Checkpoint Diego: don't go near the border.

• Author: Balko, Radley
• Position: Citings - Brief article

IN SEPTEMBER 2008, social worker Vince Peppard and his wife drove to Mexico to purchase some tiles. On the way back, Peppard was stopped at a federal border security checkpoint on a road east of San Diego. According to Peppard, once he reached the checkpoint, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents asked to search his car. He refused. He says he was then detained and his car "ransacked." The agents found nothing illegal.

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Peppard, a member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), is now a plaintiff in a suit the organization has filed against the federal government. The ACLU says that since September II, 2001, the federal government has been steadily stretching the limits of U.S. v. Martinez-Fuerte, the 1976 Supreme Court decision that allows the government to set up checkpoints like the one where Peppard was stopped. Under that decision, the checkpoints must be within...