While there has been little media attention in the United States, European press is reporting how German-Bulgarian writer and activist Ilija Trojanow was barred from entering the United States this week. A critic of NSA spying programs and professor at The European Graduate School, Trojanow was invited to speak at a literary conference and is well-known for his criticism of the surveillance state. He said that he was given no explanation for being barred from entry.
Trojanow was left stranded at an airport in Brazil.
In a public article, Trojanow denounced his treatment and added in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that “It is more than ironic if an author who raises his voice against the dangers of surveillance and the secret state within a state for years, will be denied entry into the ‘land of the brave and the free.’” He may have a point.
Germans are outraged and I do not understand why this is not a bigger story in the United States. This is a leading civil libertarian critic of our spy agencies. His being barred entry raises a serious question of retaliation against the critics of our government. He has invited the government to explain his being barred entry. I, for one, would like to hear it. If he is a secret spy, drug dealer or terrorist, it will come as a great surprise. Indeed, we generally arrest such people, not send them on their way. The burden is on the Administration to explain such an action taken against one of its most prominent critics. I cannot find any response from the Administration, which has not been shy in the past to release information defending itself in such stories either directly or through leaks. Of course, this is not a story that seems to register with our mainstream media even though tens of thousands of Germans have signed a letter calling on their government to take action.
It is a highly damaging story to our already tarnished image abroad. If the story is untrue, we should hear about it. If the story is true (and the government barred a critic), someone needs to be held accountable for an attack on free speech.
lottakatz: “We have become so like the old Soviet Union.”
Of course the US is nothing like the old USSR in most respects, but with respect to ‘entering the country as a foreigner’? Yes, you have.
I was surprised at my last visit to America that between ESTA, US-VISIT and the Form 6059B it took more paperwork for me as a (West) German to visit the USA in 2011 than to cross the Iron Curtain into East Germany, Czechoslovakia or Poland in the 1980s…
It is a sad thing to realize, near my end, that the country I believed was a shining example of freedom has proved to be nothing more than a myth. It feels a little like the time I discovered there was no Santa Claus.
Top Ten Things Ted Cruz did to the NSA and other Security Agencies that Edward Snowden Couldn’t
Posted on 10/03/2013 by Juan Cole
http://www.juancole.com/2013/10/security-agencies-snowden.html
Edward Snowden’s revelations about the excesses of the National Security Agency have so far had no effect whatsoever on actual practices. But Ted Cruz’s conspiracy to shut down the American government as a bargaining ploy in his quest to stop the working poor from being able to see a doctor has been much more effective in reducing NSA activity.
It won’t be remembered in Washington that the United States military is still at war in Afghanistan, but Gen Ray Odierno affirms that military capabilities are being degraded by the GOP-engineered loss of civilian support staff (he is implying and loss of special pay, danger pay and bonuses for troops in the field.) Since this is the deliberate act of Sen. Cruz and the Tea Party representatives in the GOP House, wouldn’t that be, like, treason?
1. Some 70% of NSA staff have been sent home as a result of the Republican Party shutdown of the Federal government. Despite its straying into US territory and its possible industrial espionage abroad, the NSA does actually track terrorists, and we would like it to do that well; that ability has doubtless been degraded by Cruz’s grandstanding.
2. Likewise 70% of the CIA has been sent home, at a time when al-Qaeda is reviving. Perhaps the Defense Intelligence Agency is in a bit better shape, since it has more military personnel, who are exempt from being furloughed.
3. 4000 computer specialists working for US intelligence have been furloughed.
4. Some 400,000 civilian support staff at the Department of Defense have been sent home without pay.
5. Among those sent home are the officials who sign arms contracts and buy weapons. You hope our troops in Afghanistan are well stocked; how exactly new weapons and ammunition can be bought and trucked up from Karachi to the Khyber Pass is not clear.
6. The 1.4 million active duty military personnel will likely see paychecks delayed, with negative effects on morale. David Small writes : “The Marine corporal deployed to Afghanistan, making $2,193.90 a month, is worried about his family back home. His kids rely on food stamps, but that program was cut during shutdown. He will try to maintain focus in a combat zone. But he will be distracted and uncertain.”
7. Likewise, military special pay and bonuses, re-up bonuses, rewards for accepting positions in which there are special needs have all been put on hold, along with promotions. Again, a severe impact on morale.
8. Soldiers may not be able to collect danger pay, affecting 60,000 troops in Afghanistan. Those sent to attend classes will not be able to collect tuition payments.
9. The State Department, whose cables were released by Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange and Wikileaks, has weathered a few embarrassing cables. But now it will face increasingly difficulties in doing its job of representing the US abroad. Embassies will stay open for a while since some funding is multi-year. But some sort of disruption is likely if the shutdown continues very long.
10. Some security has to do with biological threats; WJLA notes: “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is be severely limited in spotting or investigating disease outbreaks such as the flu or that mysterious MERS virus from the Middle East.”
Glenn takes on Pauline Neville Jones, as a part of the larger segment done by NEWSNIGHT (refer to Elaine’s video, posted earlier):
http://youtu.be/FK2MgGgyJ-A
Neville Jones squirms, seems very uncomfortable, then seems to recover a bit when she gets the last word.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/germany-asks-us-to-explain-why-german-author-who-signed-petition-against-nsa-was-denied-entry/2013/10/02/0a8a2420-2b80-11e3-b141-298f46539716_story.html
I may have truncated the link, rafflaw. Thanks for letting me know. Let’s see if this one works. (It’s very basic — an AP posting…)
NEWSNIGHT: Glenn Greenwald full interview on Snowden, NSA, GCHQ and spying
ap,
your Washington Post link didn’t work for me. Is the NSA at work removing critical articles??
