essxjay

ArsTechnica

A class act. ^^

Blogndog

In my experience, CBP officials are of the belief that they can "do anything we want" at the border. There is a border exemption to the normal 4th Amendment requirments for probable cause, but as court rulings have repeatedly confirmed, there are still strong constitutional protections against abuse of this very limited exemption. CBP may, for example, "search anyone they want to," but that doesn't make it make it legal for them to stop all black men just because they "want" to. It is also is not legal for the government to use the opportunity of an investigation target crossing a border to conduct a search that they haven't been able to persuade a judge to issue a search warrant for -- obviously, that would make the 4th Amendment a purely theoretical and academic "protection" because the government could simply wait until the next time they entered the country.

CBP is slowly being brought to heel, but the wheels of justice turn ever so slowly.

Ari

PDF Complaint: https://www.eff.org/files/2015/07/13..._complaint.pdf

yandosan

Despite 14 years since 9/11 we still seem to be trapped in a paranoid Joseph McCarthy-esque milieu where anyone with half a brain can be persecuted by the Security Industrial Complex, and doing so at the border is a good way to circumvent all those pesky Constitutional protections. Last time I was coming from Asia, after six months or so on Thai beaches, the idiot-in-charge at customs at LAX freaked out over the sand at the bottom of my backpack, calling it "possible organic matter."
He summoned his buddy over to check out the "organic matter" and
the guys eyes rolled as he advised his colleague, "Calm down, it's sand, Joe. Sand."
There's no end to their idiocy. Maybe the solution is to wave an American
flag around and pretend like you're not too bright.

GUWonder

Trying to intimidate or otherwise harass people exposing the dark side of government is a desire for too many of those whose idea of patriotism is a petty version that can't tolerate the light of day being shined upon the shadows and dark corners created by government.

DaveBlaine

Randomly selected.

GUWonder

"Randomly selected" where the selection was anything but random as various governments were more interested in frustrating well-sourced critical coverage of domestic and foreign adventures by "respectable governments" than in taking a look in the mirror of these same governments betraying their own public subjected to intrusive massive spying mechanisms for no good reason. Oh the irony on who the hackers are and who all has enabled the hacking and leaks.

The consequence of blacklisting people can sometimes result in otherwise "nice people" going off the wall. In the Chattanooga "active shooter" matter yesterday, the perpetrator of those crimes went off the wall well after his father was blacklisted in terms of air travel but then told repeatedly he was "randomly selected". The combination of the governmental "deception" and blacklisting people can give rise to grievances that make the frustrated, including those with mental disorders, go off the wall and perpetrate criminal acts against a government which they believe has wronged them by dehumanizing them. It's no surprise to all that some such people end up dehumanizing others in response and then go off the wall in the awful way seen yesterday in TN.

DaveBlaine

The sad thing is these low level agents on the front lines are just "following orders".

GUWonder

In "the land of the free" we are not slaves/conscripts forced to stay in a job and "follow orders" which we consider repugnant. I would rather choose to be homeless than follow some orders which betray my country. I suspect that not all DHS employees are of the same disposition as myself, but there are always some apples that don't fall too close to the tree.

DaveBlaine

But, but, but....They offer a dental plan.

jphripjah

I agree.

I disagree. There is nothing illegal about taking the opportunity of an investigation target crossing a border to single him out and search through his stuff.

Ari

It might violate the 14th Amendment.

Section 107

It might in unusual circumstances but probably wont because the threshold for searching is much much lower at the border (and within proximity of a border or port).

Ari

That's just another way of saying that 4th Amendment standards are lowered at the border. But it says nothing of equal protection. Could CBP put in place a policy that the hand luggage of all Caucasian passengers is to be searched, the checked baggage of all Latino passengers is to be searched and no luggage of black passengers is to be searched because no level of suspicion is required hand baggage searches? Of course not. The 14th Amendment applies with full force at the border; violations are just hard prove, sort of like they are with traffic stops. I see no reason why a "class of one" equal protection claim should fail. But that is not even being pursued here-- just a FOIA request.

Blogndog

The was exactly the argument the Feds made in court in the David House case. The Feds lost, as they should have.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/new-d...ptops-border-0