Border checks

Driving down I-10, some fifty miles from the border, we are suddenly greeted by cones narrowing traffic to one lane. This isn't the usual construction bottleneck, this is the Border Patrol slowing all traffic to a stop while they look in each car and truck. We are not crossing a state or national border, there is no hunt for a felon. This is a cursory search of all citizens in a particular area, without warrant, without specific reason, without acquiescence by the searched, as there is in an airport. Nor is the search thorough enough to find any contraband. The patrolman looks in each car, automatic cameras take pictures. No trucks or rv's are searched. All that is achieved is a theft of time from travelers and Border Patrolmen, and one more link in the chain that hampers the free movement of our citizens from place to place. Bit by bit, our freedom is being abridged, and, like the frog in the hot water, we don't notice as the temperature creeps up.