Privacy? How quaint!

****Bernard Goldbach has a good post up on his blog about one of the dangers in traveling with a laptop. As someone who regularly travels internationally with my laptop, this has been a big, and growing, concern to me. The United States’ Transportation Security Administration can be truly draconian in their approach to travelers. Those who run afoul of a screener, for whatever reason, can be subject to pretty unbelievable treatment. Confiscation of laptops and searches of personal data are becoming more common. And the latest moves from the Bush administration are going to make international travel even more difficult, especially for those of us with U.S. passports.

My George W. Bush Out-of-Office countdown calendar tells me that there are 330 days left until the next administration takes office. Unfortunately, cleaning up the current mess is not going to be a few days’ job for the new office holder.