US Department of Homeland Stupidity
> Holidaymakers have been warned to watch their words after two friends were refused entry to the US on security grounds after a tweet.
> Trade association ABTA told the BBC that the case highlighted that holidaymakers should never do anything to raise “concern or suspicion in any wayâ€.
> » [BBC News – Caution on Twitter urged as tourists barred from US](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16810312)
Is this not a clear example of how so-called ‘anti-terror’ legislation is misused at tax payers expense? Sending these people home is not about preventing terror, if anything it’s about defending patriotism at the expense of free speech. This exercise no doubt cost the American tax payer several hundred dollars, if not more, when you consider the ‘surveillance’ needed to spot the tweets and link them to the individual, and link that to their arrival in the US, and then question them for 5 hours before deciding to send them home. Was the DoHS really going to change its mind or was it just ‘terrorism theatre’ to justify it’s own existence.
I’d agree that the tweets were in poor taste, but I don’t think that’s a criminal offence, or grounds for barring entry. The double whammy is that America doesn’t get the tourism income from this individual, which might have helped save a job or two, and possibly many more from those that will have the sense to choose another holiday destination in case they also fall foul of the whims of a government bureaucracy.
