Fake Drug checkpoints??? what BULLs****

[Mari333]

Colorado (AP) -- Colorado police can set up fake checkpoints in hopes of sniffing out illegal drugs, an appeals court ruled in a case where camouflage-clad officers spied on fans during a bluegrass festival in 2000.

Thursday's ruling, which reversed an earlier finding, was based on a federal appeals court decision last year in a similar case in Oklahoma.

Police at the Telluride festival had posted signs along the road saying, "Narcotics checkpoint, one mile ahead" and "Narcotics canine ahead." Officers wearing camouflage hid on a hill and watched for any people who turned around or appeared to toss drugs out of their windows after seeing the signs.
.............





http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/08/16/fake.checkpoints.ap/index.html

[MiltonLeBerle]

1. Oh wow...your header gave me the greatest idea on how to score-

some free weed.

Now all we'll need are some uniforms, a couple of flashlights, a road flare, and some of those little orange rubber cones...

cool-

[MiltonLeBerle]

2. and after reading the article- I realized it's even easier than that-

All you need is a couple of signs.

I guess I'm off the the art supply store, then.

way cool.

[yakmoe]

3. GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Officers wearing camouflage hid on a hill and watched for any people who turned around or appeared to toss drugs out of their windows after seeing the signs.

Total bullshit. So, for avoiding a checkpoint, you are marked for stop and search. That's probable cause?

[Mike Niendorff]

4. Yep.

I remember passing one of those things several years ago while driving coast-to-coast on I-90. It still galls me that, essentially, *not wanting to submit* to a police search can now be used as "probable cause" for *conducting* a police search!

Just remember : REAL "random checkpoints" for drugs have already been held to be unconstitutional (hence: illegal), so if you see one of these things it is ALWAYS a fake -- a bluff, purposely designed to trick people into giving the drug warriors something they can sell to a court as "probable cause" (in which case, the search is no longer "random"). It's an obvious end-run around the 4th Amendment, but that doesn't seem to bother today's drug warriors very much.

FYI, anyway.


MDN

[JVS]

5. So what should one do upon seeing the signs?

Just trying to make sure I have everything clear.

[Mike Niendorff]

12. Keep driving. There is no "checkpoint".

However, if you really want to find some drug cops, you'll find plenty of them waiting at the clearly-marked "last turnoff" just before the (fictitious) "checkpoint".


MDN

[oostevo]

6. Random searching of cars is illegal?

Police do it all the time where I live.

[Mike Niendorff]

13. Yes, it is.

They have to have more than just "you were the 29th vehicle" (or whatever). Whatever searches your local police are doing are either consensual, are incident to traffic stops, are based on probable cause for some non-traffic offense, or are being done illegally. The only exception to this, AFAIK, is for customs searches at the border.

MDN

[newyawker99]

16. Hi oostevo!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[BiggJawn]

9. Well, the problem is....

...that while you're waiting for the ACLU to get around to taking your case on constitutional grounds, the well-resourced County Prosecutor has already seized everything you own, sold your kids into slavery, fucked your wife and sent you to prison for 40 years...

These days, in "John Ashcroft's Murka", just BREATHING is "Probable Cause"...

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. This is an easy one.

Don't want to worry about it? Don't drive around with illegal drugs in your car.

[sandnsea]

8. Okay you

Why do you say that? I cannot understand people who's response to every violation of every civil liberty is 'follow the law and you won't have a problem'.

There was another post earlier about a man who was killed in Florida because he didn't want to talk to the cops about his nephew. Don't want to get killed, follow the law.

Why shouldn't I be able to just drive down the road and turn around if I don't want to be bothered by police officers. I don't like them, I don't trust them, not anymore. I know they have a job to do and all of that, but they incite problems too and are way to trigger happy for my preference.

And speaking of following the law, how come people like you never want the cops and prosecutors and investigators to follow the law? "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..." Remember that?

[Mike Niendorff]

11. Excellent points.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I ran across one of these things during a coast-to-coast drive several years ago.

