Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Amy Goodman isn't the only one having trouble at the U.S./Canada border. A Canadian writer named Peter Watts was apparently roughed up at the border trying to come into Michigan. My buddy DarkSyd knows Watts and has an interview with him at the Orlando Examiner.
[F]or three f*&%ing hours, thrown into an even colder jail cell overnight, arraigned, and charged with assaulting a federal officer, all without access to legal representation ... dumped across the border in shirtsleeves: computer seized, flash drive confiscated, even my [freaking] paper notepad withheld until they could find someone among their number literate enough to distinguish between handwritten notes on story ideas and, I suppose, nefarious terrorist plots.
I'll say the same thing I said when Goodman was detained: This is no way for a free, democratic nation to behave.
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The article says this actually occurred when he was returning to Canada, which is why this whole thing seems strange to me. In my experience crossing the border, you deal with the American guards on the way into the US, and the Canadians on the way back.
Posted by: Adrian W. | December 19, 2009 9:18 AM
yeah Ed that Happened here at my local border crossing ,
Adrian on the rare occasion border guards will go after people leaving the US every x number of vehicles get hit by it. of course the border patrol has not released teh tapes and watts will be here on tues for a hearing. you can check the local news about it at
http://www.thetimesherald.com
Posted by: Vic Vanity | December 19, 2009 9:22 AM
Cue PhysioProf and the standard derision for noticing when a white d00d gets busted while ignoring all of the same routinely happening to women and brown people.
Posted by: D. C. Sessions | December 19, 2009 9:28 AM
oh yeah and Watts was actually leaving the US to go back to Canada
Posted by: Vic Vanity | December 19, 2009 9:28 AM
Since the matter is the subject of a criminal prosecution, releasing the tapes would be prejudicial to the case. Don't expect to see them for a long time, if ever.
Two possibilities:
1) Watts' version isn't borne out by the tapes.
2) Following a preliminary hearing and lots of legal fees, the charges are quietly dropped and the tapes mysteriously disappear.
Posted by: D. C. Sessions | December 19, 2009 9:42 AM
This is no way for a free, democratic nation to behave.
True, but this is the USA you're talking about, so such statements are (becoming more and more) irrelevant.
Posted by: Ray M | December 19, 2009 10:48 AM
While checking only incoming traffic to a country is SOP, commercial vehicles may often be subject to stops and searches on the way out. A rental is a commercial vehicle. That being said, this, yes, white dood, should have been informed of this rather than being roughed up by the Border Guard.
Even in Nazi Germany, good Germans never got roughed up by the Gestapo and thought they were free. It was just those who got out of line and didn't show the proper respect to the Polizei, Gestapo, SS, etc who got into trouble. And they deserved it.
I was at a bar one night, talking to a conservative who thinks I am "naive" to think that there is a difference between a free republic and a nation. We don't have a free republic, because the Freepers like "security" and their own freedoms because they think only they should be free while dissenters and those who question Authority deserve what they get.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich, FCD | December 19, 2009 11:27 AM
Anyone who travels internationally with any frequency has seen similar activity in any number of countries. While never being detained myself (out of shear luck one time in Japan) - I have seen business colleagues put in a holding cell, interviewed, and sent back on the next plane for having simple mistakes in their documentation in supposedly free liberal nations (and this was before 9/11). I've seen equipment confiscated never to be seen again. This is not how organizations should act I agree but I just haven't seen it get any worse the last few years so I am wondering why all the fake outrage now? I make it a point to knows the laws, follow the instructions of the person in authority at the checkpoint, and make sure every document is correct. You don't have problems that way. Whether its right or wrong is not relevant.
(As with Amy Goodman - I don't find this person especially credible)
Posted by: yoshi | December 19, 2009 2:25 PM
Posted by: MTiffany | December 19, 2009 3:00 PM
Cue PhysioProf and the standard derision for noticing when a white d00d gets busted while ignoring all of the same routinely happening to women and brown people.
What is actually funny about this (and this topic has been all over the internet for several days now) is that brown people probably don't get hassled much by the Canadian border patrol.
Unless of course they are Native. Native people don't even get counted as brown people by the usual suspects, of course. But if you live several miles from a city with non-white people in it it might be hard to know about them. Unless you are on the Res, of course.
Posted by: White Guy | December 19, 2009 9:14 PM
Yesterday in Washington D.C., a plain-clothes police officer drew his gun on a flash-mob crowd, after his Hummer was pelted by them with snowballs.
Be careful out there, North Americans.
Posted by: Carol Anne (aka Scamp) | December 21, 2009 8:50 AM