Privacy, Smivacy, Part 3 0

The rumor is that an army of 81-year-old retired professors of history is massing at the borders even as we speak.

In the 50 years that Grant Goodman has known and corresponded with a colleague in the Philippines he never had any reason to suspect that their friendship was anything but spectacularly ordinary.

But now he believes that the relationship has somehow sparked the interest of the Department of Homeland Security and led the agency to place him under surveillance.

Last month Goodman, an 81-year-old retired University of Kansas history professor, received a letter from his friend in the Philippines that had been opened and resealed with a strip of dark green tape bearing the words “by Border Protection” and carrying the official Homeland Security seal.

The story at the other end of the link points out the Professor Goodman’s correspondent is the Phillipines is also a history professor and a Catholic and that the correspondence has been going on for 50 years. It is therefore unlikely that the Professor’s friend poses a threat to the peace, either here or in the Phillipines.

I am more and more convinced that the current Federal Administration really has no idea what to do to protect the United States from enemies without, so it’s just flailing about hoping to catch someone in its nets.

Like the numerous Al Qaeda Number Threes.

But 81-year-old retired history professors?

It ranks right up there with mis-identifying fingerprints (emphasis added).

The Justice Department’s internal watchdog yesterday faulted the FBI for sloppy work in mistakenly linking an Oregon lawyer, a Muslim convert, to the 2004 Madrid train bombings but said the government did not misuse the antiterror Patriot Act against him.

Brandon Mayfield was arrested after his fingerprint was erroneously found to match one on a bag containing detonators like those used in the Spain attacks.

It’s really not like matching fingerprints is new technology. There’s not much room for excuses here, folks.

Panicky incompetence is still incompetence. And wrapping it in the flag while maintaining an atmosphere of fear does not change that.