I dunno, when I was coming back from Europe a while back the homeland security guy in the airport asked me if I wanted a full cavity search. I was like "no?..." And he was like, ah, you don't fit the profile anyways.

I've found American Border Patrol and Customs to be fairly relaxed though. I am a white American guy from the Midwest, so that may have something to do with it. I find the TSA to be more of a pain.

The real problem with border patrol is that how you are treated depends entirely on the individual border agent. I've had agents joke with me, I've had agents grill me. I've even had an agent with an earphone in his ear, dance music pumping, as he stamped my passport and visa in time with the beat.

I've long since learned the lesson that joking around with them is absolutely never, ever worth it. It's sad, because it presumably makes their jobs joyless, and the actual nice people more likely to leave. But here we are.

> But here we are.

The terrorists are winning. sigh

“No” (in a different tone perhaps) or “no thanks” does seem like the straightforward, serious answer to that question.

Maybe Hollywood should make a "Party Patrol" about a group of CBP officers joking with hungover college kids returning from spring break in Mexico. Think along the lines of "Super Troopers".

Oh if you are American and/or white it is a different case.

I know, all these European migrants are running around out here scared because Lord Merkel tells them to be when they have nothing to worry about

Its a hard point to convey without really spelling out the underbelly of American society

If anything it's Granny Merkel and we don't need her to be worried. What really scares me is that people seem to believe anything they read/heard/watched on the internet without checking or even asking for the source of the claims/news. O, and Trump scares me. Not because I fear a war or something. But because he's a negative example of the good old 'anything is possible in America' and he somehow deleted that 'land of the free' part...at least in my version of reality (yep, that's ok, everybody got his own reality. But we're all in IT here, we know that, right?

> asked me if I wanted a full cavity search

If you wanted?!

No way this is real.

Threats are common. I was flying within the USA with a young toddler still nursing. We had some breast milk and was ordered to dump it, by a TSA agent, standing in front of a sign saying milk was fine.

I mentioned the sign and was threatened with a "deep" inspection and guaranteed enough detention time to miss the flight.

We dumped it, boarded a 5 hour flight, pushed the call button and asked for cow milk to help get through the flight. They came back, 3 other moms did the exact same thing, and got told they were out of milk.

Quite unpleasant, security theater is such a waste.