Police to perform warrantless beverage inspections on ‘anybody’ visiting Fla. beaches
“We can go up to anybody we want, OK? If we see something that looks like alcohol,” said the police chief.
HOLMES BEACH, FL — With the help of new technology and federal grant money, police are preparing to warrantlessly search people’s refreshments as they visit the beaches of Florida.
New passive alcohol detectors can simply be hovered above a person’s beverage to detect whether it contains alcohol. Similar devices can detect alcohol on someone’s breath.
On Holmes Beach, even the mere possession of sealed alcohol containers is illegal. Police are using that as an excuse to inspect anyone’s beverage they choose.
“We can go up to anybody we want, OK? If we see something that looks like alcohol,” said Holmes Beach Police Chief Bill Tokajer to WFLA.
“Our main demographic of concern is the younger generation,” the chief continued. “When you add the alcohol to the youth it doesn’t give you a more intelligent human being.”
The searches are facilitated by grant money from the federal government. Through the “Click it or Ticket” campaign of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), states and local police departments are encouraged to set up checkpoints and perform warrantless searches under the guise of road safety. If local police were not eager enough to violate citizens’ rights, bribes from the federal government all but ensure that departments across the USA are using military equipment and using dubious policing techniques.
Police State USA recently covered a NHTSA-funded program that paid for police checkpoints to be set up along the roads in 60 U.S. cities with the purpose of collecting DNA samples from drivers.
See WFLA’s coverage of the beverage inspections below:
Only the worst governments are so bad that they don’t even update official things to reflect reality. This is some Zimbabwe level bullshit going on, to not even bother to update the official brochures to reflect the actual reality of what can be searched, as well as when, where, by who, why and how “the people” can be searched.
The text of the fourth amendment is clear: the right of the people to be secure in their 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 what’s to be searched.
Perhaps the actual text of the real law of the land can be written in detail by someone and posted to the internet. What’s currently in place has no connection to reality.
Here’s the full text
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
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Text
It all starts with a beverage inspection. In Florida it ends with you getting a felony conviction and having trouble getting a job for the rest of your life.
You should never visit Florida. It’s the worst police state of all.
14% of the total adult population in Florida have a felony conviction.
35% of adult blacks in Florida have a felony conviction.
http://www.libertariannews.org/2014/06/05/what-percentage-of-us-adult-population-that-has-a-felony-conviction/
“As government declines, security declines and the police become the criminals. In the case of Rome, armies began sacking Roman cities to pay for their unfunded pensions.
All of these trend produce the vicious spiral of rising taxation and deflation. This is our greatest danger…”
Martin Armstrong, Armstrong Economics
Sound familiar?
I hope the police do become criminals and sack the soon to explode Mister Creosote government for every scrap of value they can find amid the flotsam and jetsam of his far flung carcass.
Mr Creosote Blows Up – Monty Python
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXH_12QWWg8
The denarius began as a 4.5 gram silver coin and had stayed that way for centuries under the Roman Republic.
After Rome became an empire, things began to turn sour for the denarius and, by extension, the Roman economy. Base metals, such as copper were blended in with the silver and so even though the coin itself weighed the same, the amount of silver in it became less and less with each successive emperor.
Throughout the first century the denarius contained over 90% silver but by the end of the second century the silver content had fallen to less than 70%.
A century later there was less than 5% silver in the coin and by 350 AD it was all but worthless, having an exchange rate of 4,600,000 to a gold solidus (or nearly 9 million to the original aureus).
http://mises.ca/posts/articles/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-roman-denarius/
One of the greatest enemies of mankind is hubris, and the Roman Empire was certainly not immune to this.
The phrase bread and circuses refers to the massive welfare spending that occurred in Rome during the height of its power. With the treasury filled with gold, spendthrift politicians quickly used the money to buy influence, votes and curry favour with neighbouring states.
When Julius Caesar first began minting large quantities of the aureus it was 8 grams of pure gold. By the second century it had declined to 6.5 grams and at the beginning of the fourth century it was replaced by the 4.5 gram solidus. The purity of the coin itself was never debased, but the ever decreasing weight was a sure sign that government spending had been outpacing revenues for centuries.
Dear Tor,
Note how PM coins provide a built in safeguard against FRS/Treasury/Bankster style legalized counterfeiting?
Paper currency and e-currency help them get away with inflating the currency supply and debasing the value of each currency unit.
