5 ms·

Traveling home from upstate NY, I've been stopped (having never left the USA) at a border patrol checkpoint well inside NY, we were within 100 miles of Canada.

by iisbum 13y ago

Traveling home from upstate NY, I've been stopped (having never left the USA) at a border patrol checkpoint well inside NY, we were within 100 miles of Canada. They didn't ask to check my laptop or anything, but did want ID etc. Can't talk to the legality of it all but they do exist.

tptacek 13y ago
You can probably be stopped by any law enforcement agency in the US and have ID demanded of you, and while ID is not mandatory in the US, you can be inconvenienced for not having it. That's a result of Hiibel v. Nevada. It sucks a lot, but we're still better off than most of Europe in that regard. But if CBP could not convince a judge or jury that you'd crossed the Canadian border, and demanded a search of your vehicle and found e.g. an eighth of weed, that evidence could probably be tossed in court; CBP needs both the fact of your crossing of the actual border and a reasonable suspicion to search you.
- linuxhansl 13y ago
  > It sucks a lot, but we're still better off than most of Europe in that regard. Having lived in both Europe in the US for large part of my life, I can tell you that this completely misses the mark. Yes, you can be ID'd, but what law enforcement can get away with in the US would be inconceivable in most of Western Europe. I was never afraid of the cops before I came to the states. Edit: Spelling.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    I have the opposite experience; from my (few) visits to Continental Europe, my impression is that foreigners are searched at random in arbitrary locations more or less at the whim of police. I've actually never had a bag searched in the US, but can't say that about Europe.
    - Tomte 13y ago
      How do they recognize you as an alien? At the border, sure, but inside the country?
      - tptacek 13y ago
        Inside. Not at the border. I'm presuming it had to do with me being foreign but maybe it's something even more insidious.
        Tomte 13y ago
        My thinking was: how do they single you out? But I guess it was speaking English without an awful accent. :-)
    - linuxhansl 13y ago
      Interesting. Was that in England? I should have excluded GB from this. :)
      - tptacek 13y ago
        Germany and Italy. I've been to England more than I have to the Continent and have never been searched there.
    - Zak 13y ago
      I've had related experiences in Germany. The police stop cars with no suspicion nor any explanation other than "police control". I told several German friends that this would be quite illegal in the US, and they were all shocked; it seemed normal and routine to them. Denying the Holocaust and using Nazi symbols is illegal in Germany, but "papers please" is normal? I think they learned the wrong lesson.
      - Tomte 13y ago
        Yes, it seems normal to me, unless it happens regularly. I am now 32 years old. I have been in a police stop when driving my car only twice (and one of those was a mistake, I thought they wanted me to stop, but they actually meant another car). I have never been controlled or ID checked by the police in any way when not travelling by car. Exceptions are border controls, of course. And private entities wishing to check my age: discos, liquor stores and so on. On another note: I'm really tired about all this attitude we get from Americans regarding Nazi symbols and free speech. Maybe take a minute to contemplate why we have those laws? "Because of Holocaust" is correct, but not what I'm getting at. We have those, because Americans (together with the other Allied Powers) forced us to after the war. Unfortunately Americans have this tendency to think that their system is the very best and can't imagine why anyone could or should have another system, despite the fact that everywhere they were involved in nation-building they actively promoted other systems.
- ams6110 13y ago
  Not sure you are correct on the first point. Border Patrol are law enforcement officers. Though they are primarily focused on border enforcement, I don't believe they are confined to that. A Border Patrol agent could probably give you a speeding ticket regardless of whether you had recently crossed the border, if he observed you speeding (guessing few would do so however). If you're saying that absent any other reason, you would have to have recently crossed a border for the initial stop to be legal, maybe you're right. But random checkpoints for intoxicated drivers happen everywhere, and are legal.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    > If you're saying that absent any other reason, you would have to have recently crossed a border for the initial stop to be legal, maybe you're right. But random checkpoints for intoxicated drivers happen everywhere, and are legal. As you point out, Border Patrol are fully sworn law enforcement officers and can therefore enforce other laws besides mere border protection statutes. However the legal requirements to perform a search of a vehicle (incl. the need to have crossed the border) are different from the requirements to stop a vehicle to interview the driver (which any LE can do incl. Border Patrol), which is one of the reasons that DUI checkpoints are legal in some circumstances.

