I wonder if you all might feel differently if you had a loved one killed by a drunk driver. Perhaps then you might better appreciate the DUI checkpoint.
Anyone who is dumb enough to drink and drive on St. Paddy's Day, or New Year's Eve for that matter, is already showing incredibly stupid judgment. They KNOW cops will be out in full force, yet they do it anyway. I'm totally okay with them being popped and stuck in a cell for a few hours.
So, why not gun check points? 6-8,000 people a year are murdered with guns. Why not bad driver checkpoints seeings how 30,000 people a year are killed by bad drivers, exclusive of drunks? How about bad eating check points to make sure no one is eating bad food while driving, a two for, given, well over 100,000 a year die of obesity in addition to the distraction. Seat belt check points. Cell phone check points seeings how people are mauling one another by the 1,000's texting while driving. Just make people show their phone and check the time of last sent messages. If it was recent, off to the pokey for a few hours. We could catch 80 year old drug mules while we're at it.
What else? Maybe check groceries and see that proper food is in those bags. See if people signed up for the ACA. Make sure there is no angry music in there. Make sure kids are properly restrained.
Orwell wrote about this. I know you read it. If your beef is that we don't hold people responsible for what they do then maybe instead of using the fish net approach and see if we can catch people who might do bad things we should put all this effort into people who have DONE bad. That would conform with the Constitution and the ideas of freedom and liberty and responsibility.
It's a check point. That's what police states do.
If the idea is to have a free society you hold people responsible for what they DO, for behavior, not for what they might do.