During a routine trip from San Diego to Phoenix in 2009, Pastor Steven Anderson was stopped at an internal immigration checkpoint about 70 miles from the Mexican border. A stern-looking Border Patrol agent asked Anderson to provide proof of citizenship and requested permission to search his car.

The persistent pastor declined both, citing his Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. He then asked to be allowed to go on his way. The request was denied.

After a period of dithering, agents announced that a police dog had alerted to potential contraband in the vehicle. They instructed Anderson to pull over into a secondary inspection area. The pastor repeatedly refused, at which point a Border Patrol agent and a state police officer simultaneously broke both windows of his car and shot the pastor with Tasers from each side, delivering lengthy and repeated shocks while Anderson repeatedly screamed in agony.

The brutality was captured on video. Anderson's hand-held camera recorded events until moments after he was shocked, and CCTV footage captured much of what came afterward. In recorded testimony the following day, Anderson described how one of the agents involved with the incident shoved the pastor's head into the shards of broken window glass while dragging him from the car, and forced him to the ground. Other agents joined the action, with one repeatedly beating Anderson with a baton.

Lying helplessly on the ground, the pastor was again shocked with Tasers. After several minutes, the agents finally pulled up his bloodied body and took the broken man into custody.

Anderson is a hero to the members of a growing national cause. A decentralized movement of refuseniks is increasingly fighting back against the Border Patrol's shocking internal checkpoint system. Through civil disobedience, legal challenges, and generous helpings of YouTube, these ID scofflaws may be getting bloody, but they are actively challenging the constitutionality of a system most Americans don't realize exists....

A private firm with a federal contract - and backed up by city police - forced motorists off Laurel Street and into a private parking lot Friday to question them about their driving habits and ask for a swab of their mouth.

"I feel this incident is a gross abuse of power on many levels," Reading resident Ricardo Nieves, one of those stopped, told City Council Monday.

He said federal and local tax dollars were being used to stop innocent people without probable cause, and allow a private company to hire uniformed police to force citizens to listen to their questions.

He said he wasn't told what the swab was for, but added, "Clearly it was for DNA."

The checkpoint was among several being carried out in Pennsylvania by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, hired by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

City Police Chief William M. Heim said the two federal agencies are trying to see what can be done about crashes and injuries, and the swabs were not to get DNA samples but to test for the presence of prescription drugs.

The checkpoint was supposed to be voluntary, but Nieves said he had to refuse several times over a five-minute period before the woman taking the survey let him go.

What irked Nieves was the presence of city police. He said they were there - including a police car with flashing lights - to intimidate motorists, and gave the checkpoint an air of authority it would not otherwise have had.

"A federal survey with local police help violates my rights," Nieves said.

Heim said city police were hired for site security only, since the survey takers were paying money for answers and for the swabs.

But he said city police did not pull motorists over, nor ask any questions, and in fact were asked to stay away from the cars.

Asked about Nieves' statement that the private firm wanted police there for intimidation, Heim responded: "People are not pressured by police presence to do something they don't want to.

"In the grand scheme of things, I think it's a pretty innocuous and minor issue."

Heim said checkpoints are fairly common - for seat belt use, drunken driving, truck safety regulations - and all result in minor inconvenience.

However, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania said those checkpoints are legal only to protect public safety.

"A car driver or passenger cannot be required or pressured into providing a DNA sample and, in fact, can't be stopped at all except on suspicion of a crime or for a properly conducted sobriety checkpoint," Mary Catherine Roper, senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Pennsylvania, told the Reading Eagle Monday.

The checkpoint was part of a $7.9 million, three-year survey by the agencies, which has been conducted several times since the 1970s.

The surveys have gained more scrutiny this year because the Obama administration has been heavily criticized over revelations that U.S. spy agencies are tracking phone and Internet traffic, CNN reported in June.

Susan Watson, executive director of the Alabama chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, told CNN that Alabama's use of deputies to conduct the survey was an abuse of power.

Mayor Vaughn D. Spencer said neither he nor Managing Director Carole B. Snyder were aware of it, and he needs to understand what role police played before making any comment on it.

Council members also were upset, and said if local police are there, it appears they are operating the checkpoint.

Councilman Dennis M. Sterner was livid that government can't pick up local drug dealers without a two-year investigation, but can stop motorists at random.

"Our rights are being violated more and more every day," he said. "It's another way of government intrusion into our lives."

