by Melissa Melton
Activist Post
Nov 20, 2013

Drivers were randomly stopped yesterday at a police roadblock in Fort Worth, Texas, herded into a parking lot and asked to take DNA tests — to give blood samples, have their cheeks swabbed, and take Breathalyzer tests.

According to the local Dallas Forth Worth NBC affiliate, The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration set the whole thing up with government contractors who used off-duty Forth Worth Police Officers to help facilitate an $8 million government research study “aimed at determining the number of drunken or drug-impaired drivers”.

Although the set up was supposedly voluntary and anonymous, people who were driving on that Fort Worth road told NBC it didn’t feel voluntary at all.

“It just doesn’t seem right that you can be forced off the road when you’re not doing anything wrong,” said Kim Cope, who said she was on her lunch break when she was forced to pull over at the roadblock on Beach Street in North Fort Worth.

[…]

“I gestured to the guy in front that I just wanted to go straight, but he wouldn’t let me and forced me into a parking spot,” she said.

Once parked, she couldn’t believe what she was asked next. “They were asking for cheek swabs,” she said. “They would give $10 for that. Also, if you let them take your blood, they would pay you $50 for that.” At the very least, she said, they wanted to test her breath for alcohol.

She said she felt trapped. “I finally did the Breathalyzer test just because I thought that would be the easiest way to leave,” she said, adding she received no money.

This government “study” will take place over the next three years in 30 U.S. cities across the nation.

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