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Suit \u201cSeeks an injunction and damages for conspiracy to violate the Constitution\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Adan Salazar<\/strong><\/p>\n Following reports that police in Reading, Pennsylvania, participated in a national survey, in which random citizens were pulled over and asked for \u201cvoluntary\u201d cheek swabs, a courageous resident filed a lawsuit against the city, its mayor and several others claiming his Fourth Amendment rights were violated.<\/p>\n Reading police chief thinks violation of Fourth Amendment is a \u201cpretty innocuous and minor issue.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cNothing about this incident was \u2018voluntary’ in my case,\u201d Reading resident Ricardo Nieves stated at a City Council meeting<\/a> two weeks ago, prior to pursuing the federal suit. \u201cI feel this incident is a gross abuse of power on so many levels. I’m not a legal expert, but being forced off the road and unlawfully holding me against my will for any period of time, I would consider my liberty to be compromised and falsely imprisoned.\u201d<\/p>\n Nieves was irked when on Friday, December 13, he drove up to a street where police lights were flashing and orange security cones lined the lane.<\/p>\n According to the suit, Nieves was driving in the right hand lane and that the left lane \u201cwas full of traffic such that he could not pull over to change lanes.\u201d<\/p>\n Nieves’ lawsuit, obtained by Courthouse News<\/a>, further states an officer \u201cstepped 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.\u201d<\/p>\n There, Nieves says a woman with a clipboard walked up to him, stated he was not being \u201cpulled over\u201d and proceeded to ask if he would participate in a survey. According to the lawsuit, the woman explained \u201cthe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Knowledgable of his Fourth Amendment rights, which are supposed to protect U.S. citizens from unreasonable and unwarranted searches absent of probable cause, Nieves repeatedly refused the surveyor’s request for a cheek swab, and after five minutes ultimately asserted \u201cvery firmly, \u2018No. Thank You.’\u201d<\/p>\n When Nieves researched the checkpoint, it disturbed him to find it was conducted by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, commissioned by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration at the behest of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.<\/p>\n He also found out it was conducted with the full cooperation of the city of Reading and its police department and that they were awarded a considerable sum for their part.<\/p>\n \u201cThe checkpoint was part of a $7.9 million, three-year survey by the agencies, which has been conducted several times since the 1970s,\u201d reported the Reading Eagle<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was nothing more than a gross abuse of power and federal intrusion of my rights,\u201d Nieves told Alex Jones during a live interview after his story broke nationally.<\/p>\n Of course, the Reading police chief thinks matters are being blown out of proportion. \u201cPeople are not pressured by police presence to do something they don’t want to,\u201d Police Chief William M. Heim told the Reading Eagle. \u201cIn the grand scheme of things, I think it’s a pretty innocuous and minor issue.\u201d Heim is included in Nieves’ suit as a defendant, along with Reading Mayor Vaughn Spencer and the Pacific Institute for Research & Evaluation.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen people are manipulated, it’s anti-democratic, and what’s being done here is controlling people. People don’t want to be controlled. People want to make their own decisions, because consciousness and the freedom to think is a fundamental human right. The idea of free will being violated is something that god doesn’t even do, yet man thinks he can do this to us,\u201d Nieves stated to City Council and again on the Alex Jones Show.<\/p>\n Nieves’ suit reportedly \u201cseeks an injunction and damages for conspiracy to violate the Constitution, constitutional violations and false imprisonment.\u201d<\/p>\n