Declan McCullagh of POLITECH: Politics and Technology has even more background on the agencies involved with this story (very important information here)
 
FreedomsPhoenix Senior Editor, Powell Gammill, has a great editorial on this story HERE 

The first was the NHTSA “National Highway Traffic Safety Administration” http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov
Colorado Regional Offices: http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/nhtsa/whatis/regions/Region08/Colorado.html

 

And the second was the NIAAA http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/ “National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism”.

 

I wasn’t surprised to find the Federal Government behind this project since I remember a similar effort in the mid 90’s that we were involved in here in Arizona called “Project Lead” that was about identifying motorist that carried guns (and the other cars traveling with them – More about that is included in another story here http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Feature-Article.htm?InfoNo=020353%3Cbr%3E )

 

 

 

Immediately upon learning about this story I was very interested in the people behind the PIRE. http://www.pire.org – The site for the “Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation” is down. But the cashed site from Google is still up HERE

Towards the end of a pleasant conversation with the Sheriff, I asked him, “If I wanted to conduct a breast examination survey, what would I need to file with your office?” To his credit he maintained his composure but understood he was in deeper trouble on this issue than he thought when he arrived at work this morning. This comment prompted him to reveal that the Pacific Institute had enticed him with tales of how federal grants were allocated based on the results of such data.

 

After doing some of the research on this story and telling friends and family about my concerns, one of my friends said very plainly, “What?... Does Cheney need a heart transplant?” Now I got something else to add to my other concerns.

 

Ernest Hancock

Off-Duty Police Officer Human Subjects Overview Pacific Institute

Subjects must understand that their participation is completely voluntary and anonymous and they may leave the site at any time. Upon contact with the subjects, the interviewer stresses three factors to the selected driver, namely they have committed no offense, are free to leave at any time, and that the stop was to request participation in an anonymous and voluntary survey. Any conversation with subjects by the police officer can be seen as coercive, thus the importance of not speaking to the subject. Police officers may say, “Please follow the directions of the Survey Manager,” when directing vehicles into the research site.

Subjects cannot be placed at risk of any type of harm as a result of participating in the survey, including arrest.  However, as researchers, we cannot ethically let an obviously impaired driver drive away from the survey site. The interviewers will not know the subject’s BAC (the PBT reading is stored in the PBT for download later), but they are trained to identify the signs of intoxication. They have passive sensor devices that they activate twice for every participant to help make an assessment of impairment. An interviewer will signal a Survey Manager if they suspect a driver is impaired. The Survey Manager will make his/her own assessment and decide if the survey should continue and if the Impaired Driver Protocol should be implemented. This protocol calls for the Survey Manager to request a breath test with a PBT that displays the BAC and then offer these choices: 1) Let a sober, licensed passenger drive after breath testing with a PBT that displays the BAC; 2) Call for two friends to come to the site; one to drive the subject’s vehicle; 3) Offer to pay for a taxi or tow ride home, and making arrangements for the safe parking of subject’s vehicle if needed; 4) Offer to have a member of the survey team drive the vehicle and subjects home; 5) Pay for a hotel if the subject lives far from the survey site.

If the driver refuses all options, the subject is told that we cannot in good conscience let him/her drive and that we will have to let the police officers know that in our judgment, he/she is not fit to drive away. From vast past experience, this is usually sufficient to get the driver to cooperate and take one of the options. If the driver continues to refuse, it is only then when it is a matter of public safety that the police officers will be asked to assist. The officer will be asked to (1) repeat the safe ride options, and if that fails, (2) the officer will call an off-duty officer and warn that an apparently impaired driver has left our site and report the pertinent vehicle information. Prior to calling the on-duty police, the off-duty officer will inform the driver that he/she will ‘call it in’ if the driver leaves the site. Police are then alerted to the potential hazard and if the driver gives probable cause to an on-duty officer, then that driver will be pulled over and subject to a police intervention.  Because the driver would have to give probable cause for a stop, there is no excess risk of arrest as a direct result of our calling. The risk of being pulled over and possibly arrested is a function of the driver’s behavior after leaving the site.

 

Ernie

Thanks for posting the Goyette interview and the sheriff's instruction letter. After finding out the name of the survey, the National Roadside Survey, I did a keyword search online and found a lengthy report regarding the survey published by the NHTSA in January 2007.  
I've attached the report in its entirety to this email.

The report includes an in-depth analysis of the history of the survey, procedures/techniques used, administration of the survey, sample results, future recommendations, etc. It's definitely worth taking a closer look at.

A few other thoughts come to mind after skimming the report and listening to the interview:

*In Arizona, it's a crime to fail to obey the lawful orders of a traffic control officer. This was one of the charges the tribal police levied against me during the 2002 roadblock I was involved with. I'm sure Colorado has a similar statute in place (but I will verify). This means that even if Hartman's deputies were limiting their interaction with motorists to directing certain vehicles off the road over to survey takers, a motorist would have been in violation of the law if he/she failed to comply and instead chose to drive off as some did according to Hartman. Just because Hartman's deputies weren't enforcing that particular statute at that particular time doesn't mean motorists weren't being placed in legal jeapordy regardless of Hartman's claims to the contrary.

How are motorists supposed to know when they can safely ignore a deputy who is "directing traffic" and when they can't?

* The Supreme Court has ruled that ANY stop by a law enforcement officer represents a seizure under the 4th amendment. There are no exceptions for 'voluntary surveys'. The courts will then decide whether or not the seizure was reasonable. As such, every vehicle that was directed over to a survey taker was seized within the boundaries of the 4th amendment.

* The survey takers were using passive alcohol sensors without a drivers explicit knowledge or consent.

* Survey takers were using the swabs and blood samples to look for a very long list of drugs that may have been within a motorists system.

* Part of the goal of the program is to expand the collection of fluid samples across the country for future surveys and who knows what else...

I wont have much time to do anything with this report or do further analysis for another week or so. If anyone else wants to do something with it - have at it.

Thanks for all your followup.

Terry