Rep. Peter King's Office Suggests NPR Producer Lied About Being Detained At Border By DHS

from the gotcha-moment dept

Tue, Dec 10th 2013 1:08pm — Mike Masnick

We've written a few times now about how a producer for On the Media, Sarah Abdurrahman and many of her friends and family (all of whom are American citizens), were detained by US customs and border patrol (CBP) officials at the US Canadian border for many hours with no explanation. Their treatment was horrific, and worse, no one at DHS seems to have any interest in explaining what happened or why. On the Media then created a cool crowdsourcing tool asking people to call their Congressional representatives to try to get answers.

The latest report involves some of the people who have called and what sort of response they got back. Not surprisingly, so far, not much has come of the effort, as no one in Congress seems particularly interested. However, I did want to call out one particular interaction, involving Rep. Pete King's "new media guy" who a caller reached. The caller, Philip Elmer-Dewitt, explained Sarah's story, and King's staff apparently got confrontational. According to the caller:

And he said:

"Why should I believe this just because someone reported it?"

And I kinda got my back up and said:

"So, are you calling the NPR producer a liar?"

And he said:

"Oh! So you got your 'gotcha moment' now!"

And he was a little hostile, so I backed off a bit and said:

"No, it's a journalistic experiment. We're trying to elicit information. We're trying to learn what the policy is."

But, basically his answer was that Sarah should call her representative and that's all there was to it.

Of course, it's worth remembering that Rep. Pete King famously was very supportive of IRA terrorists, but now argues that Ed Snowden and Glenn Greenwald are "traitors" and even that Greenwald should be prosecuted (based on completely false claims that King appears to have made up himself). He's also claimed that calling the NSA's activities "snooping" or "spying" amounts to slander. Now, apparently, his staff are getting confrontational with constituents asking rather basic questions about how DHS is treating American citizens at the border. Makes you wonder whom Rep. Peter King actually thinks he's representing.

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Filed Under: cbp, customs and border patrol, detention, dhs, journalism, oversight, peter king, sarah abdurrahman

32 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 10 Dec 2013 @ 1:17pm

Simple answer, King hates NPR for being 'too liberal'. So if they're too liberal, they MUST be lying about something like this that makes King's policies look bad!
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Dec 2013 @ 1:31pm

Re:
Simpler answer, Peter King is so used to lying that he assumes everybody else is also lying.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Dec 2013 @ 1:43pm

Classic
People elected to oversee things not interested in actually overseeing anything. Lunatics running the asylum anyone?
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Christenson, 10 Dec 2013 @ 1:44pm

What about Judge Alsup's courtroom?
That is, for Rep King, maybe we should be asking about the affidavits in Judge Alsup's courtroom about recent antics in preventing witnesses from coming to a trial?
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Prashanth (profile), 10 Dec 2013 @ 1:47pm

Edward Snowden on Peter King
"Makes you wonder whom Rep. Peter King actually thinks he's representing."
I think Peter King is afraid that the truth about that might come out in the next batch of information released by Edward Snowden.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Dec 2013 @ 1:59pm

Representative King prefers to act like a King rather than a Representative. How dare any of his subjects question him like this.
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Help me, 10 Dec 2013 @ 2:22pm

Democracy is dead
Help me. I've been abused and neglected. People like "Rep" Peter King are what's wrong with the USA government.
The Constitution
ps the boys down the street say Peter King has a hot mouth
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Not That Chris (profile), 10 Dec 2013 @ 2:26pm

"gotcha moment"
"Oh! So you got your 'gotcha moment' now!"

This phrase bothers me, especially the follow up "I backed off" part. To me, trying to portray a called out BS response as a "gotcha moment" with the facts of the situation is a crappy attempt at deflecting the BS response you just threw out. If that was your legitimate answer, it's not "gotcha", it's your stupid answer. If that wasn't your legitimate answer, why did you answer it in the first place?

