On “security”
Note: photos and observations of my Canadian adventure will come layer. For now, this.
Looking at the crush of cars filling six lanes and stretching as far south as I could see trying to cross the Canadian border, I initially marveled at my good fortune. Through some extraordinary stroke of luck, the three lanes allowing entrance to the U.S. were virtually deserted. I did not even need to wait to roll my car up to the gate.
The border guard manning that particular lane radiated officiousness before he spoke a word. He held his hand up to signal me to stop without actually looking at my car. In fact, he never met my eyes during our brief conversation.
After I drove up to him, he curtly instructed me to “stop the car.” Unsure as to his meaning (I had already come to a stop), I turned off the ignition. He held his hand out expectantly, which I took to mean he wanted my passport. I handed it to him, and he walked back to the guard station and started writing on a small yellow piece of paper.
“How long were you in Canada?”
“A few days.”
“Why were you there?”
“Camping. You know, a little vacation.”
He didn’t look up from his pad.
“Where are you from?”
“Coeur d’Alene.” I waited a minute after this, and when he said nothing, offered, “the car’s registered to me in Washington, because I just moved to Idaho.”
Earlier, heading the opposite way across the border, the man’s Canadian counterpart (who, it should be noted, looked me in the eye and treated me like a human being) had noticed this disparity and questioned me on it. I figured it prudent to proffer the same information.
The man walked back over to stick the yellow piece of paper and a small orange cone on the windshield of my car. “Drive down there,” he said, gesturing at a small covered area with half a dozen lanes, each long enough to hold two or three cars.
“Which lane?” I asked, starting my car.
He pointed again. “See where that car is coming out? Drive down there,” he said, frustration evident in his voice. I looked, but couldn’t see any cars moving. I realized later that cars pulled forward through the lane to exit via the opposite side of the structure. How I was supposed to see this through the other vehicles remains a mystery.
I drove on in the general direction he pointed, still unclear where to go. I don’t mind admitting my nervousness at this point. I couldn’t imagine what was going on. I slowed as I reached the area where I thought I was supposed to be. Another border patrol agent gestured that I should pull into one of the end lanes. They were grouped by twos, so still I was unclear what the hell I should be doing. “Which lane?” I called out.
I received no answer. Somewhat pissed off at this point, I pulled into the nearest lane. Yet another agent walked over and instructed me what to do next.
“This piece of paper,” he said, taking the yellow note off my windshield, “is your ticket to get your passport back. Give me your keys, and leave your cell phone and all electronic devices in the car.”
I thought this last request a bit strange, but didn’t feel I had much grounds to argue. I handed him my keys before a thought occurred to me. “Hey, can I get those back so I can roll up my window?”
The minute the words escaped my lips, I realized how stupid they were. The guy smiled indulgently. “Not too big a worry around here.”
“True enough,” I replied, grinning. This was the first time in the entire situation someone had showed the remotest trace of humanity.
“Criminals tend to try and stay away from this place,” he added (helpfully, I’m sure). I emptied out my pockets of everything but my wallet and placed them on the center console. Then, I got out of the car and followed the instructions to “go inside.”
When I walked into the room, there was a long queue with no one in it waiting to visit one of the stations. Against the back wall, perhaps 10 or so people sat in hard-backed church pews, the emotions on their faces ranging from annoyance to outright anger.
None of the people sitting were holding yellow slips, so I assumed I had to queue up. I did, and almost immediately one of the men behind the counter (I should note that every person I saw in uniform on the U.S. side was male, with one exception) waved me over. I gave him the basic information (why I was there, etc.). Then he proceeded to question me.
“Why did you decide to come to Canada?”
“I was camping in Western Washington and got bored. So I decided to go to Canada.”
“Do you have any food or anything?”
“Bagels. Some water.”
“Did you come into possession of anything while in Canada?”
“TimBits.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Why such a short visit?”
“Well, I had a shitty day in Vancouver and decided to pack up early and head back down.”
“So there’s nothing else in your car besides camping gear and bagels?”
“TimBits.”
“No illegal drugs or anything?”
“Nope.”
It went on like this for ten minutes. He tried to trip me up by asking me where I was staying and where I was headed, or asking me questions about Pullman (he asked where I had been living) and Spokane, though he clearly knew almost nothing about them. I understood what he was trying to accomplish, but anyone who skimmed Wikipedia could easily have passed muster with a fake background story.
He then told me he was going to search my car. I had no initial reaction to this; there had been about 15 or so uniformed agents milling around the carports outside, and a few of the contingents even had dogs with them. I assumed they were just going to let the K-9 units have a sniff and be done with.
I sat down on the pew and thought about all this.
“Well, they’ve certainly figured out how to discourage people from visiting Canada,” I mused out loud, mostly for the benefit of the teenager sitting next to me.
“I thought we were on the American side?” he responded. I decided it not worth the time to explain.
