Clearly Established - Filming to Establish Truth of Events

"4.3(C) - Federal Court Decisions: DHS is often involved in litigation that affects its operations. Although not as common, judicial decisions not directly involving CBP can also affect operations. You need to understand these decisions and the authority of the Federal courts in order to know if they affect your duties."

- Customs & Border Protection, Inspector's Field Manual (2008)  

The video above is a very good look at the power of recording technology to protect oneself against public servants who are unconcerned with truth.  It also touches on the law concerning suspicionless Border Patrol checkpoints, like the one outside Laughlin AFB, and presents clearly established law which has been distilled into Border Patrol manual procedure, on what is appropriate during these seizures.

It should be noted that the oral argument before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals was edited in the making of this video, and therefore it is not a contextually accurate account.  Liberties were taken to highlight a particular viewpoint.  For the actual audio transcript of the oral argument, please see my previous blog post.

If you find yourself thinking this video is too long, consider that it's still shorter than the suspicionless checkpoint encounter I faced.  Imagine if every time you try to drive to work, this could happen to you, and your cooperation wouldn't be enough to make it stop.

"We have already noted that the permissible duration of the stop is limited to the time reasonably necessary to complete a brief investigation of the matter within the scope of the stop.  The scope of an immigration stop is limited to...determining the citizenship status of persons passing through the checkpoint."

- Machuca-Barerra, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, 2001

"In United States v. Machuca-Barerra, we addressed those limitations in detail and noted that 'The scope of an immigration stop is limited to...determining the citizenship status of persons passing through the checkpoint...'  It bears repeating that the permissible duration of an immigration stop is the time reasonably necessary to determine the citizenship status of the persons stopped."

- Portillo-Aquirre, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, 2002