Wednesday, June 01, 2005

..and, by the way, YOU'RE FINED!!

Channel 4 ran a story the other night about the Department of Homeland Security's latest trick. (More and more DHS resembles an amorphous anthill of wackos. What color is Today's Alert Level?)

Seems some Milwaukee-area traveler had the unmitigated gall to bring a jacknife into the airport, where he was going to board a plane. After the usual alarm bells sounded, the man was deprived of his jacknife.

Well, he wasn't thinking. (The size of the blade was not revealed during the story--it could have been a Dangerous Two-Inch Blade of the sort that the Milwaukee County Sheriff fears.)

A few weeks after the incident, DHS's moronic administration sent the Milwaukee traveler a letter informing him that he is being assesssed a fine of $250.00 for his error. A DHS spokeswoman justified this on the basis that "We take these things VERY seriously, and want to make it clear to everybody..."

DHS's fabled repertoire of Stupid Bureaucratic Tricks includes a list of "no-fly" names which absolutely nobody can review and from which damn near nobody can be exculpted. The list recently triggered the capture of Senator Ted Kennedy.

Could it get even sillier? Probably. A bureaucracy built on paranoia and unchecked by rational thought (e.g., driven by Political Correctness) can't help but become worse.

The question is: how long will people stand for this?

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