She was stopped without explanation more than 50 times on foreign travel, and dozens more times on domestic trips, before the extra searches suddenly stopped in 2012. Only now is Poitras beginning to unravel the mystery, which goes back to a bloody day in Baghdad in 2004.
Time after time, airport authorities searched her baggage, rummaged through her electronics and quizzed her for hours about her trips.
In Germany, she was told her name lights up "like a Christmas tree" when security officials scan flight rosters. In Austria, she was told her threat score was "400 out of 400."
At John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, her laptop, video camera, footage and cell phone were taken and held for 41 days. In Newark, New Jersey, a security officer threatened to handcuff her for taking notes with a ballpoint pen that he said could be used as a weapon.
"I asked for crayons because I thought that would be less threatening to him as a weapon," recounted Poitras, whose 2014 documentary film, "Citizenfour," about the National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, won an Academy Award. "He denied me any kind of writing device."
Poitras, 53, knows U.S. government officials are not exactly fans of her politically sensitive work.
"Citizenfour" depicted Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald's rendezvous with Snowden in a Hong Kong hotel where he handed over classified material documenting NSA's widespread surveillance program. Her new film, "Risk," is about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Still, she never knew why the security delays started in 2006. She unsuccessfully sought answers from the Homeland Security Department. She finally took the government to court, filing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in 2015 with help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties advocacy organization.
Late last year, as a result of the suit, the government released more than 1,000 pages of documents to Poitras, which she shared with The Associated Press. The documents show for the first time that the U.S. government investigated Poitras on suspicion she might have been involved in an ambush that led to a U.S. soldier's death in Iraq in 2004.
On Nov. 20, 2004, Poitras was in Baghdad filming "My Country, My Country." The film depicts Iraqi elections from the perspective of an Iraqi doctor, who criticized the U.S. occupation yet hoped democracy would take root in his homeland.
Comment: Can't have the West knowing anything from an Iraqi perspective now can we !?
Members of a U.S. Army National Guard unit from Oregon reported seeing a "white female" holding a camera on a rooftop just before they were attacked. David Roustum, 22, an Army National Guardsman from West Seneca, New York, was killed. Several troops were wounded. Some guardsmen who saw Poitras suspected she had a heads-up about the attack and didn't share that information with American forces because she wanted to film it. If true, Poitras would have broken U.S. criminal law.
Poitras called the allegation false and said she didn't film the attack.
"There is no ambush footage," Poitras told the AP. "That's the narrative that they created, but it doesn't correspond with any facts."
Comment: A nonsense excuse for punishing Poitras - but they had to come up with something!
After the attack, a lieutenant colonel, whose name was redacted from documents, reported the woman with a camera to his superiors. No action was taken.
But after returning home, the lieutenant colonel was contacted by author John Bruning of Dallas, Oregon, who was interviewing guardsmen for a book about their experiences in Iraq. According to the government's documents, the author learned about the woman filming on the rooftop before the ambush.
In an email exchange on Jan. 15, 2006, Poitras confirmed to Bruning that she was filming in the area the day of the attack, but didn't think she could help the author with his research.
"I was staying in the house of an Iraqi family I was following so my record of the fighting is from the perspective of the family," Poitras wrote to Bruning. "I did not venture out onto the street that day — didn't seem like it would have been a good idea. So I really don't have a document of what took place on the streets."
Bruning told the lieutenant colonel that Poitras was the woman on the rooftop. The lieutenant colonel then informed the U.S. military that she could have been involved.
In February 2006, a military police agent from Fort Lewis, Washington, interviewed the lieutenant colonel and the author.
Bruning declined to speak to the AP about Poitras.
Comment: Because he knows the suspicion he cast on Poitras is a load of horseshit.
But in his sworn statement to military investigators, he said he believed Poitras had prior knowledge of the attack. He said Poitras was staying in a pro-Saddam Hussein neighborhood "and she was not in fear of her life or being kidnapped at a time when Western journalists were being abducted and executed."
Nevertheless, the Army Criminal Investigation Command at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, wrote a two-page letter shortly after to the FBI, saying the Army lacked sufficient evidence to charge Poitras.
It said: "A review by our legal staff of the information developed thus far revealed credible information does not presently exist to believe Ms. Poitras committed a criminal offense; however, this could quickly change if Ms. Poitras were to be interviewed and admitted she had knowledge of the ambush and refused to notify U.S. forces in order to further her documentary and media interest."
Poitras said she was never interviewed.
Comment: So she was never even interviewed. Punish first, ask questions later.
In May 2006, Army officials sent a summary of their investigation of Poitras to FBI headquarters in Washington.
The airport detentions and delays began shortly thereafter.
David Lapan, a Homeland Security Department spokesman, said other agencies control who is flagged as a high-risk traveler. When people are flagged, he said, authorities must "put them through enhanced screening procedures. This is the reason for Ms. Poitras' repeated referrals to secondary screening." The FBI, which had investigated Poitras, declined to comment.
The detentions stopped abruptly six years later after a 2012 news article highlighted her travel problems.
Lapan said Poitras was deemed no longer of "significant interest." That allowed Customs in June 2012 to "discontinue its enhanced screening procedures," he said.
Poitras worries her ordeal will resume.
She is seeking more information from the government. A federal judge in Washington ruled late last month the FBI hadn't provided adequate justification for withholding some information.
Comment: They can't very well admit and show the memos (if they have them) stating that the US Gov wanted to make Poitras miserable as retribution for her 'politically sensitive' filmmaking. Bunch of thugs.
"I don't know if the investigation is ongoing," she said. "I don't know if it was ended or why it was ended."
