A friend was in a similar situation for a while: crossing a CBP checkpoint multiple times every day for work in south Texas.
At some point he decided to try to stand up for what he considered his rights in a similar way: not being combative, just not cooperating. He was thrown in jail for 3 days, then the charges were dropped.
He talked with lawyers and the ACLU. The ACLU were quite frank that they have limited resources, and so they have to prioritize cases that have the ideal defendant and political optics. If he fought it personally, the cost would start at five figures.
The folks doing this know there's a high barrier to holding them accountable and leverage it wantonly.
The worst thing about these "contempt of cop" style arrests is, despite the charges being dropped, once you're in the system's pipeline, if you mess up about any of the restrictions, paperwork, court appearances, etc, you become a criminal. It's easy to imagine a lot of folks might fall into that trap for innocent and mundane reasons.
As a not-American stories like this make the very country itself seem like the blueprint followed by the tech giants. Illegally bullying the public at large, too big to punish, let alone reign in. It's not an ideal image, is it? And most depressing is that there's not a damn thing Joe average can do about it.
Sure there is, just be nice to the cop and identify yourself. The last part is where the guy in the story went wrong, incidentally. It's pretty clear he was deliberately protesting this, though. If you don't know for sure, and you don't want to be arrested, you can just assume that you probably are required to identify yourself [1].
As long as you're not in big trouble (some sort of felony, drugs or DUI), you'll generally get in less trouble for treating them nicely. Most of them have a bias that anyone who hates cops is up to no good and their experience will bear that out more often than not. It will get noted down that they were suspicious of factors X, Y and Z due to their training and experience.
That said, if you're part of some big crime, assert your right to remain silent by saying exactly that every time they question you until you have a lawyer. But really, if you're not into drugs or gangs or politics, that's pretty unlikely for a normal person.
And the checkpoints in the article? Just identify yourself and don't drink at all (call Lyft if you need one) and you'll be fine. Oh, and watch your speed when driving on the reservations. They make a lot of money on fines.
I get that you're probably a nice person and being nice to cops is generally a good idea. If you don't start off confrontational, things will go better. But I think you're severely misunderstanding the fundamental underlying principle that is wrong with these stops, and why people intentionally choose to not comply with them: People have the right to travel freely around without going through "papers, please" type checkpoints. Unless your behavior meets the legal requirements for a "terry stop" (google it), you should not encounter arbitrarily placed law enforcement checkpoints on public roads. The people who are fighting for this are standing up for the constitution and bill of rights.
These checkpoints are directly in violation of the supreme Court case Delaware v. Prouse.
I get why they're protesting. I'm answering for what one should do if they just want to go on their way and not get into trouble.
It's probably not very obvious for most people that he did something wrong as soon as he refused to identify himself (though the cops appear to have made their own mistakes, as well).
If it was once, or twice, I'd probably just show them id and move on. What is shocking to me are the stories about people for whom this is a regular occurrence, and where even thinking about what to do to avoid trouble at the regular police checkpoints is a thing.
To me this reminds me of my parents telling me about dealing with police checkpoints when they visited Poland before the fall of the Soviet Union.
I get why people protest this, I really do. I have spent decades in an area that has them.
I just wanted to make sure there's a clear answer here for people who are scared and just want to go through the checkpoint without getting into trouble. It's one thing if it's a voluntary protest to get oneself arrested in order to have standing to challenge the laws. It's another thing entirely if someone is scared because they just want to see the Sonoran desert and not the back seat of a police car.
It's not like being white magically stops any of that. I'm sure it changes the odds, but that still means you're risking arrest, which most of us are not keen to do.
This article is, after all, about a white guy who was arrested for not cooperating. And they clearly wanted to do worse given that they tried to get him fired.
> The worst thing about these "contempt of cop" style arrests is, despite the charges being dropped, once you're in the system's pipeline, if you mess up about any of the restrictions, paperwork, court appearances, etc, you become a criminal.
I've always wondered about describing it as "contempt of cop." Isn't that the same as arguing that it should be a crime? If you go to court and flip off the judge, you could get a fine or even prison time because it undermines the criminal justice system.
Something like "police brutality" is one thing--getting arrested isn't a reason for the police to beat someone up--but I think "contempt of cop" is something in the wrong direction.
Ideally, it would be better if most people and most cops did not start every conversation being afraid of each other and expecting to fight. Then it would be easier to de-escalate the situation. And just for the record, yes, I've been on the wrong side of an angry cop. If you actively work to calm things down, you'll find that things go much better. It's funny that showing a little respect goes a long way. Apparently it really stands out these days for being rare.
You're overthinking this. I used the phrase "contempt of cop" in a mocking sense, obviously not because I think it's a valid thing that should be a crime.
> And just for the record, yes, I've been on the wrong side of an angry cop. If you actively work to calm things down, you'll find that things go much better. It's funny that showing a little respect goes a long way. Apparently it really stands out these days for being rare.
The problem with your anecdotal reasoning is very clearly, some people fully cooperate and are dead anyhow. Phillip Castillo was respectful and proactive in his interaction. Dead. Watch the Tamir Rice video footage. They literally drove up the curb, jumping out of the still moving police car, and immediately shot him. Poor kid didn't even have a chance to be "respectful" as you're demanding.
It's weird that you counter anecdotal reasoning with more anecdotes. I never 'demanded' anything, though, I said it was usually useful and I'm hardly the only person with the same experience.
Yes, sometimes things go uncontrollably wrong. There are bad cops out there, but it's hardly the average case. Those incidents made the news for how bad they were, not how common they are.
