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US Border Patrol checkpoint on I-10 in west Texas

US Border Patrol checkpoint on I-10 in west Texas

Old Aug 30, 2010, 9:25 pm
  #76  
 
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Originally Posted by ND Sol
What do you mean about "doesn't see anything associated with the vehicle"? Something in plain view?

And I've heard before that being "cool as a cucumber" can be considered suspicious.
Things that are associated with vehicles used for smuggling, modifications, smells, items in view etc.

As for nervousness, the officers deal with and talk to numerous people everyday. The officer expects a certain amount of nervousness from the individuals they are dealing with. It just comes with the uniform and the situation. Excessive nervousness or the lack of any nervousness at all stands out. Obviously, it is not a 100 percent indicator, that is why it is only part of the whole picture.

FB
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Old Aug 30, 2010, 10:22 pm
  #77  
 
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Originally Posted by Firebug4
I am not sure if this was directed at me but I missed it either way. Taking for granted the officer doesn't see anything associated with the vehicle. You are cool as a cucumber (not nervous etc) you are free to go. The officer may still ask the question concerning your citizenship even if you offered it in the greeting without being asked.

FB
If one watches the videos posted at www.checkpointusa.org it paints quite a different picture from your assertion. One can even see a clip where the border patrol person admits that he knows who Mr. Bressi is and still he refuses to let him pass in an expeditious manner. There is another clip where an agent shouts, "Hi Terry" as Mr. Bressi pulls up to the checkpoint. It is clear that he is known to the agents but he is still detained. Could you explain what accounts for the discrepancy between your statement as to how things would work and the reality captured on video by Mr. Bressi?
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Old Aug 31, 2010, 2:38 am
  #78  
Ari
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Originally Posted by Firebug4
I am not sure if this was directed at me but I missed it either way. Taking for granted the officer doesn't see anything associated with the vehicle. You are cool as a cucumber (not nervous etc) you are free to go. The officer may still ask the question concerning your citizenship even if you offered it in the greeting without being asked.

FB
Please watch the following video:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Checkpoi.../0/DDLlEh0x2XA

Is what happened here legal? After the "we know who you are" what was the cause for the continued detention? Was Agent Soto correct that he was not free to leave until he answered the citizenship question?
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Old Sep 1, 2010, 4:30 pm
  #79  
 
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Originally Posted by Ari
Please watch the following video:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Checkpoi.../0/DDLlEh0x2XA

Is what happened here legal? After the "we know who you are" what was the cause for the continued detention? Was Agent Soto correct that he was not free to leave until he answered the citizenship question?
I do plan to respond I am spread pretty thin and I suspect the response will be somewhat long and in depth. Please be patient

FB
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Old Sep 1, 2010, 5:02 pm
  #80  
 
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This is becoming like the TSA domestic ID checks. TSA: You must have ID to fly domestically. If you don't, we cannot stop you, but we'll make it difficult for you, even if we have no authority to do so.

Border Police: You must answer my question on citizenship. You don't actually have to answer, but we'll try like hell to make you think you do.

The real issue for me, is that I would have no problem answering a question, in theory, even if I were not required to do it. The problem is that doing so gives the government tacit cooperation to encroach more and more. If all it really were, "Are you a US Citizen?" then, so be it; I'm very proud to tell it to anyone who will listen.

We all know, however, that this is not really it. The question is just a way for the police to gain access for a fishing expedition, which I would be fine with if they always caught criminals, and never inconvenienced innocents. Since this doesn't happen, if we must let criminals by, once in a while, to protect the rights of the innocent. I'm okay with that. The contrapositive is a much, much, worse outcome.
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Old Sep 1, 2010, 5:19 pm
  #81  
 
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Originally Posted by Herb687
This type of thing isn't confined to the southern border. Happens up north too. Saw one of these over on the southbound side of I-87 heading towards Lake Placid, NY and then got stopped at a different one on some country backroad heading SW out of Lake Placid towards Utica.
And the I-87 checkpoint pretty much went away after 2 major accidents in 7 months including one in which a tractor-trailor ran into the line of stopped cars resulting in 4 fatalities.
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Old Sep 1, 2010, 6:22 pm
  #82  
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Originally Posted by Firebug4
I do plan to respond I am spread pretty thin and I suspect the response will be somewhat long and in depth. Please be patient

FB
Take your time . . . we are all too busy every once in a while . . .
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Old Sep 2, 2010, 3:19 pm
  #83  
 
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Is New York the Next "Papers Please" State?

http://www.aclu.org/blog/human-right...s-please-state

Welcome to the new Nazi Amerika!
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Old Jan 7, 2011, 7:27 am
  #84  
 
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Does anyone know what the scanners are that are set up on the side of the road approx 2500 feet from the checkpoint?

It appears to be a set of 3-6 cameras, lights, a small flat-faced square emitter, cabling, and a small metal storage box. They are set up on either side of the road so that you must drive thorough them.

