The Fourth takes another hit. The Constitution reminds me of a piece of ice on a July day.
Sniffer promises a secret way to deflate people’s liberties
By Eric Peters
Big Brother has a new technological toy in his toolbox — a “flashlight” that is actually a kind of breath analyzer that can be used to sample your exhalations for signs of alcohol — without you ever knowing you’re being tested.
The PAS III Sniffer is able to estimate a person’s blood-alcohol content based on just four seconds of conversation — such as when a cop asks you for your license and registration during a routine traffic stop. A pump inside the flashlight’s body draws in a sample of the subject’s exhaled breath through a fuel cell, which generates a voltage response about the presence of alcohol vapor; a color display then flashes red for a liquored-up driver, green for teetotaler.
Police love the idea. It is in use in West Lafayette, Ind., and some other Midwestern locations, but not Michigan yet. Police officers see the device as a more efficient way to corral impaired drivers who might otherwise slip the gantlet. But people who are concerned about their rapidly eroding civil liberties should be concerned.
Unlike the familiar Breathalyzer, which requires a subject to blow into a device that gives a readout of blood-alcohol levels — or even the field sobriety test, where an officer asks a suspected drunk driver to perform simple physical tests that evaluate impairment — the PAS III Sniffer does its work without your knowledge or consent.
“For many years, your privacy rights and the right of police to investigate was kept in balance by the available technology,” says Kent Kent Willis of the American Civil Liberties Union. “That balance has been destroyed.”
The Sniffer dispenses with the cumbersome (to police) Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. While Sniffer supporters may argue that the device will help apprehend dangerous drunks, it lets them evade the issue of whether this noble goal is worth subjecting everyone to a “search” without their consent or knowledge — and before they have done a single thing to suggest they’ve been drinking.
John. W. Whitehead of the conservative Rutherford Institute, a Washington think tank, told the Washington Post that the Sniffer is an egregious affront to the Fourth Amendment. “To catch a possible drunk driver, do we throw the Constitution in the garbage can? I say no.” The Sniffer, he said, “assumes you’re guilty. It reverses the standard of proof. Why are they sniffing you if they don’t think you’re guilty? Next, they’re going to be sniffing for cigarettes.”
Police in my hometown area of Fairfax County, Va., are among the most fervent advocates of the $600 Sniffers. Officers have used them at both sobriety checkpoints as well as during regular patrols. “So far they’ve worked really well,” says Lt. Dennis O’Neill.
Certainly. As would body cavity searches of all airline passengers. Or random frisks on the street. The chilling refrain, “Your papers, please” may not have died out with the Gestapo or Soviet Russia’s NKVD. If such “tools” as the Sniffer — not to mention asset forfeiture laws and the related apocrypha of law-enforcement overkill — are allowed to stand, then we have accepted, at least in principle, the foundation of a future total state that may come to resemble something potentially far worse than the tyrannies of the past.
Technology is making a level of surveillance possible that could not have been imagined by Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels or Soviet secret police chief Lavrenty Beria.
PAS Systems of Fredericksburg, Va., has already sold several thousand Sniffers to police departments around the country — including the federal Park Police.
Naturally, the insurance industry and Mothers Against Drunk Driving organization are falling over themselves to embrace this ugly business. “People who were driving drunk were able to brace themselves up and have a 50-50 chance of getting through a checkpoint,” says Tim Hoyt Nationwide Insurance. “That’s what got us interested” in the Sniffer technology. Mike Green of MADD says the Sniffer “saves the police a lot of effort” in trying to figure out if someone has been drinking.
This is all quite true but beside the point. It would also “save the police a lot of effort” if they could just randomly stop and frisk people, too — or bust down their doors and search their homes without a warrant. Surely, a great many drug dealers, child pornographers and so on could be apprehended this way. But we would be living in a police state, then, wouldn’t we?
To date, the use of the Sniffer has not been challenged in court. According to some legal experts, the device will probably survive any future legal challenge, too — because the Sniffer only samples the air after it has left the driver’s body. This smacks of the amoral legalistic parsing that has also justified asset forfeiture laws, such as those that enable the government to seize boats and homes, without the owner having been found guilty — and often not even charged — with any crime.
Legalisms notwithstanding, people have cause to be worried.
