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High-Tech Gadgets Can Pose Problems At Mexican Border
TechnologyResource writes "Going across the border will be a more 'interesting' experience since Customs and Border Protection will now be checking laptops, digital cameras, cell phones and any other electronics on your person or in your vehicle. It's not a new authority, according to Angelica De Cima, Office of Public Affairs Liaison 'They've always had the right to inspect your person, vehicle, baggage, anything on you. Nothing has changed from before,' De Cima said."
Just to clarify an oft-misunderstood point: GPS is a receiver thing. Your GPS unit need only receive signals from the satellites to identify your location. Your GPS unit does not ever have to transmit anything at all. A road-map-path-finding GPS navigation unit could conceivably contain all the map data and a processor powerful enough to do the path finding, and you could use it with every assurance that you were disclosing your location to no one. I have no idea whether or not GPS nav units on the market are so self contained, but nothing inherent about GPS involves the ability of anyone to track you.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
Where in the post did he say it wasn't?
It's the prosecution's job to prove consipiracy, not the defendant's to prove it wasn't.
Furthermore, conspiracy is between two or more people *who agree to break a law* Title 18 United States Code (U.S.C.) Section 371. I only see one here. The law also states "and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy." Where is the planning with another person? Where is the follow through on any of it? Where is the cake? Where is the mens rea?
I also see a violation of free speech should he be prosecuted for discussing what might happen.
I am not a lawyer but this guy is. http://research.lawyers.com/blogs/archives/629-Federal-Criminal-Conspiracy-Law.html
And obviously I offended someone because I got modded "overrated," a chickenshit move.
Anyone defending baudbarf's claim of conspiracy is a troll trying to chill legitimate free speech.
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BMO
The same can be said for many countries. Ever flown through Ireland, not even as a final destination? It's worse than any American customs stop I've been through.
It's not just the US. It's ANY country that sees "terrorism" as a threat. I've not been to Japan, but I've heard it's a treat there too.
But if it were more commonplace, they would lose interest. Border patrol operate like cops setting up speed traps. They don't care how many smart people slip through, they care about finding the technique that nets them the largest number of arrests. If it becomes pointless, they'll change it at a policy level.
You needn't worry about your GPS unit, ever since the Firestone tire debacle. The resulting law said that every tire needed to be able to be identified as being from Lot #X without being dismounted (prior to that lot numbers were printed on the inside of the tire). The manufacturers' solution was RFID chips with unique serial numbers embedded in every tire. Since a DEFCon competition was able to read RFID chips from 67 feet away with only slightly-modified off-the-shelf hardware one can only imagine how far away your tires can be read with custom hardware.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Smuggling information has to be the easiest "crime" ever imagined. One-time pad it and email it across the border. CC a copy to the NSA for all it matters.
The Feds were given authority to regulate interstate commerce. Look it up - it's constitutional. You may or may not agree with a lot of legal decisions that have been made regarding that authority, but it has a basis in the constitution.
Before you bellyache that Mexico and/or Country "X" is not a "state", perhaps you will want to look that up to. All sovereign nations are "states". So, if Country "X" ships any quantity of anything at all, including persons, to any member state of the United States, it is subject to interstate commerce regulations, enforced by the Fed.
Get used to it.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
There's been waaay too many documented cases of people buying guns (and I mean big guns, like assault rifles) legally in the US with their God-given 2nd ammendment right and smuggling them to the drug cartels here.
When you say "and I mean big guns like assault rifles", it pretty much shows that you know nothing about firearms and US laws.
The articles you link to all cite the "90% of guns traced to US" lie. 90% of the guns that are submitted for tacing are from the US. Only a small number of guns are submitted for tracing, because there's no point in submitting AKs from China and North Korea with no serial number to the ATF for tracing.
Fully automatic guns (pull the trigger and they rattle off bullets) require a federal license with large yearly fees and an anal probe from the BATFE. They are rarely sold here and are exceptionally expensive. Even the gangs here don't buy them legally here. They smuggle them from overseas - it's way cheaper. I'm behind a censor here, but google "BATFE" and "class III license" to see what it takes to buy a machine gun.
What the ill-informed such as yourself call "big guns - like assault rifles" are military-looking guns that have been altered so that they fire one bullet at a time. To make them or import them here, they must not be alterable to fully automatic fire.
The articles you quote suggest a flood of guns from the US using faulty statistics, then go on to list a bunch of confiscated weapons that you cannot easily buy here. You can't get grenades and rocket launchers here. If they are able to smuggle those in from the third world, why would they pay US prices for rifles that aren't even full-auto?
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/counting-mexicos-guns/
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2009/04/02/myth-percent-guns-mexico-fraction-number-claimed/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/apr/16/barack-obama/Obama-claims-90-percent-guns-used-Mexico/