Looks to to me that CBP is either over staffed or have improperly deployed their human assets if they have 6 to 8 people available to stand around doing nothing. No wonder illegals can just walk across the border at will when CBP puts the people in the wrong locations.

Let's set aside for the moment the fact that the video is fake/edited/misleading/etc. The only people with the expertise to demonstrate that are bound to secrecy.

The staff at this checkpoint is deployed and assigned tasks and overseen by someone a level or two higher up. That individual apparently was completely satisfied with the deployment of resources. Remember, we don't know the whole story (and never will).

After watching this video, I guess I should be grateful that the agent who upended a 5-gallon bucket of emergency auto stuff in my trunk didn't dump it on the ground and kick through it. (It appeared that all trunks were being checked that day, at least as far as I saw).

Better to refer to the thread that has six videos (might be more :) but I've only found six) of the incident, with views from multiple cameras in the car and also a link to his photo gallery:

https://www.checkpointforums.org/for...ine-valley.78/

It was not staged. Robert Trudell does this as a hobby and public service and has posted countless "checkpoint refusal" videos in YouTube. Many of his videos are mundane (10 minutes of road noise & open highway with a perfunctory wave through the checkpoint), and some like this one are hilarious.

They reportedly were seeking a search warrant to examine the hard drives & flash memories in his devices, so my best guess is that Border Patrol's low lifes fabricated this event for intelligence gathering purposes.

We should be free to travel in the United States without these intrusions. We quit flying 2.5 years ago after my wife was sexually assaulted at a TSA checkpoint when a screener ran her hand up under my wife bra. We canceled a planned road trip to El Paso last fall because I didn't want to deal with these Gestapo-style checkpoints inside the U.S.

If we were younger, we'd probably emigrate. As it is, we now confine our travels to places where we are not harassed by the worst that American government now offers.

This is not the United States that we grew up in 40-60 years ago. Our government has now adopted some of the worst elements of a couple of our World War II & Cold War enemies.

And by what stretch of the imagination was this detention and warrantless search for weapons -- to the point of trashing his car & belongings -- even remotely legal?

Completely unconstitutional.

Drug checkpoints are unconstitutional. Period. Stop. End of Story.

The Supreme Court has allowed limited checkpoints for two specific purposes:

1. Internal immigration checks: "U.S. citizens?" "Yes." "Have a nice day, sir." Lacking articulable reasonable suspicion or probable cause, it ends with that "yes" response. Checking every trunk clearly shows that they are over the line.

2. Sobriety checkpoints for public safety :rolleyes:: Must be random and cannot stop every car. That last point is very important -- a sobriety checkpoint that stops every vehicle is illegal. Never mind that concentrated drunk driving patrols have been shown to be much more effective at catching drunk drivers.

You'd have to ask someone with a US law degree that. :) According to some, you and I aren't qualified to comment otherwise. I was just commenting on the search process itself in relation to the stated purpose of a gun search: they were complete muppets.

Well, based just on information already provided in this thread: we don't have all of the video. We don't know what took place before the recording started.

We do know that he has his sunglasses on and at least some CBP agents will insist that you remove them and keep your eyes visible and exposed even if that means the sun is shining directly in your eyes.

He also kept picking up his camera and at one point, he picked up a clear plastic bag with some kind of brackets. His actions demonstrated that he had been told to keep his hands visible and with nothing in them at all times: he waggled his fingers in response to something an agent said to him on a couple occasions after he put the camera down and was clearly told to put the brackets he was assembling down.

Clearly that was enough to justify smashing in his window without warning. If that really happened. We don't have the testimony of a qualified CBP forensic video analyst.

Perhaps you would have to. I wouldn't.

Perhaps you don't know, or perhaps you simply choose not to know.

Robert Trudell is very well known in the "checkpoint refusal" community and very well known to the Border Patrol. He always drives through the checkpoints with his windows rolled up and declines all offers of conversation & secondary inspection, with at least half a dozen cameras recording the experience. He's very non-confrontational, just doesn't like to cooperate with Stasi-esque thugs obstructing his travel on American highways.

In other words, he stands up for our rights and documents it.

It wouldn't surprise me if the video leading up to the event has already been upload or is uploaded soon. Those parts of his videos tend to be very boring, mostly enough road noise & open highway to put one to sleep.

Under the same concept I guess if I am standing on a beach and see a person struggling in the water I shouldn't assume they may be drowning and do nothing.

Or if I notice my neighbors house burning I probably am not qualified to determine if it is a real fire and just watch.

So much wrong with the idea that ordinary people can't view a situation and understand if something doesn't ring true.

The thing I found most peculiar is the notion that you can't and shouldn't express any disagreement with anything CBP do except through a court. Even a moments reflection would make the glaring ridiculousness of that position obvious.

I think people in government tend to forget exactly who the owners of this country are.

The Japanese & Chinese? :D

Oh, yes, quite clearly. :rolleyes:

These people have a reputation for shooting children in the back and beating people to death.

I don't give the Border Patrol the benefit of the doubt, ever.

From San Diego channel 10:

Inside sources tell Team 10 some Border Patrol agents are ‘menace to society'
Claims: Failed background checks, reduced training

Inside sources told Team 10 some Border Patrol agents are a danger to society.

The sources said problems start with recruitment and continue through agents' training.

"I know a few agents that are a menace to society, but they have a badge and a gun," said a veteran agent and training instructor who agreed to talk to Team 10 on the condition of anonymity.

"We went from a 20-week course to a 12-week course," the same source said of the Border Patrol training academy. "They say the standards weren't lowered, but they were."

...

"Pretty much everybody gets through the academy," the source said.

The source also said the large number of recruited agents meant background checks could be delayed as long as three years.

"They'd been in the system for three years and they finally found out through their background that they had some felonies," the source said, adding they had personally seen trainees arrested and escorted off the training grounds by sheriff's deputies.

The Border Patrol would not comment on that allegation.

Former agent Ephraim Cruz quit the Border Patrol after nine years, over what he said was unqualified agents mistreating illegal immigrants. He agreed with the confidential source's assessment citing a lack of accountability.

"We have a huge problem," Cruz said. "There is a huge problem with the abuse of their authority within the Border Patrol and it's being covered up at the very height of our government."

...

I just looked up the length of training for CBP hires. I'm believe they are referring to a 5 day work week so 12 weeks is just about right.

http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/careers/c...bp_academy.xml