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Citizenfour Director Sues To Find Out Why She Was Detained Every Time She Flew
An anonymous reader writes: Since the 2006 release of My Country, My Country, Laura Poitras has left and re-entered the U.S. roughly 40 times. Virtually every time during that six-year-period that she has returned to the U.S., her plane has been met by DHS agents who stand at the airplane door or tarmac and inspect the passports of every de-planing passenger until they find her (on the handful of occasions where they did not meet her at the plane, agents were called when she arrived at immigration). Each time, they detain her, and then interrogate her at length about where she went and with whom she met or spoke. They have exhibited a particular interest in finding out for whom she works.
Because she claims to have been involved in the transport or concealment of documents that were removed from the custody of US intelligence organizations
I am not really all that surprised by the outcome, frankly she seems to be blowing smoke if she is surprised as well
Wherever You Go, There You Are
You don't go on the tour. Russia tour you.
...does she have the right answers? IE:
1. I am an American citizen, and I have the right to enter my country.
2. I plead the fifth.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
...are pretty much zip, because he knows if he does so, he'll be the next one to find himself mysteriously assigned a 400/400 threat rating.
How cute that you think only one party is behind this kind of crap. Really cute.
Can we get someone to explain how its OK for the IRS to harass people hoping to change policy but it's bad for DHS to harass people hoping to change policy?
Or do you all still feel that "since they weren't charged, it wasn't really a problem?"
(If you do, you might want to ask a person of color about traffic stops some time.)
Oh...I would like to hear the other side. One that will defend this action. One that will say it's no where near those other nation states, that harass their citizens.
Waiting.
Just in case she's a he as in Snowden.
Take a walk on the wild side!
And the colored girls go...dup, dedup,
She has said and done things that They did not like - so she is now An Interesting Person.
As such, They'll do anything They legally (as They interpret it) can to remind her of what she's done.
And as many tax-dollars as are necessary will be spent for that purpose.
Oh...I would like to hear the other side. One that will defend this action. One that will say it's no where near those other nation states, that harass their citizens.
Waiting.
Never fear, cold fjord is here! With Astroturf Superpower!
I get the same treatment every time I cross international borders into the US. As I'm a permanent resident, they threaten to take my visa and deport me. I get interrogated, questioned about everything and anything, delayed, miss flights, miss connecting flights and then have to fend for myself - and I'll tell ya, it's pretty creepy when you realize basic questioning has turned into an interrogation when they start using cyclical questioning and questions intended to trick you up. You have no idea when they'll let you go - they don't have to tell you - you just land in a lawless zone - I called my consulate from my mobile phone as I was walking with ICE once and they told me that even for British Nationals - really the only ally the US has these days (five eyes be damned) - things are pretty bad once you're "in the system" and that all you can do is limit the amount of travel you do and to always, if possible because you aren't guaranteed any outside communication, but if you can, let someone on the outside know what's happened in case you drop off the radar - because that happens too.
I'm just thankful I'm white - not to be racist - but because if I was brown and worshiped the wrong god I'd be totally f'd!
And how is your Democrat President working out?
* Guantanamo (Still open).
* Afghan (Still going).
* Iraq (Complete disaster with the war "ended" when all the military leaders said don't).
* Prisoner swap (One Deserter for multiple enemy Leaders).
* Racism (Fires stoked daily to keep the miscreants mad at each other instead of facing the real issues... but #BlacklivesMatter(Unless killed by other blacks) and #RacistFlagsMustGo(except for Black Power flags)).
* Economy (out of recession... with record # on welfare, foodstamps, out of the working pool, stagnant wages).
* War on Women (Pays his female staff less than male counterparts... same as 'Liary.)
* Illegal Immigration (Who cares about some white woman dead? lets go visit a jail where another criminal can become The Presidents Son)
But sure... blame it on the Republicans. That dam Bush. He'll still kill us all.
Because living in Berlin is such an obvious sign of dissent.
Jesus, USA, pull your nutjob isolationists into line. They're making less sense than ever.
you have everything to fear about your rights being taken away. It's pathetic the harassment she's going through by our government because of a wire she sent to a "suspected Sunni."
