Border security

A few weeks ago our family went to Michigan for the funeral of one of Nancy's uncles, Tom Dempsy. We always fear getting pulled over at the border, not because we have something to hide but rather because it's a hassle and is carried out by people with unquestionable power to mess up your day.

We arrived at the border and in due time pulled up to the customs booth. The border guy and we had the following exchange:

• You Canadian?
• Yes.
• What is your destination?
• Grand Rapids. We're going to a funeral.
  
• Sorry to hear that. Dutch?
• Yes.
• Bye.

If you were the head of a terrorist organization the best way to get something into a country would probably be to pander to the "feelings" of border officials. It seems that "feelings" are used all to often, leading to the very real risk of arbitrary action and decisions made on the basis of prejudice. To get more accurate in detecting true threats it would probably be best to keep track of who is being hauled in for a detailed inspection and match that up with actual results. This is a basic rule of behavioural psychology. To improve a skill with inherently poor success/failure feedback you need to improve the quality of the feedback. I would much prefer this to the current favourite technique of putting all of your personal data in a huge database and using that to judge you. This is corrosive to a free society and reflects society's current love affair with databases and technology over human wisdom and oversight.