Friday, October 29, 2010

Here's a scary notion for you this Halloween

The Harris County DA's Office has announced that every weekend for the next three years will be a Shred the Constitution No Refusal Weekend.

Thanks to a $669,000 from taxpayers across the United States, the DA's office will be able to employ two additional persecutors prosecutors, an administrative assistant and a blood-drawing vampire nurse to bully motorists into blowing into the state's breath test machine under threat of a forced blood letting draw. And doesn't that just top it all? Your money is being used to undermine the Bill of Rights.

Now the Fourth Amendment says that any warrantless search is a big no-no. In the name of allowing the police to push the citizenry around, the US Supreme Court decided that unless a person had a reasonable expectation of privacy there was no such thing as an unconstitutional search. Maybe that's what's driving the expansion of the Repeal the Fourth Amendment No Refusal Weekends.

Go to the airport. You have no reasonable expectation of privacy. The lackeys from TSA can search you by use of the metal detector or the full-body scanner. You went into the airport knowing you would be searched so you can't challenge the search.

Go out to Miller Outdoor Theatre on a summer weekend to see a concert. If you fire up a blunt you've got no argument when the cops come and bust you for possession of marijuana. You have no reasonable expectation of privacy in a public place.

Make a phone call at the jail. The cops and the prosecutors are listening to every word. They even tell you that all calls are monitored. You have no reasonable expectation of privacy in your conversation.

Announce to the public that from this day forward if you are stopped on suspicion of driving while intoxicated on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday night and you choose not to blow into the breath test machine that vampires the police will get a sample of your blood, you have no reasonable expectation that your body fluids are yours and yours alone.

How long until the inevitable argument that no warrant is needed to draw blood because a motorist has no reasonable expectation of privacy when driving on a public roadway? How long until the argument that there is no warrant necessary because the alleged drunk driver can "destroy" or "alter" the evidence if the police don't seize it on the spot?

How long until we see a No Refusing to Answer Questions weekend?

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