To me, the caller should have called out the staffer for their comment, though their response is understandable since most people don't like confrontations.
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gorehound (profile), 10 Dec 2013 @ 2:48pm

Rep. King is a POS Tea Bagger fool.I do hope a lot that people will be kicking as many as these foul Tea Baggers out of Office as possible.
We have not seen such a hateful Party in many Years and do not forget it was those GOP who pushed them on us.All so they could get a few more Votes.
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John Fenderson (profile), 10 Dec 2013 @ 2:49pm

Re:
Which is hilarious, because NPR remains one of the few news outlets that is honestly neutral.
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John Fenderson (profile), 10 Dec 2013 @ 2:52pm

Re:
Technically, it wasn't the GOP the pushed them on us. They hijacked the GOP, so the GOP are their victims, too.

The main backers of the tea party are major corporations and the extremely wealthy. The tea party is one of the more overtly fascist intrusions into the political landscape.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Dec 2013 @ 4:07pm

"Which is hilarious..."
"...NPR remains one of the few news outlets that is honestly neutral."

You're right - the contention that NPR is honestly neutral IS hilarious.
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 10 Dec 2013 @ 4:16pm

And yet this person manages to stay in office.
We get the Government we deserve, so obviously the people he represents are idiots... if they disagree with this assessment perhaps they should flex their muscle and remind their chosen leadership who he works for.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Dec 2013 @ 5:18pm

surname
isnt king a protestent loyalist name, and he suported ira?
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Dec 2013 @ 5:44pm

Is Pete King related to Steve King?
They're both idiots.
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Tyson (profile), 10 Dec 2013 @ 5:54pm

Re:
Martin Bashir, is that you?

There is nothing hateful about the Tea Party itself. Less government, more freedom. Is that so bad?
Some members may be hate-driven, such as some members of your party are card carrying socialists.

Stop carrying their water and think for yourself.
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Pixelation, 10 Dec 2013 @ 10:47pm

"Rep. Peter King's Office Suggests NPR Producer Lied About Being Detained At Border By DHS"

Yes, and the holocaust didn't happen either...
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That One Guy (profile), 10 Dec 2013 @ 11:30pm

Re:
Yeah, that idea kinda went out the window when gerrymandering was invented, and a 'representative' could just draw the district lines so it didn't matter how much they angered 90% of the people in the area, the 10% that were rabid supporters would still be enough to keep them in office.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Dec 2013 @ 12:14am

Re: "gotcha moment"
It's a Rovian play.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Dec 2013 @ 12:20am

Re: Re:
The problems arise when it's "less government for me, more for everyone else!" Like, for example, women's rights. There are no less than 16 abortion bills, a number of which ban abortions in cases of rape. All of which were co-sponsored in state legislatures.

Or in defunding programs for the very poorest people in the US. Which are heavily from deprived families. And then they blame the families for 'Not having enough faith.'

And that's an actual quote from a high-up Tea Partier. So I would argue that, whilst I agree in principle with reducing governmental intervention, I realise that it is absolutely fundamental for certain things to have money spent on by government. There is so much victim-blaming in the US political discourse that it is actively about as toxic to a person's outlook as nuclear fallout.
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Pragmatic, 11 Dec 2013 @ 5:33am

Re:
Have I not been saying this for months? The trouble with taking a partisan stance is that you risk condemning a sizeable portion of the populace as criminals and terrorists for merely disagreeing with your politics, not for actual criminality or terrorism.

What I specifically said was that characterizing Democrats or moderates as liberal socialists ("OMG the enemy!"), etc., pits us against them as enemies, and therefore enemies of the state, to some minds.

When they come for the anti-capitalists and Greens, no one gives a damn. What'll happen when liberals, libertarians and moderates get hammered for not being part of the program?

