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'No Refusal' DUI Checkpoints Coming To Florida?
schwit1 writes "With New Year's Eve only days away, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration expects this to be one of the deadliest weeks of the year on the roads. But now a new weapon is being used in the fight against drunk driving. ...
Florida is among several states now holding what are called 'no refusal' checkpoints. It means if you refuse a breath test during a traffic stop, a judge is on site, and issues a warrant that allows police to perform a mandatory blood test."
"No refusal" car searches? They'll have a judge on site to issue the OK for an otherwise unconstitutional search of your car?
I was under the impression that a refusal to take a breathalyzer in most states landed you in jail until your blood was drawn. That's how it is here in MN.
I just don't understand any legitimate concern to decline a breathalyzer test. It's non-invasive and it's not like it's a cheek swap DNA test. But I bet that no drop of blood goes to waste once they draw that...
There's a spot in User Info for World of Warcraft account names? Really?
At least in some states they need to consider the penalties for DUI. In many, drivers will be fined as little as $250 and be allowed to continue driving on a restricted license. DUI should result in a minimum one year total ban and a requirement to resit your test. There is no excuse for such behaviour.
Many other countries have made drink driving socially unacceotable. That status is long overdue in the US.
1: I don't know where you are, but New Years isn't "days away" here... It's here now.
2: Doesn't Florida fall under the same constitution as the rest of the US? Refusing to take a brethalyzer test is a constitutional right under the 5th amendment, and as much as I'd like to see all drunk drivers charged with attempted murder, I don't see how a judge can issue a warrant without evidence simply because someone exercises their rights. Two wrongs do not make a right in this case for sure.
--Forest C. Adcock--
An excerpt from the Fourth Amendment: "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."
The Robed 9 need to re-read that one too. Also they should re-read their own decision in US v. Leon (1984), particularly the bit about "The exception we recognize today will also not apply in cases where the issuing magistrate wholly abandoned his judicial role..." -- rubber-stamped warrants don't count.
If you refuse a breathalyser test the RCMP office is the judge, jury and executioner. You can't even take it to court as you dispute it I think you have to now go through the Superintendent Of Motor Vehicles. http://www.invermere.com/2010/09/06/bc-gets-tough-on-drinking-and-driving/
Oh and the RCMP would never abuse these new laws, no never.....
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Unless the previous person blew high enough that there's residual alcohol inside the machine.
As far as I'm concerned, probable cause means probable cause. If they want to stop everybody at random checkpoints like the gestapo, fine, but don't make people who seem sober take any stupid breath tests or blood tests. If there's no probable cause to believe that the person has been drinking, such tests just plain don't pass constitutional muster.
Oh, and you can bet a blood test on the side of the road won't meet HIPAA requirements for electronic medical records.
Hope those states have good lawyers. They're going to need them.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Drunk drivers have been killing about a 9/11 worth of Americans every couple months since the 1960s. Given the extent to which we've allowed the government to invade our privacy in ineffective ways in the name of protecting us from terrorism, I'm happy to see them do something genuinely effective against a problem that's about a hundred times worse than terrorism.
And the problem is, all politicians are too big of pussies to rein them in. Their eventual goal is 0% legal BAC and probably after that, a complete prohibition on alcohol at all. And you know what? I think they'll eventually get it. Baby steps. It's been going on for decades.
No, I don't condone drunk driving. I'm sorry people get hurt and die. But at some point, you have to stand up and say, I think our system is OK as-is.
Why not just force them to take the damn breathalyzer rather than jabbing them with a needle? Do they have an RN there for that, or does Barney Fife take a crack at it?
I was under the impression that a refusal to take a breathalyzer in most states landed you in jail until your blood was drawn. That's how it is here in MN.
In Minnesota it is a separate crime to refuse to a blood, urine, or intoxilyzer 5000 test after being read the implied consent advisory. This is almost exclusively done at a place of detention. If you give them the finger they charge you with refusing to take the test. They can not forcibly take blood without a warrant unless there is an accident involving a fatality (or one of the other few exceptions). Minnesota law says if the test is lawfully refused then a test must not be given. IANAL but i suspect they would have to adjust this statute in order to force blood draws on people who refused, at least in Minnesota.
See MN SS 159A.51 and 169A.52 https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/?id=169A.51 & https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/?id=169A.52
my sig depressingly relevant, again
weinersmith
Oh yeah, that's going to convince someone of your point of view.
Grow up, junior.
.....they would beat you down; then you would wake up in the drunk tank in a pool of blood and vomit; then there's the disheveled shuffle where you, your toxic hangover and your black eye wobble in front of a judge.
Happy New Year to You and Yours!
Hebrews 11:8
Jeremiah 33:3
Looks like Mel Gibson's boozing it up again.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
don't make people who seem sober take any stupid breath tests or blood tests.
How do you define "seems sober"?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
"Hope those states have good lawyers. They're going to need them."
Why? They have the judges in their pocket.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
It's more of a spot check on nights like New Years day when they know that a lot of people are going to be driving drunk. I don't think that they force everybody to take the breathalyzer test without probable cause, but the main purpose is to cause people that are likely to drive drunk to think again.
What you're suggesting sounds questionable, sort of like speed traps.
Those damn cockuckingers!
Well, I won't say I have been drinking, but that fifth of Everclear hasn't almost emptied itself. And some asswipes who think that throwing away mine, their's and yours' Constitutional rights, sort of needs smacked down.
"Hope those states have good lawyers. They're going to need them."
Or they could take the other route and refuse you permission to sue them.
Mel's reformed. He loves Jews now. He still apparently hates blacks, but, y'know, one racial-ethnic group at a time.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
nobody riding in the back seats of taxis has ever been administered a breath test and issued a DUI or DWI. this will get -100 because the alkies are running slashdot now.
Reasonable suspicion. It's not difficult to interact with a person and determine if they are sober or not.
Alas, I agree with GP. For now the best we can hope is that they do it properly.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
What if your 0.07 plus residual equals 0.09? Suddenly, you are over the limit even if you are not.
I agree, if x-rays did guarantee safe flight, go ahead. However, they do nothing of the sort. It is still trivially easy to sneak weapons through TSA checkpoints: even the TSA's own analysis corroborates this (google it).
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Things like DUI checkpoints are sheer laziness and serve no purpose but to terrorize the populous. Drunk driving, like so many other things, need to be punished based on harm done, not on the presumption that harm might be done. If someone is driving recklessly,pull them over and, if they are in no condition to drive, take them away. I think we would have much happier roads if drivers could be removed based on the real dangers of reckless driving rather than the presumed dangers of being under the influence.
The SCOTUS has ruled that cars that are not accesible to suspects need warrants. Many conservatives still believe in the bill of rights. Unfortunately some fake conservatives, like the one's now ruling Texas, seem to want to ignore those that prevent them from building a bloated and unnecessarily intrusive central government.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mr38/1308847889/
http://fourthamendment.com/blog/index.php?blog=1&title=portable_backscatter_technology_zbv_and_&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
and now this? I don't think Nazi Germany was going around giving people cancer, forcing blood tests on the street and installing guard towers in shopping center parking lots.
Sure, we aren't singling out Jews and Gays, but isn't that in a way EVEN WORSE?
We're ALL expendable in this country now. Unless you have a private jet, and even then you might still get hit with the cancer gun when you're in your limo. Is there a good country to move to and get away from this? I'm dead serious: I want out. My country has fallen into a full on police state, and I'm ready to start swimming.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
if x-raying some guy to check him for explosives guarantees me a safe flight, i say ZAP AWAY!
Well that's the problem, isn't it? X-raying some guy to check him for explosives doesn't guarantee you a safe flight.
If you want to guarantee a safe flight, don't let anyone on the plane. If you want to guarantee a safe world, kill off all the humans.
"I say we take off, and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
"Respect my authoritah!"
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
As offensive as he's being, he's right.
All the people who say "don't do x and you'll have nothing to worry about" need to be dumped down a well somewhere. They're the type that endorse police states. I'm sorry, but the downhill slide to a police state in the US needs to come to a friggin' stop.
More evidence of police-stateism just today:
Go here: http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/12/31/1254208
Read it.
Drop a dime on your politicians and cops today. Fight these assholes with their own tools.
--
BMO
I am not a lawyer or an American, so take this with a pinch or two of salt:
DUI is a state offence, and each state sets its drink driving limits differently[1], so you need a state judge to approve a warrant for performing a blood test to determine whether someone is guilty. In contrast, HIPAA and the fourth amendment constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure are both Federal laws, meaning that a violation will be tried by a Federal judge. A state with state judges in its pocket can still find itself in trouble for violating federal law.
[1] Although a certain pressure group (Mothers Against Canada or something) has made is to that the state doesn't receive any federal funding for roads if they don't meet certain requirements.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
So is there a significant benefit to these checkpoints that couldn't be solved by more police patrolling?
Until the drunk driver hits somebody they are unlikely to draw the attention of the police, so I doubt more patrols would put a dent in the problem. Breath test stations "booze buses" are very common here in Melbourne, Australia. I have only seen them causing significant disruption when they stake out events which are notorious for leading to drunk driving. Otherwise they just sample the traffic flow and wave people past if they have too many customers. I have been tested a dozen times over the years and I make damn sure I blow zero. My family's life depends on that.
This was a classic alcohol related crash, just near my house a few weeks ago.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
if you plan to drink, plan to get a ride. if you werent drinking, you have nothing to fear about a breath test.
Unless, that is, you are diabetic or on a low-carb diet
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
If you drive with a 0.07, which is marginally close to illegal, you should be in the backseat of a cab. dont pretend this makes no sense to you. that's like arguing attempted murder vs murder.. "your honor, the guy pulled through, that means im not a bad person" your argument reflects that logic. drink a soda=drive yourself home drink alcohol=call a cab. if you can afford to party, you can afford a cab. I will however argue against (at the proper time) people who are picked up and fined for opting to walk while drunk. This is contradictory and I know a woman who walked home and got arrested. I think someone opting to leave their car should receive something of a pat-on-the-back. unless they are rowdy or doing something so destructive that it alone would warrant a fine, leave them be.
Yeah because pulling over drunks is a Nazi style tyranny.
There is a series of questions and observations they teach us at the MA level for intake and assessment for substance abuse/dependency. I somehow doubt that the pigs have anywhere near that level of training or time. A full assessment usually takes about 20-30 minutes, just on the determining if they are "fucked up" part.
Do it the way we have been successfully doing it here in Victoria, Australia for over two decades. Random breath testing, either preliminary testing performed by ANY cop doing ANY stop using a hand held device, or process an entire stream of traffic using one of thirty-odd 'booze buses', each equipped with several cops who breath test everybody, AND can also perform the second stage (analytical) breath test on site (in the specially equipped bus). Yeah, you CAN refuse a breath test, that's easy, but you're then charged with refusing to take a breath test which carries the same penalty as if you blew the end off the range!! No we don't enforce 'mandatory taking of blood', after all that would be considered a deprivation of a citizen's rights in some enlightened cultures. But refusal = guilty, it's your choice!! Also for the past few years the booze buses are being converted to booze/drugs buses and a saliva test is used to check drivers for cannabis or amphetamine use. Some may scream of invasion of privacy, but the statistics clearly reflect the good that is done by this initiative. Road fatalities have fallen by 2/3!!! Injuries have fallen a similar amount. Stavros_Oz, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
There are several ways, and police are trained in all of them. I have driven through multiple checkpoints and the first thing they do is shine a flashlight at the driver. Did his pupils react correctly? Everyone will squint, but a sober person's pupils will contract. A drunk person's pupils will not react because the alcohol inhibits proper muscle/eye control. That is a huge piece of evidence right there. Does the police officer smell anything coming out of the car? While alcohol is odorless, alcoholic beverages are not and the smell persists for hours after drinking. Those are just the first two signs, and involve neither a breathalyzer nor a field sobriety test.
