“You can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave!” Those are the chorus lyrics to “Hotel California,” the sublime rock classic by the Eagles.

Americans who try “running for the door”—in the evocative words of Glenn Frey, and the Dons Felder and Henley—soon discover that they “are all just prisoners here …”

Prisoners of Uncle Sam’s device.

If he can tolerate TSA assaults as he departs the country, an American who chooses to live and work overseas cannot escape the Internal Revenue Service. The United States is perhaps the only country “to tax its citizens on income earned while they’re living abroad.”

To loss of privacy and property, add the prospect of prison—and you get why, as Reuters has reported, droves of Americans are “renouncing their U.S. citizenship or handing in their Green Cards.”

On pain of criminal charges and “penalties of up to $100,000 or 50 percent of undeclared accounts, whichever is larger,” the expatriate must report his own bank accounts and all conjoint accounts—a spouse, a client, or business partners. The victims of this shakedown are residents who have foreign bank accounts (the Canadian equivalent of a small USA 401(k), in this scribe’s case), in addition to “an estimated 6.3 million U.S. citizens living abroad.”

The aims of their pursuers, the IRS, are control and compliance. The rogue agency’s source of revenue, in this context, is derived primarily from penalties for forgetfulness or faulty filing. All fear bankrupting fines, even imprisonment.

Due to the onerous burdens imposed by the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, foreign banks, as well as hedge and private equity funds are closing American accounts. Barack Obama’s legislative baby (signed on March 18, 2010) is driving Americans abroad into banking under the mattress.

Swiss bankers, for instance, can no longer provide Americans with certain financial services, considered perfectly legal in Switzerland; American financial imperialism has insinuated itself into the financial hub that is Switzerland. While the USA hasn’t yet bombed Basel, American Über-bureaucrats have prosecuted the hell out of financial establishments such as UBS AG and its American clients, for flouting US tax tyranny.

Writing in the April issue of Chronicles Magazine, Christopher Sandford, a naturalized American with investments abroad, describes his interactions with the Internal Revenue Service as akin to “dealing with a simultaneously incompetent and psychotically aggressive opponent. …a chameleonic opponent of real cunning, which consistently kept [Sandford] off balance by conducting itself as a relentless and finely calibrated machine at one moment, and a barely coherent rabble at the next.”

“Think the IRS can’t send you to prison?,” warns CBS’ Survivor winner Richard Hatch, in a timely television commercial. “The IRS sends people to prison and they’re not celebrities. If you owe the IRS $10,000 or more, call for your free tax consultation NOW. Listen, I went to prison for over four years, and you don’t want to,” Hatch tells potential victims.

Befitting an arm of a highly evolved, technocratic, militarized, Managerial State—a police state, by any other name—the IRS regularly criminalizes the actions of “non-compliant” victims, even though the alleged crime is, more often than not, unintentional. The “Rights of Englishmen,” bequeathed to the American Founders by their philosophical forbears, stipulated that there was to be no crime without intent.

Also unconstitutional is ex post facto (or retroactive) law. Yet the rogues at the IRS routinely change laws as they go, and criminalize “actions that were legal when committed.”

Thomas Jefferson’s bar has been met. We live under tyranny, for as our father forewarned, “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”

I happen to know what living without freedom is like. I left South Africa with the proceeds from the sale of my apartment stashed in the soles of my shoes. Had I been apprehended smuggling private property—my own—out of that country, I’d have faced criminal prosecution together with my husband; we both stood taller on that trip.

Little did I know that my adopted home, the USA, had adopted similar practices. An American emigrant risks being fondled by TSA brutes, fleeced via an “exit tax,” and his name placed on a “name and shame” list.

‘You cannot allow the security personnel to see, and show the entire world, images of naked bodies of women and men! ~Isaac Yeffet

The TSA continues to roger and radiate American fliers without let. The Transportation Security Administrator, John Pistole, has promised Americans that his department’s x-rated scan and fondle routine would continue.

At Fox News ─ where the police state perfected under the now fully rehabilitated “W” is considered a co-equal branch of government ─ some, not surprisingly, approved. Members of Fox’s Blonde Squad (Gretchen Carlson, Shannon Bream) were irate at the public’s outcry. Bill O’Reilly said he didn’t much mind the invasive protocol. Sean Hannity contended that in his experience, the TSA did a handy job. Side-kick Peter Johnson Jr. offered the “legal” opinion that molestation en masse at the airports was not in violation of the individual’s constitutional right to be free of unreasonable searches without probable cause. A legal opinion seconded by loyal statist Jeffrey Tubin of CNN, who thinks that the Fourth Amendment comes with an airport exclusionary clause.

(Tubin also predicted with certainty that the New Orleans District Court Judge Martin Feldman would leave, not lift, “the Obama administration’s six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling.” Why? Because said moratorium was so reasonable, argued Tubin, and the wide discretions granted to the president so perfectly proper. Mercifully, Judge Feldman did the opposite. You can take Tubin’s legal prognostications to the bin.)

