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Posted on 02/17/2010 8:16:37 AM PST by granite
Nobody here is advocating drinking and driving. That is the canard. The problem here is that once you give up a constitutional right, in this case probable cause, it is hard to ever get it back. In addition, creating an environment of control so sever as to have soviet era roadblocks, with para military tactics is a huge mistake. In a perfect world no traffic deaths would ever happen. We don’t live in that world. As long as people drive cars people will die in them. That sucks. But the government, no matter how fully empowered to intrude into peoples lives in an attempt to change behavior will never be able to create a zero risk environment. Accept that fact, and you won’t demand more government intrusion at the expense of the ability to travel unimpeded. The government big enough to give you everything you want is the government big enough to take everything you have.
They already have iPhone apps for speed traps BTW.
Get a lawyer on them if they don’t and get some money from them in a lawsuit... :-)
3. The US. Supreme Court ruled in Michigan v. Sitz that although a DUI roadblock does constitute a violation of the Fourth Amendment, the governmentalal interest in reducing drunk driving fatalities outweighs the “minimal intrusion” into a citizen’s constitutional rights.
I lived in Michigan at the time when our super-uber-liberal Governor Jim Blanchard pushed this all the way to the SCOTUS. Most people don’t realize that the plaintiffs then sued in Michigan court under the Michigan State Constitution, and the Michigan Supreme Court tossed DUI checkpoints for violating the State Constitution.
So apparently the State Constitution of Michigan provides more citizen protection than the US Constitution. Meanwhile all the rest of us are stuck with DUI checkpoints.
Use of the criminal code to raise revenue is bad government on at least two levals: it erodes the perception of the state as a force for right, and it destroys the states neutrality in that money becomes the object not law and/or justice.
I believe that in the same session where the SCOTUS found DUI checkpoints do not violate the Fourth Amendment, they also found that burning the US Flag is a constitutionally protected form of free speech.
I have since fantasized about being stopped at a DUI checkpoint, stepping slowly out of my car and setting fire to Old Glory. I imagine our entire Federal Court System would be tied in knots for the next 17 years while they figured out what to do with me.
It has everything to do with dispensing of the pesky 4th Amendment which was an impediment to municipal revenue.
ping
Around here drug trafficking is carried on with near impunity.
Recently a federal grant to local police departments was issued - overtime up to 5 hours per man per day will be paid by Uncle Sam - only if those hours are devoted to DUI enforcement.
It’s like the global warming and institutional racism crowds - facts, figures and obvious money grabs don’t matter to the gullible who STILL believe it’s about ‘saaaafety.’
How can you possibly be FOR drunk driving?
(is a sarc tag really required?)
That would be Rehnquist, Scalia, White, O'Connor, Kennedy and Blackmun.
If they did “chase” me I would say I “forgot” something and ask them if I am free to go. If not, I would ask them why I am being stopped. I would then say that I have to be somewhere and am I free to go. Etc.
Enjoy your tasing, pepper spray, beating, and charge for resisting arrest.
I guarantee they're not screening for legal residency, because (among other reasons) there is no money in it.
There’s already one out called Trapster. Available for IPhone and BlackBerry. Shows checkpoints and lets you update or report them. It’s great!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Dept._of_State_Police_v._Sitz
Those would be Rehnquist, White, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, and Blackmun.
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