ACLU Sues Over Laptop Searches At The Border

[Hamish Campbell]

So everyone should have the right tell some guy to go out and *$#@ boys?

Should I have a right to yell "fire" in a crowded movie theater?

If it sticks the general public at risk for harm, then NO YOU DO NOT. There are limits to free speech.

You're really reaching, not to mention distorting what that case was about. Have you even read up on the ACLU's position?

 

[Hamish Campbell]

I wonder if burning a bible or an American flag is completely despicable too.

Of course it is, did you even need to ask that?

 

[keenan]

The US claims you are not on US property at a border check, then you have no rights to privacy granted to you under the constitution.

Legally, yeah, they might get away with this one. Though it's quite possible it's contrary to international law.

But morally I find it ridiculous that there's a double-standard here the government doesn't have a problem with. The constituion sets up rights that the country is founded on, and the fact that they apply equally to everyone. Then they go and say "oh well these rights aren't really things we believe in, they're privileges granted to citizens within our borders". Obviously the US can't exercise its soverignty outside the country and exert its constitution on other countries, but it can certainly base its foreign policy and the actions of its agents on it. Doing anything else is just being a hypocritical asshole, especially when US foreign policy of late has a strong "push our brand of democracy" slant to it.

 

[Decibel]

It still appalls me that agents of our government, sworn to protect and defend The Constitution, are not all following and working within the bounds of The Bill of Rights.

Whiskey, tango, foxtrot?

All agents of the US, where ever they go, should be bound in all of their actions by The Constitution.

That is why, even though I feel the ACLU is a bunch of myopic leftists, I support them in nearly everything they do. We just disagree on a couple of the civil rights which need defending.

 

[Sycraft]

Ya this shit needs to stop. Searches at the border are well established. However what the court said you could do was search the stuff people had with them, as in look through their bags and so on. They didn't say you could take it and keep it forever. Also there is a difference between looking through someone's bags for illegal goods, and reading through their journal, which is what looking at all their documents on a computer is akin to.

This shit needs to get struck down. An exception for reasonable border searches doesn't mean the right to do whatever the hell you want.

 

[TheWeazmeister]

Every intelligent American defends his basic right to do it, but we do so knowing that his actions are completely despicable, and strongly appose what he is doing.

It's as American as burning the flag. Something that is despicable BUT completely legal under our constitution. As much as I hate the idea of burning of a flag that millions of Americans have died for us to be able to run up a pole, it is the freedoms behind that flag that means so much more. I do like that you put every intelligent American, as I do find that a lot of the gen pub is not of this mindset unfortunately.