Then there were the special interests. These groups suggested a system of sectional privileges and rights, based on professional need and proximity to power. The problem with Patrik Smith, the author of Salon’s “Ask the Pilot” column, is his belief that, “essential liberty” in this context is the preserve of “a pilot,” because of his professional position. Hence Smith’s proposal for “preferential, alternative checkpoints for pilots.”

Such cloistered concerns typified a 2,000-strong, flight attendant’s union, which has been fielding tons of complaints from its members, who were, nevertheless, none too concerned for their customers, the manhandled passengers.Special pleading was

Noelle Nikpour’s contribution to Mr. Hannity’s Great American Panel. Nikpour, a tedious Republican strategists who talks up a storm on that forum, extended her exquisite understanding of individual rights to … people like herself and her co-panelists. You know, important sorts who fly a lot; they ought to be able to acquire a permit that’ll exempt them from being screened afresh as they scurry to their important appointments.

“Don’t’ touch me; don’t touch me,” hollered a terrified, feisty small child while a manifestly malevolent stranger groped and squeezed her little limbs. The more the tiny terrorist (Mandy Simons) yelped bloody murder, the more aroused and inappropriate this TSA agent’s touching became. What did Mandy’s parents do? Mommy Dearest tried to subdue her. Big Daddy, a TV reporter from Houston, watched on, silently filming the event for a later broadcast, at which time his station sensitively concealed the identity of the assailant.

I say tag, collar, and impound the TSA attack dogs. Mandy’s daddy disagrees. His voice-over advised the TSA on how to create good-to-be-groped kids: make groping a game.

A hard day patrolling TSA-occupied turf had one hooligan from Homeland Security raising calloused hands to the heavens. The man urged WND.COM “to remind people that the policies come from Washington, [and] … President Obama. Individual agents, including Christians, are as helpless and upset as the passengers.” [Funny that, because my molester looked as satisfied as a Cheshire cat.) “Attack the system,’ the agent implored. “Out the misguided bureaucrats … but spare the Christian brothers.”

The “I was just following orders” defense was tossed-out at the Nuremberg Trials. It certainly does not pass biblical muster. A true Christian would sooner go hungry than hurt or humiliate innocent human beings for a living.

In the words of a horrified Israeli aviation security expert, speaking to a Fox News crew: “You cannot allow the security personnel to see, and show the entire world, images of naked bodies of women and men!” Amid ongoing American insanity, this laconic Israeli, Isaac Yeffet, has been making the rounds on CNN, PBS, Fox News ─ has been doing so for a decade, at least. Yeffet is a former member of the Israeli Secret Service, and was once in charge of security for El Al. Almost a year has past since Fox News probed him for his opinion about the “full body scanners.” Nearly ten years have gone by since the man testified before an equally idiotic Congress.

No other western country is a bigger target for terrorists than Israel. Yet no other nation runs a better (largely privatized), less invasive, smarter, security system, whose able agents simply talk to travelers. These profilers understand that 99.9 percent of fliers are “bona fide” (Yeffet’s favored bon mot). “Shoes aren’t removed, passengers aren’t body scanned, and there are no pat downs,” confirms the New York Times. A “hand search” is seldom conducted, and only with probable cause.

Fox News wanted tough answers; Yeffet gave them smart ones. In countless news interviews over the years, Yeffet has implied that there is no substitute for intelligence ─ intelligence as in smarts; as in that dreaded G Factor. (No, Cosmo Magazine readers, that’s not the same as the G Spot.)

In a few, well-chosen words, Yeffet has suggested that the thousands hired by the TSA are riffraff. “What we should do is to stop using a low level of people.” And, “Unqualified and untrained people, undedicated people are running the security in our country.” “We need to hire people that, at minimum, have graduated from high school; speak English, are U.S. citizens.” (PBS’s NewsHour, 2002.) “Technology can help the qualified, well-trained human-being but cannot replace him. … We must look at the qualifications of the candidate for security jobs. He must be educated. He must speak two languages.” (CNN.)

Does Pidgin English qualify as a second language?

Yeffet’s are valiant but vain efforts to warn America that homegrown retardation is by far its most pressing problem. Alas, in addition to the perverse incentives that power all state bureaucracies, in general, government departments are staffed in accordance with a spoils system based on race and gender, and not on intelligence.

When the large African-American woman ─ in the employ of the American taxpayer to torment the same subjects at the Miami International Airport ─ summoned me with a crooked finger for a pat down, I thought of the film “Midnight Express.” And in particular, the scene where Billy Hayes’ far-from-delightful Turkish jailer schemes to enjoy some time alone with the young American. My tormentor wore the same sadistic, atavistic expression. Her giant digits were soon upon my chest and between my legs.

In front of me, a frail woman was struggling to stand upright as the same goons, brows furrowed, studied her walking stick for traces of semtex. Once I had reached the safety of a privately operated cafe, I watched the agents of the Transportation Security Administration lunge at a middle-aged man’s groin.