Without getting out of the car, they can ask questions: say the alphabet, starting with T and ending with S. Drunk people have a surprisingly difficult time with that. Ask for the driver's license. While he is looking for it in his wallet, ask for proof of insurance. If he produces both, great: if he forgets his license and only gives his insurance card, that's another sure sign. Alcohol inhibits short term memory.
These are all signs the officer will look for or questions he will ask to determine if the person "seems sober" or not, and do not require any "real" test like a breathalyzer or blood test.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Well said, Capt. Hazelwood.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
Forget drinking and driving: this is a perfect example of drinking and posting on Slashdot.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Is there any evidence that alcohol bans have reduced the number of total vehicular deaths and accidents (as opposed to 'alcohol related') by any significant margin?
If someone gets drunk and hits a fence post or otherwise breaks the law you punish them. But why punish people who haven't caused any actual problems because you don't agree with the risks they take? Driving itself is voluntary and causes far more fatalities. Maybe it is an unneeded risk and we should revoke the travel privs of anyone who endangers others by doing it.
In most cases, you are very vulnerable in your car: Your identity is available via license plate, and driving in a car is not a right, but a privilege.
It's not difficult to interact with a person and determine if they are sober or not.
Bullshit. My dad, a heavy drinker, talked his way out of speeding tickets when he would have blown a DUI. There were plenty of times that -I- couldn't tell that he'd been drinking. It's too bad he didn't get caught, he might have lived longer. There are plenty of people that don't show it. Some of his friends haven't finished pickling their livers yet.
Refusing to take a brethalyzer test is a constitutional right under the 5th amendment
Courts are almost never willing to extend the privilege against self-incrimination to the collection of ordinary physical evidence - hair, fingerprints, blood samples and so on - paricularly when the procedure is non-invasive - and least of all when you look and smell as drunk as a skunk.
You seem to be saying that testing for alcohol is protecting drivers against themselves. I ride a bicycle to work (in a different jurisdiction). Shouldn't I be protected against drunk drivers?
Do you approve of drunks operating other types of heavy machinery? How about airliners, trains, cargo ships?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
This is not even remotely surprising to me, and doesn't even phase me.
Here in Arizona, it's a state law that if you refuse a field sobriety test for any reason, it's an automatic 1 year driver's license suspension, even if you are otherwise in the clear. And judges are but a phone call away.
It is called preventive law enforcement. First we find that you have a statistically greater chance of causing problems if you imbibe alcohol. Then rather than waiting for someoene to do anything wrong you make imbibing alcohol illegal to prevent wrongdoing before it happens... but now imbibing alcohol and driving is itself illegal and therefore wrongdoing. So we need checkpoints to head off the wrongdoing.
Now we need laws to punish people who try to avoid the checkpoints meant to potentially head off the potential wrongdoing of those with a theoretical increased potential to do something which is actually wrong.
Is there any reason to think singling out a cause of poor driving is more effective than just punishing people who actually drive poorly? Nope. Just bogus numbers about reduced 'alcohol-related accidents'. No shit but how about we stick to looking at the overall numbers instead of just seeing if there is less of what we banned?
Actually the punishment for driving poorly is usually far less severe than the punishment for drinking and driving well.
Unless you under-dosed on insulin, used mouthwash recently, ate sourdough bread, suffer any of a number of metabolic disorders, the breathalyser is miscalibrated, malfunctioning or operated incorrectly, etc etc etc.
The one good thing about a blood test is they have no excuse for not having a second sample for independent analysis.
Of course all of that is a destruction of constitutional rights when implemented as a roadblock. What happened to probable cause? I'm all for keeping DUI under control and making people safe but shredding the foundation of our society is much too high a price.
Unless the previous person blew high enough that there's residual alcohol inside the machine.
You have to blow into those breathalyzers for a good few seconds. That is more than enough to get rid of any residual alcohol.
If they want to stop everybody at random checkpoints like the gestapo, fine, but don't make people who seem sober take any stupid breath tests or blood tests.
And how long would it take to determine if people seemed sober. It is amazing how many people here are offended by the idea of having to stop at a DUI checkpoint, but how much worse would it be if you had to end up waiting in line for half an hour while the police perform sobriety tests on everyone just to determine which of them should blow into a breathalyzer.
Oh, and you can bet a blood test on the side of the road won't meet HIPAA requirements for electronic medical records
Taking blood is not rocket science. It is quite easy to setup a truck with the appropriate facilities for handling blood samples.
Lol. Can't deny it. Waiting on the GF to get off work and then we are going out for New Years. And I would much rather spend my cash on booze from the liquor store, than the bars. But hope you and yours have a good new year.
in ontario canada, the stop-everybody stops do NOT make everyone blow.
they talk to you (real close to your face) and shine their flashlight at your eyes
and ask you if you have been drinking.
if they think you arentt bombed or clumsy with spilling drinks, they let you go
without a breath test.
probably because the breath tests use disposable tubes, and those tubes
probably cost real money and would soon swallow a police budget if used
on every single driver on a busy roadway.
also, i believe here 'probable cause' is still required for asking a breath test.
they can stop everybody at a roadside event, but the next step of actual testing
requires the officer, keeping a straight face, to be able to say in court he
had believed the driver had been consuming alcohol/appeared intoxicated.
of course many idiots will admit they had "1 drink" when asked if they
have been drinking -- this is probable cause.
.07 is still under the legal limit, much the same way a person who turned 18 at midnight can now star in a porno movie despite being marginally close to illegal.
If the state wishes to hold the citizenry to a specific threshold, then the citizens have a right to expect to be left alone provided they're under the threshold.
This isn't that different than speed limits. The speed limit is 55 and I can drive at 55 and expect to be left alone despite 55 being exactly one mph away from 56 and thus illegal.
Yes, it's probably a good idea and common sense for a .07 person to find another way home. But, barring hard evidence of intoxication, that .07 alone shouldn't allow prosecution.
Except it doesn't guarantees that. It has been proven to be a) extremely easy to cheat the machine and b) extremely easy to bypass it completely. All you get is a "healthy" dose of radiation and exposure of your body to strangers. Enjoy!
This makes me glad that I live in Washington State, where *any* checkpoint is illegal under the Washington state constitution. The one exception is CBP, which (I think) argues that they aren't subject to the state's constitution, even when operating well within the state (not just at the border).
It seems the US is no longer the land of the free...
It is to be seen if it is still the home of the brave.
Me I am not in the US, so I'm buying popcorn.
say the alphabet, starting with T and ending with S. Drunk people have a surprisingly difficult time with that
Not too surprising, as there's nothing between the two and S comes before T. It's a question designed to make anyone go "huh?"
In Missouri, if you refuse the breath test, you are automatically guilty of a DWI, regardless of your blood alcohol. However, you do have a right to talk to your attorney before taking the test.
Mothers Against Canada
I see what you did there. "Mothers Against Drunk Driving" where ("Drunk Driving" == Canada)
Clever.
its not going to be enough residual alcohol to impress a reading. and if you didnt drink at all, *buzzed driving is drunk driving* then your CLEAN breath + the last guys millidrop of alcohol will not register 0.08 so what do you care? and yes, i support the crap out of safe flying associated x-rays. if x-raying some guy to check him for explosives guarantees me a safe flight, i say ZAP AWAY!
Do you find it odd that Israel and other places that have far bigger terrorism problems than the USA has ever experienced don't use such scanners and consider them to be not worthwhile? Or did you even know that?
The difference is that in the USA, the screeners are looking for weapons. In Israel, the screeners are looking for terrorists. They collect intelligence on the people who purchase tickets. They ask questions. If necessary they interrogate and perform psychological evaluations. They know who you are, where you're going, whether you plan to return, and maybe also why you're going there. They look for inconsistent or conflicting stories. What they do is more like old-fashioned police work. Israel has many enemies and those enemies tend to use terrorism tactics rather than conventional warfare.
The last hijacking that happened anywhere in Israel was on July 23, 1969. The Ben Gurion Airport just outside Tel Aviv has never had a single hijacking. I'm thinking we should listen to the Israelis on this matter.
And if intrusive groping of 80-year-old grandmas and terrified, screaming three-year-old girls becomes government-sponsored, I say the terrorists have been handed more of a victory than they ever could have hoped for.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
What if he ate a christmas pudding laced with brandy?
What if he used some cough medicine that's made with alcohol?
There are plenty of sources of alcohol that don't include drinking beverages, including some that people don't expect or realise.
Driving while legally permitted to drive because you haven't had a drink relative to drink-driving is nothing like attempted versus actual murder.
if you can afford to party, you can afford a cab.
Clearly a lie. Also fails to acknowledge multiple free sources of alcohol.
Your arguments are inflammatory, specious and immature. If you want to argue against drunk driving then go for it, there are many good reasons that you can refer to. Your own idiocy sadly isn't one of them.
Forget drinking and driving: this is a perfect example of drinking and posting on Slashdot.
Still perfectly legal. God Bless America.
If there were a better alternative, I'd go there.
The trained drunks are really good at basic baseline driving. It is REALLY hard to catch them.
But give the trained drunk one glitch in his driving situation--one unexpected thing--and that sorry bastard becomes a KILLER.
Think of the children, you unpatriotic SOB.
It's a reference to the first South Park movie, where a bunch of Mothers from the US get their panties all up in a bunch over a Canadian comedy duo they deem offensive, and start a group called "Mothers Against Canada". They campaign hard enough to start a war between the US and Canada, and almost have Terrence and Philip (the aforementioned comedy duo) executed.
Here in Canada, depending on the province, you are automatically presumed guilty of DUI if you refuse the breath test.
If people aren't noticeably impaired by the alcohol, isn't that sort of not a problem then? The reason for BAC limits is just because we need something objective that correlates reasonably well with impairment, not because high BAC is inherently bad.
If we administered actual "impairment" tests, different people would probably have different BAC threshholds, depending on physiology, tolerances, etc. Perhaps we should go in that direction, and make people do some sort of hand-eye coordination task, instead of testing alcohol levels...
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Who mods crap like this "insightful"?
The prisoner has rights! There is a `'no refusal' checkpoint judge,' where is the `'no refusal' checkpoint defense lawyer?'
Nah. The local pigs have a "license check" so often n the same spot, that on Friday/Saturday nights, I avoid the exit ramp. They are there every Friday and Saturday night, and the closer it the end of the month, the longer it lasts.
Do you grow POT in your house. Is it a methlab ? Well if your not doing anything illegal in your home you wont have anything to worry about. So lets just get rid of search warrants all together.
Why should a COP (Crooks On Public Salary) need to have to get a search warrant for anything ? It just slows the whole process down and allows criminals to get away with what they are doing.
Imagine if the police could just go door to door and go through each house in a town looking for methlabs. They would all be gone in a few days.
Imagine if cops could just walk into your home anytime they wanted.If they could search for anything in it , No warrants needed.
Would you beat your wife? No the Cops (Crooks On Public Salary) might see the bruising.
