WHEN POLICE WORK, PRIVACY CLASH

Albany-- Search, Seizure Spark Debate About Limits Of The Law

Traffic is heavy on Interstate 90 when Officer Harold Warner punches
the gas of his patrol car to get behind a driver who just switched
lanes without using a turn signal.

As the driver of the blue pickup swerves slightly -- apparently to
avoid a large pothole -- Warner shifts his large frame and his dark
hair brushes the roof of the patrol car. "Did you see that?'' he says,
pointing at the nondescript truck.

Within 90 seconds, the nervous driver is standing between his truck
and Warner's patrol car, staring skyward on the shoulder and following
orders to touch his nose with a finger. This driver passes the
roadside sobriety test and is sent on his way with a ticket for
failure to signal.

It's not always the case. A one-year tally of the drugs and weapons
that Warner has seized from cars on Albany interstates reads like an
annual report from a small police department -- a busy small police
department.

The question is whether Warner's work is a victory for aggressive
police work or a defeat for personal privacy.

Top police officials say Warner's work on local highways has caught
their attention, and prompted them in the past two years to increase
city patrols on the interstates running through Albany.

"We ask Hal to look beyond the traffic ticket,'' said Assistant Police
Chief William Georges, who heads the city's Traffic Safety Division.
"The easiest way not to meet Mr. Warner is to not violate the traffic
laws.''

But the directive is enough to make certain defense lawyers
cringe.

"It makes my blood boil,'' Albany-area defense attorney Terence L.
Kindlon said Sunday. "When they find something, they crow about it.
What they don't say is all the searches that came up empty.
Realistically, they're writing poetry to justify stopping people for
driving while black.''

Deputy Chief Jack C. Nielsen, a fan of Warner's, believes the veteran
patrol officer knows how to make arrests without trampling on the
Constitution.

"The last thing we want is any indication or any implication of some
sort of targeting or some form of (racial) profiling,'' Nielsen said.
"Hal's non-denominational about what he does.''

Over the past two years, several police agencies along the Eastern
seaboard, including state police in Florida and New Jersey, have come
under fire for alleged racial profiling of drivers.

The allegations come as police agencies across the country have
stepped up interstate patrols to clamp down on couriers, who they say
are using highways as narcotics pipelines to feed the nation's habit.
Since 1990, authorities have seized more than 1.5 million pounds of
marijuana and more than 207,000 pounds of cocaine off U.S. highways
and interstates, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

Warner insists his highway arrests are a result of legal searches
based on probable cause. "First of all, you know, profiling is
illegal,'' he said matter-of-factly.

In fact, Warner said, most of his vehicle searches have come after a
driver has been arrested for an infraction such as driving while
intoxicated or driving without a license. The vehicle search is often
cursory, he said, because officers are required to inventory a car's
contents before it is towed away.

The color of a person's skin and the value of their car have nothing
to do with whether Warner pulls them over, he said. "If you violate
the law, you're as bad as the person on the other side,'' said Warner,
a 27-year veteran who has never sought promotions to supervisory posts
because he says he enjoys being a street-level cop.

On many occasions, Warner said he has been suspicious of a driver
pulled over for a traffic infraction. But if the driver refuses to
consent to a search, which Warner said is often the case, the person
drives away with a ticket and whatever secrets they may or may not
have been hiding.

Kindlon contends anyone who consents to a request by a police officer
to search their car ought to have their head examined.

"It's all a question of whether or not the officer had probable cause
to search, and believe me, it's easy to manufacture,'' Kindlon said.
"I'm not speaking in defense of drug dealers here. I'm speaking for
the right to privacy and the right to be let alone in this country.''

Of course, there are alleged drug traffickers who make Warner's job
easier. "You wouldn't believe how many people speed with contraband in
their vehicle,'' he said.

Warner also has arrested people for carrying large amounts of cocaine
in their cars after smelling alcohol or marijuana on a driver's
breath, or emanating from a car during a traffic stop.

In late January, Warner stopped a white Buick he said was speeding on
Interstate 787 around 10 p.m. one night. The 61-year-old driver, a
Troy man, was charged with driving while intoxicated. The man
initially gave Warner a fake name, apparently in an attempt to hide
the fact that his license had been revoked as a result of 18
suspensions and a previous DWI conviction, according to court records.

When Warner searched the man's car, he allegedly found eight grams of
cocaine secreted in a tissue box on the back floor.

"In the past, I have had people hide drugs in their child's umbrella
or their child's box of popcorn,'' Warner said.

Most local police departments, such as Colonie, leave patrolling of
the interstates to the State Police. But Georges said the city traffic
division has begun routinely deploying officers on interstates because
of the results. In turn, Warner has been sent to national training
seminars that focus on interstate drug interdiction and will soon
begin teaching city patrol officers what he has learned, Georges said.

Georges said officers are now instructed to approach traffic stops
with the question: "Is this person simply a traffic violator, or is
there more to the story?''