[trevyn]

Idealistic, maybe, but not idiotic. I think reasons for thinking that "working on border security is bad" include:

1) The desire for a "free and open" world, especially without much first-hand experience of the immediate downsides of that.

2) That technologies in this space also directly enable police-state situations, and there are reasons to believe that this is a risk in the future.

3) A privacy-driven dislike for surveillance -- sure, you know who I am when I go through passport control, but I don't want to be tracked in more detail than that.

4) Our existing border security is reasonably functional, and there are better ways to spend the time & money. (Especially as pertains the arguably excessive "border wall".)