US journalist Amy Goodman detained at border, questioned on Olympics

By Linda Nguyen , Canwest News Service November 26, 2009
http://www.theprovince.com/news/journalist+says+detained+border+over+Oly...
An outspoken, award-winning U.S. journalist says she and her producers were detained and interrogated for more than an hour Wednesday at a Canadian border crossing because border agents were afraid she was coming into the country to criticize the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

Amy Goodman, the host of an American public radio show called Democracy Now, said the agents did not believe her when she explained that she was visiting Canada to promote her a new book about health care, global warming, the economic meltdown and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“(The agent) was incredulous. He kept asking me: ‘What about the Olympics?,’” she said in telephone interview Thursday on her way to a speaking engagement at the University of Victoria. “I was totally shocked. They were demanding to know what I was going to be talking about, in detail.”

Goodman said the vehicle she was travelling in with two other assistants was stopped at the Washington-B.C. border around 6 p.m. Wednesday once agents realized she was a journalists.

She said she was asked at least six times if she was sure she wasn’t coming to Canada to speak about the Olympics.

Goodman said she was finally let go after given a two-day work visa, expiring Friday.

Goodman frequently travels between the two countries to promote her radio show and nationally syndicated newspaper columns. Her show appears on 800 TV and radio stations across North America.

A spokeswoman with the Canada Border Services Agency said anyone entering Canada may be stopped at the border for questioning.

Faith St. John would not comment on Goodman’s case specifically, citing privacy concerns, but said there are many reasons that a person may be detained while coming into Canada.

“It’s not an accusation of a wrongdoing,” she said.