IPFS
Border Patrol Agents with Personal Agendas....
Written by Terry Bressi Subject: Homeland SecurityOne of the advantages of video recording your compelled encounters with Border Patrol agents at internal suspicionless checkpoints no where near the border they're supposed to be patrolling is the history the videos reveal & the searchable database they create.
Take for instance the image of Border Patrol Agent J. Grayson appearing above. An image captured on March 6, 2010 while I was being seized absent individualized suspicion by his cohorts in crime, Agent's Taylor & Best. During this suspicionless seizure, in which Agent Taylor attempted to compel me to go to secondary for failing to roll down my window on demand, I was branded a "troublemaker" by Agent Best for daring to exercise the very rights these agents have a duty to acknowledge and protect (see video below).
At the time of this encounter over three years ago, I didn't give Agent Grayson much attention since most of it was on Agent Taylor who was attempting to extend the initial seizure absent my consent or probable cause and Agent Best who was making his contempt for the rights enumerated within the Bill of Rights clear. Indeed, given the fact that Agent Grayson did nothing in the video below to aggravate or escalate the adversarial situation created by his supervisor and co-worker, I gave him relatively high marks in comparison to the other two.
Since that time however, I've had several additional (compelled) interactions with Agent Grayson at this same checkpoint. Unfortunately, none of the subsequent encounters have illuminated him in a light more flattering then that shared by many of his predecessors. Indeed, an encounter from March 29, 2013 revealed that Agent Grayson is quite willing to openly use his position of authority to pursue personal agendas under color of law against individuals he seizes knowing full well he's being video recorded while doing so.
Thanks to Agent Grayson's recent actions however, he's not only given me a lot to talk about over the next several months, he's given me several diverse forums in which to do so. Much of this will be reminiscent of an encounter I had at this checkpoint back in December of 2008 but involves the Pima County Sheriff's Dept. instead of the Tohono O'odham Police Dept. The traffic citation that has resulted from this most recent encounter has even less of a legal foundation than the one from 2008 and should suffer a similar fate. There will also be the added bonus of demonstrating a much stronger formal arrangement between the Border Patrol and local law enforcement for the purposes of providing this checkpoint with a general law enforcement function then I've been able to show in the past.
In the meantime, feel free to watch the video below which includes Agent Grayson in one of the earlier encounters I've identified him in. Given the example that's been set by many of his predecessors at this checkpoint, including field supervisors who should definitely know better, his most recent actions ultimately come as no surprise. They do however provide me with a renewed opportunity to shed additional light on what's wrong with empowering government agents to arbitrarily stop, seize, detain, interrogate and seek to search people inside the country absent suspicion:
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1 Comments in Response to Border Patrol Agents with Personal Agendas....
What is terrorism? Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, describes terrorism: "Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, often violent, especially as a means of coercion." See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism.
The Maine Information and Analysis Center, at http://www.maine.gov/miac/miac_citizen_terrorism.shtml, describes terrorism this way: "There are a variety of definitions for terrorism. In general, it is considered to be the unlawful use, or threatened use, of force or violence against persons, societies, cultures or governments in order to create a desired change. The change sought may be political, religious or social in nature."
Al Jazeera, at http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/04/20134179548891867.html, describes terrorism this way: "The most obvious definition is that terrorism is a crime meant to terrorise." Al Jazeera goes on to explain: "The FBI admits there is no 'standard, accepted definition of terrorism', but this is what constitutes terrorism for the FBI because US law defines terrorism as, 'the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives' (28 CFR Section 0.85)."
The online dictionary at, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/terrorism, defines terrorism this way:
You get the picture, right? Search the word "terrorism" at https://startpage.com/. Google terrorism. Try Bing at http://www.bing.com/. The definition results are very similar across multiple websites.
Terrorism:
Have you ever simply been living your life, harming nobody, living peaceably, pursuing your own happiness in your own way, when suddenly law enforcement - the police or SWAT - descended on you out of the blue, and violently interfered with your life? Did they always obey the law and follow due process, considering you weren't doing anything harmful or violent?
Have you ever been stopped at a suspicionless checkpoint while driving, and been intimidated into unlawfully turning over your private information to the so-called authorities making the stop?
Doesn't it seem like Government and law enforcement people are constantly operating outside of their authority while using "anti-terrorism" as the excuse for doing so? At what point do Government and law-enforcement, by using violent, unlawful activity and practices, for political reasons, become the terrorists that they claim they are trying to protect us from?
Consider President Obama. Seems to me that he stated long ago that he was Christian. Google: "Is Obama Christian?"
As our friend, T.L. Winslow, has regularly commented in the Freedom's Phoenix forum, Muslim people are required to conquer non-Muslim people through any methods possible... even lies and deceit. Might President Obama really be an Islamic Fundamentalist masquerading as a Christian? Religious terrorism perpetrated on Americans by Obama?
Isn't it time that we and our attorneys start learning the anti-terrorism laws, and start applying them against Government officials who are causing terrorism in America by breaking their Oaths of Office, and not obeying the Constitution? Yes, it's way past time to start turning the tables on United States Government terrorism, using their own anti-terrorism laws against them.