Ron, if you read Skarpi's post along with others regarding this particular story, you'll note that there may be a general expectation by us foriegners that American authorities can be expected to act in what we consider an out of bounds fashion. While most people can visit the US without running into serious difficulty, almost everyone knows at least one person (and usually several) with a horror story about how they've been treated, at the border or by American police.

9/11 and terrorism is used by overbearing and occasionally malicious people in authority as the excuse for harassing innocent people far too often, and a foriegner in the US can expect to be regarded with suspicion no matter where they are from. That is the message the US is allowing the rest of the world to hear. Stay out. Don't come here. We don't want you.

This single story, however onesided or biased or wrong, is the kind of thing we now expect to hear from the US, and so we are prepared to believe it regardless of its truth status.

It's too bad.