{"id":318354,"date":"2026-07-20T12:00:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T11:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=318354"},"modified":"2026-07-20T12:21:49","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T11:21:49","slug":"journalist-recounts-how-border-agents-targeted-him-over-coverage-of-ayatollahs-funeral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2026\/07\/journalist-recounts-how-border-agents-targeted-him-over-coverage-of-ayatollahs-funeral\/","title":{"rendered":"Journalist Recounts How Border Agents Targeted Him over Coverage of Ayatollah’s Funeral"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Screen shot from Grayzone livestream on 14 Jul 2026 (Source)<\/p><\/div>\n

Grayzone journalist Max Blumenthal says US border agents told him he had no rights, as they took his electronics to invade his privacy and potentially compromise his sources.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

14 Jul 2026\u00a0<\/em>–\u00a0On July 10, United States border agents detained journalist Max Blumenthal at Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., and seized his electronic devices. He was returning from a trip to Iran to cover the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe seizure of my devices was a clear act of intimidation aimed at deterring me and others from doing further critical reporting from Iran, which is likely why my interrogators from [Customs and Border Protection] demanded to know if I would be returning to Tehran to report any time soon,\u201d Blumenthal declared in a statement<\/a> posted to the social media site formerly known as Twitter.<\/p>\n

Condemning President Donald Trump\u2019s administration, Blumenthal maintained that the \u201cIsraeli-influenced criminal cartel\u201d was clearly threatened by the journalism that he did as editor-in-chief of The Grayzone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI showed the massive crowds of mourners and ferocious public backlash to the assassination of Khamenei, exposed US and Israeli war crimes against civilians from the ground, and conducted candid interviews with officials, negotiators and influential Iranians,\u201d Blumenthal added.<\/p>\n

Defending Rights and Dissent condemned the detention and interrogation, emphasizing that the civil liberties organization is opposed to such harassment at the U.S. border.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeizing and potentially searching a journalist\u2019s electronic devices poses serious risk to press freedom. Journalists have not only a right, but a duty to report from countries under attack by the U.S. government and bring the U.S. people perspectives their government may not want them to hear,\u201d Defending Rights and Dissent policy director Chip Gibbons stated<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)\u00a0posted an advisory warning travelers of increased demands by border agents to search and seize electronics.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe practice of seizing and searching a journalist\u2019s phone or other electronic devices at the border raises grave First and Fourth amendment concerns,\u201d ADC President and Legal Director, Jenin Younes, told The Grayzone. \u201cAbsent a legitimate and particularized national security justification, search of phones should not be a condition of entering the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Younes continued, \u201cThe Supreme Court has recognized the important privacy interests in modern smart phones, an interest that is not diminished simply because an American is crossing the border. The search and seizure of Blumenthal\u2019s phones is yet more concerning because it appears to be viewpoint based discrimination, given that prominent associates of the current administration have singled him out for condemnation because of his views.\u201d<\/p>\n

Upon arrival in Tehran, the Canary Mission targeted Blumenthal for political harassment. The outfit is used by Israeli intelligence<\/a> to identify individuals<\/a> who should be denied entry to Israel. It also blacklists U.S. students who engage in advocacy for Palestinians in an effort to make them unemployable after graduation.<\/p>\n

Laura Loomer, a right-wing influencer with close ties to Trump, attacked Blumenthal as a \u201cleading communist voice\u201d who had traveled to \u201cmourn\u201d Khamenei. She later called on the FBI to launch a \u201cheavily armed raid\u201d against him at 5 a.m. and urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio to strip Blumenthal of his passport \u201cfor aiding the Iranian regime as they chant Death to America.\u201d (Loomer has had a number of people in the Trump administration fired<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Furthermore, Loomer hoped that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent would investigate how he paid for his trip to Iran and find out if the Iranian government or Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps had funded his trip in violation of U.S. sanctions.<\/p>\n

Blumenthal pointed out during a Grayzone livestream<\/a> on July 14 that the government previously raided his home<\/a> on false pretenses. It happened on October 25, 2019, during Trump\u2019s first term. He was targeted for his reporting on antiwar and international solidarity activists, who were in the Venezuela embassy in D.C. trying to defend it from supporters of Juan Guaido\u2019s attempted coup.<\/p>\n

