I don't condone drinking and driving (heck, I don't even drink), but I also don't condone LEOs pulling people over and questioning them without probable cause. If you want to combat drunk driving, then take an unmarked car (or more) and have them patrol areas around bars. When they see cars swerving over the line, driving too fast, driving too slow, etc. (basically giving them PROBABLE CAUSE) then they can pull them over and proceed with their DUI tests. Heck, I don't even care if they put plain clothes cops in bars to spot drunk people who leave the bar and climb behind the wheel. My point is nobody should be pulled over and questioned if they are doing nothing wrong. Maybe they do that in other countries, but they should not be doing that in the United States.
Ah, those arguments don't fly, my friend. For one thing, driving is a privilege, not a right. And DUI checkpoints are a court-accepted method of detecting impaired drivers. The overriding concern is the grave danger posed by drunks behind the wheel.
I don't think this is comparable to Border Patrol checkpoints. DUI checkpoints are not an every day thing. Typically, they're conducted for a couple hours, two or three times a year. They're very labor-intensive and usually don't produce a lot of arrests. If they're done properly, they only stop cars in a set pattern, like every third car, or every 5th, or something like that. (I was assigned to DUI duty for nine years, and only participated in two checkpoints in all those years - total.)
BP checkpoints, OTOH, are 24-7 in several locations across the Southwest. As I recall, they even have a permanent station set up near Temecula CA that straddles the highway.They stop every vehicle. And their objective is finding illegals and smuggling. (Again, if only this were part of a real plan to seal the border....)