George "geohot" Hotz Arrested In Texas For Posession of Marijuana 578
n1ywb writes "Goerge 'geohot' Hotz, famous for being the first to jailbreak an iPhone and for his spat with Sony over PS3 jailbreaking, was busted for possession of a small amount of marijuana at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint in Texas on his way to SXSW. The shakedown goes like this: drug dogs are run around vehicles; when they signal, DHS searches the car and finds the contraband; DHS then turns evidence and suspects over to the local sheriff. Willie Nelson, actor Armie Hammer (who played the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network), and Snoop Dogg have all gotten in trouble at the same checkpoint under similar circumstances."
You don't say (Score:4, Funny)
"Willie Nelson, actor Armie Hammer (who played the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network), and Snoop Dogg have all gotten in trouble at the same checkpoint under similar circumstances."
And people say that pot doesn't make you stupid.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:You don't say (Score:4, Interesting)
I take it you are doing better than those people, because they are stupid and you are not?
Re:Yes (Score:4, Informative)
Sadly, U.S. Border Patrol checkpoints [wikipedia.org] and crossing the border are not necessarily related...
Re:You don't say (Score:5, Funny)
Um, I don't think there's any actual law against anecdotal evidence, per se.
Re:You don't say (Score:4, Informative)
Yep, there is. Kinda. Called the "hearsay rule". Doesn't block all anecdotes, but at least tries to keep them first-hand only.
Re:You don't say (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep, there is. Kinda. Called the "hearsay rule". Doesn't block all anecdotes, but at least tries to keep them first-hand only.
Hearsay is second-hand evidence, not anecdotal evidence. The admissibility of anecdotal evidence is governed by the rules on relevancy and, if applicable, expert testimony.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:You don't say (Score:4, Insightful)
Which raises the question:
What do they call planted evidence? Grab the guy, claim a dog alerted, start rifling through his stuff, then the police announce they "found something" and magically produce a small packet one of the cops had in the palm of his hand the whole time...
They call it "Guilty."
Re:You don't say (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You don't say (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You don't say (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You don't say (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You don't say (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You don't say (Score:4, Interesting)
While I'm a 'legalize it' kind of guy, I have to call you on the inflammatory rhetoric. I checked the map and none of the checkpoints are anywhere near the middle of Texas. The checkpoints all look to be in reasonable proximity to the border.
None of the permanent checkpoint on the maps you can get on the web, you mean... As far as the roving checkpoints, look at this map. http://www.aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty/are-you-living-constitution-free-zone [aclu.org]
Also, to me a border checkpoint is at the border. Not an hour away. I need ID to go from one central town to another... (McAllen to San Antonio) Really.
Smart people can be dumb (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would you go through a border checkpoint with marijuana unless you wanted to get caught?
Re:Smart people can be dumb (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh you do understand this "border" checkpoint is nowhere near the actual border, right? It's just some random spot on I-10 like a 100 miles from the border. Completely ridiculous.
That said, you'd think people would have heard about this and avoid I-10 like the plague in that part of the state.
Re:Smart people can be dumb (Score:5, Informative)
The reality is the west Texas I-10 check point outside El Paso may be 30-40 miles from the city, but that stretch of I-10 closely (within 2-5 miles) parallel's the border for about 50-60 miles, and the checkpoint is located where the highway/border start to diverege.
Re:Smart people can be dumb (Score:5, Informative)
Fair enough, but some of them are at least 75 miles from the border it looks like.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Border_Patrol_Interior_Checkpoints [wikipedia.org]
It's still ridiculous being subjected to this nonsense without probable cause. Of course, I also think sobriety check points are unconstitutional too. Even though I would never run afoul of either since I don't smoke or drink, I still care about our actual freedoms.
Re:Smart people can be dumb (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're sending a dog around to sniff a vehicle you've randomly chosen, you're *already* performing the search before the dog alerts. The use of the dog is *part* of the search process.
You need a warrant, or probable cause' to perform a search.
So, either basic logic escapes you, or you're simply unaware that they don't just have random dogs wandering around the checkpoint aimlessly. I'm betting it's the prior.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If you're sending a dog around to sniff a vehicle you've randomly chosen, you're *already* performing the search before the dog alerts. The use of the dog is *part* of the search process.
