Let's see: his crime is that he was traveling with his own money...

A film critic is accused of illegally trying to return to the U.S. with nearly $12,000 stashed in a cigar box.

Elvis Mitchell's explanation: Oops. He was traveling with the wrong box.

Mitchell was entering Detroit in a cab from Windsor, Ontario, on April 26 when a luggage search turned up $11,817 in U.S. currency and 15 Cuban cigars, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Mitchell is in hot water because he didn't declare the cash at the Detroit tunnel or three days earlier when he flew to Toronto from New York. Anyone carrying more than $10,000 outside the country or into the U.S. must report it.

I love that last line. We've reached the sheep-like stage wherein, because the government prefers it otherwise, we have to tell Nanny when we want to leave or come back into this country with our own cash.

And there will be people--even here--who feel authorized to lecture me that this, along with taking off my shoes and confiscating my laptop, shampoo, and I-Pod batteries (plus those cool nipple rings I got in Acapulco) is for my own good, and that I am merely an unreasonable, cranky, uncooperative Libertarian for opposing it.

No shit.

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