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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
It's too bad they didn't let him stream it. That would've been peak content.
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.
Rip bozo
Should he be detained like that, no.
He's an absolute scumbag though