DRUG SEARCHES UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Dear Editor:

I read the piece in TCT about the tactics of U.S. Customs looking for
concealed drugs on airline passengers with disbelief.

I am not a lawyer or a constitutional expert, but it seems perfectly
clear to anyone from a reading of the constitution that these searches
are the very kind forbidden under the phrase "unreasonable" searches
and seizures.

Three-quarters of those searched were carrying no drugs. The law has
evolved to require probable cause, a warrant, and so on as necessary
safeguards under the law. The customs people say it is necessary
because of the increase in drug trafficking.

So the end justifies the means, whatever the means are? Is this where
we are in the "war" against drugs?

There is also the arbitrary seizure of property by police when the
property is suspected of being involved in a drug trade even when no
conviction has been obtained (sometimes the property when belonging to
a previous owner may have been involved in drugs but the present owner
is completely innocent).

It seems to me that, in the name of the war against drugs, charred
holes are being burned into the Bill of Rights. Surely, there are
better ways of dealing with a social problem such as drug use, more
worthy of a just and civilized society.

Why isn't there more outrage? Is it because the victims are seen as
undeserving drug offenders even though many victims are innocent? If
so, I would remind people of the piece about the Nazis and the Jews
that goes something like this: They came for the Jews but I said
nothing because I was not a Jew; they came for for [various other
groups], but I said nothing because I was not one of them; when they
came for me, there was no one left to speak for me.

Checked-by: Don Beck