Posted on 09/08/2001 5:09:17 AM PDT by Prism
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by Rick Gee |
Abby Newman of Ferrum, Virginia is my newest hero. After you watch these videos, she may become your hero too. On September 12, 2000, Ms. Newman was traveling along Virginia 40, minding her own business, when a state police officer motioned for her to pull over. Had Ms. Newman been speeding? Was she weaving around after a night of cocktails? Was she a victim of racial profiling? No, she was pulled over for a routine license and registration checkpoint. Since she had done nothing wrong, and was being stopped for no good reason, Abby Newman was in no mood to cooperate with the police. * * * * * * * Cop: Who are you? What is your name? I need to know who you are. Newman: No, you dont. Cop: Yes, maam, I do. Newman: Im not speeding. Im not intoxicated. I have given you no reason to stop me, and this irritates me. And I would be very happy to go into town and talk to the supervisor, because laws cannot be passed Cop: Maam, I would be glad to give you my supervisors name and phone number, but first I have to know who you are. Newman: That is insufficient. You do not have to know who I am. (This cop must have been utterly flabbergasted at the insolence of this particular serf, because at this point he reaches inside Newmans car and opens the door.) Newman: Sir, you cannot, you cannot Cop: Step out of the vehicle. Newman: No sir. You cannot reach into this vehicle. Cop: Sure I can. I have to know who you are. (Gee, do you think he wants to know who she is? The suspense is killing him.) Newman: You do not. Cop: I must know who you are before you can go down the road. Newman: I have not broken any laws. (At this point, Cop #2 comes over, probably thinking, Whats the hold-up here? I have a very important appointment at Krispy Kreme!) Cop: I have not accused you of breaking any laws, maam. (Not yet he hasnt. Just give him a minute; hell come up with something.) Newman: You just reached in my vehicle and opened this door. Cop: I have no idea who you are. You may be wanted in ten states for all I know, OK? I need to know who you are. Do you have a drivers license? (Apparently Officer Vic here feels no compunction whatever in assuming the worst about this suspect.) Newman: It just occurred to me that you have no probable cause. (Probable cause? Where do you think this is, lady? America?) Cop: Shut the ignition off. Newman: What? Cop: Turn your car off for me. Newman: Why? Cop: Because Im asking you to turn the car off. Turn the car off. (Doesnt sound like hes asking to me. Sounds more like a direct order.) Cop: Are you going to give me your drivers license? Youre not going to give me your drivers license? Newman: No. Cop: OK, do you realize youre obstructing justice? (Obstructing justice? Isnt that what Slick Willie did? This woman is just sitting in her car, standing up for herself.) Newman: Im on the side of the road and Im not doing any such thing. You asked me to pull over Cop: Youre obstructing justice. Newman: Justice? Cop: Yes maam. And I dont know who you are. (His dogged pursuit of the identity of this dangerous criminal continues unabated.) Newman: You dont need to know who I am. Cop: Yes maam, I do. Newman: I dont know who you are, sir. Cop: Step out of the car for me. Newman: No sir. Cop: I am trooper Mike Boylan with the Virginia State Police. (Way to go, Mike. Shes sure to crack now!) Newman: You are violating my United States constitutional rights. No matter what the laws in the state of Virginia have to say, they cannot usurp that. Any laws that go contrary to the United States constitution are null and void, and I do not have to submit to them. I am not intoxicated. You have already stated you dont know who I am, so therefore (Uh oh, Mike. She sounds pretty smart: usurp and null and void. She must be a lawyer or something.) Cop: Thats the whole point: I dont know who you are. I told you who I am, OK? (Thats the way, Mike. You tell her whos boss.) Cop: This is an approved checking detail site. (Dont you feel safer knowing that the cops are meticulously checking details of license and registration instead of, oh I dont know, hunting down real criminals?) Cop: Are you gonna tell me who you are? Newman: No sir. Cop: Youre not gonna tell me who you are? (Mike, isnt it obvious at this point that she has no intention of telling you her name? Maybe if you ask her another 16 times, shell tell you everything: her name, her measurements, where Jimmy Hoffa is buried. If that doesnt work, maybe you can haul her downtown and put her under the hot lights, submit her to Chinese water torture, or better yet, take off her shoes [I need you to take off your shoes. Are you gonna take off your shoes?] and give her forty lashes with the bastinado.) Newman: You have not charged me with anything. You have not told me Ive done anything wrong, and I do not owe you that, sir, because I dont serve you; you serve me. And I think you and your bosses and everybody else who writes the laws have forgotten that. Cop: I told you, my bosses dont write the laws, we simply enforce the law, maam. (Hey Mike, take out your gun and show her youre not fucking around.) Newman: Even if theyre wrong? Cop: Is that worth debating here on the side of the road? (Uh, Mike, you forgot to ask her what her name is.) Newman: Yes sir, it is, because when you take one, you take another, you take another, and before