So the state spends vast sums to discover the Chinese doctoral student in molecular biosciences at Rutgers who got out of the cattle line at Newark airport to kiss his girlfriend goodbye, and embarrassed the KGB. He is arrested, and Commissar Lautenberg--a villain straight from Soviet central casting--calls for sending him to the gulag. Despite the deliberate "terrorism" hysteria--how easily are the people controlled by the oligarchs--this is a victimless crime. Nor was this kid responsible for the shutdown of the airport. The TSA, which always likes controlling and harassing people, did it. All the security organs love this sort of thing. They live for such power trips, and "mind-reading" machines and porno-radar, foisted on us by Comrade Chertoff in return for mere billions. Thus more and more of us are swearing off Aeroflot.

The US police state has been getting more and more ruthless and vicious for some time. But now the middle class is seeing its fangs. Will we resist? First they came for the Muslims...

UPDATE from Bill Potter:

Two things stand out to me about this.

First, there was a snitch who tattled on the Chinese guy.  Looks like the state's Stasi spy program is taking hold here.

Second, they spend billions on intelligence and surveillance, not to find terrorists, but to find line jumpers in quick order to make examples of them.