Friday, August 28, 2009

Making us safer and safer and safer.

Guess what, folks! We have another gift from those civil libertarians in the Obama administration, part of the change we can believe in. CBS News tells us that since last summer our Department of Homeland Security has been able to seize anyone’s laptop, cell phone or camera at U.S. points of entry and hold them indefinitely.

And don’t think for a minute that you’re excluded if you’re an Euromerican citizen. Nor does DHS need a probable cause to seize your stuff. That silly idea went out with our other civil liberties.

As CBS points out, “The complete contents of a hard drive or memory card can be perused at length for evidence of lawbreaking of any kind, even if it’s underpaying your taxes or not paying parking tickets." So, if you’ve downloaded a few too many songs either stay home or leave your laptop behind, along with your iPhone and your iPod.

But rest assured, the good folks at DHS are discouraging their agents from downloading the nude photos of your girlfriend onto their personal computers, not that they’d even think of it.

So, God bless you, Barack, for adding another knot to our security blanket.

2 comments:

David M said...

Yeah I quit traveling. Within a month of 9-11 my wife and I flew up to Columbus Ohio. I had a beard (which apparenly meant that I was a terrorist) and they put me through the ringer. I can imagine what they might do to someone with high tech stuff with "what they condider" subversive material on it. Like maybe a speech by Noam Chomsky or an article from Short Shots or even a copy of the Declaration of Independence/Constitution. Scary!

Case Wagenvoord said...

I drive whenever I can, even if it takes me an extra couple of days. I'm simply sick and tired of taking off my shoes and emptying my pockets, etc.