I should have kept my mouth shut about the guacamole; that made things worse for me. Otherwise, what I’m about to describe could happen to any American who travels internationally. It happened 33,295 times last year. My work as a journalist has taken me to many foreign countries, including frequent trips to Mexico. On May 13, I was returning to the U.S. from Mexico City when, passing through immigration at the Austin airport, I was pulled out of line for “secondary screening,” a quasi-custodial law enforcement process that takes place in the Homeland Security zone of the airport. Austin...…I should have kept my mouth shut about the guacamole; that made things worse for me. Otherwise, what I’m about to describe could happen to any American who travels internationally. It happened 33,295 times last year. My work as a journalist has taken me to many foreign countries, including frequent trips to Mexico. On May 13, I was returning to the U.S. from Mexico City when, passing through immigration at the Austin airport, I was pulled out of line for “secondary screening,” a quasi-custodial law enforcement process that takes place in the Homeland Security zone of the airport. Austin...WW…

Three weeks before Christmas, in the piney woods outside of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, a deer hunter came across the fallout from a firefight that, to date, no one has been able to explain. A tricked-out Chevy Colorado with matte-black wheels and racing tires was stuck in a rut on a dirt road near Lake MacArthur. In the bed of the truck and on the ground beside it were two dead men. Both had been killed by gunshots, and according to news reports, shell casings were scattered on the ground. Yet there were no firearms to be found at the scene, and no trace of the third man, the surviving...…Three weeks before Christmas, in the piney woods outside of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, a deer hunter came across the fallout from a firefight that, to date, no one has been able to explain. A tricked-out Chevy Colorado with matte-black wheels and racing tires was stuck in a rut on a dirt road near Lake MacArthur. In the bed of the truck and on the ground beside it were two dead men. Both had been killed by gunshots, and according to news reports, shell casings were scattered on the ground. Yet there were no firearms to be found at the scene, and no trace of the third man, the surviving...WW…

She had done nothing wrong. State troopers started following her because of “anti-law enforcement rhetoric” on her car windows.Twenty-four-year-old Lauren Mestas was already having a bad day when she noticed a cop car tailing her northbound on Interstate 35, headed into downtown Austin. She wasn’t overly concerned at first, as she wasn’t breaking any laws, but the patrol vehicle remained on her tail as she exited onto Riverside Drive, headed west. She started to suspect that it might have something to do with the slogans soaped all over the windows of her 2001 Toyota 4Runner. In addition to...…She had done nothing wrong. State troopers started following her because of “anti-law enforcement rhetoric” on her car windows.Twenty-four-year-old Lauren Mestas was already having a bad day when she noticed a cop car tailing her northbound on Interstate 35, headed into downtown Austin. She wasn’t overly concerned at first, as she wasn’t breaking any laws, but the patrol vehicle remained on her tail as she exited onto Riverside Drive, headed west. She started to suspect that it might have something to do with the slogans soaped all over the windows of her 2001 Toyota 4Runner. In addition to...WW…