Would you Illegally download *BAD THING* Kiddy Porn, Terrorist plans, Pirated Music... Of Course not none of that is worth prison time right?
Drugs? Child abuse? People living there off the lease ?
Why stop there. Why not have a "professional Jury" there as well. We can just put the possible drunk driver on trial as well. Hey while we are at it lets fine them right there and then as well.
In a perfect world only Fraud and the use of Force against another would be a crime.
Usually, murder and attempted murder are still both serious crimes that will get you a shitload of prison time.
Besides that, letting the state get away with fudging them just because it's "immoral to split hairs" is also just as immoral.
So what if a guy shouldn't argue the difference? That doesn't excuse the state from exploiting that to beef up a sentence on a conveniently overlooked technicality. And given how politically motivated and/or egotistical the prosecutor can be, without such "hair splitting" there may well be no check on a prosecutor who has an incentive to have maximum punishment imposed, "seek the truth" oath bullshit notwithstanding.
And the state is run by people, who are just as fallible in government as they are everwhere else, some would argue more so but I digress. It's not unreasonable to hold the government to the same sorts of standards that it expects from the people under its jurisdiction.
I have a friend who was asked to recite the alphabet backwards from Z to M. Looking for a response like "not even a sober person can do that."
What about the "Implied Consent" thing you sign when getting a drivers license? I know I signed something about it in California, Montana, North Dakota and South Carolina. Seems these States have you by the short hairs.
You might not if they trigger cancer with repeated exposure. I guess I"m more a fan of profiling than xraying.. if the guy has a turban and a long beard, and is carrying a koran, there's no reason to rape that 6yo kid with prosthetic legs. better yet, stipulate that all luggage must be flown in a cargo transport plane.. the maximum death that could occur would be two pilots which is hardly worth the expense. I'm sure the logistics could be worked out...
Dumped down a well somewhere ?
And pollute our water with their crap?
No thanks. Lets use them for kindling instead.
Remember back when Slashdot was a bastion of intellect?
Hmm no. Was that before this last Big Bang or the one before that.
If someone gets drunk and hits a fence post or otherwise breaks the law you punish them. But why punish people who haven't caused any actual problems because you don't agree with the risks they take?
"Hey, Officer. Sure I was drinking and shooting my M60 at that nearby office building. But I totally missed it. The whole building! I only shot the hill behind it. And no one was hurt. Why punish me because you don't agree with the risks I take?"
Is "Attempted Murder" a crime?
On the FL license it already states, "Operation of a motor vehicle constitutes consent to any sobriety test required by law."
Until the drunk driver hits somebody they are unlikely to draw the attention of the police, so I doubt more patrols would put a dent in the problem.
Except they are trained to spot drunk drivers. And if the drunk driver is driving normally they're probably not that drunk and not much of a hazard. With more patrols you can catch someone if and when they start driving badly.
Though maybe the checkpoint I experienced was just badly run and that's why it caused traffic problems. If it weren't for the traffic issues I wouldn't have minded.
My Minnesota experience was hilarious. While at a bar somewhere in Duluth, I was outside having a smoke when a cop car pulled up. The cop got out, and let a guy out of the back that looked like he got beat up pretty good. The cop told the guy to have a good one, and the guy thanked the cop for the ride and went inside.
So, when in Minnesota, if you're too drunk to drive to the next bar, get a ride from the cops.
"Lame" - Galaxar
Consider it at face value instead of as the thin end of the wedge designed to take all the rights of Americans away. You've already had a pretty thick wedge driven in hard with the TSA grope squads, so go chasing after that and let the cops get a few more drunks off the road. Perhaps this is as it says it is, and merely closing a loophole.
For one thing it works in a very similar way in other many other democratic countries and has not led to losing "freedoms that many great men have fought and died for". Get a grip and think about what those freedoms were and what those great men would probably really think about the situation.
I think you meant bastion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastion
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I think that what the children would most appreciate is growing up in a free country.
A speech given outlining a history of DUI, how the supreme court has ruled on DUI vs the Constitution, and a little of the technical reasons why breathalyzers are bogus: http://drunkdrivingdefense.com/general/lawrence-taylor.htm
It could also be invoking implied consent.
At least, here in Washington, you need a license to drive. And a license to drive is a privilege, for which the state is free to impose whatever conditions they see fit.
So a driver's license application is rather like a contract. You agree to follow traffic laws and consent to a breathalyzer whenever the fuck the police want to give you one, and in exchange the state grants you passage upon its roads.
To be blunt...applying for a license is rather like agreeing to an EULA.
Refusing to take a brethalyzer test is a constitutional right under the 5th amendment
Courts are almost never willing to extend the privilege against self-incrimination to the collection of ordinary physical evidence - hair, fingerprints, blood samples and so on - paricularly when the procedure is non-invasive - and least of all when you look and smell as drunk as a skunk.
You are very much in your right to refuse a brethalyzer test. The courts have upheld that time and again. However, since you do not have a constitutional right to drive, the courts have also held that states are free to revoke your privilege to drive if you refuse to take the test.
Why don't people understand that?
State sovereign immunity does not protect them from being sued in federal court as the federal government is a superior sovereign.
At least, here in Washington, you need a license to drive. And a license to drive is a privilege, for which the state is free to impose whatever conditions they see fit.
Which, at its heart, is a fundamental violation of basic constitutional rights. The right of freedom of movement means nothing if it is restricted to only certain means of travel.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Talking and driving are still different things. The games used to see if somebody is drunk are rubbish in terms of determining driving impairment while a blood alcohol and breath tests have a few decades of solid work behind them. The alternative of putting somebody in a car on a track and throwing random events at them on the way and see how they handle it has already been compared with blood alcohol levels. Doing such a test on the spot is fairly pointless unless the objective is fluking a get out of jail free card for somebody that is a wonderful driver while sober and merely a bad one while drunk.
Personally I think people do not take this seriously because they are isolated from the results. Back when there were a lot of drunks on the roads everyone knew somebody that had died or been injured as a result of an alcohol related car accident, or if lucky knew of a near miss (such as my father hitting several road markers and a sign).
Curious this is hitting the wires just as the TSA Aiport search furor is fading. Maybe it was delayed. There's not much difference between the two -- in both cases many innocents are being hassled, very specifically to create deterrence through fear, precisely what the US 4th Amend. was written against.
Oddly, the road dragnet will catch more violators than the airports ever will, yet these officials seem more concerned with preserving rights. I guess they know they will have to justify themselves in court, while the TSA has yet to be brought to heel. I think Schneier is trying
Taking blood is not rocket science. It is quite easy to setup a truck with the appropriate facilities for handling blood samples.
Do you not understand what HIPAA is about?
Here before all but 8486 of you.
I worry when they start naming side arms as "Law Givers."
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
You could refuse an alcohol test? WTF! Seriously something wrong there - and now people complain because what? The "right" to refuse to be tested for being drunk while driving has been taken away? The only ludicrous part about this is that the presence of a judge is required to make testing possible.
In my country (where I drink, and catch a cab home) face-palm is my reaction to the idea that police can't alcohol test people driving out of a pub carpark - but face-palm doesn't cover my reaction to discovering on a recent trip to the US, that in a state where driving whilst drunk, and/or driving with an open alcoholic drink container in the vehicle *is* illegal... I can drive-in to a roadside stand, buy, and consume, a refreshing frozen daquiri without leaving my vehicle.
Drunk driving laws are some of the most bizarre, irrational laws on the books. If a person is intoxicated, drives home and arrives without incident, there is no victim. The laws are predicated upon "probability", and it's tantamount to saying "statistically, left-handed people are slightly more likely to commit crimes, therefore we should pre-emptively jail them." (I made that up for the sake of illustration; my apologies to all the lefty-freaks).
According to MADD (a rather dubious organization at best), 10,839 will die due to drunken driving in 2010 (http://www.madd.org/statistics/). Now, I'm no fan of people dying, and if you're one of those 10,839 it sucks to be you, but inconveniencing hundreds of thousands of motorists with what should be unconstitutional search and seizure (the Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz case, in which the SCOTUS found DUI checkpoints violate the Fourth Amendment, but not enough to really bother with, because the "substantial government interest" warranted the constitutional violations, is clearly an incorrect decision) ain't right.
To put that number in context, it represents somewhere around 0.003613% of the population. More than three times as many people killed themselves in 2005 (http://www.suicide.org/suicide-statistics.html#2005). 15,000 people were murdered in 2009; 89,000 were raped; 806,843 were assaulted (http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm). And yet often 10 or more police officers per instance spend hours stopping every car, without any probable cause. Beyond the farce of a criminal law based on probability, it is a horrible misuse of resources. It's right up there with all the "think of the children" things one mustn't question in polite society.
It doesn't matter anyway. I was pulled for DUI and when I didn't read high enough the cop just made me keep blowing until it hit 0.01%, the limit at the time. The test is based on a fixed amount of sample, blowing over and over with any alcohol present will eventually reach any desired reading. Who do you think the judge is going to believe? Having a fever will also make you read high.
Responding to someone further up; do you seriously think it is acceptable for the state to forcibly take a blood sample from you for any reason, not convicted of any crime? You sir are an animal owned by the state.
The reason we subjugate ourselves to law is to better procure justice. If law does not accomplish this purpose then it m
The thing is that here, they can't "sample" the traffic. Random checks have been tried and have been consistently stuck down in the courts. They either have to stop everybody, or only those for whom they have probable cause.
So give the cops an alternative? Do we just get rid of the BAC Test? How about we just ask the driver in question "Are you too drunk or impaired to drive?" and if they say "No", the cops just let them go? If you were Dictator for the Day how would you change the BAC Test/Drunk Driving Laws so they are fair and just for everyone.
But then you have air pollution...
Glassification? Plastination?
--
BMO
Once again we have the incredibly weird "What would Hitler do?" obsession. It's only a step away from jumping up and saying "look at that man, he's drinking his coffee the same way Hitler would".
I see posts like the above as either a nasty little attempt at emotional manipulation or a sign of chronic mental illness. I think it is the former so I shall call you a manipulative liar lower than scum at a sewerage treatment works who is happy to dance on the graves of millions to push his trivial little point instead of merely a madman.
It's posts like the above that make it impossible to discuss many things rationally here.
There's a difference between "doesn't seem drunk" and "is unaffected." A person may not have slurred speech, or weave while walking, but their reaction times and general co-ordination can still be significantly affected, which is the entire reason we, as a society, don't want drunks driving 1000+ lbs machines at high rates of speed.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
It's a question designed to make anyone go "huh?"
Really? I'd just assumed most people would recite the alphabet, starting at T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, then loop around to A, and go through to S. It doesn't seem very confusing.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
The thing is that here, they can't "sample" the traffic. Random checks have been tried and have been consistently stuck down in the courts. They either have to stop everybody, or only those for whom they have probable cause.
Seems strange to me. By picking a road they are implicitly sampling the traffic, regardless of if they test every driver or 30% of them. Its only non-random if they pick a road where drivers are coming out of the pub or the races.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1262518
Title: "Jehovah's Witnesses and human tissue donation."
Abstract: "Because of their religious beliefs members of the Jehovah's Witnesses sect do not permit human tissue donation, not even such a routine and life-saving procedure as blood transfusion. A group of 30 adult Jehovah's Witnesses was compared with groups of donors and nondonors on a variety of personality measures. Donor status is associated with a well-integrated body image and acceptance of mortality, while nondonor status correlates with a less-well-integrated body image, concern about body integrity, and anxiety about death. However, while Jehovah's Witnesses vigorously oppose human tissue donation they appear to do so on strong religious grounds rather than because of personal anxiety and thus are dissimilar to non-donors at large."
