Reading this story about a guy who found a federal govt spycam on his land (then removed it, kept it and when they demand it back refused and sued them for being dicks), I found a mention of something called the "Border Exception" to the 4th Amendment. That's a loophole that Customs and Border Protection agency claims is real and which they claim lets them essentially ignore the 4th amendment if they're within 100 miles of the US border. That 100 mile strip would include 2/3s of all Americans - 80% if you consider international airports to be "borders". And, despite being slapped back several times by the court, the CPB hasn't stopped. They're still illegally stopping, searching and seizing and claiming that they're allowed to.
ok-cleek
Man I had a dreadful flight
There are heroes who show us exactly how to deal with the checkpoints:
google
border checkpoint refusal
Yes. When I go to my friend’s ranch in West Texas, which is on the border, the CBP are set up along the roadways in a few places – some “permanent checkpoints” some just a single agent in a jeep, or what I think they call “temporary checkpoints.” They’ve got drones, cameras, inflated surveillance blimps…. pretty extensive presence for how remote it is out there.
I’ve been pursued and pulled over, but you do have to go through the checkpoints on most of the major roads out there anyway, so even if you’re not trying to interact with them, they interact with you.
But they don’t technically have a pass on the 4th amendment. They can ask all sorts of vague questions, but cannot search you at these checkpoints and cannot detain you IF you are an American citizen (something you do not have to prove to them, as they don’t have the right to verify your answer). Those videos mentioned above are highly effective teaching tools for interacting with agents who make you feel like you are being detained. They have an incredibly weak legal precedent to be interacting with you at all, but they exploit it to its fullest extent.