Goodbye, Number Five by Eric Peters

Goodbye, Number Five by Eric Peters:

"Next time you get pulled over by a cop – or stopped for absolutely no specific reason at one of those random “sobriety checkpoint” – you might want to remember the following laugh line:
It’s called the Fifth Amendment to the Bill of Rights, which reads, in part, that “No person… shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.”

It’s a laugh line, because, like, so many of the other amendments to the Bill of Rights, that “godamn piece of paper,” as George W. Bush referred to it, pleading the Fifth – that is, declining to assist the authorities in your own prosecution – has become a sick joke.

Cops now have the legal authority in Texas (though not the right) to forcibly extract blood from you in order to use that blood as evidence against you in DWI cases – which are of course criminal proceedings.

An appellate court recently affirmed the legality of this practice – and bet your bippie it will be expanded to a State Near You soon."