The police at London’s Luton airport worked through a list of questions. Did Broomfield consider his reporting to be objective? Did he include multiple sources in his work? How did he get paid? What was his opinion about beheadings, and did he ever send anybody a photo of a beheading? “Not answering the questions is a criminal offence, so I complied,” British journalist Matt Broomfield said about the questioning he was subject to in July. His laptop and phone were confiscated and he didn’t receive them back.
I don’t see how these questions could be relevant, nor confiscating electronics. And I may be showing my Yankee here, but I really do believe everyone has the right to NOT SAY SHIT TO YOU if they don’t want. So “I decline to answer” is perfectly acceptable to every question.
I guarantee I could show this to some people I work with and they’d immediately fire off with “do you WANT biased people to be okay with beheadings to be here?” like that’s some sort of defense or explanation.
I always liked the scene in “Enemy of the State” when will smith’s character is being questioned and he answers with “inappropriate” questions and when one of the guys says “now that is…” “NONE OF MY GODDAMN BUSINESS! YOU’RE DAMN RIGHT. And neither is my relationship yours.”
Depending on country, you don’t have rights at a border. In the US, hey can search everything you own and go through all of your private information. Border agents typically have incredibly wide latitude, up to preventing crossing entirely or detention. Their jurisdiction goes 100 miles inland from each crossing point - there’s a border checkpoint on I-15 in the mountains about 40 miles north of San Diego even. Functionally, 200 million Americans live in a “constitution-free zone”.
This isn’t a left or right issue either - both the Cato Institute and the ACLU monitor and raise awareness of this.
Terrorism laws truly put a nail in any semblance of rights or freedoms when crossing a border.
So they detain him indefenitely without due process. It is the UK we are talking about. The country that had to be told by the UN Special Rapporteur on torture that their treatment of Julian Assange is constituting torture, which they all but ignored.
You cannot expect rights and due process in a politically motivated case in the UK.
