America’s Border Guards Are Watching The Artists
THE New York Times tells us about Ramak Fazel, an American-Iranian artist living in Italy.
His mission was to photograph each of the nation’s 50 state capitol buildings and dispatch a postcard from each city, using postage stamps from a childhood collection. Each postcard would be mailed to the next state on his journey, where he would pick it up, continuing until he had gone full circle back to Indiana.
But:
But there was a problem. On a flight from Sacramento, Calif., to Honolulu, Mr. Fazel described his project to a fellow passenger. He later discovered that she had reported him as suspicious — perhaps to the pilot or the Transportation Security Administration — and taken a picture of him as he slept.
Maybe it was because he was vaguely foreign looking, he reasoned, and his photographic endeavor seemed menacing in a post-9/11 landscape. He also had a three-day growth of beard, he recalled. And, although Mr. Fazel grew up mostly in the United States and is an American citizen, there was his Iranian name.
In his view that woman’s report began a chain reaction, turning him into a person of interest for officials from local law enforcement agencies on up to the F.B.I. On a stop in Annapolis, Md., for example, he was interrogated about his activities and read his Miranda rights. Today, he said, his name lingers on what he thinks of simply as the “the list.” (He doesn’t know where it originated or who controls it.) He believes it has prevented him from receiving a visa to India and caused him be questioned at the border of Poland, both of which he had visited in the past. He said he has been interrogated the last four times he has entered the United States.
Paranoia at work, or just safety first? And isn’t everyone grilled and insulted by the obnoxious US security drones?
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January 22nd, 2008 at 1:54 pm
i have a good friend called jason c. he is a very talented artist who fled the usa because of frequent harassment by us authorities.he was followed, his phone was tapped and his work confiscated .
he now lives in S korea where he tells me the people are friendly and he can work without problems.
so much for america the free !!!
January 22nd, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Maybe it’s because I’m so incredibly dull and work in science not art, but I dont believe I’m being watched. I do have a highly suspicious beard and, due to my Italian ancestry, tend to tan real dark in the summer but still.
Maybe I was under observation and they fell asleep from boredom.
“His work was confiscated”???? What kind of work???
Sounds fishy to me.