4th of July Checkpoint... Charlie

Just a few notes I made watching this vid:

In some states, if you are traveling in a motor vehicle and you have signed a Driver License contract with the state, you are required to show that license on demand, with or without probable cause. In other words, they can in fact demand your ID at a checkpoint. I believe NY is one of those states.

Notice how the deputy asks, "are you a lawyer or something?" It wasn't a wise-ass remark. If he had identified himself as an attorney, that makes him an officer of the court and thereby enjoys certain legal privileges. (Doesn't matter if he is a defense attorney or a prosecutor.)

A K-9 alert is indeed probable cause to search a vehicle, despite the fact that dogs are only about 40% accurate, according to some studies. This "probable cause" is also despite the fact that many K9's are not certified, or their training certs have expired. And of course, a handler can simply train his dog to alert on subtle cues rather than a detection of contraband, drastically lowering the accuracy percentage even further. (Some facts from K9 trainers themselves.)

See more about your checkpoint rights at this link:

What are my Rights at Various “Checkpoints”?

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Land of the Free?

Today we celebrate our nation's birthday. Hot dogs, apple pie, but where's the freedom?


As you enjoy the holiday, take a moment to consider the reality of how far we have deviated from what was envisioned by the nation's Founding Fathers. Realize that this so-called land of the free is actually the most oppressive country in the world, literally. From international militant imperialism, to how our government treats its own people.

1 out of 100 American adults are in prison.

The United States has more people living in prison than than any other country on the planet.

One out of four people on Earth who are incarcerated live in an American penitentiary. This does not include the millions of Americans on probation, parole, or other supervised conditional release.

The U.S. incarceration rate per-capita far exceeds any other country including Iraq, Iran, Russia, or even Communist China.

China has roughly 4 times as many people as the U.S. but nearly a million fewer prisoners. Although China comes in second place for total prisoners, their per-capita rate is actually far lower then most countries and doesn't even hold a candle to the U.S. per-capita incarceration rate.

In 2013, the U.S. was in fifth place for the number of prisoners executed. China did execute more people, but not nearly enough to account for such a drastically smaller prison population both in raw numbers and per-capita.

The U.S. is the only country in the Western hemisphere who executes prisoners.

The number of Americans killed by police since 9/11 now exceeds the number of troops killed in the Iraq war.

The U.S. prisoner population has more than quadrupled since 1980.

The single largest driver in the increase in the federal prison population since 1998 is longer sentences for drug offenders.

The average inmate in minimum-security federal prison costs $21,000 each year. The average inmate in maximum-security federal prisons costs $33,000 each year. Federal prison costs are expected to rise to 30 percent of the Department of Justice's budget by 2020.

The most serious charge against 51 percent of Federal inmates is a drug offense. Only four percent are in for robbery and only one percent are in for homicide.

So can we really celebrate freedom today when there are so many Americans imprisoned, often for non-violent petty offenses? Can we really celebrate freedom when Everything is Illegal?

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ATF Raids Armory to Seize Private Customer Info (VIDEO)

"This isn't just a second amendment issue, it's not just a firearms issue. It's an issue of an overreaching government that wants to come into your kitchen, that wants to come into your living room, and just see what you're doing," says Dimitrios Karras, CEO of Ares Armor in Oceanside, Calif.

Last week, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) raided Ares Armor to confiscate 80 percent polymer receivers for AR-15s. These receivers are the lower part of the gun that contain the trigger operations when fully completed. The polymer version that the ATF is contesting is not completed and requires the purchasers to finish machining it. The ATF claimed that these are unlicensed firearms, but Karras says otherwise.

"It's an object that's in the shape of a receiver, but it hasn't been completed to a point that it would be considered a firearm," says Karras. "This was a nice way for them to get their arm inside of the business and grab the information that they are actually looking for. To think that this is over a piece of plastic is ludicrous."

Karras says the true reason for the ATF's piqued interest in his shop was his refusal to relinquish the list of customers who had purchased the polymer product. He sat down with Reason TV's Tracy Oppenheimer to discuss why he plans to continue fighting the ATF to maintain his customers' privacy and other Constitutional issues at stake.

"They have trampled on the entire Bill of Rights," Karras says.