This may be true for standard law enforcement, but it is definitely NOT true for CBP border enforcement - different fourth amendment rules. As I said, the legal standard has never been fully defined by the courts, but it's no higher than requiring a warrant, and probably less (either probable cause or reasonable suspicion).

Also, you definitely can't "ALWAYS walk away."

So, how do you suggest CBP handle the case of someone they believe to be hiding contraband under their clothes?

or in their body.

I would NEVER/Ever sign anything or help them Why . Cause I dont have anything on/in my body accept fpr dignity. No way I would help them to humiliate an innocent person. not going to happen. Just a HUGE lawsuite would happen.

This is really HURTING the person. Soeically if you innocent. It is humiliating, hurtful, wrong and plainly dicussting.
I would not ever help them if I got stopped. Not sign Not speak. Just be a zoombie. Then sue. That is me.

I doubt CBP said: "we are going to rape and torture you, is that OK with you?"

Thye porobalbly said " that would do what ever they wanted to". So SICK. And to cover end of it wanted her to agree with it. What IDIOT would agree with that.

It's sad that such searches happen. None of my immediate family, who fly frequently, have ever been through a strip search. I have had my bags gone through when arriving in the US.

If you're acting nervous then they are much more likely to search you.

My just graduated college daughter decided it would be fun to drive to Nogales for the day last year. Alone. Coming back, she got her car searched, as she fit the profile. Luckily not strip searched, but still no fun. She didn't take it personally.

The odds of being searched are quite small. Aren't most searches done in Canada preclearance?

Can be done anwhere. Would just be nice if they people "working" with would have some class and understanding and dignity. Pretty sure they would not have their moms/dads, kids, spouse and other family members treated like crap.

Actually those violations 50 years ago made headlines BECAUSE they were so egregious. Today protests aren't allowed within 10 miles of convention sites, and no one raises a stink. The THREAT of a protest recently in defense of the American flag actually caused a major US university to close down entirely. Just the POSSIBILITY that people might come out in protest caused such fear that people allowed an entire university to shut. You don't find that incredible?

And it is attitudes like "what have you got to hide", and saying you feel "safer" with cameras watching everywhere that makes them so prevalent. Look at the intrusion into people's lives 50 years ago versus today, and imagine how things are likely to be in another 50 years. Scary.

Did you do any research on this?

She was handcuffed to a table, an object was forcibly inserted into her vagina, and she was forced to defecate under observation. There was no consent. (They tried to force her consent, in fact.)

See my post immediately above. Ironically, you seem perfectly tolerant of CBP brutality for all your talk of "we no longer tolerate police brutality." You don't seem to get that the scanning required the forcible (non-consensual) insertion of an object into her vagina.

I think the real issue here is not what the CBP can do, but how far can they carry it? CBP, can have their initial reasoning for a strip / cavity search, that bar is pretty low but to continue to more intrusive measures seems they would need to be able articulate their probable cause / reasonable suspicion. There is probably little case law on this issue.

Use of cameras all over the place doesn't prevent crime from happening although it might make it easier to find the perp.

Yes, civil rights violations are much more pervasive today than 50 years ago because the entire population is being surveilled in one manner or another.

FWIW, Congress seems to be about ready to take the initial steps in pulling back on the Patriot Act.

Patriot Act Reform

Again, such a search should require probable cause, and should be extremely rare (and I think they probably are extremely rare). Nothing excuses doing so without that probable cause. And "probable cause" should have a pretty high burden of proof on the police, a category that I place the CBP into.

With all that said, calling a strip search (even one that includes cavity search) "brutality" suggests to me that you really don't know what brutality is, and that you've never experienced it personally. (I'll admit that I haven't, and thank God for that.)