Let's face it. This isn't about games anymore.

So, I'm about to go off on another interview. I was unpacking from my previous trip when I found a little statement from the TSA, saying that my bag had been hand-searched for my own protection, and the protection of my fellow passengers. They were even kind enough to warn me that, if I had locked my bag out of some perverse feeling of individual privacy, they had generously seen to it that the locks were destroyed.

I can't tell you how much safer it made me, knowing that my government was protecting me from an attack vector that the terrorists have never ever used. We're protected from people with nail cutters, which have never been used in a terrorist attack. One security guard tried to take a man's purple heart off of him, because the medal had sharp edges. Good to know that we're being protected from our own heroes.

By the way, it's still legal to carry keys on board, which are far more useful as cutting, stabbing weapons than, say, nail cutters.

But I digress. I was talking about this lovely TSA notification that my privacy was specifically revoked for long enough to determine that my underwear had no plastique in it. I decided that I was not powerless in this "war on privacy".

I printed up a small note, which I left at the top of my suitcase, just inside the opening. It says:

"Hello to you, federal underwear checker.

Were you aware that during the Civil War, President Lincoln recommended to the Post Office that they open any mail "of a suspicious nature" to ensure that no citizenry were housing or caring for the enemy? There was no vote, the public was not even informed of this decision. Overnight, the president declared all citizens under suspicion, and prepared a culture where anyone could be brought to trial for using language that others thought was "suspicious".

You might think that this was a necessary step, to protect the innocent from the guilty. After all, the government still needed to prove that a crime had been commited before someone got into trouble, right?

As it turns out, Lincoln also suspended Habeus Corpus, declaring that any citizen could be held to a court martial without evidence. How many people were tried and executed without any fair trial at all?

Just something to think about as you sift through womens panties. Have you ever found a bomb? Have you ever heard of someone who found a bomb this way? Have you become that civil war postman who gets to decide what's suspicious, and what's not? Do you want the responsibility?"

So, who wants to bet that my bag gets "lost" in transit?