By Rob Holbert Managing Editor

I’ve been getting this nagging feeling of government encroachment lately. It’s not so bad that I’m waiting to hear boot steps outside the front door, but there’s definitely some creeping going on.

Of course we’ve all heard the president I voted for twice thinks it okey-dokey to listen to phone conversations because we might be talking to terrorists. (Actually, I do regularly talk to phone terrorists, but they’re trying to sell me something.) These days, anything we do in the name of stopping the terrorists is just fine because they managed to pull off one fantastic, deadly stunt five years ago.

So listening to my conversations with Aunt Gladys, monitoring the books I check out and which Web sites I visit and peeking at on-line chats with my new cyber buddy “osamacavedweller” is alright. It’s just part of being safe in the modern U.S. of A.

And that’s the same kind of reasoning being used to justify a recent round of roadblocks and checkpoints being thrown up all over Mobile. Of course it’s being done to stop crime, and that must make it right. Or does it?

We’ve all become so sheeplike in our compliance to the government creep, that there’s been nary a word said about the giant roadblocks used to pull over thousands of local motorists, the vast majority of whom are doing nothing more than trying to get from point A to point B. The checkpoints have resulted in more than 3,100 citations being issued in the past month. The latest, over Memorial Day weekend, netted 67 arrests, as well.

These checkpoints are the city’s response to the highly publicized murder of two men in a McDonald’s drive-through on Springhill Avenue in late April. City leaders called on the police to conduct more checkpoints to search for illegal weapons, and the cops have responded. So far, though, none of the checkpoints has been set up in a McDonald’s drive-through, which doesn’t seem entirely fair to the rest of us.

When most of us look at this type of thing, the first reaction is probably “Terrific. Those 3,100 people deserved tickets for driving around without insurance or with expired licenses.” And maybe they do. After all, the law requires us to have a valid license and current insurance.

But I missed the part where writing people tickets for expired insurance cards gets guns off the streets. Oh sure, they’ve netted a gun or two, along with some idiot transporting 30 ecstasy pills and his 2-year-old son. Of course, this dangerous criminal was released on a $3,500 bond, so our local legal system must not have found him to be that serious a threat to society.

The bigger threat, it seems, is the erosion of our civil liberties. What happened to the right to drive down the street without the police just stopping you for no reason? Oh, I know the Supreme Court says it’s legal, but it does seem to fly in the face of the whole thought of illegal searches and seizures, not to mention the antiquated notion that we’re innocent until proven guilty.

In addition to Big Brother watching and listening at the national level, we’re all getting more and more comfortable with the concept of police cameras eyeballing us from every lamppost. In many cities now, speeding tickets just show up in the mail after robotic cameras and speed guns determine – sans human intervention – that you were speeding. Trial by a jury of your peers – if your peers are Sony cameras. Where’s the robot Judge Lackey who will toss your ticket if you’re in with his cadre of robot cronies?

It’s getting so bad, I’ve almost decided to rip the rolling meth lab out of the back of my car. Who needs the hassle? (Hey, I’m just kidding. I don’t need a checkpoint at the end of my driveway and officers rooting through The Moonbuggy. They’re likely to find the secret compartment I use to sneak Mexicans across the border to work at Wal-Mart.)

I’m all for getting illegal guns and drugs off the street, but there’s still a little matter of our rights as Americans to make a plane flight on time, not be late for work and not be hassled and asked for our papers while we’re trying to go to NT Video to rent some decent porn because we’re worried George Bush is watching to see where we go on the Web. I don’t want to have to factor in “roadblock time” when I have to be somewhere important.

I’m sure the city bigwigs who demanded these checkpoints are puffed up with pride at the number of tickets written and arrests made. After all, this is the stuff of which future campaign commercials are made. But, again, I must wonder how hassling people for having expired insurance cards is going to keep folks from getting gunned down while trying to get a Filet O’ Fish? Or a Chick Filet, for that matter?

Isn’t it a rather small leap of logic to suggest it would be even better to search people’s homes for illegal guns. And while we’re there, we can see if they have any pot in the bedroom, crack cocaine in the bathroom or if they’ve ripped the tags off their mattresses.

Yes, such a search would be illegal – right now. But it would make us safer from the criminals. Who cares if it makes us more vulnerable to the government?

Rob Holbert is Lagniappe managing editor. Contact him at rholbert@lagniappemobile.com.

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