It's simple: She's an American citizen. Don't answer a goddamned question. They can't deny her entry into the country, since she's a US citizen.
If she's saying so much as "hello" to these chuckleheads at this point, she's an idiot.
Hell, I get detained every time I fly because I had the audacity to ask for a damage report form when one of their "professionals" broke my glasses while inspecting them.
It doesn't take much to get you on the "mess with this person" list.
Don't be daft. This is the unelected bureaucracy. The statist government drones with little to no oversite from elected officials. If you vote for democrats, you're voting for this just as much as if you voted republican. The D vs R thing is a dog a pony show that keeps people like you distracted.
Anyone who protested too loudly or made their objections to political policy too visible was a potential security threat. While the criteria for applying threat levels and additional detainment to political dissenters remains undisclosed (or classified), anyone who actually participated in protests was witness to the feeling that we could be self-selecting into second-class citizenship for the rest of our lives.
This was especially effective at motivating self-censorship, as it was clear that the majority who were unaffected (because they remained silent, if not supportive of Bush-era policy) were also generally unsympathetic to those subject to additional security checks/detainment.
Translation: Bad things are great when they happen to people I don't like.
Okay, sure. The US is nowhere near those other nation states that harass their citizens. It's a matter of degree, and the degree is pretty significant. It's easy to find an interested group and then compare and contrast the complaints against various repressive regimes.
This place was singing a much different tune for the last two presidential election. Amazing how quickly that changes.
If you liked these two terms, elect Hillary and you can get two more!
Sorry for not answering your question, but your statement, "Since they weren't charged, it wasn't really a problem" actually gets to the heart of what's happening here and was worth commenting on.
There is a legal gray area here, though one of a different sort. Cops cannot legally stop and detain "suspicious people" just because they look suspicious. But they do it all the time, because no one will take the time to sue for an unlawful Terry Stop. It's unpractical; the unlawful action may be a demoralizing inconvenience, but that's better than getting yourself involved in a lawsuit.
But in this circumstance, the DHS can detain anyone they want. The gray area here is that the individual is being detained in an international zone. Until one passes through customs, he/she is not legally on U.S. soil and U.S. law does not apply. The DHS is technically welcome to detain her, you, and any other U.S. Citizen for as long as they want. My wife personally went through it on one occasion and sat in a locked room for about two hours before they mysteriously just let her go. She asked why she was held and got the "We're not at liberty to say" line in return.
So, what hypothetical threat are the DHS agents protecting America from? I would note that, in all 40 instances, she was eventually allowed into the country, and in none of those instances did she commit a crime before leaving again. Perhaps the first time, her associations overseas might raise questions. But hopefully, somewhere in those multiple hours, they worked out that she is a journalist, and that communicating with people is part of her professional work.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
She's an American journalist who exposes governments breaking the law. How does living in Berlin diminish any of her rights as an American citizen? Furthermore, she exposes governments doing illegal and immoral things and you suggest that she should be subjected to humiliating sexual assault? Sounds like you would have a great time being a part of the Gestapo or SS you fascist.
Who cares what other people posted at some other time? Respond to what I said, not some mythical personified slashdot. You're making a false category error in your thinking.
http://dailycaller.com/2015/06...
Another blatant case of government employees trying to get even with people they don't agree with.
Don't you go bringing facts into this argument. All that matters is that it is a US bashfest, and bringing actual facts like what happens when people tick off China and wind up having their organs sold off to the highest bidder is just beside the point.
By definition, the US is the worst country, the most repressive in the world, and in history. Can't have facts refuting that, shall we, as anyone who tries will just get a valid insulting reply back...and because this is about the US sucking, ad hominem and tu quoque are perfectly acceptable as extensions of argument.
Works for me. How many criminals are you associated with, through family relationships, work, sports/hobbies, education, church, etc?
Please step through the red door, Comrade, where my freinds and I can get acquainted with you.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Willkommen auf er neuen nationalsozialistischen USA
more cowbell
Sorry, we're trying. The job got a lot harder when we lost half of the Bill of Rights in 20 years.