We've got to stop letting them divide us. We'll always disagree on some things, but there is a lot we have in common. Let's focus on that and unite to get them voted out.
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Pragmatic, 11 Dec 2013 @ 5:38am

Re: Re: Re:
There you go, Tyson, this person is an example of thinking for yourself.

More freedom? Where? We've got mass surveillance, curtailment of women's rights and lower wages in real terms since the Tea Party got their people in.

Who, pray tell, is that freedom for? It ain't us.

Stop carrying their water and think for yourself.
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The Real Michael, 11 Dec 2013 @ 6:21am

Re: Re: Re:
You cannot have equal rights while simultaneously having 'women's rights' or any other segmented group. That is inherently redundant. Either there's equal rights for all or there's unequal rights, i.e. special privileges for certain members of society.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Dec 2013 @ 7:04am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
I don't have a problem with male rape victims having abortions.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Dec 2013 @ 7:06am

Re:
Don King too
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Tyson (profile), 11 Dec 2013 @ 7:42am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
The Tea Party is not in power, or did you not notice who occupied the Houses of Congress and the White House during these events?

The Tea Party has less sway than the Black Caucus. "We've got mass surveillance, curtailment of women's rights and lower wages in real terms since the Black Caucus got their people in. " See what I did there?
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JEDIDIAH, 11 Dec 2013 @ 8:57am

You can always speak your mind.
The Tea Party doesn't have to be in power to stand up for what is really right. Instead, they are more like the American Taliban. They're a bunch of scared racist religious extremists that perceive the demographic shift in the US but aren't quite bright enough to fully understand it.

If the Tea Baggers were true to their name, they would be all clamouring for the dismantlement of the entire NSA right now and calling Snowden a PATRIOT.

They don't even seem to understand the event they want to associate themselves with.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Dec 2013 @ 9:16am

Re: You can always speak your mind.
"Baggers, scared, racist, religious extremists." That's a lot of hate from you.

Where do you get your idea of the Tea Party? You are wrong, and you are intentionally offensive.

To get back to reply that you completely misread, @Pragmatic blamed the tea party for not stopping mass surveillance. It's true, they have not. Have you? The Tea Party does not get their message out because they are rarely allowed to do so without Chris Matthews having a say. The Tea Party consists of regular citizens, it's an idea without a real political arm. We don't have any actual delegates or official structure, but you lay blame on the a group that is the least to blame on any of your problems? If a rep wants to attach themself to the Tea Party because they share some of the same ideals, they may. That does not mean the Rep is a 100% accurate portrayal of the Party's beliefs and purpose.

A lot of DNC operatives are successfully distracting you, causing this divide, calling us racists. That's unfair and unsubstantiated.
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JEDIDIAH, 11 Dec 2013 @ 9:26am

Re: "Which is hilarious..."
They may or may not be "neutral" but they seem interested in presenting more detailed information. Given enough information, you can make up your own mind. So a more comprehensive approach is STILL more useful even despite "bias".

The biggest problem in journalism is not "bias" but leaving out (important) information.
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BernardoVerda (profile), 11 Dec 2013 @ 4:54pm

Re: "Which is hilarious..."
It's funny how in today's North America, objectively-minded journalism or fact-based reporting, and evidence-based policy, are both almost invariably considered to be, somehow, terribly and blatantly "biased".

Somehow, I'm not finding it hilarious at all...
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John Fenderson (profile), 12 Dec 2013 @ 9:31am

Re: Re: You can always speak your mind.
Where do you get your idea of the Tea Party?

I largely agree with his characterization, even if it is a touch hyperbolic. I got that idea from three things: talking to tea party party, watching what they do as a group, and listening to what tea party politicians in office are saying.
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John Fenderson (profile), 12 Dec 2013 @ 9:36am

Re: "Which is hilarious..."
Hmm, that must be why I hear a wide variety of stances there, why they regularly talk to important people of all political bents and treat them all equally, and why they don't issue judgments about the news ("this is good/bad") either overtly or through their tone.
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