Reader Comments
I regret to advise that I to am obviously on some similar - if not identical - list as this poor lady. I have theories as to why, the earliest - and which coincides with the otherwise inexplicable level of my 'official' harassment level - began well before 9/11.
I have friends who got arrested for being users of illegal substances and one I knew since 6th grade (when he saved me from being beaten up badly)was a seller who bought or sold or pot.
Here is his tale, (quickly) but I believe it without question as he was in Federal Prison as stated below.
He believed that when he got busted, it appeared to be a total frame up to him (e.g., his buyer or seller deserved more time (per the law) but only got 2 years and likely was, from the git go working off some never discovered deal). So they both got bustedfor possession of, let's guess and keep it simple: They got (on a 'phoned in' anonymous tip?) busted together, with - I don't know the details, so much as the end - with, let's say that the bust was, $15,000 for 150 pounds of pot, both of which were present there. However, when the amount turned into the station and in all reports agreed, the deal was magically claimed to have been $10K for 100 lbs of pot.
His good and honest lawyer (I believe who was also a former Federal Prosecutor) told him that the percentage 'missing before it got to the evidence room' was almost standardized at 1/3 or 1/4 to keep it simple for all the dumb cops (and likely some prosecutors) so they could all be consistent on the numbers. He was told by that lawyer that the best deal he could get was, say, 5 years, with parole in 4? 3?
However, If he wished to prosecute / bring up the corrupt cops involved. and / or try to use it as a defense, the lawyer told him,
(A) He, the lawyer, would and could and did fight it for him, if he wished, but that he should not. He stated that if he filed such against the locals/DEA, et al, that:
1. That his claim would be supposedly 'investigated' and ruled false by both prosecutors and Law Enforcement Internal Affairs;
2. His claim re the corruption would be ruled against him at a hearing; and,
3. That he would get 12 years, no good time, no gain time, no parole; and that,
4. On appeal, same would be routinely denied.
Please realize this guy was no thief and was the highest example of honest Southern integrity. Foolishly still believing in the honesty of the system, and or knowing he had truth on his side, he chose what the lawyer had wisely told him not to do. Despite that lawyer's hard work, it all went down as predicted. Thus, when he got out on parole after 12 years, he was in a halfway house near where I worked, he needed a job, and I gave him one and he became one of my best employees.)
THAT may have been a reason or factor that I have found myself on 'The List.'
I once played pool - I thought the meeting coincidental, but in retrospect, I doubt it - with a drunken and proud to announce his status as a secret service agent. I beat him, and forgot. Four years of insidious harassment later, he came up to me at a ritzy party in Palm Beach and asked, 'Remember me?" I said, "No." He said we played pool once. I said, "Oh, I forgot. How have you been?" He replied something like: is it hot enough on you yet, and added a threat and left. THAT almost certainly a factor in me finding myself on the list.
Another likely factor/result of me being on the list (aside from Airport Harrassment as above - same is routine, and once they held the plane for 45 minutes late so they could go through my carry on in a fashion that took so long the passengers nearly were rioting. I came on the plane late, and they all glared at me angrily. There was one seat left in first class.. It was instantly taken up by one of the watchers back by the checkpoint. I stood up as they were closing the door and stated, "folks, it looked like you were angyr at me when this plane got held so late for me. Please sk that genetlman who just followed me on the plane to that nice seat u p there; he knows - I don't.)
My first online ad for a date I ever listed:
#1 - An undercover cop, plus two idiots playing pool near us and speaking of Pigs and F*cking Pigs, etc. Innocent foolish me (not realizing they would sink that low for no reason) ignored their strange, affected behavior.
#2 - A hooker who was busted and had charges pending against her pretended to be what she ws not and where she was not from.
The list goes on at least since around 1999. I know what I write here doesn't help me, but like my friend above, I too favor truth too much to be silent
I have omitted so much - the above represents less that 1/4th of 1% of what I can prove about what I've been through. Research 'Targeted Individuals."
I write this to ask if any other SOTT Folks have been put through this wringer, i.e., still are being put through this wringer - as once on the list,there's no way off. Also, it's not like we're anonymous to Law Enforcement these days, where the lowliest cop (or near lowliest)have ways to get to NSA level stuff. (See, e.g., Stingray's.) ) I'm certain the answer is yes, but it's hard to write it, for one will be declared a paranoid fool, no matter what happens. At least other places: maybe not here.
I'm just curious & still not yellow. Replies of similar experiences would be appreciated.
R.C.
Laura Poitras was buddies with Glen Greenwald, still is I imagine. I think they were both anti establishment, anti police/survellance state and anti imperialism, in the beginning. But after Snowden, and Greenwalds being bought by Pierre Omydyar, I'm pretty confident they've sold out to the globalists. Greenwald tried to maintain his rebel attitude for a while, assuring everyone that he'd keep publishing snowdens material, But he hasn't.
There are those who've said Snowden himself was an elaborate psyop. And the fact fact he is just sitting in Russia occasionally commenting on things while Greenwald keeps all his material locked away does seem to hint that something isn't as it seems. I think Laura Poitras is partnered with Greenwald/Omydyar in their media venture.
Trust is not everlasting, even if you really hope it is. Ever since i started watching this quad of persons work they put out i have had more questions about them than answers, That is a sure sign that trust is a long way off. None of the things Snowden has said ever caused me to trust him, same with Poitras and Greenwald, It always seemed like they were feeding me a line of dung to eat. I have to admit that i would not have seen the truth about the whole stinking pile if it was not for the sneaky minefield dancing Applebaum did all through the 30C3 event.
Trust your instincts about suspicions you have, Look for the main source of them. You might just find that the liars are far more adept than you imagine.