Path: csiph.com!x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net!usenet.pasdenom.info!news.albasani.net!news.swapon.de!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: Jeffrey Goldberg Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system Subject: Re: Appeals Court Strengthens Warrantless Searches at Border Date: Sat, 09 Apr 2011 22:49:30 -0500 Lines: 48 Message-ID: <90cnmbFmrrU1@mid.individual.net> References: <8bSdnZuXvZiAPQLQnZ2dnUVZ_vidnZ2d@earthlink.com> <90a15gF5koU1@mid.individual.net> Reply-To: jeffrey+news@goldmark.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: individual.net P14LsTDPi2BmkhCTskUv/g2efoQsOyKsfNt5b6E4pVp8d7cQrY Cancel-Lock: sha1:In1cndjgyjhmGsGjjmehYEL14l4= User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.15) Gecko/20110303 Mnenhy/0.8.2 Thunderbird/3.1.9 In-Reply-To: Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.sys.mac.system:607 On 11-04-09 6:50 AM, Alan Browne wrote: > The warrantless search in this case would never have passed had the > search been done, for instance, by the police in Omaha. So the > constitution is not interpreted the same as it is "inside" the borders. The point I was making is that the searches are borders are justified/rationalized based on the government's right to regulate trade. So the searches at the border, in principle, should be limited to things that government by customs enforcement. So yes, borders are different, but it's not that the Constitution is treated differently in the different locations, it's that customs searches (as presumably authorized by the Constitution) can happen at boarders. The same excuse can't be used in Omaha. The problem is that things that have been criminalized domestically have also been added to the list of things that can't be imported. I simply don't know what the case law is here, but I would hope that someone who is caught at the boarder importing, say, marijuana, would only be charged with the federal crime of importing the stuff and not with crimes having to do with possessing it, as the search was only allowed because of import restrictions. >> Also there are very few cases where the Constitution would distinguish >> between US soil or foreign soil. It is possible to clear US customs and >> immigration in various Canadian airports. Presumably the US customs >> officials there have no more rights to search people entering the US >> there than in US airports. > > OTOH, if one is caught doing something illegal entering the US at a > Canadian airport, then that person is turned over to Canadian police and > is charged in Canada under Canadian law. Again, this isn't the US Constitution treating things differently in different places. This is an issue of Canadian law. Cheers, -j -- Jeffrey Goldberg http://goldmark.org/jeff/ I rarely read HTML or poorly quoting posts Reply-To address is valid