The contents of this post are not news to general aviation (GA) pilots. AOPA (the lobbying group for pilots) and others have reported that the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) have been stopping small aircraft, apparently looking for concealed drugs. The CBP have been doing this without any probable cause. Worse, the CBP has no jurisdiction over aviation (only the FAA does, unless a plane crosses the national border). Even worse, the CBP (and the agents they employ - sheriffs and SWAT teams) don't know anything about airplanes. For instance, they don't know that if a dog walks across a wing, it will be ruined or that if anything is removed from a plane, the plane becomes illegal to fly unless put back together and inspected by an IA. In other words, these searches strand pilots in remote places (think middle of Utah, no offense to Utah-ites).
I don't know what the reader's opinion of the stop-and-frisk activities going on in New York and Los Angeles (and other cities almost certainly). I think they are useless and even harmful. They are useless because stopping a random person will, almost certainly, not catch a criminal in the act. A "criminal" might be walking around with drugs or a weapon that they ought not to have, but it is just as likely that a perfectly law abiding citizen might be too, and far more likely that the individual stopped isn't doing anything remotely illegal.
The stops are harmful because they erode the foundations of the country. Our country is based on the idea that, if I pull my weight, everyone else will and the country will succeed. If someone is going to be stopped by the police regardless, what is their incentive to behave legally ? If someone is going to be arrested for possessing any of the thousands of items that the government has declared to be illegal (for example, eagle feathers, or any plant or animal declared illegal by any country in the world), then it creates a threat to every citizen that law enforcement can wield any time that it wishes to threaten someone. Write an unflattering newspaper article (or blog post) ? Get stopped, searched and arrested.
The fact that both urban blacks and affluent pilots are getting stopped should be raising alarms and calling people to action. Law enforcement is making a power grab, they really aren't afraid of any particular group and won't stop until the courts tell them that they will suffer unless they stop. These actions should be uniting citizens in this effort.
Last year in the Atlantic:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/05/annals-of-the-security-state-more-airplane-stories/276018/
Today in the Los Angeles Times:
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-aircraft-searches-20140415,0,7828658.story
[edit]
Also picked up by Mint Press News:
http://www.mintpressnews.com/feds-searches-private-planes-dont-fly-pilots-lawmakers/189436/
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