Yesterday as I was finishing up a deadline, I noticed this at the Guardian website. The partner of Glenn Greenwald (one of the journalists who broke the Snowden/NSA story) was detained for 9 hours at London’s Heathrow airport. As an American and an editorial cartoonist, this is a very disturbing development. I remember right after 9/11 how ordinary people were detained for weeks without access to legal counsel, all in the name of preventing terrorism threats.
This reinforces one of my biggest fears- that people who criticize the government will be targeted. Every time I’m interviewed I always talk about how we American cartoonists never have to face the types of threats other cartoonists around the world do because we have the First Amendment to protect us. This is the first time I truly feel the situation has changed.
Here’s Glenn’s response and Andrew Sullivan’s piece challenging PM Cameron. Be sure to read the last line; the unfortunate reality is that it’s a question which needs to be asked.