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New York Times reporters sue DHS

Two New York Times reporters are suing the Department of Homeland Security for records of a questioning they say occurred at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport earlier this year.

According to the lawsuit, both Mac William Bishop and Christopher (C.J.) Chivers were held and questioned at JFK before they were set to board flights to Turkey for assignments in Syria about the civil war there. Bishop was also questioned on his return to the United States.

In a statement to POLITICO, a Times Company lawyer said DHS had yet to provide adequate responses to their requests for the records, which were filed under the Freedom of Information Act.

"We want to be sure that our journalists are not being targeted by DHS for special scrutiny or having their activities monitored by the government when they are engaged in reporting," David McCraw, Vice President & Assistant General Counsel of The New York Times Company wrote. "DHS has failed to provide adequate responses to our FOIA requests seeking whatever information DHS employees were working from in initiating the questioning and whatever information they gathered in the questioning. That led to this lawsuit."

The FOIA requests were transferred from DHS to TSA, but according to Courthouse News TSA said it had lost Bishop's letter requesting the records.

Chivers is a senior reporter for the Times on the Foreign and Investigative desks and frequently posts for the At War blog. Bishop is a video and multimedia journalist at the Times.