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Amy Goodman's Border Woes Have Americans in a Tizzy
Canada Border Services Agency won't comment on why the host of the widely syndicated radio and TV program Democracy Now had her speech checked at border
VANCOUVER - The alleged hounding and 90-minute detention of U.S. broadcaster Amy Goodman by Canadian border guards demanding to know her views on the Olympics is making waves throughout the U.S., and none of it is good for Canada's reputation.
Ms. Goodman, host of the widely syndicated radio and TV program Democracy Now , said Canadian border guards pulled her over, asked for notes of her planned speech, what she thought of the 2010 Olympics and whether she would talk about them, and went through her group's computers. (Image: Democracy Now!) "I could see any country in the world doing this, except Canada," Lucy Dalglish, head of the Washington-based Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press, said yesterday. "I was stunned by what happened."
Commentator Keith Olbermann has given the incident an award for "best paranoid freedom of speech suppression" on his daily, hour-long Countdown show for MSNBC.
And the vast, online social media network south of the border, much of it spawned by the Barack Obama presidential campaign, is feasting on the story.
"Amy Goodman is a big celebrity in that world," said David Beers of B.C.'s web publication The Tyee. "Hundreds of thousands of people go to these sites every day. This can't be good for our [Olympic] brand."
The Canada Border Services Agency continues to stonewall questions about what happened to Ms. Goodman a week ago as she tried to cross the border south of Vancouver for a speech at the city's public library.
"We can't comment about specific cases," said spokeswoman Faith St. John.
"I can't give you the information you're looking for."
Ms. Goodman, host of the widely syndicated radio and TV program Democracy Now , said Canadian border guards pulled her over, asked for notes of her planned speech, what she thought of the 2010 Olympics and whether she would talk about them, and went through her group's computers.
The guards took her picture and stapled a document into her passport, allowing her in Canada for only 48 hours.
Ms. Goodman, 52, said she is still shocked. "To ask basic questions, that's fine. But to ask for my notes, to demand that I tell them what I was going to say, that's very disturbing."
She said she barely knew the Winter Games were being held in Vancouver. "But what if I had said I was going to talk about the Olympics? Would they have let me in? I think this was designed to have a chilling effect on people who might be going to Vancouver for the Olympics. It's bad for democracy and a serious violation of freedom of the press."
She said she is considering laying a formal complaint.
Ms. Dalglish said she's never heard of Canadian border guards harassing a journalist before. "You hear about American border officials doing things like this all the time, but not Canada.It's absolutely ridiculous."
However, the free press advocate said it remains unclear whether Ms. Goodman's treatment was part of a pattern by Canadian security personnel to suppress anti-Olympic activity, or the work of "a couple of buffoons."
RCMP Staff-Sergeant Michael Côté of the Integrated Security Unit said there is no policy to keep Olympics critics or possible protesters out of Canada.
NDP MP Don Davies said he is pressing federal Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan to apologize to Ms. Goodman. "There's absolutely no indication she was a threat to anything."
Olympic critic Chris Shaw, meanwhile, couldn't be happier.
"This is the best pre-Christmas gift I've had in years. The CBSA has taken a non-issue and made it a major one. Millions of Americans now know about this," he said. "There's nothing quite like pissing off a major talk show host. Only if they tasered her could it have been any better."
- Posted in
106 Comments so far
Show AllCould that happen to a Canadian black-listed activist crossing the border to give a talk here in crazy-land (USA)? If you don;t think so, just wait for a couple of years.There's an old saying: Ya ain't seen nothin' yet!
As Dubya succeeded in becoming more and more of a unitary executive and fascist during his term, power dogs in every nation (including Obama) became very envious that an elected official could have so much power. Canadian Prime Minister Harper wants to show the world that he can be as fascist as Dubya and Obama.
It's refreshing to see that Canada has egg on it's face and is stumbling to justify itself. If this had happened in the US it would not have made the news at all (remember a few years ago when the US barred Cat Stevens? Whatever press that got was because Yusaf (Stevens) was a famous pop star). Canada does stupid things and it is shamed and ashamed. The US does evil, deadly, criminal things all the time and nothing happens. Typical.
