COURT LIMITS BAG SEARCHES

Police can't arbitrarily feel for drugs; airline security won't
change

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court limited the power of police to search
travelers for drugs Monday, ruling that officers may not feel or
squeeze carry-on bags to detect narcotics.

Passengers consider their carry-on bags personal and private, the
justices said, even when they are put into an overhead bin. They do
not expect police to take advantage of the opportunity to feel the
bags in search of drugs, they said.

The 7-2 decision reversed the drug conviction of a California man who
was arrested aboard a Greyhound bus when it stopped near a border
checkpoint in Texas. A federal Border Patrol agent, having checked the
immigration status of the passengers, then walked the aisle and
squeezed the bags overhead.

In a green canvas bag, the agent felt a ``bricklike'' object. Inside,
he found a block of methamphetamine wrapped in tape. The bag belonged
to a passenger named Steven D. Bond. He was convicted of conspiracy to
distribute the drug and sentenced to 57 months in prison.

Clinton administration lawyers said that the search was
legal.

But conservative Chief Justice William Rehnquist, speaking for the
high court, disagreed and said that passengers do not give up the
privacy of their personal items when they board a public carrier.

The Fourth Amendment protects ``the right of people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable
searches,'' noted Rehnquist, and ``a traveler's personal luggage is
clearly an `effect' protected by the amendment.''

The decision (Bond vs. United States, 98-9349) clearly covers
passengers and their carry-on bags on buses, trains and other common
carriers but not necessarily on planes.

Because of security concerns, airline passengers are said to have a
lesser expectation of privacy. Since the wave of hijackings in the
1970s, searches of passengers and their belongings have become
standard. In the past, judges have rejected constitutional challenges
to these searches.

Monday's ruling will not alter the status of those security searches.
However, some lawyers said that the ruling in the bus case would
appear to forbid police from walking through an airplane and searching
carry-on bags for drugs.

The decision marks the second time in two months that the high court
has overturned a conviction on Fourth Amendment grounds.

Last month, the justices unanimously threw out gun-carrying charges
against a Miami teenager who was arrested after police received an
anonymous tip. In that case, the court said officers need reliable and
credible information before they stop and frisk a pedestrian.

Both decisions came as something of a surprise. Over the past decade,
the justices have given police broad power to conduct criminal
searches, especially when drugs are involved.

For example, the court in 1989 upheld the use of low-flying
helicopters to spot marijuana plants growing in the back yards of
private homes. Because the plants could be seen from the air,
homeowners had no reasonable expectation of privacy, the court said
then.

On Monday, the chief justice drew a distinction between touching and
seeing. ``Physically invasive inspection is simply more intrusive than
purely visual inspection,'' he said.

Meanwhile, in other actions, the court:

Ruled that railroads are not financially liable for allegedly
inadequate warning devices at public grade-level rail crossings if the
equipment installed was federally funded. The 7-2 decision in a
Tennessee case (Norfolk Southern vs. Shanklin, 9-312) could affect
disputes from most of the 170,000 such crossings nationwide.

Agreed to decide whether state employees with disabilities are
protected by federal anti-discrimination law. This new test of states
rights (University of Alabama vs. Garrett, 99-1240) will be heard in
the fall.

Rejected a free-speech challenge to restrictions on outdoor cigarette
advertising in New York City and Chicago.

Let a Southern California school district ban the Ten Commandments
from a fence at a high school baseball field (DiLoreto vs. Board of
Education of Downey Unified School District, 99-1345).

Said it will use a Missouri case to decide whether states can require
congressional candidates to support term limits for members of
Congress or be labeled an opponent on the election ballot.