I was moving from Alaska to Boston, so I had to pass through Canada. Everything I owned was crammed into my Honda Element and I was driving it solo across North America.

I re-entered the US at a border crossing in North Dakota. I pulled up to the window and without saying anything else the officer pointed at a detached garage and told me to pull into it. As I slowly pulled into the garage, there was only enough light to see the outlines of the walls. When I turned off my car, super bright lights were switched on and I saw 6-8 heavily armed border officers with bulletproof vests on either side of the car. One of them instructed me to get out of the car and give him my keys. He also took my passport and took me into a small room in the garage that had 1-way mirrors (so they could observe me and I couldn’t see out) and then he locked me inside. There was nothing inside the room except a few folding plastic chairs – nothing to read and nothing to look at, nothing aesthetically pleasing at all. I could hear them going through my car, removing my plastic totes full of shit and searching through them. After what was probably 20 minutes, they opened the door, handed me my keys and passport and told me, “You’re free to go, welcome home.”

Only time I was searched was in the Fall following 9/11 coming back from a hunting trip. Got pulled aside at the border, presumably because I was a teenager in a new pickup, and searched by US National Guardsman with automatic rifles.

Their leader came up to me while I watched 4 other guys diligently search every accessible crevice in the cab, underside and wheel wells. He seemed confused why I had been set aside for search. I shrugged and just said “he pointed so I pulled over” Took 10 minutes tops and they didn’t damage anything (thank goodness. They could have taken knives to the cushions). Haven’t had a problem at the border since. FTR white Canadian.

My advice? Don’t be rude, and don’t assume they have a bone to pick with you. If you are or do you WILL have a problem and people can cry ‘rights’ and ‘lawsuit’ all they want but I for one would rather avoid BS than antagonize. It is possible to assert your rights and not be an asshole. Thread that needle.

Many physical body cavity searches are also digital.

My brother, not me, so I don’t know all the details ……

He was buying cars at auction, then fixing them up to sell. He took one on a road trip and got stopped in Ohio because he was profiled (white 300z with blacked out windows) as a drug dealer (and probably speeding). They emptied his car and threw everything on the ground. When they didn’t find anything, they impounded the car and dropped him at a bus station. He had to go back to Ohio a few weeks later to get his car back and found it undrivable because they tore apart the interior and slashed the upholstery.

I was for stuff that is so mundane I don’t feel like typing it all. I was profiled for driving a cheap car at 2am in a nice area. I’m super white in the worst kind of privileged way, like tall, broad shoulders and can easily turn my slight southern accent on and off. I refused to let them search the car on principal alone, so they did a light search of my person. There was an issue with my license that let them do whatever to search me, but I know exactly what to say. By that I mean I know better than to say anything or interfere with a cop. They are not a judge and whatever they do is their own thing.

The cop made up that my tag light was out. I took pics the next day including all of the original DOT markings on the lamp and included a newspaper in the background with the date because that is enough for a court to accept the date in question. I then brought my business license, business cards from two businesses, and a picture of my old shop to show I am a professional auto body painter. I then testified that the vehicle was unaltered from the night before I was pulled over and that it was in full working order as it was originally designed and equipped. The judge dismissed my ticket, told the cop to approach the bench, and for me to leave the courtroom first. I did as instructed. A few minutes later the very pissed off cop came storming out of the courtroom and left immediately. I have no clue what was said or what happened, but it felt good to see it.

Cops can say anything. You must comply with anything they tell you to do, even if it is illegal. Cops are not judges. If they break the law, you must be able to testify precisely how and what they did for the whole incident. They get home field advantage so you have no room for error or questionable conduct. The trick is to know your rights and give them no room to maneuver. Never roll your window all the way down. If you are instructed to exit the vehicle, do so after rolling up the window, removing the key, and locking the door behind you. Never talk or volunteer any information whatsoever. When you’re pulled over, put both hands either on the steering wheel, or better yet, put them palm up at the window like anyone that is carrying a legal concealed weapon is supposed to do. You will be asked about a concealed weapon at which point to tell them what you do or do not have and that you are only doing your best to put them at ease for their safety. When they must start off testimony with that detail, you greatly diminished their home field advantage with a double play out of the gate.

i just had both sides of my sack and my ass felt up by TSA

even after removing my shoes, my belt, and going through their backscatter machine

and now my wife is mad at me for being vocally unhappy about it to them

Security screening in Equatorial Guinea. Turned out the hotel had booked the president and this riffraff offshore crew at the same time. This was fine provided that we were OK with being searched for weapons or anything deemed suspicious.

Full pat down plus luggage search, nothing too major. A coworker of mine had a pair of binoculars confiscated, that’s all.

