Your Papers Please!!! (fwd)

[Lucky Green]

[Hmm, why the hell does pine add the .sig at the beginning of the message?]


-- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock at netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.
   Defeat the Demopublican Unity Party. Vote no on Clinton/Dole in November.
   Vote Harry Browne for President.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 15 Oct 1996 07:57:21 -0700
From: Johann Opitz <Johann_Opitz at smtp.svl.trw.com>
To: ca-firearms at lists.best.com
Subject: Your Papers Please!!!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court Monday (10-7-96) let stand a
precedent-setting ruling that states may establish roadblocks for the chief
purpose of intercepting illegal drugs.  [...]

The case arose out of roadblocks Florida law enforcement officials set up
on four state highways near the Georgia border in January 1984.  [...]

About 2,100 vehicles passed through the roadblocks, of which
approximately 1,300 were stopped. In all, one person was arrested for the
possession of illegal drugs while 61 traffic-related citations were also
issued.  [...]

A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit and a U.S. Court of Appeals in
Atlanta agreed. It said the chief purpose of the operation was to intercept
drugs, but ruled the state does have the power to conduct roadblocks to
check drivers' licenses and vehicle registrations.  [...]

The attorneys for the motorists urged the Supreme Court to hear the case,
saying law enforcement officials around the country were likely to adopt
similar temporary, unannounced roadblocks for drugs. But the high court
sided with the state of Florida, denying the appeal without any comment or
dissent.

========================

Speaking of roadblocks >>>>

[ The police officer who wrote the following shows what we have
  to look forward to. I guess the Supreme Court has decided it
  is OK to violate our rights just as long as we are all _equally_
  violated. -- lk ] 

Posted to texas-gun-owners by Joe Horn <6mysmesa at 1eagle1.com>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaking of roadblocks, Saturday, the New Mexico State Police had one set up
on NM#404, (14 officers and one Sgt.) stopping all traffic both ways on a
desert mountain pass between El Paso and White Sands. When I was stopped, a
courteous automaton approached, hand on pistol and asked for my DL and
insurance card, and did a visual search of my car. Immediately angered and
resentful of this State intrusion and violation of my rights, I handed him
the requested documents, and having checked my paperwork, he looks through
the window at the back seat area and asks me "what's under the blanket?" I
told him his search was going to have to be limited to what he could see as
I was not granting a consent search beyond what he could see through the
windows of my vehicle after illegally stopping me at this roadblock.
Illegal? Pull over there and talk to the nice officers, says he. Yes I said,
stopping people for searches in the pretext of seeing their paperwork. Says
he: the court said it's OK (in limited roadblocks )as long as we stop
everyone. Says I, the court is wrong and it's still unconstitutional, you do
not have a warrant and I have broken no law. To me, the fact they did NOT
ask for vehicle registration indicated they were fishing. The robot calls
his Sgt. over, who takes over and warns me that this can become very
unpleasant, and at this point, I show him my retired badge and ID, asking
how unpleasant is that? He then says, why didn't you say something, you
coulda been gone by now? I told him that I am a plain citizen and suggest he
knows what he's doing is wrong and that it's a pure fishing expedition. He
angrily said:(and he really surprised me) "Hey, I'm just doing what I'm
told, now get outta here before I decide to ruin your day".

They cut me loose and drove off, keeping my Ithaca 37 which was under the
blanket and 1911A1 under the center console.

My point is that this is out of control, and folks are going to start
getting hurt in these little European-like (where are your papers?)
roadblocks, fishing for whatever they can find. If I didn't have masterbadge
and I.D., I would have been illegally and unconstitutionally searched
against my will. Very few people have a badge to get them out of something
like this, and deferring to  intimidation by armed authority, most will have
their rights violated. My sense of the roadblock personnel was that
excepting the Sgt., they didn't know they were wrong or didn't care. The
average age of the officers was late 20's early 30's.

Now that they're going to start these around schools, and I assure you that
it will be in as high handed a manner as they can manage. Many people don't
see or don't want to see what's happening to the Constitution or our human
rights recognized by that Constitution, or the Police State being assembled
right around the Constitution, in the name of the "drug war" or the
"chirrun". It's here and it's here now and if you don't strenuously object
to these searches and roadblocks whether for DUI, Drivers License/Insurance/
guns/drugs, and drive your political reps nuts about it, sooner or later you
will get the anal probe of an illegal search in the name of the "drug war"
or for guns near schools. Of course those that like and feel safer with more
unenforceable, useless law and more intrusion (with no effect on criminals,
just the violation of honest citizens rights) may you be hoisted on your own
petard, and soon.

As I waited in line to be searched in this desolate and remote desert
location, I reflected on my extensive police and military training and
experience and thought that these roadblocks are really quite vulnerable out
there in the desert so far from backup. Quite vulnerable......It's going to
get ugly one day when folks decide they've had enough. And if statists don't
think it can happen here, just visualize a larger scale resentment of the
"man" beyond Watts. Like the black minority, the white minority within the
white majority has it's limits in absorbing the abuses and effects of the
ever intrusive Police State.

What really bothered me, (in spite of my training and familiarity with police
operations) was my own barely repressible reaction of fear, being trapped,
resentment, mistrust, disrespect and intense dislike and the powerful urge
to immediately, actively and physically resist this infringement of my right
of unrestricted and peaceful travel. Fortunately, I didn't have to act
because unlike most of my fellow citizens, I had a retired peace officer's
badge. What about those that feel like that and do not have a get-outta
jail/roadblock exit badge? I guess we'll soon find out when some get stopped
and fight rather than have their rights violated. It's no longer a matter of
if this is going to happen, just when.

regards

Joe Horn
List retired cop and no longer proud of it.

========================

The War on Drugs is so wonderful -- I know that it is only a few more years
before the "swastika" or the "hammer & sickle" will be flying from the
government's flag poles from the East Coast to the West Coast.

And in the name of saving all the children from the gun crimes - we'll all
have been so disarmed by the War on Guns, which was born out of the War on
Drugs, that we won't be able to stop the tyrants.

But to use the words of socialists, of social engineers -- "it's for the
better good of the community, the state, the nation, the people". Yes, being
the good socialists and social engineers that the Drug Warriors are, the
better good of the collective always takes precedence over individual rights,
over freedom and liberty.

I truly wish Hayek was wrong -- but if wishes were horses, beggers would ride.

-Johann
A Classical Liberal


== Johann Opitz   (w) johann_opitz at smtp.svl.trw.com ==
                  (h) johannp at aimnet.com
==  All Disclaimers Apply (to protect my employer)  ==