Homeland Security: Keeping you “Safe,” one Artist at a Time

The “War on Terror” is over. We lost.

We have turned into a nation of mewling cowards — prepared to sell our freedom for mere “security theater.” Want proof? Take a look at this threat to national security.

Eeek! Run! Its a ... ummm... its... you want fries with that?

Jerilea Zempel was detained at the U.S. border because she had that drawing in her sketch-book. (source) The drawing represents an idea for a yarn covering for a Sport Utility Vehicle. The border agents told Zempel that they suspected her of “copyright infringement.”

“I wanted to turn an oversize, macho, gas-guzzling vehicle into a technological ghost by shrouding it in a white, fuzzy cover reminiscent of women’s handiwork from another time, another place.” (source)

Zempel was locked in a room while Homeland Security agents went through her laptop, camera, cell phone, suitcase, books, boxes of yarn and crochet tools, and sketchbook. Once the agents saw the sketchbook, apparently the threat level was elevated from “scared of everything” to “full on moron”. She finally was able to persuade the heroic agents that she was just a crochet artist. Here is the result of her threatening sketch.

I feel safer now...

Lets review this: How in the hell could an original sketch be “copyright infringement?” Ok, technically it could be. However, if a hand-drawn sketch is copyright infringement, do we really need border guards detaining artists to … well, to do what, exactly? Did they magically go through every drawing in the Library of Congress to figure out if the sketch was strikingly similar to another copyrighted work? More likely, the copyright story was more bullshit from a security hut full of flunkies.

Do you need any more proof that we have lost the War on Terror?

1. We have turned into a nation of mewling cowards — prepared to sell our freedom for mere “security theater.”
2. We pass rules to control the worst possible people committing the worst possible acts, regardless of the actual effectiveness of the rules or their side-effects.
3. We have idiots write the rules.
4. We hand the idiot-drafted rulebook to flunkies who aren’t qualified to work a frialator.
5. We then call the result “security.”

HT: Snark Hunting
, and a post-hoc hat tip to my beloved friend, Scott Greenfield at Simple Justice.