If you had posted that comment during the run-up to either election, you would have been down-modded into oblivion. That's my point. It's surprising how quickly the shine faded, he's not even out of office yet.
If you can be reasonably certain that your laptop will be seized and searched then you might as well have some fun.
1) Get a brand new hard disk.
2) Load OS and common software.
3) Apply full disk encryption if possible supported by hardware TPM.
4) Fill disk with pointless and uninteresting files (kitten videos, boring sales brochures for catering equipment, vast datasheets for common microprocessors etc etc).
5) Generate a little script which goes through and encrypts each file with a different randomly generated key (obviously run scipt from external media which you don't take with you).
6) For added fun, install a publicly available unencrypted movie (perhaps one you have made if you happen to be a film maker, otherwise something like Dumbo) and then use steganography to hide something inoccuous in it (e.g. the complete works of Shakespear).
7) Don't expect to ever get the laptop back.
Obviously this will take a fair bit of work, but that will be nothing compared with the huge effort expended by your tormentors in trying to work out what it all means!!
By that logic, TSA agents should expect to be shot in the face for spending all day molesting strangers.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Are you willing to bet money that anything of that will change under a Republican?
I suspect that the list only will grow longer.
I make sure I fart every time a TSA agent has to hand check me. It's my little way of protesting. It's a stupid system.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
in other news, US-based organization says USA #1
I don't know since the Patriot Act makes that largely a black hole. I don't agree with the DHS or government policy but I'm sure she clicks quite a few of the check marks. Also remember law enforcement does and can harass you, this also includes Customs agents and unfortunately for all of us the Supreme Court has upheld this premise multiple times. It doesn't make it right but I still stand by the fact that regardless of your profession, your associations may make your activities suspicious.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
The administration is still not sure if Snowden got the N.S.A. files on Obama's birth and those clumsy Hawaiian "documents". (Ask yourself for any good reason that the leader of the country would black out the number on a supposed birth certificate. The only thing that makes sense is he doesn't want it matching thecertificate of anyone else, or coming after someone born in the last minutes of the year. And after the "this is the only certificate there is" nonsense, there was the second, different, birth certificate. Don't even respond about that unless you looked at it on the whitehouse.gov website and saw how obviously (and poorly) it was Photoshopped.) They sure don't want those N.S.A. documents snuck back in the country and would like to have any information to track down the patriot who got them and the files. As far as anyone knows the files are not on Snowden's person but rather hidden where someone like this person can access them if the administration manages to assassinate Snowden.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Like her, I am that Randomly chosen to be searched person every time i go through tsa. im white, 26, and 5'7".... 13 out of the last 15 times ive flown (DFW-LAX) in either direction from 2002-current...
It's well known that Putin funds both far-right and far-left extremists to increase social divisions in the West. Cuba has also funded or blackmailed American activists before. Anyone notice how Alex Jones hates the US military, for someone who calls himself a conservative patriot?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
40 detentions by DHS and Laura still travels with her camera full of pictures, her notebooks full of notes and likely a cellphone full of contacts. Please! Someone tell Laura about the Cloud.
Y'know, you could've sprinkled a few extra facts into the summary, such as the connection to Snowden.
But I guess that's what you get when you accept submissions wihch are just copy-pasted partial paragraphs from the article - and the paragraph itself is a quote, within the article, from 2012.
Keep up the shitty work, editors!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
#RacistFlagsMustGo(except for Black Power flags)
For the record, there actually was never a civil war where one side fought for the right to own white people under the banner of a "black power" flag. Also, there is not to this day (nor was there ever) a state that still flies that flag of white oppression.
Come on, folks, let's cheer with the AC "We're number one better than China! We're number one better than China!"
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I was searched five times once while changing planes. Two of them were in sight of each other (either end of a hallway). Every time they said it was a "random check."
I've yet to see anything from O'Keefe that would suggest he's a conspiracy nut.
The guy who got famous by dressing up as a pimp to fabricate proof that a housing organization for the poor was involved in a conspiracy to promote underage prostitution?
The same guy who broke into a senators office, to wiretap her phones, to prove that she wasn't "listening" to her constituents?
