Icelandic "shopping terrorist" menace thwarted at JFK

The government of Iceland is asking US authorities why an Icelandic tourist who'd flown to NYC to shop and hang out over the holidays was held in shackles before being deported from the US:

The woman, Erla Osk Arnardottir Lillendahl, 33, was arrested Sunday [December 9] when she arrived at JFK airport in New York because she had overstayed a U.S. visa more than 10 years earlier.

Lillendahl, 33, had planned to shop and sightsee with friends, but endured instead what she has claimed was the most humiliating experience of her life.

She contended she was interrogated at JFK airport for two days, during which she was not allowed to call relatives. She said she was denied food and drink for part of the time, and was photographed and fingerprinted.

On Monday, Lillendahl claimed, her hands and feet were chained and she was moved to a prison in New Jersey, where she was kept in a cell, interrogated further and denied access to a phone.

Link. (via Ned Sublette)

• [arikol]

  As Bundercup says, Homeland security has expressed regrets about the handling of this case, showing us that they probably didn’t do quite right.
  According to all reports her only crime was overstaying her visit a few days around ten years ago. She´s been back to the US repeatedly after that. Now some goon noticed her minor infraction and she was put in chains.
  She is considering legal action on multiple issues. US law was violated, Icelandic law was violated, international law was violated. Mostly about due process (oh, you don’t have that in the US any more?).
  The lawyers seem to look forward to this one.

  Those goons obviously have no common sense or real idea about what their job is about.
  All this crap REALLY dissuades most people from visiting the US unless they have to. People joke about being secretly sent to gitmo if the look funny at the airport. Only it’s just kind of a joke.
  That does not help the US economy at all. It will probably be good for us over here in europe. Business people of all sorts prefer not to visit the US either, you see.

• [Paul D]

  Homeland Security expresses its regrets; specifically, that the media discovered the story, and also that several Homeland Security employees were forced to delay lunchtime until 2:00 while dealing with the situation. The demands of protecting Freedomâ„¢* are fierce and sometimes difficult to bear.

  Homeland Security also expresses its regrets that the government of Iceland has the temerity to stand up for its citizens and protest unwarranted humiliating, abusive treatment towards its citizens. From now on, Homeland Security helpfully suggests that the US executive branch prepare several economic, political, and military threats that can be levied Iceland or any other nation at a moment’s notice, in order to force acquiescence and quiet compliance with the requirements of Freedomâ„¢*.

  * Some limits may apply to Freedomâ„¢, offer not valid in all states and territories, may not be combined with any other offer, limit one per customer, offer may be revoked at any time.

• [netsharc]

  You should read her blog entry, translated here: http://eggmann.blog.is/blog/eggmann/ .. it was probably a really harrowing experience for her. It’s probably sexist to say, but why the hell did those TSA Gestapo felt like they had to harrass a pretty Icelandic girl? What sort of threat do they expect to see from her?

• [Anonymous]

  I’ll stay in the UK. we got barmey rules too, we ask foreigners to come and pay them to stay illegally. have a nice day.(its christmas time)

• [Tubman]

  @#17, Netsharc: TSA staff are rigorously trained professionals. It doesn’t matter how blonde or how pretty you are, if you show up at US Customs with a passport from an obviously made-up country, you’re going to jail.

• [padster123]

  Ridiculous crap like this, happening at US airports just makes people less likely to visit the US (= spend money, etc). I get VERY nervous when travelling to the US, and I have absolutely nothing whatsoever to hide. I’d rather go through customs into almost any country in the world rather than US, where you are pretty well guaranteed to run into some humourless, ignorant, pompous, heavily armed arsehole with a really bad attitude. Truly, it’s a thing to behold, and it really damages the reputation of Amerika.

• [Blackbird]

  From reading more on this…apparently she was in country before this as well (but after 9/11) without problems with her visa, so it begs the question WHY NOW…not just WHY.

• [djmongol]

  WHERE. THE F***. AM I. SERIOUSLY.

  Why don’t we just build a big wall around the entire country, so that we may perch atop it, and protect our great nation that everyone, obviously, wants a piece of. “DAMN YOU MONGOLIANS!!!”

  & LOLs at #4 & #18…

• [Tom]

  I’ve lived and worked in the US in the past, and now live a few kilometers from the nearest US border crossing. When the Canadian dollar was a getting close to $1.10 US a few weeks ago I was thinking about crossing over and doing some shopping. But it really isn’t worth it.

