Hasan Piker detained at the border and questioned for hours over politics
Hasan Piker detained at the border and questioned for hours over politics
"They straight up tried to get something out of me that I think they could use to basically detain me permanently"
Hasan Piker, the biggest progressive political streamer in America, was detained by Customs and Border Protection for hours of questioning upon returning to the U.S. from a trip to France this weekend. Piker posted about the incident on X and later talked about it on stream.
He was detained in Chiago and questioned for two hours about protected journalistic activities like who he’s interviewed and his political beliefs. He was asked whether or not he’d interviewed Hamas, Houthis, or Hezbollah members. He was questioned about his opinions on Trump and Israel and asked about his history of bans on Twitch. His phone and laptop were not confiscated.
Any comment that has to point out his politics or "concerns with him" is completely missing the point.
Yeah, it's disgusting that people's first reaction to someone being unjustly detained is that.
progressive
Pretty sure dude is a leftist. Capitalist media has never encountered this before.
Borderline tankie. Remember him being best buds with putin before russia attacked Ukraine? Dude probably still blames NATO for that.
I have a like/dislike perspective on Hasan Piker.
Hes tankie-lite. Critical support for him in this case though, fuck ICE.
Its probably an indicator that I really need to touch grass that I'm primarily curious what Ethan Klein and Lonerbox think of this.
Man, I liked some of Klein's videos from way back ( idubbbz as well) but when YouTubers shift from whatever content they were making to making content about the platform or others on it I usually check out real quick.
I also can't do 3 hour podcasts where people talk over each other and yell either so maybe I'm just not the target demo anymore.
Its further an indication that I need to touch grass that when I read your name I think of Vaush's editor.
It's too bad they didn't let him stream it. That would've been peak content.
The questioning (though harmless) is often a stepping stone to more drastic measures. In the place where I live (not the US), my local religious police does questioning to make sure that activists are not posting their status online. This sort of measure helps them evade accountability and keeps the general public in ignorance.
The questioning (though harmless)
There's nothing "harmless" about kidnapping people and coercing them into an interrogation.
This sort of measure helps them evade accountability and keeps the general public in ignorance.
Yep, that's some of the harm.
That is true. Interrogations do harm communities to a larger extent than I initially thought. I recall how my neighborhood had to stop everything (such as art, videos, embroidery, food) just so they could avoid police kidnappings. We had three post-doctoral candidates in our district arrested for insulting the sultan (and his religion) and although they were smart enough to hire defense counsel, their lawyers told us that their clients are "jailed without trial".
In the place where I live (not the US), my local religious police does questioning to make sure that activists are not posting their status online.
Careful. Depending on which not-the-US country you're in, this could be flagged as anti-semitism.
Never heard of this guy but must have hit a nerve if a whole Hasbara brigade is showing up here to trash talk him.
That being said, it’s an interesting turn of events that apparently units around immigration take the role of Gestapo. Makes a lot of sense given what types of people would even want to do such a job but it’s still not what I expected when they said fascism is coming back.
Right wing groups have been targeting him for his support of Palestine and being critical of Israel.
It should be a surprise to no one that government goons are totally on board with fascism. Did anyone think for a second that they would have objections? A person that chose to be in a position of authority is going to complain when an authoritarian leader gives them more power? Yeah right. It's all about the power trip for those thugs.
Hasan's a moron, but detaining him for his opinions is definitely unwarranted and stinks of the same bullshit reasons that this administration has been using to play hide and seek and deport anyone they don't like.
I find it crazy to hear this coming from the US. It was all over the news when Serbia detained a Croatian singer trying to cross the border or trying to deport people with Croatian citizenship, crazy to see the same thing happening in the US.
Completely normal for USA. There are plenty of people who have been hiding from imperial violence. Snowden, Assange, et al. Always has been.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/abdulrahman-al-awlaki-us-drone-strike-10-years
These people get to ask Hasan head-empty questions for hours and get paid. To think his entire fanbase has been doing it for free this entire time
Crazy that in his stream with FD a few weeks ago he was adamant that he'd be one of the last people impacted by the immigration/border control nonsense.
I think it just goes to show how, even otherwise well informed people, can underestimate how much fascism will impact them personally. It can be easy to distance yourself until it is in your face, placing you in cuffs, or forcible removing you from your home. I hope he learns a lesson from this experience.
Remember folks, it starts with the leftists, then it doesn't stop until we lose for good. Every 80 years.
It didn't start with leftists. It started with immigrants, but we didn't do anything, because both parties are united in bigotry and vile hatred against immigrants.
we didn’t do anything,
Who is "we"? Please don't include me in your nationalist cult.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_religion
The reality is that leftists have constantly been fighting for refugees, while libs/dems have been doing worse than nothing by supporting fascism.
no, it started with leftists. It just started a lot longer ago than you think.
Idk guys, I feel like I'm not going to just let them win. I think we can dish out more than they can.
Haven't yet. Feelings and thoughts need to become words and actions.
I'm starting to feel like a lot of the takes against Hasan are in bad faith. I watched a little recap and I felt it was both clear and obvious that YOU (normal person) shouldn't do what he did.
But being a notable person of interest who was already (questionably?) illegally caught up in a bad system, there's reason to believe things wouldn't take a turn for the better just because he asked to lawyer up. So he took a calculated risk and engaged with the situation enough to gather a first hand experience he could report on. Concrete evidence, there's value in that. It was his decision to make.
