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Old 08-13-2019, 02:20 AM   #1
xoxoxoBruce
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The CBC is Out of Control

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Politicians have begun to take note of CBP’s culture of impunity. In 2008, Patrick Leahy, a senator from Vermont, was stopped at a temporary immigration checkpoint in New York—125 miles from the border. Agents ordered Leahy to get out of his car and asked him to prove that he was a US citizen. When Leahy asked under what authority the Border Patrol agent was acting, the agent pointed to his gun and said, reportedly, “That’s all the authority I need.”

Like Leahy’s, O’Rourke’s opposition to CBP’s sweeping powers stems in part from his own encounter with border agents. In 2009, he and his two-year-old son were detained at a checkpoint more than seventy miles from the border while agents pulled his truck apart. “They don’t have to explain why they’re holding you,” he said, “and you’re not given the right to an attorney.” O’Rourke told me that he and his son were held in a cell for close to thirty minutes before they were allowed to leave. “It was a strange feeling to be held against my will and to have my car searched,” he said. “I hadn’t committed any crime. I hadn’t even crossed the border.”
The Border Patrol is authorized by congress to within 100 miles of the border which covers the entire states of ME, NH, MA, CT, RI, NJ, DE, FL MI, and HI. but are operating with impunity far far beyond that.

But this is ridiculous...
Quote:
American citizen coming back from Mexico showed her American passport.
But the officer said she had been randomly selected for additional screening. Sandoval was led to a secondary inspection area nearby, where two more officers patted her down. Another walked toward her with a drug-sniffing dog, which grew agitated as it came closer, barking and then circling her legs. Because the dog had “alerted,” the officer said, Sandoval would now have to undergo another inspection.

She was taken to a fluorescent-lit, windowless room inside the port of entry office. Two female officers entered and announced that they were going to search her for drugs. They patted her down again, but found nothing. At that point, Sandoval assumed they would release her, but instead they told her they were going to conduct a strip search. The officers put on latex gloves, picked up flashlights, and asked Sandoval to remove her clothes and bend over so they could look for signs of drugs in her vagina and her rectum.
By the time they finished, Sandoval had been detained for more than two hours in the stifling room. Her passport and cell phone had been confiscated; her husband and children had no idea where she was. Sandoval begged to be released. “I was shaking and I was in tears,” she told me.

Saying nothing, the officers put her in handcuffs and led her to a patrol car waiting outside. They left the international bridge and drove north into Texas. Frightened, Sandoval asked the officers if they had a warrant for her arrest. “We don’t need a warrant,” one of them replied. Sandoval, whose name has been changed to protect her privacy, told me that after the officers forced her into the squad car, they drove her to University Medical Center, a public hospital in El Paso. The officers found an empty room and shackled her to the examination table. A nurse entered and asked her to swallow a laxative so they could observe her bowel movement.

Then a group of doctors came in. Sandoval pleaded with them to let her go. “A nurse told me to calm down,” she said. “That this was something they did anytime Border Patrol brought people in.” One of the doctors conducted a vaginal and rectal search using a speculum and his hands. “The agents kept saying that they knew I had drugs,” Sandoval told me. Still not satisfied, the doctor ordered an X-ray and a full-body scan. Again they found nothing. “The only thing left was to cut me open,” Sandoval said.

Finally, the officers drove her back to the bridge. At the port of entry, a third officer tried again to persuade her to sign the consent forms. He let her smoke a cigarette. “He said I probably needed it after what I’d been through.” Sandoval still refused to sign. By the time she got back to her car, it was eight o’clock at night—six hours after her encounter with CBP began.

Sandoval tried to forget about what had happened to her. She figured it would be too costly to fight the government. But then the bills from the hospital started to arrive. For the cavity searches, the X-ray, and the CT scan, the hospital was charging her $5,488. “I pay all my bills, but I was not going to pay these,” she told me. “So I started looking for a lawyer.”

In 2014, University Medical Center agreed to a settlement of $1.1 million for its role in Sandoval’s cavity search. Two years later, CBP settled for $475,000 without admitting guilt.
Since 2010, watchdog groups have counted seventy-seven CBP-related fatalities—at least a fifth of them US citizens.

Probably 95% of them a decent human beings, but like cops, that 95% will cover for the bad apples.