He noticed that his boarding pass from Istanbul to D.C. was marked for secondary screening.<\/p>\n

Upon arrival at Dulles, Blumenthal said his passport was taken by border agents and put in a red box. He was questioned at a metal table by two young officers \u201cat the bottom of the food chain.\u201d\u00a0The officers kept referring to \u201cinstructions from their \u2018managers,\u2019\u201d Blumenthal recalled. They asked him if he was \u201cpaid to conduct interviews in Iran,\u201d which he thought was ridiculous.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Like] I\u2019m going to go 20 hours on an economy flight, and then go into an area which could potentially become a war zone in order to collect money to conduct interviews. Like I can\u2019t make money as a journalist in the U.S. and that\u2019s what I have to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both officers wanted to know if Blumenthal felt threatened in Iran. \u201cDid anything make you feel threatened? I said no, and then they asked again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe questioning was basically useless and absurd and they demanded I open my devices. I open my phones. And I said no, I\u2019m not going to give you my pass codes. So they detained my phones.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy phones were taken. And they told me we\u2019re going to hook them up to machines and this should be done in a day. Well, it\u2019s been several days,\u201d Blumenthal added.<\/p>\n

Blumenthal presumed that they meant that CBP would use Israeli Cellebrite technology to bypass the pass codes on his electronics and invade his privacy to \u201clearn more about my sources and methods, to violate my Fourth Amendment rights, and to violate my First Amendment rights.”<\/p>\n

“And they told me you have no rights here. They said that to me, and that is well known.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the libertarian magazine Reason reported<\/a> on July 13, a\u00a0January 2026 policy directive<\/a> states that border agents may search\u00a0“any device that may contain information in an electronic or digital form, such as computers, tablets, disks, drives, tapes, flash drives, SIM cards, global positioning systems, unmanned aircraft systems, vehicle infotainment systems, smart watches, mobile phones and other communication devices, cameras, music and other media players.”<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you’re entering the country, exiting the country, or within 100 miles of a border, it’s fair game,\u201d wrote Reason senior editor Elizabeth Nolan Brown. \u201cIn fiscal year 2025, CBP conducted\u00a055,318 border searches of electronic devices<\/a>. Most of these searches involved noncitizens, but 13,590 of them involved U.S. citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warrantless searches of electronics by border agents have grown exponentially since 2015, and the Trump administration can easily take advantage of what is referred to as the \u201cborder search exception\u201d to target journalists.<\/p>\n

In 2018, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) published a report that \u201cidentified\u00a0<\/strong>37 journalists who said they found the secondary screenings invasive, 20 of whom reported that their electronic devices were searched. The cases included repeated secondary screenings, warrantless searches of electronic devices, and denial of entry.\u201d<\/p>\n

“I\u2019m working on trying to recover those phones, but this was a complete violation of privacy. It was political targeting, political harassment because other reporters who were there, American reporters, have not been subjected to this treatment,\u201d Blumenthal emphasized.<\/p>\n

He mentioned that he was in Iran on \u201ca press visa, the same press visa that was granted to reporters like NBC\u2019s Richard Engel or CNN\u2019s Frederik Pleitgen, who I joined at a press conference last Wednesday at the Iranian foreign ministry.\u201d They were not apparently questioned and did not have their electronics searched upon return to the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlumenthal was potentially singled out due to the content of his reporting, which has been highly critical of U.S. foreign policy, or due to an extended campaign against him led by pro-Israel McCarthyites,\u201d Gibbons noted. \u201cThis is unacceptable and must be condemned in the strongest personal terms.\u201d<\/p>\n

In October 2024, Grayzone reporter Jeremy Loffredo was detained<\/a> and barred from leaving Israel after he reported on impact sites where Iranian missiles had landed. However, he was ultimately released because an Israeli judge was presented with evidence that an Israeli reporter had published an article on Loffredo\u2019s detention that contained the Grayzone report on damage from Iranian missiles.<\/p>\n

The State Department was conspicuously silent as the Israeli government held a U.S. citizen in detention for committing an act of journalism.<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kevin Gosztola is managing editor of<\/em> Shadowproof, host of the<\/em> Dissenter Weekly, co-host of the podcast<\/em> Unauthorized Disclosure, and member of Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ).<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 thedissenter.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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