I have a warped sense of humour. Officials with forms make me want to tell them that these are not the droids they are looking for, or start singing something obscene about the current president.
Note to any federal members of the No such agency — YES my fingerprints and face are in your computer. I do not want them there again. Which is why I fly into Vancouver rather than Los Angeles when doing grandpa visits to the Canadian Friaries. Your Kabuki security theatre is gone beyond ridiculous to oppressively dangerous.
It sounds like my sense of the ridiculous could get me killed.
Being a legal immigrant, I am inured to the indignities imposed by the U.S. government. (You can’t ask an illegal immigrant for ID, even at the voting booth or after commission of a crime, but a legal immigrant has to have his green card on him even when he’s strolling in the woods behind his house.) And indeed, for anyone familiar with the curious priorities of officialdom, there is a certain logic in an agency that has failed to prevent millions of illegal aliens from entering the country evolving smoothly into an agency that obstructs law-abiding persons from exiting the country.
But my assistant felt differently. A couple of days later, I was zipping through a DVD of The Great Escape, trying to locate a moment from that terrific wartime caper that I wished to refer to in a movie essay. While zapping back and forth, I chanced on a scene after the eponymous escape in which Richard Attenborough and Gordon Jackson are trying to board a small-town bus while Gestapo agents demand “Your papers, mein herr.” My assistant walked in in the middle, and we exchanged some mordant cracks about life under the Nazis. “It’s almost as bad as driving from Lyndonville to Lac Brome for lunch.” Etc. Her family have lived blameless and respectable lives in my North Country town for a quarter-millennium, and she didn’t like the idea of having to clear an armed checkpoint on a U.S. highway in order to leave the country.
Now, since I despise the TSA — I have already changed my behaviour. Please note that I am an academic — and presenting at conferences is part of my job. However.
- I pay extra to avoid the USA. I deliberately fly via Vancouver or Toronto rather than Los Angeles and Chicago.
- I will not visit any conference in a USA territory. Ever. This means that I go to the European, Australian or British meetings.
- Although I have collegial relationships with people in the USA, and I am due for sabbatical, I will not use that to visit the USA.
In short, I decided, some years ago, not to visit there. Ever. Again. I have nothing about the people of the US — in fact I have eaten in diners in areas from Cape Cod to rural North Georgia, and my mothers best life long friend lives in the Midwest.
But your government has become dangerous to any person who has ever watched Monty Python.