USA - 30 Cities Begin Harvesting DNA Without Consent!

OFF THE WIRE
Posted by: Brandon Walker

What happened in Dallas/Fort Worth area was only the beginning. Federal Contractors set up road blocks in 30 cities across the country with one goal in mind; harvest your DNA. Libertarians, human rights activists, Republicans, Constitutionalists, and others are up in arms, and rightfully so.

The road blocks look like your standard Field Sobriety Test (FST) checkpoints. Men and women dressed in uniforms pulling people into a testing area with the premise that they are checking for drunk drivers. The real reason is a lot more sinister. These are not your local cops. These are Federal Agents there to collect blood and/or saliva. Your very own DNA coding is being put in a database and collected without your knowledge.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) put up the road blocks to conduct a “study” that they had orchestrated. The road blocks were contracted with   the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, based in Calverton, MD. According to NBC Dallas/Ft Worth, the program will cost the taxpayers $7.9 million in three years.

The agency confirmed that the operation is currently being launched in 30 different U.S. cities.~Police State

Once they have you pulled over, they offer you cash for your DNA. The rate they paid out was $10 for a cheek swab, $50 for them to draw blood. Yes, we said draw blood. The NHTSA states that their goal is to analyze driver impairment by sifting through the data from the raw fluids.

They want to find out of all the people surveyed, how many people were driving with alcohol in their system, or prescription drugs, things like that,” said Lt. Freddie Turrentine of the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department, in Pell City, Alabama.~Police State

The big problem comes from whether or not this type of testing is done voluntary or if it is compelling without consent.

How voluntary is it when you have a police officer in uniform flagging you down?”~NBC Dallas/Ft Worth

NBC Fort Worth, Texas, did an in depth interview on the subject.

Kim Cope, of North Fort Worth, Texas, said that the checkpoint she experienced was not voluntary at all.  She was forced off the road into a parking lot on November 15th and pressured into submitting to a breathalyzer.  Cope was on her lunch break when she was forced into the checkpoint.  ”I gestured to the guy in front that I just wanted to go straight, but he wouldn’t let me and forced me into a parking spot,” she said to NBC Dallas-Fort Worth.

“They were asking for cheek swabs. They would give $10 for that. Also, if you let them take your blood, they would pay you $50 for that.” But Cope was not interested in getting paid. “I finally did the Breathalyzer test just because I thought that would be the easiest way to leave.”

“How voluntary is it when you have a police officer in uniform flagging you down?” asked Susan Watson, executive director of the Alabama chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. “Are you going to stop? Yes, you’re going to stop.”

“Although this was voluntary it was not voluntary that you stop and hear the DNA for CASH pitch,” said Alabama resident ‘J. Bosey‘ after experiencing a checkpoint in June.

“It just doesn’t seem right that you can be forced off the road when you’re not doing anything wrong,” said Cope, discovering the tyranny of police checkpoints.  “None of it felt voluntary.”

A breath-sensing flashlight. (Source: A. Drey Photography)

And as a Fort Worth attorney discovered in the fine print, some searches are blatantly performed without consent.  Attorney Frank Colosi pointed out that the fine print on a form given to drivers informs them their breath was tested by “passive alcohol sensor readings before the consent process has been completed.”

One such search can be performed with a breath sensor disguised as a flashlight.  When a police officer sticks his flashlight in a driver’s face, its not just for intimidation and humiliation.  It may also be to perform a warrantless search of their breath.

“They’re essentially lying to you when they say it’s completely voluntary, because they’re testing you at that moment,” Colosi said.

Problems

1. The aura of authority.  While insisting the program is “voluntary,” the NHTSA is going to the trouble of setting up roadblocks and hiring uniformed local cops to staff them.  While they are technically “off-duty” with their local departments — and receiving paychecks directly from the federal government — they are still utilizing their official police uniforms, official police vehicles, and official police equipment to make drivers comply with the roadblocks.   To reinforce the claim that the checkpoints are voluntary, the survey takers should be dressed in plain clothes, not presenting themselves as police officers giving orders.
2. Ineffective.  Common sense tells us that if the tests are voluntary, and the goal is to find people who are breaking the law, then the data is going to be useless.  The people who are actually impaired on the road are going to make every effort to avoid being caught.  The resultant test group will be comprised mostly of people who are not impaired and just want to collect some free Federal giveaway money.
3. Expensive.  For a country that runs trillion dollar deficits annually, the federal government certainly finds some bizarre things to spend money on.  Spending nearly $8 million on an ineffective and invasive survey seems like an easy place to start cutting.
4. Searches without consent.  Kim Cope’s account draws into question whether the roadblocks are being presented as voluntary at all.  And as pointed out above, the “passive alcohol sensor readings” are performed on people without their consent.
5. Federal overreach.  The roadblocks are, at least in some cases, being set up by the federal government without the local government’s knowledge or approval.  In Alabama, Gov. Robert Bentley received complaints about the NHTSA checkpoints and admitted he had not been notified of their presence.

More dubiously, the program has the passive effect of conditioning the public to accept government agents setting up roadblocks in their communities for any reason imaginable.   If Americans wish to live in a society that does not accept police checkpoints as a routine part of their daily lives, it is important to push back against these programs at every opportunity.~NBC Dallas/Ft Worth

So they are already checking your breath when they pull you over. Then a uniformed cop offers you money for your blood in order to let you go. How voluntary is that?