  The risk of encountering this kind of garbage at the border is not high, but it’s significantly different from zero and the consequences are potentially horrific. Even being locked up for a few days is not something I’m willing to risk for the sake of saving a few bucks. And I’m sure this attitude is very common.

  Tourism is the world’s largest industry, and amongst the fastest growing. Yet tourist travel to the US has barely recovered to pre-9/11 levels, and the US federal government was reduced to spinning the news by saying that “tourism spending” had recovered to pre-9/11 levels in 2006 (one wonders if they were using inflation-adjusted dollars…)

  The absence of due process, particularly habeas corpus protections, in the United States, as well as the small but steady stream of news stories like this one about the Icelandic tourist, ensure that American tourism will continue to be depressed relative to its potential.

  And the ferocity with which a small but vocal group of bellicose cowards defends the organs of the state no matter what they do to which innocent people–like the innocent people in Guantanamo Bay–definitely gives us foreigners pause whenever we think of entering the US for any reason.

• [scottfree]

  As several people have pointed out, this sort of thing fails to make good capitalistic sense. Can I venture to refer everyone to Das Capital, which argues that contradictions of this variety lead to the eventual downfall of governments?

  Also see the unofficial sequel, Dialectic of Enlightenment which argues you ain’t seen nothing yet as far as stupidity is concerned.

• [agnot]

  Ken Hansen@#23

  Didn’t we thoroughly flog this

  Thoroughly.

  However there seem new developments, albeit not mentioned in this story, being Homeland Security’s acknowledgment of mishandling along with a statement about reviewing protocol.

• [Cpt. Tim]

  they hate our fredoom, but love our low low prices.

• [Cpt. Tim]

  haha. i spelled freedom wrong but it actually worked out somewhat.

• [Richard Steven Hack]

  Here’s the reality:

  ANYBODY arrested in the US on the city, county, state AND Federal level is VERY likely to be treated like this – especially on the Federal level. I have personal experience with this fact. This is how it’s done just about everywhere.

  This is HOW law enforcement routinely treats prisoners. You see all this nonsense on TV with cops carrying guns into interrogation rooms, and prisoners in street clothes in holding cells, yada, yada.

  It doesn’t work like that. You’re stripped, searched, handcuffed, chained, moved, thrown into a concrete holding cell with a stainless steel toilet and a concrete bench jutting out of the wall to sit on for the next eight to twelve hours while they process the other ten thousand people they arrested today for jaywalking in this fucking fascist country. You get no food unless you’ve been lucky enough to be arrested and desposited in the holding cell shortly before scheduled prisoner meal times – otherwise, well, the cops attitude is fuck you. You probably have no toilet paper in your holding cell, so hold it in as best you can for the next eight hours or more.

  And if you complain, you get your kidneys beaten to a pulp with a nightstick or you get tasered to death or in some cases simply beaten to death.

  Two Federal correctional officers beat a Federal prisoner to death at the Oklahoma Federal Transport Center back in the 90′s. They tried to block the Oklahoma City Coroner from entering the facility until he got a court order. The FBI was called in and they “investigated” by throwing the inmate’s bloody clothes into the trunk of an agent’s car and driving around with them for a month until he complained they were stinking up his car, thus ruining the evidence. The DoJ threatened to cut off the state’s Federal law enforcement funds unless they dropped the investigation.

  This is how it works in the real world.

  This is REALITY, folks. This has BEEN the REALITY for suspects and criminals alike in this country for DECADES.

  Back in the 70′s, Federal inmates were ROUTINELY beaten every time they arrived at a facility in order to convince them not to cause any trouble. They are STILL routinely beaten if they arrive from a facility where there has just been a riot – even if they had nothing to do with the riot, as was the case in October 1995. Inmates arriving at Leavenworth from other facilities were immediately beaten upon leaving the transport bus, then forced to stand at attention against the wall for hours and beaten again if they moved.

  There is NO surprise here as to what she went through physically. It’s merely slightly unusual that they went through all this stupid shit for a woman who overstayed her visa TWELVE GODDAMN YEARS AGO, That’s the stupid paranoia part that perhaps has something to do with 9/11 – the rest is how it’s always done.

  The rest is what you get when you get arrested or detained in the “land of the free”.

