Blogging from 30th Street Station in Philadelphia on Christmas night, where I had, until recently, a fine view of the 24-7 video on infinite loop extolling the virtues of a police state.

The video isn’t all bad: parts of it include very valuable instruction on what to do in case of emergency. This kind of priming — giving real information to people about how to handle a crisis — is a crucial part of civilian training. But the rest of it, in which viewers are encouraged to report “suspicious behavior” while leaving it open exactly what this means, and telling everyone to put Amtrak police phone numbers in their cell phones (really? they want that many calls?), overall does more to heighten anxiety and blunt the valuable messaging that worked its way in there.

So I’m sitting by the power outlet, watching the video and composing this post in my head, when an Amtrak policeman stopped by and questioned me. What train was I waiting for? Okay. I have to pack up my things and move away from the wall; I’m not allowed to sit next to the only power outlets in the station. Then he moved on to the next guy, who was doing exactly the same thing.

Really, that’s all I need to say about the state of our security. On the one hand, smiling happy videos telling us about how the exquisitely trained police are acting solely to protect us. On the other, the actual police officer enforcing a rule which doesn’t seem to make much sense, when maybe a dozen people are using a space designed to hold a thousand.

Or perhaps charging a laptop is a suspicious activity? Lord knows, I wouldn’t want to cause trouble. Yes sir, Mister Officer. I’ll move along quietly. Maybe I’ll move to a seat where I can watch that video until I feel better.