Push Back Against Border Checkpoints Located 100s of Miles from Borders!

Let us now praise Terry Bressi of the University of Arizona, who is publicizing the existence of in-country border checkpoints that are hundreds of miles from the nation's edges. Bressi films his encounters - more than 300! - and posts the vids at his YouTube channel.

Watch the vid above but expect to get pissed at the enormous waste of time, resources, and American idealism. Did any of our parents or grandparents or great-grandparents or whoever really come to the United States for this?

This video, by Tracy Oppenheimer, originally went live on November 18. Here's the original writeup:

"This is not increasing our security, in fact, it's making us less secure. It's just feeding an empire building, it's feeding agency budgets, and job security for various law enforcement agencies," says the University of Arizona's Terry Bressi of in-country immigration checkpoints.

Bressi sat down with ReasonTV's Tracy Oppenheimer to discuss these checkpoints and their implications for civil liberties. Bressi estimates that he has been stopped by border patrol between 300-350 times. After his first encounter, he started carrying cameras and audio recording equipment, and has since been videotaping his checkpoint interactions. He says this holds officers accountable for their actions, and he hopes that by posting these videos online, citizens will become more aware of their rights.

"A federal agent who is standing in the middle of a public highway, wearing a public uniform, collecting a public paycheck while seizing the public absent reasonable suspicion has no expectation of privacy," says Bressi in regards to filming border patrol agents. "This is something that I like to remind folks of, that the government thinks that we don't have any right to privacy whatsoever, but that's a double-edged sword."

For more of Bressi's checkpoint videos, visit his YouTube channel.

About 7 minutes.

Produced by Tracy Oppenheimer, shot by Zach Weissmueller.

For more info, links, and downloadable versions, go here.