bobbo says:

“He is either correct about the law or he isn’t”        There is something screwing about “border checks” that can/do take place 100’s of miles from the border.  I cold see MYSELF not agreeing to a check of my car and trunk based on privacy rights and I think “legally” I’d be wrong if its the border patrol doing the checking.  Just one of dozens of laws/situations that seemingly violate our Bill of Rights, and common sense?   

EDITORS:  I GOT REAL SCREWY ENTRY HERE.  MY CURSOR SHOWS AT RGHT OF SCREEN AND TYPING SCROLLS FROM RIGHT TO LEFT.  DON’T KNOW IF THIS WILL POST CORRECTLY OR NOT.  NICE IMPROVEMENT TO THE SITE OTHERWISE.    SURE THOSE TERRORIST BUGS DIDN’T GET LOOSE ON YOUR WEBSITE???  YOU SEEM TO HAVE MORE THAN YOUR FAIR SHARE OF GLITCHES./  GOOD LUCK.

James says:

Damn, if they were allowed border checkpoints upto 100 miles inside the UK there would not be very many places you could travel “uninterupted”.

George says:

Of course the problem is that over the years since the adoption of the Bill of Rights, there have been innumerable exceptions and accommodations made for the sake of assisting law enforcement.  For example in the 03-04 Supreme Court term, they held that a law requiring people to identify themselves in the course of a criminal investigation was constitution.  So it seems if a crime was committed, and you are believed to be involved, you can be arrested for not showing ID to a cop.

So, somewhere down the line, it was held legal that you could be detained within 100 miles of the border, the presumption being that you may have just crossed and the ICE guys could do a warrantless border search.  (Border searches do not require warrants.)  So what needs to be attacked is not the right of ICE to do border searches, but just where they can do it.  The border seems the obvious place except that  statute and case law allows them to search any vehicle for illegals within 100 miles.

Take this up with Mr. Obama as he seems to be all about the rights of terrorists.  See how he feels about the rights of citizens.

billabong says:

Yes the Border patrol and the new blog SUCKS!!!

Nick says:

Try this when you go through a DUI road block.  I’d say more but this cursor thing is annoying.

sargasso says:

Reminds me of a road trip through the Iron Curtain.

Mike says:

The driver in the video is trying to make a scene, and rightfully so.

As people give in to this kind of stuff more and more, eventually the laws will get tighter and tighter and rights less and less until we are complete slaves to a system; instead of the system being a slave to us.

Furthermore, if everyone, or the majority, of the entire line did this at every checkpoint then after a while they’d have to change or get rid of them.

Stars & Bars says:

Here is an article relating to the ZONE with an ACLU map.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/aclu-assails-10.html

Stars & Bars says:

The problem

Normally under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the American people are not generally subject to random and arbitrary stops and searches.

The border, however, has always been an exception.  There, the longstanding view is that the normal rules do not apply.  For example the authorities do not need a warrant or probable cause to conduct a “routine search.”

But what is “the border”?  According to the government, it  is a 100-mile wide strip that wraps around the “external boundary” of the United States.

As a result of this claimed authority, individuals who are far away from the border, American citizens traveling from one place in America to another, are being stopped and harassed in ways that our Constitution does not permit.

Border Patrol has been setting up checkpoints inland — on highways in states such as California, Texas and Arizona, and at ferry terminals in Washington State. Typically, the agents ask drivers and passengers about their citizenship.  Unfortunately, our courts so far have permitted these kinds of checkpoints – legally speaking, they are “administrative” stops that are permitted only for the specific purpose of protecting the nation’s borders.  They cannot become general drug-search or other law enforcement efforts.

However, these stops by Border Patrol agents are not remaining confined to that border security purpose.  On the roads of California and elsewhere in the nation – places far removed from the actual border – agents are stopping, interrogating, and searching Americans on an everyday basis with absolutely no suspicion of wrongdoing.

The bottom line is that the extraordinary authorities that the government possesses at the border are spilling into regular American streets.

