The Coffee Place's Joke Stack
Here is a nice description about how to get busted at borders.
It's taken from the Loompanics Unltd. best bookcatalog in the world!
Here you go:
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W E L C O M E T O B O R D E R L A N D
To top off a fun-filled vacation overseas, lots of people enjoy getting busted at cumstoms on the way home. It's one of the best ways to get that "welcome back" feeling from the government as well as personal attention at the hands of a true police state.
But you've got to plan ahead. It's no good just showing up at the border with a beard and a bad attitude (although that just might be enough). To make sure you get a thorough search and interrogation that could go on for days, it's important toremember that old adage "When in Rome, do as the Visigoths do."
First, keep in mind that customs agents are watching you from the first moment they can. If you're waiting in a line of cars crossing the border from Mexico or Canada, look up to the mirrored windows of the customs buildings by the roadway. Look up and give them the finger, since these posts are manned by G-men looking for signs of smugglers, wetbacks, communist bast--er, Moslem terrorists, Visigoths and all the rest of you. Since border posts are built well within the limits of the United States, the government is free to outfit the roadways with microphones, cameras and other sensors to monitor what's going on in your car before you pull up to the uniformed guards. Same thing goes on an airplane, where stewardesses and other informants can note your behavior or even strike up a conversation with you. Some planes carry informants as a matter of policy. All they do is ride around on behalf of the government.
So if you come by plane, make sure to blab what illegal thing you're doing or at least drop broad hints while talking to folks on the plane, or even in a car. If nothing else, do things like adjust your crotch slowly--then clumsily cover it up. Use the same technique that always fails when trying to pick your nose in a public place. Remember, you are being observed from the first conceivable moment.
Your reputation may have preceded you if you got noticed spending a lot of money overseas (creditcards, checks, etc. can be a great tip off) or if you went anywhere suspicious. Don't forget, your presence on the airplane was logged and reported the day you bought the ticket and confirmed when you boarded. Making a last-minute change gets logged,too. Making a last minute change can be plenty suspicious.
But, of course, it's only once you get to the border that you'll see if you'll be waved through with a hearty "Anything to declare?" or ushered into the fun-carnival that is the world of almost limitless police power. Here you will experience first-hand what it's like to have no rights at all.
Customs and other border agents have the power to detain you for virtually as long as they want, do not need to arrest you to hold you, won't advise you of any "rights" or legal options, and do not need probable cause or even any suspicion before doing extensive body cavity searches. Tactics that "shock the conscience" of even the most reactionary of American juries are allowed at the border. They can fluoroscope your innards, force you to barf, probe as deeply (and as often) into your butthole as they like and in many cases along the border at night, they can kill you. Some border agents have even been known to tread onto foreign territory to take out a non-American.
The powers of a customs agent don't derive from any single body of law. They are firmly rooted in various pieces of legislation dating back from the cowboy days all the way up to recent laws governing atomic secrets. A customs agent is empowered to seize and destroy anything he wants for any reason he wants. A customs agent is permitted to make the summary judgment that your shoes are contraband and make you take them off and hand them over for disposal. He is permitted to look into any cavity in any person "or beast." Not only is the agent empowered to do all this, he is empowered to order you or anyone else
nearby to help him do it. It is afederal misdemeanor for anyone within a three mile radius to refuse to come to the aid of a customs official "just doing his job." Thus, if the customs agent orders you to grab ahold of that steer while he shoves a tube up its ass, you must do it or pay a$200 fine.
All this is possible because you are in a legal twilight zone known as "the border." Here you are not legally in the United States, nor are you really in the country you just came from. In BorderLand your rights as an American or as anything else are non-existent. People at the border are here... but also nowhere. Even Amnesty International isn't looking for you. Imagine the fun!
Best of all is the whole concept of what constitutes "the border." All throughout the various laws concerning border behavior, "the border" is never mentioned without the phrase "or its functional equivalent."
"Functional equivalent" means of course that if your plane touches down in Chicago from France,you are legally at the border between two countries,even though, no physical border is there. Likewise, even though you may be a few miles inside the US. from the Canadian border--customs agents are still permitted to treat you as being at the border since you may not have crossed at an established checkpoint.
In practice, the "functional equivalent" of the border has been interpreted to mean places as far as 100 miles inside the US. In fact, the border's functional equivalent has been interpreted by various federal judges to mean just about anywhere a customs agent is. His mere presence constitutes the border! Get near an immigrations or customs official and, presto, you're at the border!
And, just as at the real border, the customs or immigration official retains many of his powers although sometimes he must be able to assert some reason for believing there is the possibility he has some business with you. Especially along the Mexican border, this is not hard to assert. In almost any airport, this is not hard to assert.
I'm telling you this so in case you fail to arouse a G-man's suspicion as you pass through customs, you can go a few steps past the checkpoint, jump in the air and shout something like "Yippee, I made tthrough! I'll be rich!"
Same thing goes if you're too poor to go abroad. This handy interpretation means you can just go fooling around rural areas in lots of states and still be treated as if you had come from overseas.
