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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.
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"?
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
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?
Then again, so was the use of torture.
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
- 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.
If you're truly free, you don't have to be aware of your rights for them to be protected from infringement.