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Texas Drivers Stopped At Roadblock, Asked For Saliva, Blood

Posted by Soulskill on from the also-need-an-eyeball-scraping-and-a-chunk-of-lung dept.

schwit1 writes "Some drivers along a busy Fort Worth street on Friday were stopped at a police roadblock and directed into a parking lot, where they were asked by federal contractors for samples of their breath, saliva and even blood. It was part of a government research study aimed at determining the number of drunken or drug-impaired drivers.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is spending $7.9 million on the survey over three years, said participation was '100 percent voluntary' and anonymous. The 'participants' hardly agree."

24 of 783 comments (clear)

  1. I do not consent by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I do not consent to living in a police state.
    I do not consent to "federal contractors".

    I DO NOT CONSENT

    OR:

    "These are not the droids you're looking for."

  2. Sure, it's voluntary. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Don't let the fact that an armed man and his buddies just forced you off the road, in the dark, convey any kind of misleading impression about the voluntariness of what you are about to do the sensible thing and agree to....

  3. Food for thought by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why not shoot anybody and everybody? That way, you'll certainly get all the rapists, murderers, etc.

    The rights of somebody else granted by law should be respected even when they're violating the law.

    1. Re:Food for thought by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There are other ways to structure a society that don't require a coercive government yet amazingly include all of those things. Expand your horizons a tad,

    2. Re:Food for thought by Sun · · Score: 5, Insightful

      While I agree with the point you are trying to convey, I think you chose a really bad way of driving (sorry about the pun) it home.

      This is not a contract. This is the law. Violating it isn't a contract dispute. It is a criminal offense. There is not difference, as far as your consent goes, between driving without a license and driving under the influence.

      You did not accept the rules when you got your license. The rules bind you whether you agree with them or not. Within the rules, you are free to choose not to get your license (and not drive), or to drive only when the law decides you are not prohibited from doing so.

      Shachar

    3. Re:Food for thought by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 5, Insightful
      That is all true, but it does not give the government the right to stop and search me without probable cause.

      Yes, we are bound by the laws, regardless if we agree with them or not.

      And so are the cops, who are bound by the 4th amendment, last time I checked.

    4. Re:Food for thought by s.petry · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The cops had no probable cause for this so called "voluntary" pull over. Everyone driving was diverted and forced to pull in, and detained. According to TFA, if you bothered to read it, the driver discussing issues was harassed to the point of finally blowing in a breathalyser so that they could leave and return from work since it was during their lunch break that they were forced into a detainment area. For doing _NOTHING_!

      Assuming you read TFA and understood that these people were not pulled over for doing anything wrong: By your broken logic, a cop should be able to jam a camera up your ass since you might be carrying illegal narcotics up there. Lets not forget you are consenting to the same treatment for your significant other.

      If you didn't bother reading TFA and just assumed that these people were acting illegally and therefor pulled over you are just as broken in critical thinking. Congrats on being either the cooked frog or dangerously ignorant.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    5. Re:Food for thought by LordLimecat · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Its a pretty clear violation of the spirit of the 4th amendment, and its a little saddening that people are trying to pretend that it isnt.

    6. Re:Food for thought by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      but overall it'd be a lot better than what we have now.

      Really?

      A random warlord seizing power over a large city and her people, then marauding up and down, say, the West Coast, murdering at will, taking what women and rolls of toilet paper are left over from the pre-stupidpocalypse times would be better?

      Can you explain how?

      Because that's what you derpy anarchists are asking for. You either don't know the definition of the word, or you're mewling children without an ounce of sense or knowledge of human nature.

      Can't tell which.

    7. Re:Food for thought by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 5, Insightful
      One of the best protections you can put into place...

      Do not allow people to give permission.

      Either the cops have PC or they don't, otherwise they can use intimidation to get "permission".

      Cops shouldn't be going around asking random people, "can I search your car/person". Either they have a reason to, and don't need to ask, or they should be leaving you the hell alone.

    8. Re:Food for thought by SeaFox · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The summary said this was volunteer, the cops are free to ask for permission to search you and you're free to say no.