There are hundreds of millions of people in the USA. There are millions of people interacting with the police in some capacity. How many incidents can you name?
If police can stop you randomly for 'drunk driving checks' - and they can stop you randomly if there is an 'active crime scene' (i.e. they are looking for dangerous baddies on the run) then I don't see why spot-checks for other crimes/problems is somehow considered out of bounds.
The problem with the argument is that it leans political: I think people are interested in just allowing people across the border willy nilly, without having to be stopped by such checks.
Otherwise, the ACLU might be similarly up in arms over DD checks? Wouldn't that be the case?
I try to be pragmatic about it:
+ If there's a high occurrence of Drunk Driving, then cops can do spot checks, esp. on long weekends.
+ If there are 'escaped dangerous cons' on the run, well, spot checks in a specific zone makes sense.
+ If there is a specific problem with large numbers of people who are in the country illegally travelling through - then random checks are a reasonable and proportional response to that.
Constitutional? Legal? I have no clue. But unless it gets really out of hand I don't see how it's totalitarian.
FYI I was never stopped randomly in the 5 years I lived in the US, and I was stopped quite a few times in France by the local Gendarmes. Sometimes obviously for DD checks, but other times I had no idea why but I had to show my passport and visa.
> The ACLU welcomes today's Supreme Court's decision in Missouri v. McNeely. Writing for the majority, Justice Sonia Sotomayor upheld the 4th Amendment's privacy protections by rejecting the proposition that states may routinely compel drivers to submit to a blood test in drunk-driving cases without consent and without a warrant.
> We know from experience that drunk-driving laws can be strictly enforced without abandoning constitutional rights. Today's decision appropriately recognizes what half the states have already demonstrated – that maintaining highway safety does not require sacrificing personal privacy.
> [...] the American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit to stop a new sobriety-checkpoint program in California. The ACLU says the program is a "substantial invasion of . . . fundamental constitutional rights."
> In its California brief, pending at the state Court of Appeals in San Francisco, the ACLU argues that if sobriety checkpoints are upheld "it will not be long before the police establish roadblocks and checkpoints for investigations of other sorts of serious crimes."
As a Canadian, I know we have legal DD stops and I'm thankful for them, as society went from a period of 'DD was normal' to 'not ok'. It took a while, it was a real social problem.
I guess we (Canadians?) just view public safety a little differently, it's usually a matter of 'what makes sense' not so much a thing about constitutionality. That said, our cops are way, way more low key than US cops.
I have no problem with being randomly pulled over for a reasonable reason by reasonable cops.
I guess it gets more complicated when a) cops abuse power b) the randomness is not random c) when there's an underlying political tension d) you can be charged with 'anything' almost ...
The US cares so much about constitutionality (and hard and fast rules generally), and eschews leaving things to peoples’ “reasonable” discretion, because a large subset of the population is completely nuts. One of our au pair’s au pair friend got pulled over by state police and had a gun pulled on her. Coming from Germany she of course freaked out. (Luckily she was a white European young lady instead of a person of color.) Americans not only see nothing wrong with that, but keep voting for the sheriffs who allow their departments to run that way.
Note that irrespective of any other issue with this, the article points out that these CBP checks have a really poor track record in terms of actually stopping illegal immigrants compared to other methods when measured in terms of cost per arrest. So if the goal is truly to stop illegal immigrants, they are misapplying their budgets.
Anyone who wants closed borders, or at least harsher reactions to illegal immigration ought to be up in arms about money being wasted this way in that case- they could stop more people by investing their budgets in other ways.
I think you're misunderstanding the difference between sobriety checks and these inland boarder checks. In a sobriety check, you retain all of your rights as a citizen. In these boarder stops, you are treated the same as someone entering the country who does not enjoy the rights of a citizen in the country.
As an immigrant (with legal status), I couldn't imagine showing the slightest bit of resistance to any sort of CBP officers. I cannot put myself at risk trying to combat unfair policies due to the imbalance of power. Thank you to those US citizens who are doing what they can.
Even just speaking out is getting dangerous, particularly for the people just entering the pipeline now as you have to provide all of your social media accounts so they can keep and eye on your speech.
It is only a matter of time before you'll sit down in a citizenship interview, and they'll have a print out of your social media posts and a bunch of questions about any that seem to criticize the government.
> It is only a matter of time before you'll sit down in a citizenship interview, and they'll have a print out of your social media posts and a bunch of questions about any that seem to criticize the government.
What you describe has been the case in the US since the early 2000s. The "matter of time" is about negative 15 years or so. People on HN often seem to think the government is insanely slow-moving and incompetent. While there are various snags, the whole system moves constantly and is staffed by many perfectly competent people who ask questions like "why aren't we checking the social media accounts of citizenship applicants to weed out the terrorists and commies?" and before too long, they are.
I seems to recall a story where a couple of people were denied entry after reaching a US airport because they had tweeted a joke that got misunderstood.
> I seems to recall a story where a couple of people were denied entry after reaching a US airport because they had tweeted a joke that got misunderstood.
This is why I have zero interest in travelling to or through the US as a tourist. The risk to reward ratio is too great for me - there's much better places to go visit where there's a smaller chance of being fucked over by a border patrol agent.
Just hand over your papers. As a tourist people will be nice enough, but you should expect searches and to obey authority like if you were visiting China or Russia.
This kind of thing happens to residents who are trying to push for change in their country and accepting personal risks.
I've been to the US plenty times on business, and once as a tourist - every time the border guards were deeply unpleasant and behaved like egomanical bullies. Maybe I've just been unlucky, but a lot of people seem to have a similar tale.