you know it, we cant go anywhere without our papers, and thats what this is: May I see your papers please? You cant travel down this road, maam, unless you show me your papers please. Thats what this is. Cop: Step out of the car for me. (Say pretty please Mike.) Newman: Sir. Cop: Step out of the car for me. Newman: I do not have to obey you. Ive not broken any laws. Cop: Im asking you to step out of the vehicle for me. (He is so patient and polite!) Newman: And Im saying Im not going to step out of my vehicle. Youve already told me the stickers are in order. I wasnt traveling, and under speed. Ive done nothing wrong, and this is absolutely wrong. Cop: Do you have your drivers license with you? (Mike has grown weary of Ms. Newmans stalling tactics. He also has an appointment at Krispy Kreme. He and Cop #2 decide to give up on persuasion and resort to force.) Newman: Dont reach inside my vehicle. Cop: Im going to place you under arrest for obstructing justice. Newman: What am I obstructing, sir? SIR! Cop: Step out of the car for me. Step out of the car for me. Newman: You are physically forcing me out of myno sir, dont you touch any of my personal belongings in this car. Youre right Ive recorded this conversation. Yes I did. Cop: Resisting arrest. Newman: I did not resist. Cop #2: Ill get the car. (Ah, to hell with the Constitution, officer. Go ahead and search that car. No need for a warrant, or even probable cause.) Newman: Dont you take one single item out of my vehicle, sir. (To Cop): Im not fighting you. Cop: Youre under arrest for resisting arrest, obstruction of justice and assaulting a police officer. Newman: I did not assault you. (Later, when Ms. Newman is presumably handcuffed and in the squad car, our keystone cops engage in an illegal search of the car.) Cop: Would you say I did anything wrong? (Of course not, Mike. You are a veritable paragon of virtue.) Cop #2: No. Cop: I mean, shes gotta present me a drivers license. Cop #2: Yep. Shes got to. (The Adam-12 duo continues to rifle the car, looking for something with which they may trump up some additional charges, no doubt.) Cop: Strategies of Submarine Warfare, Hidden Agenda. Cop #2: Man, shes into this weird crap. (Yeah, its really scary. She sounds like the type who would read Clancy!) Cop: Ruthless.com, The Bear and the Dragon, Patriot Games Well, I better get a record started. Cop #2: Do you wanna ask her, or Cop: Ill just write down she invoked her right to remain silent, even though she dont believe in our laws. (I had no idea that the verb to do was so difficult to conjugate, especially for a smart cop like you, Mike. Thats OK. You doesnt need to know how to speak proper when you have that gun to do the talking for you.) * * * * * * * Do we need any further proof that the Constitution is dead in this country? The Fourth Amendment states The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Abby Newman was very much aware of her constitutional rights on that September evening. Furthermore, she was willing to take a stand for those rights. Clearly, the search of her car was unreasonable; the cops had no warrant, nor did they have probable cause. Setting up a checkpoint where citizens are pulled over at random and harassed is a violation in itself. Usually they are set up under the guise of removing drunk drivers from the highways. How can these checkpoints be legal? Simple: the Supreme Court of the United States says so. In Michigan State Department of Police v. Sitz (1990), SCOTUS ruled that In sum, the balance of the State's interest in preventing drunken driving, the extent to which this system can reasonably be said to advance that interest, and the degree of intrusion upon individual motorists who are briefly stopped, weighs in favor of the state program. We therefore hold that it is consistent with the Fourth Amendment. Look, just because the Supreme Court issues such an opinion doesnt make it right, or even constitutional. Remember, judges, even the top nine judges in the land, are merely lawyer-politicians in black robes and are an integral cog in the wheel of the state apparatus. We should not be surprised when the Supreme Court rules in favor of another branch of government and against the interests of individual liberty. Such checkpoints have no place in a free society. And what is the compelling State interest in making sure that randomly detained drivers have their license and registration in their possession? Whether the checkpoint is a DUI checkpoint or a detail checkpoint, the result is the same: the individual loses his liberty, and the state grows ever more tyrannical. In the interest of justifying such harassment, politicians and their statist supporters typically fall back on the mantra of the nanny state: we are here to protect you and provide you with security. Once again, they ignore the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin, who taught us they that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Ultimately, the protection that the state purports to provide is an illusion, and the dupes among us end up trading their liberty for a handful of air. Count me among those who wish to retain their liberty. August 17, 2001
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Rick Gee writes a monthly column entitled On Liberty for The Valley News in Santa Fe, New Mexico. |
She's lucky she didn't end up with a PR-24 in a new and fascinating place within her body.
