Very disappointed to hear that most people view a simple border check as more dangerous than a fanatical religious terrorist. Again, I know this is not a popular view, and will surely get more downvotes. Just kind of sad to me, to be honest.
> most people view a simple border check as more dangerous than a fanatical religious terrorist.
Which terrorist?
So by your logic, because there was a fanatical religious terrorist at some point in time, it is perfectly ok for this country to start prying into everyone's (public and private) accounts, infer who knows what from what they read there ("You write on twitter you are going to have a _blast_!? in Boston" "Ok, step over here please"), and then proceed to interrogate people at the border.
It seems like the guy was added to some black database somewhere. Are you in that database too? Can you check who is in there? Do you know how one gets added or removed from it?
Are you prepared to justify all the groping, and x-raying going in airports because because of a religious terrorist. What else are you willing to sacrifice because of this religious terrorist.
I am, for one, also very disappointed to see that you and others have drunk the cool-aid that has been flowing from Washington D.C. (This is a War on Terror, Be Afraid, Be Prepared for More Attacks, We Must Invade etc. etc.)
I think you misunderstand. It's like saying I'm more afraid of twisting my ankle than getting struck by a meteorite; It's not that the latter isn't worse than the former, but rather that the latter is less of a threat when actual probability is taken into account.
"It seems like the guy was added to some black database somewhere."
Or, a much more simple explanation as was outlined in a post above, is that they asked what he does for a living, and he mentioned cryptographic technologies. Which is a controlled export in this country. Which would naturally raise the curiousity of someone whose job it is to monitor the flow of humans and properties in and out of this country.
Someone who enters and leaves this country frequently, who works in an area that is a defined controlled export of this country...
Tell me, if your job was a border agent, would you be curious? Would you interview that person? Wouldn't you be horrible at your job if you didn't?
The point of those religious fanatics is to kill the influence the US has so they can increase their influence. Every time someone says they aren't going back to the US because of their last experience at customs we lose influence. When a company avoids doing business with the US because of our laws we lose influence.
The simple border checks are symbolic in nature. It means we are intentionally excluding people from our conversations. Eventually those people will form a new dialog without us. Think about Pakistan, they are our allies in name only. The population doesn't like us, government actively works against with states who are not our friends.
Are you aware of the level of details people have to report (or have reported by the airline and weird treaties I'll never understand) to enter this fine country?
How many people are scanned (using information that's, in spite of your advice of 'not putting things in public', readily available to the US immigration and border control)? How many of those are terrorists?
