Self-Defense & Violence Prevention Blog

I recently posted about how I (and every other driver passing through) had been stopped and pestered at a DUI checkpoint. While I was not that bothered by the unwarranted inconvenience, I speculated that it seems indicative of a police state and unconstitutional.

Today, I read an article that confirmed my suspicions about DUI checkpoints. In the article, James Bovard recounts the history of DUI checkpoints and shows how they violate people’s right to unreasonable search and seizure, because they are not based on any type of individualized suspicion. The first three sentences of his article sum it up nicely:

Tens of thousands of innocent Americans are stopped each month at police checkpoints that treat every driver as a criminal. These checkpoints, supposedly started to target drunk drivers, have expanded to give police more intrusive power over citizens in many areas.

The demonization of alcohol is leading to a growing nullification of the constitutional rights of anyone suspected of drinking – or anyone who might have had a drink anytime recently.

By ignoring probable cause and stopping everyone, DUI checkpoints treat people as guilty until proven innocent and stand against the Fourth Amendment and the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

I want to protect people from drunk drivers, just like I want to protect people from rapists, murders, vandals and thieves. However, I also want to protect people from police states, because police states systematically victimize innocent people.

Even though police states and authoritarian procedures are often supposedly made to fix certain problems (such as drunk driving), they usually end up being counterproductive, especially because power corrupts and police states abuse their power.

In analogy, I adamantly oppose murder, but I do not want police to be allowed to go around forcing their way into anyone’s house they please to try and find anyone who may have committed a murder. To search someone, these police need probable cause and reasonable suspicion that that specific person has committed or is planning to commit a certain crime.

To me, the question is not how bad drunk driving is. The question is whether or not we want a police state, meaning a place where anyone and everyone can be stopped and searched without any reasonable suspicion that they have committed a crime and without probable cause.

What do you think?