Food Thoughts
Is it true, does Uncle Sam know more about me than I do? Why would he be spying on me? I am told he even listens to my telephone conversations. Does Uncle Sam really care about what I do? Does he care about what you are doing?
Our tale began twenty years ago when my wife and I were crossing the border into the United States. At US Customs, we were informed that our vehicle would be searched while we waited in an adjacent room out of sight of our van. I asked one of the custom officers why they were picking on us. He replied that they had randomly picked us for an extensive search, explaining, it was like winning a lottery.
When we entered the waiting room, there was only one other person. She asked us why we were being searched, explaining that she was searched every time she entered the States because her boyfriend, who lived in the USA, was a convicted felon. I truthfully replied that we were being randomly searched. She laughed, telling us they never did random searches. She suggested, we must have done something to raise their suspicions. Neither my wife nor I have criminal records, we don’t do drugs, nor do we participate in any criminal activities. Why would they pick on us? This lady asked us if we had any criminals in our families or amongst our acquaintances. There were none that we knew about.
After nearly three hours we were finally released, with the officer telling us to have a nice trip. Was he being sarcastic? Checking over our van, we could not find any evidence of a search. We had heard tales about people having their vehicles ripped apart and then told it was up to them to put it back together. However, seeing no evidence of a search only increased our anxieties as we wondered if our vehicle had been bugged, or maybe a GPS had been hidden somewhere. We kept asking ourselves if the lady in the waiting room was correct when she exclaimed that Customs never did random searches.
We did not know any US Customs officers, but we did know a few Canadian Customs officers whom we questioned. We got no answers. As I continually thought about the possibility of our van being bugged, I became very determined to get to the bottom of this. I questioned everyone I thought could possibly shed some light on this matter. After several years of pestering people, I finally got the answer I was looking for. I was handed a brown envelope which contained a court transcript and a record of arrest, including a mug shot of one of our relatives who lives in British Columbia and has a different surname from us. We had not seen nor communicated with this person nor his family since he was a toddler more than twenty years before. How could Uncle Sam know we were related, and why did he think we were in cahoots with this person who had been convicted of smuggling drugs out of Mexico into Arizona? Under this person’s truck, police had discovered a large quantity of drugs in a compartment which had been painted and disguised to look like original equipment. Besides a hefty fine, the judge gave this smuggler a five-year prison sentence.
Now I wonder, what else does Uncle Sam know about us. What does he know about you? It’s enough to make us paranoid and we wonder if our Canadian government is also spying on us. Where are all these privacy laws? Why are innocent people assumed guilty if they are related to a criminal? Now I am wondering about the rest of our relatives. I had no idea there was a criminal in our family. Why would I? None of our close relatives in Manitoba associate with the criminal side of the family who live in British Columbia. I wondered if some of our relatives had also been stopped and questioned at the border? I’m reluctant to ask them. I would then have to tell them the whole story and they would be certain to ask where I got my information from. The source of that information is confidential.
I wonder, if people knew about Uncle Sam spying on them, would there be less criminal activity? That’s food for thought.
Wayne Douglas Weedon is a Manitoba author who writes a combination of fictional and factual stories, essays, and novels.
Editor’s note:
Our van was searched, too.
15 years ago, when I was still just a middle-aged woman, my husband and I were traveling to Minneapolis for a day of shopping with our 82-year-old friend. We were singled out, a less likely group of bandits you have never seen. We thought it was hilarious, although they did confiscate our apples! I have to believe it was random. I know on the Canadian side, they do the same thing.
