Thread: Highway checkpoint asks drivers for blood, saliva!!!

WND POLICE STATE, USA
Highway checkpoint asks drivers for blood, saliva
Travelers outraged by private research group's request
Posted: September 20, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern


© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com


Motorists in Colorado are expressing outrage over a weekend stunt in Gilpin County, about an hour's drive west of Denver, where highway checkpoints were set up so a private organization could ask for samples of blood and saliva.

"I don't think they're authorized to do what they're doing, and I view it as a gross violation of law-enforcement protocol," Roberto Sequeira, 51, told reporters for the Denver Post.

He said he and his wife were "detained" for about 15 minutes even after they protested they wanted to get home because of a sleepy child in their car.

(Story continues below)

Sheriff's officials were apologizing after they helped set up and run five separate checkpoints over the weekend.

They said workers for the Institute for Research and Evaluation were overly persistent in their demands of innocent travelers.

"It was like a telemarketer that you couldn't hang up on," Undersheriff John Bayne told the newspaper.

Sgt. Bob Enney said the deputies' assistance to the organization involved stopping motorists at the sites along Colorado Highway 119 for "surveys" on any drug or alcohol use. Surveyors also requested that motorists submit to breath, blood and saliva tests.

Enney said several hundred motorists were tested, and some later complained.

Sequeira said he repeatedly asked if the questioners were law enforcement officials and said he was not interested in participating in the study, but still was not given clearance to leave.

He told the newspaper that he and his family were approached by two researchers, and even after his repeated refusals, officials offered his wife, who was driving, $100 to get the couple to take part in a breath test.

"I think it's very dangerous," he told the newspaper. "Sometimes at checkpoints, unfortunate things happen."

PIRE spokeswoman Michelle Blackston told WND the deputies "did not stop" any drivers. "It was a voluntary survey. … Nobody approached them. There were signs saying that a survey was taking place. Nobody waved them down."

She said she was unaware whether the private organization reimbursed the county for the expense of having the deputies at the traffic sites. The organization's own researchers get the results of the work, she said.

Also to the newspaper, PIRE officials defended their actions. They said such statistics are important to gauge the impact of laws and enforcement policy. Their questions began over the summer and will continue at other locations around the nation through November, they said.

"We've been literally surveying thousands of people," John Lacey, of the Alcohol, Policy and Safety Research Center, said. It's through that organization PIRE is doing its research.

He said researchers push a few of those who initially refuse to participate to reconsider – even offering incentives.

"If we don't do that, the criticism will come out that we had so many who were refusers," Lacey told the newspaper.

Bayne said a similar study was done in the county several years ago, with no complaints, but he admitted last weekend's effort was aggressive.

"The people were too persistent," he told the Post. "Some people didn't feel it was voluntary."

Officials with the Colorado chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said the fact that sheriff's deputies were on the scene, and surveyors wore blue jumpsuits, could have confused drivers.

Sequeira said his family was directed by sheriff's officials to pull over and he and his wife were greeted by "youthful, college" surveyors.

"We had a 10-year-old in the back who's tired, we tell them thanks but no thanks, we have to get this child back home to bed," he told the paper. But the workers persisted, telling them they would be provided help driving home if needed. Then they offered the $100.

"We say, 'No thank you, we have to get our child home,'" he recalled. "At this point, both clones start chortling at us and ridiculing us."

On a newspaper forum, the opinion was running fairly close to unison:

"The very act of pulling a motorist over subjects him/her and their vehicle (at very least) to a visual search. This means if the motorist was pulled over without suspicion of violating a law, than (sic) they have been subjected to an unlawful search…," wrote Warren Gregory.

"For the record the proper response to ANY such incursion into privacy is to ask the question, Am I under Arrest? If the answer is no ask if you are free to go. If you are told no demand to be arrested or you will leave and then leave," added Frank Vicek.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/artic ... E_ID=57733

Damn I would have gotten tased

Originally Posted by redbadger

Damn I would have gotten tased

Me too.

Seems like a classic area where the ACLU should be up in arms and screaming.... (and where are they?) Sounds like a classic case of 'unreasonable search and seizure'.

Sounds like there was a lot of persuasion going on. I would have said no and drove off. Ignorace of the law is not a defence and it's your responsibility to know the law. I know if I'm not under arest, I'm leaveing. If they arrest me without cause, then I'm going to sue. I don't agree with pre-emptive lawsuits... because I thought they were going to arrest me is not justification because anyone could claim that. Until something is done to you, then too bad.

A child sleeping is not a good excuse, even if the kid woke up. If those parents were really concerned, then they would have been at home when the child was supposed to go to bed.

"The very act of pulling a motorist over subjects him/her and their vehicle (at very least) to a visual search.

OK, they could follow you to a gas station, when you pull over to re-fuel and do the same visual search. It can be done anywhere on public property that you stop your vehicle, even at the grocery store. It can be done as you are driving by someone. What you do in your car is not private, if it can be observed through the windows, an open door or trunk. Some people like to believe this but it's just not so. If you put it out there, where the public can see it, it's not private.

I don't like the idea of police involvement in this but I don't think they did anything wrong. Not much different than being hired to escort a funeral. I don't understand why this survey could not be done in a mall.

If no one got arrested for not participating, then the ACLU needs to stay out of it. Sounds like some volunteers were pressured and now they regret participating. Something like buyer's remorse.

I'm sure they came to the realization that they were throwing their DNA around. That's the bad part about this whole story. They were foolish.

Dixie

Could have just been a test to see how willing people would be to do such a thing. The police being there made people feel like it was a check point and they had to submit. Not everyone knows their rights and I wonder how well it was explained to people.

Originally Posted by jp_48504

Could have just been a test to see how willing people would be to do such a thing. The police being there made people feel like it was a check point and they had to submit. Not everyone knows their rights and I wonder how well it was explained to people.

Exactly what I was wondering.

Here in my town, the local PD had implemented some goofy policy of asking passers-by on the street downtown if they could be searched. Doesn't like there was a strong basis for suspicion or probable cause. Of course, even the question puts off the innocent passer-by: a). why would an officer even ask such a question, and b). what if I say 'No' (or even HELL NO!)

Some things are just plain wrong.

Originally Posted by jp_48504

Could have just been a test to see how willing people would be to do such a thing. The police being there made people feel like it was a check point and they had to submit. Not everyone knows their rights and I wonder how well it was explained to people.

Factually correct.