I'm one of those people with a Type "T" personality. Sometimes I do things just for the forbidden thrill of it. Rather than jumping out of airplanes or having sex in public, my Type T manifests as a desire to travel to places my government considers baaaaaad.
I traveled in Vietnam before the U.S. normalized relations (got in through Canada) and Cuba just because it seems so asinine to hold a grudge against a country for 40+ years. But the trips that might get me in trouble are those I took to Syria and Iran.
I traveled in Syria and Jordan in 1994, the years where peace was breaking out all over. But the trip to Iran was in 1999, at a time when our government was none to happy with that country. I was also one of only a very small handful of travelers able to get a tourist visa into Iran (by way of Pakistan) that year. Visa's are rarely issued to individual travelers....mostly they issue only transit or diplomatic visas. We got the visa, barely in time, and we endured nearly constant surveillance by Iranian officials the entire trip.
That is the back story of my Big Brother tale. Since that time, and certainly more so after 9/11 I am nearly always pulled out of line to be wanded down at airports. It's become so obvious, my husband has taken to calling me "Wanda" when we travel. I am small and blond and 45 years old. Not exactly your typical "terrorist" profile (unless there are terrorist attacks by small, middle-aged ladies that are underreported).
Finally, I just wanted to know what was going on. On a recent trip, as I was passing through passport control, I asked the official that if after swiping my passport through his reader, could he see everywhere I'd traveled in my life? His immediate, without hesitation, response was "I am not at liberty to give you that information" My mouth fell open, I was so surprised. It seemed like a fairly innocent question.
Immediately after I asked, we were pulled out of line for an "agricultural" inspection where our bags were completely unloaded and analyzed. This could almost be legitimate except we were coming out of GERMANY.....you'd have to be insane to think German agricultural products would be worth carrying home....but that's beside the point.
Since that trip, my passport was due to expire. In order to renew by mail, you have to send in your old passport to the Justice Department. What are the chances they made note of the Iranian visa in my old passport? Because I was in the process of moving, I put in my mother's address as the mailing address.
And here's the rub. It has gotten to the point that I so distrust my own government that I actually talked to my mom about the possibility the FBI might come around and chat with her about the potential terrorist receiving a passport at her address. I KNOW it's tin-foil-hatty but crikey! What has it come to that I even have to thing about the possbility?