An activist group says that the United States has expanded border checkpoints deeper into the nation than the Constitution permits — but government officials say they’re acting within the limits of the law as defined by the federal court system.
The American Civil Liberties Union is highlighting what it refers to as “Constitution-free zones” in America that extend 100 miles inside U.S. borders and encompass nearly two-thirds of the nation’s citizens, reports Wired News.
The checkpoints are protected under the Fourth Amendment, which give border authorities search-and-seizure rights — yet according to ACLU spokeswoman Caroline Fredrickson, extending those powers into U.S. territory is “a classic example of law enforcement powers expanding far beyond their proper boundaries — in this case, literally.”
Federal authorities, however, say the ACLU they are following Supreme Court guidelines.
Since 9/11, the government has allowed the Department of Homeland Security to set up more than 30 new internal checkpoints where they can ask people for their papers without telling them why.
–Julia Hengst/Newsdesk.org
Source:
“ACLU Assails 100-Mile Border Zone as ‘Constitution-Free’ – Update”
Wired News, October 22, 2008
The only way to make any country secure is to have an educated economically secure population. Paranoia is often self fulfilling. The Department of Homeland Security is an oxymoron that makes me, for one, feel much less secure.
There is no way of making a country secure. America is going into protectionism because its populace is in loo loo land. Try living in Russia still the old communist buddy boy system is still in place. Fear is what the government wants the white picket fence people to believe. Trust me we all the under the table money hand over and everyone is looking a blind eye. It doesn’t matter what country you live in.
You kinda hope that the hundred mile rule will go by the boards after Obama. Even when it was in force, in New England, especially on the Maine-Canadian border it gets so that you cross the street and your are in “another country”. In those towns that come right up to border neighborhoods, even houses and public buildings pass along the line that separates the countries so that you could have “carry a passport” to get to the bedroom.
In the above cases the people defending the US border cause more terror than than they prevent it. I am sure though, that the locals know how to deal with the “foreigners” that Washington sent to protect them from terrorists.
I know that once you could walk across the Ambassador Bridge from Detroit, MI to Windsor, CA and now you have show some identification and get a barrage of questions relative to the “purpose of your trip”.
Let us hope that some of the rules are relaxed, and the prohibitions that actually need to be enforced are enforced