Tracking system nabbing drug dealers and law-abiding pilots

At least this story has now been picked up by media other than the AOPA. This story needs to get out, otherwise it will continue to be swept under the rug.

Troubling.

One of their justifications for searching was that pilots have flown into buildings w/ small aircraft since 9/11. Shall we point out that people have used automobiles and vans for the same purpose, shall we pull all of them over and search them?

"and questionable profiles such as flying east from California"............Well, I don't tend to fly west very often when I am leaving California!

These agencies need to be held accountable.... We have laws for 2 reasons.
1.) To protect us from bad people
2.) To protect us from the government

Law enforcement has been chopping off the tentacles of freedom since they were permitted to feather their own bed with income from fines and asset forfeitures. They use pretext creating exceptions to the law of the land with a blind eye from the Supreme Court and the Congress.

They have also granted themselves the ability to abuse the civil rights of anyone who states they are not willing to allow a search of their person or property.

Protecting the Constitution is as simple as removing the incentive to destroy it. Reward police for protecting civil rights, and when they tell the truth and a person accused of a crime is found innocent.

"Customs and Border Protection officials defend their tracking operation, saying it plays an important role in the war on drugs and protecting national security, especially since 9/11"
This is a tired excuse and not sufficient to deprive people (American Citizens) of their rights. This kind of stuff really needs to be much front and center in the American Media. I applaud the New York Times.

I wonder what effect migration to ADS-B by 2020 will have? Just because an aircraft is well identified does not mean the DEA will bother checking on it before pulling their guns.

Sheriff's Roscoe's in hot pursuit!

CBP needs to quit harassing honest people and get back to the borders and do their jobs. Opening panels on aircraft is wrong. Illegal searches of aircraft is wrong as well. Maybe they should check the manifest on AF1 and note the fraudulent listings of some people as officials for taxpayer funding.

So what's new? Now funding for law enforcement was increased? Why? So they can waste it on this type of nonsense? Figures!

Someone might ask if the customs service has any authority/jurisdiction n number of miles from a border. In their name "border protection" might be found a clue.

Likely they have been given legislative sanction by an ignorant, citizen-hateful congress, but the question is still worth posing.

This is good educational material for pilots. Force them to get a legitimate search warrant. Acquiescence just racks up more instances where the enforcers will argue for a further loosening of their 4th Amendment obligations. That is, if they follow these at all.

But this is precisely what Americans want! It's precisely what they cheer about! It's precisely the reason why small towns, virtually the size of hamlets, have SWAT teams fitted out with the latest gear, trying their darndest to look like Navy SEALs so that so many policemen, unable to find employment elsewhere, can have their Walty Mitty moment.
We've lost the thread. With so many people addicted to the vitriol of Fox News (and who think it's actually news), to name just one example of the kind of conservative nut-case chest-thumping that has infected political discourse, it's no wonder we praise hard-handedness - until it happens to us, of course.
We see this at airports. As anyone who has ever flown internationally knows, there used to be a day when you'd return home from overseas and be greeted with a friendly, possibly indifferent smile at Immigration. No more. The long lines I can stand - unpleasant, but I get it. But what has become intolerable is the ego inflation that started at 9/11. Anyone with even the tiniest amount of authority knows it, is all too happy to show it, is all too happy to use it, and by God will abuse it even if it flies in the face of common sense - all because we, and by extension they specifically, are "fighting a war on terror". That justifies everything.
The fact that the gentleman in this story is a former policeman and is so outraged says a lot. The fact that the DEA and other authorities don't really care says a lot too.
Stories like these will continue. The only way to decrease their incidence is for people generally to get a grip and grow up.
As an American who happens to live overseas (Europe), I can tell anyone reading this that though stories like this can and do happen here, neither politicians nor your average citizen long put up with this kind over-arching authoritarian crap. But it's apparently just what pleases us in the US.

Is every government bureau now run by jackoffs????

Welcome to the National Security State that the right-wingers say we need.

The last paragraph sums it up

My question to everyone is... what are we (the pilots) going to do about this?

Legalize.

Constitution? Who needs a Constitution? We need more folks like our friendly ranchers - time to send the cops running. They should fear us, not the other way around.

Seems like another over reach by the Obama Administrations overly funded and board qusi Military-esk Boarder patrol.. I understand their mission.. But out rights are being severely eroded.. especially in the very regulated world of FAA flight rules.

As see more and more of this civilian rights violations brought to light, I worry more about what we don't know about or see...

It would be great to see the new posts on this topic (or any other topic in the squawks). But, it's such a pain in the place where I sit to try to find them because they aren't highlighted, placed at the top, or anything else that would make it easy to find the new postings.

This is pure crap. Out of 1375 flights, 39 flights actually had drugs. That's about 2% of the flights.

That's not unlike the drunk driving check points. Thousands are inconvenienced so that a small percentage (less than 1%) are arrested for drunk driving.