More security theater

Have you ever seen this show on the National Geographic channel called America's Port? It's a lame attempt to manufacture suspense in the operations of the port of San Pedro. Just flipped to it and caught this episode where some customs dweeb harassed the living daylights out of some 19-year-old kid getting off a cruise ship. He was carrying an empty pill bottle with a miniscule amount of marijuana dust remaining in it. He had obviously taken some weed with him on the cruise and thought he was clean on his return.

You would have thought the customs guy was singlehandedly assuring the total security of the nation the way he was browbeating the kid. And then it turned out the test kit he ran on the residue had destroyed it all in the process, so there was no evidence of this monstrous crime and no charges could be filed or fines assessed. (Apparently they were trying to stick him with a $5000 fine for not declaring he was importing weed.) Why the kid agreed to allow the footage to be aired is beyond me. Maybe they extorted a release out of him in exchange for not charging him.

But we're all so much safer now. Never mind that it would be laughingly easy to smuggle a nuclear or dirty bomb into most ports - Homeland Security made sure a few micrograms of this dreaded "narcotic" was stopped. (Yeah, he actually called it that.)