Much of U.S. population affected

Many Americans and Washington policymakers believe that this is a problem confined to the San Diego-Tijuana border or the dusty sands of Arizona or Texas, but these powers stretch far inland across the United States.

To calculate what proportion of the U.S. population is affected by these powers, the ACLU created a map and spreadsheet showing the population and population centers that lie within 100 miles of any “external boundary” of the United States.

The population estimates were calculated by examining the most recent US census numbers for all counties within 100 miles of these borders.  Using numbers from the Population Distribution Branch of the US Census Bureau, we were able to estimate both the total number and a state-by-state population breakdown.  The custom map was created with help from a map expert at World Sites Atlas.

What we found is that fully TWO-THIRDS of the United States’ population lives within this Constitution-free or Constitution-lite Zone.   That’s 197.4 million people who live within 100 miles of the US land and coastal borders.

Nine of the top 10 largest metropolitan areas as determined by the 2000 census, fall within the Constitution-free Zone.  (The only exception is #9, Dallas-Fort Worth. )  Some states are considered to lie completely within the zone:  Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Part of a broader problem

The spread of border-search powers inland is part of a broad expansion of border powers with the potential to affect the lives of ordinary Americans who have never left their own country.

It coincides with the development of numerous border technologies, including watch list and database systems such as the Automated Targeting System (ATS) traveler risk assessment program, identity and tracking systems such as electronic (RFID) passports, the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI), and intrusive technological schemes such as the Secure Border Initiative Network (SBINet) or “virtual border fence” and unmanned aerial vehicles (aka “drone aircraft”).

This illegitimate expansion of the extraordinary powers of agents at the border is also part of a general trend we have seen over the past 8 years of an untrammeled, heedless expansion of police and national security powers without regard to the effect on innocent Americans.

This trend is also typical of the Bush Administration’s dragnet approach to law enforcement and national security.  Instead of intelligent, competent, targeted efforts to stop terrorism, illegal immigration, and other crimes, what we have been seeing in area after area is an approach that turns us all into suspects. This approach seeks to sift through the entire U.S. population in the hopes of encountering the rare individual whom the authorities have a legitimate interest in.

If the current generation of Americans does not challenge this creeping (and sometimes galloping) expansion of federal powers over the individual through the rationale of “border protection,” we are not doing our part to keep alive the rights and freedoms that we inherited, and will soon find that we have lost some or all of their right to go about their business, and travel around inside their own country, without interference from the authorities.

Micromike says:

The border patrol is worse than the illegal aliens the love to persecute. The first thing they tell you when they stop you is that they are above and beyond the law and answer to no legal code. They get mad as hell when you remind them the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land and they have to obey it.

These are the worst kind of cowboy neighbors anybody can have. Thugs with guns is all they really are.

Jägermeister says:

<a href=”http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2009/04/18/waking-up-canadian/”>Become canadian!</a>

Tech_1 says:

The Hidden Truth:

http://outragedpatriots.com/

Charlie Van says:

The tactics that the police have taken against its citizens are military tactics. this isn’t a war zone, the governments continued use of these tactics makes the United States Government no better then the regime we’ve replaced in Iraq. I am a veteran and this isn’t the kind of country I swore to defend. The US is only 4% of the worlds population, but we make up 25% of the prison population. Are Americans that bad, or are is our government just using its laws to make encarceration the big business that it has become. The prohibition of drugs has failed for over 70 years , so then why don’t we change our approach. Law Enforcement is biased, and shouldn’t be allowed to make the laws. That is what our elected officials should do,  with the help of scientific data on what is best for society, not what a cop says. The Constitution was drafted to prevent what is transpiring in our government today. Police are to protect and to serve, not bully, shoot, and punish. When the citizens stop questioning the ethics of policing of its citizens, the government will not have any reason to answer to anyone. Remember the kids they may be wrongfully harasing may be your own, or maybe even you if your in the wrong place they’ll be searching your innocent vehicle.

Zybch says:

I was going to write a thought provoking and insightful comment but I got so distracted by the text entering from the right and the cursor zipping to the left whenever I hit -space- that I simply couldn’t do it!

Get this stuff fixed