Wrong. Police officers can react to anything that is in "plain sight", meaning anything that escapes from your car, be it photons or small particles which we refer to as "scent".
They already stop EVERYONE (when they're open) and ask you a few simple questions. If they see a kilo of coke sitting in the passenger seat, then that gives them reasonable cause for a search. If they smell pot, then that gives them reasonable cause for a search. If a dog alerts to pot, then that gives them reasonable cause for a se
Re:Smart people can be dumb (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. Police officers can react to anything that is in "plain sight", meaning anything that escapes from your car, be it photons or small particles which we refer to as "scent"
Not true. The U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in U.S. v. Kyllo (2001) that the police can not use infrared cameras to locate "suspicious" concentrations of heat in private places and then get warrants to search. So anything that escapes is not "in plain sight".
Re:Smart people can be dumb (Score:4, Informative)
Wrong. Police officers can react to anything that is in "plain sight", meaning anything that escapes from your car, be it photons or small particles which we refer to as "scent"
Not true. The U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in U.S. v. Kyllo (2001) that the police can not use infrared cameras to locate "suspicious" concentrations of heat in private places and then get warrants to search. So anything that escapes is not "in plain sight".
The ruling in U.S. v. Kyllo (2001) held that the police cannot use equipment not available to the general public to perform searches of a person's home. The home has always had a very strong 4th amendment protection, while cars have less so. Namely, you almost always need a warrant to search a person's house, rather than just reasonable cause for suspicion. (If you see a kilo of coke brought into a house, you need a warrant. If you see a kilo of coke placed into a car, you can stop and search on reasonable suspicion after it leaves the person's property.)
The SCOTUS also held in Illinois v. Caballes that the Fourth Amendment is not violated when the use of a drug-sniffing dog during a routine traffic stop does not unreasonably prolong the length of the stop.
Re:Smart people can be dumb (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the dog that lies, it's the police officer "interpreting" the dog.
police dogs have long been used like this as a proxy for illegal racial and subcultural (hippies, goths, ravers and other weirdoes) profiling. or whenever a cop just needs an excuse for a search without actual probable cause.
and even without deliberate lying, there's also a feedback loop - the dogs are sensitive to their handlers' reactions. if a cop doesn't like the look of you because you're a long-haired freak or walking while black or something similarly nefarious, then the dog will pick up on that and react. the dogs end up reacting to the sight of such profiling targets because they know their handler will reward them and tell them what a good dog they are.
Re:Smart people can be dumb (Score:4, Insightful)
How, prey tell, does a police dog lie about smelling pot?
The same way a horse lies about knowing math [wikipedia.org], I suspect.
Re:Smart people can be dumb (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a friend that lives in nogalas az, and he cant leave his own city without going through a checkpoint. Sure, the city is right next to the border, but it is in America, dammit. You shouldn't be subject to those intrusions everyday of your life just because of proximity to the border.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Uh you do understand this "border" checkpoint is nowhere near the actual border, right? It's just some random spot on I-10 like a 100 miles from the border. Completely ridiculous.
That said, you'd think people would have heard about this and avoid I-10 like the plague in that part of the state.
First, the checkpoint was in the vicinity of Sierra Blanca, TX, which is about 15 miles from the border (as the crow flies), not "like 100 miles from the border".
Second, check a map. Avoiding I-10 in that area isn't practical if you want to get anywhere in a reasonable timeframe.
Third (and most importantly), there's no reason for anyone to bring marijuana to to SXSW. Last time I checked, marijuana is plentiful in Austin.
Re:Smart people can be dumb (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
It was an Interior Checkpoint [wikipedia.org], which is the "third layer" of border patrol. The checkpoint in question [google.com] it only about 10 or 20 miles from the US-Mexico border, just to the east of El Paso, situated on a stretch of I10 that has very few alternate routes.
I'm not sure about the legality or Constitutionality of these checkpoints, but if I were setting up a third layer to catch people that have slipped past the first two, this seems like a really good spot to do so.
No highways to the east get any closer to the b
That Explains It (Score:5, Funny)
Effective at what? (Score:5, Insightful)
1) How many people lost time/money due to the checkpoint?
2) How many lives were saved due to the confiscation of a small amount of marijuana?
3) How much did tax payers spend for all of this nonsense?