Sure seems like another church could be slightly less strenuous on the same grounds, perhaps by adding the word "involuntary"... anyone else thinks the Pastafarians should add this doctrine to their cannon? Just Saying...
-- Terry
The SCOTUS ruled (6-3) these roadblocks do indeed violate the Fourth Amendment (Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz), but that's OK because the government has a "substantial government interest" to reduce drunk driving. It is a very wrong and scary decision - imagine applying that logic to other constitutional protections: "It's OK to suppress free speech because the government has a 'substantial government interest' in keep things peaceful"; "It is OK to ignore due process because the government has a 'substantial government interest' in reducing crime."
Do you not understand what HIPAA is about?
Oops. I misread the original message that this referred to the keeping of medical records. The HIPAA does cover the interaction with law enforcement, so I don't see that there should be an automatic assumption that blood tests for drink driving would run afoul of that act.
That idea used to sound better back when refusing to be searched wasn't considered "probable cause".
Refusal to be searched is not probable cause. Sample decision:
United States v. Fuentes (1997, Ninth Circuit): "Mere refusal to consent to a stop or search does not give rise to reasonable suspicion or probable cause."
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Do you really wanna breathe that? Or use it to cook your food? No. Use it instead of coal. Bam, energy enough for everyone who remains.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
I really think you hold a distorted view of how U.S. citizens view things.
We're pretty evenly divided up between those who are BEGGING for more socialism in our government, and those who understand perfectly well that other forms of government are in a "functional, working" form despite being examples of "democratic socialism" YET don't want that for OUR government.
(I consider myself in the later of those 2 camps, BTW.)
The biggest problem we've got in today's USA? Government has grown too big and powerful, and it doesn't really matter which of the two major parties has a candidate in political office. Both of them are going to make political decisions that are #1. self-serving in some manner, and #2. increase the size and scope of government's control over its citizenry. The "pro socialism" camp out there doesn't even necessarily realize that's what they want. They simply like to vote in favor of any govt. program that promises it will do something for the "common man", the "poor", or will "penalize the rich" in some manner. In reality though - that pretty much gets translated to socialist policies each and every time. Meanwhile, anything promising to "level the playing field" by taking from the rich to give to the poor? There are plenty of loopholes in it that ensure any friends of politicians are exempted, and if anything? It selectively penalizes emerging competitors to companies in the favor of the people "calling the shots".
What you refer to as the "whole gun thing" is simply a case of many of us trying to retain a basic right to keep and bear arms that was specifically written in our Constitution. Again, if you're a fan of "democratic socialism", I don't really expect you to understand.... but it's a prime example of us valuing individual rights of people over some fuzzy, over-arching concept that the nation will be a "safer place" if people are prevented from possessing or using a certain type of personal property.
Linda G Unfried
626 Druid Hills Rd
Temple Terrace, FL 33617-3861
(813) 980-0051
Age: 60-64
Household: Karl L Unfried
Set up some cones on street in say a sharp s-turn shape that no drunk person could possibly navigate. If you fail to drive through without knocking down a cone or two, you've got your probable cause.
The Israelis have the benefit of not having to work around the various restrictions on government that the US has at all and hence can just do the things that the TSA would like to do but can't.
Hence we get ridiculous crap that doesn't work but at least works around the rules.
They usually, on purpose, pick the place and time that will most inconvenience people, ie, so they can demonstrate their power and teach the peasants who's boss.
About 3 years ago, the Huntington, WV PD set up a DUI checkpoint at 5PM (who the fuck is going to be drunk at 5PM, people are just trying TO GET HOME from work!) at a very busy intersection of one of the main streets in town (it was the way you needed to go to get to the downtown bridge over the Ohio River). I noticed this at the end of the street from the place I work (there was a traffic jam going back several blocks and only getting longer), and doubled back so as to take another route to avoid it.
This got me pulled over, for "trying to avoid our checkpoint". To which my response was to tell the damn cop to fucking "arrest me for the high crime of attempting to avoid a POLICE CREATED TRAFFIC JAM" so I COULD GET HOME. I must have gotten through because he seemed embarrassed by it, but not enough so to warn me to not ever try to do so again...
Most of them, especially small town cops, are mostly ex schoolyard bully types. They don't know HOW to react when you give it right back to them and usually back down...
Corporatism != Free Market
So anyone they pull over is a drunk.
See we dont need the tests anyway.
So the simple fact that someone disagrees with your chicken-littleism is grounds for killing them?
Posted by timothy on 2011-01-01 1:02
from the ends-justify-the-means dept.
schwit1 writes "With New Year's Eve only days away,
Keep it up boys! Keep pushing. Push, push push.
In this game the winner is not obvious in the beginning.
I'll just sit here and read up on the French Revolution.
What was it that they used? Guillotine?
What if he ate a christmas pudding laced with brandy?
What if he used some cough medicine that's made with alcohol?
Um, it's called DUI, "driving while intoxicated." It's not called, "driving while having had an alcoholic beverage earlier in the night". Pudding laced with brandy most likely won't up your BAC or intoxicate you, and cough medicine will. Guess what, most medicines warn against operating a vehicle after use. It's because it might impair you.
I don't support the notion of required DUI check points, it doesn't sit well with my notion of personal liberty, but I won't make excuses for those who are caught driving drunk. And if you're at a place where you can get free alcohol then you should make a plan for getting home safely, either by cab, walking, designated driver or crashing at the person's house who was serving you free alcohol.
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
When alcohol related driving deaths represents 40% of all driving fatalities (in the US, in 2006), then it seems we're right up against the defining line of what is reasonable and what is not. Does increasing that percentage to, say, 99% then pass the test of what is/is not reasonable?
That's advocating the devil's position: Personally, I'd rather take the route where being convicted of a DUI ends permanently one's legal ability to drive. One strike you're out.
damaged by dogma
Am I the only one worried about escalation here? Cops start bringing judges to roadblocks, and drunk drivers start carpooling with Supreme Court justices. Where will the madness end?
WTF? Driving is a privilege, not a right, not even in the US. You'll need a licence for it, and in addition you'll choose to accept certain rules and regulations by choosing to drive.
In any sensible jurisdiction, if you choose to drive, you'll accept you could be stopped and breathtested at any time and if you refuse, you'll be, and you should be, automatically subject to a blood test.
If you don't like the breathalysing, then don't drive. As simply as that. This has nothing to do with being a police state.
“Wait for Hurd if you want something real” –Linus
Thought Experiment: The length of time one can succeed hitchhiking or riding a bike along an interstate highway before encountering law enforcement.
Thought Experiment: The government says you have no right so one must pay a corporation (bus driver) for the right of movement. Sounds like a fun country to be in.
Just ask for an attorney to be present.
You are honestly going to tell me you fail to see a difference between shooting at a hill near an office building without hitting the building and shooting at the office building and missing?
Intent is as important as action. There is a big difference between someone doing something that could potentially cause harm and someone who is actively trying to cause harm.
Everyone does things likely to cause harm. I have a dartboard on the wall at home. There is also one at work used by others. At home I have a foam pad that extends about 3 inches from the board. At work we have two large cork boards positioned behind the board which is hung on a pole. These provide protection of a minimum of 12 inches from any edge of the board to compare with my 3 and twice that for most of the board.
We both risk damaging walls by having a board at all. I take a greater risk because there is a smaller area of protection behind my board. However, in the real world I am an individual and not subject to the average risks that inches of padding provides. In the real world the walls around the work board are peppered with holes while there is not a single hole in the wall around my board at home.
Punishing people for drinking and driving is like punishing people for having small pads on their boards. Statistically this broad stroke should reduce holes in walls. But a far more effective remedy would be to set a severe punishment for putting holes in the wall, utilize very effective enforcement, and then subject the person to due process where their peers can determine if they did in fact put a hole in the wall and if it is just to apply the punishment under the circumstance (this is essential for justice when you attempt to apply black and white laws to a gray world).
grounds for killing them
You don't understand hyperbole.
You're stupid.
--
BMO
HIPPA is a US Federal medical data privacy law and specifically excepts legal proceedings from the privacy protections, so somebody is right out there if they're claiming judicial overreach on those grounds. Further, while, of course, IANAL, a blood EtOH determination for legal purposes isn't really a medical issue - it's a legal one and thus doesn't have to be performed or evaluated by medical personnel.
Fourth Amendment issues are certainly separate from that. And someone involved in a DUI checkpoint who was convicted of something in a state court could certainly appeal to a Federal District Court on US Constitutional grounds. However, IIRC, that's been done a bunch of times and it's been ruled OK on the basis of implied consent when you scribble your name at the bottom of your driver's license.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The whole issue here is the implied consent, not having judges on site (which is what people here seem to be flipping out over).
These work like a normal DUI checkpoint. Most people have been through them. They have the road blocked, you drive up, they ask for you license. When you hand it to them they smell your breath and the car and shine a flashlight into your eyes to see how they dilate. If any of those offer probably cause they ask you to pull over and go through a sobriety check. Failing that they generally give a breathalyzer test and failing that you get arrested. You, through the fifth amendment, have a right to voluntarily refuse. They, through how our legal system work, then have a right to request a judge review the case and issue a warrant, usually for a blood test as you have no physical control of that (no warrant could make you blow through the tube hard). All of that is perfectly legal and has been since the US was first founded and, IMO is just fine.
Now, people who drive drunk often have tricks, most do not work. One of them that might maybe work is to simply refuse everything and wait for a judge to be consulted, review the case, issue the warrant, get a medical technician down there, and draw blood. A process that can even take a couple of hours on busy nights. During that time you metabolize alcohol and have a chance to fall below the legal limit, especially if you were barely over the limit to begin with.
The *only* difference is that the Judge and medical worker are on site. If, as stated in some of these articles Florida has some "implied consent" then the issue is there, not with this type of checkpoint. They could have a drunk tank collect up people, drive the to the county building, issue the warrants, and take blood already on the simple refusal. This isn't a change in law or a change in practice, it is a change in the amount of time needed. They make the argument (and again, this part is *not* new by any means) that by accepting your drivers license that you have already pre-agreed to take a breathalyzer test any time, anywhere, and for any reason. Not really sure though why you can't suddenly decide that to not be the case as you can certainly decide in a question by question case to exercise your fifth amendment rights, further the fourth amendment isn't a tiny one either and is fairly explicit about refusal not being evidence for a warrant. Obviously given the amount of time this has been in effect it either hasn't been challenged or has and some crazy judge found it constitutional. I suspect that a constitutional fight against an "implied consent" would win (but, as we have seen with our current courts the constitution is seen as a "living document" where the bigger question is can you rationalize it to say what you want it too so who knows), I suspect they know that, and like many other crappy laws they only enforce in places that they know they would not loose.
As for the Judge on site, many other states do them and its a pretty good idea. In most states they can't detain for refusal of the breathalyzer unless they have fairly strong probable cause - basically if they would have detained you and gotten blood before they still can. If the police have probable cause to require testing and given that the most accurate gathering of facts will occur this way it is quite within the intents of our judiciary system to do this. Further with the Judge on site they can personally oversee the idea of probable cause and the treatment of the detainees by the police. Lastly it certainly works well on the whole "speedy justice system". For everyone but the person that is only slightly over the legal limit who would have gotten away with it this is a win. There isn't a constitutional argument that it is his right for a slow gathering of facts simply because that would favor them.