I should also add, I've been to dozens of countries and never experienced anything like this.
Same experience here. Standing in a queue for 3 or 4 hours and occasionally getting shouted at by aggressive guards with their hand on their gun holster because you had the temerity to use your phone to let your colleagues/family/hotel etc to let them know why you're 3 hours delayed despite the plane landing on time. Then you finally reach the booth and are given Interrogation Lite (tm) about why you are there, if you have a return ticket paid for, where you are staying and generally eyed suspiciously before being finger-printed and having mugshots taken like you've just been arrested.
But you know, welcome to the land of the free!
FWIW, Global Entry for non-US citizens has made it so much better. You just whizz right through in about 30 seconds without having to deal with anyone apart from just give them a receipt from the machine.
Wow that's a relatively small list. I was surprised to see Australia not on it, especially considering we have our special E3 visa, and other countries like UK and Singapore are on it.
The UK has a similar program, Registered Traveller [1], which has a more exhaustive country list. Having an Australian passport, I often get curious looks when I use the smart gates, but I'm always able to go through (though I am always nervous it won't work and ill look like a silly foreigner for going I the wrong queue).
Not sure what these countries have in common that gets them on this list:
Citizens of Argentina,
Citizens of India,
Citizens of Colombia,
Citizens of United Kingdom,
Citizens of Germany,
Citizens of Panama,
Citizens of Singapore,
Citizens of South Korea,
Citizens of Switzerland,
Citizens of Taiwan,
Mexican nationals
Learned today that in Mexico to be a citizen one must be Mexican National, 18 years of age, and have an "honest way of living".
I can concur. As a U.S. citizen I find that foreign immigration agents treat me better when I'm entering their country, than American agents do when I'm returning home.
Or, I just don't go. I understand the risks are incredibly minor (and the negatives probably overplayed), but there's just so many other places to go to that aren't as problematic as the US at the moment. Border guards with a bad reputation, government with a bad reputation, gun policy with a bad reputation, all things that I'm happy not entertaining as a tourist.
When it comes to tourism, the US certainly has a PR problem at the moment. Among my (admittedly, incredibly privileged) group of friends, all have expressed reluctance to visit the US in the past couple of years.
I went to the U.S. recently, and apart from having to go endless times through the x-ray machine and removing shoes, belt, etc (which I haven't experienced in other countries), it wasn't too bad.
They did do a thorough questioning when applying for the visa, but the border itself was pretty easy.
And once inside, people were overall very friendly.
As a Kickstarter backer, I paid somewhat less than their current prices for carbon fiber buckles. I also have a couple of their metal-buckle belts, and I definitely prefer the carbon fiber ones.
I find India far worse; that country is so paranoid compared to other places I have been. The US (and definitely China which, in my experience of going there often, has very friendly border guards) are a walk in the park compared.
When I had to go to India (Kolkata) in 2015 as part of my job, the process was slow and frustrating. I had to apply for a business visa and answer a myriad of questions, including whether I or anyone from my family had any ties to Pakistan, my religion, my travel history, names of various family members, political affiliations, fingerprints, the whole lot. It then took 3 months to get my passport back, with the visa added. The opening hours for the embassy were 10:00-12:00, weekdays only, and I had to go there personally, I couldn't send someone else to pick it up.
Before landing, we had to fill out more forms, including one that basically said "do you have ebola? Yes/No", which I found rather entertaining. After landing, we had to fill out even more forms, including whether we were bringing in any weapons, fireworks, satellite phones, that sort of thing. I'm probably forgetting a few more random forms I had to fill out, there were so many of them.
Yes, which is why for me it is the worst. Comparing with Sri Lanka, Cambodia, China or, well mostly anywhere else I have been, it is frustrating, bureaucratic and with an ‘everyone is a criminal’ air.
It strikes me that anybody who says America is a "free" country is absolutely delusional.
-America has the highest percentage of it's people locked up in jail
-People spend time in jail even though they are not convicted because they cannot post bail, which disproportionately punishes the the poor
-The laws are so complex, and so many, almost everyone breaks the law multiple times a month. Enforcement is highly subjective and at the whim of prosecutors and law enforcement officials
By the time we leave public school we've heard the "freedom" spiel thousands of times. We hear it from the news, every time we turn it on. Some people listen to the news primarily so they can hear the repetition of the comfortable old litany. A relatively recent innovation is talking about foreigners who "hate us for our freedom", rather than e.g. for our bombs falling on their homes.
It takes a lot of work to ignore reality so thoroughly.
Any press freedom list that would place the UK above the US is broken. The UK just arrested a reporter, then ordered a ban on all news coverage of the incident. Sweden being up at #2 is laughable nonsense. Germany should also be much lower.
Hi, I’m [name] with [station]. Our greatest responsibility is to serve our communities. I am extremely proud of the quality, balanced journalism that [station] produces, but I’m concerned about the troubling trend of irresponsible, one-sided news stories plaguing our country.
The sharing of biased and false news has become all too common on social media. More alarming, some media outlets publish these same fake stories without checking facts first. Unfortunately, some members of the media use their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control exactly what people think. This is extremely dangerous to our democracy.
At [station], it is our responsibility to report and pursue the truth. We understand the truth is neither politically left nor right. Our commitment to factual reporting is the foundation of our credibility now more than ever. But we are human, and sometimes our reporting might fall short. If you believe our coverage is unfair, please reach out through our [station] website by clicking on “Content Concerns.” We value your comments and we will respond back to you.
