In Trump’s America, no one is safe from government harassment and abuse. As we have seen, anyone can be picked up while walking along the street by masked people, bundled into unmarked vehicles, and ‘disappeared’, just like what happens in the worst kinds of despotic regimes. The abducted person may end up in a distant detention center and kept in awful conditions or even deported to countries like El Salvador that are notorious for their terrible prisons. You can see a list of recent such cases here.
So it is a good idea for everyone to know what rights they have and what they should do if ever they ever find themselves being taken in and questioned by the police or agents of the government for anything at all, however minor it may seem, like a traffic stop. This one-minute long video by longtime civil rights attorneys Bill Goodman and Denise Heberle, who look like a pair of genteel grandparents, succinctly tells you exactly what you should do in such situations.
If you want an elaboration of why you should follow that excellent advice (and how and why so many people get into trouble because they fail to do so), see this video by law professor James Duane that went viral in 2008.
These videos have become popular in the aftermath of the questioning of Hasan Piker, a person with a large social media following, at Chicago airport when he returned from a trip to France. He was taken aside by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and questioned but Piker did not shut up and argued with the people questioning him. He was released after a couple of hours and then spoke about it on his social media platform.
Piker, recounting the incident on his Twitch live stream on Monday, said he was led to a private room at Chicago O’Hare airport and interviewed for nearly two hours about his political views.
“The goal here is to put fear into people’s hearts, to have a chilling effect on speech that, like, the government is unafraid of intimidating you,” Piker said. “Does this stop me from saying whatever the fuck I want to say? Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. But the reason why I wanted to talk about it was to give you more insight into what the government is doing, and to speak out against this sort of stuff.”
The leftwing streamer has built a mass following on YouTube and Twitch around his blend of political, cultural and social commentary. Piker, born in New Jersey, was carrying a US passport when he re-entered the US on Sunday, after a trip to France with his family to celebrate Mother’s Day.
“I think they did it because they know who the fuck I am, and they wanted to put the fear of God into me,” Piker said.
Piker repeatedly described the exchange as “cordial” but said he was transparent with the officer interviewing him that he planned to speak out about his experience, which the streamer said felt anything but random and “routine”.
Assuming the officer was familiar with his online commentary, Piker said he was candid about his views, telling the agent he was “not fond” of the US president.
He said the officer was particularly focused on his criticism of Israel’s prosecution of the Gaza war, asking him: “Do you like Hamas? Like, do you support Hamas? Do you think Hamas is a resistance group?”
…Piker said neither his phone nor laptop were searched. He said the interview ended shortly after he asked whether he was being detained or if he was free to go. The officer told him he had not been detained, but Piker described it as a de facto detention.
There has been a backlash to Piker’s behavior even from people who are on his side politically, that it can give people the wrong idea that verbally jousting with CBP, ICE, or any other agents of the government is a good thing.
When Hasan Piker was stopped and questioned about his political views by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents at Chicago’s O’Hare airport last Sunday, the popular leftwing streamer thought he knew exactly what their motive was. “Obviously the reason for why they’re doing that is, I think, to try to create an environment of fear,” he told his legion of fans on a Twitch stream in which he described his ordeal. “To try to get people like myself … to shut the fuck up.”
But the decision by Piker – a 33-year-old US citizen – to entertain the agents’ questions for nearly two hours has some of the self-described socialist’s fans and allies questioning why he didn’t do just that.
…The backlash continued as word of Piker’s detention garnered international headlines. (CBP confirmed Piker was stopped for inspection but denied that he was targeted for his political beliefs.) The veteran tech blogger Mike Masnick criticized Piker for giving his fans “a masterclass in what not to do when detained by CBP” on TechDirt, writing: “While CBP’s behavior was egregious, Piker’s response was potentially even more dangerous … With his massive platform, he’s teaching millions of followers exactly the wrong lesson about dealing with law enforcement – that if you’re clever enough, privileged enough, or ‘experienced’ enough at handling conflict, you can somehow talk your way through it. This is exactly the kind of thinking that leads people to waive their rights and incriminate themselves.”
