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What the Security State Hath Wrought
By
A citizen of a Western European country, who works in the United States for a fast-growing Internet startup company, writes today:
Yes, we need to be "safe." It is worth noting what we are giving up in the name of safety. Think about the last line in the note from my European friend.
In many of your TSA related post, a key theme is the illusion of security through ineffective and "invasive" means. Seems like there is more of this going on in the broader "security" world.The stories my correspondent links to are quietly incredible. About the latter episode, which took place in Quebec, today's news story describes what happened to a telecom salesman named Saad Allami:
-A young British couple was sent back from the US after some ill-advised but innocuous tweets;
-Muslim man gets arrested for using term "blow away the competition" in a text message
It's one thing to have Google and Facebook data mine your life to make money for themselves. It's another thing if innocent communication gets you in trouble with a humorless bureaucracy without adequate recourse.
The fact that as a green card holder I seriously hesitated before hitting "send" on this message means something I think.
On Jan. 21, 2011, Allami sent a text message to colleagues urging them to "blow away" the competition at a trade show in New York City.The British couple, shown below in a photo via ABC, got in trouble for a slangy use of the word "destroy" in a Tweet. The ABC account says:
According to [a lawsuit for damages he has filed], he was arrested without warning by police three days later and detained for over a day while his house was searched. During his detention, a team of police officers allegedly conducted an "intrusive" four-hour search.
"The whole time, the officers kept repeating to the plaintiff's wife that her husband was a terrorist," the filing reads.
"Free this week, for quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America," one of the tweets read. Bryan told The Sun [in England] that in this context "destroy" just meant party.There are a lot more details in The Sun's account -- and with all allowances made for the imaginative potential of UK tabloids, it is worth a look.
"The Homeland Security agents were treating me like some kind of terrorist. I kept saying they had got the wrong meaning from my tweet but they just told me 'You've really f***ed up with that tweet, boy'," Bryan told The Sun.
Yes, we need to be "safe." It is worth noting what we are giving up in the name of safety. Think about the last line in the note from my European friend.
