L.O.G. 142 Exceptions to the 4th Amendment

Hello and welcome to the video version of The Human Behavior Podcast. I'm Brian Marren, the host and creator of the show. As always, I will be joined by human behavior expert, Mr. Greg Williams, who the show is affectionately named after. On the show, we discuss different topics through the lenses of what we call human behavior pattern recognition analysis. If you'd like to find out more about what that is, please check the links in the episode details and go to our website to learn more. Please don't forget to follow us on social media; the links are also in the episode details. And hit the like and subscribe button to help support our work. Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you enjoy the show.

All right, well, good morning, Greg.

Good morning, Brian.

We'll go ahead and jump right in and get started. Today, we are discussing a case involving a number of issues: states' rights, federal rights, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment issues, private company interplay between that. And what I'm talking about, of course, is this issue coming out of Washington with Greyhound Bus Company.

So, I think, Greg, just to jump into it, I'll read some stuff I pulled out of the article from it, and then that'll give everyone a background, and then we'll kind of go from there. So, just for everyone listening, this is the story we're going to be discussing. Just recently, this came out, I think, at the end of last week. Greyhound Lines will pay $2.2 million to resolve a lawsuit filed by Washington State that accuses it of allowing U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents to conduct warrantless immigration sweeps on its buses.

So, the State Attorney General for the State of Washington said the settlement would be used to provide restitution to passengers who were detained, arrested, or deported after immigration agents boarded their buses at the Spokane Intermodal Center and for partial reimbursement of his litigation costs. So, according to Attorney General Bob Ferguson, Greyhound failed to warn customers of the sweeps, misrepresented its role in allowing the sweeps to occur, and subjected its passengers to discrimination based on race, skin color, or national origin. Mr. Ferguson's office estimates that since 2013, as many as 57,000 passengers may have been on buses that were boarded by immigration agents at the Spokane Intermodal Center (that's the public transit hub center right in the middle of Spokane, Washington). They said about 250 of those passengers may have been detained.

So, basically, they announced what's called the consent decree last week, the day that a lawsuit he had filed in April 2020 was set to go to trial. So, basically, they set a lawsuit, and then Greyhound kind of said, "Hey, we'll pay." So, the lawsuit accused Greyhound of allowing immigration sweeps on buses in violation of Washington State's consumer protection law and the state's law against discrimination. And then Greyhound even publicly acknowledged that these sweeps happened back in 2018.

So, in addition to paying the $2.2 million, Greyhound has to do a number of policy changes, including creating a policy that explicitly forbids Customs and Border Protection agents from boarding its buses in Washington State without warrants or reasonable suspicion. And this, I'm sorry, I'll just go to the next part, that they have to basically pay out $2 million for the harm caused to people of the State of Washington. And Mr. Ferguson said, "Greyhound has an obligation to its customers, an obligation it cannot set aside so immigration agents can go on a fishing expedition aboard its buses."

So, this is kind of, Greyhound said that they're pleased to have reached agreement. They said, "By agreeing to the consent decree, we will more extensively communicate to our customers the policies and procedures we already have in place to serve the citizens of Washington State."

So, that's basically kind of the facts of the case right here: why, how Washington State sued Greyhound, and then Greyhound now has to pay, and this is why they had to pay. This is what that outline kind of of what they're saying the rights were violated. So, there's a lot to jump into. Like I said, everyone's going, "Well, wait a minute, how can someone just, you know, I'm, I'll take, you know, I'll be the passenger on the bus, Greg, and how can federal agents just board this bus and start searching? This has got to be a violation of some Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment issue, you know?" Where should we start with this?

So, I'm going to start in an unconventional manner. Is that a surprise? So, I would tell everybody to go back and find Ernő Rubik's invention, the Rubik's Cube. And the easiest way to solve a Rubik's Cube is to heat the dots off of each of the squares, put them in green, blue, orange, and put them back on. That's the easiest way to ever have to turn a dial. It'll only take you a few minutes, okay, and you win. I have one set on my counter, dust-collecting, that I can point to, and people go, "Holy, you must be smart!" And I said, "No, I have a hairdryer."

So, this is what Ferguson did. Ferguson pressured a company, Greyhound Bus Company, into a $2.2 million settlement, which is the least objectionable alternative, which means that I would suspect Ferguson has taken away $1.1 million in fees, and 57,000 likely people would have to apply and win part of the remaining $1.1 million, which is almost unheard of. So, there's my first statement out there. Come get some, everybody listening, because I'm ready to defend it. And I'll tell you right now, Greyhound, step up to the plate! You should have told Ferguson to step aside.

Second thing is, I would ask you, Brian, for purposes of this podcast, to keep it laser-focused. Let's not talk about the Fourteenth. Let's not talk about the Fifth. Let's talk about the Fourth Amendment, okay? And under the Fourth Amendment, we have the border search, which is a recognized exception. So, let's start there. So, first of all, because now this, where this transit center is, is about at the line of this 100-mile from the border limit, right? You want to start there? Let's talk just a little before that with the Fourth Amendment for everybody. Just to remember, the right of the people is securing a person's houses, papers, effects, unreasonable searches and seizures. No warrant shall issue but upon probable cause, and that probable cause has to name specifically the things that we're going to search for and that we're going to seize, okay? So, everybody acquiesces the fact that there's a Fourth Amendment. We also understand that there are recognized exceptions to it, including the border search, which means that, and the border search, understand that it's probably the single most firmly rooted exception because it's been around the longest, and it's for national security. And so, there are hundreds of reasons, right?

Let's explain that. So, within 100 miles of the border, Customs, specifically Customs and Border Protection in the United States, has different rights. That means there are exceptions to that Fourth Amendment rule. They have no reasonable suspicion, no probable cause whatsoever, pretty much, to pull someone over and stop them just on the basis of it being within 100 miles of the border. They have the authority, the recognized authority, to do so. So, that, that now that's a powerful, powerful tool that they have, right? It's a lot of power within that, but it's, whether you agree with it or not, it's well-established in the law. That's been going, there's legal precedent for it, and it's for national security reasons, and they kind of have that ability to do so. So, that's the exception you're talking about here, right?

Right. And there are hundreds of them, and Brian will put up some case law, and Brian will put up like the top five, let's say, on the site that you can look at, because there are hundreds, if not thousands, of them, right? And they come out every year. And the reason is this, Brian, you have routine and non-routine checks, you have fixed borders, and you have the Border Patrol — the literal patrol in the word — which means they go around and check in that 100-mile band, okay? Which is a recognized exception as well, "as far as the bird can fly," so you can see how old that is. They also have, under INA Section 287, transportation checks. And so, within the functional equivalent (the 100 miles), which means it's just as good as the border, you have all the same rights and responsibilities, and all the CBP and the federal government says, "Okay, look, from 100 air miles from any external border in the U.S., federal regulations, federal laws, warrantless vehicle searches, person searches, all that other stuff, you have the authority without a warrant anywhere in that zone."

Now, the question is, okay, and it's not really a question, you brought up a great statistic: tell everybody where this border station is that we're talking about. Where's the Greyhound bus station?

So, this bus station that they referenced in the lawsuit, right, that the State of Washington referenced, that Spokane Intermodal Center, I think it's called. So, by driving, it's from the closest I could get, or meaning the most straight-line distance to the border, was 107 miles. So, assuming, right, I didn't measure it out on a map, but as the crow flies, it is likely at the very edge or within the 100-mile limit of the exception of the Fourth Amendment, right? So, of that, so I think it's rightly on that line.

So, the fun part of that is, yeah, how was that chosen? That's a whole other show, right? Because if we could show that Greyhound chose that because it was at the limit, or if we could show that the federal government had some way to change those exceptions, yeah, I mean, that would be interesting to me, but that's not brought up in the case. You know, the case in chief doesn't mention that.

