Is DUI ‘the weapon’ for Killing Constitutional Rights’?
FYI on DUI by DUI undo Consultants, LLC
Is DUI ‘the weapon’ for Killing Constitutional Rights’? ~
The latest attack on our right to travel is the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety, or DADSS. Is this the ‘prefect prevention’ to stopping drunk driving, or just another bullet fired from the ‘Constitutional Rights Killer’ that erodes our right to travel unfettered?
The presumed right to travel, however, is firmly established in U.S. law and precedent. In U.S. v Guest, 383 U.S. 745 (1966), the Court noted, “It is a right that has been firmly established and repeatedly recognized.” In fact, in Shapiro v Thompson, 394 U.S. 618 (1969), Justice Stewart noted in a concurring opinion that “it is a right broadly assertable against private interference as well as governmental action. Like the right of association, … it is a virtually unconditional personal right, guaranteed by the Constitution to us all.” It is interesting to note that the Articles of Confederation had an explicit right to travel; it is now thought that the right is so fundamental that the Framers may have thought it unnecessary to include it in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
Even if we could make it impossible for people to drive drunk, should we? Or would doing so improperly deprive people of their freedom? This is yet another example of why the aggressive enforcement of DUI helps pave the way to restrict one’s movements, one’s right to travel unfettered or as I call it the MADDNess of MADD…!!!
This may sound like a fanciful concern, but it is an increasingly real one. The new federal transportation bill, for example, authorized funding for a program that seeks to prevent the crime of drunken driving not by raising public consciousness or issuing stiffer punishments — but by making the crime practically impossible to commit. The program, the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety, or DADSS, is developing in-vehicle technology that automatically checks a driver’s blood-alcohol level and, if that level is above the legal limit, prevents the car from starting.
Is the DADSS program that is motroing along NHSTA’s political toll road for public safety just another attempt to chip away at our Constitutional Rights by controlling our freedom to make a decision? Isn’t ‘depriving people of the opportunity to commit an offense in the first place’ really just another muddy step on the Red, White and Blue colors of our Constitutional Rights…???
This is what I have been preaching about for the last 5 years, that the MADDness of MADD will slowly erode more and more of our Constitutional Rights. Need more proof of this transgression? The federal government’s Intelligent Transportation Systems program, is creating technology to share data among vehicles and road infrastructure like traffic lights. This system could make it impossible for a driver to speed or run a red light. Stop there? No, that’s the MADDness of MADD, it’s a Constitutional Rights cancer that spreads into other areas of our life’s.
Need more proof?
Consider a more speculative scenario: Some pharmaceuticals show the promise of blunting the “high” of cocaine use or reducing antisocial thoughts of the sort that often lead to crime. Widespread dissemination of such drugs — say, putting them in the public water supply — could make some crimes impossible by eliminating a potential offender’s desire to commit them.
Such technologies force us to reconcile two important interests. On one hand is society’s desire for safety and security. On the other hand is the individual’s right to act freely. Conventional crime prevention balances these interests by allowing individuals the freedom to commit crime, but punishing them if they do.
The ‘perfect prevention’ of crime asks us to consider exactly how far individual freedom extends. Does freedom include a “right” to drive drunk, for instance? It is hard to imagine that it does. But what if the government were to add a drug to the water supply that suppressed antisocial urges and thereby reduced the murder rate? This would seem like an obvious violation of our freedom. We need a clear method of distinguishing such cases.
One thing to keep in mind the distinction between thoughts and actions. A traditional rule in criminal law holds that there can be no crime unless the defendant committed some act: mere thoughts, no matter how horrific, are not sufficient. Thoughts cannot be regulated; everyone has a right to think what they wish without government intrusion.
For most familiar crimes (murder, robbery, rape, arson), the law requires that the actor have some guilty state of mind (Mens rea), whether it is intent, recklessness or negligence. But there is a category of crimes that are forbidden regardless of the actor’s state of mind: so-called strict-liability offenses. One example is drunken driving.
But because the government must not intrude on people’s thoughts, ‘perfect prevention’ is a bad fit for most offenses. Perfect prevention of a crime like murder would require the ability to know what a person was thinking in order to determine whether he possessed the relevant culpable mental state. Even if this could be known, perhaps with the help of some sort of neurological scan, collecting such knowledge would violate an individual’s freedom of thought. Likewise, adding chemicals to the water supply in order to dampen antisocial urges would violate that freedom.
Perfect prevention is a politically attractive approach to crime prevention, but for strict-liability crimes is it permissible? It may be good policy but for most offenses, the threat to individual freedom is too great to justify this approach. This is not because people have a right to commit crimes; they do not. Rather, perfect prevention threatens our right to be free in our thoughts, even when those thoughts turn to crime.
This is the cancer caused by the MADDness of MADD, wage war on responsible social drinker by controlling their right to travel. This reminds me of a quote by US Supreme Court William O. Douglas regarding the basic necessity of protecting one’s right to travel,
“This freedom of movement is the very essence of our free society, setting us apart. Like the right of assembly and the right of association, it often makes all other rights meaningful-knowing, studying, arguing, exploring, conversing, observing and even thinking. Once the right to travel is curtailed, all other rights suffer, just as when curfew or home detention is placed on a person.”
~ William O. Douglas, Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U.S. 500, 520 (1964) (concurring)
Stephen F. Daniels
Nationwide DUI Expert Witness/Consultant
DUI undo Consultants, LLC
Explore posts in the same categories: DADSS, MADDness of MADD, NHTSA, Passive Alcohol System You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
duiundoconsultants 
August 22, 2012 at 2:48 pm
One might argue that true freedom, i.e. Liberty, DOES permit a person to drive drunk. The act would be negligent, irresponsible, and dangerous. But unless and until the act damages anothers person or property or violated the inalienable rights of another…it is victim-less. Therefore, no crime would have occured. Distracted driving (while talking on a cell phone or texting, applying lipstick in the rearview mirror, changing the cd in your stereo, eating a pastrami sandwich, etc.) is equally negligent, dangerous, and potentially deadly. Yet, if it causes no accident or does not negatively affect the rights of another, there is no crime committed.
Governments exist to destroy individual rights. There is no duty to protect anyone – Bowers v. Devito, 686 F.2d 616.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that governments have become exceptionally efficient at destroying those rights.
If this issue comes down to government control versus individual liberties….there is no question the former will suffocate the latter.
Liberty is simply too dangerous to be trusted in the hands of the individual. Freedom must be protected by total government control.
August 23, 2012 at 12:22 pm
“Perfect Prevention” of crime is a frightening concept when it is attempted by a deaf, dumb, and blind government wielding a sledgehammer. The ONLY actions a government can make to achieve this destroy individual liberties. It has no other methods available to it.
In the real world, which those of us outside of government bureaucracy live, perfect prevention is only a laudable goal, unattainable in practice. A sane society would come closest to achieving this by its citizens having the utmost respect for timeless and natural individual rights. Strict liability for damages associated with the violation of anothers rights would be a strong deterrent.
The fish rots from the head on down. Governments at all levels show utter disdain for individual rights. Therefore, most citizens have no understanding or respect for these rights, as well. Violence begets violence.
December 18, 2012 at 7:25 pm
Interesting thoughts on DUI. It’s all a slippery slope isn’t it?