I would bet Florida is on shaky grounds with it not because of the judge on site, but because implied consent is, well, stupid. Having a Judge on site is a pretty good idea IMO.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
As an IT person who has had to deal with HIPAA, I can tell you it has more to do with giving people the ILLUSION that their records are private whilst making sure that they are more accessible by more people than ever.
Corporatism != Free Market
HIPPA automatically DOESN'T apply to legal proceedings. You do not need personal permission to give records to a duly constituted legal body. A blood alcohol level for DUI enforcement would not be a 'medical' test at any rate. It isn't ordered by a medical provider and not evaluated by a medical provider. It is legal evidence, just as hair / skin / yuccky stuff samples scraped off a victim in an assault or rape.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
You do realize that Israel has exactly ONE major airport and probably 50 all total.
Now, I'm perfectly cognizant of the fact that the TSA is doing batshit insane things and doesn't appear to have a clue what actual security is, but don't think that you can scale Israel's approach to the US. Remember, the whole country is the size of New Jersey.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I believe a refusal to take a test is equivalent to a plea of guilty in Florida. I don't know if that only relates to drunk driving penalties or whether that extends into convictions for hit and run or traffic homicide while drunk driving. But at the very least it is expensive already for a DUI conviction and insurance companies get a great shot at a drunk driver's wallet for years to follow.
If you want to make a case you got "accidentally drunk", I think it's a fair argument. But if you are drunk, however you got that way, you shouldn't be driving, period. Having had surgery recently, I definitely understand how you can accidentally end up in an impaired state where you ought not be driving, but not realize it until something scary happens (and hopefully no more than that). I have to say though, if some cop caught me in that condition, he'd have been in the rights to take me out off the streets and while I doubt I would, I should thank him later. Shit happens, people make mistakes, and are more likely to do so when their mental faculties are impaired, the most important thing is to get them off the streets before someone gets hurt.
The part of this effort that is "get drunks off the road", is a solution to a problem we really have and works out to our advantage. The part of this where punishments may be too heavy and too harsh in some circumstances, I agree is over the top. I'm a little hazy on the big brother vs. free citizen debate...driving is a privilege not a right, this is based on the simple assertion that the roads are public use, we share them, we agree to abide by certain restrictions in so doing and playing chicken with those tasked to enforce those restrictions seems to the detriment of the rest of those who wish to use the roads. On the other hand using this power to build a case against you without an attorney and under chaotic circumstances, the consequences of which may result in incarceration, outrageous fines (including losing your car) and some convictions that may impact your marketability for the remainder of your life seems pretty outrageous.
The reasonable compromise is if they forced you to take the test, if you fail they take you out of your car, write your name down on Santa's naughty list and send you home in a cab at your own expense. If your name pops up on Santa's naughty list a second time, maybe that one gets the court order that takes you to a lab where evidence is obtained. The previous results thus serving as probable cause for the future investigation.
I don't follow the conversation where we're arguing over .007 or .009 or whatever. Most of us don't have a very good understanding of "the legal limit" versus the complicated equation of how much we've had to drink, how long ago, with our given weight and metabolism or "how we feel". The "how we feel" thing is what I think many of us use, and in my experience it's usually very deceptive. I can't say with any authority that .006 is "definitely ok" and .007 is "definitely drunk", and I dont' even believe these numbers came about after careful scientific analysis. It seemed for a while like every time someone was killed by drunk drivers they'd drop the %, regardless of the fact that the driver usually was not previously stopped and released because he was "legal" and proceeded to cause an accident.
Fighter jets aren't public. They are owned by the military. Roads are public.
Roads are owned by the government, and thus are public.
Fighter jets are owned by the military, which is a part of the government, and thus are public.
I do not need a license to use the swings at a public park or to watch a concert on public tv. I don't need a license to visit a public museum or ride public transportation.
That's all true, but there is nothing in the use of those services that could be a significant threat to public safety; driving a car irresponsibly could be a significant threat to public safety, thus why a license is required to use one.
We (Americans) CERTAINLY do not have the right to drive a car on public roadways which are under the authority of the government we elect. We certainly do have the right to drive a car in a private environment such as a private racetrack or farmland etc etc.
This is why we can be required to gain a license to use roads and highways. As a result we can be forced to comply with the laws set forth by the local and state governments.
That said, the vehicle we use to drive in is most definitely personal property and our 4th amendment rights apply. What is in the car is private and can only be forcible revealed with legitimate probable cause. This is the same principal that makes looking under a persons clothes or opening a briefcase a violation of the 4th amendment.
The danger in allowing these pull-over and no-cause searches is that it erodes the 4th amendment, and each erosion makes the next one easier because parallels can usually be drawn between the first law and the proposed law.
Which, at its heart, is a fundamental violation of basic constitutional rights. The right of freedom of movement means nothing if it is restricted to only certain means of travel.
With an extreme enough interpretation of that, the government couldn't stop any vechicle unfit for the road. Or if you just decided to bike on the freeway or drive your tank taking both lanes. Otherwise you might simply argue that the rules are a violation to your chosen means of travel. I think this one falls in the cracks between rights and insanity, you may have the right of free speech but probably not to hold a morning speech blocking a critical highway a few hours during the morning rush. I hardly think the right of free movement can be extended to driving drunk, as long as the test is specific to an unlawful condition you can't compare this to a general search. Driving with a blood alcohol level above X is illegal, this test will check you blood alcohol level and nothing else. But then I've seen the US give all sorts of silly drive tests, so I guess the laws are different there because here it'd be completely irrelevant if you can hit your nose or not. A quick breath and if you're clean off you go, it's actually faster than whatever the US is doing..
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I'd say that if either you or stonewallred have a point to make that it should be made logically and dispassionately without insults or hyperbole. Somehow I doubt either of you can manage that.
if x-raying some guy to check him for explosives guarantees me a safe flight, i say ZAP AWAY!
How about if x-raying you and everyone else on the flight with x-rays strong enough to increase everyone's risk of getting cancer by some measurable amount without decreasing the chance for someone to get a bomb on your flight by a measurable amount, are you ok with that? Because that is what we get from the TSA.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
As a result we can be forced to comply with the laws set forth by the local and state governments.
Depends on the definition of "the laws" - for example a law preventing convicted felons from driving would be unlikely to pass constitutional muster because there is no reasonable connection simply being a felon and being a danger on the highway.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Thought Experiment: The length of time one can succeed hitchhiking or riding a bike along an interstate highway before encountering law enforcement.
Public roadways are controlled by state law, and may restrict use. If a roadway is purposed of auto-travel, then a police officer may certainly act upon your miss-use. This is just the same as being surrounded on 4 sides by private land which had no-trespassing signs. I'm not sure how you got there but its not the land owners fault you cant leave.
Thought Experiment: The government says you have no right so one must pay a corporation (bus driver) for the right of movement. Sounds like a fun country to be in.
The government certainly doesn't say that. Roads are for cars and is under the authority of the state government. You can take the sidewalk or ride a bike or get a license to drive a car. If you don't like the laws, get involved and work for a change. We vote the people to make (and remove/replace/revise) the laws. Compliance and complaint is YOUR problem (I am as guilty as you) and not the governments fault.
Actually, you don't need a license to drive, you need a license to drive on public roads. Make your own roads. --- devil's advocate
You insult me in your reply to me and you expect me not to insult you back?
Hurr.
You're more than just stupid. You're denser than neutronium. See, I insulted you again.
HTH. HAND.
--
BMO
I know a friend of mine who has gone through three DUI checkpoints drunk as a skunk, driving a high performance manual transmission car. He was let go every time. I'm not happy that he drove drunk, but the fact of the matter is that the cops aren't that good at telling whose drunk and who isn't. Of course, he is also one of the best drivers I have ever ridden with (I've never ridden with him when he was drunk). He is probably a better driver drunk than 50% of the drivers are sober (again, I've never ridden with him when he was drunk, so I may be mistaken), but even so I do not approve of him driving drunk and have told him so.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Really, this is why the process exists. Talk to your legislators, Floridians.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
We (Americans) CERTAINLY do not have the right to drive a car on public roadways which are under the authority of the government we elect.
PS, capitalizing it doesn't make it true. I put forth a reasonable argument based on the basic constitutional principle of the freedom of movement, you didn't even come close to rebutting it. All you did was yell louder.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
sure. But that is questioning the validity of the law itself and that law shouldn't survive the process.
I would point out that most states allow a felony conviction to be used in a discriminatory way for employment, credit, and housing, regardless of the nature of the conviction. This says to me that a law forbidding felons from driving is not as unlikely as it should be. I think it is quite a stretch to associate a felony for money laundering with suspicion on not paying rent or damaging the property but that is a functionally valid train of thought today.
File a bug on that, would you? Severity CRITICAL.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
...someone who read a biased article and didn't watch the video. I had the same opinion going in until I saw it - a little girl throwing a tantrum who didn't want to be touched by ANYONE until they gave her back the toy they took away to be x-rayed at the security checkpoint.
Yes, the Israelis have a better system. They rely on logic rather than "morals", and therefore have no problem profiling, like the US should still be doing in many things that it is no longer "politically correct" to do so. If you don't profile, everyone is a suspect, and that wastes a lot of damn time and pisses off a lot of people. If you profile, you get a few mouthy people with a victim mentality who embrace a culture, fashion, or attitude that matches the profile by choice, and they should generally be ignored - the trick is that you then have to let these people pass once your logic says they're not the droids you're profiling for...
freedom of movement simply doesn't suggest freedom to operate a vehicle in a public place which can be deadly. Freedom of movement doesn't say that you may drive, though it does imply riding in a car or plane with permission of the owner or operator as a right.
Requiring a license is very obviously within states rights. Everything that is not either expressly stated in the constitution is within a states rights. Freedom to operate a vehicle in a public space is not a right that we have, and that is not a matter of opinion it is a matter of fact and is clearly described in the 10th amendment.
So yes, we have freedom of movement but that does not entitle us to drive a car any more than it entitles us to fly a plane.
There are a bunch of things in the constitution that can be left to interpretation because of subtle changes in contemporary language or some vagueness in the wording but these laws are crystal clear with the exception of 'welfare' in the commerce clause but there is no applicable connection to the current argument as the commerce clause doesn't apply to standard driving licenses.
The cost argument means nothing when you would otherwise have to pay the oil companies for your gasoline.
Where exactly in the US Constitution is the right of freedom of movement spelled out?
in this case capitalization emphasized a true statement based on the 10th amendment, "States Rights"
This. Thank you for summarizing the entirety of the salient points regarding this issue into three sentences.
<federal act> has more to do with giving people the ILLUSION that <act's advertised purpose> whilst making sure that <opposite of act's advertised purpose> happens.
There, boiler-plated it for you. :)
Sure there is. How often are people of crime X likely to reoffend? What it's over 50% and they could use a car in the cime!@!!! OMG THINK OF THE CHILDREN
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
I'm sorry, where was the insult? Seems to me that I was stating simple fact, and look there, you proved my point.
I can do it in one that captures the entire spirit.
It is easier to do nothing and pretend we live in a perfect society than it is to change things that will improve society.