But back to the border itself.
One of the most crucial techniques for getting busted is to fit a "profile." Profiles are supposedly used by law enforcement professionals to help them identify likely suspects from all the innocent Joe Citizens warming around the airport. In practice these profiles are mostly used to establish a kind of probable cause should the citizen ever object to his treatment as being too arbitrary.
Profiles of course are kept highly secret but we can get a glimpse at the wide net they cast from court documents. Thus we know that one mark of a suspect is someone who exits the plane from the front. We also know that the last people off a plane are under suspicion. And, in case smugglers try to get cute, getting off a plane from the middle has alsobeen used as part of a legitimate profile.
Shoulder bags are suspicious. Too much baggage is suspicious. Too little baggage is suspicious. Carrying red American Tourister suitcases is suspicious. Making a phone call or exiting the airport soon after getting off ANY airplane (even domestic flights) is part of a profile. So is being alone. Having too much dirt, not enough dirt on your car. Making eye contact and not making eye contact have both been used as signs of a wrong-doer.
Still the best is to be one of the first ones off the plane. Failing that, appear eager to get through. Raise yourself up on the balls of your feet slightly. Look frequently and fervently out to any group of waiting people but never show recognition (don't brighten up when you see Uncle Bob for instance). Although you may scan the crowd or feign interest in a warning poster, keep your main attention on the customs agents who will be searching you. But tear yourself away at the same time.
The issue of eye contact is very important at the border. Those customs guys can see it in your eyes. You've got to project a total disrespect for and fear of authority. If you should happen to make eye contact, immediately avert your eyes then look back again before averting once more. Or else try to stare them down. Either one of these things is suspicious.
Don't bother trying to flush out dogs with dopesmell. Most of the dogs are busy sniffing cargo and they are not that reliable anyway. Sometimes they miss huge amounts of contraband and sometimes they alert" on innocuous substances. Also, enough dope to alert a dog might be enough to get busted for (a little dab'll do ya). But, if you want to play the dog angle, rub some resin on the soles of your shoes the night before your flight and you should retain enough to set 'em off but not enough to test.
Once you get to a border official, answer any questions quickly but vaguely. For instance, to the question "Where did you go?", Say, "England, Germany, then back again. To England but a different town... just touring y'know?". This kind of response will be obvious bullshit. If you've been to a bunch of places, omit at least the most exotic from your list. When they examine your passport they're going to wonder why you didn't mention it. The more countries you "forget" the better. As they turn each one up, admit to it and laugh nervously.
In your suitcase have lots of unmarked bottles of unmarked pills. Mix up the pills. When asked, say they are all for the same thing ("ahhh, those are for diarrhea, too"). Act annoyed if they continue questioning you.
Have a scrap of paper floating around in there with Arabic writing on it. Tell them you don't know what the hell it is. Pretend to pretend you cannot read it. Try to palm it right in front of him or her.
Oh yeah--get a her. Women can be really mean trying to prove they're one of the boys. If she's fat or unsightly, so much the better. Think to yourself "YOU are ugly, bitch." She'll hear it.
Finally, remember where you're coming from.From Europe, they're not so concemed that you'll have marijuana or any other bulky substance as perhaps high grade heroin or other pharmaceuticals. They'll also be on the look-out for ideas. To get them going have a few short manuscripts in a foreign language in your bags. Then have some schematic drawings turn up the deeper they search (flipping through a magazine, say). Have a radio that does not play.
Once they find the slightest thing they think is interesting they'll take you away from the normal customs line and really search you. They will also begin to interrogate you while other cops consult the computer to see who you are and what you've done. Your chances of remaining in detention rise if you pop up for any reason. Having something suspicious in your pocket will cause them to strip-search you. Having something hidden (in your shoe or underwear, say) will probably move them to dig in your asshole, vagina, or stomach.
And the whole time they will be firing questions at you, making false statements designed to "trick" you into giving more information. Above all they will intimidate you by threatening to send you to jail, by pushing you around, by opening up personal letters and reading them in front of you, perhaps smirking and sharing them with others. That's why you must carry a couple of love letters with you, so they can have a good time embarrassing you.
If it looks like they're going to let you go and you're determined to stay in custody, ask if you couldn't please be allowed to use the bathroom because you have to take a shit. This will be music to their ears--they will make you poo on a grate, then they will get out rubber gloves and inspect it. At this point it's OK to start ridiculing them, calling them scatophiles and sickos. They will retaliate by keeping you. Otherwise, make a big show of remembering their names (ask for pen and paper to write these down with) and threaten to sue them or otherwise punish them. Tell them your daddy's rich. Say things like "You don't know who I am, do you?" and "I'll have you busted down to latrine duty if you don't let me out of here right now!"
If that fails, start talking about your "rights". Steam will come out of their ears.
Happy Trails!
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Hope, you enjoyed it! It was scanned and OCR - Soft was used, so there are still some mistakes!
Ciao,
Martin
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Changes were last made on 05-05-2002
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