by iisbum 13y ago

tptacek 13y ago

You can probably be stopped by any law enforcement agency in the US and have ID demanded of you, and while ID is not mandatory in the US, you can be inconvenienced for not having it. That's a result of Hiibel v. Nevada. It sucks a lot, but we're still better off than most of Europe in that regard. But if CBP could not convince a judge or jury that you'd crossed the Canadian border, and demanded a search of your vehicle and found e.g. an eighth of weed, that evidence could probably be tossed in court; CBP needs both the fact of your crossing of the actual border and a reasonable suspicion to search you.

linuxhansl 13y ago
> It sucks a lot, but we're still better off than most of Europe in that regard. Having lived in both Europe in the US for large part of my life, I can tell you that this completely misses the mark. Yes, you can be ID'd, but what law enforcement can get away with in the US would be inconceivable in most of Western Europe. I was never afraid of the cops before I came to the states. Edit: Spelling.
- tptacek 13y ago
  I have the opposite experience; from my (few) visits to Continental Europe, my impression is that foreigners are searched at random in arbitrary locations more or less at the whim of police. I've actually never had a bag searched in the US, but can't say that about Europe.
  - Tomte 13y ago
    How do they recognize you as an alien? At the border, sure, but inside the country?
    - tptacek 13y ago
      Inside. Not at the border. I'm presuming it had to do with me being foreign but maybe it's something even more insidious.
      - Tomte 13y ago
        My thinking was: how do they single you out? But I guess it was speaking English without an awful accent. :-)
  - linuxhansl 13y ago
    Interesting. Was that in England? I should have excluded GB from this. :)
    - tptacek 13y ago
      Germany and Italy. I've been to England more than I have to the Continent and have never been searched there.
  - Zak 13y ago
    I've had related experiences in Germany. The police stop cars with no suspicion nor any explanation other than "police control". I told several German friends that this would be quite illegal in the US, and they were all shocked; it seemed normal and routine to them. Denying the Holocaust and using Nazi symbols is illegal in Germany, but "papers please" is normal? I think they learned the wrong lesson.
    - Tomte 13y ago
      Yes, it seems normal to me, unless it happens regularly. I am now 32 years old. I have been in a police stop when driving my car only twice (and one of those was a mistake, I thought they wanted me to stop, but they actually meant another car). I have never been controlled or ID checked by the police in any way when not travelling by car. Exceptions are border controls, of course. And private entities wishing to check my age: discos, liquor stores and so on. On another note: I'm really tired about all this attitude we get from Americans regarding Nazi symbols and free speech. Maybe take a minute to contemplate why we have those laws? "Because of Holocaust" is correct, but not what I'm getting at. We have those, because Americans (together with the other Allied Powers) forced us to after the war. Unfortunately Americans have this tendency to think that their system is the very best and can't imagine why anyone could or should have another system, despite the fact that everywhere they were involved in nation-building they actively promoted other systems.
ams6110 13y ago
Not sure you are correct on the first point. Border Patrol are law enforcement officers. Though they are primarily focused on border enforcement, I don't believe they are confined to that. A Border Patrol agent could probably give you a speeding ticket regardless of whether you had recently crossed the border, if he observed you speeding (guessing few would do so however). If you're saying that absent any other reason, you would have to have recently crossed a border for the initial stop to be legal, maybe you're right. But random checkpoints for intoxicated drivers happen everywhere, and are legal.
- mpyne 13y ago
  > If you're saying that absent any other reason, you would have to have recently crossed a border for the initial stop to be legal, maybe you're right. But random checkpoints for intoxicated drivers happen everywhere, and are legal. As you point out, Border Patrol are fully sworn law enforcement officers and can therefore enforce other laws besides mere border protection statutes. However the legal requirements to perform a search of a vehicle (incl. the need to have crossed the border) are different from the requirements to stop a vehicle to interview the driver (which any LE can do incl. Border Patrol), which is one of the reasons that DUI checkpoints are legal in some circumstances.