It's effective at promoting stigma for the recreational use of a drug that is literally less dangerous than ibuprofen. It's effective at wasting taxpayer dollars for no benefit to society at large. It's effective at being ineffective, wasteful, and pointless.
Re:Effective at what? (Score:4, Insightful)
4) How much does the prison-industrial system make per arrest? What's the total revenue it pulls from the the war on drugs?
4a) How much of that is kicked back to the cops?
Re:Effective at what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well yeah - exactly what I've been saying for years. The only way to win a war is to KILL, so a war on drugs should put all users and dealers to death. Draconian, yes, but that is how you win wars. I personally favor decriminalization and free treatment, but I don't run the country, idiots do.
Re:Effective at what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Effective at what? (Score:4, Insightful)
First off most state laws around marijuana are less strict then Federal. There is absolutely NO SOUND REASON to have Federal law against marijuana. If the State of Texas wants to enforce some crazy statute the people of Texas should bear the cost of doing so, my federal tax dollars should not be WASTED by DHS keeping a little pop off the streets in Cowboy country.
Re:Smart people can be dumb (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Smart people can be dumb (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Smart people can be dumb (Score:4, Insightful)
Me too. Texas is not the United States. Just ask a Texan.
Re:Smart people can be dumb (Score:5, Funny)
If you can make it to Austin you'll be okay. Think of it as a sane oasis, surrounded by a wasteland of angry mutants circling around it in dune buggies.
Re: (Score:3)
I saw that movie, I didn't realize it was a documentary. :)
Re:Smart people can be dumb (Score:5, Funny)
Pretty obscure group, you probably haven't heard of them. *flips scarf*
Re: (Score:3)
Checkpoint != Border (Score:5, Funny)
Taking marijuana away George Hotz is only one of many important steps our government makes every day in order to keep us free.
Re: (Score:3)
Think of it like that scene in Airplane 2 where heavily-armed terrorists are walking right through the security checkpoint while the TSA holds an old lady at gunpoint to search her purse.
Re:Smart people can be dumb (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty lame for a frame. He's gonna get what.. a small fine?
If gonna go to all that trouble.. may as well throw a brick of cocaine or something in there.
Re:Smart people can be dumb (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Smart people can be dumb (Score:5, Funny)
Me either I have my personal assistant hold it, I'm glad someone else had the same idea.
Re:Smart people can be dumb (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Smart people can be dumb (Score:4, Informative)
Well, to add a counterpoint to your valid concern about over-use of acronyms, I'm from a small town in Ontario, Canada, and I knew what SXSW was, and that it was located in Austin, and that one would expect there to be some friction between Texas' notoriously conservative law enforcement and the much more liberal crowd that SXSW would attract. I also know that SXSW is one of the biggest, most popular festivals of its kind in North America, that people I know have been talking about it for weeks, and that half my Twitter feed is chatter about how Bruce Springsteen is giving the Keynote and how awesome it is to be there to see it (or how much it sucks to not be there to see it).
So while I agree that the editors shouldn't assume that we all know what SXSW means, I can understand why they might.
Re:Smart people can be dumb (Score:5, Informative)
I imagine all the stuff that would come up for him on google is going to trump a minor possession charge.
Anyone hiring him is probably hiring him specifically because of his legal history.
Re:Smart people can be dumb (Score:4, Insightful)
So now the dawg has some street cred, f'shizzle
Re: (Score:3)
He can come work for me in the Netherlands any time. We don't care much about this kind of stuff... Even better... If you say "I didn't inhale" here everyone looks at you like you are really really stupid ;-)
Re: (Score:3)
It's a shame Texas didn't get away with secession.
Solution (Score:4, Funny)
Don't share a car with Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg.
Re:Solution (Score:5, Funny)
Why not? Sounds like a decent road trip, actually.
Im still wondering... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Im still wondering... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Yup. For 2/3 of US citizens the constitution doesn't apply:
http://www.aclu.org/constitution-free-zone-map [aclu.org]
That seems perfectly reasonable to any true patriotic American. Why do people who disagree with this hate America so much. Hey, look, waffle covered corn dogs. Yum!
jailbreak? (Score:5, Funny)
Is he going to post bail to get out of jail legally, or just jailbreak?
Re:jailbreak? (Score:5, Funny)
I don't see the problem. All he has to do is roll doubles.
