Mark Steyn worries about the craven and compliant likes
of Charles Vonderheid...
* * *
* * *
[T]he deformation of law necessary to accommodate the
armies of the "undocumented" is having a broader corrupting effect on
the federal bureaucracy.
For example, can you think of anything more risible than
working for something called "U.S. Customs & Border Protection?"
There is no "border" to "protect."
On the Rio Grande, President Obama, the Coyote-in-Chief,
has simply erased said border.
So one sympathizes with the psychological burdens of
being an employee of "Customs & Border Protection."
Perhaps that explains why, as they abandon "border
protection" on the southern frontier, they seem to be compensating by
obstructing and terrorizing law-abiding persons on the northern frontier.
The latest glimpse of America's
security-where-you-need-it-least security-state comes courtesy of Iowa Boy
Scout Troop 111, who were on a road trip from Iowa to Alaska.
As you might have deduced, to drive from Iowa to Alaska
involves passing through Canada, so on the last leg of the journey the scouts
were approaching a U.S. immigration post on the Yukon/Alaska border. These
days, the kids all have cellphones and on an exciting adventure holiday they
take snaps of everything. And so, returning to America via one of its remotest
frontier posts, one boy took a photograph:
* AND THIS IS WHERE THE SHIT HIT THE FAN...
Scout leader Jim Fox said one of the Scouts took a
picture of a border official, which spurred agents to detain everyone in that
van and search them and their belongings.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
Fox was told it is a federal offense to take a picture of
a federal agent. "The agent immediately confiscated his camera, informed
him he would be arrested, fined possibly $10,000 and 10 years in prison,"
Fox said.
Not wanting things to escalate, Fox said he did not
complain.
* AMERICAN CITIZEN FOX DID NOT COMPLAIN...
(*SIGH*)
* THE PUSSYFACATION OF AMERIKAN CULTURE...
For a start, if Mr. Fox's account is correct, nothing
that Agent Bozo threatened is actually true.
"Federal agents" routinely tell people they're
not allowed to take photographs, but there seems to be no - oh, what's the word
- laws that actually support this, and courts have consistently ruled that
government employees have no expectation of privacy when conducting public
business in public.
(There is a federal "regulation" governing
photography on federal property for "news, advertising or commercial
purposes" but that doesn't cover a boy scout in a van taking vacation
souvenirs.)
Is there a $10,000 fine and ten years in prison for
taking a holiday snap? No. (Even for taking photographs of "certain vital
military and naval installations", the guilty party shall be "imprisoned
not more than one year.")
So this agent is either extremely ill-informed, or simply
bullying a kid because he knows he can. Nevertheless, because one boy took a
photo, the CBP thugs detained the scouts for four hours and went through
everything.
* SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... IS THIS NEW "AMERIKA"
TRULY THE AMERICA YOU WANT...???
This is the evil of a dying republic - waving through
gangbangers at the southern border, but at the northern border detaining boy
scouts for four hours. No novelist or movie director would attempt that
contrast - it's too pat, too neat. But somehow it has become American reality
in the 21st century.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
Just to be clear: that boy scout did nothing wrong.
* NOTHING. NADA. ZIP.
When the CBP officer demanded he hand over the camera, Mr.
Fox should have refused and asked to see the agent's supervisor.
* YEP...
But it gets better! Another of the Scouts was taking
luggage from the top of a van to be searched when something startling happened.
"He hears a snap of a holster, turns around, and here's this agent, both
hands on a loaded pistol, pointing at the young man's head," Fox
explained.
Fox said that had them all in fear. Ultimately no one was
hurt or arrested, and after about four hours they were allowed to continue
their trip into Alaska.
"No one was hurt or arrested..." Two and a
third centuries after a great revolution for the right to live in liberty,
law-abiding Americans are apparently now grateful not to be shot or
incarcerated after interactions with their government.
(If you're wondering what the short-trousered
national-security threat did wrong, he apparently reached for his suitcase
"without authorization.")
Also of note is the reaction of the folks back home:
Charles Vonderheid with the Mid-Iowa Council Boy Scouts
of America said Troop 11 learned a valuable lesson. "We want to make sure
they follow the rules. A Scout is a good citizen. It would be a great lesson in
civics for that young man and that troop," he said.
* GEEZUS...
* HEIL OBAMA! HEIL AMERIKA!
Yeah, 'cause nothing says "civics" like having
a minor bureaucratic functionary pointing a gun at your head.
(Mr. Vonderheid has been backpedaling furiously since his
original response. He's now revised his position: He told me that he made the
comment after getting blindsided by reporters before learning any details about
the encounter. He assured me, though, that he and the Boy Scouts are concerned
about scouts' safety and support them.)
(*ROLLING MY EYES*)
For its part, CBP is denying the boy scouts' version of
events, but has passed their video of the incident (because, whether or not
you're allowed to photograph CBP, CBP is allowed to photograph you) along to
"internal affairs" for review.
Todd Starnes of Fox News concludes: "So, what we
have here is an old-fashioned case of he said, he said – or to be more accurate
– the Boy Scouts said, the feds said." In cases like this, the quickest
way to determine who is being truthful is to look at the video.
So I emailed U.S. Customs and Border Protection and officially
requested a copy of the video.
My request was denied.
(*SILENCE*)
I'm not so sure it's fair to call it "he said, he
said". None of the three other volunteers have disputed Mr. Fox's version
of events, and everyone seems to agree that the boy scouts were there for over
four hours - and for a "crime" a CBP agent pulled out of his butt.
And that's why I describe what is alleged to have
happened as "evil." There are still people like Mr. Vonderheid, who
think that if they're putting you through the wringer for four hours that just
goes to show how seriously they take this "national security" stuff.
But in fact the opposite is true.
Every four hours that the incompetent Homeland Security
bureaucracy is spending on Iowa boy scouts is four hours they're not spending
on someone who merits the scrutiny. And considering that the most lavishly
funded government on the planet has let in everyone from Mohammed Atta and
Tamerlan Tsarnaev to the man who attacked and raped a 93-year old Omaha woman
unto death, a serious people who were truly the "good citizens" Mr.
Vonderheid wants would demand that these bullying twerps learn to prioritize.
I worry about the craven and compliant likes of Mr. Vonderheid.
American life is bifurcating into the undocumented and the over-documented. On
the southern border, the bazillions of U.S. laws are meaningless - proof of
identity, medical tests, none of it matters. And the less it matters on the Rio
Grande the more the zealots on the 49th Parallel will take apart your car if
they think you've got a Kinder egg in there.
Anyone who thinks that attitude can be confined to the
border and not work its way deep into the rest of American life is deluded.
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