In another step "forward" for national security, Canada.com reports that a number of American citizens (including people born in the US and holding a US passport) were held at the border crossing between the US and Canada until they relented and gave their fingerprints to the US border agents.

According to an article in the Toronto Sun about the conference (Reviving the Islamic Spirit), it was "was organized by Muslim student leaders across Toronto to address confusion within the Muslim community after the Sept. 11 attacks and to start to build bridges outward to the wider Canadian society."

Perhaps it did just that, it certainly didn't build bridges between the Muslim community and the US Department of Homeland Security and the border patrol.

Somehow, a spokesperson for the DHS thought it was OK to say that they were fingerprinting everybody who went to the conference because, according to the paper, "such conferences can be a means for terrorists to promote their cause."

Well, that's probably going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy when the government overreacts to a gathering and starts keeping track of US citizens who attend.

Perhaps if the government wanted to state that they had some specific reason to target this conference, as opposed to indicating that every conference with the word "Islam" in it was suspect, it would at least seem less arbitrary.