      And the police would NEVER interpret your refusal to cooperate as an attempt to hide wrongdoing, giving them "probable cause" to force you to comply, No siree, Bob.

    9. Re:Food for thought by sjames · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Absolutely incorrect. Consider that in the United States, the Constitution is the only thing that grants the federal government any existence at all. Repeal the Constitution and legally speaking the federal government goes poof. Any attempt to enforce any federal 'law' after that is simple thuggary and the enforcer runs the risk of being shot as a criminal under state law.

      In fact, that is a denial of the idea that any government exists by divine right. Since there is no divine right, it can only exist through consent of the governed as embodied by the Constitution.

    10. Re:Food for thought by erikkemperman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I realize the word Anarchy has, perhaps even more than Socialism or Communism, been succesfully divorced from its actual meaning, especially in far-right USA.

      There are quite a few schools of thought within Anarchism other than the juvenile "watch it burn" style. Believing that there are better ways to run society than what we currently know as "the state" does not necessarily imply lawlessness and Mad Max dystopia. For one thing, most people I know who style themselves anarchists would prefer small, more or less self-sustaining communities and networks of lose association.

      See here

      --
      Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
    11. Re:Food for thought by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Yes, I know, that is the point. Cops shouldn't be able to just say, "oh, he said sure, go ahead and look".

      The burden of proof is on the police, not on the citizen. If they have PC, they should be able to back it up.

      The idea is that in a free country, we are not subject to inspection or investigation by our government unless we have actually taken actions that draw such attention to ourselves.

    12. Re:Food for thought by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      more or less self-sustaining communities and networks of lose association.

      Which of course, might have just about worked in Medieval times, but is so entirely impractical in todays world of massive interconnectedness and high science specialisation.

      "Self-sustaining communities" is just another phrase for "isolated", and isolated communities are almost never healthy, happy, places.

    13. Re:Food for thought by cffrost · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If a police officer feels you look or move in a way that arouse suspicion, then they have a valid reason - a duty, even - to look into it.

      If a cop doesn't have a warrant or probable cause, they have a duty to leave me the alone. If they don't, I have a duty as a citizen to refuse their attempt and remind them about the Fourth Amendment. I have this duty because if I agreed to a search, then I further the normalization of pathetic submission, embolden the authorities, and increase for my fellow citizen the expectation that they, too, should needlessly submit to the whims of dangerous thugs.

      I think that your idea that some people should be subject to increased harassment or interference by cops due to the way they "look or move" sounds pretty "suspicious" — that's the same way new people were divided up at Auschwitz.

      Blowing in a breathalyzer is not an unreasonably onerous task [...]

      I disagree. I want to be on my way without having to fool with a copper pushing an authoritarian agenda I disagree with. Getting a warrant or having probable cause to coerce me in the first place isn't onerous, and the burden belongs on the person accusing another of wrongdoing, not the innocent person minding his or her own business.

      [S]o you might say refusing to do so does look a bit suspicious.

      I'm sure I might not; I'd definitely say that someone yielding their precious civil rights to some dip-shit with a badge is a hell of a lot more suspicious than refusing a search when one has done nothing to deserve one.

      --
      Thank you, Edward Snowden.

      "Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
    14. Re:Food for thought by erikkemperman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Self-sustaining communities" is just another phrase for "isolated", ...

      Not at all. It means that you prefer to minimize external influences on essentials like food, water, energy, security. This has very little to do with being isolated (although you could probably find some communes which prefer isolation for its own merits). It's not about being cut off from everybody else, but about being independent. Not nearly the same thing.

      ... and isolated communities are almost never healthy, happy, places.

      See above. But even if we assume that independent and isolated are the same thing, I would still argue that more or less isolated communities can in fact be healthy, happy, places.

      --
      Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
    15. Re:Food for thought by BlueStrat · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Here is a question... If you can't consent to sex while drunk, how can you consent to this research while drunk?

      You consent to anything they want because

      TASER!! TASER!! TASER!!

