Conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe has reported that he was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents Monday when attempting to reenter the country. The reason appears his widely published video showing him crossing the border repeatedly from United States and Mexico while dressed as Osama bin Laden. The video succeeded in capturing what critics have complained about for years: that the border remain wide open and that the Administration is misleading the public on the ease with which potential terrorists could cross into the United States illegally. Whatever the merits of that video, it does seem to me to be either a form of journalism or political speech. It was also very embarrassing for Customs and the Administration. That makes the action troubling if O’Keefe was told, as he states, that he will be detained from now on whenever he tries to reenter the United States.
O’Keefe says that he was told that his video was the reason for his being detained and to have an “X” marked on his passport.
The status of O’Keefe has always been controversial. He is hated by many on the left and often accused misrepresenting scenes through editing as with the NPR controversy . There was also his arrest with regard to the investigation of Sen. Mary Landrieu. (Notably, O’Keefe and three others ultimately pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge of entering federal property under false pretenses. It is not clear if this criminal conviction may also have played a role in the Customs actions) O’Keefe seems to have elements of a political operative, a gonzo journalist, and a filmmaker. What exactly is he and should it matter? His site for Project Veritas identifies itself as a journalistic organization.
The fact is that the border video was done as an exercise of free speech and possibly the free press. It would be viewed as highly troubling if the Administration detained a NBC or New York Times reporter who crossed the border as part of coverage on the issue. O’Keefe published the crossing and was clearly not committing the act for any unlawful purpose (though the crossing itself was unlawful as unauthorized entry). If the Administration can impose this type of standing order against O’Keefe, wouldn’t it also be able to impose the same order against any journalist who accompanies illegals or covers a crossing in this fashion? Obviously, no one is suggesting that ICE should not detained those entering the country unlawfully, including journalists. Indeed, O’Keefe’s point appears to be that he should have been apprehended and he claimed that he was trying to show the danger of an open border. However, the fact that they are journalists and not entering for the purpose of evading immigration laws is a mitigating factor and in my view they should not be charged as a matter of prosecutorial discretion. The fact is that journalists routinely meet with criminals, terrorists, and other wrongdoers as part of their work. This often brings them into prohibited areas or potential crime scenes. Prosecutors are expected to recognize and distinguish between journalists and felons in such circumstances. Moreover, since O’Keefe was clearly entering at a legal border entry point, it is not clear why (if as he alleged) he would be detained in the future every time he returns to his own country.
Regardless of whether the article used the words “apparently trying to bug” or “trying to tamper,” the few words challenged by the Plaintiff, taken in context, do not alter the fundamental gist of the paragraph… Therefore, the words “trying to tamper with,” understood in the colloquial sense, convey the substantial truth of the Landrieu incident and do not alter the ultimate conclusion of the paragraph—that Plaintiff was guilty of a misdemeanor.
The Court noted that “According to the Factual Basis Document. Plaintiff and his associates eventually admitted to federal investigators that they had entered Senator Landrieu’s office under false pretenses, in order to orchestrate and record conversations with the Senator’s staff.” That made the defamation claim highly questionable from the outset.
The case is O’Keefe v. WDC Media, LLC, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 41127.
None of that however alters the concern over the detention at the border. I am perfectly willing to accept the criticism of O’Keefe in cases like the ACORN controversy ( in which he was sued and his organization settled out of court for $100,000). Yet, I think that there is a legitimate issue in his treatment by Customs and a basis to determine how other journalists or filmmakers have been treated in the past. When dealing with a critic like O’Keefe, the government should be able to show an objective and consistently applied rule. Perhaps they have one, but there has been little coverage of the incident.
What do you think?
Amazingly two dunces try to tell the world what a journalist is supposed to be.
@Isaac
Farley Mowat??? That sounds like somebody from the book, Dune. If so, then he is an imaginary person.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
They wouldn’t let Farley Mowat in, even when he was invited for his book tour. He was an environmentalist and in 1985, well that was communism. Same old shtick.
Please remind me of the court cases where Michael Moore got sued and lost for making sh*t up or completely altering what people said by selective editing. Sorry my memory is bad but I just can’t recall who sued him and won…
Anyone? Anyone…?
phillyT – could I remind you of the case in the UK where An Inconvenient Truth cannot be shown without telling the students a series of facts that were left out of the film.
O’Keefe should say he’s Trans-Mexican.
I will go out on a strong limb and guess philly likes what Michael Moore does.
