WASHINGTON (AP) — New York filmmaker Laura Poitras endured extra screening at airports for years.
Between 2006 and 2012, she was stopped more than 50 times when she tried to set foot back in the U.S.
Only now, after suing the government, she’s learned that her travel nightmare stemmed from a movie she filmed in Iraq in 2004. U.S. troops alleged she had gotten a heads-up about a deadly ambush but didn’t alert the military. That would have been a crime. But she was never charged.
The Homeland Security Department says the government determined in 2012 she was no longer “high-risk,” allowing Customs to stop its enhanced screenings.
Poitras has made films on National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. She worries the robust security screenings might start again.
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