LICENSE TO SEARCH

The U.S. Supreme Court, historically a bulwark of the U.S.
Constitution, has taken another small step to diminish the protections
it offers.

The court recently ruled that everyone and everything in a motor
vehicle is fair game for police searches if law officers suspect the
conveyance contains illegal drugs or guns.

This 6-3 decision continues a sorry trend of several decades of
constitutional jurisprudence posited on the notion that the Bill of
Rights' protections against search and seizure, not to mention privacy
rights, are conditional.

The case involved a police search of a woman's purse who was a
passenger in a car driven by a man who had a syringe sticking out of
his front pocket. Police previously had the right to search "every
part of the vehicle and its contents" if a motorist appears to be
drunk or on drugs, or is believed to be carrying a concealed weapon.

In order to reach its decision, the court overturned a Wyoming Supreme
Court decision that took the liberties cited in the federal
Constitution more seriously. The Wyoming court had ruled that the
search of the woman's purse was illegal under the Fourth Amendment
because police had no reason to suspect her of any wrongdoing.

Unfortunately, the high court decision weakens liberty. It reinforces
a foolish line the high court has espoused for several decades that
citizens have "diminished" privacy rights on the highways of America,
or once they are outside the physical piles they call home.

Although its notion of diminished rights referred to privacy, this
decision effectively diminishes the Fourth Amendment's right to be
secure in one's person, home and property.

It gives police a fishing license once they pull over a vehicle
because of a suspicion -- not probable cause -- of drugs, weapons or
driver impairment. This decision adds to the dilution of freedom and
liberty -- the kind that this nation's founders thought their effort
was about.