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ACLU Creates Map of US "Constitution-Free Zone"
trackpick points out a recent ACLU initiative to publicize a recent expansion of authority claimed by the Border Patrol to stop and search individuals up to 100 miles from any US border. They have created a map of what they call the US Constitution-Free Zone. "Using data provided by the US Census Bureau, the ACLU has determined that nearly 2/3 of the entire US population (197.4 million people) live within 100 miles of the US land and coastal borders. The government is assuming extraordinary powers to stop and search individuals within this zone. This is not just about the border: This 'Constitution-Free Zone' includes most of the nation's largest metropolitan areas.'"
Wouldn't it be easier to make a "Constitution Applies" zone?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I grew up in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and have been through border patrol checkpoints literally hundreds of times. Since I'm white, they always just look in my car (looking for anyone that "looks" illegal, meaning brown people), and wave me on. However, I often see cars pulled over to the side being searched, presumably for drugs.
The ACLU claims that the Border Patrol regularly exceeds its authority in these checkpoints to look for things other than illegal immigrants or contraband from across the border, and they are absolutely right. It is interesting to note that occasionally one of these border patrol stations will have a sign up telling you what they've accomplished lately. It's never about how many illegal aliens they've captured, but rather how many pounds of narcotics they've confiscated. They claim the right to search your car because you are near the border, and any contraband they find is assumed to have been smuggled across the border, whether it actually was or not.
To people that have grown up around the Mexican border, it's no surprise that the border patrol can do pretty much whatever they want in these zones. They will pull you aside at these checkpoints for anything that looks suspicious, whether it's related to border security or not, especially if you are Hispanic.
These checkpoints have always been unsettling to me. While I understand that the Border Patrol needs to be able to operate at least to some degree within our borders in order to protect the border, it is ridiculous that I have to pass through checkpoints just to get from one city in America to another city in America, and that American citizens who happen to be of Hispanic descent are treated as criminals while traveling entirely within the United States just because of their skin color.
The checkpoint I've been through the most is just north of Las Cruces, New Mexico, and a good 60 miles away from the border. In order to go from Las Cruces (the second largest city in New Mexico) to points north (including Albuquerque, the largest city in New Mexico), you have to pass through this checkpoint. This means that thousands of people every day, most of whom are residents of the state of New Mexico and were not in Mexico at any point in the recent past, get to be harassed by the Border Patrol just because they want to travel within their own state.
If he was stupid enough to make an issue of it, what could he charge me with?
Everyone has committed a number a crimes throughout their lifetime, even if they don't know it, due to the large number of laws on the books.
It's just a matter of combing through your life and finding which of those laws you've broken.
we have no idea when this will stop.
It wont
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
You want to support the Constitution? Start with supporting 2nd Ammendment.
Oh please. I'll acknowledge that you have the right to own guns for self protection and for hunting. But I'm tired of hearing the claim that private guns somehow safeguard our civil rights. Quite the opposite. As any Iraqi will tell you, rights that are enforced by private thuggery only deliver rights to those with the most thugs.
Especially absurd is the recurring theory that private guns prevent the national government from becoming dictatorship. Unless you're one of those fringe idiots who advocates private ownership of nukes and other WMDs, the idea of a some plucky band of guerillas restoring democracy is pure fantasy.
Lake Michigan is entirely within the bounds of the US. Chicago is nowhere near the border.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Follow on question: What percentage of the original thirteen colonies is currently considered "Real America"?
This has everything to do with getting people used to being searched illegally.
Wrong, It has to do with getting people used to being searched LEGALLY, for no particular reason, and whenever the authorities feel like it.
Because if it's legal, It must be right.
Dear Ralph:
There's four borders in this country. Pick one and head out. We don't need whiners like you in a small mess like this. Real Americans can take a look around, and say "I've seen worse." and rebuild. If you're not interested in that, move.
signed:
Real American.
Translation: "People who complain or criticize the current state of affairs are whiners. 'Real Americans' are people who agree with me that things aren't so bad. And if you criticize the country or think that things are bad here, then you should leave."
Anyone care to explain how this got modded +5 insightful?
Systemd: the PulseAudio of init systems
Do you really want to live in a place where there's such a thing as "a perfectly legal stop to verify documentation"? That's not the America I grew up in.
It's crazy. The police walking up to you on the street and asking, "Papers, please" used to be a ham-fisted technique for scriptwriters to illustrate precisely the difference between the Good Free Capitalist Peoples and the Evil Menace That Oppresses The World.
To reply to you as well as your comment's parent Moryath, I understand that there's a lot of border-related crime going on, but I am mostly concerned with the checkpoints' effects on the common law-abiding American citizen.
For example, I'm an obviously caucasian male driving a small car and I come to one of these checkpoints where they ask me a few questions and run the dogs around my car. I'm usually alone when I go through, so that rules out me smuggling aliens or being an alien myself. Okay, so I could have a kilo of cocaine hidden under my floorboard, but don't they also CHECK FOR THIS STUFF AT THE BORDER? The real-life checkpoint in question is 40 miles north of the border, up in the mountains. If they need checkpoints up to 100 miles inland, then it strongly implies that (a) they aren't doing their job right the first time, or(b) it's just an excuse for the county to earn a few bucks at the expense of recreational drug users, DUI's, and other low-hanging fruit.
