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Police State at US/Canada Border

The US Border Patrol at the Peace Arch crossing is engaged in racial profiling and police state tactics.

Over Memorial Day weekend, my wife and I had the misfortune to return to the United States from Canada at Peace Arch. We live in the Northeast, and were on a vacation trip to the Pacific Northwest. We were both born and raised in the United States. Joy is black and I am white.

When we reached the border control station after a week in British Columbia, border guards immediately treated us with extreme suspicion. They fired questions at us in rapid succession. They took our passports, searched our car, then directed us to pull to the side and enter their office.

Baffled, we did as we were instructed. Inside the office, the bizarre, intrusive, even paranoid treatment continued. "I think we're going to take a look around your car again," a stone-faced agent said, and our car was searched two more times. Finally, after 45 minutes of questions and waiting, we were made to fill out a meaningless Customs Declaration, even though we had already told them, again and again, that we had nothing to declare, and even though they were already intimately familiar with the contents of our car.

When I asked an agent on what basis we had been stopped, he declined to answer. Regardless, the reason was clear. Every other group of individuals in the office included racial minorities--two black men traveling together, a black woman traveling alone, a black man with a white woman, two separate families of Hispanic descent. All were being afforded similar treatment at the hands of the Border Patrol, while outside hundreds of white people streamed effortlessly past the station and into the United States.

Patrick Quinlan

Everyone lost in last year's vote

In June, Chelan County Superior Court judge John Bridges found that in the 2004 Washington gubernatorial election that there were 1678 illegal votes cast from a wide range of sources--felons, deceased people, double voters, and provisional ballots--in King and Pierce counties, yet the judge dismissed the Republicans' call for a revote.

I don't see this election as being a win or loss for either the Republicans or the Democrats, but as a devious blow to the people of Washington and their rights. The bottom line is if the votes are being lawfully and correctly counted. I cannot see how judge Bridges can dismiss a revote when Gregoire's final victory--by 129 votes--was so small, and the number of illegal votes so large.

I think it's clear that elections are out of the people's hands and the right to vote is clearly a hoax!

Jesse Lancaster

Editor's note: You might be interested in this issue's article on reforming voter registration, "How to Have Clean and Complete Voter Rolls" by Rob Richie and Steven Hill.