We work very hard to seek the truth and strive to be fair, balanced, and factual. We consider it our honor and privilege to responsibly deliver the news every day. Thank you for watching, and we appreciate your feedback.
------
American free press is getting to choose which reporter presents that script to you
I suspect if you tried to start up a broadcast TV network without purchasing the appropriate spectrum (which isn't available), you'd be arrested and charged within a week.
In the UK the judge can legally prevent press coverage of a trial until after it is finished. It's not a new thing. That appears to be what happened here, and the reporter was already on a suspended sentence for a previous violation of the ban. Do you have evidence to the contrary? I don't think I like this kind of ban, but it appears to be a long standing govt right in the UK.
For an implied prior restraint on speech? Not so much I think.
The UK arrests reporters for reporting. This isn't just about libel (also much more problematic in the UK) or revealing sources. It's about plain old honest reporting of factual events that occur out in public. A reporter reports on people heading into a courthouse, and he gets sent to prison for 13 months. The court then orders that nobody can report on the reporter's arrest either. If not for non-UK web sites ignoring the order, it would be a secret arrest.
But this was ordinary contempt of court for not reporting about an ongoing trial until it was complete. It's a long standing govt right in the UK. Was there anything unusual about this case?
Yeah, I know this is different than the US, but I keep seeing people complaining about it from a US civil rights standard. We should at least appreciate that under UK law there are different rights. For the US, I feel like the enumerated power idea has become a somewhat historical concept instead of being true in practice. As an example, think about civil forfeiture. I don't see how that is enumerated.
In which case, I'll fill in what you conveniently left out:-
* Tommy Robinson was arrested for contempt of court
* Tommy Robinson is still under a suspended sentence for a previous conviction of contempt of court
* The publication ban is because the judge is concerned that by continuing to report on the trial Tommy Robinson was apparently 'reporting' on (quotes mine), there's a risk of prejudicing it
* Tommy Robinson is not a reporter or a journalist - if he was, he'd be aware of the reasons why courts are not best pleased about someone filming the people coming and going
In short - man does thing, is convicted of doing a thing, is given a suspended sentence and told not to do the thing again, and is somehow surprised that the legal system takes a dim view of it. A more cynical person may say that Robinson has his own reasons for doing what he's doing that are particular to the people involved in the trial, but I'll leave that as an exercise for people to figure out with a Google search.
Your comment that "Robinson has his own reasons for doing what he's doing that are particular to the people involved" seems to miss the point of a freedom. Freedom doesn't count if it only applies to things you find unobjectionable. The implication is that his freedom of press is somehow less deserving because of the subject matter he chooses to cover.
Here in the USA, our supreme court decided that the Westboro Baptist Church could protest by going uninvited to military funerals and holding signs that say "GOD HATES FAGS". That, plus dragging American flags on the ground, ensures that they won't get support from either side of the political spectrum in the USA. They still have their right to free speech. A "right" isn't a "right" if it is conditional on being inoffensive.
"The press" is so thoroughly compromised here that "press freedom" can be a bit of a distraction. I watched a "national" newscast yesterday with my dad; it was 100% local-type "news": fires, car accidents, human interest, etc. Meanwhile we're in multiple wars and are theoretically in negotiations to avoid multiple other wars. Meanwhile the big banks we bailed out are bigger than ever. Meanwhile we have more people in prison than any other nation on Earth, in the history of Earth. Etc. Did some judge or other official order NBC Nightly News to do such a thoroughly shitty job? Of course not, but that doesn't mean they're aren't incentives of some sort coming from the State.
If I want to know what our military or TLAs are doing, I don't consult an American source. This isn't a conspiracy; it is simply the case that American media conglomerates have decided they make more money catering to the shallow. It's not a problem for thoughtful news consumers: there are lots of other places for news. Perhaps I am naive, but I don't think our courts are so far gone that they're going to let anyone shut out TI, AJ, RT, various independent journalists, etc. Even if the courts did go along with such an effort, it seems doomed to fail.
That isn't to say that journalists have nothing to complain about. Telling the truth isn't the way to succeed in this field, at this time.
All those things are true and yet the freedom you mock isn't a delusion. It's just not evenly distributed. And that's the key idea of the USA. Instead of concentrating on using government force to ensure equal outcomes for everyone instead it's about equal opportunities in a free for all. Free to fail and free to succeed. There's a lot of extremes here and the USA is a much larger, more heterogeneous place than many imagine from watching the exported news and media.
re: this story, for example: nothing like this exists in states that are not on the southern border. From state to state there are huge differences in culture, demographics, and governance.
about equal opportunities in a free for all. Free to fail and free to succeed.
But that's self-evidently not the case. Formal and informal discrimination massively limit participation, and quite often commercial success is rooted in an ability to dump externalities rather than create value.
Perfect can be the enemy of good, in the sense that in a city of people there must be compromises so that everyone can coexist in a small space.
Sure, the US isn't fair. In practice it is grossly unfair. But talk to anyone with, eg, a congenital disability and it is apparent that this isn't because the US is doing something wrong, it is because life is unfair.
The US is very free. Some people have to work orders of magnitude harder to excercise their freedom, but in freedom of speech and action the US compares well with, eg, the UK, China, Russia, Middle Eastern countries, etc, etc. There are a few very small nations (eg, Luxembourg, Sweden, New Zealand, etc), where the numbers are smaller and the results are arguably better. But recall that human communities are governed by absolute numbers (see Dunbar's number) and reflect that the US does pretty well for its size.
Basically, don't conflate freedom and fairness. The US has a lot of freedom, but freedom is a pretty basic idea, and exercising it is crazy hard for some people.