Better yet: Hang it from a collar around your neck. Woof. Woof.
Sheesh, do they teach you this stuff in frog school? How's the water?
Same laws apply....right?
Reading putupon's post, it's obvious that s/he wasn't suggesting that we are in Nazi Germany, but rather that ozzie was using similar reasoning. But you knew that, huh?
If this woman does not understand, she can turn in her drivers license.
When the cops begin to see themselves as the bosses and think a stand for freedom is "weird" we have already lost a great deal.
Don't you mean, "How's the Kool-aid?"
My best friend and I were driving up I-95 when I noticed my inspection sticker was expired. It was December 12, 1994 and I decided to get off the interstate at Bowling Green VA to get a new inspection sticker.
As we were trying to find a gas station that did inspections, seven VA State patrol cars heemed us in on U.S. 1. They drew their weapons and approached the vehicle. My friend and I put our hands out the window, and needless to say we were worried. I couldn't figure out why they had their guns drawned over an expired inspection sticker.
They asked us to step out of the vehicle, and asked if they could search the Jeep and our persons. I said, "do you have a warrant, fourth amendment stuff you know?" They said no, so I said you can't search.
The police kept us on the side of the road for two hours until they got a warrant. Then they proceeded to take the Jeep apart (literally).
After they finished, they gave me my weapon and license back and said that "I must have pissed someone off", and they left.
It took us another hour to put the Jeep back together.
Well, at least they didn't give me a ticket for an expired inspection sticker.
5.56mm
Its obvious that YOU understood perfectly what I said in my reply and that your insult is merely a tactic (like putupon's overblown misuse of nazi imagery). Inferring that a police officer's asking a citizen for their ID is tantamount to sending Jews off to the concentration camps is a shameful and overused debate tactic that trivializes the real horrors of Hitler and the nazis.
The problem with crying wolf (or claiming that you are being subjected to the Holocaust every time you encounter a LEO) is that people see it for what it is; a bs cry for attention. The more you do it, the more people see that you are using it as a tactic, and the less they will tend to believe reports of true abuse. Automatically crying "Nazi!" every time something happens that you don't like ensures that fewer people will believe you if you happen to point out actual abuse.
But you knew that, huh?
Our responsibility to our children is to restore the Republic, not give up. Isn't that, after all why we're here?
Sticking ones head further into the sand won't prevent this from happening to them. "Show your papers and be on your way."
What will it take for the "masses" to realize that this is not normal in a free society? Flame away ostriches, tell me how wrong I am. But before you do, look up the meaning of incremental.
This woman should have refused a drivers license on the ground that it was Nazish.
Taken together, our decisions in Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444 (1990), and United States v. Martinez--Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543 (1976), stand for the proposition that suspicionless roadblock seizures are constitutionally permissible if conducted according to a plan that limits the discretion of the officers conducting the stops. I am not convinced that Sitz and Martinez-Fuerte were correctly decided. Indeed, I rather doubt that the Framers of the Fourth Amendment would have considered "reasonable" a program of indiscriminate stops of individuals not suspected of wrongdoing.-Justice Clarence Thomas
Indianapolis v. Edmond
If we only had eight more Justice Thomases...
Showing a stupid driver's license to a cop is not going to destroy the Republic or ensure that we all dance in that big conga line down to the death camps. If the lady in the story wants to effect real, measurable change in the law, let her do it in the right venue; in court, not on the roadside. As it is, she merely looked like a wiseacre hothead spoiling for a fight with the police (which she richly deserved and got).
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