The Indianapolis Star
reports:
Christine Von Der Haar has heard President Barack Obama and national
security officials insist the U.S. government isn't spying on ordinary
citizens.
...
Von Der Haar says in a federal lawsuit that she was illegally detained by
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in 2012 at Indianapolis
International Airport. The lawsuit says the detention occurred after
government agents intercepted and read emails she had exchanged with a
friend from Greece before he came to visit her in Indiana.
...
Von Der Haar, a lecturer in IU's sociology department, was detained
at the airport after she accompanied her friend, Dimitris
Papatheodoropoulos, to pick up computer equipment he had shipped to
Indianapolis.
Her friend is a Greek national who has worked as a
transportation manager for two Olympic Games and the 2011 Arab Games in
Qatar.
The customs agents, the lawsuit says, asked the couple if
they were planning to marry, then questioned each separately about email
communications and the nature of their relationship.
During that
questioning, Von Der Haar was confined in a guarded room for more than
20 minutes with no explanation of why the agents wanted to talk with
her.
The only way the federal officials could have known about
some of the information they questioned Von Der Haar about, according to
the lawsuit, was to have "surreptitiously monitored the communications"
between the IU lecturer and her friend.
One of the customs
agents, the lawsuit alleges, "admitted that employees of the United
States had read email communications" between the two longtime friends.
...
Excellent reporting by Tim Evans, the type of reporting Indianapolis residents want to see from their daily newspaper.
3 comments:
I don't know what to make of this. Sociology types are inherently full of bull, and this happened in 2012. 2012 ? What's the rush ?
About that 20 minutes of detention for suspected immigration fraud. Try being a black kid suspected of patty drug crime. IMPD does this 100 times a day, and the ICLU doesn't do a damn thing.
Unigov, you're not concerned that they were reading her emails?
Paul, yes, if that happened. Is there any corroboration? She says she was held for a possible green card scam, and that the agent mentioned the emails. But there's numerous marriage-for-citizenship deals happening at any time. Why her? Also I think INS investigates these things, not customs. There's INS presence at major airports. It seems 'off'. Part of my deal I admit is the Star acting as PR for her lawsuit, when IMPD violates suspects' rights 24x7.
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