TENNESSEE — Labor Day: another holiday, another excuse to push the limits of the police power over citizens. All across the state, Tennessee police will be performing another round of highly-publicized “no refusal” blood-draw DUI checkpoints this weekend. With police armed with a 2012 law that allows them to forcibly extract blood from drivers, its a bad time to be a citizen who does not consent to searches.
These so-called “no refusal” checkpoints involve police blocking a public road, sometimes forcing drivers into a parking lot, where they will be forced to prove their innocence to police officers. The lucky ones will be “allowed” to continue their journey down the public street after brief questioning and harassment. Drivers who draw police interest, say, for being less than thrilled about being subjected to police checkpoints on American streets, may be put through field sobriety tests and may ultimately told that they will either voluntarily submit to a search, or they will be forcibly be subjected to a search. I am referring to breath and blood searches.
“Any time government is allowed to commit a seizure of your body and withdraw evidence prior to being arrested for a crime opens the door for a lot of issues,” said defense attorney Gregory P. Isaacs. “This law really opens Pandora’s box on virtually every DUI stop and weakens all of our fundamental freedoms.”
The blood draws, if they are anything like the ones performed in Georgia, involve hustling suspects back to the police station where they are strapped to a table, put in a headlock, and have their blood forcibly removed with a syringe. One man felt so violated by the procedure that hey asked, “What country is this?” saying that the practice reminded him of something that would go on inside a prison camp like Guantanamo Bay. For a closer look at “no refusal” checkpoints, don’t miss this SHOCKING exposé from Georgia:
