August 2007 selected enforcement photos from Southern Arizona's State Route 86, the Gauntlet, are now available.

Unlike last month, August showed a marked increase in Border Patrol profiling activity along Southern Arizona's State Route 86. In fact, these so-called Border Protection agents could be seen using cameras to spy on unsuspecting occupants of vehicles along this state highway over forty miles North of the border: 

 

 

If anyone responds 'suspiciously', the tailgate profiler signals a patrol vehicle further down the road to pull the vehicle over and interrogate the occupants.

The Border Patrol calls this enforcement technique 'behavioral profiling' which isn't much different from racial profiling in practice. In addition to noting the physical characteristics of vehicle occupants, Homeland Security profilers make other subjective determinations as well. Some of these include whether or not individuals make too much or too little eye contact with them or otherwise look 'suspicious' in their response to federal profilers stationed along the side of the road.

 

 

This particular unmarked Customs & Border Protection vehicle tailgated me for about ten miles or so before passing as we got closer to town.

I guess this is what passes for Border Security these days by the Department of Fatherland Security. Suspicionless profiling of Americans in the interior of the country along State highways that never come close to the border.

Do you feel more secure yet?