Pubdate: Mon, 04 Dec 2000
Source: Cherry Hill Courier-Post (NJ)
Copyright: 2000 Cherry Hill Courier-Post
Contact:  P.O. Box 5300, Cherry Hill, N.J. 08034
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HIGH COURT ALLOWS POLICE TO ENTER OUR PRIVATE LIVES

Though the court was right to outlaw random drug searches, it was an 
inconsistent ruling.

Life in general, and the Supreme Court in particular, is full of 
inconsistencies. The high court went about halfway toward doing the right 
thing last week when it struck down the legality of random roadblocks for 
drug searches.

This is a victory for personal privacy, and is to be celebrated, as far as 
that goes.

But if police aren't allowed random checkpoints for drugs, why are they 
still allowed them for checking sobriety and even seat belts?

The court's argument against searches for drugs could certainly just as 
well apply to other roadblock searches. As articulated by Justice Sandra 
Day O'Connor, the checkpoints compromised the Fourth Amendment, which 
protects against search and seizure.

Her point becomes clearer if we consider that, for many if not most people 
who own one, a car is a kind of second home. We spend as much time in the 
driver's seat as we do in our kitchens.

We also decorate a vehicle to suit ourselves, and organize things in the 
interior in ways that reflect how we organize our bedrooms and offices.

It is our own little house on wheels. So imagine if police could knock on 
doors at random in your neighborhood, enter your house, look under your 
furniture and search your pockets.

You would find it to be a casual dismissal of your rights to privacy.

You also would feel as if you'd been presumed guilty without trial - even 
though you had not done anything wrong, had done nothing to attract the 
attention of authorities except to exist in a given time and place, and had 
not even had any charges filed against you.

Still, the burden would be on you to prove yourself innocent, without even 
knowing what you were innocent of.

Why, then, does this argument work for drug searches, but not roadside 
sobriety checkpoints? In sobriety checks, police are invading our private 
spaces despite having no justifiable cause; tying up traffic and forcing us 
to prove our innocence when they have no cause to think us guilty.

Nonetheless, O'Connor stressed that this ruling would not affect border 
checks and drunken driving roadblocks, which already have been ruled 
constitutional. In those cases, justices have deemed the benefits to the 
public to outweigh the inconvenience.

Weighing benefits versus inconvenience for any enforcement strategy always 
will demand some kind of subjective ruling. O'Connor herself implied as 
much when she said the court had to draw a line somewhere on "the 
authorities' ability to construct roadblocks for almost any conceivable law 
enforcement purpose."

Drawing that line - determining which crimes are dangerous enough for us to 
compromise our constitutional protections - always will depend heavily on 
judgment calls by the courts.

But we encourage the authorities to draw that line a little further back 
from our property.
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