From the Department of Public Safety and General Preparedness comes this story of one man, a Cisco engineer, and his headline-making ordeal of having his possessions searched upon re-entry to the U.S. following an international flight. (It’s also the story of run-on sentences.) The man, Mohamed Shommo, told the Associated Press that border agents rifled through his digital camera’s photos, his Google searches and the files on his iPod. That’s all done in the name of Your Safety, mind.
No, we can’t have this, can we? No, says privacy advocates. They, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and various Muslim rights folks, say that such searches are unreasonable and very mean. The rookie officer at Customs doesn’t need to look at your Google history to protect the homeland, they argue. Certain members of Congress agree, and now there’s several bills milling about that may actually pass next year. One such bill would require customs officials to officially be suspicious of a traveler in order to search his electronic belongings. (Right now, those same officials merely have to be “awake” and “in a foul mood” to be able to search your stuff.)
Your best bet, I think, is to travel with an unreasonable number of gadgets. That way, the young gun at customs elects to wave you through rather than search 10 cellphones, three laptops, two camcorders, four digital cameras, etc. Be a nuisance, then.
I’d feel sorry for the guy if he was a US citizen. As it stands, he’s a citizen of the Sudan.
Wow. You would think that would be pointed out.
Deleon, getting harder to stick up for you when you only post things that help your argument and never acknowledge anything that might detract from it. Your making it too easy for people to accuse you of having an agenda.
It sucks this guy is going through this. But unfortunately Sudan has a reputation for breeding radicals. Traveling in and out of the United States as a Sudanese citizen is bound to draw attention from the transportation authorities.
Here’s an idea! Change your name! Don’t travel to or from a country that sponsors radical Islamic Fascism. Don’t have visa stamps in your passport from radical Islamist countries.
If you go out of your way to look conspicuous, then you have got to expect tighter scrutiny.
Maybe what they should do is for every suspicious person they detain and search, they should strip-search an elderly Norweigan, or some such unsuspicious person, just to make it “fair”. Oh, it won’t be fair for the poor innocent who gets strip-searched so Border Patrol won’t get into trouble for alleged “discrimination”.
Of course. We all know that because we have a stereotype about one culture of foreigners, they can expect to be harassed and pestered at the border. It’s their fault for wanting to come to the US, as lesser people (from africa, for goodness’ sake!) they deserve a lower standard of treatment. We all know that threats only originate from the outside, and that anyone with a name like Mohammed is probably plotting something anyway.
Just like if he was called Esteban he would probably be smuggling coke.
Now if he was called Harold or Timothy he’d be fine, not a threat at all- good solid American names, those. Not like them there foreigners.
Welcome to the land of the free…
How dare the TSA search people from countries with high Muslim populations! I mean, it’s not like the biggest attack on our country was perpetrated by Muslims on airplanes. Oh wait..
what is the average customs agent going to find that is of interest to national security, and what kind of bumbler would a person trying to hide something have to be.
Your average 14 year old surfing for porn on the net knows enough to clear the cache. That would seem to make it clear that this particular agent was looking to hassle this particular person. Maybe he had a good reason, maybe he didnt.
here an idea …. take the train to travel in …
You dont have trains ….
Well you brought this to your self, cause you can have a illegal mp3 that will be a security risk …. who knows, RIAA .. i meant homeland security doesn’t want this !