Posted on 05/20/2015 12:11:32 PM PDT by Forgotten Amendments
Earlier this year, Aaron Heuser of Eugene, Oregon, had to travel to Washington, D.C. The trip had two purposes: The 37-year-old mathematician was officially leaving his job at National Institutes of Health and starting a new position at a private firm. Since he is terrified of flying he booked himself a sleeper car on Amtrak. Upon reaching Reno, Nevada, there was an unexpected knock at his door. “There was a DEA badge on the window,” he said. “Having a good reason to be making this trip and being a law abiding citizen, I opened the door and politely asked if there was a problem. The officer asked if I was Aaron Heuser, and then asked to see my ticket. He then told me that there were many red flags on my trip, mainly that I had a sleeper car, was traveling alone, and did not check my luggage.”
A sleeper car is a main Amtrak product! Plenty of people travel alone! Why would anyone with a whole sleeper-car compartment to themselves go through the hassle of checking luggage?
Yet the harassment isn’t surprising.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
It's not just hip-hop artists. It's all of us. And because this mathemetician got uppity, they swiped $60 out of his wallet.
War is hell.
:-)
Pretty much what would have happened if he's been stopped by the police in Mexico.
The way I read that, I figured not only do the pax have to pay, but they have to now pull the trains too!
Sounds a lot like corrupt DEA agents stealing money. If so, they are scum and should go to jail for many years.
If he had nothing to hide he should have allowed them to search his room.
/jackboot sarcasm
That article was full of flagrant abuses of the 4th Amendment. Hell, I’ve ridden the military troop train across the East German and Berlin border areas during the Cold War with less hassle than the story told in the article.
90% of people here will simply not care. They refuse to believe any laws or tactics used against drug dealers (alleged or real) can just as easily be used against others, including gun owners. To them, the Fourth Amendment is an inconvenience & law enforcement never does anything wrong.
If only congress would give Amtrak more money the trains would be safer.
You have to give up some rights if you want to continue to fight the WoD. /s
But he won’t.
This shows that Amtrak needs more funds for infrastructure improvements.
Not a huge fan of DEA, department of homeland security or the Patriot Act....
That being said, I give absolutely zero credence to anything published in the Marxist rag, The Atlantic.
Oh, it's a lot better than it used to be. Post 2009, there's lots of born again civil libertarians here and on talk radio. Back in the Bushbot era, the 1st, 4th, 5th Amendments were for "liberals". And if Cruz wins in '16, I'm sure most will revert.
He didn’t give them permission to search and then they got ugly and threatened him. Over his objections, they made him leave the sleeping car so a dog could sniff for pot; they said he had to leave because the dog would bite. Later when he asked whether he was under arrest, they didn’t answer but threatened him some more. Turns out with him sticking to his constitutional rights, other than threatening him and making him very uncomfortable, they left without doing anything except for taking $60 from his wallet (which he inexplicably left in his room).
They based the search totally with info from a paid Amtrak informant that he was traveling alone, no checked baggage, and with a home address of Oregon, which to them meant he was drug user/runner.
I suspect DEA and BATF hire from the same pool of turds.
Officer Richard Lutter has a history of such behavior.
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