I had an experience with a border patrol checkpoint in Arizona in 2009. I was driving from Yuma, AZ towards Vegas (probably on US-95) in a rented brown Prius with Washington state plates as I was flagged down by the border patrol.
At the checkpoint the officers looked at me with disinterest (probably a combination of the dull routine and because I looked like a white US citizen). First they asked me if I was a US citizen and I said no, and suddenly they were looked far more interested. They asked to see my passport and informed me they'd need to search my vehicle and I was to open the trunk. I complied, opening the trunk and passing my passport to one officer while the other went to the rear of the vehicle to start a search. A few seconds later the officer with my passport notices something and urgently signals the other officer. At this point I was worried that my paperwork must not be in order and that I was in trouble. Once the other officer rejoins the first they briefly confer and then they hand me back my passport and apologize profusely for the inconvenience saying that they didn't realize that I was a diplomat before sending me on my way.
The kicker is that I wasn't a diplomat, merely a bureaucrat on an official trip to the US and any "diplomatic immunity" I had was the thinnest kind of intergovernmental courtesy.
At first this story was funny to me as the time I accidentally wielded diplomatic immunity. However, more recently I find it less amusing as instead I consider it a tale about how the changing assumptions of the officers significantly affected the nature of the interaction and how different the interaction could have been if their assumptions had been less favorable.
I don't understand how you think the officers in question did anything wrong.
I'm not American, so I have no stake in defending the US border patrol, but this is what I'd expect border patrol anywhere in the world to do. Their entire job function is to prevent illegal entry, toll violations etc.
By your own account you were in possession of a valid passport clearly indicating that you're working in an official capacity for a foreign state. Why would border patrol anywhere in the world continue to detain you at that point?
Is there some illegal immigration problem in any country on Earth stemming from people in possession of official government passports indicating that they work for their respective states that I'm unaware of? How is this not as clear of a signal as anything short of the agent personally recognizing you as a foreign ambassador that you should be sent on your way?
I don't think that the officers did anything wrong.
I didn't like that the officers only decided to search my vehicle after they knew I wasn't a US citizen and then abandoned the search once they saw my visa but I don't think that these decisions exceeded the discretion that the offices are authorized to use during a stop.
I also didn't like that the officers made me uncomfortable and nervous during the stop but again I don't think the officers were acting inappropriately. It's on me that even with my government background I get nervous interacting with officials in situations like this.
I guess if anything my complaint is that I would prefer that border patrol checkpoints only stop people who are in the process of crossing a border rather than random highway checkpoints (in this case I was probably an hour away from the border) and if you are stopping people without reasonable suspicion or probable cause I'd prefer that the same stop procedures be applied to everyone.
Not to defend any rudeness on their part, but that route is an infamous one for smuggling, so higher scrutiny of an out of area vehicle is not a huge surprise.
Their entire job function is to prevent illegal entry, toll violations etc.
To me, one of the key elements of the story is this: getting from Yuma, AZ to Las Vegas, NV does not involve crossing an international border. So this level of harassment a few hours drive from an actual border seems a bit uncalled for.
It's a lot easier to have checkpoints at the chokepoints outside of the metro region, because all the illegals and smugglers have to pass through them at some point. There's too much surface area to defend in Yuma proper.
I'd say there's a trade off to be made. If we didn't have any illegal immigration or smuggling, obviously it would be unreasonable. On the other hand, if we had a million professional gang members entering each year via various tunnels into Yuma, it would be reasonable to put checkpoints on the outside of the city to help curb the problem. Or evacuate the city and nuke it from orbit.
"In December 2009, Watts was detained at the US/Canada border by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) performing a reportedly random search of the rental vehicle he was driving."
Note BTW that he was at the time leaving USA after having crossed over from Canada with no incident.
"...According to Watts, he was assaulted, punched in the face, pepper-sprayed and thrown in jail for the night."
"...Watts blogged about his sentence saying that because of how the law was written, his asking: "What is the problem?" was enough to convict him of non-compliance."
I generally decline rental vehicles with out-of-state plates (meaning of a state that is no part of my trip). It brings unwanted scrutiny from LEOs and thieves alike.
It seems to me that Martinez-Fuerte was wrongly decided. The court treated it as a dilemma between stopping all traffic passing a particular point with no suspicion at all, and requiring a warrant from a judge based on probable cause. There was already legal precedent for a middle ground at that time: the Terry stop, requiring only reasonable suspicion based on evidence as determined by the officer and subject to later review by a judge.
More generally, I don't think government agents should ever be able to detain and question people in public places without reasonable individualized suspicion based on evidence. To whatever extent the law fails to prohibit such actions, it should be changed.
I'm no lawyer, but I believe Terry Stops are about having to produce identification on demand (e.g. while walking down the sidewalk). When you're driving a car on public roads, you have to produce a valid license and proof of insurance (in every state I'm aware of) on demand.
If you're a passenger, then it's reasonable to refuse to produce ID, but if you're the driver then I don't know how you can argue that you don't need to.
I'm not a lawyer either, but I don't think that's quite right.
A Terry stop is about reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing, based on evidence, but not sufficient evidence for an arrest. A person can be detained temporarily in order to alleviate that suspicion and searched for weapons for the officer's safety. In some jurisdictions, a person who has been detained can be required to identify themself, but I don't believe any court has held that involves producing government-issued ID.
Under normal circumstances, a person cannot be stopped just to check that they have a valid driver's license. A driver can argue that they don't need to produce ID because there was no valid reason for the stop. There have been some exceptions carved out for checkpoints of various types, and I think all of them are legally problematic and morally unjustifiable.
