Sheldon Richman on America’s Growing Borderlands

A man, an
American citizen, sits in his car as a U.S. Border Patrol agent
insists that he roll down his window. He refuses. Agents use
battering rams to smash the windows. Still, the driver refuses to
leave his car, so he is hit with a Taser from two sides. He
screams. It would be bad enough if this scene, captured on video
and shown recently on John Stossel’s Fox News special “Policing
America,” had happened right at a U.S. border. But it happened far
from the border. The U.S. government, writes Sheldon Richman,
regards a large part of the country as close enough to a border or
coast to justify treating individuals — citizens or not — as though
they have no rights whatsoever