Welcome to the border — where anyone can be stopped and searched. It used to be just the point of entry along Canada and Mexico, but Homeland Security has taken an increasingly loose — or wide — interpretation of it. Now? It's a 100-mile radius that wraps around the border of the United States.
Oh yes. It’s called the Constitution-Free Zone by the ACLU. The concern is that it erodes the rights of the Fourth Amendment — the one that protects against unreasonable searches and seizes — for two-thirds of Americans. That's 197.4 million people, and pretty much all of New England.
Authority that the Constitution would have prohibited can now be exercised by the US Customs and Border Protection. It’s been setting up inland checkpoints where it typically questions citizenship; however, people have reported extended questioning and increased pressure to permit searches.
Many are calling for congress to investigate and pass new laws to protect Americans before things go too far. Do you fear it will? Or are you glad to see a protective barrier ringing the country regardless?
Best Mountain
Lowie
Emily And Fin
oh well, fake america doesn't care about the constitution. just ask sarah palin... constitutional expert and VP candidate.
1It's not like Fourth Amendment had much meaning left anyway. Thank you Supreme Court. Thank you Patriot Act. Thank you drug dogs. Thank you judicial system that allows police officers to prove probable cause after the fact.
I live just outside this area, but do you think they'd hesitate to apply it to me if they felt the need?
2This scares me. We have already given away so many of our rights (through FISA and the Patriot Act, mostly) that we will never get back; this just seems to go hand in hand with that. I would like to see Congress get ANYTHING done on this while Bush is still in office. Yeah, right.
3I sure as hell don't feel safer. The people I am most afraid of created and run the Department of Homeland Security.
4This is freaky considering I live in FL and all of FL is orange....The amount power Homeland security has is insane!
5Don't look forward to what will come after Bush. McCain and Obama both voted to extend the Patriot Act. Neither party cares about your civil liberties.
6"Don't look forward to what will come after Bush. McCain and Obama both voted to extend the Patriot Act. Neither party cares about your civil liberties."
Exactly, I honestly respect Bush more for not pretending to be Mr. Civil Rights - at least he has the balls to tell us he is taking away civil rights. Remember the wire tap mess that the Democrats went crazy over - and then they passed the bill - pathetic.
The fact that our collective government has gone so far from wire tapping to patriot acts to constitution free zones is evidence that the terrorists are winning and are changing our freedoms, restricting our rights - isn't that we what we are worried about - well they have done it!
7That's just fantastic. My entire state is a constitution free zone. Sigh.
8I like how they got most of the major cities and big swaths of their surrounding areas in these zones...
If this goes through, maybe more people will move inland?
US Customs and Border Protection will be over this? What if the states already have border patrols? 'Cause I know the Texas Border Patrol is nothing to mess with. They're probably doing this kind of stuff right now nearer to the Mexican border already.
9As yesteryear stated. I am a fake American, so why should I be offended that I live within this zone
...
The entire freaking west coast!!! Are they serious?
10We still have time to change this. We can all vote for someone else. McCain and Obama aren't the only candidates
11Well I guess they can more effectively (read: militarily) attack our illegal immigration problem. Kill two birds with one stone.
12[We still have time to change this. We can all vote for someone else. McCain and Obama aren't the only candidates]
I already voted and I like my candidate thanks!
13I don't know...they're building a wall on the southern US border, they're pretty through about searching and finding people - I haven't heard anybody claim Constitutional rights much as of yet stopping the Border Patrol in my state..and yet there's STILL a steady flow of illegal immigrants.
Even with this measure, I don't think it's going to stop or put a serious dent in illegal immigration. Without some protective measures, this move will probably end up imprisoning and violating a whole lot of innocent people rather than the people they're going after.
14I've driven through both inland boarders in CA (Temecula and Oceanside) -- I have no trouble but that could be due to racial profiling (maybe) -- looking for those with brown skin maybe (??) -- And the funny part -- I have only seen them check cars a couple of times -- stopping maybe a couple of people at each check point.
You know -- I also noticed that they don't check much -- so I wonder what the point of having them be inland is??
Oh -- and my sister works for the Border Patrol -- this has no relevance to the convo -- just an interesting fact about me
15"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
16-Ben Franklin
Sigh. It sucks, but at the same time we're in a crazy time. Do you know how many other 9-11 type situations we've avoided because of military intelligence, the patriot act, etc. A lot. We just have to find a good balance.
17wow. just...wow.
18Agreed, dream. I have gone through so many immigration check points in the Southwest, and they always look at me and my lily white skin and wave me on through. I have even smuggled oranges! (There's some place in Arizona, I think, that asks you if you're carrying any produce. I had brought a bag of oranges across, like, five states already, I wasn't gonna give 'em up!)
19Harmony, does anyone know how many 9/11 type situations we've avoided? We end up like the guy in the suburbs protecting the neighborhood with his elephant gun - is the gun keeping them safe, or the fact there are no elephants in the suburbs?
