These officers refused to identify themselves to me at all, which is interesting "
Is that even legal?
Is that even legal?
Welcome to America, your cell is down the hall...
Someone could, but does anyone dare to? Airports have a ton of CCTV cameras.
There is no actual accountability, so why should they care if what they do is illegal. They are the law, and they make shit up as they go
There is nothing new about this, but it's been getting worse ever since the evul hackers started subverting the US Government by encrypting and leaking the Government's illegal activities.
Yes, they are.
> and you have absolutely no rights whatsoever, even if a US citizen, when at those locations.
Also incorrect, though there are a number of limitations in the practical application of generally applicable rights in the context of the border (and not just official "entry points".)
"Case Law" vs "Statutory Law" is the name of the game here.
To not beat a dead horse: every single decision made by the Supreme Court is effectively in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Any part of the Constitution can be interpreted, modified, or nullified by a decision of the Supreme Court.
So, when the SCOTUS decides that an exemption against prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure applies at the border, you can be assured that they view it as "constitutional".
>>"The Constitution... meant that its coordinate branches should be checks on each other. But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch." --Thomas Jefferson [1804]
>>"To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves." --Thomas Jefferson [1820]
>>"This member of the Government was at first considered as the most harmless and helpless of all its organs. But it has proved that the power of declaring what the law is, ad libitum, by sapping and mining slyly and without alarm the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force would not dare to attempt." --Thomas Jefferson [1825]
Over the last 200 years to much reverence and power has been placed in the hands of the Supreme Court, and the federal government in general.
Complain all you like. Our Constitution spells out in very clear terms that blacks are to be considered 3/5th of a white man for the purposes of representation in Congress. If that term itself isn't an example of how wrong it is to be a strict textualist I don't know a better example.
I wouldn't make the mistake of pretending that the Constitution is a perfect document. You shouldn't either.
No, it doesn't; it states, 'Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.'
It doesn't say a word about blacks or whites (although it does mention untaxed Indians).
And that clause no longer applies, because it was removed by a later amendment. So: a) the Constitution does not and never did say that blacks count as 3/5 of a person; and b) the clause not counting slaves and those serving life prison sentences for purposes of representation has been deleted.
> I wouldn't make the mistake of pretending that the Constitution is a perfect document.
Of course it's not perfect. It's a damn sight better than what we've got now though.
Then you do not know or understand the history or how the constitution works
First, the 3/5th's clause was actually an anti-slavery measure. It reduced the power the Slave State whom wanted to count All slaves as persons for the purposes of Congressional Representation but not allow them to vote for site representation. This would have given slave states MUCH greater power in congress as well as the Electoral College and likely would have delayed Abolishment of slavery for decades. It may have also prevented Lincoln from even becoming president.
Further the Constitution is not overwritten but AMENDED so the Orginal Text remains for people to learn from. the 3/5th clause today has no authority because of the 14th amendment. It is not however removed from the Constitution because the Founders believed (and I concur) that a key aspect of not repeating past mistakes is to have those mistakes clear and ever present not hidden away to be forgotten.
Being a strict textualist of the constitution does not mean you believe all non-white people should only be counted as 3/5ths a person. a Strict Textualist also applies all Amendments which nullifies the 3/5th clause
>>I wouldn't make the mistake of pretending that the Constitution is a perfect document. You shouldn't either.
I dont, I largely take Lysander Spooner's vision of the constitution.
"The Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation. It has no authority or obligation at all, unless as a contract between man and man. And it does not so much as even purport to be a contract between persons now existing. It purports, at most, to be only a contract between persons living [two hundred] years ago. And it can be supposed to have been a contract then only between persons who had already come to years of discretion, so as to be competent to make reasonable and obligatory contracts. Furthermore, we know, historically, that only a small portion even of the people then existing were consulted on the subject, or asked, or permitted to express either their consent or dissent in any formal manner. Those persons, if any, who did give their consent formally, are all dead now. Most of them have been dead forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy years. And the constitution, so far as it was their contract, died with them. They had no natural power or right to make it obligatory upon their children. It is not only plainly impossible, in the nature of things, that they could bind their posterity, but they did not even attempt to bind them. That is to say, the instrument does not purport to be an agreement between any body but “the people” then existing; nor does it, either expressly or impliedly, assert any right, power, or disposition, on their part, to bind anybody but themselves. " -- Lysander Spooner, NO TREASON No. VI.
That said it is the current law of land, and I have done alot of research into American History, the constitution, and the related topics. It is also important to point out that no one viewed it, or views it as perfect, that is why we have an amendment process. What I find alarming and sad is that we have ceased amending the constitution, in favor of Radical "interpretations" by the courts, or simply ignoring inconvenient sections instead of putting in the hard work of passing and ratifying an actual Amendment. The last amendment to the constitution took 202 years to ratify... That I find very sad
> Any part of the Constitution can be interpreted, modified, or nullified by a decision of the Supreme Court.
Say what? I don't recall that the Constitution gives the Supreme Court the right to change or delete any part of itself. It does very clearly lay out how it can be amended — and the Supreme Court is not part of that.
Moreover, Supreme Court decisions really only set a precedent, which can of course be overturned by another decision at another time. They're just decisions in particular cases (although it's highly likely that courts will rule similarly in other cases).
Legislators write the law; executives execute it; judge apply the law to the facts of a case.
(And yes, I know that CBP are not the same thing as police but this seems to more reasonably be the sort of thing that someone would say.)