Search Me! Search Me!

Jacob Sullum | September 20, 2007

Last week the Oxford Mail described a police operation at a pub in Bicester that customers seemed to take in stride: Cops swabbed the palms of patrons entering the bar and tested their sweat for traces of drugs; anyone with residue "above the background level" was searched. Police found no drugs on two people who tested positive but banned them from the pub anyway. There were no arrests. Det. Sgt. Steve Duffy of Banbury CID pronounced the dragnet a smashing success:

It went very well. We gained the full co-operation of the management and the customers.

Everyone was very supportive and compliant....

The public were very supportive. Many people were saying they wanted to be tested.

I'd like to think that red-blooded, freedom-loving American drinkers would have been less "supportive," but I'm not sure. Still, under current law police in this country would have a harder time justifying a drug checkpoint for pedestrians than police in the U.K., where the practice seems to be uncontroversial. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld sobriety roadblocks for drivers, but in that situation there is a clearer public safety justification, and police are supposed to demand a breath test only if they detect signs of drunkenness such as slurred speech or the smell of alcohol. Given the Court's ruling that a once-over by a drug-detecting dog does not constitute a search because it reveals nothing but the presence of contraband, however, it's hard to see why a sweat test for illegal drugs should count as a search. Touching someone's palm with a cotton swab is marginally more invasive than walking a dog around his car, I suppose, but in both cases only the guilty have anything to worry about, right?

Julian Sanchez explored the issues raised by such "pinpoint searches" in the January issue of reason.

Comments

|9.20.07 @ 11:30AM|#

All we need is one high profile drunk walking accident. Then these searches will become the norm. :-)

|9.20.07 @ 11:35AM|#

God, I hate police.

|9.20.07 @ 11:35AM|#

Key police perspective...'compliant'

Russ 2000|9.20.07 @ 11:36AM|#

Next thing you know they'll be taking anyone found with drug-infested sweat to public showers.

|9.20.07 @ 11:39AM|#

Police in the UK are not supposed to randomly stop drivers and breath test them. I suspect the difference here is that no-one was required by the police to take the test - they were just barred from the pub (private land) by the management if they refused to comply.

I think the main point of this exercise was to publicise the police's new machine - there is a widespread belief that it's 'safer' to take drugs and drive, than to drink and drive, because the police don't have the technology to catch you.

Not that I approve of this stunt. I don't.

|9.20.07 @ 11:48AM|#

yes the term compliant says it all doesn't it. After all for a Police State to run efficiently you must have your underlings comply to all your wishes.

How is it up to the police who enters a private establishment regardless of their compliance or non-compliance with beign tested. Personally I would think the pub's owner would want the cops to leave.

What we need is a test to determine if those people coming up with these ideas have any brain matter at all. I know its hard to test for something that exists in such small quantities but lets do it for the children.

Episiarch|9.20.07 @ 11:59AM|#

Never assume that today's New Yorkers object to the police/nanny state. They voted for it after all.

|9.20.07 @ 12:15PM|#

I expect wet-naps to become hot sellers. Just use them right before the test, right?

|9.20.07 @ 12:20PM|#

One other thing that just came to mind: I seem to remember a high court striking down an argument that the presence of drug residue on currency (bills) was not evidence of any crime since about 1/3 of all currency has said residue. Couldn't someone just say they were holding their cover charge money in their hand right before the test?

The Owner\'s Manual|9.20.07 @ 12:20PM|#

Maybe it's just me, but when I got loaded, there was need to go to a bar or tavern. If anything, I became a teetotaler when hangoverless alternatives were at hand.

|9.20.07 @ 12:32PM|#

Whenever I worry about liberty in the USA, all I have to do to feel better is read something about this type of stuff in the UK.

|9.20.07 @ 12:49PM|#

I don't know if anyone here has read Kage Baker's Company series; Britain as she envisions it in the 24th century is a land of conformist sheep ruled by electronic surveillance and "public health monitors" 24/7 - no meat, alcohol, caffiene, refined sugar - gov't approval before reproduction, the middle and upper clases can't read and don't need to, etc. etc. - very very dystopian. And anyone who doubts that it could come to pass - and far sooner than 300 years - is very naive.