This was interesting (and disappointing) when the story first came out. But repeating it over and over is straying into drama queen territory. She could file a complaint. She could join or organize a web-based group designed to track and comment on similar incidents at the Canadian border. But we could probably stop talking about "the time Amy got stopped at the border" now.
For example, we might talk about the B.C. mountie who's walking away from a drunk driving causing death charge (one of the four RCMP who tasered the Polish visitor to death - maybe Amy got lucky!?!).
Or, for a larger story, about how Canada is now the biggest barrier to ending global warming.
Just saying.
Stop talking about it? Nobody has started talking about it.
Only one in a thousand, at most, in my area of the US have even heard of Amy Goodman, much less this incident. And we even have her on the radio every morning, albeit on Carengie Mellon U.'s little 1000 watt station that can't even cover the whole county.
This article is very misleading. In the MSM, there was Olbermans little TV piece - on s single a cable channel. Period. The people who have heard of this incident, much less are talking about it in the US,mumber the few thousands, out of a population of 300 million.
PJD412
Very good point.
Amy a drama queen? New one.
These little incidents are often signs of a bigger shift in consciousness. They do not take place if those on top are clear about policy.
Joe
Apparently, the olympics started early.
Canada gets the GOLD medal for Fascist Border Services.
Any American who thinks that Canada is not subject to bureaucratic obstinacy has never visited there for any length of time. While I love and respect our neighbor to the north, I've never closed my eyes to it's failings. Anyone thinking of going north of the border had better realize that Canadians hold a deep seated grudge against us for many reasons, most of them consequential. This goes all the way back to when 'patriotic' Yankee firebrands were killing Tories and stealing their property. Then there is the famous Canadian inferiority complex to watch out for. Nope, Canada is not quite the paradise many liberal Americans think it is.
Given the level of 'terrorist' paranoia created in the US after 9/11, with the attendant loss of civil rights and freedoms, and intrusions into everyday free speech, this was bound to happen.
Canada is little more than the the northern province of the American Empire, and we are being governed by a boot licking conservative satrap who is just happens to be more open about his utter deference to all things Fascist American.
As a Canadian citizen, I offer my apologies to Amy Goodman. But at least she got to go home. We have to live with this crap 24/7, just like you have to live with your version.
And think on this: Someone on *your* side of the border alerted our border goons to the idea Amy was a 'troublemaker'.
Thanks....
also we need some ways where Canadian, American and Mexican progressives can get together and plot a non violent revolution.
It would be a good Coalition force for real common sense in civil affairs that works for truth, Justice and free communication.
Amy should write a book about her border-crossing trauma and then have it made into a Hollywood blockbuster. It's just that riveting a story.
As globalization "progresses" and as Faith St. John epitomizes, this is the some of the best treatment we peace practitioners can expect from its increasingly halfascist corporatocracy; the worst, ask the Afghans tortured by the Canuks. Orwell, China had its Olympics and Obomba his Ignobel Prize!
Perhaps now people will begin to stop viewing Canada as some enlightened paradise, when the plain brutal truth is that it's governed by its own Bushite Mini-Me, with an opposition party headed by a neocon thug.
"it's governed by its own Bushite Mini-Me"
Actually, it's currently governed by oil companies and Zionists, just like the USA under Bush, Obama, and most recent figure head "leaders."
The teleprompter is more important than the talking head.
George Markley December 4th, 2009 9:10 am
"Anyone thinking of going north of the border had better realize that Canadians hold a deep seated grudge against us for many reasons, most of them consequential. "
WOW Are you ever right..I wish I had listened to you. I am afraid to write anything because I am waiting for a work permit...submitted 6 months ago and a renewal after a 3 year work permit. Supposedly I should have had the reply within 70 days ( HAH) I have a large amount of money (for me) invested up in Canada. I have never felt so unfree in my life...but its possible I will not be allowed into Canada and I own property up there. Before I had a work permit I was turned back at the border twice. I have no criminal record but I had some house hold stuff ( pillows) in my car to use in the house I owned up there...and that was enough justification to turn me back. And I also had people questioning me for more than an hour and they actually worked in teams. You don't know what that is like until it happens to you.
