I’ve just returned from a four-day vacation in Toronto. I met up with some great friends from rabble.ca, met some new friends and had a great time.

Hopefully I’ll be able to make it up there again.

I say hopefully, because for the first time coming back to the U.S. I had an incident at the border.

Less than a year before, I had crossed back into the states at Fort Erie and was waved through in less than 30 seconds.

This time was very, very different. And actually I found out while writing this piece. I think it may explain everything from the longer lines to, possibly, why I received vastly different treatment at the border.

As Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post recently reported, a small, unnoticed regulation slipped into the Federal Register now gives the U.S. government the right to collect information on American citizens coming back over land crossings.

And they can hold and share that information with whomever they please for 15 years.

The Department of Homeland Security notice blandly states public comments are being taken until Monday, when the “new system of records will be effective.”

Doubtless those that comment negatively on the new regulation will find themselves put into the greater security database.

So last year having been asked, and I stress asked, by the friendly border guard to sign my passport, this is the treatment I got on August 19 crossing back from Niagara Falls.

I gave the border guard my passport.

He looked at his computer for a few seconds and then started asking me questions I had never been asked before.

What did I do for a living?

How often did I travel to Canada?

Who did I know up there?

Do I own this car?

Then he asked me to roll down the windows so he could see what was in the car, which I did.

“Is that Tim Horton’s coffee in there?”

Yes, I answered, having already declared about $50 in coffee, chocolate, all dressed chips and other junk food to him right off the bat.

Then he told me to pop the back hatch (which I couldn’t) but told him it was unlocked.

He started rifling my suitcase and computer case. Now this was getting serious. I had visions of my laptop being seized followed by a body cavity search and a one-way trip to Guantanamo Bay. Maybe next time.

After a full minute and a half (I clocked it) of rummaging around my stuff, he closed the hatch without even bothering to close the laptop case or the suitcase or straighten out the mess he had made. But then, he didn’t even ask permission for a search âe” I was simply ordered to open the back hatch.

And without even looking at me, the guardian of Der Homeland in black with the 9 mm pistol on his hip handed me my passport. He seemed genuinely sorry âe” sorry that he hadn’t found anything to detain me for.

I have held that the mission of the U.S. government is to officially discourage travel to foreign countries and especially to discourage activists like Media Benjamin and former U.S. Army Col. Ann Wright from travelling to work with peace and justice activists in other countries.

There are a number of recent stories on the news wires about American citizens being hassled and detained at the border for daring to visit countries like Syria, as journalist Emily Feder did. You can read a harrowing account of her ordeal and those who were detained with her on Alternet.

Compared to her ordeal, what happened to me was a walk in the park. And I have no idea if it was my blog writing, my work for rabble.ca or something else that got me singled out for special treatment.

It didn’t even seem as though the search was the point. After all, there were a number of other places in the car I could have easily hid things and the guard didn’t even look there. Would anyone be that stupid to put contraband in a suitcase?

So I have to wonder if the search was merely intended to just send a message to me âe” that I was now on Big Uncle’s radar and every trip to Canada would be recorded.

Or maybe I’m just being paranoid. Maybe.

Keith Gottschalk

Keith Gottschalk

U.S. Keith Gottschalk has written for daily newspapers in Iowa, Illinois and Ohio. He also had a recent stint as a radio talk show host in Illinois. As a result of living in the high ground...