The Free Though Project's Matt Agorist notes that these checkpoints -- much like the TSA -- don't catch who they contend they're about catching.

Because they're not about catching drunk drivers. They're about doing a quasi-legal search for traffic code violations and realizing revenue from them.

The article mentions that 32 citations were issued. They were mostly for violations that a traffic cop would have had difficulty spotting from outside the vehicle.

These stops are a legal way around the 4th Amendment.

The police will often station officers just before the checkpoint to pull over people who turn to avoid it.

I missed getting pulled over because the cop was busy with another car who made the turn just before I did.

I've always wanted llamas' take on this video. To me, he asks the question "Am I being detained or am I free to go" WAY too fast. He doesn't give the officer a chance to respond and he sounds like he's doing some drug-induced incoherent mumbling every time he does it. He's lucky the cops didn't plant some evidence after discovering the camera, because even with this video, he wouldn't have been able to prove otherwise.

I've always wanted llamas' take on this video. To me, he asks the question "Am I being detained or am I free to go" WAY too fast. He doesn't give the officer a chance to respond and he sounds like he's doing some drug-induced incoherent mumbling every time he does it. He's lucky the cops didn't plant some evidence after discovering the camera, because even with this video, he wouldn't have been able to prove otherwise.

Fayd at August 21, 2016 1:38 PM

Most of the sane people I know are recording everything that goes on in their vehicle up to and including accidents so they have a record for the insurance company

I think the police are trying to make their money now, because in ten years with mandatory body cams, and car cams, what happened, is going to be pretty clear. No more *he said, she said*.
Not to mention the revenue threat from self driving vehicles. The insurance companies will take a hit there too.

Planting something in someone's car kinda has to be premeditated. Hard to do when there is a camera on you already, and no one is going to believe you, if you walk around, and stick drugs to the bumper or throw a loaded gun in the trunk (which would be legal most places anyway)

@Fayd - happy to oblige.

No, he did not ask the question too soon. He had the right to know what his status was. Maybe he mumbled - I didn't hear it. He spoke with a low, calm inflection - in contrast to the officer, who is becoming more and more agitated.

I knew where this was going long before he asked the question, though. It was when the officer told him to wind his window all the way down, and he demurred. You can actually see/hear the officer take a set, right at that point - the arc of this interaction has been determined. The officer starts raising his voice, trying to intimidate, starts asking questions that have no bearing on the supposed purpose of the checkpoint, which is to determine whether a driver is intoxicated. And then the officer starts to fixated on getting answers to his questions, and on getting compliance. Pull over here, get out of the car, are you a lawyer, and on and on. The supposed purpose of the checkpoint has now been totally forgotten - it has now become all about gaining compliance, asserting authority, attempting to humiliate the citizen and forcing him to degrade himself and obey any and all commands the officer chooses to give. It's 'put out that cigarette' all over again. These are not legitimate law-enforcement goals - it's now become the officer's private power trip.

This is what these checkpoints have become - in fact, what they became about 10 minutes after the USSC said that they were legal. Equal parts fishing expedition for all sorts of petty criminal activity and revenue-generating opportunities, and heavy-handed intimidation games for officers so minded. The results from checkpoints - everything but DUIs - proves that this is true.

When I am in charge, DUI checkpoints will be different. If the USSC has determined that DUI checkpoints are lawful uses of police powers, whose purpose is to prevent the scourge of drunk driving, then that's what they'll be. I'll get volunteers from MADD to administer a voluntary electronic PBT to each motorist. The police officers present will be sequestered in a closed tent off to the side. No drug dogs, no ICE officers, no Homeland Security clowns, no motor-carrier officers. The only motorists who will even speak to a police officer will be those who blow a presumptive positive for alcohol on the PBT. All others - including those who refuse the PBT - will be politely sent on their way.

And the officers will then be allowed to do only those things which may help to establish whether a driver is DUI or not. No license checks, no searches, no warrant verifications, none of the fishing-expedition stuff that has attached itself to these activities. You don't need to ID someone to figure out whether or not he is drunk, nor do you need to search him or his car. These additional activities, which began as sort-of reflexive actions by law enforcement - well, we have him stopped, so let's ID him and run him for warrants and see if we can search his car - have now become the primary purpose of the checkpoint. Since they seldom-if-ever catch any actual drunks.

Since the primary purpose of these checkpoints is not DUI enforcement, but fishing for revenue, once they are held to their stated purpose, their total lack of effectiveness would rapidly become clear. When the headline is '685 cars stopped at DUI checkpoint - No Drunks Found', the citizens will quickly figure out that this is a stone waste of resources, and the chief will start doing what it actually takes to catch drunk drivers, which is officers in cars on streets.

llater,

llamas

It was clear at the time of that SCOTUS decision that it was going to be a foot in the door, and that's exactly what has happened. Today, the federal government asserts that they can search you pretty much anytime you step out your front door, with or without cause. Once one thing became too "important" to let the Constitution stand in the way, then whaddya know, suddenly a whole bunch of things were. Now, the Fourth Amendment is nearly a dead letter. About the only place where you are still somewhat protected is in your home, and I'm waiting for the time when a court decision holds that it is legal for the authorities to send a drug dog (who is trained to alert on cue from the handler) up to your front door and then use that as a pretext for a no-knock raid.

Don't even get me started on courthouse searches. It was never the intention of the Founders that public functions be "privileges" that require surrendering one's rights in order to participate in.

+1 what Cousin Dave said.

The 'administrative' searches at places like court buildings and police departments really irritate the heck out of me also. It's a wildly-overblown response to a virtually non-existent, movie-plot threat.

In one local community, the county offices share parts of a local-government complex with a district court facility. One day, metal detectors and armed officers suddenly - appeared - at the county office entrances, so that everyone going to the office of the clerk of deeds or the county sanitarian was suddenly being wanded and metal-detectored and required to show ID. I wasn't there, but I heard that people were being turned away because they had cell-phones and tablets, because such things are not permitted in the court areas.

The response to the inevitable outcry was both predictable and bovine in its stupidity - We're keeping you Safe! If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear! - and all the usual excuses that are trotted out when law enforcement wants to ignore the liberties of the citizenry. It took the threat of a civil-rights lawsuit, claiming racial motivations and disparate impact, before the checkpoints were removed or relocated.

llater,

llamas

Thanks for your observations, llamas. However, when I said he asked the question too fast, I did not mean too early. I meant the speed of his delivery: "amibeandetanedoramifre2go?" I've always said the question should go like this: "Am I being detained?" (Pause, pause, wait for the answer, no answer? Then:) "Or am I free to go?"

You should definitely get a response to that second question.

Wow.... as an American who has lived for the past 25 years in Israel, I am trying to recall my initial outrage at wand and bag searches - which are routine here at every mall, train station, and other public venue.

Here they really are justified, unfortunately. Please don't try the "Am I free to go" stuff if you visit...

And as in most European democracies, we don't have a US-style Constitution to establish a baseline of citizen's rights.