And transportation checks at bus and train stations, rather, like you're talking about, patrol agents may board buses, trains, any conveyances, ask passengers about their immigration status, their travel plans, ask for consent to search them, search their luggage, right?

I would, and I would even say bigger picture: not even within 100 miles of a border. Any law enforcement agency, there are typically at those transit centers a lot of law enforcement agency presence, patrols, all that stuff. Why? Because it is a transit center. So that, and precedent, you can show that there's higher probable cause that luggage on a train will contain artifacts and evidence in support of criminal activity. That's the point.

Well, just in general, criminal activity, a transit center is more likely to have a higher amount of criminal activity anytime you have people coming and going and moving, going from one place to another, let's say, taking one train now to a city bus or something like that. It's going to attract a certain type of people, and even, it's a great certain type of people. And yes, and it's a greater target for even like a terrorist attack or something, right? So, there's a higher level of security danger and security, and we have to mitigate that.

But when you say "a certain level of people," there are two things, "a certain type of people," there are two things to talk about there. One, it's absolutely okay in certain — I want to make sure that we put this down — for example, it's not pertinent in a situation where we were talking about a shoplifting or a situation of domestic violence or something like that where we say, "Brian Marren, a Chinese national," "Brian Marren, a Black man," "Brian Marren, who appeared as a specific descent." That has no bearing when you come to border searches. A border agent routinely says, "Based on my experience, yes, this person seemed to be of Hispanic or Latino or whatever descent." That's part of how they do business. Now, we can't, you and I can't change that, and it doesn't mean that it's racist on its face. What it means is that there are exceptions to how we build a case against somebody illegally in the United States. And people will look at you and go, "Well, that's wrong!" Well, it's wrong then, change it, because it's the law. That's my problem is the law says that there's a level of intrusiveness that it will allow.

And let me just lay this out, because it's a point of contention even now. Look, damage to your luggage at a border or when you're on a traffic stop within that recognized exception, okay, damage is okay unless it's malicious or reckless. So, the U.S. Supreme Court has come down and said, "I can even take your gas tank off your truck to check because it seems unusual based on precedent that I've created in other traffic stops." Now, I can't go and take a Sawzall and cut your gas tank in half. Do you see the difference? Okay, so I can take the bolts off and not maliciously and not in a hurry or anything else, I can take a look at the gas tank and then I can even say, "Okay, you'll have to put it back on, sir, but we found no drugs." Now, the good coppers are going to put it in, right? Yeah. But the bad guy is going to, you know, the bad copper out there is going to take a chisel and a hammer, and they're going to go through stuff. They can drill into your truck as long as the drilling they're doing to your truck is not going to damage the truck such as you won't be able to sell it or drive it or anything else. That's law, and there's precedent, case law after case law, that said.

Give you a great one on the border, Brian: time is irrelevant to the U.S. Supreme Court, and we need to talk about that too. Time doesn't matter as long as you're using the time well, okay? So, here's a perfect example of how time doesn't matter. In one case, they made a female at the border wait 16 hours, okay, with no reasonable suspicion or probable cause stated at the very beginning of the caper. But they said, "Okay, she doesn't have a hotel room, she's got $5,000 cash, in the past we've seen drug mules do this and that and the other." That type of justification, not on her previous justification, on other cases. And they said, "We're going to wait with this female 16 hours to make sure if she does have something in her alimentary canal, she's going to poop it out, and we'll see it." And sure enough, it would. And the court said, "16 hours doesn't matter, that's about what it takes."

There's one right next to that, right? And look in your files, I mean, because they're all there, where the Border Patrol, and I believe it was Texas, South Texas, where they stopped the vehicle. A pickup truck had a ton of cocaine in it. The warrant said, "Hey, listen, we saw this vehicle, and we established that 90 minutes ago it crossed the border, so we made a stop on it." And I think it was Laredo, and don't hold me to that. And the U.S. Supreme Court, when the people challenged, the people with the cocaine in the truck challenged, and said, "Hey, you did it illegally," right? And most of these cases are, most of these cases are people in the trunk, drugs in the trunk, guns in the trunk, "I'm here illegally," right?

Yeah.

Which is okay, because that's what the Supreme Court is for. Supreme Court looked at it and said, "You didn't have eyes on that truck for 90 minutes, and 90 minutes was more than enough for it to cross the border, get cocaine from another source, so you're not sure." I love that about the Supreme Court, you know, why is it reasonable to assume? So, almost all of these cases involved smuggling large amounts of drugs, and that's the challenge. But the challenge wasn't that they did it illegally, Brian, the challenge was how they went about establishing that's the person or vehicle I'm going to search. And the important part is, for a bus, you don't have to have that. You don't have to have that at all. There's no probable cause whatsoever necessary.

Well, okay, so that, this gets into it, that, you know, that's the exception to the Fourth Amendment, right? So, all of that you said, like, this is, I know you're trying to show kind of both sides, how these things play out in the courts, right? And it's amazing, because, you know, when it comes to these cases, it's very clear-cut most of the time. You know, you can predict, you know, well, especially you, to give credit, I would have called you out, but every time we've brought up a Supreme Court case that's ongoing, you've predicted it correctly because it's simple. It really is, when it's in these types of cases, because it is clear-cut. Like, they know, even that's all right. That's why your cocaine in the truck example, that's why the attorney was like, "I'll take this case, dude, we're going, we're going to win this." Here's exactly, and they know, because just like you said, in order to, there has to be some sort of precedent there. There has to be some either exception, otherwise, if like in that case, if you did not have visual, you didn't see that truck come across that border and observe it for 90 minutes to know like, "No, no, there's, there's too much in there." So, what you used to gain access and search the vehicle and gain entry, was, you can't, you can't use that. So, therefore, everything that happens after is now null and void.

It's, it's, notice how that didn't have anything to do with skin color. Notice how it didn't have to do with time. That's what I'm talking about with the Supreme Court, Brian. It's the easiest thing to choose what they're likely to say, because time is irrelevant as long as it was well spent. The color of a person's skin has no bearing on the caper unless it does. And what that means is it's such a narrow bandwidth. Like, you had an albino guy and you had a guy from Kenya, and both were in the room, and the witness on the stand says it was the albino. That's the only time I could think of something like that. Do you get what I'm saying?

And if you look at it, the Supreme Court has never addressed the constitutionality of a Border Patrol transportation check under the Fourth Amendment. They've attacked it on many other capers, and they've come down hard on people that have used it illegally and stretched that 100 miles or used bogus reasons to stop. But the reason they haven't addressed the constitutionality of the Border Patrol's transportation check, which this is, is because they know that it stands. The Constitution stands. This is a recognized exception.

Okay, we look back to Florida v. Bostick. I can't think of it here, you remember that a number of times. But people are going to argue right away that Bostick is a drug case, right? But it's not a drug case, what Bostick was, because I'm now drawing a blank, although the name sounds...

Yeah.

So, the police officers were doing the drug interdiction in Florida aboard buses. They would meet him at the scheduled stops, question the passengers, and when the passengers started going, they would bring them off for a greater search, check their luggage. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Now, in that, they asked permission to search the luggage, and then they use the probable cause based on the stop, the person's demeanor, the dress, how much clothes, and everything else. So, observing law enforcement officers doing these, Bostick said, "Hey, listen, we don't have that kind of laws in America where the cops can just stop a bus." And contrary to law, or contrary to public opinion, there is a law. And what they said is, "Look, it's not a violation of the Fourth Amendment in Bostick by asking people questions on the street or in a public place." And we do that all the time, we go up and we conduct interviews on the street and see reasonableness. The court also determined that a bus encounter, any reasonable person would know that it's a public place on a bus and that you have the right to decline answering questions or decline to search.

