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February
25, 2002
John Chuckman
Ashcroft
Speaks in Tongues
February
24, 2002
David
Vest
Skate
Date
February
23, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Axis
of Evil and
Media Monopolies
Bahour/Dahan
Cracks
in the Occupation
February
22, 2002
Alexander
Cockburn
Axel
of Evil: Sex Crimes
and the Constitution
February
21, 2002
Gary Leupp
The
Philippines: Second Front in US's Global War
David
Vest
Reagan
Clone Project?
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Chicago
School and Corporate America: Rotten to the Core
February
20, 2002
Bernard
Weiner
The
Shallow Throat Document
Kay Lee
The
Prison Guard Who Never Owned Up to His Crimes
February
19, 2002
David
Orr
Waylon
Jennings, the Duke,
and the Navajo
John Chuckman
The
Devil and Georgie Bush
Prudence
Crowther
Giblet
Gravitas
Ramzi
Kysia
Caught
in the Iraq DMZ
February
18, 2002
Ron Jacobs
The
US and Iran
George
Lewandowski
Empire
in Declline
Lenni
Brenner
Life
and Death of a Folk Hero
February
17, 2002
Robert
Fisk
Lost
in a Pit of Desperation
February
16, 2002
Phillip
Cryan
Colombia
in War Time
February
15, 2002
C.G. Estabrook
From
New York to Porto Alegre
Robert
O'Brien
The
View from Porto Alegre
Mokhiber/Weissman
Resisting
the Assassins
February
14, 2002
Levy and
Easton
Ante
Pavelic
Real Butcher of the Balkans
Joan Claybrook
Dear
Jeb Bush,
About You and Enron
John Chuckman
Time
for a Woman Prez
Alexander
Cockburn
Banning
the Koran
February
13, 2002
Sen. Russ
Feingold
War
Powers and
the War on Terror
Tom Turnipseed
Bush's
Folly
George
Monbiot
American
Imperialism
February
12, 2002
Uri Avnery
The
Great Game:
Oil, Sharon and Iran
Tommy
Ates
Black
Land Loss
February
11, 2002
Walt Brasch
The
Synergizing of America
John Troyer
Enron's
Deep Throat?
February
9, 2002
John Blair
Criticize
Cheney, Go to Jail
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
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February 25,
2002
Interrogation at the US Border
By John Clarke
My name is John Clarke and I am an Organizer with
the Ontario Coalition Against
Poverty (OCAP). In the early afternoon of February 19th,
2002, I crossed the international bridge between Sarnia, Ontario
and Port Huron, Michigan. I was on my way to a speaking engagement
that had been set up by students at Michigan State University.
When I pulled up my car at the customs
booth, the officer asked where I was bound and I told him. He
wanted to know on what basis I was asked to speak and whether
I would be paid. I replied that I was with OCAP and that I had
been told by the organizers of the meeting that an honourarium
would be provided as was normal. The officer was concerned that
this meant I was coming into the US to work. Of course, people
on both sides of the border accept speaking invitations all the
time on this basis and the issue of a work permit is never raised.
At this point, the matter was nothing that could not have been
rapidly cleared up if I had been on my way to address a business
seminar or deliver a lecture on self awareness.
As instructed by the officer, I parked
my car and made my way into the offices shared by customs and
US Immigration. As soon as my ID was run through the computer,
there was a marked change in the situation. An officer asked
me more questions about my intentions in the US, what anti globalization
protests I had attended and whether I opposed the 'ideology of
the United States'. My car was searched and I was taken into
a room and thoroughly (though not roughly) frisked. I was then
told that I would be denied entry to the US and that the FBI
and State Department wanted to speak to me. Agents were on their
way from Detroit I was told.
After about an hour and a half, a man
entered the 'controlled reception' area that I was being kept
in and passed by me into the inner offices. He was carrying a
big folder and a pile of files. It struck me that he carried
them the way a highly skilled worker might carry his or her precision
tools. He spent some time in discussion with the local officers
and then I was brought into an interrogation room to deal with
him. He introduced himself and gave me his card. His name was
Edward J. Seitz of the State Department of the United States
Diplomatic Security Service and his rank was Special Agent. I
found him to be an impressive and fascinating character.
