A Minnesota court rules the police need a warrant to get a urine test after a DUI arrest.Slowly, Minnesota’s “implied consent” law – a statute so sweeping, draconian and intrusive that Vladimir Lenin jumped from his grave and yelled “dial it back a little, Minnesota!” is flaking away.
Good riddance.
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Nah – driving is a privilege, and should be regulated accordingly.
If we need to make it an explicit consent — drive and you blanket agree when you get your license to a test for alcohol if you are pulled over for suspected drunk driving — then so be it.
I have yet to see a credible argument made that your right to bodily privacy about your alcohol use when you make the decision to drive is LESS violated just because someone dug up a judge to authorize it. Whereas the levels of alcohol in your body are changing during that delay, potentially obscuring your actual levels at the time you were driving impaired. The biggest problem with urine testing compared to blood or breath testing is that it is less reliable; but it is a reasonable basis to seek more accurate testing voluntary or not if you fail that testing.
We have a problem with drunk driving, driving impaired under the influence of other substances, and with distracted driving/ driving while texting etc. I don’t see a lot of people who can legitimately complain that they are unfairly being persecuted by the cops for unfair checks of their driving capability.
But then, I’d love to see all bars have a properly calibrated breathalyzer on the premises for the use of both staff and customers, so that there is no justification for not knowing if you are at a limit of alcohol in your system that could impair a person’s capability to drive.
https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/ots/reports-statistics/Pages/default.aspx
You lose one of your kids or an equally close family member, to drunk driving, you might feel differently. Drunk drivers are a hazard on the road; it is stupid to impair the gathering of information on someone who poses a danger to others.
Conservatives are way too supportive of letting real dangers go unchallenged, but get their knickers in a big twist over far less serious dangers.
Case in point, the right wing hysteria over Ebola, conservatives running around wanting to shut down free travel between some or all of Africa, in spite of the recommendations of trained epidemiologists to the contrary. Did we have a huge crisis in the US with cases of Ebola? NO.
Similar issue with rejecting refugees, or the hysteria over Islamo-terrorists, while ignoring the OTHER terrorists, particularly our own home grown versions, like some of the far right wingers. Actual cases of terrorism from them, like the right wing racist who shot up the black church in South Carolina as an example, exceed any plausible foreign threat or Islamic extremist threats. (I’m not saying that there is NO threat from Islamic terrorism, just that the right goes off their nut disproportionately about the dangers from it.)
Conservatives are wonderful, passionate people, who sadly are just shit at good, accurate risk assessment and appropriate response.
When the gods aim to destroy a right they first make it a privilege.
DG,
Driving may be a privilege – but due process is a right. It’s a little depressing but not unexpected you don’t seem to know the difference.
“who sadly are just shit at good, accurate risk assessment and appropriate response”
If your “decision” is based on “risk assessment”, why not just jail people on initial accusation until trial? Assuming we don’t dispense with trials?
DG
Please read the following (a translation from our State Dept) and explain why you support it:
http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/doc/slaves_fatwa.pdf
Drunks and drug addicts’ idiotic behavior are explainable…what’s your excuse dg? If motorized mental impairment were really enforced, you’d spend the rest of your life locked up.
Driving may be a privilege
Berg, don’t give up on that so easy. Who says it’s “privilege”? How did it get down graded from a right to a privilege?
Because they’ve set up hoops to jump through to achieve the “privilege”? Well you’ve got to jump through hoops to own a gun. Does that make owning a gun a privilege?
Berg, don’t give up on that so easy. Who says it’s “privilege”?
No argument. But…
You didn’t say we’ll argue the point a at a latter date. You ceded the point to him. Driving is a privilege.
Do you want to clarify? Is driving a right?
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in the same way that Abortion found a home in the constitution you should be able to find the right to drive a vehicle.
Specifically Article I, Section 8:
“The Congress shall have the power:…To establish Post Offices and post Roads.”
The Supreme Court and the judiciary have always interpreted this liberally to include all roads, highways, railroads etc by which Official Mail, publications, goods, private correspondence, word of mouth etc may be conveyed.
It follows that a citizen has a “Right” to traverse these roads by whatever conveyance is available.
From the article:
In the October decision which made warrantless blood tests unconstitutional, Minnesota appellate Judge Jill Flaskamp Halbrooks noted that such tests represent a “serious intrusion into the human body.”
I would hope that my inherent human dignity would prevent a state agent from demanding of me a urine sample at his or her will. That is what a mandatory urine test involves. No one has been found guilty of anything, yet, and whether to demand a test is left at the discretion of a uniform.
In 1993 the SCourt declared a Mn welfare law unconstitutional because it interfered with a citizens constitutional right to travel.
So I guess it’s a catch 22 that we have no constitutional right to travel on a road.
Dog Gone should end all of her sentences with ” comrade”. The message doesn’t change at all and she seems funnier. Win win.
And is there anything she won’t believe about “conservatives” or “right wing”-ers? It doesn’t seem so.
If all the tighter DUI laws are doing so much good, tell me why the median BAC for arrest is 0.17%, higher than the legal limit in most states as far back as 1939. What’s changed is the public attitude towards the crime, not the effectiveness of enforcement.
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