Is a Police State really the only option for effective border security? That, apparently, is the operating assumption at the heart of current US border policy, where the Fourth Amendment is non-existent throughout the 100-mile wide area encircling the US. Border patrol operates with impunity, dragging US citizens out of their cars for searches and seizures that would be illegal in a free country, performing unnecessary body cavity searches which amount to rape by cop. The abuse is so widespread that the federal government regularly intervenes to pay abuse settlements against the agency, $60 million as of last May.
The logic of border security follows the logic of the ‘War on Terror’: the only way to protect you is to strip you of your rights, while spending hundreds of billions of dollars in the process.
The borderlands have long been a playground and testing ground for surveillance technology, dry-running new equipment before sending it inland to law enforcement across the country.
What truly protects us is the security of our rights from government, not a militarized border patrolled by thugs. The real crisis that almost no one pays attention to is the fact that the border is a Constitution-free zone, or the simple truth that no amount of “security” is worth the loss of liberty.
