U.S. Homeland Security: Do They Have the Right to Abuse Their Power?

We all want to feel secure here in the United States. However, does it have to mean that the Homeland Security guards need to intimidate their own United States citizens? Well, they did and they did it to my daughter and her two friends while enjoying their spring break in Canada.

My daughter and a friend left Orlando Florida, on March 7th, to go visit one of their friends in Seattle, Washington. They were only going to stay a week. The last part of that week, they had planned to go cross the border and visit Vancouver, Canada for a day trip. Going into Canada was easy. Unfortunately, coming back into the United States was the problem.

The time they waited from the border to approach the United States Homeland Security guards, took them 1 ½ hours. The line was that long. There is about a 30 foot space between a car that is being interrogated to the next car in line.

As my daughter was approaching the United States border, she was excited to see the border. She thought it would be nice to have a picture of the sign "You are now entering the United States of America" for her scrapbook that she loves to create for all her trips. Little did she know that the insolence to come would leave a bad taste in her mouth about our Homeland Security guards.

While she was waiting for her car to be waved into the interrogation section, her one girlfriend was becoming very ill. Her weakness started early that morning; however it progressively was getting worse by the end of the day. Then, the Homeland Security guard waved her in.

He apparently noticed she had a video camera next to her on the car seat. He demanded to see what the last thing they videoed. However, they told him that the battery had died, so he couldn't see anything. He became agitated with them that they were not supposed to be taking pictures of the border and told them he might have confiscate their tape. She told him, "Those are my pictures of my whole trip." He ignored her.

No where around were there signs that she saw indicating that it was forbidden to take pictures around this area. He demanded to know why they were in Canada. He insinuated to them that there was more to their trip than just a pleasure trip to Canada. She was near tears trying to convince him he was wrong. She told them they were there visiting their friend in Seattle and all three wanted to take a day trip to Vancouver.

As he tried to watch the video, it kept turning off because the battery was low.

He asked her, "Where's your battery charger?" She told him it's back at her girlfriend's apartment in Seattle. He tagged their car with an orange ticket and made them go inside the office.

Once inside, they were interrogated again regarding the reason they there were in Canada. Another officer tried to watch the video again, however he still could not. He then asked them, "If I search your car, is there anything I should know about?" He then asked, "Is there anything you might regret me finding?" She told him to go ahead and check it out; that she had nothing to hide.

By this time, all three girls were extremely concerned. They never went through a border before. They didn't know what was going to happen or whether they were in trouble.

She told the guard that her one friend was not feeling well and felt like vomiting. The security guard just dismissed it. That's when she noticed there that the only sign around was a sign saying, "No Public Bathrooms".

After the guard finished searching their car, he handed the video back to them and he said, "ok, you can go, but next time, don't take pictures at the border".
She told him with a smile, "Next time have a sign posted, so that we know that we are not supposed to take pictures".

When my daughter told me this, I decided to see if there were any complaints on the Internet about incidents like this; just to see if there was a pattern of complaints. Sure enough I found something from Civil Liberties Group suing Homeland Security for the questioning and searches of U. S. travelers.

On February 8, 2008, The Electronic Foundation put out a press release regarding the growing complaints on harassments from Homeland Security guards around our borders. The important part of this complaint demonstrated that U.S. citizens were grilled with intimidation regarding their families, religious practices, volunteer activities, political beliefs or associations when returning to the United States from travels abroad. In addition, these custom agents examined travelers' books, laptop computer files, cell phone directories and sometimes made copies of this information. When individuals complained, they were told, "This is the border, and you have no rights." Click "here" if you wish to read more.

Fortunately, for my daughter, she just had her car searched and camera film almost confiscated. However, there was no excuse that they have to intimidate travelers to this extent. With the U. S. consumer market is slowing down and the dollar continuing to crash against foreign currencies, do we really want to put the fear of God in our travelers when crossing borders? Yes, I want to be protected against potential terrorism; however, there is no reason for United States citizens to be terrorized by our own customs officials. If anything, this type of conduct and attitude gives our border officials the false impression of being protective; when in fact they are taking their eye off the ball.