If I am stopped from going to check on my property which is a rental to a business and an apartment ..I will start a web site for people who have run into these kind of border incidents. If you are an American and want to complain you can expect that Canadians will rally around one another...I have asked for my records that are on the computer at the border to find out what is written there but have had trouble gaining access to them..even though by law they are open to me.
IMO Goodman has brought out something that is happening that many Canadians don't know about..and are in denial about. But imo there is a lot of anti American sentiment in Canada... and this is not just opposition to Bush and his policies ...
Well good bye work permit..I have probably screwed that up now...Anyone want to buy some property in Canada? for about $200,000 Canadian?
Hang in there,
We should Start an American Canadian friendship Club.
and Legalize cannibus and the Male plant fibers can be used to make much of every thing we now use from steel, trees and plastic.
If we wanna produce new products, a whole new world is waiting for people smart and just enough to do it.
Somethin to think about ......... eh?
Well now, too bad they didn't bundle her up on a plane and do an extraordiary rendition to Syria to have her tortured for a year! Apparently the majority of Americans approve of torture. Give me a break, oh pot calling the kettle black! JUSTICE FOR MAHER ARAR!!!
I don't know if you realize this, but Amy has broadcast dosens of stories about Mahr Arrar. The tiny minority of USAns who have heard of Mahr Arrar at all only know of him through Amy's reporting.
And Amy herself has been a victim of US abuse, was beaten and came to within an inch of her life covering the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre, at the hands of US ally Indonesia. The US State Department never lifted a finger over the incident.
Then recently, she was abused and arrested in Minneapolis covering the RNC protests.
So, if Au Sang Suu Khi is some day allowed to visit Canada, will you also harass her st the border as a demonstration of your displeasure over Burma's human rights abuses?
Lets face it, Amy Is our Revolutionary Reporter and Canada is not the country on the Posters.
You can bet Canada's Border Control Force took direction from US Supreme Fascist Command.
Go for it, Amy. Log your complaint. We in Canada are still suffering a G.W. Bush hangover, and it's high time we returned to being Canadians. I would love to see this issue blow up in Harper's neocon face.
"Amy Goodman's Border Woes Have Americans in a Tizzy"
Yes, a few hundred Americans, at most, may qualify as being "in a tizzy".
I could only wish this headline were true!
This story gives me the willies. We cross (for recreational reasons) where Ms. Goodman was stopped, and have been inappropriately hassled on occasion by a guard or two, on either the U.S. side (returning) or heading in to Canada. Usually on the American side, though Canada also has its power freaks. IMO, they need a full investigation and report of this incident. I'm actually an Olympics fan, and would love to go, if I knew it wasn't going to be such a madhouse up there. But now, hearing this story, I don't know if we're even going to making one of our planned holiday outings to Vancouver, quite apart from the Olympics. And I guess Canada no longer needs our business?
The Olympics free speech concern seems very odd and atypical for Canada. I have to wonder if that wasn't just a pretext for someone who wanted to see Ms. Goodman and company's computers, possibly checking for evidence (on behalf of someone in the U.S.?) for subversive activities.
Also, there are probably some in the U.S. who would like like to intimidate Americans (especially those on the Left?) from going to the Olympics and maybe getting to know better their very close neighbors to the North. (Wouldn't want them to get infected with all of that socialism, don't you know?)
Instead, with any luck, the take-away from all of this will include a better understanding of Canada, including how very close it is to the U.S. -- with almost all of its population just across the border -- and how it is much more culturally tied into the U.S. than we can probably imagine.
I hope more Americans will now sample the various Canadian media outlets -- newspapers, websites, radio, etc. -- to see a different perspective on their (our) own country -- as well as some outstanding journalism. We certainly do not learn very much about Canada from the U.S. media, do we?
How many Americans have even heard of Tommy Douglas, voted "Greatest Canadian" for introducing Medicare to Canada? Instead, we heard a number of horror stories reported in our media about how unpopular and terrible socialist medicine is in Canada. Seems to me like we could use more free speech on our side of the border.
You can see the Canadian point of view here with these posts...They think they are better than Americans. They are in denial about their own nationalism but they are in competition with the US. They want American money in the form of tourist dollars and they want money from Obama's stimulus package. They feel justified to be angry when some US communities say they want the stimulus package for American companies.
