airport security- kinda like gremlins

While approaching customs in the George Bush Intercontinental Airport, a recording was being played over the intercom, with one particularly interesting statement that went something like:

“you are reminded that any inappropriate jokes or comments about airport security could result in your arrest.”

My first reaction was to laugh out loud, attracting strange looks from fellow travelers. I could only imagine how many wise-cracks it took to drive security to issue this warning.

A second later the free-speech limiting implications soaked in. Aren’t jokes expressing one’s dissent from the political choices behind US customs just the kind of speech that the first amendment was written to protect?

To add irony, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) “Pledge to Travelers” includes the following two bullet points:

“We pledge to have a supervisor listen to your comments. We pledge to accept and respond to your comments in written, verbal, or electronic form.”

So they’ll listen to your comments, even respond to them in some form, but if they’re deemed “inappropriate,” you’ll get arrested. This flip-flopping bullshit is designed to make customs seem all warm and fuzzy while scaring people out of voicing their dissent. Sometimes the solution is worse than the problem. Time to write a letter.