Homeland security has come to be an excuse to do anything. This obsession, this pretext to stop whatever, to inconvenience hundreds of millions for routine checks, this massive new security industry its all mind-boggling. Our summer vacation flights through Phoenix, Atlanta and Philadelphia and four days visiting the monuments and hallowed places in Washington, D.C., left me aghast that so many billions are being spent on elaborate machinery, gadgets and manpower. The petty little rules about what cannot be allowed into places perfume and fingernail files seem the creation of somebodys what-if bull sessions.Law enforcement is ready to shut down all activity whenever a nervous Nellie spots some ominous (to her) package. Take Wednesdays suspicious package left outside a fast-food restaurant in Salt Lake City. Police closed down several blocks for about two hours, then got a robot to detonate what was a music case containing nothing but a trumpet. Some VERY ALERT CITIZENS watched this package for a considerable amount of time and then they called the police thinking it didnt look right, a Salt Lake City detective said. Never mind common sense, police took no chances.Then we have the mindless case in a Valdosta, Ga., courtroom. A Georgia Muslim woman went to the courtroom of Municipal Court Judge Vernita Lee Bender to contest a speeding ticket. But she was prevented from entering because she was wearing a hijab, the traditional Islamic headscarf. Uniformed officers demanded she remove that scarf. The woman explained that she wears the scarf for religious reasons. She offered to let a female officer perform a body search. Still, the officers denied her entry to the courtroom due to homeland security. They reportedly told her that if she were allowed to wear the scarf, it would show disrespect to the judge. Then she was told that she could come back at a future date for the case, but still would be barred again if she insisted on wearing her hijab.Faced with that, the woman pleaded no contest and paid the $168 fine for the speeding ticket. The Council on American-Islamic Relations reported that the judge communicated an apology for the denial of entry, but was quoted as saying that we have rules that everyone has to follow.Rightfully, CAIR filed a complaint, noting that the courtroom is a public facility where civil rights legislation has stated that any denial access based on religious believes or practices is discriminatory.If such a policy were enforced across the board, then Sikh men could not come there wearing turbans; Orthodox Jewish men and women could not wear yarmulkes and head scarves, etc. Tactics like that only divide people and cause resentment. Oh, how easy is that catch-all pretext homeland security to herd people around these days. And any box sitting around without someone guarding it is certainly trouble. In Washington, we were deeply impressed by the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial along the Tidal Basin. I paused at one point when I read the wall showing "The Four Freedoms" that FDR enumerated in 1941. "Freedom from Fear" was the fourth listed. Fear was something he so passionately talked about when he was inaugurated in 1933. We cannot let fear and what might happen be such an easy excuse to take away our freedoms and leave us with tyranny by those "protecting us."

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