I would like more information regarding this contraption.
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Old Jan 7, 2011, 7:47 am
  #85  
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Originally Posted by correction
Does anyone know what the scanners are that are set up on the side of the road approx 2500 feet from the checkpoint?

It appears to be a set of 3-6 cameras, lights, a small flat-faced square emitter, cabling, and a small metal storage box. They are set up on either side of the road so that you must drive thorough them.

I would like more information regarding this contraption.
Is there any possibility that you can take a picture the next time you go through it?

Plan B is: Can you post the approximate location? Is there a town nearby or a milemarker for the checkpoint? If the satellite imagery on Google Earth or commercial imagery web sites are current, I might be able to find it and do some "Imagery Analyst" work (wow -- what a nostalgia trip! Maybe I'll have to use a light table!)
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Old Jan 7, 2011, 7:56 am
  #86  
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Originally Posted by Firebug4
I do plan to respond I am spread pretty thin and I suspect the response will be somewhat long and in depth. Please be patient

FB
FB, it's been what now, 4 months?

do you have that response ready yet?
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Old Jan 7, 2011, 8:01 am
  #87  
 
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Originally Posted by FliesWay2Much
Is there any possibility that you can take a picture the next time you go through it?

Plan B is: Can you post the approximate location? Is there a town nearby or a milemarker for the checkpoint? If the satellite imagery on Google Earth or commercial imagery web sites are current, I might be able to find it and do some "Imagery Analyst" work (wow -- what a nostalgia trip! Maybe I'll have to use a light table!)

I won't be going through it any time soon. I think it might be a backscatter machine. Something like this:
http://borderbeat.net/news/638-borde...ive-by-scanner

All cars were forced to drive though it though. I called the El Paso sector of the Border Patrol and asked them what it was and they told me they couldn't say. I am now experiencing a run around with CPB with no one wanting to answer my questions.
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Old Jan 7, 2011, 8:05 am
  #88  
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Originally Posted by Wimpie
What do you mean "New"? I feel like I have been living in a Nazi state since somewhere around 11:30 AM, 09/11/01, which is when the first brown people started being plucked from trains, buses, private homes and workplaces by uniformed individuals wearing shiny black leather footwear.
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Old Jan 7, 2011, 8:22 am
  #89  
 
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We came through the IH10 checkpoint Tuesday Noon... Long line, 20+, of cars with some delays (and one car pulled over for a search). The light & scanner set up seems likely to be directed at some sort of scan of truck trailers. When our turn came, we would have been quickly through (only a single question, "US citizens?") but our pair of jack Russell's took great offense to the drug dog's walk around. he was well-behaved, but mine were anxious to meet and greet (loudly, aggressively wanting to play as Jack Russell's do), so we were delayed for a brief encounter session and some conversation with the handler (who admitted that he suspected that a good smuggler ought to carry along Jack Russells with their capacity to divert his dog from the principal mission). He wouldn't tell me if his was the dog that had caught Willie Nelson's bus and the MJ aboard.

The Sierra Blanca check point has been there for years, stuck out in the boonies (some of the harshest landscape in the US with no opportunity or roads upon which to circumvent it), where IH10 is no longer within easy walking distance from the Rio Grande/Bravo, a bottleneck for coyotes hauling illegals and the mules who move drogas. For those of us who spend or have spent much time in "Far West Texas" it's a familiar impedance/annoyance/occasional convenience. I worry more about the 110 miles from Fort Stockton to Ozona, only a couple of old "filling stations" a few miles from Fort Stockton, then nearly 100 miles, no gas, nothing but a few gas/oil facilities and ranch gates, no noticeable habitations, a bad place to run out of gas or breakdown, broken only by the tumbled canyons of the Pecos Crossing, crumbling old Fort Lancaster, and the few inhabitants of Sheffield, a few miles off the Interstate.

After the bright lights of El Paso, Sierra Blanca's about the only respite until you get to Fort Stockton, "Motel City", parking lots filled with the heavy duty company pickups of the oil & gas professionals. The site of a mesa top filled with big wind generators looming above dry canyons lined with pump jacks, Christmas trees (gas well heads) and rusting oil collection tanks makes an interesting illustration of the energy business. Nobody minds a few windmills and oil/gas wells in that desolate back yard. There's few to hear the sound of windmills windmilling (and not many birds to go 'splat" against their blades) or pump jacks pumping, only the occasional dead deer or critter, the victims of rash attempts to cross the Interstate.
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Old Jan 7, 2011, 9:16 am
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concur about it being there seemingly forever...first time I ever saw it in operation was sometime around 1995 or 1996. Was helping someone move from AZ and so I was in a big uHaul van with her blonde-blue-eyed daughter in the front seat as we roll in there around 2AM.

We got asked precisely one question- "are y'all American citizens." As I responded yes, we were waved on through.

Some of our quick wave might have been that the vehicle in front of us was not doing so well at following directions and was about to get a full content search as a result...

Still was very surprised that a moving van in the middle of the night was NOT subjected to at least a pull to the side and open the back sort of check...
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