ON THE MONEY

Americans Have A Right To Personal Privacy.

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution states as much: "The
right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."

Under the rubric of public safety, however, many law-enforcement agencies
for years have pushed the boundaries of those constitutional guarantees.

Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court -- before taking on presidential issues
last week -- set some common-sense parameters for just how far law
enforcement can go before running afoul of the Fourth Amendment.

In a 6-3 decision, the nation's highest court said that Indiana police
violated individual rights when they set up roadblocks in an Indianapolis
neighborhood, stopped vehicles at random and used drug-sniffing dogs to
search for illegal narcotics.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who penned the majority opinion, wrote that
police must have reasonable suspicions to stop and search a person or a
car. In prior opinions, the court has allowed police to establish random
roadblocks to nab drunken drivers and allowed authorities to stop and
search individuals at immigration checkpoints.

But the court drew the line at random drug stops.

"We cannot sanction stops justified only by the generalized and
ever-present possibility that interrogation and inspection may reveal that
any given motorist has committed some crime," Justice O'Connor wrote.

There's an important distinction to be made, the court noted. The
public-safety dangers presented by drunken drivers outweighed the privacy
of innocent motorists. And immigration stops are necessary to protect U.S.
borders.

Random searches for illicit drugs, however, would open the door to even
more-intrusive law-enforcement behavior, the court properly ruled.

Law enforcement still would have ample opportunity to stop motorists. For
example, the court stated that police still could set up roadblocks to
catch dangerous criminals or to thwart an imminent terrorist attack if
authorities had a reasonable suspicion that such measures would be
productive. But those situations, the court stated, are "far removed from
the circumstances under which authorities might simply stop cars as a
matter of course to see if there just happens to be a felon leaving the
jurisdiction."

The court was right on the money.

If police were allowed randomly to stop cars to search for drugs, what
would prevent authorities from conducting random, house-to-house searches
for illegal activity?

It would be a short walk from there to living in a police state, which the
Fourth Amendment was designed to thwart.

Americans should celebrate the ruling. And they should cherish their freedoms.