Who Could Have Guessed?

Friday 1 June 2012 - Filed under Uncategorized

Gee, who could have guessed that when cops are given additional powers to pull people over, they will not only use them, but find various ways to abuse them via various civil rights violations? SFGate:

Johnson contends that distracted driving laws are being abused by law enforcement. Distracted driving laws are meant to discourage a number of risky behaviors on the road, including texting, talking on a cell phone, and eating behind the wheel. But they are also used as a basis for conducting a pretext stop for to engage in unwarranted investigations and searches when the driver and passengers haven’t necessarily done anything wrong.

“These laws give police officers yet another pretext to fabricate traffic stops,” Johnson said. “People are stopped every day for suspected cell phone use or other diversions and then subjected to interrogation for unrelated matters and to searches of their automobiles and of their person. Without question driving while texting is dangerous, but an additional risk not considered by most people is the effect of increased regulation further eroding our civil rights?”

According to Johnson, pretext stops resulting in civil rights violations are common with law enforcement. These laws provide the officers with yet another means of justifying illegal conduct. There are other ways to manage the risk of cell phone use in the car without resorting to giving police more power.

Cops are NOT our friends. Their job, supported by receiving incentives for arrest numbers, is to find, by any means necessary, a reason to find that we’ve done something wrong. It’s how cops advance their careers and pad crime numbers to justify ever-growing budgets and equipment. Their job is not about maintaining peace, because it’s hard to control a land in which most people rarely break the law, but about making sure that the expansion of the state continues at a rapid pace.

2012-06-01  »  madlibertarianguy