CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS: COURT ERODES PRIVACY

Supreme Court Decision Is An Example Of Judicial Expediency.

We Americans pay homage to our forefathers for the genius they
displayed in defining individual freedoms in the Constitution and its
Bill of Rights. But our courts have an odd way of showing that
admiration as they remove or narrow those rights when expediency calls.

The U. S. Supreme Court did just that this week when it ruled that
police may search the belongings of passengers in a car simply
because the driver is suspected of having done something illegal.

The incident that triggered the case occurred in July 1995 when a
faulty brake light caused a Wyoming state trooper to stop a car. He
noticed a hypodermic syringe in the driver's shirt pocket, and the
driver admitted that he used it to take drugs.

With that admission, the trooper started searching the car for
contraband. On the back seat he spotted the passenger's purse and,
though he conceded that he lacked sufficient grounds to suspect her,
opened the purse and found drug paraphernalia and
methamphetamine.

The passenger was convicted of drug possession, but on appeal the
Wyoming Supreme Court reversed the conviction, saying that the person
effects of passengers are protected from searches if the passengers
themselves are not suspected of illegal activities.

The Supreme Court, however, ruled that, "Passengers, no less than
drivers, possess a reduced expectation of privacy with regard to the
property that they transport in cars, which travel public
thoroughfares."

Amid the heightened awareness of crime today, society shows scant
concern for the rights of wrongdoers or suspected wrongdoers or those
in their company. Consequently, Americans may pay little heed to the
dissenting justices' warning that abandoning "the settled distinction
between drivers and passengers" seriously intrudes on privacy rights.

It's a lack of concern for constitutional guarantees of individual
rights that this nation could come to regret.