DUI checkpoint discussion

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Is there moral equivalency? No, because nobody gets blown up at DUI checkpoints.

Don't be silly, of course there isn't any. These killings violate the rights of other people. But DUI checkpoints violate the convenience of ourselves, so they are big bad Hitler.

[Azazal]

Well this thread has wandered well of the original trail.

Just wanted to add in that it interesting that people who are fine police randomly spot checking legal CCW holders and drivers that show no sign of being drunk are not ok with randomly searching people because they's not white.

NYC Stop and frisk program

Stop and frisk unconstitutional .. but but these people may have an illegal weapon or other contraband on them. They must be searched and due process must be set aside for the greater social good.

[Thanas]

Is there moral equivalency? No, because nobody gets blown up at DUI checkpoints. But for me it's an interesting insight into where people get off on "these legal technicalities are stupid, let's just do what makes sense!" in the context of civil and human rights.

I don't think any sane person would even make the comparison between being killed via drone and being stopped for a DUI check. I mean, really?

[Wing Commander MAD]

Maybe a mod should split this issue of checkpoints/spot-checks into a separate thread it's certainly an interesting discussion. Done - SCRawl

Personally, I'm rather indifferent to the idea in case of DUI checks and could certainly see the potential for public benefit outweighing the rights of the individual to not be searched without cause in this case. Here's a thought to help move the conversation along. Those in favor of checkpoints, since you are making the positive claim that they improve public safety, find some statistics showing that DUI checkpoints increase public safety to a notable degree. My only conditions for evidence are that you use US data since this is the US were discussing and it helps remove the potential issues of differing cultures. There are of course are differing cultural views on this between states/regions in a country, but I would expect said views to be closer within the same country, when compared to those of different countries. Keep in mind there has also been a massive campaign against drunk driving ongoing in the country for at least the last 20 years and it is still ongoing. That campaign is going to have a separate effect on public safety, though it likely coincides with issue of sobriety checkpoints occurring in any great number. This means that simple historical data is probably going to be of little use unless they specifically try to control for the mass PR campaign when testing the efficacy of DUI checkpoints.

[Stark]

Well this thread has wandered well of the original trail.

Just wanted to add in that it interesting that people who are fine police randomly spot checking legal CCW holders and drivers that show no sign of being drunk are not ok with randomly searching people because they's not white.

NYC Stop and frisk program

Stop and frisk unconstitutional .. but but these people may have an illegal weapon or other contraband on them. They must be searched and due process must be set aside for the greater social good.

Are you serious? Everyone driving a car is a driver. Everyone who looks Arabic isn't a terrorist. It actually highlights how 'probable cause' drives behaviours and policies itself!

Like I said, you can make actually good rights arguments on issues like these. Junk like this isn't it.

[SCRawl]

Split from here.

[White Haven]

I'd believe 45s for:
Stop.
Window down if you haven't already.
Small talk "have you had anything to drink? Have you had a breathalyzer test before?"
Blow into tube for 5secs or whatever.
Wait a few more seconds for the results.
Thanks and have a nice day.
Start your car again and leave.

Shit. I forgot the "trample my civil liberties and shoot my dog" step. That's another few minutes....

You also forgot the 5-10 minutes spent sitting in your car while the police officer is running your license and registration through every database he can find in the hopes that whatever he stopped you for can be pivoted into another charge. That's not speculation, that's how police stops work here in the US, hence why people are rather not jazzed about the idea of allow arbitrary stops. That's a separate issue to DUI checkpoints, of course, but since it's been brought up I figured I'd address it.

DUI checkpoints are obnoxious and arguably a violation of presumption of innocence, but at least they're generally fast if only because they don't want to create a huge backlog.

[Kamakazie Sith]

You also forgot the 5-10 minutes spent sitting in your car while the police officer is running your license and registration through every database he can find in the hopes that whatever he stopped you for can be pivoted into another charge. That's not speculation, that's how police stops work here in the US, hence why people are rather not jazzed about the idea of allow arbitrary stops. That's a separate issue to DUI checkpoints, of course, but since it's been brought up I figured I'd address it.