I don't know what the answer to this is...because they are affected by American policies while limited in power to affect those policies..but they are resentful of America...and it was very naive of me to not know that..
so I am the horrible warning of what can go wrong.
re the stimulus issue the problem we have is that while Canadian companies cannot bid on American stimulus projects, America companies can bid on Canadian ones.However our resentment is directed at our own government for what is the point of our tax dollars being used to create jobs offshore.
On the broader issue of our resentment towards America (not her people) you are right.
This resentment comes from being constantly bullied by your government.Let us wish to soften our pot laws to put them in line with several American states and we are threatened with reprisal. the result a crack down on pot smokers.
Don't sign up for Iraq again threatened with punishment. Result we send our sons and daughters to die in the AfPac war to appease our masters in Washington.
Softwood lumber dispute. Canada won at every single Indepentant tribunal yet we were told to accept onerous tariffs or face even more draconian ones by Washington.
If I fly from one Canadian city to another aboard a domestic carrier they must share my information with your gov or they lose their landing privages in the US.
So yes there is resentment and it is deep seeded.A former Prime Minister described the relationship thusly "If a mouse gets into bed with an elephant,The mouse is sure to get crushed when the elephant rolls over"
If you look at the enviroment that was pervasive in Canada at the time of her committment to sending troops to Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Chretien was relucatant to send troops there at all. Indeed he would not do so until there was UN Authorization BUT...
At the time the Softwood lumber dispute was in full swing. Senator Baucus in Montana was working hard to limit Canadian exports to the US even though under Nafta Canada had won virtually every round in the process.
The US basically said they would ignore NAFTA and impose penalties on the timber AND were taking these tariffs and GIVING them to US Lumber firms. Those US Lumber firms then used the moneys from the TARIFFS to BUY Canadian Lumber producers.
A sweetheart deal.
Harper was in opposition and was claiming that Canada's reluctance to support the US Government in its foreign policy would result in even more trade retaliation. A good number of the Liberals in Chretiens party felt the same.
This then became a MAJOR reason as to why Chretien sent troops to Afghanistan. It was to appease the US so as not to create further trade frictions.
It was also one of the major reasons as to why Harper wanted us to Commit troops to the Iraq Invasion as well. (Something Ignatieff supported while a Professor down in Harvard)
Our reliance on NAFTA and access to US markets for our goods comes at a great cost. We were much more "progressive" as a Nation before NAFTA and our sellout to the Corporations.
Scientifically speaking the free floating fascism has left the South American countries( for the most part) and drifted northward making once marvelous Canada a mini USA.
When I emailed the Canadian Border Service Agency to complain about the treatment of Amy Goodman at the BC Border Crossing, I got an email back asking me where I lived so the CBSA could send me a snail mail response.
You can bet I didn't send them my address.
Don't forget this is the same border that the FBI used to drag Vietnam draft dodgers back to the US without any problems from the Canadian authorities. Nothing similar was done in the other provinces. Provinces are not like individual states in the US. They are separate countries in many, many ways. Each province has control of its own resources.
I agree that Canadians think they are better than Americans. Smugness is a Canadian national characteristic. I also believe they are more racist than Americans in their interpersonal relationships. Most of Canada is wilderness and has lots of rednecks living in it. Canadians are also passive-aggressives. They don't like to talk about the slaves they had in Quebec or the tradition they have in Nova Scotia called "broom the coon."
I've lived in different parts of Canada for 42 years as a racial minority and know how discriminatory Canadians are. When I first moved here in the 60's, I couldn't get over how bad the racism was. Most black war resisters returned home because they couldn't take the racism. And whites couldn't get along with the whites in the Great White North--the Quebecois against the English-Canadians.
British Columbia is also infamous for its racist treatment of Japanese Canadians (JC) during WWII. The Canadian government seized, besides JC property, JC bank accounts, and get this, made the JCs PAY FOR THEIR INTERNMENT. Then the JC were forced to leave BC after the war was over. Most of these people were citizens of Canada. I haven't even talked about how the Chinese were treated, how Natives are treated in BC. They make up a good portion of the homeless in Vancouver.