Most recently ─ and to banshee yelps of, “We have an Opt Out!”, “Opt Out!” ─ the TSA attack dogs swarmed a young woman by the name of Meg McLain, who had declined the ostensibly optional full-body scan. The TSA’s website describes its scanners as consisting of “two types of imaging technology, millimeter wave and backscatter.” With the aid of stimulus loot, this rogue agency has acquired an additional “450 advanced imaging technology units,” which, of course, are “safe for all passengers,” tiny and tall. “The technology meets national health and safety standards,” we are assured.

A cursory perusal of the literature on the cumulative effects of ionizing radiation confirms that there is no consensus about this modality’s safety. However, truth in the TSA universe is adjudicated by coercion ─ by forcing a captive audience to choose between the Scylla of the scan and the Charybdis of the “enhanced pat down.”

Properly cornered, Ms. McLain was escorted to a cordoned-off area. “This girl here has all kinds of opinion on how we’re doing our job, y’all,” boomed one of McLain’s TSA masters. Heeding the call of the wild, this employee’s manager left, only to return with a dozen cops to backup the seven pack animals already snarling at the young woman. As the malicious, out-and-out assault on her person and property continued, Ms. McLain soon found herself cuffed, her belongings confiscated, and her ticket ripped to shreds in malicious spite. She knows not how close she came to being seriously hurt for her defiant speech. (Ask the grieving family of Carol Anne Gotbaum, who met her demise not in a Pakistani or Saudi airport, but in Phoenix’s Sky Harbor.)

The attractiveness variable is, however, a statistical outlier; a red herring that should not form the focus of an uprising at the airports. To counter the salacious, if spurious, sexual angle, the TSA could easily produce accurate evidence of the equal number of attacks perpetrated on feeble, little old men and their wives. It would appear that this cross-section of the population is as likely to be targeted by TSA terrorists as is the attractive, distaff demographic.

I’ve watched dozens of documented attacks, or accounts thereof, on YouTube. If the footage is at all representative, attractiveness is not the salient feature of the victims. The sex-appeal tack will, invariably, invite evidentiary exculpation: “See, I attacked grandpa, too; I’m all about the random.” You don’t want the TSA’s hounds to be fair in their pursuit of the American people; you want them to cease and desist it. And you want individual culprits and their higher-ups publicly exposed and punished.

If the countless YouTube clips I’ve cringed through are in any way typical occurrences – then what we have here are affirmatively appointed federal recruits, loosed upon meek, mild-mannered, mainstream Americans. What is salient about the assailed is that they are, from what I’ve observed, members of the pilloried and pliant majority.

This onslaught is a quest for submission, not sex.

Temperamentally unsuited to obedience is Michael Roberts, a pilot. One does not expect CNN’s Kiran Chetry to ask the right questions, but Mr. Roberts, who flies for ExpressJet Airlines, certainly volunteered the right answers. He refused the full body scanner. Like Ms. McLain, Mr. Roberts was ushered into the untouchable’s zone (for “secondary screening”), where his privates were to be palpitated. He declined.

“I am not comfortable with being physically assaulted by an agent of the federal government on my way to work, in violation of the Fourth Amendment and other constitutional provisions,” is how this laudable American put it. “These bullies tried to have their way with me, and I took my case to the street.”

The YouTube “street” served as a venue for another gentleman, this time from Portland. He vented his distress at having his wheelchair-bound mother being ordered to “spread-eagle against the wall,” in preparation for the ministrations of the TSA’s resident Mengele. The Portland complainant implied that the courtesy of preventative and indefinite detention ─ a police-state tactic introduced by the now-celebrated George Bush ─ could well have been extended to his poor parents. He makes a good point.

A not-so-young-and-pretty woman is forced to remove her nipple rings. A seventeen year-old frequent flier is made to expose her prosthetic leg, and groped for good measure, on each and every trip she takes as she tours the country with a church choir.

The Chicago-based CBS2 TV station films a palsied old man quivering in his wheelchair while being manhandled in plain view. A large African-American woman watches on from her position within the privileged, screening pen.

“I have power, I have power, I have power,” bellowed one such TSA “supervisor” at Robert Perry, aged 71, who protested having his pants pulled down in public. Mr. Perry’s artificial knee had set-off the metal detector. This served as a cue for the cattle prodders to pounce.

America’s airports are ugly, militarized places. As I write, malicious assaults on person and property are underway there, carried out by the detritus of humanity, and with federal imprimatur. The TSA workforce manning crucial sections of the air terminals reflects the federal government’s legislated preference for angry minorities. Each one of these workers seems singularly intent on exacting revenge upon his or her perceived oppressors. The alternative media (Anderson Cooper and his ilk are excluded) must insist that these perpetrators be tagged, collared, and impounded.

The triumphant Republican majority in Congress claims to have a new-found affinity for freedom. The first order of business for this crop of congressmen is to stop the en masse molestation of the population.