That captures the entire essence of the "we can't improve anything because it's the thin edge of the wedge" rants while keeping the constitution handy to wave as a distraction if that doesn't work. The above AC and the poster some distance above really just want nothing to change for good or ill and pretend that all change is bad. A guy in the Austria-Hungary empire that wanted nothing but the glory of the past summed it up quite well a bit over a century ago "that dread spirit of innovation".
I don't conflate "this is the wrong way to fix issue A" with "there's nothing wrong, issue A is not an issue."
I also didn't mean my comment to be taken just within the context of this 8-indent thread. I meant the entire story and all of the comments in it.
I don't believe there's nothing wrong, and I could write you a novel regarding why I believe alcohol is one of the worst things that exist in human society. That opinion does not automatically relegate me to support the elimination of drunk driving by any means necessary. I do not think the ends justify the means in this case without reworking the legal framework of the USA. Change tho Constitution and allow summary execution of people with a BAC over 0.2. Fine with me.
If you're alright with this, it's not a stretch to mandate the implantation of a BARD port into every licensed driver, and requiring an actual BAC analyzer with a genetic steering lock in every vehicle in order to operate it.
Looks like you no longer have freedom of movement. Without committing any crime, you have had your ability to travel freely upon public property impaired. If you don't give up constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, you aren't able to obtain certification to drive a road-worthy vehicle.
Because the set hasn't been defined as cyclic, and no direction has been defined, logic dictates that one chooses the least computational intensive task that fulfills the specs, and say "T, S". ..." clearly demonstrates a lack of thinking, and the person must either be drunk, stupid, or both.
Saying "T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, A,
They won't do anything about that though, since that would be political suicide.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
True, but if the threshhold is "significantly affected", wouldn't it be better to test for that somehow? Plenty of things besides alcohol can have that effect, like being sleep-deprived.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The police always laud their catching of X number of "drunk drivers" but I wonder how many innocent people are subjected to (temporary) detention and invasive searches (aptitude tests, breathalyzers, urine/blood tests) to catch how many "drunk drivers". I would guess that the overall numbers are quite high (50 innocents/1 DD). Would it be acceptable to trash 10 innocent peoples homes (I've heard more than a few horror stories from people who come home to their home ripped apart and find out that the police served the search warrant on the wrong address) to catch one robber? Why do we allow such an invasive and blatantly unconstitutional acts when there is so little to gain? Drunk drivers deserve punishment but not at the cost of all of our rights.
Punishing people for drinking and driving is like punishing people for having small pads on their boards.
No, punishing people for drinking and driving is like punishing people for drinking and shooting at a hill near an office building without hitting the building (but shooting wildly and erratically so that they might be more likely to hit the building, passersby, stray pigeons). A two ton mass of steel moving at 45+mph is a deadly weapon. It is illegal to operate under mind-altering drugs, of which alcohol is one.
You seem to think that maybe I'm for unreasonable searches or roadblocks. I think a more measured approach makes more sense. Something like when a cop sees a weaving car on the road, he shoots the driver in the head and asks questions later. See? I can be ridiculous too.
There is a line of thought that holds that compelling someone to sign away their rights in order to perform a lawful act should be unconstitutional. Alas, this is just a line of thought amongst crazy people, not a serious well considered legal argument, and plus it would be a slippery slope (if we could drive without signing away some rights, then we could buy guns or hold peaceful rallies without signing away some rights) and not the good kind (where one well checked new government power leads to another, until any concept of checks and balances is purely superficial).
Actually, that is precisely what state sovereign immunity does protect. See Hans v. Louisiana. Apparently, the immunity arises from the peculiar nature of the sovereignty of states predating the sovereignty of the United States.
Why the Ninth Amendment of course. It states (I'm sure you weren't aware, as most of the legal community isn't either):
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
They don't know HOW to react when you give it right back to them and usually back down...
Only the rookies. Anyone who has had that job for more than a year will know exactly the way to maneuver a belligerent "perp" into getting forcefully restrained and arrested for talking back. Be polite. Say "Yes Officer/No Officer". Have your license and registration ready and in your hands at the 10-2 before they arrive at your window. Make them feel like they're in control, and they'll be more likely to chat pleasantly with you and give you a "don't be naughty" line.
See http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r25242764-Mobile-guard-towers-at-Wal-Mart-and-Target-WTH- for videos and a discussion.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I understand the reason, but what's next?
Judges traveling with the police and instantly writing whatever warrant is needed on the spot?
We could just roll them into a judicial police force in that case... sort of like Judge Dredd?
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
> If a cop asks you to take a breathalyzer test you should ask to see the calibration sticker. No up to date cal, no good. Then ask him to explain how the device works, in detail. His ignorance of the device will be important should you end up in court over the issue.
But refusing itself may be a crime, so be careful there, too. You need some kind of admissible evidence that you weren't drunk and they make that pretty hard to get. Any time someone gets off on a conviction (e.g. because they were innocent), they have a dozen other things to get you with.
The best advice I can give is to drink at home or take a cab. And even then, you'd best avoid public intoxication. Oh, and don't sit up front. Also, don't be in the car alone while it's running. The designated driver damn well better keep the keys on his person. Yeah, just having the keys to the car is enough to get you in trouble when you're drunk. You don't actually have to drive or even intend to drive.
Fortunately for me, I simply don't like drinking. I've never even had enough to get drunk.
The really funny thing is that in the state of Florida, the company that provides the breathalysers refuses to turn over the source code to allow defense attorneys to show exactly how they are calibrated. So if you agree to a breathalyser test, you can have the results thrown out once your attorney tries to subpoena the source code. Then all the state attorney has is the officer's testimony as to how intoxicated you were.
Yes, looking out for number 1 is a great idea, however the balance of expenditure that is currently happening is not. You're thousands of times more likely to be killed on the road than in a plane crash. You're an order of magnitude more likely to be killed in a plane crash that was due to technical / human error than due to a terrorist attack.
So why is the budget for counterterrorism so much higher than the budget for the local police. Scrap all scanners and replace them with breathalyzers and more cops, and proper training of how to identify a driver that is out of control, and not only do you have one less of your rights infringed on, but you may also have a better chance of living.
No, when you cut through all the nitpick, thin end of the wedge bullshit, eventual screams about the constitution and demands to see if the President is circumcised or not that is exactly what it all comes down to. It is highly predictable teabagger bullshit complaining about change.
I'm talking about states vs states, or fed vs states.
Hmm...given context that probably wasn't obvious.
You may not be suggesting that but the AC you are complimenting can most definitely be summed up with what I wrote. For example this bullshit over a breath test - "letting a few drunk drivers slip, as bad as that is, is an acceptable cost to keeping your civil liberties intact". Apply it to the TSA grope squad and he may have a point, but it this instance it is just pure overblown emotive bullshit.
To put the the faux patriotism arguments in perspective: it's calling in the spirit of Paul Revere to hide that it's really about arguing for Benedict Arnold.
Interesting, so you believe that any attempt to fix something is automatically the right way to fix it, or at least some form of progress, no matter what the proposed fix is? Or is it just that you can't believe there is any possible logical reason to oppose this particular "solution" except fear of change? Seriously? You are so sure of yourself that any argument against this is baseless bullshit? You're that egotistical?
I'd make an ad hominem analogous to the one you just leveled against me about a remotely tangentially related extremist leftist group and how you must be one of them because I don't like your argument and linking you to them allows me to conveniently discard everything you say as baseless, but every time I start I have to stop because I can't bring myself to that level of ridiculousness without laughing.
I was willing to take you seriously until you made this post. Not anymore...
Another question is to count backwards by sevens from a number they give you. We use this during intake assessment when determining level of intoxication. Or tell them three items, (pen, tire, mirror)and then two minutes later ask them to repeat the items.
You mean in most states of america, you can just refuse to be breath tested!? And they'll just let you drive off!?!! What's the point of trying to prevent DUI if you allow drunks to refuse the test?
Here in QLD Australia, if you refuse to have your breath tested, then you get exactly the same ticket as if you were over the maximum possible drink driving penalty. The wording is basically:
"If your BAC [blood alcohol content] is higher than 0.05% but lower than 0.15% [then you get the minimum penalty]. If your BAC is higher than 0.15% or you fail to provide a specimen of breath or blood [say good bye to your drivers license]"
Which, at its heart, is a fundamental violation of basic constitutional rights. The right of freedom of movement means nothing if it is restricted to only certain means of travel.
That's something we could debate for a very long time. When the constitution was written, it would have been damn hard work for a drunk driver (who would have been driving a horse & cart) to take out much more than himself and his passengers - and I daresay even that would have been rather harder than it is to crash a car. For one thing, a horse has a certain degree of intelligence not found in an internal combustion engine - I've never tried driving a horse & cart but I imagine if the horse felt that the load was unstable and likely to topple over at a particular speed or on a section of road, no amount of persuasion would get it to go faster.
Inevitably you wind up having to add "ifs" and "buts" to 200 year old legal documents. There wouldn't be much point in allowing prior legal decisions to carry any weight if you demand that every single one of those ifs and buts be formally enumerated as an amendment.
if x-raying some guy to check him for explosives guarantees me a safe flight, i say ZAP AWAY!
But it doesn't.
In fact, it probably does more harm than good because it fosters a false sense of security.
Here the offence for driving whilst influenced by alcohol has been revised to be "Prescribed Concentration of Alcohol" which in the jurisdiction is 0.05 for normal drivers, 0.0 for provisionally licenced drivers (recently licenced ones) and variously for other categories of drivers like Taxis and Trucks.
As a result the offence is not a subjective one about onces capacities to drive but rather just the amount of alcohol in your blood.
As a consequence, the application of "Random Breath Tests" or RBT is a fundamental part of driving. The police require no warrant to randomly sample the driving populace for testing their breath for the presence of alcohol. A result in excess of the PCA means a test at a more accurate machine and subsequently a blood test if a driver refuses the breath test.
As a driver, my privacy is not invaded, I am not "targeted by the state" but rather a part of the duties attached to my _licence_ to operate a motor vehicle is the requirement to drive with less than the PCA in my blood. End of story.
You USA folk need to get clear on the distinction between rights and duties, one cannot have one without the other.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
If you did not even work out that it was not directed at you as a person but instead at a rather ridiculous group that pushes such an agenda then you did not take the time to comprehend what I wrote. I know nothing about you apart from your praise of some quite deluded words from an AC above.
the use of Force against another would be a crime.
Every single Jedi is now an enemy of the Republic
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
Any chance someone could explain how this works in Florida at present? I'm trying to work out what the point would be of alcohol testing if anyone who is likely to be over the limit can refuse to take the test...
Virtually serving coffee
I don't know how it works in the US, but here you can immediately appeal a breathalizer test, and require a bloodtest. So in the rare case your breathalizer test is positive and you don't agree, you can always appeal that.
My first misspelled word in 2010 happened on the thirty-first of December. Not bad. I can live with that.
I agree with you EpyTR, but I regretfully also get that we cant pass over that kid and grab Hassaan at the gate because some lawyer's gonna have a field day and next week, that lawyers gonna help hassan get $1M from the govt and adopt a disabled anglo kid to strap explosives to.
They're not searching your "persons, houses, papers, and effects", they're making sure you're in a fit state to operate a large, potentially lethal, machine in a public place, as required by the driving license that you voluntarily applied for.
Would you let bus drivers drive drunk? Airline pilots? I'm betting you'd be all for revoking their licenses if caught.
One rule for them and a different rule for you...?