Canada is a raw wilderness and the people up here act in accordance with their geography. There are exceptions, for instance, neighbourliness has not died in Canada. Usually your neighbour is someone you can count on to help you when you are in trouble. But on a personal level, I've found friendships are not as sincere as they are in America.
Canadians have serious identity issues. They hide their inferiority complex behind a wall of smugness.
Boycott the Olympics!! Premier Campbell is trying to privatize health care up here and starve seniors and little kids.
This sounds like a bunch of nonsense, especially the racism. I have always heard most Canadians are very hospitable. And don't most Canadians live in population centers near the border, not in the raw wilderness? As for neighborliness, Michael Moore demonstrated that most people even in cities like Toronto do not even lock their front doors!
You seem to have an agenda -- one that the rest of us would do well to ignore.
while many of the issues mentioned by elainewmorris are decades and even more than a century old,our treatment of our First Nation peoples continues to be a blight on our record. As for Canadians being more racist than Americans,I dont feel that we are any more or less racist than any other nation.Racism exists in all nations, cultures and yes even races.
As for the not locking the door thing, I have lived in Toronto for 40+ yrs and I can assure you that the vast majority of Torontonians do indeed lock their doors at night and when out. Mr Moore visited a safe neibourhood on a sunny afternoon when people were at home. I don't know if the result would have been different in a similar American neighbourhood.
Amazing ..
Is the left in Canada as divided as in the US?
"Smugness is a Canadian national characteristic. I also believe they are more racist than Americans in their interpersonal relationships." –(elainewmorris)
–This is a commonly repeated refrain one hears from both intelligent Canadians and emigrants to Canada as well, irregardless of national provenance, ethnicity or race. Americans who have lived or settled in Canada say much the same thing and even make amusing jokes how vulgarly obvious it is, were it not so egregiously pathetic and embarrassing to the Canadian.
Mexican friends– who run a 'mom and pop' bed and breakfast in Costa Rica– say they are increasingly loathe to book Canadians for precisely the reasons cited above and worse: Nativism, racism, barbarism, provincialism and misplaced, vulgar superiority masking a grotesque inferiority complex apparently worse than even stereotypical Americans. And this is not merely Canadian rabble, mind you.
A former colleague of mine, an M.D. and a 'real' Canadian (pure Brit ancestry) born and raised in Toronto, who now lives and practices in Cuba– never tired of constantly telling us exactly the same thing.
Worse than in the U.S? Apparently so.
Parts of provincial Alberta as racist as the American Ante-Bellum South? Sounds histrionic on the surface except that when one hears it repeatedly–from disparate sources–it obviously has some credence. –(Jill Bains)
"You can bet I didn't send them my address."
You should have sent them your congressman's address.
It's a good bet you all don't see the irony of making sweeping statements about Canadian character and racism.
Right, let me spell it out:
We're a nation of 30 million, comprised of countless languages and ethnicity. You can't generalize about our smugness, or anything else -- unless you happen, by chance, to be a racist.
I am thinking about withdrawing my application for a work permit in Canada as a protest.
I am an artist and I need freedom in order to create. If I have to worry about whether my views are offensive to a border guard then I lose something from my art.
It is outrageous that a reporter was stopped at the border.
And realistically speaking also, for they are second only to the U.S. in their capital investments throughout the Americas, and their support for far-right extremism in government, especially in Honduras and Mexico.
The larger issue is not that Amy Goodman was detained at the Border for 2 hours. This is hardly a major incident.
The Issue is WHO the Canadian Authorities choose to detain and question. They tend to be the peace activists as opposed to the War Criminals.
Will GW Bush or Dick Cheney or Eric Prince ever be held and questioned or will they instead get highways closed down and a police escort to their destination?
Exactly!
But keeping it just to journalists, I bet Rush Limbaugh (if you can call him a journalist) gets a happy welcomes into Canada whenever he crosses the border.
But to keep things in perspective, the US is worse. My brother, a US citizen (but now a landed Canadian immigrant) has been harasses by US border officials because he had books on socialism and anarchism. They are also suspicious why he, a white, non Amish and non-poor guy, travels by Greyhound, and in the summer months packs so lightly for trips to (relatively close) Pittsburgh. On another trip, his partner was held and questioned by officials over something they percieved as socialist and subversive in his doctoral dissertation papers in sociology.
