Citizenfour director sues government for “Kafkaesque” airport harassment

In the suit, Poitras says that, between 2006 and 2012, she was targeted by security agents and detained for questioning every time she traveled to work on her films, more than 50 times in total. Her laptop, camera, phone, and notebooks were all seized at various points, and agents once threatened to handcuff her on the grounds that she might use her pen as a weapon; agents reportedly told her she was being detained because she has a criminal record (she does not) and that her name was in a national security database.

“I’m filing this lawsuit because the government uses the U.S. border to bypass the rule of law,”Poitras says in a statement. She adds that she is filing the suit “in support of the countless other less high-profile people who also have been subjected to years of Kafkaesque harassment at the borders.” Poitras is being represented in the suit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has supported Cizitenfour subject Edward Snowden in the past.