[dnm]

I first encountered these checkpoints in New Mexico and Texas this summer. They're really kind of interesting. It looks like a truck weigh station, except the interstate lanes are closed and everyone is forced to exit. They stop everyone at the checkpoint. They have some kind of terminal under a hood, but the officer (C&BP) looked at the terminal, asked me what country I'm from (USA) and sent me on my way (I'm white, and so were all of my passengers). The license reader cameras were obvious and about 4 car lengths from the terminal/stop sign. There's a separate line for trucks and busses. I was stunned the first time I saw one driving from Albuquerque to Las Cruces south on I-25/US-85. It was only on the northbound side, about 40 miles north of Las Cruces. It was obvious what it was. I encountered others on US-70 and I-10 in TX. Same drill at every one. I was never stopped by the officer for more than 15 seconds.

[desdiv]

What you encountered was probably a C&BP interior checkpoint[0].

Whenever DHS apologists use the "air travel is a privilege, not a right" line, this is what I point them to. Between random C&BP highway checkpoints and TSA patrols on Amtrak, harassment-free travel of any form seems to be a privilege nowadays.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Border_Patrol_int...

[rdtsc]

Basically anything you couldn't do in 1700s is a priveledge. Driving -- privelage, flying -- priveledge, getting on Amtrak -- they have TSA there too now.

"Arms" are hunting shotguns, pistols. Can't own fully automatic ones, or rocket launchers or fighter planes.

Drones will be illegal soon as well probably.

Basically you can get on your horse and start traveling through the country roads and woods, besides that you need to have "papers".

[javert]

In your case I'm preaching to the choir, but this might help:

There is only one fundamental right, and it is to not have force initiated against you. (Why? Simply because that is in the self-interest of each rational adult human.)

Ergo, the government cannot properly stop you from air travel, moving about freely in the country, etc.

[deathanatos]

Thanks for that list. A family member was recently stopped at one of these; I'm amazed there are so many. (I was also stopped once on a Greyhound bus, I think by CBP; they asked each person "are you a citizen?" — on a bus ride that was entirely within the US, of course. This was a few years back.)

> "air travel is a privilege, not a right"

Travel is a right. It's a constitutionally granted right.

I find the whole argument that interfering with the travel of every single person on a single _particular_ mode of travel is somehow constitutional a bit vacuous. What about that mode of travel is so special? (AFAICT, "safety"). That the government is also interfering with road travel is ridiculous.

Travel, within the United States, is a constitutional right, one that has been upheld by the Supreme Court (see [1] and [2]): "Since the Constitution guarantees the right of interstate movement…"; the decision in [2] cites even earlier [3] Supreme Court cases that asserted this right.

  This Court long ago recognized that the nature of our Federal Union and our
  constitutional concepts of personal liberty unite to require that all citizens
  be free to travel throughout the length and breadth of our land uninhibited by
  statutes, rules, or regulations which unreasonably burden or restrict this
  movement. That [394 U.S. 618, 630]   proposition was early stated by Chief
  Justice Taney in the Passenger Cases, 7 How. 283, 492 (1849):

  "For all the great purposes for which the Federal government was formed, we are
  one people, with one common country. We are all citizens of the United States;
  and, as members of the same community, must have the right to pass and repass
  through every part of it without interruption, as freely as in our own States."

  We have no occasion to ascribe the source of this right to travel interstate to
  a particular constitutional provision. 8 It suffices that, as MR. JUSTICE
  STEWART said for the Court in United States v. Guest, 383 U.S. 745, 757 -758
  (1966):

  "The constitutional right to travel from one State to another . . . occupies a
  position fundamental to the concept of our Federal Union. It is a right that
  has been firmly established and repeatedly recognized.

  ". . . [T]he right finds no explicit mention in the Constitution. The reason,
  it has been suggested, is [394 U.S. 618, 631]   that a right so elementary was
  conceived from the beginning to be a necessary concomitant of the stronger
  Union the Constitution created. In any event, freedom to travel throughout the
  United States has long been recognized as a basic right under the
  Constitution."

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Guest

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapiro_v._Thompson

[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crandall_v._Nevada