Yeah, it’s one of those very interesting contradictions that I find quite amusing, that the same party that’s calling for a reduction of government in almost every sphere of our lives in the United States seems to have no problem intervening in the lives of women’s bedrooms and in the very private decisions that are made about a woman’s sexuality and a woman’s body.

For those who regularly write and read about civil liberties abuses, it’s sometimes easy to lose perspective about just how extreme and outrageous certain erosions are. One becomes inured to them, and even severe incursions start to seem ordinary. Such was the case, at least for me, with Homeland Security’s practice of detaining American citizens upon their re-entry into the country, and as part of that detention, literally seizing their electronic products — laptops, cellphones, Blackberries and the like — copying and storing the data, and keeping that property for months on end, sometimes never returning it. Worse, all of this is done not only without a warrant, probable cause or any oversight, but even without reasonable suspicion that the person is involved in any crime. It’s completely standard-less, arbitrary, and unconstrained. There’s no law authorizing this power nor any judicial or Congressional body overseeing or regulating what DHS is doing. And the citizens to whom this is done have no recourse — not even to have their property returned to them.