Now, Drayton, another case that came out after Bostick, says that you don't even have to tell the person they have the right to decline. And that's an important thing too, Brian. The officer can't use that alone as probable cause to bring you off of the bus. So, there's a sticky wicket there. So, the cop's got to pay attention. He has the absolute right to ask your citizenship. You have the absolute right to decline, except if you're illegally in the United States or you're a prior deported felon, they can now add that to your charge because you're obstructing the investigation. So, the idea is, people that have nothing to hide should hide nothing. Do you get what I'm trying to say? What does it cost me, the extra two minutes, to make our country safer, to have somebody go by and say, "Citizenship?" I'm all good with that, Brian, and that's where the fight is.

Well, I don't, that that's a whole separate discussion about your citizenship question. I mean, you don't know, I think again, there's exceptions to things when you're close to a border region or something. I think there's some reasonableness, but you know, I'm walking down the street, and someone, I don't think people want a police officer to stop you and ask your citizenship. It's like, okay, but...

But stop right there. When you rent a car, do you have to show your ID? When you rent a video, I don't know if they rent videos anymore, when you go to the place, if you have to show your driver's license to rent a loan or something. That's that same level of intrusion according to the Supreme Court.

Well, not if I'm just walking down the street in my example, meaning I have the absolute right to walk up to you and ask you a question, and you have the absolute right to refusal. There's no, yep. It just when you explain it, like, they kind of came out differently, so I want to make sure we're clear.

Yeah, I can ask. And that's what I'm trying to say is great about the law: if I need probable cause and you're a bad guy, I can find it. So, the default should be probable cause, reasonable suspicion. The lower level, probable cause, probably. But these laws are written that they don't have it. Even lower courts have ruled that the Border Patrol agents in transportation checks don't need a warrant. And so, what happened here is this guy said, "I'm going to pressure a company and say that they didn't have something to refuse the Border Patrol." They had no right to refuse the border.

Okay, let's, let's now get directly into the case in point that we're talking about, because that's a great point, right? So, at the same time, you know, if this is a withstanding legal precedent for, you know, someone can literally, I'm within 100 miles of the border, right? That's where I live, so I see that stuff all the time with Border Patrol. They can just, "Hey, let's pull over that bus and check it." Right? They can do that. They have the right. They have INA Section 287 to do that. So, so now let's, they've been doing that on Greyhound buses for a very long time, very long there, yeah. And the company, they're saying the company has allowed it, but what, they're framing this argument as, "Okay, Greyhound, you're allowing this to happen," but they don't really have a say in whether or not they get pulled over. Now, what Washington State is saying, "Yes, but you, as a company, that bus driver can say, 'No, I do not consent to this search.'" But again, if it's within 100 miles of the border, they can say, "Okay, we understand, but we're going to search your bus anyway." Correct? I mean, they can come on there and...

So, the only thing I can think of, and that's why I was digging so hard on this one, Brian, and I appreciate you digging just as hard. The only thing I can think of is that if, for example, you don't have the right to act as an agent for the police, because then you're just as guilty of a crime as a police officer. So, if there was a situation where Greyhound looked across at an INS or a CBP agent and gave them the wink of the nod, saying, "You know, based on my experience, I think it would be a good idea if you take the footage," right? Because now you have a special knowledge that the average person wouldn't have, and you're giving that to me, and then I'm using that knowledge to go in there. Now, there's certain case laws on that too where it's okay. For example, I call and I go, "Hey, I don't want to leave my name, but I think this is up."

Okay, so the idea is, this is a very convoluted case, and I think Ferguson knew that, and I think what Ferguson did is said, "Hey, listen, the Supreme Court's never heard a challenge on this, so I've got a 50/50 chance going in and pressuring Greyhound." Do you get what I'm trying to say? And Greyhound looks at it and goes, "Okay, this is probably going to go to court, there's a 50/50 chance I might lose. What's the least objectionable alternative? $2.2 million. You know how much Greyhound makes?" You see what I'm saying? So, I worry about that.

Okay, but what, what is it that you're concerned about? Because, meaning, the fact that they're paying out, because what about what they brought up that, you know, here, and I'm pulling it up right now, that's what I'm looking over here, is that, you know, this state's attorney or the Attorney General of the state has said, "You know, Greyhound has an obligation to its customers, an obligation it cannot set aside so immigration agents can go on a fishing expedition aboard its buses." So, that gets into, real quick, what, what, me, I'm traveling on Greyhound, I bought a ticket, I'm traveling across country on Greyhound, what, what is Greyhound obligated? Well, they're obligated, and they're, they're responsible for my safety, right? They can't have a bus that isn't well-maintained. Certainly, they're liable if anything happens, right? They're made for, for my care to an extent, right? They're responsible for me arriving to my destination on time, but maybe when I bought the ticket, it said, "Hey, you're likely to be late," so that's all in there. But meaning, they have certain obligations as a contract, so to speak, when I purchase that ticket from them. And a lot of that stuff is stated when you buy that stuff, and nobody reads that small print, right? Just look at it on an airline ticket or whatever, it's the same thing. So, what is it that they have? Do they have an obligation to protect my Fourth Amendment right as a citizen of the United States?

That's the best question in the world right there. So, listen, are there federal obligations to air travel? Certainly. Are there federal obligations to ground transportation? Absolutely. For example, your driver's license is a form of identification. You don't have the absolute right to drive on a road, it's a privilege, okay? And that privilege can be rescinded, okay? By the same token, there are certain exceptions where the police officers, having nothing to do with your citizenship, can have a roadblock to check for certain things, and you have to comply. So, it's reasonable to assume that just because you were on a public transportation owned by a private company or private transportation, like a limo driver, right? Yeah, you hired that, so that becomes a private thing, but they have to be federally regulated or get a state license. So, yeah, there's some regulation process. So, I will guarantee you that there is a thing in local, state, and federal law that says you can stop them on the roadway and check for safety and check the driver's license and make sure he has a chauffeur's permit or something like that. So, if you get rolled up while that's going on and somebody smells marijuana (not a big deal anymore) or sees an open weapon or thinks that you're the guy, "Hey, isn't that the guy that we saw at the bank on the day of the holdup?" Okay, certain things happen.

We're not talking about an unreasonable delay. If we were, if we, and don't think unreasonable means time. Like, for example, if I stop you a mile from the airport and all of a sudden I look at you, Brian, and I go, "Hey, your flight leaves in 20 minutes, you're going to consent to your luggage being searched?" That's illegal, I can't do that, okay? Because, but just routinely stopping every third bus or every other bus or doing this, it's not a big deal. And that's what the Supreme Court, that's why they're not touching these cases right now.

Now, Ferguson got to a very liberal, or I don't want to say the wrong word for what it is today, but he went to a place in Washington that wasn't by accident. He also went there just after the Homeland Security debacle. He went there and said, "Hey, listen, even Homeland Security is having a problem with agents stopping these vehicles." Well, you can't do that. Just because a new administration comes in and you're the new boss, you can't write an edict to all your personnel and go, "Hey, listen, I don't want you to do this thing" if it's, if it's law. Then it's legal to do those. And what I'm talking about is it's been precedent, and if he had an egregious case where I was unduly questioned and they cut my luggage in half and they made me strip search, those type of things, I would say he's got a case. Well, none of that.

Okay, right, because what he brought up, and I want to reiterate, he said, you know, the lawsuit accused Greyhound of allowing immigration sweeps on buses, and he said, which, okay, right, we've already established there's legal precedent for that within certain border areas, and they have the right to do that. But he said it's a violation of Washington State's Consumer Protection Law and the state's law against discrimination. So, what he's saying, and what he's accusing them of, is they were doing this because of some, it would violate discrimination. So, it was based, they were searching these buses based on someone's race, color, gender, all that. Whether they have a disability, like there's all kinds of different types of discrimination, their age, right? So, he's saying they were doing that based on that, when, when in fact, what you're saying is, no, they were doing it based on long-standing legal precedent and the policies and procedures of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Patrol, and in keeping with what's legally precedent and set forth by not only the laws in the U.S., but continuing case law out of the Supreme Court.

Precisely.