Eric Peters is a Fairfax County, Va.-based automotive writer. Write letters to 615 W. Lafayette, Detroit, MI 48226, or fax them to (313) 222-6417 or send e-mail messages to letters@detnews.com
Sniffer promises a secret way to deflate people’s liberties
By Eric Peters
Big Brother has a new technological toy in his toolbox — a “flashlight” that is actually a kind of breath analyzer that can be used to sample your exhalations for signs of alcohol — without you ever knowing you’re being tested.
The PAS III Sniffer is able to estimate a person’s blood-alcohol content based on just four seconds of conversation — such as when a cop asks you for your license and registration during a routine traffic stop. A pump inside the flashlight’s body draws in a sample of the subject’s exhaled breath through a fuel cell, which generates a voltage response about the presence of alcohol vapor; a color display then flashes red for a liquored-up driver, green for teetotaler.
Police love the idea. It is in use in West Lafayette, Ind., and some other Midwestern locations, but not Michigan yet. Police officers see the device as a more efficient way to corral impaired drivers who might otherwise slip the gantlet. But people who are concerned about their rapidly eroding civil liberties should be concerned.
Unlike the familiar Breathalyzer, which requires a subject to blow into a device that gives a readout of blood-alcohol levels — or even the field sobriety test, where an officer asks a suspected drunk driver to perform simple physical tests that evaluate impairment — the PAS III Sniffer does its work without your knowledge or consent.
“For many years, your privacy rights and the right of police to investigate was kept in balance by the available technology,” says Kent Kent Willis of the American Civil Liberties Union. “That balance has been destroyed.”
The Sniffer dispenses with the cumbersome (to police) Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. While Sniffer supporters may argue that the device will help apprehend dangerous drunks, it lets them evade the issue of whether this noble goal is worth subjecting everyone to a “search” without their consent or knowledge — and before they have done a single thing to suggest they’ve been drinking.
John. W. Whitehead of the conservative Rutherford Institute, a Washington think tank, told the Washington Post that the Sniffer is an egregious affront to the Fourth Amendment. “To catch a possible drunk driver, do we throw the Constitution in the garbage can? I say no.” The Sniffer, he said, “assumes you’re guilty. It reverses the standard of proof. Why are they sniffing you if they don’t think you’re guilty? Next, they’re going to be sniffing for cigarettes.”
Police in my hometown area of Fairfax County, Va., are among the most fervent advocates of the $600 Sniffers. Officers have used them at both sobriety checkpoints as well as during regular patrols. “So far they’ve worked really well,” says Lt. Dennis O’Neill.
Certainly. As would body cavity searches of all airline passengers. Or random frisks on the street. The chilling refrain, “Your papers, please” may not have died out with the Gestapo or Soviet Russia’s NKVD. If such “tools” as the Sniffer — not to mention asset forfeiture laws and the related apocrypha of law-enforcement overkill — are allowed to stand, then we have accepted, at least in principle, the foundation of a future total state that may come to resemble something potentially far worse than the tyrannies of the past.
Technology is making a level of surveillance possible that could not have been imagined by Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels or Soviet secret police chief Lavrenty Beria.
PAS Systems of Fredericksburg, Va., has already sold several thousand Sniffers to police departments around the country — including the federal Park Police.
Naturally, the insurance industry and Mothers Against Drunk Driving organization are falling over themselves to embrace this ugly business. “People who were driving drunk were able to brace themselves up and have a 50-50 chance of getting through a checkpoint,” says Tim Hoyt Nationwide Insurance. “That’s what got us interested” in the Sniffer technology. Mike Green of MADD says the Sniffer “saves the police a lot of effort” in trying to figure out if someone has been drinking.
This is all quite true but beside the point. It would also “save the police a lot of effort” if they could just randomly stop and frisk people, too — or bust down their doors and search their homes without a warrant. Surely, a great many drug dealers, child pornographers and so on could be apprehended this way. But we would be living in a police state, then, wouldn’t we?
To date, the use of the Sniffer has not been challenged in court. According to some legal experts, the device will probably survive any future legal challenge, too — because the Sniffer only samples the air after it has left the driver’s body. This smacks of the amoral legalistic parsing that has also justified asset forfeiture laws, such as those that enable the government to seize boats and homes, without the owner having been found guilty — and often not even charged — with any crime.
Legalisms notwithstanding, people have cause to be worried.
Eric Peters is a Fairfax County, Va.-based automotive writer. Write letters to 615 W. Lafayette, Detroit, MI 48226, or fax them to (313) 222-6417 or send e-mail messages to letters@detnews.com