There was a story in last week's reader about common law-abiding suburban guy who happened to be a card-carrying member of the ACLU who refused one of those searches and they made him get the hell out of his vehicle and sit at the side of the highway while they tore his car apart. Is that what national security is all about?
That's not the America I grew up in
Sadly, it looks like the America you're probably going to die in though.
Thanks to the internet, we can now all die alone together! -SomeWoman
What do YOU propose law enforcement officials do if they conduct a perfectly legal stop to verify documentation, and there is reasonable cause during the stop to suspect that other laws are being broken?
I have a solution; eliminate these immoral and impractical drug laws and arrest the people responsible for the harm caused by these laws (that is make them criminally and civilly responsible for the damage and hardship they have caused people). Punish the bad guys.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around a description of Obama as "Centrist."
Well, your difficulty is due to the fact that you don't have any sort of a reasonable reference.
The Republican party is essentially the far right extreme, or corporate fascist. They are out there on the fringe.
The Democratic party is essentially moderate right wing with a few centrist/ moderate left elements.
So if you hear somebody described on the media in the US as "extremely liberal", what they mean is something between centrist and moderate right.
What they'll describe as "centrist" is hard right and what they call "right" is the far right fringe of the right wing.
So Obama is pretty much centrist, although leans a bit far to the right. It's just that since WW2, after defeating the fascists (which the US industrialists at the time were rabidly opposed to. They loved fascism and wanted it here badly.) the US took a hard right turn and has continued down that path until now we're living under the system we fought WW2 against.
So, it's really easy to wrap your head around the idea that Obama is a centrist, but you have to actually understand what that means, what the left and right are and how America was designed explicitly to be neither, meaning both left and right are anti-American.
It's this deeply gross level of ignorance over basic, simple concepts which you demonstrate which is endemic in America these days and why so many weak willed fools let themselves be so easily manipulated to work against their own best interests.
If you knew anything at all about history, politics, or damn near any other related field you wouldn't have a hard time wrapping your head around a basic simple fact.
Please for everyone's sake try and learn a little bit about reality or don't vote.
That is ridiculous anti-ACLU bullshit. Please back up your retarded comment or GTFO.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
It *is* a perfectly valid Sunday activity, unless there's evidence that you're planning to hurt people. Having a car is not evidence that you're going to commit a crime. Sending someone a letter threatening to run them down with your car is.
Your cell phone is an electrical timing device. So is your kitchen timer.
And while we do regulate explosives, there are all sorts of valid reasons to have them or their components in your home or business -- maybe you blow things up for a living, or maybe you grow plants (ammonium nitrate) and heat your home (fuel oil) or run a combustion-powered equipment (diesel).
I'm sorry you're too scared of life to let anyone else enjoy it. It's sad, but I really must insist that you stop trying to terrorize the rest of the world just because you're afraid.
... I thought the US *was* the evil menace that oppresses the world?
Checking cars/people at the border helps a bit, but the good operations have a tunnel under the border.
So what? Just because you've got prohibition in your country doesn't make it right.
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
Then again, so was the use of torture.
Ahhh, yes. He must have pushed an officer just so he could get some publicity! Genius! I'm sure the ACLU didn't look into any of the police reports!
But really, how would I respond to your drug-mule issue? First, I would recognize that we will never cut off the supply of drugs. And the more we do, the more rewarded individual suppliers are. Every drug bust only entices more into the trade. It's an issue of demand, not supply. No one would sell if Americans didn't buy.
Illegal immigration? Again, they come to the US because they get jobs here. Find the American companies illegally hiring these immigrants and punish them. Again, it's a demand problem.
Personally, I don't want a fence on the border, but, you're right, I'm probably insane. I just sort of figure that since an integral part of the free market is freedom of movement, then because of NAFTA, we should not only allow the freedom to move Mexican goods across the borders, but also people. It really seems unethical to me to push for a free-marketish system that restricts one of the fundamentals of the free market in such a way to almost unilaterally benefit the United States.
Paul Grosfield - the quicker picker upper.
You've advocated fences around the country, roaming checkpoints and adopting an attitude of complacence in front of the police at all times. That sounds a lot like the definition of gestapo. In fact, that sounds an awful lot like East Germany.
You and I may agree that the police have a job to do in terms of upholding the laws of our country. I do not, however, condone the unwarranted harassment of innocent citizens in the pursuit of that goal. I'm not alone in this position, either, since the founding fathers explicitly wrote that bit into the constitution.
Culture is more than commerce
Young? I think I'm probably older than you are. 21 years in the Army, and still going, thanks.
Those lessons you are talking about with regards to asymmetrical warfare don't apply in the case of the second amendment, because it is safe to assume that the US Army would be free to smash any home-grown insurgants flat, without regard to collateral damage, because the battle-front and the home-front would be one and the same.
