Michael Yon Handcuffed By Sea-Tac Cops For... Refusing to State How Much Money He Makes?

I don't know that the question is itself terribly inappropriate if, and only if, you have a sketchy character who does a lot of world travel with an odd sort of job and you are trying to figure out if it's a real job or just a terrorist cover.

But... um, this sort of highlights how utterly stupid our practice of ignoring the fact that it is, Muslims, period, who are going to be terrorists, and particularly Muslims from 1) overseas or 2) who travel to a lot of sketchy places overseas.

Instead of focusing on those people -- which could get you fired for doing, by the way, which is why they don't do it -- they hassle someone they know for a fact is not a terrorist, just to log it in their quota book that they really asked tough questions of someone.

Someone they knew who could not possibly be a terrorist. They deliberately hassle the guy who can't be a terrorist and don't even look at the guy who may be because they continue to act under a jackass set of rules: 1) never give a Muslim any hassle (or it's your ass, buddy), but 2) go through the motions and pretend you are looking for terrorists by hassling non-Muslims, so the administration can offer the PR that you hassled some people today.

And just to clarify: I think that question -- how much do you make? -- is obviously out of bounds, just because so many people consider it a None of Your F'n' Business question. And maybe you could ask it if you have a strong reason to think you're dealing with a terrorist.

But for some guy who plainly isn't? Stupid.

And slapping on the cuffs for someone who doesn't answer? Firable.

posted by Ace at 02:21 PM

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