Sunday, September 23, 2007
News: "Your papers, please? Thank you, Valued Customer; here's $100."
In a blurring of the public and private that strikes me as more than a little creepy, it seems that the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, a "non-profit" that has generated enough non-profit to keep $1.35M worth of lobbyists on the payroll, wanted to gather some survey data on roadblock results. So they did what any other company suckling at the Wo(S)D/MADD teat would do when they needed some field research; they rounded up a friendly Sheriff's Office (in this case Gilpin Co. Colorado) and they set themselves up a few roadblocks. To say that some of us view this kind of high-handed crap with distaste would be the understatement of the young millennium.
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5 comments:
What's next? No-knock warrants to see what brand of coffee you drink?
I'm glad others are noticing this. These people were gathering blood samples and saliva swabs from motorists. Although it was "voluntary", they had the sheriffs there which gives them implied authority to do this. Its troubling that a private company would be allowed to pull people over and demand bodily fluid samples. Also, its troubling that people actually consented to it.
I was just lucky enough to be behind a car with a big "MADD" sticker on the bumper. The person was driving in a very erratic manner! Speed up, slow down, drift from one side of the lane to another! Drunk? No! Cell phone stuck in an orfice! Oblivious to the rest of the world!
Next up, a new program to see if the average citizen is deterred from committing crimes by the threat of jail time. We've randomly selected 500 folks from all 50 states and locked them in a holding cell with the current prison population version of the cast of the Road Warrior...
I'd like to know exactly where in Colorado code that law enforcement agencies are authorized to effect a traffic stop to "request" that someone participate in a survey. This is not a phone call or a knock on a door. I find it troublesome that a DUI checkpoint complete with involuntary detainments can be set up in order to facilitate a private survey. We all know what would happen if someone just drove away.
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