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Old 08-13-2019, 08:51 AM   #2
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irony

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Old 08-13-2019, 10:33 PM   #3
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What are you laughing at, this is your boys doing.
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Old 08-14-2019, 06:09 AM   #4
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Are we not demonstrably less free?
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Old 08-14-2019, 09:09 AM   #5
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this is your boys doing.
From the top of the article:

Quote:
Earlier that day, a bright Saturday in December 2012
So yeah. Whether we think this event is a serious problem is dependent on whether we like the person in the White House. If the media doesn't like the administration, they write this story in 2013.

We were less free in 2012. Now we are more free because the media finally decided to point these conditions out. If you want to continue to be even more and more free, the answer is clear: Trump 2020. Hold Government Accountable.
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Old 08-14-2019, 10:42 AM   #6
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"What are you laughing at(?)"

you
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Old 08-17-2019, 01:21 AM   #7
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Originally Posted by Griff View Post
Are we not demonstrably less free?
The man truly concerned for his liberties will be making it his business to arm himself. Becoming skillful with those arms will also be constructive -- at least civic-mindedly responsible.

The #resist lot are not exactly flocking to gun stores in aid of the above, regardless of how they prate about their endangered civil rights... you know: because Republican!! -- Aaaagh!!! Jesus, such poseurs. Such frauds. Such Democratic voters. I don't think much either of them or of their powers of analysis.

I guess I can step away from the soap wrapper -- not enough for a box -- for a bit now. I feel better already.
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Old 08-18-2019, 10:59 PM   #8
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Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla View Post
The man truly concerned for his liberties will be making it his business to arm himself. Becoming skillful with those arms will also be constructive -- at least civic-mindedly responsible.
Right! That will scare the bejesus out of those Warthog and Apache pilots.
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Old 08-18-2019, 11:31 PM   #9
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"those Warthog and Apache pilots..."

...are far more likely to be people like 'me' & UG than 'you'.

You really think the bulk of military folk & law enforcers will comply with gun confiscation (for example)?

Pres. Sanders or Warren or Harris (and a complicit congress) ought to worry more about coup than rebellion.

Again: time will tell
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Old 08-20-2019, 09:57 PM   #10
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Who said anything about gun confiscation. I'm talking about a group of night watchmen taking a piece of US soil and declaring it a minarchy free from state and federal jurisdiction. That will not happen.
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Old 08-21-2019, 09:24 AM   #11
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'I'm talking about a group of night watchmen taking a piece of US soil and declaring it a minarchy free from state and federal jurisdiction."

Where did I say that was how things would go down? Where, Bruce? Nowhere, Bruce. I never said it, never hinted at it. You, implying I did, well, that just must makes you a damned liar, now doesn't it.
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Old 08-22-2019, 12:15 AM   #12
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Fuck you, how do you establish one without taking land from somebody.
Answer, you don't, and that's why you've living is fantasy land, never going to happen, even if you take the ring to Mordor.
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Old 08-22-2019, 09:10 AM   #13
henry quirk
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"Fuck you"

Better watch that: tw will declare you substandard, an extremist, a vulgarian, a child, etc.

Me: I just think you're dumb.

#

"how do you establish one without taking land from somebody."

Yeah, like I said, to you elsewhere: Americans might very well vote themselves into smaller government, and -- if they find 'smaller' works --they may keep votin' for smaller. Without a shot fired, without a square foot annexed, minarchy might happen.

Is it likely? Nope.

Is it possible? Yep.

And: I think it becomes more possible every day.

#

"never going to happen"

Accurate assessment or desperate hope?

As I say: time will tell.
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Old 08-22-2019, 12:49 PM   #14
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Not a chance. You'll never break up or away from the USA. If you move to Greenland your boy will buy or take it. What's Denmark going to do about it? You will rent his golf carts for his secret service boys to use whether you like it or not.
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Old 08-22-2019, 01:07 PM   #15
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either you're truly stupid or just messin' with me: I'm thinkin' you're truly stupid

"You'll never break up or away from the USA."

Won't have to if the bulk of Americans vote for smaller government (locally, state-wise, nationally). Again: Without a shot fired, without a square foot annexed, minarchy might happen (right here, in my town, your town, his town, her town).

Think on it, stupid: you wake up one mornin' livin' in a minarchy. You'd worried about the shrinkin' government for a few years but -- like a good boy -- you'd trusted the folks who 'know better' to get a'hold of the problem. But they'd didn't, and government shrank and pretty much everyone but dips, dinks, losers, and twerps liked it small.

I'm cryin' for you in advance...mebbe Bernie can comfort you.
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