DUI checkpoints are obnoxious and arguably a violation of presumption of innocence, but at least they're generally fast if only because they don't want to create a huge backlog.

Allow me to bring you back to reality.

We input your name and date of birth into one program that then checks local databases, statewide databases, and NCIC at the same time. It takes a long time because our equipment is not the latest and greatest. For example, the current wireless provider my department is using constantly drops connection and the only way to log back on is to reboot the laptop. So, there are not databases to "find". Understand?

Also running someone does not always lead to other charges.
Running someone just leads to warrants. People that have warrants have not taken care of what they were originally charged with. Now if you're in the process of committing a crime like the transport of narcotics. Then an arrest for an active warrant will give us reason to search you and then we'll have to impound you car. The car will be searched and if the illegal activity is discovered then you will be charged.

[White Haven]

And allow me to bring you back to reality, KS. I'm not trying to ascribe NEFARIOUSNESS in this particular case. It is, however, vastly different from the case Ando described, where the cop comes up, tests to see if you're drunk off your ass, and then goes the fuck away so you can get back on the road. Whether or not your hardware or network connection is shit? Not my concern. My concern is that I have n minutes to get from point A to point B, and a cop-stop is not budgeted for in that time frame. It's bad enough when the person being stopped has broken some niggling bit of regulatory fluff, and it would be far worse if time-wasting stops were allowed to be arbitrary.

And yes, the police officer stopping you is fishing for things unrelated to what he stopped you for. The fact that these things may be valid doesn't change the fact that he's fishing for more than he stopped you over. And taking a depressingly long time to do so.

[Kamakazie Sith]

And allow me to bring you back to reality, KS. I'm not trying to ascribe NEFARIOUSNESS in this particular case. It is, however, vastly different from the case Ando described, where the cop comes up, tests to see if you're drunk off your ass, and then goes the fuck away so you can get back on the road. Whether or not your hardware or network connection is shit? Not my concern. My concern is that I have n minutes to get from point A to point B, and a cop-stop is not budgeted for in that time frame. It's bad enough when the person being stopped has broken some niggling bit of regulatory fluff, and it would be far worse if time-wasting stops were allowed to be arbitrary.

Ah. Well, it sounds like you're implying that we stretch it out intentionally. Nothing is served by doing it that way since you can't develop probable cause from a computer. If it takes them 20 minutes it is because the system took 20 minutes to come back with the info.

And yes, the police officer stopping you is fishing for things unrelated to what he stopped you for. The fact that these things may be valid doesn't change the fact that he's fishing for more than he stopped you over. And taking a depressingly long time to do so.

No. Not always.

[White Haven]

The person who's been stopped is being run to see if there's anything else that the police should be involved in other than what the stop was actually for. That's the entire point of running the database check. The fact that it's not nefarious doesn't change the fact that, from the driver's perspective, it's a colossal waste of time, and as such it's a bad thing to allow random spot-check stops for simple reasons of time.

[Kamakazie Sith]

The person who's been stopped is being run to see if there's anything else that the police should be involved in other than what the stop was actually for. That's the entire point of running the database check. The fact that it's not nefarious doesn't change the fact that, from the driver's perspective, it's a colossal waste of time, and as such it's a bad thing to allow random spot-check stops for simple reasons of time.

So, in your opinion an individuals time is more important than public safety?

[White Haven]

I'm not making a value judgement. I'm pointing out the vast, enormous difference in time-wastage compared with an Australian random breathalyzer stop (puff-and-go) and a US (let's run this through our cripplingly-bad hardware and database software and see what comes out) stop. Given that vast difference, is it any wonder that US drivers don't want to allow US police arbitrary stop rights, even leaving aside any civil-rights questions?

[Stark]

At RBTs here the cops don't even generally ask for your licence, and they only check out your car for roadworthiness crap if its one of the larger ones. In general you pull over, say 'hi dude what is up, it is raining so hope you got an umbrella', do your civic duty to reduce road deaths, then continue on.

At no point do you have to play hopscotch to give the police a reason to perform a real actual science test.