In the Washington Post a couple of days ago, with three comments, as of this posting:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/germany-asks-us-to-explain-why-german-author-who-signed-petition-against-nsa-was-denied-entry/2013/10/02/0a8a2420-2b80-11e3-b141-
It appears to have been placed in the section titled “Entertainment.” Entertainment for some, I suppose. Guys like Hayden and Mike Rogers.
What Mike A said…
This is outrageous…. Totally…
Randy,
You know what is funny? One of my regular gigs is doing pre-hire screenings of law enforcement officers and armed security guards for mental stability. That’s not all. The FAA has been asking me for consults for years when a pilot’s mental condition is in question. I am pretty hard nosed about that responsibility, especially given some of the horror stories we read lately.
Karl, Now see, you took it too far to make a point. There have been some great points made here, let’s not spin out of control. Peace, to you also!
Lottakatz said:
“Outrageous. We have become so like the old Soviet Union.”
Except they had free health care for all, free education through college, and zero unemployment.
Otteray,
We are fast becoming the kind of country that our “fearless” leaders always inveigh against.
Elaine,
That news item is troubling. When an academic with a teaching appointment at a premier university has trouble traveling, we have a problem. The NSA and TSA knee jerk reactions to criticism makes me wonder if some of us are on that list and just don’t know it. The stories I wrote about Prism and bogus prosecutions of polygraphers for revealing the emperor has no clothes come to mind. I have no travel plans, and would just as soon have a lobotomy as get on one of the lousy service sardine cans with wings, but am curious.
OS I already know that I am on the list. When I buy a gun at a store, it takes longer than other people. When I was training in the airline, I had numerous times that I had suspicions that I was being treated quite differently. When I was a driver for Kerry’s campaign in Houston, the staffer mentioned that he had a request for more info than any other person who was part of the motorcade. There are innumerable ways that they make life much different for me because of my politics and views. I had my phone tapped illegally, and they enjoyed letting me know that. All of that is simply annoying more than anything else.
A political friend of mine was denied tenure at a college when she was being considered for tenure. She had done virtually all that was required and more, was recommended by the department, yet was denied. She sued and won over $2 million dollars for that. If they wish to violate the law, or do something that really harms me, I will not object since I will be more than happy to submit my claim to a jury.
I most certainly hope that the university will likewise file suit against the government for this denial of their and our rights in this case. I don’t know if Prof Turley has any time to take this one on, but I think he might like to get his teeth into this one too.
Every Tuesday at the White House, President Obama secretly condemns to death without charge or trial persons — foreign nationals and American citizens — whom he does not know or wish to know. That Michael Hastings can cavalierly joke about having an American citizen summarily killed by this travesty of “government” in a so-called “democracy” whose Constitution he once took an oath to “defend” speaks volumes about the kind of cowardly cretin who finds the Obama administration so congenial for bureaucratic perjorers and murderers too chicken-shit to openly use the words “lie” and “kill” when they mean to do precisely these things.
Cowards, the lot of them. They can’t stand even the thought of the truth, much less the sound or sight of it when spoken or written by the unintimidated. Best to keep the ignorance in and the edification out of the United States, as our “leaders” see it. That way they won’t have to compete in the free market of ideas where they have none to contribute.
Max-1 My sentiments exactly. Our Stenographer Media will criticizes the US Government only when there is an upside to doing so. There is no favor to curry here.
United States Blocks German Author, Critical of NSA Surveillance, from Entering the Country
By: Kevin Gosztola Tuesday October 1, 2013
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/10/01/united-states-blocks-german-author-critical-of-nsa-from-entering-the-country/
Excerpt:
German-Bulgarian author Ilija Trojanow, who has been highly critical of the National Security Agency’s massive surveillance apparatus, was blocked from taking an American Airlines flight from Salvador, Brazil, to a conference with German academics in Denver.
Trojanow approached a ticket counter and informed an American Airlines employee that he wanted to change his ticket to attend the conference in dinner on October 4. According to him, she entered his name and then stood up and disappeared. She returned with a higher-ranking person who rapidly spoke Portuguese and then English and informed him that a border security alert obliged them to notify US authorities immediately that he was at the airport.
“Your case is special,” the woman working the counter told Trojanow. Security spent more than twenty minutes looking over his passport and other personal information. She then asked for his Electronic System for Travel Authorization status, which is a system for determining if individuals are eligible to visit the US. Trojanow showed her some kind of document that he was approved and had paid an appropriate fee.
Forty-five minutes before his planned departure, he was told he was forbidden to travel to the US.
In his reaction to the incident, Trojanow wrote that “one of the most important and threatening aspects of the NSA scandal” was the secret nature of the system. Transparency is apparently the greatest enemy of anyone who allegedly defends freedom.” It is more than ironic for an author, who has raised his voice against the dangers of surveillance and the secret state within a state for years to be denied entry into the ‘land of the brave and the free,’ he added.
Trojanow had been in Rio de Janeiro to hear journalist Glenn Greenwald speak about the revelations he had been writing about for The Guardian.
He mentioned that within the last year he had problems getting a work visa for the purpose of serving as a visiting professor at Washington University in St. Louis. There was significant delay and no reason, comment or explanation was given. The university finally helped him secure the visa.
Trojanow was the co-author of an open letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel that was delivered in Berlin with 70,000 signatures and condemned the NSA.
More than forty years ago, when Trojanow was a child, the state security service in Bulgaria bugged his family’s home. The family did not learn until three decades later, when a file folder with call recordings was partially disclosed by the Archives of State Security, that they had been under intense surveillance.
This history makes him a dangerous voice to the United States government because he can speak with authority about what it means to live in a society under total surveillance.