A Federal Double Standard for Retaliating Against Journalists?

Taking a move from the James O’Keefe playbook, CNN’s Gary Tuchman crossed the U.S. southern border without being stopped by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on the Anderson Cooper 360 program yesterday.

Since O’Keefe originally crossed the border in this manner in August of 2014, he has been subjected to detention and harassment by CBP, as documented in the Project Veritas video where O’Keefe used a hidden recording device to expose the government motivation behind his repeated border detentions and extensive questioning.

“It would be viewed as highly troubling if the Administration detained a NBC or New York Times reporter who crossed the border as part of coverage on the issue,” noted constitutional scholar and law professor Jonathan Turley about the way O’Keefe has been retaliated against by the government.

“They are questions that they would never ask a Washington Post reporter, that they would never ask NBC News,” observed O’Keefe in a recent Washington Post article.

The last time O’Keefe was detained at the border, he learned that CBP had the following description about him written in their hidden database:

He is an amateur reporter engaged in publicity stunts including unlawfully entering the United States dressed as an ISIS terrorist and crossing the Rio Grande dressed like Osama bin Laden.

We are wondering which standard they will apply to CNN’s Gary Tuchman: the revenge angle they apply to O’Keefe or the free pass they generally provide to The New York Times, The Washington Post and NBC?

Here’s the CNN video where Tuchman crossed the border (or you can save time by clicking though to a shortened video on Anderson Cooper’s Twitter account). Also, you can check out O’Keefe’s Rio Grande border crossing at the 30 second mark here.

And since the federal government doesn’t seem to feel that O’Keefe is actually paid for his work, feel free to prove them wrong with your donation today.