"When they signal" is the important part (Score:5, Informative)
It is very key that the poster used the word "when" when referring to the drug dogs, rather than saying "if they signal". Multiple studies have shown that drug dogs are essentially a fraudulent way to get around probable cause during a vehicle stop.
Re:"When they signal" is the important part (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep. I saw a drug bust once...cops had a car surrounded and brought out the drug dog. Basically went like this:
Cop points to the car and claps his hands.
Dog looks at the car, looks back at the cop.
Cop points to the car and claps his hands.
Dog looks at the car, looks back at the cop.
Cop points to the car and claps his hands.
Dog looks at the car, looks back at the cop.
After the third time, the cops go ahead and search the car, but I sure couldn't see any "tell" from the dog. Wish I'd recorded it with my cellphone and given it to the defense attorney, but 1. it was a night and 2. I had a really shitty cell phone at the time.
Re:"When they signal" is the important part (Score:5, Informative)
Every drug dog has a different signal.Their handler is trained to recognize it. Some dogs dig at the location, some sit, some look at the handler. There is no uniform signal because dogs can't talk so the dogs are often trained to react the same way they did the first time they found something which could be almost anything.
Re:"When they signal" is the important part (Score:4, Insightful)
How very convenient. Perhaps they should train them in a uniform way so that we (the public) have a way to refute the evidence against us.
Meh (Score:4, Insightful)
engineers and technical masterminds throughout the country would give their right arm for.
Not me.
I always questioned why the hell they hired him in the first place. I'm no fan of GeoHot .. but I recognize he has some serious skills. Why the hell would he want to crank out web apps for a living. He's an intelligent guy and all, but what the heck would he have done for them where his true skills would be of any real use (his actual code is pretty meh..).
As for the story itself.. my god.. who cares. It's what.. a misdemeanour offense? He probably pleads guilty, pays a fine and goes home. He might not even see a jail cell in between.
Re:Meh (Score:5, Informative)
Clearly you don't know very much about how many counties in Texas operate. Sure, in Travis county (where Austin is located), it would be a minor offense. Right next door in Williamson county? Any contraband, including just a pipe, will guarantee an overnight stay in jail. Paraphernalia is a minimum of $500 fine. An oz of weed could net you a year's probation. Anything over a gram of any other illegal substance will be a felony, with 4-10 years probation if you take the plea bargain. It's fucking sickening.
Not crossing the border! (Score:5, Informative)
These checkpoints are not for those who cross the border. They are unconstitutional search and seizure checkpoints within the US. The pretense is that they are close to borders.
If the borders are so well protected, why do they need these checkpoints? There is no warrant.
Re: (Score:3)
In my opinion:
1.) Anything action which is intended to result in evidence is a "search"
2.) Any search without a warrant is unconstitutional
Most people agree with #2 but not #1 -- certainly not the courts. I'm baffled how educated judges could look at a situation where a drug-sniffing dog is sniffing around cars looking for drugs, and not construe that as a search. No matter how you try to justify that, it's absurd.
Re:Not crossing the border! (Score:5, Informative)
Being a citizen on US soil is irrelevant if a border crossing is involved, because everyone is subject to search at the border.
http://search.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2727991&cid=39367407 [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Being a citizen on US soil is irrelevant if a border crossing is involve
But in this case, no "border crossing" was involved. George was driving from El Paso to Austin, on an Interstate highway. They've setup "border crossings" on high-traffic roads inside the US, which is absolute bullshit.
Re:Not crossing the border! (Score:4, Insightful)
What is this "Constitution" you speak of?
How is this constitutional? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if you grant them mandatory illegal alien checkpoints, how is it possible for them to subject you to a search for something unrelated to border enforcement and prosecute you for it?
I know we're largely flushing the entire constitution down the toilet these days, but this seems really egregious.
I've been through the checks outside of Sierra Vista & Tombstone, AZ, and they were more or less roll to a stop, yes we are citizens, have a nice day. No dogs run around the car, no bullshit, although there were dogs at the checkpoints.
Re:How is this constitutional? (Score:5, Informative)
This is nothing new.
Any location within 100 miles of a US federal border is an officially Constitution-free zone. This neatly covers the homes of roughly 2/3 of all Americans.
