Michele Grant (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} opadit) wrote,@ 2008-04-22 08:44:00 |
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Border Patrol searching passengers on domestic ferry runs
Since February, the Border Patrol has been searching passengers on domestic ferry runs in the San Juan Islands (Seattle Times). Not just the ferries to and from Sidney, B.C. -- but the ferries to and from American islands in American territory. Once or twice a week, federal goons herd people off the ferry at Anacortes and pen them into a fenced-off corral, then question them about their citizenship.
To my PNW readers: IANAL (yet), but I do know that you do not have to answer any of their questions. Border Patrol doesn't have the right to detain you unless they have a reasonable suspicion that you're trying to enter the country illegally. And, dude, if you're on a domestic ferry, which by definition isn't coming from a foreign country? Do the math.
Border Patrol's claim of a threat of terrorists on the ferries is a joke. Remember that the guy who supposedly was going to blow up the Space Needle was caught with a trunkload of nitroglycerin entering the country at Port Angeles. He had traveled from Vancouver, B.C.; he wasn't poking around on domestic ferries. Also, it was over seven years ago. And the Administration had to draw some pretty tenuous lines to connect him with al-Qaeda when 9/11 happened 17 months afterward. (He was the one who started talking about "sleeper cells" in the U.S., after he'd been detained for a while. I shudder to think about what inspired him to reveal the existence of sleeper cells.)
The Border Patrol is throwing their weight around for no good reason other than to be thugs. This is completely nuts, but what else to expect from an agency with heads like John "Lady Justice is obscene" Ashcroft, Alberto "Will Shred Constitution for Food" Gonzales, and Michael "waterboarding may or may not be torture" Mukasey?
Since February, the Border Patrol has been searching passengers on domestic ferry runs in the San Juan Islands (Seattle Times). Not just the ferries to and from Sidney, B.C. -- but the ferries to and from American islands in American territory. Once or twice a week, federal goons herd people off the ferry at Anacortes and pen them into a fenced-off corral, then question them about their citizenship.
To my PNW readers: IANAL (yet), but I do know that you do not have to answer any of their questions. Border Patrol doesn't have the right to detain you unless they have a reasonable suspicion that you're trying to enter the country illegally. And, dude, if you're on a domestic ferry, which by definition isn't coming from a foreign country? Do the math.
Border Patrol's claim of a threat of terrorists on the ferries is a joke. Remember that the guy who supposedly was going to blow up the Space Needle was caught with a trunkload of nitroglycerin entering the country at Port Angeles. He had traveled from Vancouver, B.C.; he wasn't poking around on domestic ferries. Also, it was over seven years ago. And the Administration had to draw some pretty tenuous lines to connect him with al-Qaeda when 9/11 happened 17 months afterward. (He was the one who started talking about "sleeper cells" in the U.S., after he'd been detained for a while. I shudder to think about what inspired him to reveal the existence of sleeper cells.)
The Border Patrol is throwing their weight around for no good reason other than to be thugs. This is completely nuts, but what else to expect from an agency with heads like John "Lady Justice is obscene" Ashcroft, Alberto "Will Shred Constitution for Food" Gonzales, and Michael "waterboarding may or may not be torture" Mukasey?