This is unlike every example you cited, including your own American Revolution, because in every one of those examples, the "pro" army was fighting on foreign soil and could afford to quit.
As soon as you know the enemy *can* quit, then yes, you can keep plugging away with raids and ambushes, inflicting what casulties you can, and refusing to give open battle to a superior force - until the day when they finally cross whatever threshold triggers the decision to give up and go home.
Sometimes that threshold is high - Soviets in Afghanistan, US in Vietnam. Sometimes it is much lower - US in Somalia.
But none of this applies in a "US vs US" conflict. The American government would pull no punches in an armed insurrection on American soil. That has already been demonstrated, in the American Civil War.
If you have American rebels attempting to overthrow the US government, then the government cannot afford to quit. Where can it go? It has to fight to win, and clean up the mess afterwards. That group of rebels would be facing the raw, unadulterated might of the American military machine, and it would not survive the encounter.
That being the case, the Second Amendment is toothless. Your right to own an M16 varient will do you no good whatsever against a single tank, never mind an amroured division.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
- Do you think the government has a real, and appropriate, interest in knowing who and what is coming in and out of the country?
We are not talking about people crossing the border.
We are talking about ordinary innocent US citizens being detained and harassed within our country.
- If so, why is it inappropriate to check at the borders (or at the nearest available transit points) that those crossing have their citizenship documentation or passport and visa documentation, as they are required to carry by law for all cross-border travel?
We are not talking about people crossing the border.
We are talking about ordinary innocent US citizens being detained and harassed within our country.
Yes, I want to live in a country where the laws are enforced.
Swell. Go move to East Germany or the Soviet Union.
Ooops, I'm sorry, they are both gone. Well I'm sure you can go find yourself some other police state to go live in.
Me, I love my country and I hold dear the rights and freedoms so many have given their blood and their lives to defend. I love the Constitution an our Liberties. I want police to pursue criminals, but only within the bounds of the Constitution and with deferrence to our Rights and Liberties, presumptively innocent citizens of a free nation. Yes, sometimes the Constitution is inconvenient to catching and prosecuting criminals. Yes, sometimes our Rights and Liberties are inconvenient to catching and prosecuting criminals. Yes, police often have a difficult job to do. Oh well, it's a difficult job. I expect them to do their job as best they can within the bounds of a free society respecting broad rights and liberties. Yes, I would rather a few more criminals go un-caught than to live in a goddamn police state.
Being "randomly" stopped on the street in the middle of the day to check that I have ID papers on me? That is inappropriate.
That is exactly what we are discussing here. Ordinary innocent American being stopped on the street without any cause whatsoever, being detained, intimidated, and threatened by gun-toting gestapo coercively demanding answers to questions that they have no right to coercively demand answers to, and coercively demanding 'voluntary' consent to searches and seizures that they have no coercively preform.
Being checked for my papers when I am doing something for which papers are required, such as traveling between two countries, is not.
We are not talking about people crossing the border.
We are talking about ordinary innocent US citizens being detained and harassed within our country.
You are required by law in every state to carry your drivers' license, automobile registration and proof of insurance papers, if you are driving a vehicle (car, truck, minivan, etc).
True. And police officers can temporarily order a limited stop for cause, subject to a great many restrictions, and demand to see your license registration and insurance. To somewhat simplify, they then pretty much have to arrest you or let you go on your way. Immigration and customs agents do NOT get to tromp around INSIDE the country seizing and searching innocent citizens in Nazi-style 'papers please' police state arbitrary intimidation and harassment.
When such vehicles are crossing the border, the US government has a real and important interest in doublechecking that the driver is not either (a) entering or (b) leaving the country with a STOLEN vehicle.
We are not talking about people crossing the border.
We are talking about ordinary innocent US citizens being detained and harassed within our country.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
The Supreme Court made two seperate rulings that created the constitutional hole that is wide enough to drive a border patrol truck through.
United States v. Martinez-Fuerte is what the border patrol uses to create the 100 mile zone in which they can stop anybody -without- cause.
Illinois v. Caballes is a seperate case in which the supreme court ruled that an alert from a drug dog, even when the dog is used without cause, provides probable cause for a search.
If you read Souter's dissenting opinion it becomes pretty obvious how monumental a screw up Illinois v. Caballes is. It basically does away with the fourth amendment entirely. According to Souter drug dogs have been shown to falsely alert up to 60% of the time. Souter also stated that drug dogs are known to alert to cocaine on cash which may have passed through the hands of several people since it last touched cocaine.
Now the border patrol took both of these rulings (the power to stop anybody within 100 miles of the border, and the power to conduct warntless searches based on an animals fallable alert) and have turned them into the precedence they need to disregard the constitutional rights of any American in the 100 mile zone. Which, as the article states, 2/3's of all Americans live within that zone.
The Generation
I'd say something witty here, but I'm not that bright.
If you're truly free, you don't have to be aware of your rights for them to be protected from infringement.