20There was an Al Qaeda cell that got busted near where I live. I don't know how much they had to rely on the patriot act for that...
21Well I haven't been in the service for a while, but while I was in they were putting out fires all the time. It's a difficult balance to keep our country safe without infringing on the rights of it's citizens.
22WOW -- I've never been asked about produce
(WAIT -- I remember them asking that --
but I was 10 and we were driving from state to state) -- and we don't get any special perks from my sister (unless you want a job -- the jobs are great and mostly in San Diego)
23IMO current search and seizure applications at point of entries such as sea ports and air ports are quite effective as they are right now. Law enforcement is also already able to hold and question any individual with reasonable cause. This new application enters shades of grey at the threshold of a (police state).
I think we need to make sure that a reasonable cause is strictly enforced here and that if one is stopped and can produce evidence that they are a legal U.S. citizen and they haven't done anything wrong they should immediately be released. Search and seizure should only be reserved for those who actually did something wrong prior to questioning and not applied to a random stop and question.
24Woo hoo I always wanted to live in the WILD WILD WEST!
25I'm going rogue.
harm,
26i know what you mean. there's a rock and hard place situation when it comes to this. on one hand, you have all these situations that you are nipping in the bud. by doing so, you are protect john and jane doe on a daily basis. you can't say much about them because if you do, nobody will believe you anyway. on the other hand, you don't want to overstep your bounds and give the aclu business. i don't envy the people who do these things. thankless job when you do it well, and worse if you make a mistake.
Oh...I was being totally sarcastic about illegal immigration, sorry.
27i just thought about this again... i've decided that since i don't have my constitutional rights, i'm just not going to follow federal laws anymore. if they want to steal my rights, then i will just refuse to follow their laws. so yeah, i'm having a hard time deciding which law to break first. anyone got any ideas?
28YY, my favorite federal law to break is the Controlled Substance Act. You're welcome to join me in that anytime. Or we could smuggle in some illegal aliens. I could use a live-in maid.
29nice suggestions, mich... but i stopped experimenting with drugs when was about 19 or 20. you're right though, that's one of the easier more accessible ones to break. i'm thinking i might start printing my own money. "fake america" currency!
30You don't have to take them to break the law! You can buy, sell, or just hold onto them. But fake American money is certainly a more creative way to break a federal law.
31couldn't resist
note the fact that OUR money will not only buy you an entire bottle of chardonnay... it is printed on paper laced with LSD and blessed by a feminist, lesbian rabbi!
32If you're going to create currency, I hope you use a gold standard.
33The Sarita Checkpoint in Texas has been around as long as I can remember. So let me get this right, the people in the ring are held to a different standard, just to "protect" the rest of the country? I guess they let the cheap labor through somehow.
F*cking ridiculous.
Our entire system is essentially a bunch of stupid self-perpetuating cogs and wheels do not even understand their effects and grossly overestimate their benefits.
34I hope those "oh, they never stop me" comments realize how obnoxious they could sound to those who do get profiled.
Ever read the "first they came for the... then they came for me and by that time there was no one left to speak up" quote.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...
35Whoa, my "they never stop me" comment was only meant to emphasize that they racially profile and the whole system is ridiculous. I did not at all mean that I don't care since I don't get stopped.
36YY, love your money! I would only need two dollars to have a good night: one for a bottle of chardonnay and one for a big hunk of gruyere.
37i'm with harmony on this one. i'm sure lots of "situations" have been avoided because of this extra security.
38I am proud to be an American and have always cited the fact that my country looks out for me. I think this is the first time in US history that the entire US has directly been threatened by its own government to such lengthy degrees. It is the fear of War - Lincoln did it with separatists, Roosevelt did it with Japanese, and now Bush is doing it with everyone!
As an honest curiosity, I wonder how much we have gained from this. How many criminals or illegal activity we stopped...
39this is just disgusting.
40I was really troubled by the Patriot Act, and even more troubled by how little resistance it seemed to meet.
Without any real sense of how much of a difference this "zone" is making, all I can say is:
"Yet again another barrage of bullets aimed at the Constitution."
41Just another reason to vote for a third party candidate who is more interested in protecting our civil liberties than playing the game.
42OKay well, we had an FBI agent come recently to my law school and he said that it made the agency 100x more efficient to have the Patriot Act because then the FBI in Buffalo could share info with the FBI the in DC office, or something like that. I didn't really follow, but he seemed to genuinely think the way they operated before the Patriot Act, at least in inter-agency communication was absolutely archane. I'm not really defending the Patriot Act, just playing devil's advocate.
We can sit here and talk all day about having our liberties violated, but I think we should hold back judgment unless we are talking in specifics, and looking to see how this act really functions on a day to day level. Maybe there are some parts we should keep, and some we should get rid of.
43I feel safer, and i live in florida.
44true, snow. i think people get caught up in the furor and don't know why they're angry. i love it when people read what they can and come to their own conclusions.
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