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Attorney General should stop DPS' end-run around the Lege on roadblocks

The fight over using traffic roadblocks without probable cause to check for drunk drivers has become a biennial affair at the Texas Legislature, and interest groups were already sharpening their knives over the coming roadblock fight in 2009. But the Department of Public Safety has asked Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's permission to circumvent the Legislature's will on roadblocks and allow the procedure on the agency's own authority, we learn from TheNewspaper.com:Interest groups are pressuring Texas lawmakers to authorize the use of roadblocks ahead of their return for the 2009 legislative session. The practice of setting up barricades on roads to stop and interrogate motorists suspected of no wrongdoing has been unlawful since a 1994 state appeals court decision ruled that a "politically accountable governing body at the state level" must first approve their use...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on October 21, 2008 (boomark / email).