Originally published July 10 2013
Dirty cops routinely use false alerts from drug-sniffing dogs to illegally search vehicles
by J. D. Heyes
(NaturalNews) As we have made clear many times in the past, Natural News is a fan of law enforcement. We are fully aware that the "thin blue line" is all that separates stability from chaos. But we are liberty-minded first and foremost in all we believe and support, as evidenced by our refusal to swallow the corporate, statist line regarding GMO crops, vaccines, fluoridated water, Obamacare and so on. So when we identify a growing law enforcement trend that runs counter to these principles of constitutional liberty, we don't have any qualms about reporting them.
Case in point: the continued use by police of "checkpoints" to circumvent Americans' constitutional rights.
There are rules...
Now, to be sure, the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1990, ruled that the Fourth Amendment's requirements that police demonstrate probable cause and obtain a warrant before detaining American citizens somehow did not apply to police checkpoints. Even so, there are still rules, as noted by Yahoo! contributor Steve Thompson. Some of them include:
-- Police must notify the public aggressively and well in advance of establishing checkpoints;
-- Checkpoints cannot be set up at random;
-- The local district attorney's office must be aware of, and supportive of, checkpoints;
-- As drivers approach a checkpoint, police presence should be clear and easily seen;
-- If the police intend to send drivers to a test site for chemical testing, that site must be easily and quickly accessible.
There are others, but these are the most basic. And one young driver in Murfreesboro, Tenn., apparently knew many of them, as his refusal to simply roll over and be subjected to abuse enraged officers at a DUI checkpoint over the Independence Day weekend.
As reported by Infowars.com:
As the man in the video pulls up, officers immediately demand he roll down his window further, to which the man refuses, a right he is entitled to.
The officer then demands to know the man's age, to which the driver also refuses. The officer then lies to the driver, telling him that he is required to give his age despite there being no law stating you must give an officer your date of birth if not being legally detained.
The officer then orders the driver to pull over to a secondary area for further investigation despite no concrete probable cause or reasonable suspicion.
At that point, the man asks, "Am I being detained?" The question really ticks off the officer, who refuses to answer the man's very legitimate question - perhaps because he realizes that, all things being equal, he has no authority to detain the man.
Nevertheless, the man's car is then surrounded by other officers, all of whom begin trying to intimidate him into complying with their instructions. With that, the man decides to pull up to a secondary checkpoint.
There, another officer demands the driver exit his vehicle, asking, "Are you an attorney or something? You know what the law is?"
But the officer, knowing he cannot legally search the driver's vehicle without his permission, demands access to it. The driver again refuses to grant him the permission he seeks.
'He knows his rights'
At that, officers then employ the K9 Unit in an attempt to search for drugs at what was supposed to be a DUI checkpoint - though no questions were ever asked the driver in regards to alcohol consumption. So the police employ a different tactic. Per Infowars.com:
At 3:56 in the video, the officer appears to make the dog give a "false positive," making it seem as if the dog found drugs despite the fact that there were none in the vehicle.
As officers enter the man's car illegally, they notice the man's video camera on the seat and instantly become silent. The officer searching the vehicle then grabs the man's camera and turns it the opposite direction, so the officers' actions cannot be seen.
Despite the officer's admission that the driver is well within his rights, he continues to ignore them at every possible moment.
"He's perfectly innocent and he knows his rights. He knows what the constitution says," the officer is heard saying - as he continues searching the car illegally.
Most Americans agree that police should do what they can to keep drunk and impaired drivers off the road - but that the performance of these duties should be done within the confines of the Constitution.
Sources:
http://www.infowars.com
http://voices.yahoo.com
http://www.secretsofthefed.com
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