I can't understand how the British, of all people, turned out to be the ones (in the Western world, at least) most willing and fastest to infantilize themselves for the State.

|9.20.07 @ 12:52PM|#

Personally I would think the pub's owner would want the cops to leave.
Personally, I would think if the pub's owner asked to cops to leave, he'd have regretted it.

SPD|9.20.07 @ 12:54PM|#

If I were not in the CID
Something else I'd like to be
If I were not in the CID
A window cleaner, me!
With a rub-a-dub-dub and a scrub-a-dub-dub
And a rub-a-dub all day long
With a rub-a-dub-dub and a scrub-a-dub-dub
I'd sing this merry song!

Counsel to Richelieu|9.20.07 @ 1:16PM|#

INSPECTOR DIN OF THE YARD!

If I were not before the bar
Something else I'd like to be
If I were not a barr-is-ter
An engine driver me!
With a chuffchuffchuff etc.

|9.20.07 @ 1:27PM|#

"Touching someone's palm with a cotton swab is marginally more invasive than walking a dog around his car, I suppose,"

Is that battery?

|9.20.07 @ 1:34PM|#

Since Jacob linked to the article about the subway bag searches in NYC, it's interesting how quickly those searches disappeared, to no apparent increase in danger.

Rhywun|9.20.07 @ 1:40PM|#

Since Jacob linked to the article about the subway bag searches in NYC, it's interesting how quickly those searches disappeared, to no apparent increase in danger.

They haven't disappeared.

|9.20.07 @ 2:31PM|#

I'm trying to imagine the Brits of 60 or 100 years ago standing for being barred from their favorite pub if they didn't consent to a police search.

Can't do it. The loss of Britain's soul is a great tragedy.

|9.20.07 @ 2:32PM|#

I can't understand how the British, of all people, turned out to be the ones (in the Western world, at least) most willing and fastest to infantilize themselves for the State.

I honestly think that socializing medicine via the NHS was the seminal event.

poco|9.20.07 @ 2:43PM|#

I suspect it began earlier, with the Blitz and other privations and sacrifices of the war. At least the 95% top tax rate no longer exists.

Fluffy|9.20.07 @ 3:07PM|#

I thought that the justification for the sniffer dogs was that the dogs don't actually enter your property, so they aren't searching. They're just detecting drug odors in the air around your property, which you don't have any reasonable expectation of privacy over.

It's not all that different from a human being standing outside your apartment smelling the dead body inside that is decomposing. They aren't engaged in a search - they just SMELL something. Dogs are just better smellers than us.

|9.20.07 @ 9:52PM|#

Christ, between this and the cameras and the refusing to treat smokers with broken bones "for the good of the State," why don't they just rename it Airstrip One and get it over already?

|9.21.07 @ 4:12AM|#

"The loss of Britain's soul is a great tragedy."

An even greater tragedy is the number of young people killed by drug addiction and the number of innocent people killed by drivers under the influence of drink or drugs. Whilst I defend the right of people to do what they want with their lives, when it impacts on other people, society has to step in. It steps in with law enforcement. Even when the only 'victims' are the drug-takers themselves, there is a social cost in terms of publicly-funded (ie my money!) health and social services costs.

Run your own countries how you wish, but let us do ours as we wish.

Someone Who Doesn\'t Want to L|9.21.07 @ 4:29AM|#

Run your own countries how you wish, but let us do ours as we wish.

Go ahead, just don't expect applause.

Scooby|9.21.07 @ 9:46AM|#

Run your own countries how you wish, but let us do ours as we wish.

Who is this "us"? Was the vote for these infernal things (see list above in post from 9:52pm) unanimous? Did everyone vote to hand their autonomy over to the nannies, or was it done despite their protestations? I'd hate to think that the whole great nation had gone rotten.

|9.21.07 @ 11:36AM|#

This is in a country where it was just reported that 80% of crimes are unsolved. Priorities and all.