You have no rights, so stop deluding yourself and do something about it.
From the ACLU:
Are You Living in a Constitution-free Zone? [aclu.org]
Constitution-free Zone Fact Sheet [aclu.org]
Constitution-free Zone Interactive Map [aclu.org]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Interesting GAO report on the Border Patrol from 2005, if anyone is interested:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05435.pdf [gao.gov]
So the
Re: (Score:3)
I've been to this Texas border stop several times myself, and have never seen any dogs.
It must have been one of the changes as a result of SXSW.
Because, as any cop in Texas will tell you, SXSW is a big illegal alien destination.
Shop local! (Score:5, Informative)
A Pastor sued and won against the checkpoint (Score:5, Interesting)
Or possibly another one similar in design. The cops claimed the dog signaled the presence of drugs. The pastor knew that was a lie, and refused to exit the video, so the cops smashed-in the windows, drug the pastor out, and started beating him (the video is on youtube).
Later in court it was discovered via testimony that the dog had NOT signaled and the cops were lying. They were/are just using the dogs to perform searches without cause. So the charges were dropped, and now the pastor is suing the police for damages to his car and person.
According to several SCOTUS rulings, these checkpoints are legal but ONLY for the purpose of idenitfying illegals, or escaped criminals, but nothing else. And any contraband must be thrown out, since a judge-issued warrant was not obtained, and the search is unconstitutional. The cops are ignoring the justices rulings and arresting people anyway.
Re:A Pastor sued and won against the checkpoint (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow that's crazy. (Link?)
So how many years are the cops spending in jail for violation of the public trust, battery, conspiracy to commit battery, vandalism, conspiracy to commit vandalism, and violation of civil rights? Also, if they physically moved the pastor more than ten feet (very likely), then I'd expect them to be prosecuted for kidnapping and conspiracy to commit kidnapping, too.
Oh, what, zero years? You don't say...
Re:A Pastor sued and won against the checkpoint (Score:5, Interesting)
My dad was pulled over the other day for talking on his cellphone. I was in the passenger seat and no one was using a cellphone, so it was clearly a bullshit stop. The cop looked the car over to find a reason to justify his search; he checked the registration sticker, the inspection sticker, the headlights, everything. My dad didn't have his driver's license at the time because the DMV lost it in the mail so the cop gave him a hard time about it. The cop then asked me for ID, so I handed him my business card. I'm a lawyer. The cop walked back to his car, came back a minute later, and said that we were free to go.
Seriously, folks, cops can do really shady things. Don't get me wrong, I love cops because they've saved my ass a few times, but there are some rogue ones who really should be slapped down. I mean, if cops can lie to get you into tickets, then what the fuck incentive do we have for doing the right thing (aside from doing the right thing)?
Re:A Pastor sued and won against the checkpoint (Score:5, Funny)
The cop then asked me for ID, so I handed him my business card. I'm a lawyer. The cop walked back to his car, came back a minute later, and said that we were free to go.
Moral of the story ... print up fake business cards that make you look like a lawyer.
Re:A Pastor sued and won against the checkpoint (Score:4, Insightful)
And get arrested for impersonating an officer of the court.
There is no such crime.
Sounds like you have mashed-up "impersonating an officer of the law" (i.e. a cop) and "practicing law without a license" (i.e. pretending to be a lawyer in court).
Re:A Pastor sued and won against the checkpoint (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You left-out an important detail: The driver had already committed a crime (speeding). The checkpoints along the border state highways are stopping-and-seizing drivers who are not guilty, and therefore it's an illegal warrantless search.
It's just the same as if a cop went door-to-door and started sniffing around your home's doors. It's harassment and the reason the 4th amendment was created in the first place.
Terrible evil! (Score:4, Insightful)
or the top 100..
or top 1000
or top 10000
or top 10 000 000
or whatever.
lets forget the the multitude of "legitiate" uses of marihuana for a bit, and just wonder what exact detrimental effect the narcotic use thereof is supposedly having on its users that the government and its agents should be protecting us from.
I know the the english word "assasin" is supposedly derived from the arabic for hashish, but I seriously want to know where the harm is when its not interfering with high-level functionality.
Re: (Score:3)
Note on the whole hashasin thing: the reward for doing a killing was that they got to get high for the rest of their lives. The drug itself wasn't used in anyway during the actual killing.