And the same guy who recently lost a libel lawsuit against that same senator, claiming that she implied he committed a felony. (His plea bargain reduced the charges to a misdemeanor instead of being a felony)
The same guy who filmed himself illegally entering the country, smuggling people and material, to prove that ISIS terrorists are also sneaking across? And then after publishing video of himself smuggling, is outraged that Customs agents see him as a potential smuggler?
Everything he does suggests he's a conspiracy nut..
Unless a quantum computer is doing the selecting, it's not random.
but why she kept coming back?
[placeholder for linkage to evidence that the UK is harassing not only its own citizens by abducting the children and selling them for profit on a seller's market, they're doing it to citizens of other countries as well].
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Hassling her a few hours is just an inconvenience. But the No Fly list is a real weapon. How is she going to make her unpatriotic films if she cannot go anywhere! There ain't no getting off the No Fly list, even if you were put on by mistake. That would teach her and her ilk.
Think about what it is like to be a DHS agent. You have attended countless meetings detailing just how much threat we are under. You *know* it is true. You work hard to keep Americans safe. And then someone like Poitras comes along. Scum of the earth.
They are protecting America from all those unspent tax dollars! I wonder what the wages bills from those 40 stops would add up to? Would it buy a Mercedes? Two? More?
Not that hard to figure out this one: Material support of terrorism. She can stay trapped in Germany. Belongs in Gitmo.
nsa/cia/fbi behave like gestapo, human rights are ignored, opinion is ignored, muslims are prosecuted or put into concentration camps like guantanamo or will be immediately killed by drones, including civillians, "the world is us" , "we are right", " no us-americans are affected" etc etc.
and this is just the stuff everybody can already see and notice.
For the record, there actually was never a civil war where one side fought for the right to own white people under the banner of a "black power" flag. Also, there is not to this day (nor was there ever) a state that still flies that flag of white oppression.
For the record. the Civil War was not about one side fighting for the right to own black people under the banner of a "white power" flag, either.
The slavery issue was used in recruiting, convincing normally anti-war religious factions to drop their opposition (or even support it) under the "just war" doctrine, and eventually as a tactic near the end of the war to try to promote a slave revolt in the Confederacy. But the original fight (like the American Revolution, the "occupy" movement, and the RIAA/MPAA inspired draconian copyright regime) was about a crony capitalists / government axis using tariffs and laws to keep a large segment of the population as captive customers for overpriced monopoly products, suppressing both their trade with suppliers in other countries and their ability to make their own, lower-priced, replacement products.
It was the north's "1%" against the south-as-ghetto.
(Note that I say this as a descendant of a number of people who fought on the Union side.)
Unfortunately, the actual history of the conflict has been largely suppressed. IMHO the current anti-confederate-battle-flag move is both an attempt to finish off the suppression of the history of the conflict and to pre-emptively propagandize against any move by southern border states to take their own measures against what they perceive as a massive invasion across the southern border.
"Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it." applies here - even if the history isn't studied because books about it are suppressed (e.g. removed from book stores and libraries because they contain the "evil racist flag").
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"in at least one instance she was denied the use of a pen to take notes after being told she might use it as a weapon"
Haha, spot on, Sherlock. She IS using her pen as a weapon. She is a journalist.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Actually: there was. And just like the Confederacy, it was crushed by the power of the US federal government. You never heard of it? Where do you think the DoJ lawyers who invaded Ferguson got their training? They defended these violent separatists in court. I wonder why this has been supressed. Try to guess why. Use critical thinking! :D
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
he's entirely too much like his Republican Predecessor.
Congratulations on admitting the obvious. Anyone who claims to hate GWB, but still supported Obama after he signed his first extension of the PATRIOT act, is and idiot or a goddamned hypocrite.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You know, the biggest mistake the Republican party ever made was to dump all this hatred on Obama. Obama was the greatest gift the democrats ever gave the republicans ! A black DINO of first order. A republican in blue clothing through and through.
And all this hatred, all these attempts to paint him as the liberal he never was - all it did was to show all the liberals in the country how NOT a liberal he actually turned out to be. The only real outcome out of 6 years of republican obstructionism and bold-faced lies was to make the truth so apparent that liberals took a sour taste of Obama.
