Posted on 11/19/2013 6:55:25 PM PST by markomalley
Dozens of Texas drivers have been stopped at a police road block, where they were then directed into a parking lot and forced into surrendering blood, saliva and breath samples in a study that has upset civil liberties advocates.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration admitted it was attempting to conduct a government study meant to determine the number of drunk or drug-impaired drivers on the road at any given time.
“It just doesn’t seem right that you can be forced off the road when you’re not doing anything wrong,” Kim Cope, who said she was forced to the side of the road while making her way to lunch, told NBCDFW.com. “I gestured to the guy in front that I just wanted to go straight, but he wouldn’t let me and forced me into the parking spot.”
The tests were made even more mysterious when reporters, alerted to the situation by concerned drivers, were unable to find any officers in the Fort Worth Police Department who had been involved. The NHTSA only admitted its involvement after local media sought answers.
The department, which says its mission is to “save lives, prevent injuries, and reduce vehicle-related crashes,” maintains that participation in the research was completely voluntary. But Ms. Cope said she felt trapped during what seemed to be an investigation.
“I finally did the breathalyzer test just because I thought it would be the easiest way to leave,” she said. “It just doesn’t seem right that they should be able to do any of it. If it’s voluntary, it’s voluntary, and none of it felt voluntary.”
When pressed, the FWPD said it was “reviewing the actions of all police personnel involved to ensure that FWPD policies and procedures were followed.” The NBC affiliate was able to determine that the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, a government contractor, was hired to conduct the check.
An NHTSA spokesperson admitted similar programs were being conducted in 30 other cities throughout the US.
But civil liberties attorney Frank Colosi does not accept the rationale.
“You can’t just be pulled over randomly or for no reason,” he said. “They’re essentially lying to you when they say it’s completely voluntary, because they’re testing you at that moment.”
He added that drivers who refused may have been targeted by police for inadvertently giving the impression they were operating a vehicle under the influence. He also told NBC that fine print on the form told drivers their breath was being tested by “passive alcohol sensor readings before the consent process has been completed.”
This oddity comes just months after Texas state troopers were caught on video conducting vaginal and cavity searches on female drivers at the side of the road. The videos quickly went viral, and attorneys for the women filed federal lawsuits against the troopers.
“It’s ridiculous,” Peter Schulte, a former Texas police officer and prosecutor, told the New York Daily News earlier this year. “I was a law enforcement officer for 16 years and I never saw anything like it.”
No...what you posted was idiotic. I could care less about how other countries are...and the "at least we aren't as bad as them....even if they occasionally violate the constitution" is an idiot argument. PERIOD.
The US doesn’t have a monopoly on nice places.
For someone such as myself who puts a fairly high value on gun liberties I would agree that the US is still the best. Measured against other liberties such as freedom of movement, speech, and economic liberty the US has ceded its top position. I don’t like it one bit, but I’m also not going to deny it.
It’s French slang for, “collaborator.”
This isn't the first time a survey has been conducted. PIRE has been doing it for the NHTSA for some years now.
SNIP
Four "national roadside surveys" have previously been conducted (1973 , 1986 , 1996 , 2007 ) to obtain data on this issue. In these surveys, drivers were randomly selected from weekend night (and Friday day in the 2007 survey) traffic on representative roadways across the 48 contiguous United States. In the first three surveys, once the driver pulled to the side of the road, s/he was asked to provide a breath sample and to answer a few questions regarding her/his drinking and driving behavior and the current trip. In the 2007 survey, for the first time, drivers were also asked to provide a voluntary oral fluid and blood sample, and to answer questions on drug use.
end Snip
The thread from yesterday is here if anyone is interested on the comments thereon:
Lighten up frances.
Dude, you scold... Scratch that, resist cops, judges, courts, politicians in order to preserve our rapidly dwindling exceptional ism.
Now I know I have tangled with you before on civil liberty issues.
I am trying to be nice. I am trying to not have my head explode.
You say in theory that we should follow the Constitution. But you are really quite happy to fudge on the 4th and the 5th IF that gives you a measure of safety.
I think, after careful consideration that you are a provocateur. A DU troll here to stir things up. I think you should go.
BE GONE VILE TROLL BACK TO THE HELL THAT SPAWNED YOU
!ZOT!
Ah, name calling, the last vestige of the incompetent.
You are a troll. That is not a name. That is a description of a tactic. A tactic you are using.
1. I am female. Would that be "dudette"?
2. You can't have tangled with me before on TOO many issues, I think. My husband and mother recently passed away and I haven't here on FR for YEARS. I guess, from what I am reading, that I should NOT be back and should just go away. Am I reading things right?