To reiterate, obvious YOU don't do that. Stay silent, lawyer up.
EDIT: Timestamped.
Yeah you don't have to watch Hasan for too long to realize that most objections against him are empty / bad faith. If he's guilty of anything at all it's getting distracted by / yelling at his chat too much. But I chalk that up to general Twitch culture. The reality is that he's politically activating and engaging tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of people who wouldn't be otherwise, or would have been watching slop / right wing pipeline content instead. I wish there were more people like him in streaming, but obviously it's a difficult niche to exist in.
They are in bad faith. If you watch a full argument from Hasan, it’s really difficult to not agree with him. The American centric view of the world is distorting everything. Step back, watch events from a different prospective, many things will be clearer.
Is anyone surprised? This isn't a jab at Hasan, it's just a reminder that fascists will crack down on opponents. The likes of Hasan will be deliberately targeted until they've been silenced one way or another, and then they'll come for you.
Trump has been openly talking about persecuting his political opponents, so this is just an extension of that.
I'm actually surprised it didn't happen sooner, but it's still newsworthy.
This is basically a warning to him to get out of dodge.
Probably a warning to others like him, too.
Wow this is bad. Even if you deem questioning necessary, it being done by border protection is a bad sign. There are other mechanisms in place for that.
The US is spiraling fast.
Question
When do who exactly deem that "questioning" journalists is a good idea? Who? Can anyone deem anyone else for "questioning"?
What are the wrong answers? What is the questions about? What do they question about and why?
No fan of Hasan, but this shouldn't be happening to anyone.
Who asked?
everyone loves ethan here so here's a summary of hasan not supporting terror groups
here's a summary of hasan not supporting terror groups
based?
You desperately need to escape the bubble that you're in as a member of Ethan's community. He's become a useful idiot for Israeli propagandists and now even the MAGA fascists - as evidenced by the details of Ethan's false accusations against Hasan being brought up by the CBP agent who detained him. By attacking and slandering pro-Palestinian content creators and influencers he feels personally slighted by he is unwittingly doing the bidding of Netanyahu and Trump both.
They are going after white-passing US citizens now?
Hasan is not a very pale-skin name. If his name was Bob, it might be different.
this isn't about his skin or name. they knew who he was, and they already had questions for him about his views and even interviews he's done. this is 100% trying to suppress 1A
If they're known left-wingers, yes.
Pathetic, and for the record Hasan would interview Hamas, because interviewing someone is not an endorsement of someone if you aren't a piece of shit fraud like the members of the Trump administration who treat interviews as theater to spread propaganda with no evidence are.
Assuming someone interviewing someone you consider a threat is thus by association a threat of the same kind is a shockingly dangerous precendent to set and basically spells out the extinction of a free press in no uncertain terms.
That may be true but he also does explicitly support hamas.
Show us a video clip or you're a pathetic liar
What’s wrong with supporting Hamas?
Palestinians have a legal right to armed struggle
Palestinian right of armed resistance
UN top court says Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal
Then again if this how many US liberals feel, I am glad I left the US.
He explicitly supports Palestinian resistance
At first they came for the Communists...
I'm glad he was released, this shouldn't have happened. Meanwhile, a random Iraqi who was legally, iirc, here was sent to Rwanda. We know nothing else about that afaik.
Fox version, if they even cover it:
"A known terrorist supporter was questioned about his pro-hamas stances and his hatred of America, hatred of our great president especially, and the left naturally are losing their minds over this! Of course they would because they also hate America and hate freedom. They want hamas to run America into the ground and they want transgender Communism forced down your childrens throats! Thank God for the great job border protection and customs does, he's just lucky he got to leave outside of a casket! More than he deserves!"
MAGA: mhmm mmhmm, sound right. Good thing border patrol and customs protects us! We need to give ICE more money! There's nothing wrong at all with this picture!
Hopefully the border agents learned something.
Border agents aren't capable of learning anything but new laws to punish brown people with. Smart people aren't good strongmen for fascism.
Brain rot and no accountability 🤷
Answering as he did was irresponsible.
"I invoke my legal right to silence under the 5th amendment and will not answer any questions without legal council"
This is Trump speak.
Like, Trump literally (in the literal sense of literally) made this point.
Wut. If you are being questioned by any form of law enforcement it is because they want you to tell them something that will put you or someone else in prison. They are trained to get you to say incriminating things. It is your constitutional right to not talk to them. Do not fucking talk to cops. Shut the fuck up.
Rip bozo
Which part of "America"? From the US, neither his face or name seem familiar and I'm trying to gauge my level of out-of-touchiness in light of this "biggest" streamer.
Straight from his Wikipedia page:
Piker's stream covering the results of the 2020 United States presidential election peaked at 230,000 concurrent viewers and was the sixth most-watched source of election coverage across YouTube and Twitch, comprising 4.9% of the market share.
I'd say that's a pretty significant portion of all online coverage for that election. He's not famous famous but he's definitely a big online political figure.
He is the 21st most popular Twitch streamer and the most popular left wing Twitch streamer. His Uncle is Cenk who is co founder of The Young Turks. He is very very well known for actual Left wing politics.
If you have other progressive political streamers in your part of America, I'd love to give them a listen if you don't mind sharing. Love discovering new voices.
The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder
Lol good.
How exactly is this good?