There are also issues of jurisdiction. I'm not sure if immigration agents have jurisdiction to enforce traffic laws.
No, they cannot. The supreme court ruled in Delaware v. Prouse that
"except in those situations in which there is at least articulable and reasonable suspicion that a motorist is unlicensed or that an automobile is not registered, or that either the vehicle or an occupant is otherwise subject to seizure for violation of law, stopping an automobile and detaining the driver in order to check his driver's license and the registration of the automobile are unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment"
The Martinez-Fuerte ruling specifically applies to a section of US territory along the border.
The ruling accepts that illegal border crossings DO occur and that therefor Border Patrol need jurisdiction to stop and question people within a reasonable distance from the border in areas where illegal border crossings occur.
A less penetrable border would be the cleanest solution here.
Since the "border" extends 100 miles inland, covers the majority of large cities and 2/3 of the US population, I don't think this is a clean solution. It only seems that way when you aren't personally affected.
Border stops have to have a connection to an actual border crossing regardless of where they occur. CBP can't conduct suspicionless searches of 2/3rds of the US population.
They can't search with no suspicion, but they can operate checkpoints at which they stop and question everyone in every passing vehicle under US v. Martinez-Fuerte. That ruling is a little vague, requiring that the placement of the checkpoints be "reasonable".
It further allowed CPB officers to "refer motorists selectively to the secondary inspection area at the San Clemente checkpoint on the basis of criteria that would not sustain a roving patrol stop" (Terry stop). This is not a suspicionless search, but it's a much lower level of suspicion than is required for a search under other circumstances.
Federal regulations allow CPB to operate within 100 miles of the border. That doesn't necessarily mean it's legal to operate a checkpoint anywhere in that zone, but the restrictions on where they can be placed are pretty vague.
Check out Martinez-Fuerte at 560, which ACLU (at least in California) says is controlling, and which states that secondary inspection areas can be used only for routine and limited inquiries into residence status, and that the areas are used exclusively for traffic alleviation, not to facilitate actual searches, which the case (at 558) says are disallowed.
I'm certainly never going to claim that CBP doesn't push its authority, or even abuse it outright. I assume they somewhat routinely do that. Patrick Leahy got pulled over 125 miles from a border a few years ago (that had to have been fun to watch).
I'm just saying that there's a mythology about the "100 mile wide Constitution-free zone" which is not useful or productive and deserves to be punctured whenever it's brought up. A lot of what people believe CBP can do by dint of being within 50 miles of a border would, if it occurred, in fact be unlawful, and should be challenged on those terms. Not in a Wesley Snipesian idiosyncratic "originalist" sense of the word unlawful, but straight-up normal-lawyer bring-a-case unlawful.
So, your argument is that because people who cross the border illegally exist, it is reasonable to suspect anyone who is within 100 miles of the border crossed it illegally?
If someone needs a simple and clear example of "corrupted by power", just read the excerpt below.
In a Jan. 28, 2008, letter to university president Robert Shelton, local Border Patrol union president Ed Tuffly stated, “We will be aggressively pursuing action against Mr. Bressi and/or the University on behalf of our agents for the internet postings which Bressi has undertaken using video obtained while he was acting as a University employee. If it is determined that the [Arizona] law does not apply to Federal law enforcement officers, we will lobby for an amendment to the State law to ensure that we are protected.”
The pre-election date on that letter was interesting. The Slate article is kind of silent on what happened during the Obama presidency on this. Did they continue Operation Stonegarden as-is throughout those two terms?
Good for him! But even if he "wins", I'm guessing all of the past criminality will remain unpunished - as opposed to throwing the kidnappers in jail, and civilly compensating all of their victims, and similarly prosecuting the leaders for conspiracy. When asked to oversee agents of USG itself, courts seem to take the attitude that eg telling a murderer to not do it again is good enough.
And lacking the threat of punishment, the thugs will just move on to the next profitable harassment scheme that hasn't yet been cracked down on. Given that we've all been victims of this same pattern for decades, all I can really wonder is are those newfangled assassination markets ready yet? Kickstarter for justice seems to be the only way we'll be able to get it.
I visited Tucson, Arizona several years ago with my parents and the area south of town resembles a war zone. There were blackhawk helicopters searching for illegal immigrants, hundreds of CBP vehicles all over the place, dozens of buses waiting to transport the illegal immigrants to detention facilities, and of course the military-style checkpoints where officers with assault rifles can essentially do anything they want to you (many of these checkpoints are in the middle of nowhere). I'm a natural-born citizen and I was afraid. I can't imagine living down there and going through those type of checkpoints every day.
"War zone" really gives people the wrong idea. South Tucson has some very nice neighborhoods, including one of the best schools in the state. There is a fair bit of air traffic due to a nearby air force base[1] but this is not something most of the residents are generally concerned with.
The checkpoints are legitimately annoying, though. Most people simply identify themselves and pass through peacefully--the Supreme Court has already decided that you must identify yourself. If you want your right to remain silent, you have to actually say that, oddly enough. Granted, it's clear that he wanted to be arrested for civil disobedience, just mentioning that for anyone who prefers to go on their way.
I think they meant 'extemporaneous' instead of 'contemporaneous' although I'm not 100% sure.
I've been stopped at one of these checkpoints in California and had my vehicle searched. I'm just glad that I didn't have any cannabis in my car because they promptly informed me that even though it was legal in the state, the checkpoints are federal - so you could be in hot water.
