(This story was originally sent last week by Declan McCullagh to his politech e-mail group. Most of Declan’s e-mail follows.)
The Gilpin County Sheriff’s Office in Colorado, a rural area not that far west of Denver, recently set up a highway checkpoint where motorists were stopped and, at least in some cases, not allowed to leave until they gave breath, blood, and saliva samples for the benefit of a private research firm. A report by Ernie Hancock says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was involved as well.
A Denver Post article is here:
http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_6922089http://freedomsphoenix.com/Discussion-Page.htm?InfoNo=024006
The Post says the private organization in question is the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, or PIRE, in Calverton, MD. Their Web site seems to be down but can be viewed here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050826173038/www.pire.org/The thoroughly-misnamed PIRE is a major DC government contractor (and in fact its offices are within walking distance of the Beltway). It specializes in funneling over $35 million of taxpayer money a year into its own coffers through law enforcement contracts of dubious utility, mostly dealing with drugs and alcohol, from sources including the U.S. Department of Justice. 100 percent of its budget appears to come from government contracts or grants.
Although PIRE pretends to be a “nonprofit” organization – at least that label helps to collect those fat taxpayer-funded checks from the DOJ – in reality it spends about $1.35 million a year on lobbyists. Not a bad 30-fold return on investment. And its employees are paid six-figure salaries that would be handsome even by for-profit standards.
PIRE seems to specialize in devising new and intrusive ways of government meddling in personal lives. One PIRE success story helps to coerce retailers to card octogenarians who dare to try to buy a bottle of Cabernet. (“This method of enforcement gives retailers the necessary incentive to comply with the state’s law regarding the sale of alcohol, given that their next customer could be part of a compliance check. The Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE) has developed a detailed document to assist in the development and implementation of compliance checks.” See:
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/alcohol/dotpartners/chapter_5.htmPIRE is an ardent supporter of the War On (Some Politically Unacceptable) Drugs, also known as an excellent way for Feds and contractors to fleece the public in a war that will never end, eviscerate the Fourth Amendment, and create a police state with perfectly legal no-knock raids. One PIRE researcher who focuses on “middle-school-based drug prevention programs” and has written a paper claiming anti-drug programs in schools actually work:
http://www.nida.nih.gov/Meetings/Prevention/PrevBios4.htmlPIRE also supports higher taxes on alcohol and firmly opposes lowering the minimum drinking age to be akin to Europe or Canada (something that would probably do much to limit abuse). See:
http://www.higheredcenter.org/thisweek/tw010629.html
http://resources.prev.org/documents/BeerTaxesNewsRelease.pdf