Seitz, with the backing of another local
officer, interrogated me for some considerable time. It was not
a situation like an arrest by Canadian police where silence is
the best option. Had I refused to talk to him, I did not doubt
that he would order me detained and that it would be some time
before the Canadian consular authorities came into the picture.
If I was to avoid at least several days in detention, I determined
that I had no option but to answer his questions. It was immediately
obvious to me that I was dealing with a specialist in interrogation
methods. He told the admiring locals at one point that he had
been stationed in Yemen and I avoided speculating on how he had
employed his talents there.
Seitz's basic strategy, apart from general
intelligence gathering, was to try and set me up to tell him
something false that would place me in the situation of violating
US law. He began with some very basic questions on my personal
background, extremely affable in his manner and striking a pose
of mild confusion that was designed to make me underestimate
him. He then asked about OCAP. He told me it sounded like we
were good people but he had heard something about an organization
that a year or so before had been involved in a confrontation
with the police at the Ontario Legislature. That wasn't us was
it? The trap was clear and I told him that we were indeed that
organization. His affable manner then vanished and his difficulties
in focusing his thoughts ended. He gradually moved his chair
over so we were right up against each other and fired questions
at me. He wanted to know about the June 15, 2000 March on the
Ontario Legislature where the Toronto police attacked a march
against homelessness that we had organized. He wanted to know
about charges that the police have laid against me. He wanted
to know how OCAP is structured and who are the members of its
elected executive committee (which I refused to tell him).
Seitz then took up the question of OCAP's
friends and allies in the US. Are we involved in anti globalization
work. Isn't this a cover for anarchism? Was I personally an anarchist
or a socialist? (In the interests of anti capitalist unity, I
won't say which one of these I acknowledged I was). Seitz had
a huge file on OCAP with him that included leaflets from public
speaking events I had been at in the US. He knew the name of
the man I stayed with the last time I was in Chicago. He wanted
to know who I spoke to in the Chicago Direct Action Network.
He claimed that I was an advocate of violence and that my association
with DAN showed this but (in a rare stumble) could find nothing
in their literature that proved that they call for violence.
This phase of the questioning went on
for a long time. He covered a great deal of ground and had at
his disposal voluminous information on us. He, obviously, had
been in contact with the Canadian police but was most interested
on our US allies. The exception was an enormous interest in Canadian
anti capitalist activist, Jaggi Singh. He knew that he and I
had spoken at the same meetings and was most anxious to find
out if he was also in the US. He showed me a picture of Jaggi
and wanted to know where he was at that moment.
Suddenly, the mask of affability went
back on. I was a 'gentleman' and he didn't want to lock me up.
I was ok but he couldn't understand how I worked with a 'violent
man like Mr. Singh'. Then he told me he would have to ban me
from the US but I could go to the US Consulate in Toronto and
apply for a waiver. I could just take a seat in the waiting room
while they prepared some paper work but I would soon be on my
way. I had not been sitting out there long, however, before the
Special Agent came out to try a new tack that I had heard of
in the past. Essentially, his plan was to make me think he was
utterly mad and, thereby, rattle me to the point where I lost
my judgement. I assume the method works better if it is used
after serious sleep deprivation. He came over and sat next to
me right there in the waiting area with other people around.
He had a few OCAP cheques that he asserted showed I was bringing
with me the means to live illegally in the US. I was going to
jail, he asserted. I explained that the cheques were in my bag
because I always kept a few with me to cover the cost of office
supplies and suchlike and that I had seen no reason to take them
out just because I was going to spend a few hours in Michigan.
Then came the most astounding part of
the whole interrogation. Out of the blue, Seitz demanded to know
where Osama Bin Laden was hiding. I knew were he was, he insisted.
If I grew a beard I would look like Bin Laden. I was holding
back on telling him why I was going to the university and who
I was going to meet there. If I didn't want to go to jail, it
was time to tell him the real story. I replied that I had been
quite open with him about my intentions and that sending me to
jail was now up to him. He laughed, told me there were no problems.
I could go home after all. Did I drink tea of coffee? Would I
have a coffee with him if he came up to Toronto. I told him I
would, which was the only lie I told that day, and he gathered
up his files and left.
Shortly after this, the local officials
gave me the free ticket for the bridge which is the only perk
that comes along with being denied entry to the US and, a little
over five hours after coming over, I headed back to the Canadian
side.
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