
Law Enforcement Uses Border Search Exception as Fourth Amendment Loophole - DiabloD3
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/12/law-enforcement-uses-border-search-exception-fourth-amendment-loophole
======
eagsalazar2
I mean, yes this is awful and shameful but is it really news? It has always
been the case that you have virtually no rights when entering or leaving the
US especially with regard to protections against unreasonable search and
seizure.

~~~
throwaway4891a
It's awful and shouldn't be normalized: which is the point of the ACLU's
argument. If this guy, whom is also a US citizen I might add, is suspected of
breaking the law, law enforcement needs to meet the burden of proof of
obtaining a warrant and not just walk all over the Constitution.

~~~
wfunction
If I understand correctly, these searches and seizures are occurring before
the person is granted entry, which means they have not yet inside the country,
nor even shown that they are allowed to be in the country in the first place.
To me, it (unfortunately) makes sense that the laws of a country only apply
once you've entered it, so I actually can't fault their logic there -- if I
were a judge, I would (reluctantly) rule that this logic is fine.

What is DO have a problem with, though, is that they seem to have deliberately
structured the procedures this way in the first place precisely for this goal.
People should be granted/denied entry first, then searched afterward if entry
is granted -- because it would seem that their permission to be present inside
the country should be independent of what they are allowed to bring into the
country. So if the ACLU is fighting against this, I sure hope they're making
this argument rather than the first one.

Does this make sense, or do people disagree?

~~~
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC
> To me, it (unfortunately) makes sense that the laws of a country only apply
> once you've entered it,

So, are you saying that a US citizen, before entering the US, would be allowed
to kill a customs officer without any consequences? Or are you saying that
customs officers could torture citizens as long as they are outside the US
without any consequences for them?

~~~
user982
> Or are you saying that customs officers could torture citizens as long as
> they are outside the US without any consequences for them?

The US government and its courts have ruled that yes, that is exactly the
case.[1][2]

    
    
      Eight years after Mr. Meshal’s rendition, his case ended up before a three-judge
      panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The
      questions hanging over the proceeding were: can the United States government
      allow, or even facilitate, the rendition of an American citizen to another
      country for interrogation? And can United States officials themselves conduct
      rendition and interrogations of American citizens, including threats of torture,
      on foreign soil?
      
      According to a decision handed down last week, the answers appear to be yes. If
      this decision stands, it will mean that an American citizen overseas who is
      unlawfully targeted by the United States government for rendition, interrogation
      and detention with the help of a local government will have no form of redress
      in the courts.
      
      Obama administration lawyers argued that Bivens did not apply to Mr. Meshal’s
      case because the incident took place overseas and involved unspecified “national
      security” concerns.
    

[1]: [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/opinion/how-the-fbi-can-
de...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/opinion/how-the-fbi-can-detain-
render-and-threaten-without-risk.html?_r=2)

[2]: [https://www.aclu.org/cases/meshal-v-
higgenbotham](https://www.aclu.org/cases/meshal-v-higgenbotham)

------
ChuckMcM
Are we still not talking about politics?

~~~
waterphone
The experiment was ended early.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251)

~~~
ggreer
I was wondering why so many submissions seemed politics-related. I miss the
experiment. It certainly wasn't perfect, but it was better.

~~~
finedoit
It was burying our heads in the sand at the very time when it's most critical
to be aware of how we and our industry are affected and involved with
politics. If someone in the tech industry who provided significant support to
the incoming administration was also involved with YCombinator, the timing
would almost be sketchy.

~~~
ggreer
Pretty much every political thread on HN accomplishes nothing more than to
increase the net amount of frustration in the world. The same ideologues
rehash the same arguments. No one's mind is changed. And each time a few
people get fed-up and quit HN, causing the remaining community to be slightly
more strident.

The sooner these threads are dealt with, the healthier our community will be.

~~~
wfo
Not the case, of course. I've changed my mind thanks to political discussion
on HN. I've seen others do the same. I don't believe you that there are people
quitting HN because of politics threads -- there's no evidence for that or
reason to believe it.

Politics can be really, really relevant to tech and vice versa. A lot of the
things that have been discussed in this election are explicitly about
technology and software (H1B visas, 'closing up the internet', social media to
name a few). It would be ridiculous to plug our ears and pretend they don't
exist -- that's how non-technical people end up making the rules about
technology that we have to follow, i.e. how we got into a lot of the messes we
are in today. Tech nerds like us love to pretend it doesn't matter because
it's hard and it involves feelings and emotions and you can't reason your way
out of it but we always, always lose big time with that approach.