Okay. So, so basically, you're kind of, you're saying that they're leaning on Greyhound for some sort of political reason versus this is an actual case.

Well, not political reason. So, what it meant was they're leaning on Greyhound, knowing Greyhound's likely just to pay out, but it's not really going to be a lot because it's $2 million. I'm sure they have an insurance that covered that, you know what I'm saying, in some policy. Greyhound did, I'm assuming. And Greyhound's going to say, "I'm sorry," and they're to write a thing, and they're going to, they're going to have posters on their window. They literally said they're going to put new stickers and posters.

Oh, okay, I didn't even read that, but that's, you know, they're going to...

Right. And CBP is going to do what? Yeah, CBP is going to go on a Greyhound, and they're going to make a stop, Brian. Right now, you have this reformation of police agencies, and the very first thing, the easiest low-hanging fruit that they're saying is, "Certain traffic stops lead to other things." Yes, those are called pretext stops. And pretext stops are absolutely legal. So, the argument again is, if you want to change it, change the law.

But, okay, so explain that then a little bit, because that's partly what they're doing, right? They, Border Patrol says, "Look, we have this authority within here, we know this, based on that, drugs, weapons, whatever illegal things are being smuggled in, whether it's people, whatever it is. And they consistently have used this form of travel before because it's cheap, I can pay cash for a ticket, it's a well-known route network. So, based on our past experience, when we pull over these Greyhound buses, we typically find some illegal activity." But, but kind of explain what you mean by, by what a pretext stop is.

Okay, so to prove your point, first before I say the pretext: a DEA agent was killed. Within 24 hours, there was a big shootout down in Texas or in Tucson, rather. And they were conducting, and I hate to use the term (everybody knows why in cop work) "routine," because nothing is routine, I get it, right? But on its face, they had done hundreds of these before, and they're still going on today. They're not going to stop them. It's exactly the same thing that we're talking about. You go on, you take a look around, you ask people consent to search, you talk to people, hide a dollar cash with no place to go, and, "Hey, I'm not with that guy," even though you see that you're with them. Those are all things that you establish reasonable suspicion and probable cause with. But again, they didn't need that. They could have gone on on their own. And now it results in somebody being killed. So, that just proves how dangerous they are, Brian, and why we need them at our borders.

So, the second part of that is, cities say, "Listen, if I stop you for a taillight out, I'm just stopping you for a taillight out because you're likely driving with a warrant and all these other things, and may have a gun, and I want to do these things." And this is where pursuits start and shootings. And, guess what? We also say that there's a higher number of Black males or females that are stopped than Whites. And so, what they do, Brian, is they protract that logic out to include things that might not include. And the idea is, if your traffic light is out and the community doesn't want the cops stopping them, have the community give them free traffic.

Did that in Chicago, actually.

There you go. Cook County did that, we know. So, it's safer.

Yeah, no, and that's, that's the, that's the point. So, but yeah, but a pretext, yeah, pretext means that if I see something that you're violating, even a civil infraction, you've got two spares on your vehicle, right? Two spare tires. Okay, well, only one comes with the vehicle. Logically, something's wrong here.

Yeah.

So, it might be a stolen car. I might have some other thing that's going on. A rear object, a dangling object, rearview mirror that's obstructing your vision to the rear. Those are all things that are dangerous. So, I stop you for that pretext. Now, I may just want to get your name because you certainly look like the guy that robbed that bank three weeks ago. But I don't have reasonable suspicion, I don't have probable cause. But the pretext is legal. Yeah, you have a legal reason to. So, now that gets me to your car window, and the car window allows me to ask some questions. And sometimes you don't want to answer those, and you flee, and things happen. But the idea is that the pretext itself, as long as it's legal, okay, allows me up to your car to ask those other questions. Now, they say they want to reform policing by taking away the ability to conduct pretext stops. What you're doing is you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Yeah. One of the times, one of the times Ted Bundy, the serial killer, was arrested because he drove past a police officer in the middle of the night and he had no lights on. And the cop went, "Oh, okay, that's dangerous. Let's pull this guy over." And then he finds like the murder kit in his trunk and sees it, or saw it in plain view, I think. But either way, it led to his arrest and, "Oh my God, we got this guy!" Now, that, that's, that's the point.

Now, to speak to what, what the issue is. You know, some of these issues come from, "Hey, man, I'm poor. I didn't, I'm not a criminal, but yeah, you know, I got in some trouble when I was a kid and yeah, I can't afford my taillight to get fixed because I'm trying to put money." And now we've seen some of that city, I know we just literally, you brought up that example, like I think a couple weeks ago in Cook County, Illinois, they did that. They had to set up this area, "Anyone from the neighborhood, we're paying for it out of this foundation. We, people will fix it, come in, headlights, taillights, and we'll replace that." Okay, that's all good, right? Because then that's helping the person in the community who needs the help and still allowing the police to do their job, right? And catch the people that need to be caught. And, and really, really highly organized criminals, gangs, terrorists even, right? They're good at not getting, they're, they're trying to avoid those little things, right? Or, or they don't sometimes, excuse me, it's those little things that you're going to use in order to detain them, in order to capture them, because they're so good at applying their trade over here that they don't leave them any evidence, but they'll do something like this. I mean, Al Capone was arrested for tax evasion. That's what I'm saying. So, the guy was a brutal, brutal, horrible killer, the largest organized crime syndicates in the history of the United States, and they got him for what? Tax evasion. Because that's the only thing they could get him on. So, this is kind of all sort of examples, historical examples of what you're talking about, how we can use something in order to catch a dangerous thing. Now everyone has the probable, yeah, but you're also going to do this to these people. Like, look, it's probably not as often as you think that that occurs, right? And especially now. So, I, that, that's kind of just want to give a little bit of background on that.

So, Brian, a great point on Al Capone, but remember Al Capone was absolutely legal. Any time that you go after somebody, you might not go after him the way, like, for example, Al Capone was a murderer and a killer and a thief. They didn't do that. They went off the menu, but they did it absolutely legally.

So, let me give you two examples, and one will just set everything on fire. The very first example: a guy in Detroit. A guy says, "I think this guy's dirty." Goes by his house, says, "Man, this is my guy for the stolen auto. Last time I chased a stolen auto, it was dumped near here. I think the chop shop is in this garage, but I can't get probable cause right now. All of the reasonable suspicion doesn't add up to get a warrant for the place." So, he goes across the street to a house and asks the guy across the street, "Do you mind if I sit in your garage for a couple hours?" The guy goes, "Anything up?" And he goes, "Nah, not a bit." He takes out his binoculars, he sits in a lawn chair, and he waits for the guy across the street to open his garage. And when he does, he reads with his binoculars the license plate on the car, calls it in, and sure enough, it's a stolen. That was enough to get the search warrant. Now, it went all the way up to the Michigan Supreme Court. The Michigan Supreme Court said, "That was pretty dirty pool, man. That was pretty innovative thinking. But, you know what?" They said, "It's legal." That's your Al Capone.

Now, let's go back to pretext in Greyhound, and let's talk about the shooting in Pennsylvania. Nobody wants to talk about the shooting at the Pennsylvania hospital, okay? But we will. First of all, it's illegal to fail to return rental property, the U-Haul truck. It's also illegal to live out of your vehicle, okay? And in many places, even on public and private property, they'll have signs, "No Camping," because they don't want people...

Yeah. And some of those places are, are changing. I know out here in Southern California, like, local ordinances that allow certain things because they're, because people have no place else to live, right? How else are we going to deal with this homeless situation? We can't give them tickets that they're not going to be able to pay. Another intro, yeah.

