Originally Posted by
saulblum
It is none of a government's agent's business why I am traveling within the USA, with whom I am staying, who I am visiting, and the nature of my trip...
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Originally Posted by
ecaarch
I expect and understand these kinds of questions when I cross borders. But when I am a US citizen traveling within the US, these type of questions certainly raise constitutional questions... None of us want a repeat of events from ten years ago. But what I do (legally) within the borders of my own country is nobody else's business.
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Originally Posted by
14940674
What matters is how you answer. Your body language helps the TDC to determine if you are a threat. If you maintain eye contact and exude calm body language you will be through in no time, and you can be sure the government will not have recorded your responses...
I too find a requirement to answer such questions in order to travel within my own country extremely offensive when asked by uniformed federal employees wearing ersatz badges.
Accordingly, my body language and tone of speech will almost inevitably be suspect to those fresh out of their intensive two weeks of training.
Slightly OT - but maybe not - a few days we took a VDB at SFO and had 10 hours to spare. I caught myself calculating whether the chance to wander around San Francisco on a glorious summer day was worth the trouble of going through screening with "Team San Francisco."
We went, had a great time, and our re-entry to SFO was painless at an uncrowded priority line, but it saddens me that this was the first thought that came into my mind.
