Warranted, my ass
Never say that to a police officer at a sobriety checkpoint. Last night, after dinner, the Mrs. and me were heading home. On Alcoa Highway, there was a roadblock set up for sobriety checks.
First, these things piss me off because they are blatantly a violation of civil rights.
Second, I’m not stupid enough to actually say anything like: Thank you for randomly harassing me tonight, officer! to the officers involved because then I would go to jail (they’d trump up something, or just harass me).
A sobriety checkpoint is clearly a violation of fourth amendment rights. But, some judicial officials decided at some point (and I am not making this up) that because each person traveling on a road is equally likely to get stopped, that this practice is legal. So, as long as we infringe on the rights of everyone equally, we can do it.
Let’s apply this theory to other rights, like speech. Is this a precedent for saying that all citizens can’t say a particular phrase, such as: I’m dissatisfied with sobriety checkpoints? Since it applies to all of us, I guess they could. Of course, I’m taking it out of context I guess. I am, after all, not a lawyer. But they do that to guns don’t they? After all, you can’t have certain guns and that applies to everyone.
Of course, they warn you with big signs about a mile in advance, so all the drunk people could turn off and take an alternate route well before getting there. So, it was ineffective. In addition to violating civil liberties, it wasted 15 minutes of my life because traffic was stopped and backed up a pretty good way. Bah!
