My simple answer: we became afraid. 9/11 showed us we were not invincible. Technology to enable mass surveillance had quick answers for our collective fears. Stoking our fears is a profitable industry. Here we are today.
9/11 ushered in an era where the US government took pretty extraordinary steps to protect national security by undermining the rights of citizens (see operation “Stellar Wind”.) It was so aggressive that FBI director Comey did not want to reauthorize it due to constitutional concerns.
Fear indeed is a powerful and profitable emotion to traffic in, it drives so much of our current media and political landscape.
A prominent political pundit that shall remain nameless said relatively recently that what is true doesn’t matter as much as what feels true. And that mentality dominates our political discourse.
Actually after the Snowden revelations: aren't the three letter agencies able to access our data without us knowing it anyways? If we are on their radar, they can get whatever info they want from us anyway. That's my understanding. So why harrass the normal person crossing the border?
Since the border has become such a focal point of our political conscious, the culture of some of these agencies is really being brought to light. Just look at the private Facebook groups of current and former CBP agents comparing migrants to animals and whatnot.
When the culture of an agency gets toxic, you start to see enablement of this kind of behavior.
Like a lot of things that come down to "this doesn't affect them", this is yet another issue where I'm surprised that there are people who support this. The border patrol is under the control of the president, who can make changes. They could change this policy. Obama didn't change it, and Trump doesn't seem likely to care, because 'it won't apply to him'. But why not? The 100 mile border plus other exemptions is incre