So, so, but you know me, I'm not talking about right or wrong. No, no, no, no, no. I'm talking intent here, okay? That is not allowed in most cities, right? And certainly not, U-Haul certainly has policies against people living in their vehicles, right? Camping in their vehicles, all that other stuff. It's just in their rules. So, that's why I'm saying there's public, private, but the law says you can't do it. So, if a copper in Pennsylvania, if a Philly copper would have saw that part somewhere and gone up and contacted the driver and said, "You can't live in this vehicle" or whatever else, that would have been a pretext stop. And maybe they would have found an AR-15 and that this guy is unstable and wasn't allowed to have a gun. What I'm saying, Brian, is you can't say that every time I use a pretext, it's going to turn into a great case. Many times, it doesn't. Many times, you write a guy an equipment violation, it goes away. But the times it does warrant its use, and so we know that bad guys like to go on trains and buses because there's a degree of anonymity on it. We can carry large amounts of luggage, which we can't carry on a plane. Planes are searched many times more and with much more rigor than, and people right now are going, "Oh, the train service, yeah, we got it, you're doing your best." Okay, everybody's doing their best at the borders. But then you got a Ferguson.

Now, is Ferguson trying to make America safer with this lawsuit, Brian? Now, if the people in Washington State were coming up and talking about your wheelchair or your ethnicity or doing those things, then I think $2.2 million is not enough. But I think what it was is, I think there's a bully out there, and the bully says, "Hey, I got these guys on the tenterhooks." Do you get what I'm trying to say? So, I'm going to throw a lawsuit, "It's going to be overturned. You can't do this." You, you can't say no. Brian, laws change, and when laws change, it's a good thing. Nobody had a UAV, but some Montgolfier brothers came up with a balloon. So, so balloon used as surveillance is not new, just because a drone, but a drone is much more maneuverable. Do you get what I'm trying to say? So, what, what did they have to do? They had to change certain laws because your curtilage of your home is important, and it's a consideration. A copper can't violate that. The same thing that coppers used to say, "Hey, listen, I can stand on your front porch, and if you open the door and I look inside your house..." Yeah, but, but guess what? Not everybody has that right to be there. So, you have to establish that other people can stand in that location. But laws change, but this law shouldn't change because it's the best for all of us at the border that they routinely go through and conduct these sweeps to make sure. Now, if, if Border Patrol is doing sweeps for drugs, that's wrong. If DEA is doing sweeps for illegal aliens, that's wrong.

Because what I'm trying to say, it's outside. That's not a pretext. That's, that, that's you're, you're hedging your bet a little bit.

Well, yeah, and you're late. It's, it's outside of what they're, what they're supposed to do. Now, they can use that, I get what you're saying.

I'm talking about the ethics behind it. And even if it's legal, it might not be ethical, right?

That's true. That's true. So, again, you're reiterating the fact that everything that the Border Patrol was doing, and which Greyhound was compliant with, was perfectly legal.

And absolutely. And then, so, so, and you can, this is not an episode on agreeing or disagreeing whether or not that should be legal. This is an episode about this case and what happened, right? So, you can agree or disagree with that all day long, but, but that's what the law says. If you want to change it, you can get your congressman or woman to, to change it, you know what I'm saying? That's, that's, they can introduce legislation to change that. But that's not what, what we're talking about, and that's not what's occurring. So...

Right, right.

All right. So, this all, well, this case didn't go to trial, right? But does this set a precedent going forward for other cases that another state or state attorney may want to take out against a private company, right? But would this establish some sort of precedent for that? Yeah, of course. I mean, not, maybe not a legal one, but at least like a societal one, right? Or they, it's something where now some state attorney can then say, "Oh, wait a minute, hey, we got this going on. We don't like, in our state, I can go after," based on, right, "I'm not going to go under federal law, what I'm going to do with that." But, but then that private company that they're going on, they're going, "Crap, you know what, hey, Greyhound got away with only paying $2.2 million. Why don't we get out the checkbook?" Right? So, this is how it helps. It's easier to pay than to legislate or legalize, and this is how we do things in the United States. We're litigious, but this is how things get, get paid out. I mean, that's what we do, right? A big company does something wrong, they got to pay out to all this thing. But with this one, it was odd because they have to pay $2.2 million. Some of that's going to go to the legal fees of the state, so who knows what they're charging for that, right? And then the rest is apparently going to be distributed among the potential 57,000 people that this was affected, right? I'm going to get my, my, my $10 or $20, my $20 bucks, Greg, if I, if I take the time to file a claim.

But let's talk about that briefly. Let's talk about that briefly, because you brought up a great point. Listen, first of all, it's fines, cost, restitution, all the other stuff that the court charges. Then the attorney Ferguson is going to charge an exorbitant fee. It's legal, absolutely legal. I'm not saying Ferguson is doing anything wrong. As a matter of fact, he's quite clever. I'm just saying that he's going to get what he's worth. So, let's say that's 33%, Brian, okay? Now, you've got a remaining sum you have to challenge and say, "I was on that bus. Here is my ticket stub. I can prove that that was me." And I could also prove that CBP Officer Smith was the one that talked to me on that day. If you can't reach that level, now what you're not thinking is, who's conducting that interview? A person that was brought in by the state that's getting paid out of what? Out of the funds. Do you get what I'm trying to say?

Right.

So, that's like a gas station going down and down and down. And you're exactly right, the $2.70 you receive, and you go...

So there, well, maybe only one guy ends up being able to prove it, and he gets, you know, the remaining $500K or something, you know.

So, let's talk about how Ferguson did this, which was the stroke of genius. Ferguson didn't go after, because if he would have gone after the CBP, especially INA Section 287, unconstitutional, if he would have done that, okay, he would have had so much to prove. But what he did is he didn't. He went after, you know, disability, Greyhound, the rights, do you get what I'm trying to say? So, he had a tremendous amount of leverage. For example, the federal law and state law says there's no, "I do not have to tell you that you have the absolute right to refuse my search." Do you get what I'm trying to say?

Right.

Now, here's the column of good coppers that are legal, moral, and ethical coppers out there, and I mean agents, federal agencies, and all that other stuff. It's always best when you say, "For example, I don't have to read you your rights unless I'm going to ask you questions that are pertinent to the case." So, just because you're, you're arrested, do you get what I'm trying to say? If we drive in silence, I book, process, even put you in jail, and I leave, I've done nothing wrong. Now, if I come in and I want to conduct an interview with you, I need to have those, do you get what I'm saying?

Right.

You have the absolute right to know these are, I'm about to say this, and you have the right to refuse it, okay? Don't have to do that on the border, right? But there's no problem with, as you're going, at the point that the copper has probable cause, you can't refuse at that point. You can say and stomp your feet and do all the other stuff that you want. I wish you wouldn't, but that copper now has drawn all of that other stuff. So, the idea is there's this vacuum between, "I have the right to do it now, I got reasonable suspicion, and that's going to go probable cause." I would tell everybody out there, "When it's prudent, get a warrant." If it's an emergency or exigency or anything else, and don't just say, "I don't have to." If you think that this is going to be the case that's going to come back and bite you. Brian, how long does it take to get a warrant? And you can get one electronically. Do you get what I'm trying to say? And if you don't have probable cause, you know what you do? Step off. That's my point here. I'm saying two different things, but it's the same thing. If you think that this is the person where that challenge is going to come from, and they go, "Well, you don't have the right to do this," and then the other, you can calm down and say, "Well, I'll explain, I do have the right, this is the right." And then a person says, "Well, bite me." "Hey, I'm going to go before a judge and I'm going to get a warrant." And, and guess what? The judge may decline my warrant, Brian, right? All the best. That's how law really goes.

And I go back to using the binoculars to see the stolen car example. Don't sit there and go, "I'm going to do this because I have the absolute right to do this, and the law allows me." That's being stubborn, that's being pig-headed, and the court's going to look back on that too and frown. You see what I'm trying to say? The court's going to look at you and go, "Don't be impetuous because I'm going to spank you." And the court's going to look at the copper and go, "Don't overreach because I'm going to spank you." That's the beauty of our criminal system. So, why does it go wrong?

