I Had My Electronics Seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection
As an American citizen who travelled extensively up until TSA made me too miserable to continue, I am absolutely embarrassed about the travel situation in the United States.<p>I grew up in the land of freedom, and grew up hating overzealous and pointless &quot;security&quot; associated with the iron curtain.<p>We have freedom of speech, which inherently means freedom of thought.  At one point we were the bastion of freedom and hope, and a leader in this regard.  Nobody should fear harassment because they happened to speak at DEFCON anymore than one should fear harassment because they spoke at Jesus camp, or the science fair for that matter.<p>We SHOULD be encouraging people to come here and talk about things that might get them in trouble in their home countries.  We SHOULD take a position of leadership and protect the basic inalienable rights of all people regardless of their citizenship, alliances, or thoughts.<p>I am absolutely appalled at the state that our government has arrived at.  I am stunned that after such a strong revocation of the previous leadership that Obama&#x27;s generation sought to increase security theater, decrease freedom, and decrease the rights afforded to our own citizens and our visitors.<p>The enemy of our freedom isn&#x27;t thousands of miles away in some terrorist training camp.  It&#x27;s the people we freely elect who have seemingly no forethought and no historical understanding of our fundamental values.<p>A leader isn&#x27;t someone who looks to cover his ass at every opportunity.  A leader is someone who stands up, tells people there is something wrong, and pushes us back to the values that we were raised to be proud of.  You don&#x27;t have to be president to be a leader.  Every police officer, every border agent, every engineer, janitor, and unemployed citizen can stand up at some point and see enough is enough.  People need to stop arguing about politics and stop worrying about the boogey man.  People need to start caring about freedom and they need to stop the culture of fear.<p>Sorry...  This whole discussion hit a sore spot for me.  I have always been a proud american and this kind of behavior just flies in the face of the values I was raised to embrace.