Supreme Court OKs Gas Tank Border Searches

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Tuesday that government agents can search and even dismantle a car's gas tank as part of drug and other smuggling interdiction at the nation's borders.

Border officers can randomly search gas tanks, despite the absence of specific indication that a particular car is suspect, the high court said. People crossing the border have less expectation of privacy than elsewhere, and searching the inner reaches of a car is not the same thing as a strip search or other intrusive search of the driver, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for the court.

This one's debatable. How would you feel if your car was dismantled by customs agents intent on searching your gas tank? Would you trust them to put it back together? Would they even put it back together if nothing was found?

I believe that the Fourth Amendment in America has focused debate about law-enforcement searches on warrant issues, when those issues are in fact rarely a significant issue. Warrants are habitually sworn out and signed on the flimsiest of evidence (including evidence from "anonymous tips" that could well be the officers themselves). A "search" of someone's home or car by a government intent on finding drugs could easily do thousands of dollars in damage to the building or vehicle.