No sig today...
this is why victims are _not_ the best experts on how to deal with a social problem. I believe I've heard spokespersons for MADD say that _anything_ should be done that would reduce drunk driving. Really? _Anything_?
It's much like media discussion of capital punishment. They put the parents of the person murdered in front of a camera to say, "Sure, fry the bastard." Well, duh. But there are _other_ reasons why capital punishment is a bad idea for a society.
Is that rule not hand in hand with the one stating that those rights not explicitly reserved to the United States government are retained by the states themselves? Hence, if the right is not explicitly enumerated, a state may opt to enforce it themselves?
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
The difference is that in the USA, the screeners are looking for weapons. In Israel, the screeners are looking for terrorists. They collect intelligence on the people who purchase tickets. They ask questions. If necessary they interrogate and perform psychological evaluations. They know who you are, where you're going, whether you plan to return, and maybe also why you're going there. They look for inconsistent or conflicting stories. What they do is more like old-fashioned police work. Israel has many enemies and those enemies tend to use terrorism tactics rather than conventional warfare.
Oh, please. If the US government did that, I bet you'd be one of the first to whine about them "violating your constitutional rights". They can't win no matter what approach they take.
I begin to think the sooner you guys realise that scrap of paper was written hundreds of years ago, the better. I'm all for safeguarding of rights, but those rights should be safeguarded by a document written in the same bloody millennium.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Around here it is every Friday and Saturday night when the weather is not bad
At least you have the option to avoid, around here they pick a bottle neck point on the main 4 lane highways where avoiding would mean an extra 30-40 miles of driving down small side roads.
This is specifically about checkpoints where people are arbitrarily asked to take a test whether or not they appear to be intoxicated. That's not the same as being pulled over because you were driving erratically or the police have other reason to suspect you were drinking. In the this case it's random. You could be stone cold sober and be asked to take a test. Refuse and the onsite judge orders your blood taken.
Very different things.
I was replying to a comment that driving while just under the limit was akin to attempted murder, and highlighting reasons why the law permits a degree of intoxication.
Incidentally, you forgot to mention the 'free alcohol' options of catching a bus, catching a train or passing out and getting taken to hospital for your stomach pumping..
I was replying to a comment that driving while just under the limit was akin to attempted murder, and highlighting reasons why the law permits a degree of intoxication.
For me life is simple: Drink, and I don't drive. Don't drink, and I can. The legal maximum being above zero means I can safely disregard non-beverage sources of alcohol.
I agree that the cut-off is to an extent arbitrary. I'm sure there's some science before it, and in some jurisdictions a lot of emotion and political pandering to lobby groups (on both sides) but the sad reality is that some people will just not drink if they're driving, some people will go "I'm safe if I only have one or two" and some people are twats.
Laws are meaningless when enforcement and judicial interpretation are crazy. The basic right to travel supersedes all regulations put in place. We don't live a video game where you can get stuck in space because you are surrounded by imaginary boundaries. Obviously many get lost in that fantasy of dodging drones wearing medallions or wielding tiny hammers, but reality is still there waiting for you to live in it.
Perhaps the cops could sit outside the bars and stop people from driving drunk in the first place.
But you know, why would they want to actually prevent drunk driving when they can make a lot more money convicting people who have already done it.
:T:R:A:N:S:
The only law that can protect a bicycle rider from drivers is one that makes motor vehicles illegal.
Pudding laced with brandy most likely won't up your BAC or intoxicate you
Were you under the impression that breathalyzers measure Blood Alcohol Content?
Yes. It looks like you were. Nobody needs to read what you said any farther than that, because conclusions drawn from faulty assumptions are meaningless.
"His name was James Damore."
You are not denied use of the roads or highways if you don't have a driver's license; you can operate any number of nonmotorized vehicles. You are not even denied the ability to travel by motor vehicle. You are only denied the privilege of operating a large deadly machine in a public space.
http://galvestondailynews.com/story/201834 The prosecutor and deputy were smart and refused the breath test.
Alcohol is more of a threat to our well being and safety than any terrorist ever could be.
If Osama Bin Laden wants to kill Americans... he should move here and open a bar.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
This story isn't really about drunk driving; it's about judges issuing warrants in situations where neither the judge nor the cops asking him, have any reason to even vaguely suspect that a crime may have happened. The drunk driving angle is just there to get the sympathy and support of people like you.
Do you realize that the "anti-terrorism" crap was justified as being merely an extension of non-terrorism laws? PATRIOT was sold as letting the cops do to suspected terrorists, what they get to do to suspect drug traffickers or mobsters. There was a time when going after drug traffickers was popular too (like going after drunk driving is) which is why people allowed that. Except this time we're paving the way for something even more radical, getting rid of the "suspected" part.
"I don't understand why you're resisting the idea immediately issuing warrants for randomly-selected people who don't disclose their SSD contents; we've been doing the same thing in the hopes of possibly catching drunk drivers for years; this just brings anti-piracy sweeps in line with the rest of long-established laws." That's what they're going to say when you complain about PATRIOT3.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Population figures suggest that they almost certainly will grow up, so now we just have to decide if they will do so in a police state of a free country.
I fail to see how I was supposed to infer you were not lumping me into your terse, two-sentence reply to me that is apparently a description of ... now I have no idea who you are actually referring to, so I don't even have a descriptor to use. You're apparently very anti-something, but I'm not exactly sure what that something is.
I'm so glad people have created the pejorative "teabagger" to apply to anyone who questions anything that's not approved by Godlike Leftist Figure X. The knee-jerk use of it to dismiss opposition is as what the Right has been doing through Beck and Limbaugh for years. We need both sides to be on the same intellectual playing field for the gladiatorial fight to the death.
Aren't more than half of the DUI convictions by repeat offenders? Can we work this at the sentencing phase after a fair trial? Take away more licenses or stiffer punishments or something, but do it *after* a proper trial. Checkpoints are just too much like, well, checkpoints.
The link in your sig was very enlightening. If I had mod points you get +6.
no comment
The pulled me out of the departures check-in line as well, before any security. The scattered my luggages to various places to be tested, re-assembled 20 minutes later asked me to help re-pack and sent me to the gate directly with an escort, no x-rays, no other check-in.
All my bags arrived. Everyone was kind courteous and helpful. Nothing was lost, but yeah, they were able to identify me in a crowd both ways. Anyway, I like those guys, and Aroma coffee is great!
Insightful?!? So operating dangerous machinery (dangerous to others, not just yourself) in public places shouldn't be regulated or require a license? Mind if I run my rocket sled up and down your neighborhood street? I need my freedom of movement, dude.
That's one of the worst over-applications of the term "basic constitutional rights" I've seen.
Driving cars on public land is a privilege that we grant each other with certain restrictions. Whether this DUI checkpoint scheme is a good thing or not is another debate, but the idea that this has anything to do with constitutional rights is foolish.
Man, talk about an undeserved sense of entitlement. I imagine you would like noting more than allowing drunk 10 year olds to fly planes then. There is a a world of difference between limiting travel and limiting how you are allowed to do it. Hopefully you will realize this when you finally grow up.
Man, talk about an undeserved sense of entitlement.
Man, talk about an undeserved sense of superiority.
I imagine you would like noting more than allowing drunk 10 year olds to fly planes then.
I imagine you would like nothing more than requiring proof of land-ownership and a minimum age of 35 to drive then.
Or have you failed to understand the implications of "impose whatever conditions they see fit?"
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
While I agree with you, I do know people who have cycled across an entire state and have not had any problems with law enforcement. They did not use an interstate highway, but not everything state owned is available to everyone at all times.
As an example, is it a grave restriction on freedom if I can't go hang out in the president's bathroom when I want to? Is it reasonable for the government to refuse me the ability to walk through a restroom of an opposite gender as a part of my freedom to travel?
Kenny Rogers called.
He says you can't outrun the Long Arm of the Law.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
+1 Wrinkle in Time
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
The only law that can protect a bicycle rider from drivers is one that makes motor vehicles illegal.
Dunno. There are a lot of idiot bike riders out there. Take the cars off the roads and the humans who used to be driving them will still be a problem.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
But a reasonable person would assume that the officer meant to say the alphabet in forward direction, so saying "T, S" clearly means they're drunk.
Wheee, subjective!
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
This is all cute with the streamlining and everything, but where's the service angle? Can we streamline the speeding tickets so that I can pay with my credit card when they pull me over? Can I file for defensive driving or deferred adjudication at the time I'm pulled over also? These are the tell tale indicators that the state has stepped over the line. If we're going to streamline, regardless of the constitutionality of the "onsite judge", then it better include better service for citizens, not just stronger prosecution for "criminals"
That is really what Lem saw and parodied in Communist Poland a few decades back.
Idiots are idiots, whether they are called left, right, or batshit insane anarchists.
What it is really all about is an argument against change, even and quite frequently change for the better. Words like "civil liberties" are emptily parroted in a cargo cult fashion because they have seen people use them effectively on more important issues. Attitudes to GITMO and a pile of other examples show that it is empty parroting and they really do not care about civil liberties as long as they don't end up in GITMO or similar.
Those are the sort of people that are trying to get you to be just like them.
What I've written on the other thread is probably far more clear.
I'll roll these both into one, since you stated a preference for the clarity of this post to the other.
On the above I'm entirely in agreement with you, excepting (as I have repeatedly in this, since each post seems to express it) the assumption that all disagreement necessarily means empty parroting of ideas with no actual principle or logic behind the opposition.
Yes, there are stupid fringe groups. I'd go so far as to say most mainstream groups are also lead by extremists of one stripe or another that have a particular agenda and use the movement as a vehicle to advance it.
However, that doesn't automatically mean that two people who argue a particular point are both idiots just because one of those people is a brain-dead parrot. Assume that and there's no point in debating anything, because even positions with a great deal of objective, empirical supporting evidence can be parroted by morons with no understanding of the facts.
At least change the line to "It is easier to do nothing and pretend all change is the wrong change than it is to attempt any change in the hope that it will improve society." I don't know anyone, especially fringe groups, who think we live in a perfect society. Most of them want far more radical change than anything proposed.
You can't prove that... but I can prove, quite easily, that officers in multiple jurisdictions have arrested taxi passengers for public intoxication. As well as (for example) in Austin, walked into a bar and arrested *everyone* for PI; in Virginia, arrested someone for PI for drinking a beer on his porch.
You just have to love the combination of religious zealots, self-righteousness, and authoritarianism.
Oh, and you can bet a blood test on the side of the road won't meet HIPAA requirements for electronic medical records
Taking blood is not rocket science. It is quite easy to setup a truck with the appropriate facilities for handling blood samples.
He's referring to legal requirements to protect medical records from unauthorized disclosure in the USA. They have little to do with the safety concerns I think you might be thinking about. However, a BAC test truck can meet these requirements just as easily as the mobile mammogram clinics that the hospital I work at operates.
you're applying semantics and grasping at straws. this thread is not about pubic intoxication.
You are aware that in certain jurisdictions, such as the District of Columbia, there is so-called "zero tolerance" for drinking and driving-- which means, you have a glass of wine, you drive home, you're pulled over or stopped at a checkpoint, you tell an officer you drink alcohol at dinner, you go to jail, even if you would have blow "ZERO"?
Your point is logically consistent, but irrelevant and demonstrates that you think my freedoms should be restricted in the name of your zealotry. I should not have to take a cab to not be arrested by your Gestapo. And in response to your zealotry, I'm not "grasping at straws." I'm concluding that the only way for freedom-loving Americans to deal with fools such as you and the 'MADD' woman here, begins at the ballot box, but is rapidly proceeding to the need for the bullet box.