Much harder to do with PM coins. They have to either dilute it by making it an alloy or reduce each PM coin’s weight.
@Tor- Watch unfunded local gov. liabilities like Detroit, and San Bernardino. When enough of those promised lifetime benefits blow up street lights will go out, the trash won’t get collected and it will get ugly quick. In N.Y teachers are demanding the public pay higher taxes to fund their retirement and lifetime free medical.
List of Bankruptcy Filings Since January 2010
All Municipal Bankruptcy Filings: 38
General-Purpose Local Government Bankruptcy Filings (8):
— City of Detroit
— City of San Bernardino, Calif.
— Town of Mammoth Lakes, Calf. (Dismissed)
— City of Stockton, Calif.
— Jefferson County, Ala.
— City of Harrisburg, Pa. (Dismissed)
— City of Central Falls, R.I.
— Boise County, Idaho (Dismissed)
LAST UPDATED: Dec. 3, 2013
The feds are exempt for a while. They will just continue to tighten the tax screws on you and print money to pay for the M16’s, MRAPS and people….. until they can’t.
Clover, here’s the verbatim language of the 4th Amendment:
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.
So no, Clover, it does not “only pertain to private residences.”
It applies generally.
You Clovers are easy meat. Unfortunately, there’s just too damned many of you.
PS: Clover, the cops aren’t merely “viewing” the cup.They are forcibly detaining people and subjecting the contents of their cups to a search.
Your supine embrace of carte blanche searches absent any individualized/specific probable cause because you believe it’s for a “good cause” – and because you believe the state’s armed goons are benevolent massas keeping us all “safe” – is both loathsome and genuinely dangerous.
Which is ironic given your maudlin concern for “safety.”
If the state’s armed goons can waylay people and search them “just because” (i.e., without any individualized/specific probable cause that would justify suspicion they’ve committed or are about to commit a crime) then there is in principle no limit to their Authoritah over us, other than what you and yours regard as acceptable. No defined line in the sand beyond which they may not step.
So, where does it end, Clover?
If it’s ok today to stop/search people’s beverage containers, then why not (tomorrow) search their persons? Someone might be carrying a bag of weeeeeeeeeeeeeeed in his crotch (or her vagina) after all.
No limits. Right, Clover?
If I could, if I had the technology, I’d have every single person who hews to the views you’ve expressed time-traveled to Germany circa 1939. Or Soviet Russia. Or Khmer Cambodia. Or Mao’s China. You’d be among friends then.
Oh, I know. You’ll eruct that I’m exaggerating.
But here’s the thing, Clover. Principles matter. One thing leads to the next. Germany did not become Nazi Germany – poof! – just like that, or “because Hitler.”
It happened because the groundwork had been laid for a Hitler.
If the German people (a majority) believed in individual liberty, in the inherent right of each individual to be left in peace, Hitler and the Third Reich would have been impossible. He would have remained an obscure freak ranting on street corners, his name lost to history.
But because his fellow countrymen shared his views – your views – that the individual has no rights that are inviolable, that “greater goods” trump those rights, that “safety” justifies almost any measure… Hitler became chancellor and the rest is history.
Ethical (and historical) ignoramuses such as yourself never learn this lesson.
And thus, we are doomed to repeat it.
Dear Eric,
Funny how clover’s definition of “danger” never includes the danger of galloping dictatorship.
Conversely, clover’s definition of “safety” never includes to the safety of Mere Mundanes who may be murdered with total impunity by LEOs with “sovereign immunity.”
Bet they have house color, TV antenna and timed outdoor car parking restrictions too. A regular clover paradise. As soon as he gets the state to outlaw guns.
The Hypocrisy meter is off the charts on this one… “Our main demographic of concern is the younger generation,” the chief continued. “When you add the alcohol to the youth it doesn’t give you a more intelligent human being.” (huh?)
I’m sure the chief spent his youth in church every day, and never ever touched alcohol until his 21st birthday.
Holmes Beach is near Tampa. He’ll get more hits testing for Viagra and Geritol.
When you add the badge to the man it doesn’t give you a more intelligent human being…
Love it when the Feds hand out my stolen money to harass me! Everyone should boycott Holmes beach and the associated businesses, restaurants, etc. until this bullshit ends. There are plenty of other beaches in Florida, make these s.o.b.’s feel some economic pain and lost revenue (can’t write tickets if no one’s there) as the price for being a-holes.