Monday, December 6, 2010
Is TSA an arm of the DEA?
First, Willie Nelson is arrested after being stopped by a Border Patrol agent for drug possession. Then rapper Kurtis Blow gets a ticket for possession at LAX. There's no argument that can be made here that these events made transportation in the US more secure. However, they both entail warrantless searches.
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Of course the title of this article is rhetorical, right?
ReplyDeleteThe twin issues of "jurisdiction" and "mission" have effectively been tossed out the window. It's hard to pinpoint exactly when this happened, but for as long as I can remember, going back at least two decades and maybe longer, any "agent" of any one of the alphabet soup of "law enforcement" organizations (be they federal, state, or local) can and will make an arrest on any pretext imaginable and with only a vaguest hint of probable cause. DHS Border Patrol checkpoints along highways within one hundred miles of the Mexican border inside the People's Republics of California, Arizona, and New Mexico (and probably Texas too, for all I know) proudly display signs that keep a running tally of the number of drug busts they've made or drivers under the influence whom they've arrested. This for an agency whose sole concern is supposed to be the movement of undocumented aliens into, not citizens within, the country.
But of course only fascialists and people with mental ages of ten (or do I repeat myself?) truly believe that any government "law enforcement" agency either respects jurisdiction or exists to protect the rights, property, and persons of the citizenry, so it's really a moot point anyway.
@liberranter - it is indeed a rhetorical question!
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