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Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War!
REDISCOVERING THE FOURTH AMENDMENT by Vin Suprynowicz
<
vin@lvrj.com>;
As little as 50 years ago, American movie audiences could be
expected
to hiss and boo as the Nazi Gestapo agent was shown insinuating
himself through the passenger cars of some European train,
ominously
hissing, "Papers, please?"
Only in totalitarian police states (Americans then understood)
were
citizens subject to random searches -- or any requirement that
they
show their "papers" at the mere whim of a suspicious government
official.
Then things began to change in America. Where once the Fourth
Amendment ("The right of the people to be secure ... against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated") was
presumed inviolate, now police complained such restrictions were
making it impossible to fight the War on Drugs.
The courts responded to the "pragmatic realities" of the Drug
War by
granting police a progressively greater presumption of
"compelling
need" to violate the terms of the Fourth -- first in a few cases
of
"fleeing suspects"; then in "random traffic stops"; finally
tumbling
down the slippery slope so far that today, "It's OK that you
killed
these innocent homeowners in their beds, as long as it was your
anonymous
informant who got the address wrong. But you really
should pay to fix the door."
Now, finally, the U.S. Supreme Court seems to be rediscovering
that
ancient "right of the people to be secure ..."
In 1997, Steven Dewayne Bond was a passenger on a Greyhound bus
en
route from California to Arkansas, when the bus was stopped at
an
"immigration checkpoint" in Sierra Blanca, Texas. A Border
Patrol
agent checked the passengers' immigration status, and then felt
their
luggage.
The agent squeezed a canvas bag in the bin over Bond's seat, and
later told the court his perception of a ''brick-like object"
led him
to suspect it contained drugs. When the agent asked Bond if he
could
open the bag, the agent testified he was told, "Go ahead."
Inside, the agent found a brick-shaped object covered in tape,
later
revealed to contain methamphetamine.
Mr. Bond was convicted of drug possession and "conspiracy" (an
all-purpose add-on charge, these days. Unless he manufactured
the
drugs from scratch, he obviously had to have "conspired" with
somebody.) The appeals court said the agent needed no search
warrant, since Mr. Bond gave up any reasonable expectation of
privacy
when he "exposed" the bag to the public by putting it in the
overhead
bin.
But on April 17, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Bond's
conviction,
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist writing for the court that
"Physically invasive inspection is ... more intrusive than
purely
visual inspection." A citizen does not waive his privacy rights
when
he places his belongings in a piece of luggage, under the absurd
theory that he is then inviting one and all to "feel the bag in
an
exploratory manner," the court ruled.
The 7-2 court majority is a strong one, with only Justices
Antonin
Scalia and Stephen Breyer dissenting, on the theory that
enforcing
the Fourth Amendment could "deter law enforcement officers
searching
for drugs" (Justice Breyer absurdly adding that travelers who
want to
safeguard the contents of their luggage "from public touch
should
plan to pack those contents in a suitcase with hard sides."
Sure. And
those of us travelling by air can demonstrate our reluctance to
"waive our privacy rights" by simply buying luggage with lead
panels
designed to block the omnipresent X-Rays ... right?)
Indeed, the Fourth Amendment certainly does "deter law
enforcement
officers searching for drugs." It doubtless does so every day.
But an
explicit delegation of power to Congress to fight a War on Drugs
is
difficult to locate -- some even arguing that the "unenumerated
rights" protected by the Ninth Amendment must include the once
unrestricted right to consume alcohol and other drugs, as our
ancestors were free to do from 1600 to 1915 -- lest why would a
constitutional amendment have been required to outlaw alcohol in
1919?
I believe this is a correct and sensible reading of the Ninth.
But
even if the drug war were somehow legitimate, whenever a freedom
specifically guaranteed by the Bill of Rights comes into
conflict
with the convenience of the police, the Bill of Rights must
clearly
prevail.
If the War on Drugs cannot co-exist with the Bill of Rights,
then it
is time to call a halt to the War on Drugs for that reason,
alone.
In the meantime, the 7-2 majority of the high court managed to
do the
right thing in the case of Steven Dewayne Bond (Bond vs. U.S.,
98-9349.)
---
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las
Vegas
Review-Journal.
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A vote for Bush or Gore is a vote to continue Clinton policies!
A vote for Buchanan is a vote to continue America!
Therefore a vote for Gore or Bush is a wasted vote for America!
Don't waste your vote! Vote for Patrick Buchanan!
Today, candor compels us to admit that our vaunted two-party
system is a
snare and a delusion, a fraud upon the nation. Our two parties
have become
nothing but two wings of the same bird of prey...
Patrick Buchanan