Doesn't matter. In Kansas outside Salina, highway patrol pulled me over because my new car had a temporary tag, which they claimed was in the wrong location. It wasn't: KS and OR differ in where they want you to put it. I declined consent for a search, at which point they put hands on guns and ordered me out of the car. They spent about an hour tossing everything they could remove into the ditch.
There are some real top to bottom jerks around with badges, and with those folks, knowing your rights is effectively meaningless.
People who have had their rights infringed shouldn't be asked to invest more of their time and/or money in procedural wrangling with diminishing probabilities of restitution for their original injury. there are strong correlations between biased enforcement and biased litigation outcomes, and that doctrine of qualified immunity virtually guarantees litigation will be highly asymmetrical from the outset.
I don't know what the particular rhetorical dance I need to enact in order to ask that question positively rather than normatively is so I'm just going to disregard that problem.
I really shouldn't have. Don't underestimate your ability to make irrational decisions when you feel panicked. There wasn't anything illegal and they let me go on my way.
I was kind of frazzled after I told them I had a medical marijuana recommendation and they told me it was illegal federally. I didn't even know I was at a border control checkpoint at first, I took a wrong turn about 50 miles away from the border in San Diego county. They said they weren't looking for weed, but obviously they can and will lie as needed.
my reasoning at the time (panicked) was that there was a small chance I might have had cannabis in the car. There was a dog alerting to the car, and I assumed it meant they'd end up searching it even without my consent. I believed them when they said they weren't looking for weed, but I also believed that if I denied consent to search and they searched anyway, if they found weed they were more likely charge me, as opposed to just letting me go if I cooperated and all they found was weed. So that was my flawed logic. I know it's always best not to consent, but I kind of panicked and gave consent anyway.
Turns out the dog was alerting to my legal prescription medication.
Here's my thought: the only thing that will save us from this insanity is driverless cars.
When the Constitution was written, there weren't cars. You walked or rode a horse. There were no licenses or insurance, there were no DUIs. There was no legal requirement to prove that you were legally entitled to operate a motor vehicle on a public road.
These stops seem to largely depend on our relationship with driving cars. The necessary evil of DUI checkpoints is obviously a crutch they're leaning on heavily.
At a minimum, self-driving cars will force them to work a bit harder to scheme up clever legal interpretations allowing them to continue operating.
WA doesn't have them (against the constitution), and it gets along just fine. In fact with the NHTSA's own data Washington's ratio of traffic fatalities attributed to alcohol is closely inline with states that do have checkpoints. [1]
The evidence simply doesn't show that DUI checkpoints are necessary or effective.
As a non-white naturalized US citizen whose ethnicity is heavily targeted by CBP activities, they make me nervous and I'm not surprised to hear that they repeatedly overstep their boundaries (irony!).
I see the current enforcement of our immigration laws fueling a parental crisis similar to what we currently see in black communities, the bill will be due in a decade or two.
This man famously has a series of videos where he intentionally confronts border security. It doesn't always go like that, here's where he gets tazed and beaten by using similar tactics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toKIxkgnAV4
I'm downvoting you not because I disagree with people exercising their rights, but because you're spreading information that, if followed in the places where it matters, will be the quickest way to get your teeth kicked in and land you jail.
You are free to do that, of course and I applaud you for fighting for your rights. However, the video gives the wrong impression that this is a method via which one can go through a checkpoint with less hassle, whereas in reality if this method works, you're dealing with cops that won't bother you needlessly anyway; but if it doesn't, you're dealing with cops that will make your day a living hell for standing up for your rights. From a game-theory perspective it's absolutely the worst choice. No matter of standing up for your rights seems to have any systemic effect anyway.
My perspective might be different because I grew up in the Eastern Bloc, where the winning strategy was always complying while hiding contraband and bribing officials. No amount of anyone fighting for any rights ever had any effect, what happened in the end is that the economy collapsed and things had to change at the top forcibly. If you want to fight because of some personal sense of honour, of course you should do that. But from an everyday practical game-theory perspective, the winning strategy for both the game and the meta-game is to comply with whatever the cop wants to see.
In many cases they're the same thing, given the probability differential in enforcement; a strategy that works great for people in one group can also be the excuse for excessive enforcement against another, who indirectly pick up the tab for the first group's sociopolitical privilege debt. Disadvantaged outgroups should not have to incur predictably higher levels of abuse for their political concerns to become valid.
Sadly it looks to me like the best case of "winning" is that they'll just keep doing the same thing and call them "DUI checkpoints" instead. It's not about catching people breaking the law, it's about harassing just enough people that the general population fears them and complies with any demand and writing citations and making money while doing it.
In a more abstract view, is it the incentive of money thats drawing in these bad actors? Is it the power of authority that drawn in bad actors? Can you generalize that all CBP checkpoints are bad? What are some of the good stuff they have done? Should there be a way to crowd fund legal case?
I find reading articles like these makes me question too many things but I don't know how really to process it. Outside of hitting the up vote button, there isn't much I can do to contribute to improving this or most situations.
They get Federal grants to pay for the police cooperation / joint activity. The politics will be local and the locals get a pass since they usually cooperate or become well known. Even a license plate reader will say the car is local. These areas tend to be conservative as well so they view the law enforcement presence as useful.
Insofar as you consider them to be unconstitutional, why are you bargaining (at great fiscal, diplomatic, and social expense) for relief from something you con't consider to be legitimate in the first place?
It's possible to believe that having an immigration policy and laws is a legitimate and constitutional need for the country, and still think that the way they're being enforced is neither legitimate nor constitutional.
