The Government Versus The American People

U.S. News reports today on the apparently random seizing of laptops and cameras (and loose memory cards) by U.S. customs agents.As John Amato writes at Crooks & Liars:

A controversial customs practice creates a legal backlash:

Returning from a brief vacation to Germany in February, Bill Hogan was selected for additional screening by customs officials at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C. Agents searched Hogan’s luggage and then popped an unexpected question: Was he carrying any digital media cards or drives in his pockets? “Then they told me that they were impounding my laptop,” says Hogan, a freelance investigative reporter whose recent stories have ranged from the origins of the Iraq war to the impact of money in presidential politics.Shaken by the encounter, Hogan says he left the airport and examined his bags, finding that the agents had also removed and inspected the memory card from his digital camera. “It was fortunate that I didn’t use that machine for work or I would have had to call up all my sources and tell them that the government had just seized their information,” he said. When customs offered to return the machine nearly two weeks later, Hogan told them to ship it to his lawyer…read on

I don’t know why, but I thought of this movie as I read the article: “The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming. (h/t Mike Finnegan)

This is just one more example of the inexcusable excesses our customs agents perpetrate every day on American citizens. Here's the excerpt from the original article that I think represents most clearly the attitude that has permeated our government:

Now, businesses and other organizations are pushing back, Congress is investigating, and lawsuits have been filed challenging how the program selects travelers for inspection. The ninth circuit ruling was the result of more than 20 lawsuits involving electronics seized from travelers who were nearly all of Muslim, Middle Eastern, or South Asian descent.

Citing the lawsuits, customs officials decline to say how many computers, storage drives, cellphones, and BlackBerrys they have confiscated or what happens to them afterward. Officials declined to testify at a recent Senate hearing, although they wrote in a prepared statement that officers "have the responsibility to check items such as laptops and other personal electronic devices to ensure that any item brought into the country complies with applicable law and is not a threat to the American public." (emphasis mine)

If the Customs folks were a corporation or a private individual, this position would at least make sense.

Abraham Lincoln, revered by Democrats and Republicans alike, used these words to close his famous Gettysburg Address: "...that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth"

So if the government's (theoretically) ours, what's our interest in their refusing to answer a question about how frequently seizure occurs and the disposition of the seized items, whether there are pending lawsuits or not.

If nothing else, the incident clearly demonstrates how far we have come, from a government of the people, by the people, for the people, to the Cheny-Bush America where we now have the government versus the people.