Well, well, well, that this is, you know, you get into knowing your rights, and that's, that's incumbent, that's, that's your own personal responsibility, right? And unfortunately, there's a lot of really bad information out there too. There's a lot of YouTube courses that will tell you one thing. I mean, look no further than the sovereign citizens who are just completely out of their minds, who make stuff up as they go along with the law. But it, it's, it's more clear, all right? There's a lot of gray areas in the sense that it's not really a gray area, it's all just so dependent on the individual case, right?

Precisely. That's why you can't have fast practices.

But, and that's why it's also hard to understand this because you're going, "Well, wait a minute, in this case, the guy brought in 300 pounds of cocaine, and the Supreme Court said, 'Get out of, no, get out of jail, you're good.'" That's, that's, that's bad stuff. You're not getting your coke back. But, yeah, wait, you don't get that back.

No, sorry. Sorry, I didn't know that. I thought the cops split it up. That's what the internet will say.

Yeah, exactly. So, so, but, but in another case, we were saying, you know, it had nothing to do with that, it was some minor infraction or something, and they'll pass and say, "No, it was a good stop." This is what, yeah.

So, you're so spot on. Let me, let me give you one. You see how that clouds, like, "Wait a minute, how can I get in with 300 pounds of blow, but I got a busted taillight and I'm going to jail now?" Like, "Wait, why did that happen?" So, slow, slow your roll. Yeah, no, not you, them. But, Brian, for everybody, Brian lives in San Diego. I'll give you his house number later in the episode, you can stop by and see him and his wife and kids. The idea is that San Diego is a huge harbor, you're right, and San Diego, a huge entrance to the U.S. It's a harbor very close to Mexico. Yeah. So, so a bunch of people, and they were highfalutin people, they had money, got together and went to the federal government and said, "You're stopping my boat. I was born and raised in the United States, I have every document, all this other stuff, my boat is registered." And the CBP said, "Yeah, but you got to understand that blank number of the illegal guns, drugs, everything come in, so we're going to have to check you. And once we know it's not you, we got to let you go." And what's the Supreme Court saying? "Time, as long as it's reasonable based on you're doing something, you know, I'm waiting for a computer return, I'm waiting for a test result or something, it's reasonable." So, the U.S. Supreme Court came down and go, "Hey, Harbor Boy, cool your jets. You get what I'm trying to say? Have a Mai Tai, wait, wait, wait for it, because it's going to happen." So, if they're not, if the U.S. Supreme Court is not willing to have a guy that owns a yacht, do you get what I'm trying to say, win this lawsuit, then he certainly wasn't going to allow a person on a Greyhound bus in Washington with it. And that's where Ferguson's genius comes in. Ferguson knew he couldn't go up against the law directly because the transportation check is a protected item, and the Supreme Court won't even touch it. So, he went...

Yeah, he didn't, he didn't challenge anything in some federal law or statute or anything like that. He literally used a consumer protection law for the State of Washington.

Did I go back to the automobile exception, Brian? We, we talked about the automobile exception, and it was brought around how many years ago? 100 years ago, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And so, so you have to think that when it comes to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court is saying the law stands, and they're only going to jump in and somebody is going to say right now, "Are you telling me that the U.S. Supreme Court took a drug cartel and and voted for the drug cartel and said the search was illegal?" Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Why? Because it shows you, common American, average human being on the street, that you have the same rights as anybody else when you're in our country, and if it's wrong, you're going to get it overturned. But this, this is one of those, and that's why when you fought for the term "gray area" earlier, because it really isn't, but...

Right. It appears to be that way because each one of these cases are unique. So, individual.

Yeah.

So, and even though where one law will protect someone in one situation, you just change that situation just a little bit, and now it no longer falls under there. Well, one stop is okay, the other one isn't. And so, I think that's the back to that taillight, back to that DEA guy. Look, you're sitting on a bundle of whatever, illegal money, illegal kids, illegal whatever. It's illegal, okay? And you're in Tucson, Arizona, and you're coming up to your destination or location, or you're about to leave, and all of a sudden a guy walks on in a suit and you smell cop immediately, and another guy's bringing a dog. 1980s Clash hit "Should I Stay or Should I Go" starts playing, and you go, "Holy, I'm going to jail for the rest of my life," and you start shooting it out, okay? How do we take that incident and make it less dangerous? You don't. You've got heroes that are out there working to do that so you're safer. So, you, ticket buyer on that vehicle, are safe with those men, and they traded their lives, which I'm against, but they traded their lives for your continuing safety, Brian. It's a hard thing to talk about because we want freedom, but freedom comes with a price.

Well, and because you don't, it's not talked about in the same manner, because what happens if, okay, it's not a cop that comes on that train in Tucson, but it's a rival cartel member? Holy crap, okay? So, now what happens? Now they get into the shootout, but it's between gang members and cartels, and this. Now what's the new story out of that? Yeah, words of course, "Trains are, where are the cops? This is the Wild West out here! We have no security, we have no this!" And so, so you have to take, take into account that those are the things you're preventing by having those police officers there, and in the course of their duty, they're going to come across those dangerous situations. That specifically on the train, what you just brought up in Tucson, that person who was doing something illegal made a choice. They made the choice to shoot. They made the choice, well, it wasn't an advanced critical thinking choice, right? Meaning, they made the choice to engage in that illegal activity, and then they made the choice to start shooting at police. Like, the, you know. So, I think the, the responsibility there lies with that individual. And if, if not for that, like I said, what if it was a rival member, was the guy that he, he owed money to or something like that, and now we're having that? Now you have that, like in Chicago, where they're shooting at each other right in front of the police officers and they're not even getting charges pressed against them.

But you already had a very profound statement made by a very important writer for an important paper, and I know print is dead, but it's one of them that goes on the Internet and everything else. And the substance of what they said was, "Hey, listen, man, this isn't a big deal. Marijuana is legal. Why are we still doing these interdiction things?" Okay, listen, from your perspective, yeah, in your room, doing the bong hits and going, "Mom, lasagna," okay, whatever you're doing.

Meatloaf. That's it. God, Brian, that's so hilarious.

But from that perspective, that's right. But what you're talking about, like, for example, the U.S. border versus the Haitians. I'll throw this into the mix, Brian. You take one snippet of one officer saying something that was personal, and was, was, listen, just because you're authority, you don't have the right to berate somebody. But they did, they were under a lot of stress, okay? And you say the entire Border Patrol and all of their horses. That's ridiculous. That's not what this is about.

I don't know, and it's, it's not, it's unfortunate, but people are going to have that reaction, and that's just a very ignorant reaction. That guy is probably a great guy, and it was, he let his anger and his emotions get the best of him. But I'm not going to defend what he said, even with the photo you were talking about with, which people like, "Oh my God, Border Patrol agents are whipping people!" It's like, that's, that's not what that is. But how long did they have to search? It was like, "Wait, wait a minute, that's not what was going on here at all."

So, right, right.

But what happened with that? That's what I'm saying, with this Greyhound case, to answer your question about precedent, this may light a fire. Everybody right now is going, "Where do they get these obscure cases?" Trust me, this one, it's coming back. This is not...

And what you're, what I'm, what I'm going to say, what I'm guessing you're getting at, is what I see is to, to sort of paraphrase, I guess, is, you're making what Washington State did in this case, and what happens often, unfortunately, is making sort of either policy or what will lead to policy or making a judgment based on a perspective, not on the law and how it works out. Meaning, "This is my own opinion of the situation. I don't like it, so I'm going to do something about it, and I'm in a position of authority to do so." You know, now I got to get creative with how I do it. You know what? It's exactly right. You're having a knee-jerk reaction to a situation, and you want to go after this, and you want to change policy or sue or create it. But, but we're not doing it based on the facts of the case. I got to bring in something that I can generally...

Exactly.