3. Thank you for trying to be nice. You don't have to try as it's my guess you just are nice.
P.S. Please don't have head explosion. Your wife would NOT like to clean up the mess.
Not very nice of you. I thought you were trying to be nice. I guess you are just trying. Sorry, bad pun.
By the way, I didn't know that "troll" was a tactic. That's a new one on me. "Troll" USED to be just an nasty epithet.
Which country now has that top position, in your opinion?
I know that there are darn few countries that have our gun liberties. In fact, I can't think of another country to equal ours with gun liberties. Can you?
You don't think we have freedom of movement, freedom of speech or economic liberty? Where CAN'T you go? What CAN'T you say and what economic liberty is denied you? Honest questions.
I'm trying to think of where I can't go and what I can't say. I know that if I say something HERE that some people don't like I get called a troll. But, who cares about that? As least I have the freedom to speak.
When I was here YEARS ago, a troll was a very undesirable person. Now I am told that 'troll' is a process, not a name. Things have changed here. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.
Well, you didn't write that.
If you are going to vilify someone at least have the decency to be clear.
By the way, insulting someone IS the last refuge of the unclear, unthinking and immature.
Period.
Ah me, an ad hominum attack.
Apparently name-calling is acceptable on FR now. It wasn't the years ago I was here. It didn't used to be.
I guess that's the best that you can do. It's a shame that anger and vitrol is what you spend your time writing. You do best what you do most.
God bless America and all its rules and regulations!
"Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God!" - Thomas Jefferson
By the way, insulting someone IS the last refuge of the unclear, unthinking and immature.
Period.
Pot meet kettle...
Post #37 by cloudmountain to RKBA Democrat
I guess he was prepared for the normal angry driver as he just looked at me for a minute. The he gave me the MILDEST scolding I have ever received and did NOT give me the ticket that I deserved.
If I were 45 years younger I would have thought that I didn't get the ticket because I was cute. But, I sure as heck am not cute anymore. He didn't give me the ticket because, I think, I owned up to not paying attention and was prepared to take the ticket.
PROBABLE CAUSE, that's the key word, isn't it?
I've never had the police search my home, nor have the police here ever set up door-to-door searches in our neighborhood looking for residents who had drugs.
My neighborhood is AMAZINGLY quiet, I'm afraid.
If you wouldn’t mind THAT, would you mind the feds coming into your house and examining your reading material, and confiscating magazines and newspapers they didn’t want you to have?
Where does it cross the line for you? Ed
I can't imagine the feds having ANY interest in me. If the feds came to my house, out of the blue, to look at my reading material, magazines and newspapers I would be flabbergasted. I don't have magazines, newspapers are rags and I get my news on-line.
I would let them in, without having a tizzy fit, and inform that they might die of boredom looking at my reading material. I read Georgette Heyer and Ellis Peters: women authors who wrote about the Regency period and murders, respectively.
Question: have you ever been pulled over without probable cause, had DNA samples forcibly taken from you and had door-to-door police searches looking for drugs in your neighborhood?
If you have, that is terrible and I do understand your hatred disenchantment with the thin blue line.
Finally, where does it cross the line? I don't know. I've never had any real problems in this country with the police. I actually started the police academy when I was MUCH younger. My husband taught me to shoot as well. My favorite gun was his little Beretta. Fit right in my hand. I'm not small but my hands are.
Thomas Jefferson said many wonderful things.
The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.
No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands].
The opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds
That truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate ; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.
A free people [claim] their rights, as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate
Let those flatter who fear; it is not an American art. To give praise which is not due might be well from the venal, but would ill beseem those who are asserting the rights of human nature. They know, and will therefore say, that kings are the servants, not the proprietors of the people.
The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.
Be honest and admit you misquoted me. Be honest and admit that you think it was OK for these Federal bureaucrats to violate the 4th Amendment. Be honest and admit that you incorrectly identified them as cops. Be honest and admit that you insulted someone way back in post #37.
By the way, insulting someone IS the last refuge of the unclear, unthinking and immature. Period. - cloudmountain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
Now. Tell me more about why you take all of your news from the internet so it can't be traced. And your interest in murder and firearms I find fascinating! ;)
All of that said - I thought that those roadblocks to actually catch and arrest drunk drivers were ruled “lawful” because they either test/search ALL of the people, or test/search RANDOM people. “Lawful” is in quotes as I don't see those clauses in the Fourth Amendment.
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