Holding Border Patrol Accountable

Earlier this week, John Stossel wrote about patrolmen
without borders.

Even as the federal government fails to control the southern
border, it sends the Border Patrol farther into the interior, where
Americans complain that agents harass people who are already U.S.
citizens.

It’s legal. The Supreme Court ruled that the Border Patrol can
set up “inland” checkpoints anywhere up to 100 miles from an
external border of the United States. That’s what government now
considers a “reasonable distance” from the border.

But that means the zone within which you could be stopped and
searched includes much of Florida and California, and all of Maine
and New Hampshire. Two-thirds of America’s population lives that
close to the border.

Border Patrol currently assigns a sizable number of agents to
monitor interior checkpoints. Considering today’s
border crisis, this raises questions of resource allocation,
among other civil liberty issues. Reason TV covered the topic
back in 2013. Watch “Holding Border Patrol
Accountable: Terry Bressi on Recording his 300+ Checkpoint
Interactions,” produced by Tracy Oppenheimer. About 7
minutes.

Original release date was November 18, 2013 and original
write-up is below.

“This is not increasing our security, in fact, it’s making us
less secure. It’s just feeding an empire building, it’s feeding
agency budgets, and job security for various law enforcement
agencies,” says the University of Arizona’s Terry Bressi of
in-country immigration checkpoints.

Bressi sat down with ReasonTV’s Tracy Oppenheimer to discuss
these checkpoints and their implications for civil liberties.
Bressi estimates that he has been stopped by border patrol between
300-350 times. After his first encounter, he started carrying
cameras and audio recording equipment, and has since been
videotaping his checkpoint interactions. He says this holds
officers accountable for their actions, and he hopes that by
posting these videos online, citizens will become more aware of
their rights.

“A federal agent who is standing in the middle of a public
highway, wearing a public uniform, collecting a public paycheck
while seizing the public absent reasonable suspicion has no
expectation of privacy,” says Bressi in regards to filming border
patrol agents. “This is something that I like to remind folks of,
that the government thinks that we don’t have any right to privacy
whatsoever, but that’s a double-edged sword.”

For more of Bressi’s checkpoint videos, visit his YouTube
channel.

About 7 minutes.

Produced by Tracy Oppenheimer, shot by Zach Weissmueller.

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