These aren't new. (Score:3, Insightful)
FTFA: Another black spot? (Score:3)
"He quit a job that engineers and technical masterminds throughout the country would give their right arm for. So now, there's another black spot on his record,..."
Most hackers I know don't get their jollies sitting in a cube writing TPS reports. Sure, it pays well but I don't think Facebook would have much need for someone who's used to staring at de-compiled code or messing with JTAG cables . Don't diss him for not following the crowd; the most interesting hackers never do.
Slippery Slope (Score:5, Interesting)
These checkpoints represent the epitome of the slippery slope.
I travel on this section of I-10 quite frequently driving from Scottsdale, Arizona to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. There are two permanent checkpoints on this stretch of I-10: just west of Las Cruces, New Mexico and east of El Paso (about 100 miles east). The U.S. Supreme Court held in U.S. v. Martinez-Fuerte that these permanent checkpoints were constitutionally reasonable seizures because they were minimal in scope and time. When stopped, the border patrol agent will ask if everyone in the car is a U.S. citizen.
Then the slippery slope began and the border patrol started deploying drug detection dogs at the checkpoints. The dogs aren't generally used to do a walk-around of each vehicle. Instead, the handler and the dog are stationed down-wind of the vehicle. If the dog alerts while the occupants of the car are being asked about their citizenship then the handler and the dog will approach the car and attempt to do a more thorough check and/or search.
Checkpoints to check for illegal drugs have already been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. This type of hybrid check has not been challenged at that level yet.
This is a classic example of a slippery slope where the government justifies an action for one reason and then starts piggybacking on top of that action.
If any of the Supreme Court justices had actually driven through one of these checkpoints they would probably not have concluded that the stop was minimally invasive.
It is outrageous to me that anyone driving down the highway in this country can be stopped, interrogated and searched.
A side note: On my last drive through the checkpoint near Sierra Blanca, Texas on I-10 the car in front of me was released after answering the citizenship question. The drug dog and handler were next to my car, about 30 feet behind the car being checked, and the dog alerted. The border patrol called to the car to stop and the handler and dog approached the car. The dog immediately took a left turn and stuck his nose up the tailpipe of a border patrol pickup truck and either refused or couldn't extricate his nose. We had to wait a few minutes while they got the dog free from the pickup truck.
Re:Newsflash: they have drug dogs at Mexico-US bor (Score:5, Insightful)
If you try to take drugs through a border checkpoint, you're going to get caught. Should this surprise anyone?
It should if the people in question are driving from one part of the US to another part of the US. Why the FUCK do we have "border checkpoints" on roads that don't CROSS THE BORDER?
Re:Newsflash: they have drug dogs at Mexico-US bor (Score:5, Informative)
Okay -- I wasn't aware that this was one of those internal "border patrol" checkpoints. Should have RTFA.
Re:Newsflash: they have drug dogs at Mexico-US bor (Score:5, Interesting)
I have never understood that myself. A few years ago, I drove through one of those internal checkpoints in northern New York. I'm Canadian, live in Canada, and have a Quebec-registered car. They didn't even want to talk to me. Though my evidence is anecdotal, It seems that these checkpoints have nothing to do with border security.
Re:Newsflash: they have drug dogs at Mexico-US bor (Score:4, Insightful)
If you try to take drugs through a border checkpoint, you're going to get caught. Should this surprise anyone?
It should if the people in question are driving from one part of the US to another part of the US. Why the FUCK do we have "border checkpoints" on roads that don't CROSS THE BORDER?
Because 2/3rds of the populous lives within 100 miles of any border or airport, which is considered the "Constitution Free Zone". [aclu.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Careful - you're not supposed to point that out when not in a Free Speech Zone...
Re: (Score:3)
Just my two cents.
Re:Newsflash: they have drug dogs at Mexico-US bor (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
If you try to take drugs through a border checkpoint, you're going to get caught.
Exactly. It is common knowledge that border checkpoints stop 100% of illegal contraband trying to get into the country. That is why there are no illegal drugs inside the US borders, right?
Re: (Score:3)
Phew! All of it?! Well, OK...
Re:Fuck this law (Score:4, Funny)
Someone documented an attempt of this a few years ago, but she ran out of steam in Dallas...
If you know what I mean.