Instead, I eavesdropped on someone else at the counter, a man who “worked in technology” but couldn’t name a single corporation he had worked for. I later heard the agent asking him why he had given up his apartment if he was only going to be in Canada for a week.
To me, this sounded like a reason to be suspicious. These were quantifiable facts that sounded fishy, and he had absolutely no story to back it up.
But the two 19-year-olds who sat next to me did not seem as suspicious. They had come up to Canada to drink – they even admitted to the officer as much. Somehow, traveling to a foreign country and partaking in a legal activity justified their being questioned and their car being searched.
After 20 minutes or so, the agent came back and completed the process. I walked out to my car, took my keys off the windshield wiper and sat behind the wheel. Upon looking around at my front seat, my first thought was that the original guy had been wrong - there was indeed a thief afoot.
I dug through my messenger bag on the front seat, noting with relief all my various gadgets were there. But they were not as I had left them - my iPad had been taken out of its case and roughly shoved back in the bag. Various other gizmos (my cell phone, iPod, etc.) were strewn on the floor.
When I swiveled around to check my back seat, I realized with a start that both my duffel bags were opened. They had rifled through absolutely everything in my car.
It is at this point I started to get angry. As I drove south, all I could think about was why they had stopped me. It was clear that from the moment I pulled up I was going to be given this extra attention. The agent who stopped me was already writing the yellow slip as he asked the first question. What had I done to deserve this? Aside, of course, from crossing the border during a light period when a lot of agents were on duty (I still think this is the mostly likely reason).
The Fourth Amendment states, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”.
These were the words running through my head as I sat in the waiting pews while the agent searched my car. On the wall, I saw a number of signs spelling out certain laws the CBP (Canadian Border Patrol, I imagine – the initials were stenciled in yellow on their hats) thought might be relevant to the situation. There was one detailing the consequences of assaulting a border patrol agent, and another listing the things you weren’t allowed to bring back into the country. The third one, closest to where I was siting, cited the laws that allowed them to search my car.
I do not know which laws authorized this, nor what they said. I couldn’t make out the small print from where I sat, and didn’t especially feel like being chastised for trying to find out. I didn’t think they would shoot or Tase me, mind you. But I saw the way we were treated. One woman asked if she could use the pay phone. Sighing, one of the men behind the counter called her before him and demanded a reason. She explained about a dinner date she was likely to be late for. The agent reassured her if it were more than half a hour longer, she would be allowed to make the call.
Unable to use the phone without permission, and that granted sparingly? Somehow, I figured they’d be less than understanding about my wanting to read a sign.
As a human being, I have the inalienable right to be treated as such by all people, government worker or no. As an American citizen, I have the right not to be subject to a search merely because I crossed the border. Perhaps they thought it suspicious a person crossed the border on his own. Perhaps the state I reside in (Idaho) not matching up with where my car was registered (Washington) gave them pause.
But these are reasons to ask questions, not to perform a search. They are simply and logically answered. I have to right to be secure in my person and property against unwarranted inspection by the government. No law can strip me of this, despite what any branch of government dreams its power allows.
I get, now, the source of the anger some people feel toward the government. I do not fly anymore; the combination of the hassle of going through security coupled with exceptionally tiny leg room put me off that some time ago. I always presumed I could drive, ride a train or catch a bus anywhere I wanted to go. But I will not subject myself to a situation where I can be stripped of my rights; this, in essence, makes me a prisoner of my own country. It’s not so much the practical aspect of this confinement (I don’t really plan on making too many Canada or Mexico trips), but rather the idea behind it that stirs my ire.
I refuse to trot out the trite quote from Franklin about liberty and security. I will simply say this: You cannot protect freedom by abrogating it. The notion is antithetical on its face. There is no freedom that’s being defended by the government searching cars at the border that could possibly outweigh the freedom being denied. American citizens do not check their rights at the border anymore than they forfeit their citizenship when crossing in the opposite direction.
As an afterthought, I should mention that I don’t think they suspected me of being a terrorist – they were searching for drugs. The line of questioning pretty much confirmed this. I thought about this when I discovered, after I left the border facility, that I had forgotten to remove an electronic voice recorder from my pocket when I went inside.
I do not have any secret tapes of the exchange or anything like that. I actually did forget about the recorder. But it does underline the absurdity of the whole experience. I carried in illicit cargo (directly defying their instructions, albeit unawares) without their knowledge. Anything in my pockets or strapped to my person would have gone undetected. Additionally, several excellent hiding places in my car - under the backseat, which lifts right up - and in my subwoofer, to name a few) went unsearched as well.
I mention these things not because I believe my car should have been inspected more thoroughly or that I should have been given a pat-down, but to point out the theatrics of the whole operation. Not only was I made to feel like a criminal, detained by my own government with no provocation other than my continued existence, but the system as a whole provides only the cursory illusion of safety.