Tolerance only goes so far-- which is to say, if your intent is to restrict my freedom, I'm perfectly willing to accept that our freedom must be renewed with the blood of patriots from time to time, and that implies putting a knife in your gut if you don't give up in your attempt to restrict the rights of others.
Got the argument? I suspect not.
Because South Korea is such a great example of democracy and liberty... how you like living in advanced fascism, my friend, where a cop can knock on your window and demand that you... well, do whatever they tell you, including blow your brains out? Where your 'Chairman' can order the massacre of 30,000 dissidents, and the CIA will help clean up? Fine example you have there!
There are proxy drivers in the US-- they come with a scooter that folds up and goes in your trunk. Costs about the same or more than a cab, which also costs more than the night out in a lot of places. Personally I think that if the US was rational, they'd just have cops will breathalyzers outside of bars, and stop everyone before they got into a car and check, and make sure they got home without driving drunk if they were impaired.
But that, you know, wouldn't be the US, and wouldn't produce revenue for police departments and jails, and wouldn't fund self-righteous do-gooders like MADD. Because in the the US, there's always that off chance that someone else might be enjoying their life and liberty, and the Protestant Ethic, you know, demands that we do something about that.
The stupid fringe group is where the argument style the AC and "causality" above spread is coming from. You can tell by the way it all gets blown way out of proportion to the actual issue and they try to rope it in as being contrary to everything that is good about society so that they will find SOMETHING that most people will agree with. All I'm trying to say is that I think it that is a frequently used nasty and childish little game and try to outline what I see as the agenda behind it.
Take a look at the post from "causality" for more of an expanded idea of what the AC is going on about. Sheer batshit insanity wrapped neatly in the flag so that nobody can question it. Sadly freedom or civil liberties don't matter - it's about spilling a bucket of faux patriotism on things in an attempt to stop anything changing. Here it's an excuse to not put up with a law that has applied where I live and in many other places for a long time - simply closing a loophole where you can refuse to be tested and get away uncharged. Right or wrong it is nowhere near the thin end of the wedge leading to the loss of freedom.
Won't they also need a licensed phlebotomist on site to draw the blood before you have a chance to sober up?
The Fourth Amendment is part of the federal Constitution, but its protection is applied to the states, too, by the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Florida State Constitution is also rather particular about this type of thing. From their state constitution:
Most state constitutions in the U.S. have a far broader bill of rights than the one everyone's familiar with in the federal constitution (but state courts also tend to be looser in interpreting them).
Yes, that says that your license will be revoked on the spot if you refuse breathalyzer or other intoxication test.
You can sign anything you want saying you will consent to something in the future, but there are no criminal penalties for revoking that consent in the future. (But that means that you need to be prepared for a lawsuit.) The state however does not need to justify its revocation of your driver's license and they remove any such implication by requiring you to sign such a document.
However, if there is probable cause, the police can demand an immediate Breathalyzer, with or without your consent, and refusing that can (and most likely will) lead to criminal charges, too. (And kiss your license goodbye.)
Normally, police cannot order a blood test unless the Breathalyzer is over the limit.
If you drive with a 0.07, which is marginally close to illegal, you should be in the backseat of a cab. dont pretend this makes no sense to you.
that's like arguing attempted murder vs murder..
It is absolutely nothing like that distinction. One is completely legal and the other completely illegal whereas both attempted murder and murder are completely illegal.
I do not suggest anyone drive at 0.07 any more than I suggest driving and applying make-up at 80 mph. They are both legal (and the one “closer” to illegal is the lesser of the two evils).
And pollute our air with their crap? No thanks.
while you are correct in that 0.07 is NOT illegal in states where the limit is 0.08... I add that unless you wait the exact amount of time following your last swallow *which it is impossible to accurately ascertain* it is not feasable to say "i know i wont be drunker at any time"... i mean unless you wait 2 hours, then you know your BAC is going to have declined and no bar that I know of would let you sit around buying nothing for two hours.
I get your argument but i was catering to the reality that a lot of people who carelessly abuse alcohol cause injury to others and that once in the process of consuming alcohol, judgement drops exponentially. I drank 4 beers tonight.. I spread them out over 4 hours and drove home quite sober and well below the legal limit. had i done them in brevity or chose to drink liquor in abrupt succession, I would have used a cab.
And the misuse of majuscules.
No, that checkpoint you described is probably typical. Every statistical analysis of areas that do these checkpoints and areas that don't shows that they do not decrease drunk driving. They pin cops down to specific spots that drunk drivers will avoid and then lack the flexibility they have when actually patrolling, so all the local drunks know where all the local cops are.
I wish I had mod points right now.
A: "British law firms". No such thing. Law practitioners in what is now the United Kingdom were required to be sole practitioners until the 19th century. The first law firms in the British Empire were established in the 18th century under the auspices of the Quebec Act (1765) which recognized the pre-existence of legal partnerships and corporations under the French system. Since the Quebec Act resulted in a hybridized civil code and common law system, practitioners of English and Scots law with Quebec-based businesses could do something then unique in the Empire: form limited liability partnerships. Most especially, lawyers were allowed to advocate in spite of not having completed a law education in the City of London, a practice established in 1234, which made it difficult for colonists to become lawyers (and especially advocates). This *ENRAGED* many practitioners of law in North America since (a) there were substantial economies of scale enjoyed by such partnerships and (b) there were tariff advantages within the Colonies. This is not too surprising, since the Quebec Act enraged many people in the 13 colonies (especially allowing Roman Catholics to act as lawyers, judges, and officials) and even caused some friction in the other British colonies in the region (the Law Society of Upper Canada formed in reaction, for example, to advocate for practitioners of English law further up the St Lawrence).
In the reconstruction era, several of the regulators in the various states and in the U.S. began to allow law professionals to form partnerships in similar ways. This was reasonably successful, and the practice spread throughout the USA and back to England (for solicitors only initially) and Scotland.
While several of the authors of the U.S. Constitution held law degrees, and had practised law (usually exclusively in their home colony), and could reasonably be considered "British lawyers" (although more properly English lawyers; the one or two Scots involved also practised English law) at the time of the Revolution, the only thing that could reasonably be called a "British law firm" in the 1770s-1790s were in Quebec and were generally hostile to the Revolution, since the Treaty of Paris was turning out to be a good deal for the former Nouvelle France compared to the chaos, expense, and violence in the 13 colonies to their south.
B: "many of the amendments (including the 4th) were crafted by British law firms"
If you substitute "British law firms" for "English advocates" you are part way there, because much of the Bill of Rights directly reflects the contents of the (English) Bill of Rights 1689, which outlined the rights of Englishmen which many of the Revolutionaries fought for.
The English Bill of Rights in its accusations and claims should remind people of the (U.S.) Bill of Rights -- the first, the second, the third, the fifth and the eighth in particular. However the Fourth Amendment is a novel codification of what was then a rapidly evolving area of statute and case law in England; it was the better part of 50 years before a similar set of rules with respect to warrants and evidence were sufficiently entrenched in English law that future Parliaments would not dare weaken them without at least careful primary legislation (i.e., a "constitutional amendment").
"refusal constituting probable cause" - the Roman Law principle nemo tenetur se ipsum accusare has been in legal force in a modern sense in what is now England since the Englis
I thank my lucky stars that I have a prescription for drugs that have a serious detrimental effect on my driving, I can run over all sorts of folks and it's okay!
In my state if you hit somebody after you've been drinking and they die, it's murder and you get a minimum of 12 years.
Kill someone while you are driving on a legal prescription though and you'll get a max of 2 year.
All of these are examples of stupid laws - I don't care why you killed someone, whether you were high, drunk, medicated or stupid, you should be tried on the result, not the reason. Hate crimes and crimes of passion are the same, stupid and short sighted.
Really, off-topic? Did you read the headline mods?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
The police are obviously not doing statistical sampling. They have TV cameras and from observation, believe that a car driven by a driver that is being handled in a non-normal way should be checked. I would not want that driver to end up killing or maiming some innocent victim. If you do not want the test, then is it more than likely that you (the individual) has something to hide?
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
You use that word, but I don't think you know what it means.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
But that stinks, and puts all kinds of nasty CO2 in the air, maybe a nice communal grave?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
This is uncool at many levels. Breathalyzers are known to be very inaccurate (take a sip of a drink, wait 5 mins, blow, get an off the charts reading). Intoxication varies a lot by individual (hence most places use sobriety tests like balance, etc), using only one metric isn't useful. One guy is passing out at .03 (but is legal), but another will be at double that and score above-average on proficiency tests but the law calls him intoxicated? It all depends on where your start point is (granny's driving ability reduced by 75% is different than your ability reduced by 75%), and your body's specifics.
For those of us who actually believe in the 4th amendment, the idea that merely driving through a public access area is enough Probable Cause to be stopped, and refusing an illegal search at that point will result in the police forcibly taking your blood is horrific.
More reason to avoid Florida, America's Wang.
Well-- look, I once had a guy who spent the afternoon drinking at the local pub try to take his lorry home, plowing it into the back of my car when I slowed to turn (he evidently was totally unaware), spinning us three times until we hit a retaining fence and, fortunately, we did not clear the fence nor did our fuel tank explode, though the rear of the car was ripped in two and if the front had been what hit the wall, we likely would have been splattered along it.
I'm not in favor of drunken driving. I'm just in no way convinced that these methods are in any way effective, and I don't trust law enforcement that has a financial or zealotry stake, and whose end seems punative, or anything else than effectively removing impaired drivers from the road.
I'd be perfectly fine if officers showed up at every bar, pub and public establishment that served alcohol, and simply prevented people who are impaired from driving. Makes a lot of sense to me, if they don't abuse people and seek anything but the practical goal.
In the above case, the officer who arrived actually let the lorry driver wait and sober up, before administering a breathalyzer.
I've also lived in a number of jurisdictions where I've seen the bartender literally run out and stop people if they heard they were going to drive after a few drinks-- and in others, where there are plenty of 'random' drunk driving stops, and people getting arrested and charged on pretty flimsy evidence, where it seems to me there's no effective disincentive, because people seem to conclude, "it doesn't really matter if I'm drinking or no, I'm still going to get pulled over and arrested, and my chances are pretty low."
I'm saying this is ineffective and from what I've seen, ripe for abuse of all kinds. Sure, only a fool wants people who might kill someone, on the road. But there's plenty of room, for these things to turn into abuse of citizens and rights, while at the same time, it's darn hard to get the ,multiple offender who gets into a five ton dump after drinking a bottle of vodka-- that happened here in where I am-- and plows into a family of three.
And as I see it, if you're not getting your priorities right, and finding a way to stop the people who are causing the real damage, and instead harassing citizens with ineffective procedure-- then you're somewhere along the spectrum from not doing anything effective, to actually threatening our freedoms and making the problem worse.
In the UK, if you refuse a breath test, they do you for the equivalent of failing it.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
there is a lot of common sense and fairness in your argument but as a self-employed businessman (the highest tax bracket in the US) who has no kids or debt to write-off.... I don't lose a lot of sleep on the fact that some american who would have caused an accident like you described will pay 15 thousand in fines. I wish humans were a smart enough species(in general) to use this as an incentive to call a cab and spend 40 bucks to get home legally.