…Piker checks many of the boxes for apparent targets of Trump administration repression: he is young, leftwing, outspokenly critical of US policy on Israel and the Middle East, and of Turkish descent. He is also hugely influential among young people and fiercely anti-Trump. But crucially, he’s a native-born US citizen, which means he enjoys all of the constitutional rights generally covered in “know your rights” hearings.
Piker was not unaware of this kind of advice, which has been standard “security culture” practice among leftwing activists for decades. He responded to criticism in the chat as it poured in, exclaiming, “Dude, what are you talking about? I know that under normal circumstances I’m supposed to say I want a lawyer … But this is – nothing I’m doing is illegal and I also wanted to see what would happen … Instead of immediately lawyering up I was like, ‘No I’m going to entertain this. I’m going to see what they actually are trying to get out of this.’”
This is the trap that people who are knowledgeable about the law and are articulate can fall into. You imagine yourself engaging in a verbal duel with government agents and besting them or at least later exposing the way they operate. But the fact is that all the cards are on their side and they do not need to ‘win’ the debate on the facts or the law to put you in deep trouble.
For US citizens accustomed to the protections of the first, fourth and fifth amendments, the border can present an unexpected legal gauntlet. (The situation is even more fraught for visa and green card holders.) Constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures do not apply in full at the border, explained Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology project, because the supreme court has ruled that the government has an overriding interest in preventing certain people and objects from entering the country. This is why the government can search your baggage without a warrant or individualized suspicion when you re-enter the country, something that would be forbidden elsewhere in the country.
CBP has the authority to verify your citizenship and ask basic questions about your travel and the items you are bringing into the country, Freed Wessler said. Further questions – especially about first amendment protected areas such as political and religious beliefs or associations – are not appropriate and do not need to be answered. CBP can also perform a “manual” search of your devices, though they cannot compel you to provide a passcode, which is why Piker was correct to advise people to turn off biometric access to devices before travel.
…But Ría Thompson-Washington, the president of the National Lawyers Guild and an attorney who regularly leads “know your rights” trainings for activists around the country, said that it was a common misstep for people who know their rights to fail to exercise them. “Everybody thinks that knowing your rights is about being able to argue with the police about what your rights are,” they said in an interview. “When you’re in police custody, the things that you say that you think are proving you right – the things that you say that you think are disproving whatever narrative the police have told you that they’re running with – it’s just used against you later.”
Asserting one’s right to stay silent during an encounter with government agents is intimidating, and Thompson-Washington says that they recommend people rely on a few choice phrases to guide their interactions, such as asking, “Am I being detained?” upon being approached by a police officer. If the answer is yes, they say, ask for a lawyer and then remain silent. If the answer is no, walk away and remain silent.
“When you ask that question, it lets the police officer know that you’re aware that you don’t have to say anything,” they said. “You’re signaling to the officer that you’ve at least had training.” And indeed, Piker said that he was finally allowed to leave shortly after he asked whether he was being detained – after about two hours of questioning. “I probably should have asked, ‘Am I being detained?’ from the start,” he said on the stream.
So to repeat because this is so important: If you are ever questioned by the police or any government agent about anything at all: Just shut up. The only thing you should say is ask whether you are being detained. If they say no, leave. If they say yes, assert your Fifth Amendment rights to not speak and ask for a lawyer. Do not worry that this might make you look guilty to the questioner even if you are innocent because their opinion is irrelevant. What you should be most concerned about is what a jury will be told and you can be certain that if you talk, whatever you say can and will be used against you in ways that you never even imagined could be done. The law professor Duane (in the second video above) says it never happens that the agents are so impressed by your arguments and your fluency that they they change their minds about you and let you go. They like it when you talk a lot because eventually you will always, always, say something that they can use against you in court.
So shut up.
Best advice for crossing the US border is , just do it once. Or ideally, never. Dealing with these intrusive thugs is voluntary. Don’t volunteer.
I want everyone to watch how language works with bits like “or even deported to countries like El Salvador”. You cannot be deported anywhere other than your home country. People are being renditioned to El Salvador, not deported. I wish the media would highlight this use of the wrong term by the government. Being deported doesn’t sound so bad. Being renditioned to an alternative place, especially a prison in a foreign country, is so much worse. The Trump administration is either ignorant of the terms or choosing to hide what they are really doing.
Constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures do not apply in full at the border…
Last I (NAL) heard, “the border” now reaches 50 miles inland, including from all coastal areas (e.g., all of Florida, Rhode Island, Delaware, Maryland, and Hawai’i). That may be (or maybe already has been) extended due to the “invasion” from Venezuela allegedly underway 24/365.
“Cant be deported to anywhere but your home country…” “People are being renditioned to El Salvador, not deported.” I highly doubt that the people who have been deported or renditioned to a place like El Salvador give a flying piss about which word sounds worse. Its not the word that is bad, its the action. Id be willing to bet they dont care in the slightest about the pedantics of the situation they find themselves in.
Pierce @#3,
It is worse than that. According to the ACLU, the federal government claims that the border region extends 100 miles inland from the actual boundaries of the country and thus covers 2/3 of the entire US population.
Kay @#2,
I believe that the word ‘deport’ refers to just expulsion from a country and does not depend on the destination.
@5, Mano: It is worse than that, too, as the radius is also applied to all “international” airports.
Also, don’t invite cops in.
I don’t know about the US but here cops have no right to enter private premises unless they’re invited or have a court order.
So the first thing they’ll say after knocking on your door is, “We’re just making some enquiries in the area, mind if we talk inside?”, or something like that.
If you say come in they can go ahead and ransack the place if they feel like it.
Always deny permission to enter.
@ ^
They can also confiscate any property in your home, and just claim it was seized as part of an investigation. Just walk off with your laptop or whatever.
You get the drift -- insist they stay outside.
It bears repeating if you live in California that a huge part of where you live “is the border”. It is one hundred miles and it also includes large spaces you might think of as inland. The San Francisco Bay goes all the way to (port of) Sacramento!
It seems disingenous to me to say ‘deport’ successfully describes what is happening. This is like some of you atheists, not *necessarily present* here in this blog, who are using a dictionary definition of the word ‘atheist’. Rendition is more correct and more fully describes what is happening.
Whether or not you are that kind of thinker, all y’all are smart cookies, and words matter… *here*. Don’t take this to heart if you encounter someone who might rendition you. Stay the fuck silent.
@5, Mano
As 7, mikey says, the border zone includes a 100 mile radius around any international entry point, including airports. Here is a map of international airports in the USA (although I cannot vouch for its accuracy, I found several in agreement):
https://i0.wp.com/mapofusprintable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/us-international-airports-map-united-states-international-airports-map.jpg
Now draw a 100 mile radius around each airport and you’ll see that the only places in the USA that are considered “beyond the border” are those that are extremely remote with minimal population. Without calculating, I’d venture to guess this covers 90% to 95% of the population. After all, most of the major population centers in the interior have an international airport (e.g., Denver). Practically speaking, the “border” officers can go pretty much anywhere.
My take is that this is all spill-over from GWBush & Co. “homeland security” venture (and if someone can come up with a more Orwellian name for it, I’d like to hear it). Ultimately, one can argue that Bin Laden won, in that he managed to help destroy the security of the nation due to the paranoid overreaction. Once again, the Current Guy is shown to be a symptom and not a cause of our problems.
@8 Silentbob
Good advice in theory, but who’s going to enforce that distinction? Other cops? They don’t care if the enemy says they aren’t allowed in.
If cops want in then they can just blow the door off its hinges with plastic explosives.
If cops want in then they can just blow the door off its hinges with plastic explosives.
They need a warrant to do that. For now.
What cops will often do is ask if they can step inside to speak privately. Then all they need to smell is a smell, or see some powder or ashes or a glass something that might be a pipe and then they have probable cause to make you sit in the back of the squad car while they destroy the interior of your house. Note: they put you in the car so you can’t ask what they are looking for and what was the probable cause. Remember, cops asked to talk to Jeffrey Dahmer about the incident with the pizza guy, then got inside and the smell of rotting meat was probable cause to open the fridge.
If you have gasoline, rags and bottles you have “bomb making supplies”