Instead of having a secure border line, where we enforce immigration law, and legitimately ask everyone to identify themselves, we have this giant zone extending well into the country where people are presumed to be crossing the border. If we simply physically controlled the line itself, this zone would not be necessary, and the conflict between enforcing immigration law and the fourth amendment would go away.
It's these types of issues I believe a massive coalition could be built around.
Without attempting to ignite a flame war here, I'll just say it would not surprise me at all if this fellow was a Trump supporter nor would it surprise me if he were not.
What I have noticed over my 34 voting years is an extremely well coordinated effort by every major media source to distract the electorate from these types of issues.
For example, a quick search on Bing/news finds hits on the referenced Slate article and an article on Reason which illustrates my point. But the only other references I get hits for are local news sources.
Doubly ironic in that the article describes abuses of power by immigration officials. "To read about this abuse of power, consent to our abuse of power". At least we can still say no to one.
What's wrong with them having preference for people of a similar race? What's wrong for looking at the source countries of many of these immigrants and saying no thanks? No one's in a hurry to make sure lots of whites have positions in Mexico or China.
Japan has a low birthrate but doesn't accept losing their ethnic makeup is a good solution.
What's wrong with them having preference for people of a similar race? What's wrong for looking at the source countries of many of these immigrants and saying no thanks? No one's in a hurry to make sure lots of whites have positions in Mexico or China.
Well history suggests some answers to that question, even ignoring the ethical dimensions. If you choose to ignore almost all of those answers and the ethics in favor of purely selfish arguments, then realize that eventually people who look like you will be on the losing side of this equation.
Japan has a low birthrate but doesn't accept losing their ethnic makeup is a good solution.
Ok, but they don’t have a solution, period. When they figure out one that works, you might have a point?
>Well history suggests some answers to that question
Such as? American Natives arguably fared rather poorly with immigration. What other examples did you have in mind? Other countries don't seem keen on immigration. Is South Africa encouraging Europeans to come over? Mexico and a lot of Latam have difficult immigration laws. Hell I ended having to pay a few thousand dollars to have my Canadian daughter leave Guatemala because she overstayed her visa despite her mother being a citizen. Imagine the outrage if the US started applying fines to be able to leave!
>but they don’t have a solution, period.
Isn't it automation plus very very limited purpose-specific visas?
A non-American can not tell Americans what should be the their immigration policy but will always point out the fact that the immigration policy is racist and mostly formulated by minority of white conservatives. Whether it is good or bad is a separate issues. For example every American company is happy to employ non-Americans it is mostly no-skin-in-the-game bible belt politicians creating problems for them.
> Imagine the outrage if the US started applying fines to be able to leave!
Will ask my employer to pay for it every-time I leave USA for India. American shareholders will pay for it. At the moment my employer pays me competitive salary and also spends around $10k per 3 year in visa renewals. Harassment of immigrants gets passed down to American public as reduced shareholder value.
There is no value judgement in whatever I have typed. I have just stated what I have experienced. Also, it is not the Chinese or Indians who are suffering in the long run. Chinese-American and Indian-Americans are at top everywhere in USA and their home countries will be substantially better in next 20 years compared to what they are today.
The racial hatred of white conservatives only hurts them on the long run as government continues to use immigration laws, anti-terrorism laws etc. to gain more power, regulate more and engage in trade wars that destroy American wealth.
- Anti immigrant policies are loved by white conservatives.
- White conservatives are happy to face loss of their own freedom and money just to spite others.
- Immigrants barely get deterred by such moves but the proponents of these policies get hurt more and more.
For example no good company bothers to have any operations near the border. US Mexico border towns are ripe with low productivity jobs, crime, smuggling and government corruption.
I don't want to derail anything, but does anyone sense the irony of that little addendum at the end of the article. The one that refers to Trump being such a clear danger to rule of law that Slate felt the need to increase reporting on rights violations, and it being at the end of an article that mainly deals with BS that went through Obama administration without audit or inquiry.
I'm downvoting because the addendum is clearly separate from the article content rather than derivative of it, and because it's arguably objectively correct: many abuses in immigration and other areas of law enforcement did indeed take place under the previous administration, but trends in enforcement and litigation have reversed. I'd also point out that the strict immigration enforcement under Obama was meant as a concession to immigration restrictionists who demanded a 'secure border' before they would consider any reform or revision of immigration, and was thus conducted in spite of rather than in pursuance of the Democratic party's policies in an effort at bipartisanship, which has turned out to be singularly lacking in reciprocation. Despite the relative heavy-handedness of enforcement under the Obama administration and a subsequent (but not necessarily consequent, due to economic factors) transition to negative net migration, immigration restrictionists simply doubled down on their demands and started asking for a physical wall.
Reminders that the Emperor has no clothes are an exonerating justification regularly accepted in courtrooms for summary executions conducted by police officers in the United States.
At some point he decided to try to stand up for what he considered his rights in a similar way: not being combative, just not cooperating. He was thrown in jail for 3 days, then the charges were dropped.
He talked with lawyers and the ACLU. The ACLU were quite frank that they have limited resources, and so they have to prioritize cases that have the ideal defendant and political optics. If he fought it personally, the cost would start at five figures.
The folks doing this know there's a high barrier to holding them accountable and leverage it wantonly.
The worst thing about these "contempt of cop" style arrests is, despite the charges being dropped, once you're in the system's pipeline, if you mess up about any of the restrictions, paperwork, court appearances, etc, you become a criminal. It's easy to imagine a lot of folks might fall into that trap for innocent and mundane reasons.