[Aaron MkII]

From my perspective, an aussie/canadian style spot check is actually less intrusive then what Americans describe. They don’t ask for id, or run plates or ask open questions like "do you know why I've stopped you?"

Window down, cop asks if I've been drinking, and I'm done. They don't even know my name. And won't unless they smell booze and then I'd be directed to the area they have prepared for people they suspect of drinking. Then it's breathalyzer and id time.

[White Haven]

The point I'm making is that if you give US police arbitrary-stop powers, they'll just end up combining the two together into 'arbitrary ten-minute wait.'

[Stark]

That's actually something I think is an unintended side-effect of the way things are done in the US; because the cops are allowed to openly do things like RBTs etc, they're regulated, they have processes, and they have proscribed limits. They don't end up in a situation where they have to try to invent some 'probable cause' to do something... so they just don't do it. But then, in Australia the police don't have to worry about people shooting them on sight, so...

It wouldn't hugely surprise me if you let American police do things police in other countries do, that they'd turn those things into tools for harassment. But it'd just be an extension of the existing culture of harassment, which may actually have been created by rules originally intended to prevent harassment. People using things as talismans to make them believe their rights are 'protected' while their effective level of protection from harassment or interference is actually lower is kind of ironic.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Do US police departments receive funding according to the number of persons arrested, or something like that? And for fuck's sake people, how much do civilians hate cops over there?

[Mr Bean]

Do US police departments receive funding according to the number of persons arrested, or something like that?

If the crime is for drug possession then yes anything related to your crime can be taken from you. From the house you made your drug lab in to the car you transported with. And yes departments receive a cut of the profits once your property is sold at auction.

[Ralin]

Do US police departments receive funding according to the number of persons arrested, or something like that? And for fuck's sake people, how much do civilians hate cops over there?

I'm not sure, but I do know that quite a few police departments fund themselves in large part through property seizures, with DUIs and drug arrests being excellent sources of income.

[White Haven]

Any any rural county with a major road or two running through it tends to make bank on predatory speed limits and zealous speeding enforcement, too. That kind of thing goes a long way towards explaining why many Americans view police as...I guess predatory is as good a word as any. Given that most people don't end up on the right side of a successful police investigation or intervention, the only face they ever see is the guy pulling them for doing three miles an hour over in the middle of the day on an otherwise-vacant road, right after the speed limit dropped ten miles an hour inexplicably.

EDIT: Drive through West Virginia on I-64 sometime, the speed limit is downright schizophrenic. Inevitably there's a cop speed-trapping right after it arbitrarily drops.

[Tsyroc]

Window down, cop asks if I've been drinking, and I'm done. They don't even know my name. And won't unless they smell booze and then I'd be directed to the area they have prepared for people they suspect of drinking. Then it's breathalyzer and id time.

The one check point I was stopped at by my house did only that. I stopped, answered the question and was sent on my way. We have several bars in the neighborhood and it was one of those 3 day weekend type federal holidays that people tend to get loaded on.

[Stark]

Cops here aren't even allowed to place speed traps near limit changes/down slopes/anywhere there would be a reasonable explanation for temporarily being over the speed limit. Then again, for a while in Victoria they were busting people for speeds within the error of the equipment, so yknow.

But people still think the cops are 'bad' for using speed 'traps' to 'catch out' people. It's just a shame when police organizations need to fundraiser that way and is pretty clearly a bad thing.

[Mr Bean]

But people still think the cops are 'bad' for using speed 'traps' to 'catch out' people. It's just a shame when police organizations need to fundraiser that way and is pretty clearly a bad thing.

In the south (Which is famous for them) you can find towns where literally 90% of the town budget comes from the speed trap. An area where the speed limit goes from 50 Mph to 25 Mph in front of some historical building for 100 meters then back up to 50 Mph. Normally the 25 Mph sign is semi-hidden on a curve and in nice historically looking low visibility hard to read signage.

[Stark]

Yeah, and as I just said in the 'oppressive' land of Australia, the police wouldn't even be allowed to do that.

I'm just not sure what the plan was with 'funded by enforcement' was in the first place, since it's obviously such a horrible idea. Police chase revenue when it benefits them directly? WHO FUCKING KNEW??!?!?