To be more specific, it was a coast-to-coast move, with virtually all of my college-era belongings packed into a small hatchback (even my tv and my microwave). There was so much stuff (vs. the space available) that it had taken me over four hours to get my stuff to all fit in there properly. After getting everything to finally fit into my little car, I'd then been on the road for over 48 hours (minus about 6 hours for sleep in a rest stop) when I finally hit their "last exit before drug checkpoint" sign. It was getting late, and the thought of some overzealous midwest cop pulling me over (did I mention my 18" ponytail?) and then unpacking *everything* in that car by the side of the road while they sicced a drug-sniffing dog on me and my personal effects -- regardless of the fact that I never have done *any* illegal drugs, then or now -- that thought was absolutely miserable to consider.

If there had been such a "checkpoint", I'd have been stopped for *at least* an hour or two (to perform the search), plus *another* three or four hours to get all my belongings repacked again -- and after all that delay, I'd still have to find a place to get some sleep for the night, with another day and a half of straight driving ahead of me after that. Oh, and I should also add that the weather was looking bad, too -- so add a rainstorm to that equation (while I'm repacking all my worldly possessions by the side of the road and contemplating the remaining 36 hours of driving that awaited me).

And that assumes, of course, that the drug warriors in question would be *honest* (which is an almost a contradiction in terms, in my view). OTOH, if any of them decided to be, *ahem*, "less-than-honest", well, I could just kiss my entry into law school goodbye, and could instead look forward to being tried by a jury from a conservative midwest state that probably wouldn't much like the looks of a person like me, and probably wouldn't even consider taking my word over that of an Upstanding Officer of the Law.

If I hadn't already known that such "random checkpoints" are illegal (meaning: no checkpoint ahead, but cops by warning sign watching to see if you exit), I, too, would probably have found another way through the area, just to avoid the monstrous inconvenience, delay, and outside risk that such a checkpoint would have caused me under the circumstances.

How anybody (such as the poster you were replying to) could simply dismiss these sorts of concerns with a wave of the hand is simply beyond me.

MDN

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

14. Wow! You sure can read a lot into a post.

All my post said is, if you don't want to have to worry about it, don't drive around with illegal drugs in your car.

From that you were able to decide that I favored the cops shooting people, that I thought the cops were always right, that I never want the cops and prosecuters to follow the law, and that I don't believe in constitutional rights.

Ever think of taking up mind reading in your spare time?

The law allowing the cops to set up fake checkpoints has not yet been found to be unconstitutional. I've been chased around campuses by cops in the '60s who wanted to use my head as a baseball. I've been stopped, searched and manhandled by cops for the broken taillight scam - could've been that anti-war stickers might've tipped to the tail light. I financially support the ACLU - who will probably be taking this law to higher courts, I write letters for Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, trying to spring folks victimized by "law enforcement".

Care to tell what you've done to protect civil rights - other than turn around at checkpoints? And, having been a drug/alcohol counselor for 10 years and seen the results of the combination of "recreational" drugs and cars, I have little sympathy for folks driving around with them.

[sandnsea]

18. Speaking of reading alot into a post...

When did I say you favored the cops shooting people or thought cops were always right or that you didn't believe in constitutional rights? I asked why it is that people like you never seem to think cops and prosecutors following the law is significantly more important than somebody with a joint in his car.

And your self-important little resume doesn't impress me, nor your 10 years of counseling. I've got 20 years in myself, 10 years working in a counseling facility, 10 years working in the real world. Been around long enough to actually figure out that I don't have to sober up the world and I don't have to support bullshit civil rights violations to get a pot smoker off drugs.

[MiltonLeBerle]

10. But what if the buzz wears off before you get back home to your stash?

what then?

huh?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. Hopefully, you will be able to convince some fool provide you

with bail so you can get home and recreate.

[MiltonLeBerle]

19. a bale?

heck, I'd settle for a couple of joints

[bearfan454]

17. A funny story folks

My brother and his wife came to visit last year. They are potheads. On the way back she said she wanted to take a new way home. They argued but she got her way as usual. They passed a sign that said drug checkpoint 2 miles ahead. They tossed their bag. There was no checkpoint. Aint that some shit ! Good shit too !