, or those of relatives and friends, while crossing the American border.

As law-abiding citizens, they do not begrudge the need for post-9/11 vigilance. They even understand the occasional arbitrariness that might creep into the immigration screening process.

What they are saddened about is the bad manners, arrogance and the seeming racism of the immigration officials involved, as well as the obvious idiocy of some of the policies of the Bush administration.

One man was asked if he was carrying an baklava. Now, that's just an inane way of trying to establish a Middle East connection and seems funny rather than threatening. Others were less lucky.

One man who grew up in Toronto was asked his nationality. When he replied "Canadian," the officer glanced at the place of birth on his passport and declared "You're no Canadian. You're an Indian, that's who you are." Another young man entering the US on a business trip was detained for 45 minutes and asked how many relatives he has in Pakistan. A woman who flew in from India was questioned at the US border as to why she was carrying so many bags by an officer who refused to believe her explanation that she was carrying gifts for relatives and only relented after telling her to "just get out" of the US before the visa's exit date.

The fifth person recounted the story of yet another Asian visitor to North America who was denied entry to the U.S. from Canada.

When the man protested that he had a valid visa, the officer ripped the visa and said: "Now you don't" and turned him away.

You may have already guessed the common thread among these five: They're all Muslim.

[B]ut I hear similar stories from Sikhs, Hindus, Zoroastrians, even Greeks and Italians.

They must all look alike, eh?

Not surprisingly, these incidents and the complaints they produced have gotten very little play in the US media, which is much too busy with Paris Hilton, Michael Jackson, and how to lose those holiday five pounds by New Year's Eve to give any account of how what we do and how we behave might look to the rest of the world, which is unnecessary in any event because we are of course right so who cares what they think. And so we still wonder why the ungrateful world doesn't like us. Siddiqui accurately and insightfully calls us "a society scared into stupidity."

Meanwhile, back at the journalists, Smethurst's editor plans to visit the United States on business. She inquired about obtaining an I-Visa - and was told it would not be necessary. She's going to get one anyway.