And what that means is NOT in fact good for republicans or conservatives, what it means is that Bernie Sanders is going to do a LOT better than he otherwise would have - the one guy running who has an actual solid liberal track record and has not once voted on the wrong side (read - the conservative side) of any issue. Not once.
I don't know if Sanders can win - his odds are actually far better than they looked at first, and a LOT better than Ron Paul ever had, but it may still not be enough, but even if he doesn't -his presence is forcing Hillary Clinton to actually remember who her base is supposed to be. She can't possibly get the nomination now without actually moving way to the left.
She'll probably move back closer to the middle after the primaries if she gets it, but she won't be able to move all the way back to where she is now - and lets face it, the republicans have spent so much time badmouthing her that trying to appeal to conservatives will be a wasted effort.
The one thing Republicans and Fox news have achieved in the past 6 years - is to actually create the possibility of the first REAL liberal US president since FDR. It is still just a possibility of course, but that possibility didn't even exist for the past 40 years.
So er... thanks Fox News ?
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Oh, you didn't hear ?
Normal citizens and the GOVERNMENT should be subject to the same restrictions and held to the same standards... You know because rights like freedom of speech was created for government and only shared with citizens out of kindness !
In the real world of course - no such equal standard have ever or should ever exist as it would be the most illiberal idea you could possibly imagine. It's exactly why the burden of proof is so much heaver in criminal than in civil courts - because in criminal courts, one party is the government and are supposed to be held to a higher standard.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
>For the record. the Civil War was not about one side fighting for the right to own black people under the banner of a "white power" flag, either.
That's complete bullshit, that's been spread way too widely but utterly fails to match the facts.
1) The confederates were NOT fighting for states' rights, exactly the opposite in fact, they wanted to get RID of states' rights. 3 of the declarations of secession state that a fundamental reason for their secession was their anger at states like Maine for refusing to return runaway slaves or allow slave transit. In other words - they opposed the right of Maine and New York to NOT support the slave trade.
2) The confederacy was formed by a declaration which all the confederate states had to sign - much like the US was originally formed by the declaration of independence. The very FIRST article in that declaration bound all the member states to a promise to never, under any circumstances, now or in the future, ban slavery or inhibit it in any way.
3) The various declarations of secession ALL discussed slavery at length and repeatedly stated that the single most important reason for the secession was that the abolitionists in northern states threatened what they saw as the proper and natural state of the world: one where whites could own blacks as slaves.
4) Non-slave owning whites in the South did NOT in fact support the war or the secessions - that vast majority very vocally and visibly opposed it. So severe was the opposition that on multiple occasions General Lee had to threaten to burn towns to the ground before they would allow him to feed his horses or buy food for his soldiers there ! In Tennessee this happened twice !
The real heroes of the South are those citizens, who supported abolition - who despised the slave owning minority (a ruling class that tended to mistreat poorer whites pretty badly as well) and actively opposed the war to the extent that the confederate army had to threaten their lives just to buy supplies !
In fact, there isn't a single official contemporary document by any of the Southern states governments, the confederate government or any of their leaders or generals that does not repeatedly say that the war is about preserving the right to own slaves.
EVERY claim to the contrary appeared AFTER the war, in a desperate attempt to white-wash the history of why that war happened.
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Anyone else try to look up the documentary "My Country, My Country" on IMDB? You can quite literally put in the full movie title and the only auto-complete search it finds for you is "My Cousin, Vinny". I've never seen that with any other movie on IMDB, no matter how obscure. Even foreign films. But if you actually force it to execute the search, you'll see that the title is on IMDB. I wonder if I am on the watch list, now? :P
I imagine Bogaboga will thank you, at some point, for doing just what he asked.
You've lost the game already!
My brother gets randomly stopped every time he enters the country (New Zealand). Every time.
It's funny, because I mentioned it to someone and he started shouting that he wanted me to prove that random searches like that didn't work, because I couldn't do it. Something about olive skinned arabs or something (my brother, fully of european descent, is white, with slightly dark skin).
