My Harassment By The TSA/Customs Gestapo

The following post is by Ed Bugos, TDV Senior Analyst... this occurred last week, on the same day that TDV Correspondent and new TDV employee, Justin O'Connell was incarcerated in Las Vegas. Is it because we are vigilantes that we continue to be cloistered and caged? We don't think so. We believe it is solely because we have an inability to cowtow and submit to "authority"... unless you do that, you will be kidnapped and questioned... as Ed was last week. Here is more...

“What kind of business are you going down to the US for, sir?” asked the customs officer.

I was coming from Vancouver, BC, Canada, and it was supposed to be just another trip. I was going to visit a mine site in Redding (owned by a private company), and a prospective mining property in Grass Valley (both in California) in some of the oldest mining districts at the request of potential investors who wanted me to vet the assets.

I wasn’t being paid for the excursion. The trip’s expenses were straight out of my pocket. Maybe it would lead to some business, maybe it wouldn’t. Chances are, it wouldn’t. That’s the risk in this business.

As we headed to the airport Sunday morning, my wife didn’t understand why I was so tense. We even argued about it a little. I told her I was worried that I’d miss my 6am flight because the TSA might detain me.

Not because I write for TDV, or because I have been a general critic of the fascist state since before Greenspan’s tech bubble. But because they detained me the last two out of three times I went to the US on business. At the airport, I even hesitated before checking off the box on my customs declaration that denoted I was visiting the US for business related reasons.

But, I thought, better tell the truth. Besides, what were the odds they would detain me again just to answer the same questions they asked last time? Boy, was I wrong.

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