Burnt Orange Report

Hey Ossifer, What About My Livil Ciberties?

By Vince Leibowitz

In addition to some other stupid anti-alcohol legislation put forth this session, the Lege is now debating DWI checkpoints to trap drunk drivers.

This issue failed in the Lege in 2003, and I doubt there is enough momentum for it to pass this time. That, and way, way, way too many legislators recieve a heck of a lot of money from beer distributors.

KXAN.com notes:

Do police in Texas have the right to set up checkpoints to catch drunk drivers?

Tuesday, the group Mothers Against Drunk Driving was at the Capitol pumping up some bills to give law enforcement agencies that right.

[...]

The bills would allow police to set up sobriety checkpoints next to highways or streets to pull people over and then evaluate if they're drunk.

Detractors say drivers have the right to be let alone if they've done nothing wrong.

Texas is in the minority. Texas is one of about 10 states without sobriety checkpoints.

Bills to legalize them have failed before, but supporters say they can accept changes.

"There are some concerns that possibly the checkpoints could be run in one neighborhood too often. So the bill will most likely be modified to say instead of being able to run a checkpoint once a week, you can only run a checkpoint once a month at a location," MADD Public Policy Liaison Bill Lewis said.

Among those making a push at the Capitol was a mom whose son was killed in a drunk driving crash.

"Very personal basis. And I feel like if I can prevent a parent from going through this, it would really make a big difference," mother Grace Maldonado said.

MADD believes sobriety checkpoints will reduce drunk driving deaths in Texas by at least 15 percent to start.

"You're talking about 250 (people) a year who'll not die in an alcohol-related traffic crash that might have died otherwise," Lewis said.

Checkpoints allow police to stop vehicles in a sequence like every other or every fourth or fifth vehicle. Police can then evaluate if the driver's drunk.

[...]

There have been three bills filed by lawmakers to give Texas law enforcement the authority to set up temporary sobriety checkpoints.

Two bills are in the House, and one is in the Senate.

Naturally, MADD (mothers against Drunk Driving) is behind this.

Now, I'm all for not driving drunk, and MADD has done some good work in the past, but let's be real, folks. At what cost does all of this come to civil liberties? I'm very glad the folks over at the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyer's Association pointed out just how bad an idea this is:

Opponents are livid.

"Authorizing the police to stop innocent people who're doing nothing wrong is not the solution," Keith Hampton with the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association said.

Concerned about any driver getting pulled into a checkpoint, they say Texas can reduce DWI's by focusing enforcement at bars and promoting safe ride programs.

"You're free to drive wherever you want to drive, so long as you're obeying the law, and the police have no reason to suspect otherwise," Hampton said.

Of course, for the cause of civil liberties, it might have been better if the American Beverage Institute had kept their mouth shut on this one.

Though I didn't know Texas is one of only a handfull of states without this legislation, it doesn't change my view: this is bad public policy. And, MADD isn't a group that should be setting public policy in Texas, period.

For one thing, though MADD mentions the "15 percent" statistic on how many drunk driving deaths they think this legislation will reduce, I'd like to see some real statistics, perhaps from those states such legislation has been passed in.

I'd also like to see some statistics regarding what percentage of drivers within these checkpoints is actually found to be drunk. Unless it's a holiday or the checkpoint is set up near a bar, I'd bet the numbers are few and far between.

Let's consider this further for a moment: MADD's argument is that, to save 15 percent of 250 lives, we should all be willing to be stopped, given field sobriety tests, possibly breathalizers, and generally be investigated without probable cause anywhere at any time on any road anywhere in Texas. I'm all for saving lives, but I think this is a little extreme.

It's kind of like the Patriot Act and similar legislation: In order to stop one terrorist or person who may be a terrorist, the government gets free and unrestricted access to ask our local library what books we are reading. Or, that one person kept in jail for three years (without legal counsel) after 9-11 who wasn't a terrorist should willingly sacrafice those three years of lost freedom in hopes that the government snared a terrorist in its wide net cast with seemingly wanton disregard for civil liberties.

It just doesn't seem right.

In light of our collective loss of civil liberties after 9-11, I think the Texas Legislature should be especially careful what liberties they take away from us. I'm more willing to perhaps give up a little liberty at an airport to stop terrorists than I am to give up civil liberties on the highway to stop potential drunk drivers. Yes, I know we're all targets of drunk drivers and could be killed by one any day. I guess I'm saying I'll take that risk over surrendering my right to travel down Interstate 20 unrestricted.

As for the Lege, there are a lot of people who could really piss off the liqour lobby with a "yea" vote on this legislation. The liqour lobby is a huge contributor to campaigns of Democrats and Republicans.

The list of recipients, just from the Beer Allicance of Texas PAC, is huge, and flows on both sides of the aisle. You can get the list by going here and putting "beer alliance" in the search spot for "contributor." Or, you can go here and look at the Alliance's Ethics Commission reports.

Once again, just to be totally clear, I'm all for not drunk driving, and all for curbing drunk driving deaths. This isn't, however, the right way to do this.