Ivan, RR, Sameshot,
Have you ever contacted your city council, mayor, police board or other civilian oversight entity about your concerns? Just as the military is controlled by the civilian leadership of the nation, the police agencies are controlled by the civilian heads of the level of government they operate at.
No, the President of the United States doesn't order state and local police agencies to set these roadblocks up, he does it in a different way, he pays for them. Yes most of the additional officers you saw on the highways last weekend were paid for (the overtime) by the federal government. The transportation department in most cases provides that grant money. Personally, I'm surprised that these roadblocks have passed constitutional muster at the Supreme Court level. Now that you are armed with this information, why don't you write your representatives and ask that the Transportation Department not receive funding for these grants. I'm being serious here, we are the government. We have a very tough fight in this area, instead of HCI, we'll have to go up against MADD. And this will be tough, because unlike the firearms issue, where we can justify private firearms ownership, I don't think we can justify drunk driving.
I agree that we've traded away too much personal liberty to try to win the drug war. But once again, as with guns and drunk driving, the media/big brother government coalition plays too much on the emotions of the vast majority of voters instead of talking common sense solutions. I was stunned in the late '80s when the Bush administration floated some trial balloons about modifying the 4th ammendment in drug case and the polls showed support above 70% for it. Why do you think that was? It was because most of the public had a preconceived notion of what a drug dealer was, a profile so to speak. He was black or hispanic with lots of gold jewelry, flashy cars...you know Don Johnson and other TV cops chased him around everynight on TV. So they saw nothing wrong with that. They knew "they" didn't fit that profile so what did they have to fear from changing the Constitution?
Since they didn't know that by doing that, all they'd have to do was get into a disagreement with their neighbor, and have their neighbor call the police and say "Ivan, RR or Sameshot is selling drugs from their home, there are cars coming and going all hours of the day or night and they only stay a minute." Under some of the proposals I saw, that's about all it would have taken to get the "No Knock" warrant. Fortunately, we still have to investigate, buy from that location etc.
Now let me ask this. How many were so concerned about these issues before the current assault on our 2d Ammendment rights made us concerned we might be targets for a no knock because the neighbor boy saw our AR15 when he was visiting our son?
I don't believe in the forfieture laws either.
As for how I do my job I can only follow what my criminal law instructor (a former fed BTW, Secret Service) taught me. That is that there is discretion built into the law at every level and that everyone charged with enforcing it from meter maid to Supreme Court Justice should try to weigh the benefit to society against the loss of liberty to the violator. For example; A few years back, I was breaking in a new reserve officer (maybe this was more then a few, it was before formal FTO progams made it to the smaller agencies) and I stopped a car that had no tail lights. I approached the vehicle and asked the driver for her license and proof of insurance (the mandatory insurance law was new then in my state). The driver was a woman in her early 20's, she was wearing a fast food outlet uniform and had 2 small children with her. The older car was registered only in her name and there was no wedding ring. She produced her drivers license and was looking through her glovebox and purse for the insurance card. I told her that I stopped her because she had no tail lights and having noticed her dash lights were out told her it probably was a blown fuse. I then went back to the squad to write a warning and run her DL. Everything came back clear and I gave her the warning ticket and followed her to the gas station where the fuse was changed. She never did produce the insurance card. After clearing from the stop, the new reserve officer (who was eager to make an arrest as most new officers are) reminded me that she never did show proof of insurance. I told him that I knew that, but decided not to pursue the issue. I said I thought she was a struggling single mother by all appearances and asked him how the insurance law was serving society in her case. She was obviously struggling to make ends meet and how was having her car towed and her plates suspended and a $750.00 fine going to serve society. If all that happened, she'd probably lose her job, and her and the kids would be on welfare, so I used discretion to overlook the insurance violation. Again others may see that as the wrong call to have made, but those were my reasons.
I'll be happy to talk about these issues at any time. I think you guys were being too hard on Benton, I took his posts as being somewhat tongue in cheek with the black helicopter comments etc. Perhaps he was joking about those things the way policemen and soldiers often tease each other. If that was the case rather then be offended you guys should be comforted in the fact he feels at home enough in this forum to joke around like that. I don't know Benton, that's just how I read his posts in the other thread.
Jeff
When you speak of the LEAA's bill, I believe you're referring to the one that would allow police officers to carry in any state.