So, so again, straighten this up for just a second, because you're, you're nailing this. And not that I'm the judge, but what I'm trying to say is this is exactly the discussion that I wanted to have today. I come up and I knock on your door and I say, "Is Brian Marren there?" And your wife says, "Yes." And I say, "Can I speak to him for a minute?" You come to the door, and I go, "Mr. Marren, you've got a warrant for your arrest. You're under arrest." I start handcuffing you at the doorway. Now, your wife steps in and goes, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, I need to know this and then the other." Okay, no, you don't. Step off. Yeah, what I'm telling you is it doesn't have to be that way. I can slow down and say, "Ma'am, give me just a second. Procedurally, I've got to make sure that there's no danger here. I'll sit down with you at your kitchen table and tell you everything." We've got to take time out of the equation, and we've got to be personable. Now, some situations in dangerous environments don't allow us to do that. We got to bag somebody and run, Brian, because it might turn heinous, right? But what I'm saying is that goes back to the nature of the beast. We are talking about a very nebulous concept that has everyday changes, and there are different changes within different jurisdictions, within the personalities of the officers, with the people. Sometimes they'll accept it, sometimes I'm not going, and sometimes they're going to shoot you and then shoot themselves. Right? How can you make one overarching, you know, a pen stroke and say it's going to, it's going to work with all of these people?

Well, and you can't. This is why you have to have a number of ways to do things. There's, there's no, here it's, "Let's, let's train to a standard. Let's use these protocols and procedures. Get really, really good at a basic way of doing things. Like, really, really good at this basically. And then conceptualize that, apply that."

But let me go one more step: when you train to a standard, what should you expect? You should expect to be held to a standard. Do you see what I'm trying to say? Yeah. So, so, and listen, there are people out there that don't understand that second half of that caveat, okay? Lane markers aren't merely suggestions. If you go over them, you risk being pulled over or getting killed. Do you see where I'm going? So, so the idea is, I agree with you, I agree that here is the spirit of the law that says, you know, this, and here is the written word of the law. Who handles that, that interface between transmit and receive? The Supreme Courts. That's why appellate courts are around. You feel that you were wrongly adjudicated, right? And you want them to relitigate the case. You do have the right, and that's what's beautiful about America.

So, I think I don't know why Greyhound caved. I don't know what Ferguson had because they, they're just, just like a couple of capers that we're following, they haven't released that information yet. Do you get what I'm talking about? But I'm telling you, this was a state situation with a state case and a state attorney who has, there's all kinds of different state, I shouldn't say restrictions, but there's state requirements for these companies to operate legally within that state, right? Greyhound has to meet certain protocols and procedures for every state that they operate in for things like safety, permits, licenses, all that stuff, for every single place. So, so that state does have the authority to say, "Well, you know, we don't like this. Maybe we'll, maybe we'll, well, maybe we'll pull their license." Now that, that might be illegal for them to do that, or they might be doing something that's unconstitutional that violates Greyhound, the company Greyhound's rights to conduct business in that state. But they certainly have a lot of leverage doing this. And this is what gets into all elected officials. This is why, you know, we, we, we need to demand better leadership in this country.

Precisely.

You know, we want people that have an understanding of the law and how it applies. Because you get into these arguments where people, there's no better place than Chicago to look at right now. I mean, everyone going back and forth, arguing, pointing fingers over this. And now it's the state's attorney's fault, and even the mayor's pissed at the state's attorney. Now the state's attorney's saying, "Well, no, the police said this." And the police said, "Well, no, we only said that because this is what we saw, and this is, we were there, we saw it, you have to do." You know what I mean? And everyone has to work together, and they're not. And they're all because what happens is one starts to overstep their boundaries, and the other one comes in and says, "Hey, we don't like that." And then they start arguing, and then someone else pops up and says, "So, so you have all of these." And this is a good example of one, a very good example. No one, it's just, it's just something that's going to go. But because Greyhound probably wants it to go away too, right?

Right. No, they're not going to win. They go, "You know, let's just do this. Let's show good faith because it's going to cost us money in court." Even they're going to have to build this entire case that we just talked about. They're going to have to show that, I mean, everything. So, so now they're like, "All right, it's, it's, it's easier for us, or it's more cost effective for them as an organization to pay than it is to actually train their drivers and buy the stickers."

So, your point well taken on Chicago, and I want to caveat that here you have a city-county argument that's going. And the mayor, who would not ever have requested the feds to come in for any reason, has requested the feds to come in to take a look at this caper. So, that just shows you that...

They told me, I think she told them, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

But you get where I'm going, yeah. So, so here, what we're doing is we're setting up for an argument in Washington State, Greyhound versus Blank, or the State of Washington versus Greyhound. I'm predicting it now because it's coming, because the Border Patrol is going to have a case that's so obvious where they followed a guy from Manitoba that came through the crossing and did this, and they're going to stop it, and somebody's going to go, "Well, wait a minute, we just passed this thing, and you're on there." You see what I'm trying to say? So, we're setting a storm up. There's always a storm on the horizon, Brian.

Well, these are the, these are the, you know, these are like the, the pre-event indicators, right? These are, I would agree, as you can see, these are the little ones you see until there's something big or something major, right? You see all these little ones building up, and then there's something that does really either violate the law, or it becomes a reason for case law, it goes all the way to the Supreme Court because someone pushes back, you know. So, so you see all these little ones in there as well that kind of sometimes set precedent, whether that's legal precedent, or like I said, some societal precedent, or industry precedent for operating in that state. Because every other company involved in the transportation industry now goes, "Wait a minute, what, what are, am I going to be on the hook for for a couple mil if something like this happens tonight? And we don't want to do something wrong." And you know what? Most people that ride the Greyhound bus are doing exactly what they should be doing.

Yeah, one of the twins comes from Utah all the time for the holidays and uses Greyhound. Yeah, we pick them up at the Greyhound station. There's nothing wrong with that. We're not trying to comport this into something it's not. We're not saying that Tucson is more dangerous than any other place. What we're trying to say is that if we are a nation of laws, which we are, then what we have to do is we have to be suspect anytime somebody wants to come in and seemingly circumvent the authority, okay? And I'm not for big government, Brian, you know that. But I am for adherence to the Constitution. And so, I would say that the constitutionality is the issue rather than the very specific points that Ferguson pointed out.

So, do you think that Greyhound could have, if they wanted to invest the time and money to do so, pushed back on this and gone to trial, and then argued this up federally? I mean, do you think, but what, and what right when, if it, if that happened, that would take a lot of time and money and effort, right, to reach that? But do you think that they have a leg to stand on saying like, "No, we don't, that this is not in violation of anyone's rights. Our company is following the laws of the United States, and we have no say in whether or not the Border Patrol pulls us over and searches our bus within this..."

It's a great question. It's a great question, and that would be a tabletop for a town hall. And I'll answer it this way: you know how "Know Your Rights," the workplace posters, those big things with federal government stuff, "Hey, here's the IG line if you've seen broad waste and abuse."

Yes, yeah, yeah. In certain areas, I know what you're talking about, yeah.

I would tell everybody that you can find one in your business, look around. There's one, there's something. Look at the bottom and take a look at what the potential fines and costs are. If those fines and costs exceed $2.2 million, I would say that Greyhound did the smart thing and said, "You know, these kind of lawsuits come and go, and we probably get 70 a year." Yeah. "And we're going to settle through." You see what I'm saying? Yeah. Now, that's not the answer you asked me for, right? But that's the answer I'm going to give you because not knowing enough of this, and not being there with the case in chief and seeing the different things, if a law is ambiguously written, it'll be challenged over and over and over again. But yes, I believe that Greyhound should have stood their ground and said, "We're only doing..." Now, we don't know if they did something above and beyond, because there's the allegation that they did, you know what I'm saying, they knowingly or capriciously (or did something else that we don't know about). Whenever I see that writing, it's like somebody's holding a card close to their vest. You get what I'm trying to say? They're saying, "Yeah, but you don't know about Davenport." "Oh, Davenport!" And now they bring it out in the trial, right?