Starting this weekend, law enforcement in Los Angeles will begin expanded use of saliva swab test kits on drivers suspected of driving under the influence of drugs. The change comes just in time for New Year's Eve celebrations.

The testing is already used at some LAPD DUI checkpoints and at three stations that have jails. A $520,000 grant awarded to the L.A. City Attorney’s Office will expand the regular use of the test next year.

“Using drugs and driving is a combination that won’t be tolerated in this city,” said L.A. City Attorney Mike Feuer.

State law requires drivers suspected of driving under the influence to submit to a blood test but they have the right to refuse the swab. The oral test is voluntary, said deputy city attorney Michelle DeCasas.

So far, 50 people have consented to oral swab tests. But none of the results have been introduced in court because the defendants pled out before the cases went to trial, according to the city attorney’s office.

“We are seeking to have it introduced as an evidential piece in our prosecutions of DUI (cases),” DeCasas said. “But at this point, if drivers elect not to do it, it’s their right not to.”

Bakersfield, Sacramento and Fullerton are also using the oral swab test kits....

... On Friday, December 13, 2013, plaintiff was traveling on the Bingham Street Bridge into the City of Reading, Pennsylvania, a public roadway. A cruiser owned and operated by the City of Reading Police Department was parked by the side of the street with its lights flashing where plaintiff was. Bright orange security cones lined the lane where plaintiff was driving. Plaintiff was in the right hand lane and the lane to plaintiff’s left was full of traffic such that he could not pull over to change lanes.

Defendant Doe stepped out into plaintiff’s lane of traffic, blocked his further advance, and flagged him to pull off the public road into a parking lot on Laurel Street. Having no ability to advance further on the road, and with no ability to move into the left-hand lane because of traffic, plaintiff drove into the parking lot. In the parking lot were five to seven improvised parking spaces outlined on three sides with orange security cones. Nieves pulled into one of these security cones.

Nieves reasonably believed under the totality of the circumstances that he was being stopped by the Reading Police Department because of the flashing lights of the police car on the street, the fluorescent orange cones on the street and in the parking lot, and the presence of a police car in the parking lot that was occupied by a police officer.

Jane Doe, a woman with a clipboard came up to plaintiff’s car and began to speak to him.

Jane Doe spoke quickly and said several things, including that plaintiff was not being cited, that plaintiff had done nothing wrong and that plaintiff was not being “pulled over.”

The last statement was clearly false, because plaintiff had only pulled over after John Doe had stepped into the middle of plaintiff’s lane of traffic on the public street and flagged plaintiff into the parking lot, all while lights were flashing on the police car parked at the location.

Defendant Doe stated that the purpose of the stop was a survey of drivers’ behavior and that she wanted to take a cheek swab to check for the presence of prescription drugs. She also stated that plaintiff would be paid if plaintiff agreed to the same.

Plaintiff refused to provide the cheek swab she requested.

Jane Doe then tried a second time to convince plaintiff into providing a cheek swab. Plaintiff again refused to provide a swab.

A third time Jane Doe again tried to coerce plaintiff into giving a cheek swab. At this point plaintiff stated to her very firmly, “No. Thank. You.”

Jane Doe then tried to hand plaintiff a pamphlet, which plaintiff did not accept. Jane Doe then walked away from plaintiff’s car. Plaintiff then tried to exit the parking lot but found no means of egress. Other cars had by then also apparently been pulled off the road....

A tactic used by the federal government to gather information for anti-drunken and drugged driving programs is coming under criticism in cities around the country, and some local police agencies say they will no longer take part.

The tactic involves a subcontractor for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that uses off-duty but uniformed police at voluntary roadside checkpoints where motorists are asked on their behavior behind the wheel. In some cases, workers at the checkpoints collect blood and saliva samples, in addition to breath samples. NHTSA has said previously that the surveys do not collect any DNA. Drivers are not charged at the checkpoints.

In an era of rampant distrust of the federal government and in the wake of the Obama administration's National Security Agency surveillance scandal in which the agency has collected telephone calling records from millions of unsuspecting Americans, the checkpoints have come under intense criticism in several cities this year.

"Five years ago it would have been a different story," says St. Charles County, Mo., Sheriff Tom Neer, who recently authorized deputies to participate in a checkpoint in his St. Louis suburb and saw a public backlash. "There're just such strong anti-government feelings among people. Under the circumstances, I would not allow them to do it again. It's just because of the perception." (...)