      "~Officers, my Grandfather has a heart pacemaker!! Stop!!~"

      Stop resisting!! Stop resisting!!

      TASER!! TASER!! TASER!!

      "~Officers, he's turning blue!! Stop!!~"

      Stop turning blue!! Stop turning blue!!

      TASER!! TASER!! TASER!!

      Rinse & repeat until full and complete consent and compliance is achieved.

      Sadly, these days with the way LE has increasingly been treating innocent people, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if something very similar has either already happened, or will be popping up in the news soon.

      I know there are officers who many including themselves think of as "upstanding" and "heroic", and in many ways they are.

      *However*, all of that good is rendered meaningless when these same officers say and do nothing when fellow officers abuse people and flaunt the law and civil rights.

      What good is one officer going above & beyond to help get a young woman out of a dangerous/violent domestic situation, when a week later one of his/her fellow-officers puts her to work on the streets for one of "his" drug-dealing pimp "CI's", just to end up another dead junkie prostitute in some alley?

      I'll start having more respect for LE when they stop the "blue wall of silence" BS and start cleaning out the bad/incompetent/criminal/bullying-thug officers instead of closing ranks.

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    16. Re:Food for thought by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Everyone* should be given the due process of law and the right to a proper defense.

      Absolutely.

      BLOCKQUOTE>*Well, I say everyone, there are exceptions, but those should be so far outside of normal that they stand out and you can list them in a very short list.

      Absolutely not. No exceptions, no "lists".

      Once you start making lists of the kind of people who don't deserve due process, you find yourself adding to those lists pretty regularly. Till everyone is on them....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
  4. There were no on-duty police officers involved by tlambert · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There were no on-duty police officers involved ...just off-duty officers and government contractors, illegally distrupting traffic, illegally collecting passive sensor data, even when consent was declined, and collecting a bunch of other information if you were willing to give it for free (the breathalyzer) or willing to be paid $10, $50, or $60, depending on how intrusive you let them get in exchange for money.

    Everything about it was illegal; this was not a standard DUI checkpoint which contractors "embraced and extended", this was private citizens pulling over private citizens and collecting at least a minimum amount of data without consent.

    This is a civil rights violation, and for each count where consent was not given after the fact, worth 20 years in a Federal prison.

  5. There's another name for this. by eviljav · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Isn't this called kidnapping?

  6. Some robbers use the same language by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It was a running (bad) joke in TV/films of the 1970s/80s that muggers would frequently 'suggest' in very moderate and 'reasonable' language that their victims might like to consider giving them a 'donation'. The idea was that the situation was so clear, that the actual threat could be left implicit, as if this somehow reduced the criminality, or made the victim some kind of accomplice.

    Of course, the mugger would ensure the victim was aware that he had a weapon (frequently dual use, like a screw-driver), so that a classic power game played out.

    Now we see the police in the USA using the SAME tactic, but with one more refinement- the use of proxies/mercenaries/'contractors' to do the actual 'mugging' of citizens Human Rights, while the uniformed goons themselves stand to the side as 'back-up'.

    Let me ask you all a question. Would you prefer your police-state to be upfront and honest, like say Stalinist East Germany, or Obama style, where everyone pretends the man with the gun and uniform who is forcing you do act against your will is just a friendly, harmless 'servant' of the people.

    Would you prefer your mugger to be some lone pathetic loser, or a member of a well organised gang whose power and influence reaches into ever aspect of your city's administration and law enforcement? Team Obama not only abuses you, it pays massive amounts to PR operations so stories of the abuse are ignored or dismissed as untrue by your fellow sheeple.

  7. Re:Booze Bus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you are sneaky you can even pretend to be more drunk than you are, so they don't prioritize your test on the assumption that you will still fail four hours later.

    Dangerous tactic: if you test positive, even slightly, then they can say you were "very drunk" based on your behaviour.

  8. Re:Booze Bus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    OR...you could be smart and arrange for another ride home when you plan to be out drinking...just saying...some of us don't like games like this.