Replies

"Fishing expeditions like this are becoming increasingly common. Setting up roadblocks to see if they can discover a reason to charge people."

My gut feeling is that it's both a BS fishing expedition and perfectly legal, assuming you subscribe to the 'driving is a privilege, not a right' way of thinking. It's the type of thing people could put a stop to if they cared enough to do it. Most people are far too apathetic to even fight it, let along fight it hard.

Yet another blatant violation of the Bill of Rights:

Article [IV.]
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

"...assuming you subscribe to the 'driving is a privilege, not a right' way of thinking"

I do not subscribe to that way of thinking.

I live in Missouri. The Missouri Constitution states,

Bill of Rights, Article I, Section 2,

"...that all persons have a natural right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and the enjoyment of the gains of their own industry;"

What better example of a basic liberty than to be able travel freely on the roads that you have paid for (gasoline tax) in the automobile that you have purchased with the "gains of their own industry" without interference by government.

The same Article I, Section 2 continues,

"that to give security to these things is the principal office of government, and that when government does not confer this security, it fails in its chief design."

I would say the city of Independence government has "failed in its chief design."