Paper police
The New York Times recently published an article about United States ?Border Patrol sweeps on trains and buses traveling near, but not crossing, the U.S.-Canada border ("Border Sweeps in North Reach Miles ?Into U.S." Aug. 29, 2010). Agents board trains, question people ?about their citizenship status and detain those who do not produce ?documents that satisfy them. Those without the bureaucratically correct papers can be placed in administrative detention, strip searched, sent to county jail, transferred to unmarked detention facilities around the country without notice to their families, and eventually see a judge weeks later.
In theory, passengers can decline to answer questions, but it is not ?clear how much agents will let the rules get in the way of exercising ?power.
The "papers, please" checkpoint image is frequently invoked to convey ?the idea of a police state or totalitarian regime. It's a visible ?reminder of how far government will go to keep things under control, ?and that government considers all the people within its grasp to be ?its things.
Social control is, of course, big business. Not only is there an entire ?offshoot of the military-industrial complex based on domestic control, but the individuals who administer government programs certainly profit when they expand their own power. The Rochester Border Patrol ?unit has grown tremendously as a result of its papers-please arrests ?on trains and buses.
There is a cost that cuts deeper than tax dollars. The costs to freedom affect everybody. Freedom of action is limited when freedom of association is usurped. Precedents are set for law enforcement and the power they come to assume over the rest of us. When targeted individuals are pressured out of the above-ground economy and avoid ?mass transit by pooling transportation resources, the state will counter by demanding new powers to monitor more areas of life.
The long-term solution requires raising the demand for freedom and the ?capability to meet that demand. The extent to which liberty is valued is the extent to which society operates for the benefit of all ?individuals who don't value power above all else.
Darian Worden
Center for Stateless Society
