Pubdate: Tue, 05 Dec 2000
Source: Worcester Telegram & Gazette (MA)
Copyright: 2000 Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Contact:  P.O. Box 15012, Worcester, MA 01615-0012
Fax: (508) 793-9313
Website: http://www.telegram.com/

NOW THAT'S UN-AMERICAN

The Supreme Court's ruling against random drug-hunting roadblocks upholds 
our nation's long tradition of freedom from unreasonable searches.

The court properly objected to the generalized nature of the roadblocks, 
which made every passerby a suspect until proven otherwise.

In a dissent, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist argued that being stopped 
for no particular reason was a minor inconvenience to drivers. The question 
is: Why should anyone who has not given any indication of wrongdoing be 
inconvenienced at all?

Justice Rehnquist thought to balance the severity of the drug threat 
against our Fourth Amendment rights. These rights are not to be weighed and 
balanced on the whim of any individual or any group of individuals. They 
are the bedrock of what it means to be an American, and of what the world 
admires about America.

One might argue, as Justice Clarence Thomas did in dissent, that even 
drunken driving roadblocks, which the Supreme Court has upheld, would have 
been rejected by the Constitution's framers. Justice Thomas wrote that the 
legality of the drug checkpoints followed from that of the sobriety 
checkpoints.

The court did put a very fine point on it when it allowed that roadblocks 
to protect the public from an "immediate, vehicle-bound threat" are 
allowable, but roadblocks to protect the public from "the generalized and 
ever-present possibility ... that any given motorist has committed some 
crime" are not allowable.

Be that as it may, it would certainly be a bad idea to travel any farther 
down that road.

Allowing police to stop people for no apparent reason opens the door to 
more serious abuses of police power and to erosion of the rights the 
Founding Fathers guaranteed to us two centuries ago.
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