HOMELAND SECURITY USA: Antagonizing ABC reality show aimed at discouraging tourism
Homeland Security USA, a reality show which debuted on ABC last night, must cost almost nothing. Why else would anyone put a show in primetime based on the queuing and inspection that everyone has to endure while slogging through, let's say, Los Angeles International airport?
LAX, which was one of the regular sets in last night's segment, is unpleasant, a place to be assiduously avoided, if at all possible. It's about crowds, traffic jams, taking off your belt and shoes as you pass through security for an unpleasant trip shoehorned into a cramped compartment and all the processing these things entail. It would have a place in a short story by Franz Kafka if the man were still alive.
LAX is one of the reasons DD turned down an opportunity to speak at a security conference in Singapore this year. Two hours must be devoted to the airport, each leg, combined with fifteen hours in the air over the Pacific. Can you say blood clot, cramps and head cold?
A British woman, here on some business she probably would sooner have skipped, loudly maintained that compared to Heathrow -- which is a bigger and busier airport -- LAX was lame. Stay away, foreigners, stay away! We don't want you here in America anymore, the show screamed. You could endanger our citizens and break laws -- even little ones!
Unfortunately, no one told this to the poor stupid young girl from Switzerland gripped in the tentacles of Homeland Security for the show. She had foolishly flown to the United States on a visa waiver and then dumbly babbled to our border and customs guardians (as they rifled her bags) that she was a belly dancer looking for work. Away she was whisked for a day of questioning. For want of the savvy to keep quiet, she was denied entry on not having proper work papers for belly-dancing. She would be kept in a holding area overnight, then returned to LAX so that she could be put on the next plane back to Switzerland. And she was out her fare, too.
LAX was a horrible place, the poor girl said. Yes, and it seemed cruel she had to travel all the way from Switzerland and be put on a dreadful TV show to find out.
The rest of the show was devoted to San Ysidro on the Mexican border and a Canadian crossing point. People smuggle drugs and illegal aliens over the southern border! They put bales of marijuana in spare tires, cocaine in gas tanks, and people under car seats?! One twentysomething guy was relieved of some bongs made in Mexico -- that's smuggling! Remarkable!
On the northern border, a man and his girlfriend were sent back into Canada for having a fake San Diego State college ID. A quick check of his name against some giant database implied he might be a peddler of Ecstasy.
A van triggered a dirty bomb detector! No -- it was just a man who'd recently had a barium enema and radiotherapy or something like that.
Viewers were told that a little radiation is easy to carry across our borders and that it could cause a lot of terror. Unbelievably, it was added that terrorists might try to smuggle radioactive compounds inside their bodies. Drugs also pay for terrorism, it was said -- numbingly.
Future episodes promised more seizures of drugs, opening of parcels, the detaining of people who may or may not be guilty of anything (mistaken identity is a part of this show), the chasing of illegals plus the enforced might of immigration law, shipping regulations and rules for inspections. By the end of each episode, you will know the color in the chemi-testbag for a positive on marijuana -- it's purple. You'll see America puts its best face forward, the one snarling: "Shaddup, get down on the ground and put your hands behind you!"
Whoever greenlighted Homeland Security USA should be tied to a post and whipped. As a public service, the value of the show is zero. And one has to question the sanity of anyone who would would tune in for subsequent weeks of inspections, detentions and continuous demonstrations of how unpleasant it can be to try and get into the United States in 2009. Homeland Security USA is a show one could even use as part of the toolbox of enhanced techniques of interrogation for the war on terror. After a couple of hours of it, DD reckons most would say anything just to get it to stop.
Homeland Security USA, a reality show which debuted on ABC last night, must cost almost nothing. Why else would anyone put a show in primetime based on the queuing and inspection that everyone has to endure while slogging through, let's say, Los Angeles International airport?
LAX, which was one of the regular sets in last night's segment, is unpleasant, a place to be assiduously avoided, if at all possible. It's about crowds, traffic jams, taking off your belt and shoes as you pass through security for an unpleasant trip shoehorned into a cramped compartment and all the processing these things entail. It would have a place in a short story by Franz Kafka if the man were still alive.
LAX is one of the reasons DD turned down an opportunity to speak at a security conference in Singapore this year. Two hours must be devoted to the airport, each leg, combined with fifteen hours in the air over the Pacific. Can you say blood clot, cramps and head cold?
A British woman, here on some business she probably would sooner have skipped, loudly maintained that compared to Heathrow -- which is a bigger and busier airport -- LAX was lame. Stay away, foreigners, stay away! We don't want you here in America anymore, the show screamed. You could endanger our citizens and break laws -- even little ones!
Unfortunately, no one told this to the poor stupid young girl from Switzerland gripped in the tentacles of Homeland Security for the show. She had foolishly flown to the United States on a visa waiver and then dumbly babbled to our border and customs guardians (as they rifled her bags) that she was a belly dancer looking for work. Away she was whisked for a day of questioning. For want of the savvy to keep quiet, she was denied entry on not having proper work papers for belly-dancing. She would be kept in a holding area overnight, then returned to LAX so that she could be put on the next plane back to Switzerland. And she was out her fare, too.
LAX was a horrible place, the poor girl said. Yes, and it seemed cruel she had to travel all the way from Switzerland and be put on a dreadful TV show to find out.
The rest of the show was devoted to San Ysidro on the Mexican border and a Canadian crossing point. People smuggle drugs and illegal aliens over the southern border! They put bales of marijuana in spare tires, cocaine in gas tanks, and people under car seats?! One twentysomething guy was relieved of some bongs made in Mexico -- that's smuggling! Remarkable!
On the northern border, a man and his girlfriend were sent back into Canada for having a fake San Diego State college ID. A quick check of his name against some giant database implied he might be a peddler of Ecstasy.
A van triggered a dirty bomb detector! No -- it was just a man who'd recently had a barium enema and radiotherapy or something like that.
Viewers were told that a little radiation is easy to carry across our borders and that it could cause a lot of terror. Unbelievably, it was added that terrorists might try to smuggle radioactive compounds inside their bodies. Drugs also pay for terrorism, it was said -- numbingly.
Future episodes promised more seizures of drugs, opening of parcels, the detaining of people who may or may not be guilty of anything (mistaken identity is a part of this show), the chasing of illegals plus the enforced might of immigration law, shipping regulations and rules for inspections. By the end of each episode, you will know the color in the chemi-testbag for a positive on marijuana -- it's purple. You'll see America puts its best face forward, the one snarling: "Shaddup, get down on the ground and put your hands behind you!"
Whoever greenlighted Homeland Security USA should be tied to a post and whipped. As a public service, the value of the show is zero. And one has to question the sanity of anyone who would would tune in for subsequent weeks of inspections, detentions and continuous demonstrations of how unpleasant it can be to try and get into the United States in 2009. Homeland Security USA is a show one could even use as part of the toolbox of enhanced techniques of interrogation for the war on terror. After a couple of hours of it, DD reckons most would say anything just to get it to stop.
posted by George Smith at 9:37 AM
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See also:
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/border-bullies.htm
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