Sheldon Richman on America's Growing Borderlands
A man, an American citizen, sits in his car as a U.S. Border Patrol agent insists that he roll down his window. He refuses. Agents use battering rams to smash the windows. Still, the driver refuses to leave his car, so he is hit with a Taser from two sides. He screams. It would be bad enough if this scene, captured on video and shown recently on John Stossel's Fox News special "Policing America," had happened right at a U.S. border. But it happened far from the border. The U.S. government, writes Sheldon Richman, regards a large part of the country as close enough to a border or coast to justify treating individuals — citizens or not — as though they have no rights whatsoever