Worst I’ve had is cops searching all my pockets and bag when I got arrested, I guess I consented? It was mostly fine, largely because I’m white tbh

I worked in a high school for a number of years where my role was to manage things like after school programming, spring break trips, and certain things during the school day. We would also do weekend adventure trips when possible. At one point during this, I had an awful roommate who was into a lot of illicit substances.

During my time living with said roommate, I took students on a two night backpacking trip over the weekend. I came back to see that my room had been (from my perspective) ransacked. I could not reach my roommate, and decided that one of their drug buddies may have robbed me. Later that evening, roommate came back and I learned them and a friend got too wild, cops were called, and a search was performed on the entire apartment. Including my room. Nothing was found in my room, but I had a lot of putting away to do. At least I was not robbed, I guess.

My landlord called me the next day to tell me they were called by cops for consent because I was unreachable, and landlord knew I would have nothing to hide, but felt terrible and began immediate eviction on roommate.

I was freshly 21, still living at home. My parents and sister went on vacation, I decided to stay home, wasn’t really interested in their vacation.

I had a couple friends over one night, sat around the fire pit, drank a few beers, etc. nothing too crazy, and it went off without incident.

Then like 2 days later 2 detectives showed up at my door. One from my town, one from the next town over.

My first thought was that this was the weirdest, most delayed noise complaints I’d ever heard of (up until that point in my life anyway, as fate would have it I now work in 911 dispatch and nothing surprises me anymore, if someone called in a complaint about a party that happened 2 years ago that probably wouldn’t even be the dumbest call I got that hour)

That turned out to not be the case.

Instead they were asking about a second cousin or some such relative of mine. He’d apparently been breaking into cars and they were trying to find him.

I’ve never met the guy, we don’t really associate with that side of the family, but I know them by reputation, they’re a bunch of lowlife assholes. My extended family is fairly large, and our last name is kind of unique. Someone else they had asked in their investigation basically said “I don’t know where he is, but there’s some [my last names] that live in [my neighborhood]”

They asked if they could come in to make sure he wasn’t there and we weren’t holding stolen property for him

I thought about telling them to pound sand and to come back with a warrant, but I was about to go to work and I didn’t particularly want them to come back when I wasn’t there and shoot my dog. My family is also about the most boring, law-abiding bunch you can imagine so I begrudgingly let them in and walked them through the house.

The one detective was really giving me the third degree over everything, the other one was pretty chill. I don’t think it was a good cop/bad cop act, now that I work on the police side of things, that’s just kind of those two officers personalities.

Couldn’t reach my parents or sister on the phone while this was going on. My mom was pretty livid about it (rightfully so) and called and gave the two of them an earful when they were back home.

The cooler cop (happened to me the one from the neighboring town) was pretty apologetic about it. Said that he could tell right away that we weren’t involved. We’re not exactly unfamiliar faces around that town, we’re probably there more than the town we lived in, and despite the other branch’s bullshit we have a pretty decent reputation. My mom worked at the elementary school there and my dad worked in their wastewater treatment plant, and apologized for the other cop being a dick.

Other cop was kind of a dismissive dick about it.

Not sure if they ever caught up with him about that, but at one point I found his Instagram and at least one of his pictures was clearly taken on the front stairs of the county courthouse.

There’s a few things you could potentially take away from this. There’s an ACAB angle for sure, cool cop didn’t exactly do anything to keep the other guy from being a dick. There’s also an angle of picking your battles, it was a lot easier for me to just cooperate than to try to bang on about my rights, ask for a warrant, etc.

Overall though, this was just kind of an interesting footnote to my day.

Bro are you okay?

Yes, dosens of times.

I grew up in eastern europe and things work differently there.

Oftentimes the cops would fish for bribes. Cops would pick you up on the street/stop you in traffic and search you/your car/whatever in hopes of finding something to hook onto and escalate the situation further and put you in a legally difficult situation.

Then they would generously offer that they can make it all go away if somebody from your family comes and brings X amount of money.

This didn’t happen just to me, in most countries of the former eastern block that’s just a fact of life.

Other than airports or bag checking to get into events, no. Ironically though I once accidently brought a pocket knife to a big event because they checked bags but not pockets.

Only things like airport security, or when going to music festivals or other events, they’ll (sometimes) check you for weapons.

Lived in 4 different countries in the past decade, all in the EU.

A cop once asked me to shake my backpack to make sure there were no graffiti cans in there. Obviously there weren’t.

Now I’m involved a bit in activism get searched on the regular. It’s mostly procedural, I have the privilege of being not really considered a criminal.