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George "geohot" Hotz Arrested In Texas For Posession of Marijuana
n1ywb writes "Goerge 'geohot' Hotz, famous for being the first to jailbreak an iPhone and for his spat with Sony over PS3 jailbreaking, was busted for possession of a small amount of marijuana at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint in Texas on his way to SXSW. The shakedown goes like this: drug dogs are run around vehicles; when they signal, DHS searches the car and finds the contraband; DHS then turns evidence and suspects over to the local sheriff. Willie Nelson, actor Armie Hammer (who played the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network), and Snoop Dogg have all gotten in trouble at the same checkpoint under similar circumstances."
Even if you grant them mandatory illegal alien checkpoints, how is it possible for them to subject you to a search for something unrelated to border enforcement and prosecute you for it?
I know we're largely flushing the entire constitution down the toilet these days, but this seems really egregious.
I've been through the checks outside of Sierra Vista & Tombstone, AZ, and they were more or less roll to a stop, yes we are citizens, have a nice day. No dogs run around the car, no bullshit, although there were dogs at the checkpoints.
If you try to take drugs through a border checkpoint, you're going to get caught. Should this surprise anyone?
It should if the people in question are driving from one part of the US to another part of the US. Why the FUCK do we have "border checkpoints" on roads that don't CROSS THE BORDER?
Uh you do understand this "border" checkpoint is nowhere near the actual border, right? It's just some random spot on I-10 like a 100 miles from the border. Completely ridiculous.
That said, you'd think people would have heard about this and avoid I-10 like the plague in that part of the state.
This is a guy not under the influence being hassled at a checkpoint for the equivalent of carrying a small bottle of alcohol.
1) How many people lost time/money due to the checkpoint?
2) How many lives were saved due to the confiscation of a small amount of marijuana?
3) How much did tax payers spend for all of this nonsense?
It's effective at promoting stigma for the recreational use of a drug that is literally less dangerous than ibuprofen. It's effective at wasting taxpayer dollars for no benefit to society at large. It's effective at being ineffective, wasteful, and pointless.
Our prisons are so full because they are largely privatized, which in turn lends to the large corporations that own the prisons to lobby for ridiculous mandatory sentencing laws and other things that lead to lots of prisoners. Just like everything else in the United States, money is power and the power is used to get more money and thus, more power. It's a vicious cycle. Most US citizens either loath how the system works or are oblivious to it and think their votes still do something.