| More fun learning time! For those curious about how federal officers are able to randomly kidnap people in portland without due process (and are now moving on to other cities like Seattle, Chicago, Detroit, etc) it’s all about the 100 mile zone. Basically, the 4th amendment of the constitution protects Americans from random and unwarranted searches and seizures. However, the border patrol, and by extension the department of homeland security are allowed to ignore that at “points of entry”. This technically means only at border checkpoints but has been expanded to mean any external facing border… and because they need a little leeway on that, it’s subsequently been expanded to 100 FREAKING MILES OF ANY OUTSIDE ACCESSABLE WATER OR OTHER BORDER! Yes, that’s obvious spots like New York, LA, and Seattle, but even central cities like Chicago, Milwaukee and Detroit are technically “near a border”. Also all of Hawaii, Porto Rico, and all the other island territories. Yes, that means that roughly 2/3rds of Americans don’t actually have any protection against unwarranted searches or seizures. The 4th amendment can simply be completely ignored which was obviously not what was intended when everyone was happy to expand these powers after 9/11 but nobody looked too closely at potential abuses back then. The only reason no one has noticed this is because we’ve not had a totalitarian dictator willing to actually make use of this loophole. Now Trump is doing exactly that completely against the wishes of the cities and states he’s sending them to. So much for trumps strong “states rights” stance that everyone loves him for. I suspect that he’s a little happy that the most democratic leaning cities are all within this 100 mile zone. Won’t the next election be fun now he’s happy to use these powers. Expect to see more secret police, drones, military equipment, unmarked vehicles, etc showing up to a city near you. For more details go visit the ACLUs awesome website on this, and donate to help them fight it. https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone (Also, yes, Austin is literally a few miles outside this zone so I’m fine… angry but fine). |
More fun learning time! For those curious about how federal officers are able to randomly kidnap people in portland without due process (and are now moving on to other cities like Seattle, Chicago, Detroit, etc) it’s all about the 100 mile zone.
Basically, the 4th amendment of the constitution protects Americans from random and unwarranted searches and seizures. However, the border patrol, and by extension the department of homeland security are allowed to ignore that at “points of entry”. This technically means only at border checkpoints but has been expanded to mean any external facing border… and because they need a little leeway on that, it’s subsequently been expanded to 100 FREAKING MILES OF ANY OUTSIDE ACCESSABLE WATER OR OTHER BORDER! Yes, that’s obvious spots like New York, LA, and Seattle, but even central cities like Chicago, Milwaukee and Detroit are technically “near a border”. Also all of Hawaii, Porto Rico, and all the other island territories.
Yes, that means that roughly 2/3rds of Americans don’t actually have any protection against unwarranted searches or seizures. The 4th amendment can simply be completely ignored which was obviously not what was intended when everyone was happy to expand these powers after 9/11 but nobody looked too closely at potential abuses back then. The only reason no one has noticed this is because we’ve not had a totalitarian dictator willing to actually make use of this loophole. Now Trump is doing exactly that completely against the wishes of the cities and states he’s sending them to. So much for trumps strong “states rights” stance that everyone loves him for. I suspect that he’s a little happy that the most democratic leaning cities are all within this 100 mile zone. Won’t the next election be fun now he’s happy to use these powers.
Expect to see more secret police, drones, military equipment, unmarked vehicles, etc showing up to a city near you.
For more details go visit the ACLUs awesome website on this, and donate to help them fight it. https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone
(Also, yes, Austin is literally a few miles outside this zone so I’m fine… angry but fine).