First the United States wants to gather information about all passengers on flights that fly over the United States without landing, and now this ratcheting up of the indiscriminate data harvest as described in a Washington Post article posted on Friday,

The federal government disclosed details yesterday of a border-security program to screen all people who enter and leave the United States, create a terrorism risk profile of each person and keep the information for up to 40 years.

The thing is, it’s their country. If a condition of entry is the creation of this profile, they’re certainly within their rights to deny you entry if you object. Their ball, their game. Whether I play their game is entirely up to me, however. I just hope I’m never expected to take a business trip to the United States. I’m not sure I would go and I’ve no idea how my employer would react if I refused.

Speaking of which, my employer has an office in the United States. I was disheartened to learn the electronic system we use for employee data is already based in the United States. I’m not comfortable with my personal information being subject to the laws of a foreign government, especially given the attitude of that government toward the privacy of even its own citizens.