Correct.
Fascists, state terrorists, mass murderers and war criminals, not to mention troglodyte right-wing 'journalists' never seem to have these problems. Amy Goodman's harassment can hardly be said to be 'merely' accidental.
Close friends who live in B.C. have said their provincial politics– specifically politics in Vancouver– have become fascistic as almost never before.
Galen Wainwright, a regular poster on this site and a Canadian who lives in Vancouver, has said much the same thing in many of his pieces.
Fascist American Predator drones flying over the Winter Olympics to protect Americans? Why not! Acceptable collateral damage ratio: 400 dead Canadians: for every one American. Just like in Afghanistan.–(Jill Bains)
Having lived next to Canada, worked and vacationed in Canada,
a clear impression have I that the people are strong for socialism,
while their government is somewhat fascist right. Examples:
(1) Socialized medicine.
(2) Cradle to the grave Social Security three times greater then the U.S.
(3) Overabundance of government employees with most job protected for life.
(4) Second only to the U.S. in their support of War on Terrorism and for Israel.
(5) Canadian mining corporations backed the coup d’etat in Honduras.
(6) Canadian mining corporations hire assassins to kill activists.
(7) “Activist's killing angers Mexicans” http://english.aljazeera.net/news/
americas/2009/12/20091243341984765.html
What Canadians are doing is protecting themselves with all their social services.
In America we have people who are willing to give up their rights for health care for a philosophy that protects the wealthy ...while thinking this will give them freedom. ( teabaggers etc) They don't have such complete fools in such large numbers in Canada.
It was very irritating for me to hear Canadians complain about stimulus money not going to Canada while they had lower unemployment and free medical care for their people. What happens to Canada if America fails? They seem to think the US has infinite resources.
colleen, the issue over US stimulus money has as much to do with economic integration as objecting to the buy in USA directive. For example the steel industry is completely integrated and there are no longer any Canadian owned steel plants (they are all American owned). Furthermore steel tubing provided by US steel might have been poured into ingots in Pittsburg, rolled in Hamilton and reimported to the US. Keeping track of this consequently non-American steel is, I understand, a type of factor that delays stimulus spending.
When America fails we will go through hard times so hopefully our trans-Pacific trade will be much greater than currently.
Is Lakeside Steel a Canadian company?
http://www.lakesidesteelcorp.ca/SiteResources/ViewContent.asp?DocID=59&v1ID=&RevID=62&lang=1&MenuID=3
But your point is taken that there is considerable integration between the two economies. But Americans are suffering much more with the bad economy than Canadians. Americans do not have the type of benefits as Canadians and need that stimulus money more.
When an American loses their job they commonly lose health benefits and if they get sick then they will sometimes then go into bankruptcy and lose their home and savings. We have over 10% unemployment with millions who are working and without health insurance.
That does not happen in Canada...but that is a point of pride for Canadians rather than thinking maybe some Americans need some help from the American government.
Lakeside Steel is a Canadian company that manufactures pipe and tubing. They do not produce steel. Their market capitalization is C$20 million, so it's a micro-cap company.
As the price of transportation goes up it will become more economically feasible to produce heavy products close to the place of sale...so we might in the next 50 years see a resurgence of steel manufacturing in North America.
I think Lakeside steel produces unusually high quality steel, creating a market niche for its steel...
What Canadians are doing is protecting themselves with all their social services.
In America we have people who are willing to give up their rights for health care for a philosophy that protects the wealthy ...while thinking this will give them freedom. ( teabaggers etc) They don't have such complete fools in such large numbers in Canada.
It was very irritating for me to hear Canadians complain about stimulus money not going to Canada while they had lower unemployment and free medical care for their people. What happens to Canada if America fails? They seem to think the US has infinite resources.
Hopeless is our self-absorbed majority, as feeling they deserve more with a guilt-free conscience they take all they can take.
Our burden is only to give them the light they need to come out of darkness, as common horse-sense is something you have or you don't.
Thanks for the info,
Hit Squads...
The Free market enforcers... Gen. Smedley Butler told us back in the 30's and the systems still the same.