It's good that we have the fine folks of the Border Patrol. We need these people. We need them to do their jobs effectively and well, under conditions that aren't particularly good and for which we likely don't pay particularly well. In a real sense, they're our first line of defense against terrorists.
But when they jail and then immediately deport an Australian family coming to this country for an ailing relative; when they root through private materials on laptops, and occasionally just seize them without reason or promise of confidentiality or return; when they threaten arrest for sketching a picture of an SUV on the grounds of potential copyright infringement -- then they're not a defense. They're not honorable. They're a joke, worthy of derision and contempt. That kind of defense, we don't need.
A new age has dawned in Washington, but apparently the sunlight hasn't reached everywhere just quite yet.
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