• [Scoutmaster]

  In my day Icelandic people were welcome to overstay their visas and any authorities who noticed were instructed to offer a friendly warning and take no other action against our harmless allies. Now-a-days our stooges have no common sense.

• [mellowknees]

  In the words of the great David Cross:

  “You know what? *I* hate our freedom!”

  This crap has got to end at some point. I seriously do not understand the mentality of the people who make the decisions whether or not someone is a threat.

  I live near a MEDIUM SECURITY Federal prison. A couple of years ago, members of a group of people that were trying to join Al Qaeda, who confessed to their terrorist links, were housed at the prison, again, remember – it’s only a medium-security facility. And yet we have SUSPECTS lodged in places like Guantanamo Bay?

  Riddle me this, Batman – why do we lodge the real, actual terrorists in medium security prisons, and we house suspects in a horrible place off-shore that no one really seems to supervise?

  Clearly, Bjork was a threat to national security, there…I hope they give those TSA agents medals…not!

• [c3]

  Umm, every foreigner going through JFK is printed and photographed.

• [Billegible]

  @ C3: Ummm, no.

• [da3nklimpo]

  She “Love” USA

• [PNutts]

  Erla just found out our immigration laws substantially changed in 1996. Perhaps next time she’ll be less apt to break them, in say three to 10 years?

  http://www.visapro.com/Immigration-Articles/?a=173&z=30

  With that said, LOVE the first post CPT. TIM.

• [ill lich]

  “It’s OUR freedom, and YOU dang furiners cain’t have any!”

  (On another note, and not that I want to harp on about this but I’m waiting for someone to say “It’s a good thing this didn’t happen in Boston because. . . ” something something something. I don’t worship Boston nor hate New York, I’m just trying to illustrate that this kind of paranoid idiocy is going on everywhere in the US, and I’m not sure what can really be done about it.)

• [krake]

  While stories like this one severely worry me about the deterioration of freedom and justice in the USA, I do think we need more background on most of them.

  I recently traveled to the US, coming from an EU country, this was on the I-94 Visa Waiver program. I was photographed and fingerprinted (bot index fingers) like all I-94 visitors.

  There was an old “departure record” (that part of the I-94 that you absolutely have to return when you leave the country after your stay (which is 90 days maximum)) still stapled into my passport. I pointed this out to the customs officer who wasn’t very wordy, but professionally polite to me. He asked me a few questions about the airline, the port of entry of that other trip, etc, made some notes on that departure record, stamped my passport and wished me a good day…

  This is to say that obviously not everyone is treated like a criminal who is entering the US with something to explain about their passport. And this makes me think that we don’t know the whole story about many of these spectacular cases, where people are handcuffed, interrogated and deported.

  On the other hand I am not saying these people deserve it. It’s just hard to tell from where I am watching…

• [funeralpudding]

  She should have gone Bjork on their asses

• [noen]

  Answer: “Because we can.”

  “why do we lodge the real, actual terrorists in medium security prisons, and we house suspects in a horrible place off-shore that no one really seems to supervise?”

  For the same reason that we don’t really worry about uninspected shipping containers at our ports. This isn’t even loosely about “terrorism”. It is about using the power of the state to enrich themselves and their friends and to impose their Mafia crime family rule on the rest of us. Every single statement you read or hear about is just their bullshit excuse so that they can keep doing whatever the fuck they want to do.

• [Bundercup]

  I am paraphrasing the article but according to the local Icelandic news site (www.mbl.is) the office of homeland security has responded to the complaints and expressed regret of the handling of the case and it claims it will revise its protocol for handling foreign tourists. Erla had asked for an full apology but she is pleased with the response but she is consulting with lawyers and is considering legal action.
  The article in Icelandic:
  http://www.mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/2007/12/19/erla_osk_fagnar_nidurstodunni/?rss=1

• [sonny p fontaine]

  go ahead…complain once more

• [Apashiol]

  I always find it funny when certain Americans crow about your “freedom” and yet you have a state where it’s a crime to promote a device “designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs” and other states where it is illegal to sell sex toys.
  So in many places you have the right to bear arms but not dildos.
  I know that a few years back some circuit court decided that Americans did not have a fundamental right to sexual privacy. Perhaps this has changed in the interim, I don’t know.
  Sure seems a rather heavily qualified freedom to me.