Yeah.

And I would tell everybody this too: when Brian gives you a caper, and you can look it up online, look below it and what they'll be is, there'll be 400 or 500 cases that are related to that same one where different courts take a piece of each one and cobble it together in a response. We don't know, but I would tell you that I think the political climate in Washington State led to what's going on here, and a more liberal people saying, "Hey, listen, you've got to leave folks alone and open borders and all that other stuff." I think it was well-intentioned, I think it was well-meaning, and I think it went off the rails and resulted in this decision. I think that later on down the line, it's going to be challenged and, and nobody's going to find, and you can't do that.

You, you do, you kind of mention, you know, and to make it clear, you brought up some good points that sometimes these things are politically motivated, and that's true. I don't even think you meant that in a negative manner because you even said their intent may have been good, like that this is what happens sometimes when some politicians or folks with different authority, they have a good intention in mind, they're trying to do this, and they're going to apply it. But sometimes that, that application of it doesn't really work out, or it doesn't always fit this way intended. Well, in the second and third-order effects, this is what the reminder is on any type of legal precedent or any case, even this, even though it didn't go to trial, it still set some sort of precedent, which from which everything after that similar will be based off of. Someone will reference this, right? Whether that's in a company board meeting going, "Hey, let's talk about what happened to Greyhound. We may need to change some policies." Or in, like I said, another state's attorney could say, "You know, we don't like this organization, they have..." You know, and maybe it's, I guess, well, but maybe it's intended well. Let's say now the state attorney in Minnesota, they've had this case with some shoddy transportation company that's ripping off their passengers and not maintaining their vehicles, and they don't have anything to go on, but they know they're going to some, they're trying to prevent something happening. They could do something similar like this. Now, maybe in that case, it caused that company to fold, and you, you know, because they needed to, and they were a danger to society. So, maybe that's a good thing, right?

Yeah.

But you get what I'm saying? It, meaning that this is where, where the area gets in there and how they apply their power and authority.

So, let me answer New York and in LA this morning by saying this: "Did you legalize marijuana? Did you decriminalize marijuana? Did you change the federal legislation?" I would drop the mic right there and walk out of the room. They're very important distinctions, and there is a dude on the ground that goes, "One ounce? Three ounce? Am I okay to smoke in public? Can I smoke in my house?" And they're getting rolled up and they don't know why. And then there's federal guidelines that say, "No, you can't use this to pay for it. You can't carry this much. You can't transport it on a federally regulated thing," right? And people don't know, right? So, this is what I'm talking about. Well-intentioned, what happens is we say, "Yes, we want a landmark decision, and now marijuana is legal." But people think that it's legal and there's no restrictions, and there are thousands of pages of documentation now of new things that you have to comply with. And that's in keeping with the tradition. That's in keeping with the intent of the framers of the Constitution, right? They said democracy will be played out in the states, okay?

Meaning, precisely. Meaning, yeah, that's where it will be, though. That's the testbed, so to speak, right? Is what happens in these states. Then when it, when it, now you have interstate commerce and all these things, so then the federal government then goes, "Okay, we're either going to step in here or not step in here, or based on what we've seen in the states in the union, this is where we're going." So, so a lot of federal policy is informed by what is, I mean, you see that all the time, but federal policy is informed by what has happened in the states, and that's where it's meant to play out. These, these issues are meant to play out at a state level. That's what the framers wanted, right? And then, then the limited federal government would say, "Okay, well, here's how that's going to get regulated nationwide now because of what we've seen. This is the general guideline we will provide, and then you states will provide the specific guidelines underneath that that fit within what your, what your constituents and citizens of that state want," right? So, that's kind of another way to look at it, which is why I brought up the state's attorney versus a private company and operating in that state. There's a lot of factors in play here that don't really get brought up, but have second and third-order effects that kind of make sense.

They're exactly right. And what we have to play is those second and third-order effects. So, what we're saying is, don't just take it on face value. Dig deep. That's why, you know, you might not like our podcast, I'm good with that. You might not like me and you're like, "Brian or buddy..." If they made it this far in the episode, they probably...

Yeah, yeah, or they really hate...

Either that, or they're accidentally here, yeah. And they're just, I don't want to say what they're doing. But the idea is that you're on this call because we want you to think deeper. We don't want you to just go, "Well, yeah, they got this." Because if you do that, you're whitewashing the whole process. We don't want you to do that. We want you to think, "What if I was that person on that bus? What if I was the bus driver? What if I was the agent walking on that bus?" If you consider that, Brian, then you get the 360. And that's all we want. You know, and sometimes we take devil's advocate, folks, and we're, we're not going to hold up, "I'm now being the devil's advocate." Right, that's implied, right? It's important to go back, "Hey, how come when we do that, I'm always like the guy breaking the law or carrying the dope, and you're always the one trying to bust me?" Well, Dante Alighieri, from your standpoint in one of those rings, you're trying to fight your way back into society, and it's a motionless doll. It's harder for you. You know what I'm trying to say?

My parole officer says I'm doing very well.

Yeah, exactly. Your tether would prove otherwise. Hey, I wanted to, I actually wrote this down, and I want to hit this. I know you got a bunch on your plate. Go ahead. It's the best hour I spent yesterday. It was on Lessons From The Front Episode 38. I choose podcasts randomly to make sure that ours is unique and that we're staying with stuff. And Lessons From The Front available, number 38, was my good friend Brian Marren, that's Ambassador for Carry The Load. And Todd did a great job bringing some stuff out. But, Brian, I would tell you right now, Todd better do three episodes because there's so much more there. You just got rolling.

Yeah, you just got started, man. Yeah, I don't know. He, he, Todd, if you guys do, Greg's talking about Lessons From The Front by Carry The Load. They have the podcast, they interview folks. Check it out. We had a great discussion with Todd on it. And I brought up some story, 'cause we started, we talked for, he does a great job where we talked for like a half hour, 20 minutes beforehand. It's, "Okay, cool, take a minute, and then we'll get started." And so, we were kind of moving a little bit, and he does a great job with questions and setting him up, and he, I told some stories that I didn't even remember those stories until we started talking. The one about the, the July, end of July 2007, Ramadi, Iraq, Iraq National Soccer team won against Saudi Arabia and, and what I was doing on the ground there and how it impacted. Like, that was...

That's too much. I want him to go to that episode. It was, and the other thing is, remarkably, I actually saw Brian have emotions. I've seen Brian have emotions like three times. One was due to an obstruction in his alimentary canal, but on this episode, you get to see the true, transparent Brian. And it was wonderful.

Yeah, I know. I, I did. Todd did a great job, and I was, you know, that was, that was, that was a good one. I actually had some other stories I wanted to share, and we just didn't get the time. It was, it was, it was a good conversation. So, thank you for that shout-out. I will put that link, folks, in the episode details for all of you to check out. So, yeah, that was a, that was a good one, Greg. I know, hopefully everyone enjoyed our breakdown of the legal stuff because they're typically our least popular episodes, but for us, they're so much, for the most important. And this is how they play out. I also, I'd like to invite the litigants, and I'd like a representative from Greyhound to step up, and I'd like the Attorney Ferguson to step up if, listen, tell us what we don't know, because we're only going on the information that's been published.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's a great point, and we make that point at the beginning usually, but we just go off of what, what's open source. There's no, and if we want to talk about information, we always let in. But, but if anyone wants to talk to Uncle Si from Duck Dynasty... so if anybody knows him...

Are we just, I don't know. Are we just, you're just yelling out random people that you want to talk to? "I love carpet." Do you, do you love the carpet, Greg, or you just...

"I love lamp." (from Anchorman)

You do have something there for a while. All right. So, thanks, everyone, for tuning in. We do appreciate it. Don't forget to check out the Patreon site. Follow us if you enjoy the episode, share with your friends, all that good stuff. But we, we do appreciate you for listening. Thank you so much, and don't forget that training changes behavior.