Police traffic stops to pursue the drug war and control the poor and minorities seem like an unstoppable program. They appear to be part of the American way, and somehow normative.
Enforcement systems are profitable for the state, for corporate hangers-on such the insurance industry and are upheld by state courts. Traffic stops have wide public support on health, safety and welfare grounds.
By David Tulis / NoogaRadio 92.7 FM
But across the country, the exercise of police power upon motorists is outside the scope of actual statute and against the constitutional rights of the people.
I wish to submit to CityLab a two-part essay at 3,300 words, lavishly illustrated with photos, that explains how I am working to end “traffic stops” under the state freight, shipping and transportation statute against people not involved in freight, shipping and transportation.
It would be in equity or transportation channels of City Lab. This package is pitched exclusively to you.
I am an investigative journalist and activist who has launched a bottom-up legal reform intending to halt up to 80 percent of traffic stops in my hometown of Chattanooga and in Hamilton County, and then, eventually, across Tennessee. I worked 24 years as a copy editor at the Chattanooga Times Free Press and now own and operate the CBS Radio News affiliate in Chattanooga.
My sanctuary city and racial reconciliation project gives liberty leverage using constitutional rights and state law’s disabilities to help individuals and common people work around and defy judicial policy and longstanding police custom.
It’s called Transportation Administrative Notice Tennessee or the “cop, get out of my face” project.
I am an investigative reporter at a news talk radio station of which I am the owner, NoogaRadio 92.7 FM. I am a pro se litigant whose lawsuit in the late 1990s prompted the Tennessee general assembly to accept my liberty arguments and adopt a law accepting driver license applications by people without social security numbers.
The notice project intends to force the issue of free movement and free communication by car and truck pursuant to our rights in the face of a widely supported Jim Crow legal system. My project uses basic legal principles to bind individual police officers and sheriff’s deputies to their oaths of office and to slowly pare back ultra vires (outside the scope of the powers of a corporation) use of the law.
To restate, I am trying to stop cops from enforcing the state shipping, freight and transportation law upon people not involved in shipping, freight and transportation — that is, upon private users using the roads for private purposes and for pleasure.
I have given a great deal of attention to this project on my daily two-hour talk show focusing on local economy and free markets, and also gone into detail about this reform at TNtrafficticket.us.
I believe that my method of pushing back against police abuse by notice has widespread potential in all 50 states. Transportation control laws in the states have their origin in the regulation of commercial, for-profit or “extraordinary” use under state privilege. The illicit spreading of the scope of the commercial statute to encompass private use by private citizens is the problem my essay addresses.
Behind this project is a religiously motivated work of mercy intending to help categories of people protected in the Bible: Orphans and widows, and aliens and strangers. That list starts in my mind with African-Americans, and includes Hispanic immigrants helped by my litigation over the driver license.
Here are links describing my work:
This text explains the doctrine of notice, and why I believe notice is the place to start in pushing back abuse of police power
This link is my press release on the day I put City of Chattanooga on notice, Feb. 20, 2018.
This text tells of a meeting with the city attorney.
The actual notice is here. https://nooganomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Transportation-Administrative-Notice-Tennessee-3.pdf
That I have been ignored thus far is no worry to me. I am laying a trap for these organizations whose continued neglect of the limits of the law shows they are acting in bad faith.
If you have questions, please contact me. I have no personal stake in the outcome of this project.