Both Michael Moore and O’Keefe serve a useful purpose exposing lies, liars, fraud, etc. They come from polar opposites politically. They use the same tactics, and both are a-holes. If Moore received treatment like this the MSM, the same politics as Moore, would be up in arms. When you are of no political persuasion, you see the hypocrisy from both ends.
O’Keefe is an embarrassment to his cause and is not anywhere near being a journalist. That said, ICE is terrible, TSA is terrible and they are focusing on the wrong people with a bad strategy. This is all about insider politics and where all those burrowed-in Bush people have been making troughs for the billions of dollars that poured into security since 9/11. Dig a little and you’ll find that there were better software programs rejected by the NSA and FBI because of favoritism; better scanning systems rejected by TSA because of lobbying and payoffs and on and on.
But let’s get to the real trouble. We now know that there is a great threat posed by right wing religious and political extremists here in the US than by jihadists. Some of us have known it for a while, but now it’s public knowledge. The police are more at risk from sovereign citizens than foreign terrorists, and regular citizens are more at risk from home-grown right wing extremists.
So let’s forget this amateur creep O’Keefe and get back to the White Citizen’s Councils.
phillyT – for some odd reason Michael Moore is considered a journalist, so I guess O’Keefe is also a journalist, using the same standard.
To call O’Keefe a ‘journalist’ is an insult to the profession. He’s just low-level goon for Nazi-like Americans. His passport should be stamped accordingly.
@po,
That was pretty good, and I encourage you to keep at it. But I have to be honest. . .you sir, are no Ellie Mangle-Lero! Who just hit one out of the park this morning! But keep practicing!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeek, you’ve done it, I caught the girl reporter bug:
——————————
There once was a private eye
Whose eye, private was no more
He looked into things, into folks, oh my
And in his eye, there was a sore
So this private eye, this wanna be dick
Yet clumsy, thought he was slick
And what he said of others, what a hick
Was better said of our friend Nick.
LOL!
I think that if a citizen of the United States crosses the border into the United States elsewhere than at a checkpoint, it should not be a crime. Carrying contraband, yes, that should be a crime, as should smuggling aliens be. And I am more opposed to importing exotic species of plants and animals than most people are.
It’s surprising that the administration was embarrassed by O’Keefe’s video of wading across the Rio Grande. I honestly thought Obama, Reid, Pelosi, W-Schultz, and the rest of the Left considered open borders a desirable feature of current immigration policy, that is, to fundamentally transform our country, and how better to do that than to import tens of millions from cultures, sensibilities, and religions that oppose our founding principles? And when better, than at a time when 93 million Americans have given up trying to find a job?
Finally, the Left has poisoned the IRS, why not ICE? So who knows why O’Keefe’s passport has the X? I’d say it’s the conviction normally. But we live in interesting times, per the Chinese curse, so it’s anyone’s guess except whoever made the decision.
@NickS
True. Maybe he needed to go get a little “Echo Therapy”???
🙂
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
I can really relate to this because I got stopped once at Borders, in Dallas. I stopped in there after shopping at Books A Million, and the Borders people wanted to see my receipt for those books as I was walking out. Luckily, my documents were in order! Anyway, Poor Old O’Keefe deserves an Irish Poem! Because I wonder if he was singled out from on high Lois Lerner-like for his past activities???
Past Sports???
An Irish Poem by Squeeky Fromm
There once was a guy named O’Keefe
Who the Border Guards gave lot of grief!
But one must inquire,
Was it orders from higher???
That’s a common Obama motif!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Wade Williams has been gone for a week or so, and it has been pretty civil and substantive here. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.
maybe James should have dressed like an illegal lawbreaker. no one would have bothered to approached him at all.
This country needs a pictured federal I.D. So that when a person applies for a job in this country he or she either has a pictured green card or federal I.D. or the employer gets hit with a heavy fine . And they need this I.D. to receive any kind of federal or state aid. Without a job they just might go home.
As a long time liberal I support the recommendations of the Jordan Commission which was chaired by the late great liberal Barbara Jordan which advocated a national picture ID as one of many measures to combat illegal immigration. I also support the mandatory use of E-Verify for all employers.
@JT
Uh, er, uh. . .You said, “Obviously, no one is suggesting that ICE should not detained those entering the country unlawfully,”
Huh??? Haven’t you been watching and reading the news??? Obama and the Democrats are suggesting exactly that! And they are doing exactly that! They need to stuff some ballot boxes, sooo out the window with laws and stuff like that.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
The lesson from the past regarding O’Keefe seems to be “make sure this isn’t merely an attempt to distort reality and create a false meme designed to bring him attention.” I’d advise waiting until both sides have been heard, and more facts gathered, before taking this professional deceiver at his word.