Of course, he didn't like it when I asked about the IRA, or the French terrorists who bombed a boat back in '86... but they probably don't count. They aren't evil sand niggers out to deprive us all of our freedoms and make us worship their god.
This whole story would only matter if America were still a democracy. You're all waaaay past that now, but willfully ignorant of the reality, and the need to fight for a dying dream.
I wonder what the wages bills from those 40 stops would add up to? Would it buy a Mercedes? Two? More?
No:
7.25/hr * 40 stops * 4hours per stop=$1160
Or what is probably around 1-2 months of payments on a Mercedes.
Time to offend someone
You must have the same opinion as your government. 1st amendment is dead.
This is the message the government sends.
The feds view Snowdon as one of the biggest cases of treason in modern times and she was a link.
Guantanamo - Republican controlled congress passed a law requiring that the President get their permission to release *ANY* prisoners from Guantanamo.
Iraq (Complete disaster with the war "ended' when all the military leaders said don't) - Ended according to the timetable negotiated and signed off on under Bush. Obama's options were to violate that agreement, or withdraw troops as promised. Even *BUSH* says we should live up to our agreements.
Prisoner swap - What ever happened to the Marine ideal of 'Leave no man behind'? He may be a deserter, but that means he should be tried (and, if found guilty, punished according to the law, not abandoned to enemies)
Economy - Out of recession. We actually *don't* have "record # on welfare, foodstamps, out of the working pool". In fact, all of those have fallen *dramatically since he took office. Stagnant wages? Yes, but the President doesn't actually control the wages offered by private industry. That's on the CEOs and such who take their record profits as bonuses while claiming the economy just can't/won't/doesn't support raises for the people who actually enable the company to *make* said profits.
War on Women - Got a citation for that claim?
Illegal Immigration - Has deported *more* illegal immigrants than any President in the last 3 decades. Additionally, the President is not in charge of the *STATE* which released the criminal rather turning him over to Immigration.
But don't let the facts get in the way of your rhetoric.
If you won't fight back, you get what you deserve.
When someone is stopped a number of people spread over a range of pay grades are involved. Try adding a couple of orders of magnitude.
Remember back when travel to the US didn't include this level of harassment?
We've come a long way, brother! Today, it is common practice to have your property stolen with no legal recourse. Today, you're smart if you're scared to complain. And think about it: Laptops are harmless. Data isn't going to jump out and eat anybody while you're in flight.
The desire to know everything about you is indicative of an obsessive, sick need to control. The only thing more pathetic are those who welcome it; the folks beaten as kids for not being obedient enough or for thinking without permission.
Yep, I have frequently used the line "Obama is the best Republican President we have had in a long time."
I never understood the hatred. He continued nearly every conservative law, continued most Republican tax policies, enacted a conservative health care plan that had been defeated before, he seems to be the perfect Republican.
I am surprised and pleased to see Bernie making such a splash, my dream election: Donald Trump/Bernie Sanders. I might even begin to believe in God........
No flip flopping and I love that he calls himself a Democratic Socialist. Heads exploding everywhere. This may be a very entertaining election.
Don't forget to stock up on popcorn!
Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
So, what hypothetical threat are the DHS agents protecting America from? I would note that, in all 40 instances, she was eventually allowed into the country, and in none of those instances did she commit a crime before leaving again.
Well, after the first two dozen times she obviously has a motive to throw a bomb on the Department of Homeland "Security". The price for fscking up is eternal vigilance.
It's not right, but you stand by it? They say you meet some reprehensible people on the Internet, but holy cow. What other evil acts to you stand by?
Imagine how this would work out in your neighborhood: The guy down at #5 finds some dog poop on his step. He's seen you with dogs a lot, so he asks if it was your dog. You respond that you don't actually have a dog, but that as a veterinarian, you often see dogs. The situation here is the same as if your neighbor came and accused you of letting your dog defecate on his steps every time it happened, even though he knows that it couldn't have been you.
In the real world, all societies need defenders who will protect them from the wild. A free society is predicated on those defenders being able to differentiate that which is suspicious from that which is actually hostile or criminal.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
From what's transpired in the past 24 hours you don't know shit.