ACLU files another suit against DHS/CBP/NSA over email spying.

[Savannahmann]

I have spent hours trying to calm down enough to type this one. The story is so outrageous that you have to wonder just how authoritarian the Government workers would like us as a nation to be.

Indianapolis – A woman who was detained without cause at Indianapolis International Airport has filed suit saying federal officials violated her constitutional rights.

The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana on behalf of Christine Von Der Haar, a senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Indiana University. In June of 2012, Von Der Haar accompanied a friend to the airport’s office of Customs and Border Protection to pick up computer equipment he had shipped separately when he flew to Indianapolis a few days earlier. The customs agent, after asking the couple if they were planning to marry, questioned them separately about email communications and the nature of their relationship, and confined Dr. Von Der Haar in a guarded room for more than 20 minutes.

So you get the scene. They went to the airport to pick up some things that had been shipped by air. Computer equipment and that sort of thing. The Customs agents isolate them, detaining them, and then brow beat them over emails that were sent trying to get them to admit that Christine Von Der Haar was helping her friend lie to stay in the country on a Visa.

Imagine the scene. "We know you're lying. We have been reading your emails so you might as well come clean."

Now, I admit this story happened last year and I didn't notice it at the time. Finite amount of time every day to do things like read news. That link takes you to a story about the incident in question at the time.

The two listened in shock as the agents painted Papatheodoropoulos as misrepresenting his intentions when he applied for a B1/B2 visitor’s visa, handing him an order from the Department of Homeland Security to appear before an immigration court in Chicago and defend himself against a charge he intended to marry Von Der Haar and overstay his admission into the United States. According to Von Der Haar and Papatheodoropoulos, the agents had monitored their email and cited its contents as proof Papatheodoropoulos should have applied for a fiance visa.

Befuddled, the Greek national signed a waiver for an expedited trial but never heard back about a court date.

“Somebody jumped the gun,” Von Der Haar said. “They knew they couldn’t present this evidence in a court of law, they violated my Fourth Amendment rights, and now they want to sweep it under the rug.”

Now, sometimes people wonder why I am a member of the ACLU. Any questions now? The Government considers our Fourth Amendment Rights to be a running joke, and it's well past time someone fight for the rights of the people. It's a shame that the elected members aren't fighting half as hard as a bunch of liberal lawyers are.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. Thank you, yet again, Edward Snowden. K&R